Tommy Bolin had a short guitar playing career, from about 1969 to 1976, that ended in his tragic and early death at the age of only twenty five. His style was rock-n-roll and he did well along Joe Walsh in The James Gang, but he played in Billy Cobham’s Spectrum and did some high octane fusion work on it that is considered some of his best on vinyl. Like many rockers of his time the pressures and temptations of life on the road were too much for him and he died from a combination of drugs and alcohol alone in a hotel room, while on a tour opening for Jeff Beck, and promoting his 2nd solo album Private Eyes .
Bolin may best be remembered for replacing the mercurial Ritchie Blackmore as the guitarist for Deep Purple at a time when it seemed only Blackmore could ever front the band’s troubled lineup. The album Come Taste the Band was not an album I listened to for many years, as I always believed (and still do) that Machine Head was the band’s crowning achievement and how could a replacement top that. I finally would hear the album and it is fine, with Bolin and David Coverdale doing some things together that would never have happened with Blackmore’s stylings.
He did a couple solo albums, Teaser and Private Eyes and there has been recent releases of other material from his early bands Zephyr and Energy and anthologies. Well, words cannot explain music so here are some selections (in downloadable format) from his work with Spectrum (including Mahavishnu Orchestra members Billy Cobham on drums and Jan Hammer on keyboards), Deep Purple and his solo efforts. There is not much out there from him since he died so young and his last year or two was slowed down by his heroin addiction and alcoholism, but what there is shows what a talent Tommy Bolin truly was.
PLAY LIST: Stratus-Snoopy’s Search: The Red Baron-Post Toastees-Shake the Devil-Getting’ Tighter-Dealer
Like the Thrill Kill Kult I wrote about earlier the information on this band is spotty and questionable at best, usually coming from fan sites that are drawing their data from fan based message boards and forums. And that can be good but it can also be dubious at best. In any event such spurious histories tend to add to the myth of a band and one can never be sure if what you are reading is factual or the stuff of legend. In the case of The Lords of Acid the legend almost takes on a quality similar to the story of Dracula as the roots appear to go back to small European countries and families with reputed royal links or ties to vast fortunes in beer industries. I am not sure what to believe or not and all I am clear of is that the founder and leader is one Maurice Engelen, a.k.a. Praga Khan. He was part of the industrial techno sound’s early days in NYC but exactly how this band formed and who is who in it now I am just not sure. In fact I do not even know if I care. I do not mean that is a negative way at all. I am worried if I find out too much they will lose thier mystique for me.
The picture of the wild girl in a theater I posted below is singer “Debbie” but there are other front people and the line up seems to change regularly. Another lead singer seems to be one “Nikki Darling” but I am not sure who sings what and on what album. I do not have liner notes to draw from but I think (and I may well be wrong) that Debbie was the singer for their 2nd album, with the infamous Mitch Cooper cover (presented here uncensored), called VooDoo U which was released in about 1991. I will admit I bought the CD long ago only for the “uncensored” Coop cover but was soon taken in by the heavy sounding industrial rock on the disc. It is similar to what Ministry was doing in the early 90’s but much better in the vocal department. Whoever the girl might be that is singing on Voodoo U she can certainly sing and exudes a naughtiness that is unsettling in a good way.
Like the Thrill Kill Kult their songs glorify fetishism and Dionysian excess but the edginess to the music and singing is more pronounced. The production is of a flawless high quality and there is a definite DJ club mix feel to the songs but they are also well crafted heavy, industrial rock tunes to boot. They do not employ outside samples from films the way TKK do but they do use loops and samples. The music has that industrial feel to it and a kind of Euro-trash element as well. A little former Soviet-bloc decadence set to Khan’s well polished excursions into the rock versions of the Psychopathia Sexualis. There is definitely humor in the songs. How can you not chuckle a little at a cute yet catchy little ditty like The Crablouse, which is a song about one woman’s intimate relationship with her socially transmitted parasite.
I tend to like Voodoo U the most of their albums. It is really edgy and simply rocks on all the tracks. I have not delved too far into the other ones but I have them all on MP3 and will do so. Furthermore once I can figure out who some of the members are I might back and clear that up. But then I am not sure if that is a such a good thing. These bands seem all the more interesting because they are shrouded in mystery and lore. If you want to try to figure some of it out here is a band site of higher quality. Good luck and have many wanton listenings as you kick back in your rubber pajamas and oxygen mask with your copy of DeSade’s Justine.
I was never a huge fan of prog rock back in the 70’s but I did develop a taste for a lot of it later on. Without a doubt King Crimson is one of my all time favorite bands though I do not know much about what they did before Starless and Bible Black. For the most part I liked Emerson Lake and Palmer’s Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery and their FM hits but found some of their other stuff irritating to listen to all the way through.. I also like what I heard of the old Genesis with Peter Gabrielle, especially The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Selling England By the Pound (one of my all time favorite albums.) But no doubt the album that lit my fire for this type of music long before I knew what it was called was Close to the Edge by Yes. I was given the alum on vinyl as a gift back around 1975 when all I listened to was Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney. I was sort of freaked out by it and put it away for a year or so. When I was in college I dug it back out of my collection after digesting Fragile and I was swept away little by little until it became, as well, one of my all time favorite albums and one I still listen to. Most recently I played it over my MP3 player while on a bus traveling through the jungles near Burma and Laos and it was a most suitable soundtrack.
I believe it was Yes’ fourth or fifth album (I am not sure where Yesterdays fits in chronologically) and there is no question that it was a zenith for the band at the time. I always found those first two albums pretty forgettable except for the song Time and a Word. Steve Howe came aboard for The Yes Album and brought the band to life with his myriad of guitar styles and Rick Wakeman and his classically influenced keyboard sound joined for Fragile, the album that contained the band’s bread and butter song Roundabout. I am not aware of any other prog rock band having a hit song of the scale of Roundabout (I do not consider post Gabrielle Genesis prog rock) and therefore crossing successfully over a tad into mainstream rock.But what they did with Close to the Edge sent the message that they were not going to be (at that time anyway) anymore of an FM station band than King Crimson or Genesis.
The album is deserving of all the praise it gets and equally deserving of the criticism. The album is both grand and pompous but accessible in a way many such albums are not (including Yes’ next two concept albums Tales from Topographic Oceans and Relayer.) The album consists of only three songs. The title song does something Yes does a lot better than most bands who try it do and that is to fill an entire album side (an average of about twenty minutes) with one song. The song moves through various sections while maintaining a musical theme that is either beautiful or obnoxious to the listener depending on their listening abilities. I am proud to belong to the club that finds it simply beautiful. The first eleven minutes structured around Howe’s guitar are immortal. Anderson’s Siddartha style lyrics come into full bloom while Wakeman is pretty low key until after the middle section where he comes in with church organs and then timeless synthesizer work.
The next two songs are mini epics as well. With And You and I the center again becomes Howe and his acoustic guitar, but the band performs flawlessly and again Anderson’s trademark falsetto voice and lyrics are in pure form. The album closes with the song the band would open with for years to come (mixed with Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite) Siberian Khatru, and it is simply a steady driving hard rock song with virtuoso twists and turns. Any fan of prog rock must own this album. Hard to believe this was recorded in 1972. It is also hard to believe, giving popular music trends, that this album reached number three on the charts in the States and stayed there for thirty two weeks,without ever having any airtime on FM radio stations (no doubt due to the songs extended lengths) except maybe on those old “midnight album” shows.
Even more surprising is that their follow up album Tales from Topographic Oceans reached number six in the States (#1 in the UK) and stayed there for twenty seven weeks. It was a double album with only four epic and abstract songs. A record company probably would not even touch an album like this now. Close to the Edge was a watermark but change was in the air as well as drummer Bill Bruford left to join King Crimson, supposedly in part due to conflicts in the studio that developed while recording the album. He would be replaced by American drummer Alan White who while a good drummer was not in the same league as Bruford (for better or worse) and after two more fantastic albums the band began to produce some albums that simply lacked the vision and scope they seemed to have tapped into during this period. I lost interest after Going for the One and Tormato and have not listened to much they did after those albums. Some people swear that Relayer is the best Yes album ever (and it is a great album with great cover art) but I disagree and feel Close to the Edge is it. I feel the album works well with Topographic Oceans and the three albums combined mark a moment when the band climbed the mountain and “viewed the silence of the valley.”
After writing a lengthy opinion of Yes’ Close to the Edge it got me thinking of the other two albums that followed right on the heels of that prog-rock classic and while still in the mood I decided to comment briefly on them. I also spent some time trying to find some nice Roger Dean prints to post but as of yet cannot. All I can find are tiny reproductions that are for prints that are for sale and so I need to search some fan sites later and post some reproductions of this great fantasy artist whose career and vision became symbiotically entwined with Yes’. Tales from Topographic Oceans is the only one of the three albums I do not have with me here in China except on MP3s I got from a bittorrent site. I regret not buying this before I left the States. It was released in 1974 and while similar to Close to the Edge it is also a distinct and extremely unique musical statement in the Yes catalog. It is a double album consisting of only four songs, one song per side and I will be honest, after all these years I still have not developed a liking for the second song, The Remembering, enough to dissect it. But I am very drawn into the other three songs although I am not sure what I can say about them as they are so dense and complicated and abstract.
The underlying theme is some Hindu text and the music shows all sorts of eastern influences. Some percussion sections sound like classical Chinese music. But there are plenty of strains of rock, jazz even a classical guitar section on The Ancient. Anderson’s lyrics are cosmic and fantastic though very abstract (which is okay with me but not with everyone. In fact I tend to find that Anderson’s lyrics from this period are the make or break point for many potential listeners.) His vocal style here often employs two syllable chants and some sections are like mini-mantras. The band is on the mark all the time and compared to what else was being done in 1974 this album is a simply grand and ethereal musical statement. Of course some people could not begin to get it and it is often dismissed by even prog rock enthusiasts as overblown, pompous and simply boring.
Two other worthy mentions is the glorious cover art by Roger Dean that opened into a beautiful gatefold and on inside had the lyrics spread out like an ancient scripture. The effect is not the same on a tiny CD cover. Also it is the first album on which American Alan White appears on drums after Bill Bruford left to join King Crimson and create some equally great music there. The only other recordings I am aware White did prior to this epic was some stuff with John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and that was mostly straightforward twelve bar rock-n-roll. He jumped right into the deepest water imaginable with a band of perfectionists and held his own and then some. A timeless album that you will love with a passion, hate with a greater passion or dismiss as simply unlistenable. But it still sells at a high rate really and reached number six in the US charts then. It seemed once there was almost hope for mankind but we now live in an age were 50 Cent and Avril Lavigne go double platinum while John Lennon is assassinated. I have long ago given hope my friends. I cannot recommend this album for everyone, including most prog rockers, but if you are able to digest it you will not be disappointed. In fact, I am going to go listen to The Remembering over and over until I get it. The problem with this song must be with me and not with such a perfect piece of music as this album truly is.
I have heard Yes fans describe Relayer as either their favorite Yes album or the one they can relate to the least. The music on the album is very distinct from other Yes outings and it seemed to mark the end of a period really. The next couple albums, Going for the One and Tormato, while not bad albums in the least signified a change in direction from Close to the Edge and Tales from Topographic Oceans. Rick Wakeman took a hiatus from the band and Patrick Moraz took over on keyboards and as far as I am concerned he did a great job despite the sometimes vitriolic criticisms I have read of his one album collaboration with the band. The music is less hippified on Relayer than on any other album I have listened to by them and I do not know if this is because of Wakeman’s absence and Moraz’s presence. Most likely it is due to some decision on frontman and visionary Jon Anderson’s part. Like Close to the Edge the album consists of just three songs.
The epic Gates of Delirium is a song I have wrestled with all my life and I think my hesitance about calling it the masterpiece it almost could be is due to the long and grating middle section. I understand that given the context of the song this represents the sounds of war and battle. It is mostly percussive in nature and without any vocals. The keyboards and guitar and Chris Squires bass just sound like they are improvising at times. It is not a terrible section of music and the playing is superb in areas except that it all goes on just too long and is sandwiched in between two fine sections of melodic music. Remember that Yes already had five full album side epics behind them by now and they just could have filled the space in better in my opinion. The next two songs make up for the dragging middle section of Delirium and Sound Chaser s one of Yes’ hardest rocking songs. It has a long solo guitar part in the middle that is not over played and shows why Steve Howe is one of the most respected guitar players in rock music. The rest of the song does not fail to deliver the goods either. It is a wild piece of music and not one they would have done with Wakeman on board I feel. The last song To be Over is beautiful and is classic yes. Sounds like Howe is playing a petal steel guitar in parts. The opening sections is one of my favorite parts of all Yes songs.
I saw them in Louisville KY in 1976 for this tour and they did great. I saw them a couple years later with Wakeman and I have to confess that I thought the playing was in fact better with Wakeman, but the show with Moraz was great. It had all the props designed by Roger Dean. And speaking of Dean Relayer is one of his best covers ever. Supposedly this was the first time he had heard some of the music prior to painting a cover and after Anderson saw the finished art he changed some of the musical direction. It is a great album but one of the more controversial ones in the Yes catalog. It is a little dark and heavy really and an abrupt departure from the Hindu scripture inspired songs that preceeded it. I would safely say it is my 3rd favorite Yes album and the criticisms I have about it are common ones with fans of the album. It is a special rock album and I would recommend it only to those with a very discerning and elevated taste (and I humbly include myself in that category.)
I have to confess after Tormato I lost interest in what Yes was doing. I actually liked 90125 a little but never felt it sounded like Yes without Steve Howe, though Trevor Rabin’s playing was superb. I feel Relayer was their last truly monumental musical statement but I am not a rabid Yes fan really and I may be wrong. I am curious about the ablums Reunion, Keys of Ascension and ABWH but cannot find them in China, so far not even on the web. Definently interested in anything they may have done in the last decade that resembles their early work and I am hesitant to buy the music simply based on those glorious Roger Dean covers. Remember, never judge an album by its cover.
King Crimson’s very early music, except for The Court of the Crimson King, has always eluded me. I have Islands and like it but I never could relate to Lizards or In the Wake of Poseidon. I do now have Lizards and listen to it off and on and it is not unlistenable by any stretch. I do now have some of their other early material on a compilation and am trying it out little by little. I cannot say I dislike it but I am not drawn much into excessive strings and wood winds in most rock endeavors. In any case, they moved towards a heavy textured and complicated sound with Fripp’s guitar becoming more prominent and made three exceptional albums in 1973 and 1974 called Larks Tongue in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black and Red respectively. By the time Red was produced the always revolving line up had shrank to the power trio of Robert Fripp, Bill Bruford and John Wetton. It was a powerful album and one wonders what might have come from the three had the band not suddenly dissolved. But dissolve they did and would not record again until 1981’s dazzling Discipline under a new line up of sheer virtuosos.
After the demise of King Crimson Fripp went in to three years of retirement from the music industry, though not from personal musical experimentation. When he decided it was time to ease himself back in the word of music in the form of guitarist and producer he worked with a series of often eclectic musicians on three different but similar albums that would be known as the MOR Trilogy. These albums were Peter Gabriel’s 2nd untitled solo album (sometimes called Peter Gabriel II or Scratch because of the bizarre cover art), Daryl Hall’s (yes, the same Daryl Hall of Hall and Oats) fist solo effort and then Fripp’s first solo album in 1979 (some sites cite the album as being released in 1978, but I am sure the release was April of ‘79) called Exposure. On these albums Fripp not only worked as guitarist but producer and sound designer as well, employing his dual delayed tape loop system called Frippertonics to full effect. This was something he began to develop when he worked with Brian Eno in the early seventies but did little with inside the structure of King Crimson. I have a separate post attempting to explain Frippertronics in the works and will leave the matter mostly closed for the time and go on to describing not only the MOR Trilogy but two other curious experimental Fripp put out during the first half of the 80’s.
One is God Save the King with The League of Gentlemen and the other is a hauntingly wonderful record called Let the Power Fall which is nothing but looped guitar notes on two tape recorders slightly delayed and manipualted. There are no keyboards. The single guitar notes are layered one over the other again and again until it creates something you have simply never heard before. These two albums are expansions on a super rare (though I used to own it on vinyl a million years ago) album called God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manner released in 1981. But no need to discuss that album in depth since GSTK and LTPF are expanded versions of that unique album’s A and B sides. The A side being bouncy and complex, “pop jazz rock” and the B side being a taste of the lush Frippertronics that would become LTPF.
A strange thing about the first four Peter Gabriel solo albums is that none of them have names or are numbered in any way. They are all simply titled Peter Gabriel. This album is either called Gabriel II or Scratch. Considered by some fans to be his strangest album and the least accessible it holds an odd position for Gabriel enthusiasts. The album begins to show Gabriel moving further away from what he was doing with the latter Genes and sprinkled here and there are signs of where he will be exploring in the future. The album is sort of stuck in the middle but is not really defined by either Gabriel’s past or future works. With Fripp’s production and guitar work the album is filled with tight, edgy rock and roll sounds that no other Gabriel album has in such abundance. There are excellent samplings of Frippertronics (similar in style to the type on Bowie’ Heros album) and some good guitar solos as well. There are some airy, forlorning sounds on songs like Mother of Violence. The album also contains a version of Exposure (the song) here that differs from the one on Fripp’s solo album and this one with Gabriel’s low moaning voice may be more suitable to most listeners than the screeching psycho vocals (by some one unknown to me, maybe Daryl Hall or even Gabriel or another person) on the Fripp album. I will be honest, the only Peter Gabriel album I ever really enjoyed was So. I liked what was going on with Genesis with The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and his solo work departs from that very much. But I do like this album. It has some of his old style in it and Fripp’s production and playing provides a unique sound for Gabriel though maybe it is not something that would benefit it on a regular basis.
DIY
On the Air
Mother of Violence
(The last Peter Gabriel selection here really contains no actual electric guitar work from Fripp though he produced the song. I just think it is a nice little song with some good vocals and piano playing from Gabriel)
What a strange though revealing departure for essentially teenie bopper and early MTV icon Daryl Hall, of Hall and Oats, was his first solo album Sacred Songs. In fact the album is so out of character that his then record company sat it on the shelf for years worried about its lack of pop radio exploitability. Therefore it winds up being the last of the MOR Trilogy released though it was the second one recorded. And what is more amazing is that the combination of Hall and Fripp is genuinely exciting and they made on this album some great rock songs and curious music. Hall, despite his pop affinities, has a strong and dynamic voice and it plays off Fripp’s catchy, choppy riffs perfectly, and giving Fripp a challenge. There are Frippertronics galore on the album and the songs have a sort of darkness to the lyrics that contrast with the often happy go lucky music. I have not heard this album in years but it is a nice little piece of music I wish I could get my hands on again. Newer releases contain the vocal pieces that are also on Fripp’s Exposure. (NOTE: I have since reacquired this album and it is as enjoyable as it ever was to me).
To further add a sinister twist to Hall’s otherwise bumble gum image the album was inspired by his serious studies into Aleister Crowley at the time. Hall owns some autographed manuscripts of Crowley books and the strange hand gestures all over the album are symbolic occult signs though they just look like Hall being cute. Don’t ask me how it is that I know this. One of my phases.
Fripp’s playing is more contained and controlled here, no doubt accommodating Hall’s pop sensibilities for tight structured arrangements. His riffs and solos are not all over the place like on his solo venture nor are they secondary to commanding Peter Gabriel’s musical concepts on PG II. The solos are classic Fripp. Full of zest and energy and even some humor. The album shows a side to Hall that most people never get see and it is too bad. I never liked Hall and Oats much but he released this album and another solo effort called Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine that are really good pop rock albums. This is an album you should try out if you can find. Even if you do not like Hall’s work from the 80’s you may enjoy this catchy, brooding, witty, moody little excursion into artsy pop rock . Unlike PG II and Exposure which took me numerous listenings to digest this album I got into from the first track and it was easy to just let it go from there. Perhaps the best album of the Trilogy though the least well known.
Why Was It So Easy
Don’t Leave Me Alone With Her
I picked up the album Exposure on vinyl in the late 80’s in San Antonio in the cut out bin at the little record store across the street from me. CDs were just beginning to appear here and there and vinyl was beginning to go the way of the dinosaur. I had no idea who Robert Fripp was or for that matter who King Crimson were. I knew the song 21st Century Schzoid Man and that was about it. I had little taste back then for art rock. What attracted to the album was this nerdy looking guy no the cover in a suit that looked more like a literature professor or stockbroker. I was only out $2.99 if I did not like itand I remember I also bought Metallica’s Garage Days Revisited the same night. I heard Exposure later that week and became a believer (but of what I did not yet know). I loved the record, or at least the A side, and it has remained one of my favorite records despite the flaws and problems with it.
For King Crimson fans who had waited since 1974 for something from their guitar guru Fripp this 1979 album must have been a real surprise, if not genuine let down. While there are a couple Crimsonesque moments such as Breathless the rest of the album is something new and adventurous for Fripp. At the beginning of side A is a joke (I assume) about playing some new things that “might be commercial” but there is not a commercial moment on the album with the possible exception of a rendition of Peter Gabriel’s Here Comes the Flood.
He is joined by a host of talents that include Gabriel, Daryl Hall, Terre Roche (of The Roches) and future King Crimson bassist Tony Levin, as well as Brian Eno, Phil Collins, Peter Hammill and Syd McGuiness who was the guitarist for The World’s Most Dangerous Band of the David Letterman show fame. The guitar playing ranges from hard and fast to airy and melodic. There are his signature painstakingly intricate rhythm riffs and heavy thudding chords. There are also ample amounts of well crafted ambient Frippertronics, the most on a record since his work with Eno in the early 70’s. And while a valid criticism is that the album is all over the road it is also a special quality as well.
It came out at a time when punk was becoming New Wave and there is that sort of New Wave/Punk feel to some of it. Probably only for Fripp fanatics and maybe less accessible than even Gabriel’s contribution to the MOR Trilogy it is nonetheless an album with a cult following (Rolling Stone readers rate it with an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars, and they are a picky lot to satisfy!)and it really stands alone in Fripp’s huge discography as a brilliantly, quirky and unique rock album. I will admit other than the song Exposure and Here Come the Flood I have never liked the B side too much. It is as if by that side I have had it with the lack of a theme that usually permeates a Fripp work. The songs are short and on the one hand that makes them easy to consume, but then you also have simply too many little strange things to sample and it is hard to do. But what I sampled I like very much and still listen to the piece every now and then. What is interesting is that his next solo album is the one that garners him the title of genius frequently and yet it is as far away from Exposure as Pluto is from the Sun.
Cigarette
North Star
Let the Power Fall was released in 1981, the same year that the superb King Crimson Discipline was released. Crimson came back with a new line up and new sound led by frontman Adrian Belew who also shared guitar duties with Fripp, and shared them well. Old Crimson die-hards were as taken back with Discipline’s display of jazzy, guitar virtuoso acrobatics as they were with Exposure’s lack of solid visionary direction, or any direction whatsoever. Belew’s singing style matched his wild guitar technique and there seemed little to compare to the old King Crimson of yore.It seemed Fripp had slipped into a cocoon for years and re-emerged as something other than a Crimson butterfly.
Add to all of this the ultra-minimalist “songs” on Let the Power Fall and you can see why Fripp lost a lot of old devoted followers, while picking up a whole new generation at the same time. The album is not light listening and is pure experimentation on Fripp’s part into pure Frippertronics, or his use of two Revox tape recorders to produce loops of prerecorded single guitar notes and running the machines at a slight delay with one another. Of course there are in fact more than two loops occurring here and I am not sure what the full technique is that is going on but there are definently more than two to three or four guitars performing. This all predates digital recording and what happens here would evolve later in Fripp’s Soundscapes. Soundscapes are the next extension of Frippertronics done on digital equipment and allowing for four loops to play at one time with varying degrees of delay.
01 (that’s the actual title)
He would use guitar synthesizers on Soundscapes and for the most part I never cared for those albums. I had a couple and sold them off later. I do like the Soundscapes as lead ins to their live songs but as full listening they were grueling, even for me, a Fripp devotee in many aspects. ( I have since this essay, written some time ago but kept in the locker, become more interested in Fripp’s Soundscape recordings and listen to a couple often while working online, much to my wife’s chagrin).
The process on Let the Power Fall Fripp is simple and as minimal as you can get, looping single guitar notes one over the other until they build into a thick washing wall of sound that is almost religious in the experience. It is similar to what he did with Brian Eno on No Pussyfooting and Evening Star but it is stripped down to barest essentials here. Not only that, but the performance is completely done on electric guitar rather than the Ambient instrument of choice which is some sort of keyboard.
Like Exposure there is nothing else like this album in the Fripp catalog but for different reasons. This was Fripp utterly removed from the rock world and doing his own thing and obviously not concerned with commercial viability whatsoever. He also seemed to putting into the album an expression of personal beliefs or philosophies that often come with musicians who do this type of music, though I am sure what all those beliefs are. He expresses this stuff in very difficult and pedantic writings that are available on the net at places like
where you can read his diary. Eno was similar with his personal beliefs and designed the Oblique Strategies Cards, based on the Chinese I Ching. They were based on some theory of randomness and coincedence being able to supply solutions to problems when logic and reason become frozen, or something. The “worthwhile dilemmas” are worded as musical problems but I assume the card’s solutions can be universal. For a peek at the online version and to select a random strategy go to:
But I think you need the real deck (which can be purchased in the 5th edition now) to understand what the hell is going on.
Well, in any case, whatever the inspiration is for doing this stuff is the result can be, in this case certainly is, marvelous. Again, as with all things Frippian, this is not for everyone and I recommend this listening venture with warning. I will post a link to a sample in a few more posts. If you like minimalist music you may like it or you may not if you expect Philip Glass or Steve Reich. Please check back in a few posts ( I plan on shifting gears and getting away from art rock and minimalist music soon) for a link to a sample. The album was an extension of the B-side to a record released in 1980 called God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners (so far unavailable on CD I believe). Another curious album came out in 1985 called God Save the King, and it was an extension of the A side.
Released in 1985 at the time the “Discipline line-up of King was breaking apart God Save the King is one of the most spirited Fripp releases ever. Whereas Exposure was Fripp delving into New Wave/Punk and Let the Power Fall was an experiment in 40 minutes of pure Frippertronics, God Save the Queen can only be described as Fripp doing disco/techo. He performs with The League of Gentlemen (a term for the band used while touring with the 60’s band Giles, Giles and Fripp) and from what I understand this was all recorded in about 1981 and, as I said, appeared as the A side to the album Under Heavy A Manners/God Save the Queen. It was released as an entire album with extra tracks after Crimson split up again, not to reunite until 1995’s underrated Thrak album.
I had the album version once and the CD version differs in some ways. The most significant change is the addition of a lead guitar over Zero of the Signified from the original Under Heavy Manners version. I have to admit that I liked it better without the solo. Fripp appeared for one song on The Talking Head’s fear of Music album and David Byrne appears here and does some really manic vocals on Under Heavy Manners (“Trumpets! I hear trumpets”). The album is full of life and disco zest and even humor. The guitar playing is in the style of the Discipline/Beat/Three of a Perfect Pair albums without Adrian Belew’s cosmic effects over top of them or Bill Buford’s complex drumming.
Under Heavy Manners
Heptaparaparshinokh
Inductive Resonance
The songs consist chiefly of instrumentals performed on one guitar, bass, drums and organ. There are no grand visionary experiments or heavy Red type chords (a song that would reappear on Thrak) but rather simple, brisk almost jazzy performances. Fripp’s playing sounds almost cheesy to the ear untrained in Fripperisms, but the albums contains some of his wildest and most elaborate playing from that period, or maybe from any period. The rhythm section plays it simple and direct with a disco dance groove over which Fripp extrapolates amazing runs and riffs of high technical precision but without all the heart stopping time changes and tonal dissonance one would associate with King Crimson. It is a fun album with a pink cover. If you are a King Crimson fan and do not have this album, get it. If you are not, well check back soon and I will post a sample, but like all of the albums I reviewed here it is not for everyone and I admit it. Some people dismiss Fripp as a pretentious bore and others seem him one of the very few true genius’ in rock music. I think you know where I fall and I hope that this post peaks your curiosity about the man and his work. And if it does not trust me, you will hear and read more of him in the future here at The Uranium Café so you had better just buck up and deal with it.
I guess sometimes we just have to stop and look around us and wonder what the hell is really happening to the world. While I cannot say I am an actual fan of extreme metal (grindcore, black metal, death metal, etc… ) I have to admit that I do sort of like some of what is done in those areas. Or at least I have explored it more than most people in my age range have. I really like Testament, more of a thrash band I suppose, whose early stuff sounded like Megadeth (to me anyway). I liked them more later after singer Billy Cobb’s vocals got deeper and raspier. I also like Norwegian black metal artists Emperor and a few other similar bands in moderate doses. I even like Napalm Death, Morbid Angel and Carcass at times, but I am not a raving devotee of these genres in any sense. One thing that makes these bands stand out to me is their seriousness and devotion to what they are doing. There is a definite sense of the theatrical involved and one hopes that these guys can leave their onstage personas there after they get back home. While I do own some of the music I do not endorse most of what they sing about or the ways they lead their private lives (however that may be). That disclaimer being noted, I recently got the urge to download most of the Cannibal Corpse catalog. I also found a site that hosts their utterly outrageous lyrics as well as some FAQs about the band. The link is down below somewhere.
Everything they do is over the top and the music is as brutal as the lyrics and artwork that “grace” their record sleeves.The musicianship is outstanding really if you are able to listen to it without losing your mind. The death growls are a little more bearable than with some other bands who do the same thing. The lyrics are indistinguishable but once you get a lyric sheet and read along with the songs the themes are so over the top I can’t help but wonder what these guys are thinking. Is there some sort of inside joke here the rest of us are not privy to? Do they just not want their parents to listen to what they are doing? I once heard an interview on Metal Shop with one of the two main singers in the band’s history, George Fisher a.k.a. Corpse Grinder, (he other influential front man being Chris Barnes) and to be honest he really did not sound like a potential serial killer (they never do, right?) and he was rather quick witted and funny really. I do not necessarily think that being intelligent and articulate can excuse everything you do and in fact makes you more accountable. It is also a fact of life that most people who are blithering idiots do not sell millions of records. Well, I’ll have to tell you, the music is not to everyone’s taste and I am glad I got the stuff free from the net rather than spent money on the collection. I think once the music gets harder than Testament or even Iron Maiden you are in murky waters. But so what. If I were 16 years old and snorting speed and reading the Satanic Bible while listening to this stuff day in and day out who knows what could happen. That is not the case. I am simply a casual purveyor of the strange and twisted, not a true believer.
Their covers have received as much controversy as their lyrics and sparked hordes of imitators trying to outdo the next psycho with a manager with images of murder, dismemberment, cannibalism and ol’ fashioned necrophilia. I believe all of the covers here were done by Dead World illustrator Vincent Locke . In an interview Locke said he had sampled some of the music after he was commissioned to do the covers but said it was not to his liking. Still some people claim Locke captured the real spirit of the band and even had his brother tattoo some of the covers images onto his body. I put a link to some of Locke’s actually fine ,though usually disturbing, work below, but I do not know if I would feel relaxed having tea with a guy who has Tombs of the Mutilated tattooed on his chest. Believe it or not there were a couple images I opted to not post here as they were simply too graphic and intense. As if the ones I selected are more middle of the road I guess. Well what do you expect to see from a band who adorns their songs with such memorable and catchy titles as ‘Dismembered and Molested’, ‘Born in a Casket’, ‘Necropedophile’, ‘Meat-Hook Sodomy’, to name just a few that I am willing to name. After all this is a family oriented blog site.
The always insightful Corpse Grinder ( I wonder if that is the name he has on his American Express?) Fisher explains the music is simply stories, odes to horror movies that are not to be taken too seriously.“We don’t sing about politics. We don’t sing about religion. [...] All our songs are short stories that, if anyone would so choose, they could convert it into a horror movie. Really, that’s all it is. We love horror movies. We like gruesome, scary movies, and we want the lyrics to be like that. Yeah, it’s about killing people, but it’s not promoting it at all. Basically these are fictional stories, and that’s it. And anyone who gets upset about it is ridiculous”.He made a statement in one interview about this stuff being somewhat no less freaky than some artwork in the Vatican collection. Well, I don’t know. I have to see what he was looking at, because this stuff is really out there. Well, I hesitated to post this stuff but did it anyway. Is there a point? If there is I cannot see it but life does not always need points. In the end maybe the pointless things make the world go round, like pizza, and poodles and the lyrics to Hammer Smashed Face at sunset. This stuff is just something that is out there that people are either fanatical, curious or pissed off about. They are one of the big sellers in the death metal genre and even appeared in a Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura) movie once and were critically targeted by Bob Dole. So, there you go. Just a bunch of dudes next door after all.
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