Larks toungue, Starless, and Red, kick the shit out of allmost everything from the 70's.

Also, during that era, they were one of the few, if only, "big" groups of the 70's to use group improvisation as a main part of their playing live. (Grateful Dead are a jam band, so they don't really count). That does not mean guitar and drum solos, but real improvising. And, they were real good at it. That Great Deciever box set shows the brilliance of a band willing to take a lot of chances musically and mostly hitting home runs.

I'll second that. Capn'...

The Great Deciever is fantastic.

The live Concertgerbouw 1973 is damn fine too.

Crimson from that era cannot be beat.

However, "The Letters" off Islands is about as CRAP as it gets. Horrible, horrible. What the hell was Pete Sinfield smoking, anyway?

Otherwise - totally NOT CRAP!

geiginni wrote:However, "The Letters" off Islands is about as CRAP as it gets. Horrible, horrible. What the hell was Pete Sinfield smoking, anyway?

oh come on! the loud instrumental part after the soft soft? it rocks. and so does that one lyric "impaled on nails of ice."

...Also weird to think the vocalist would soon be a founding member of Bad Company.


Jay

it's very funny to me that i voted 'not crap'

this band has made some incredibly bad music

but they are genuine and weird and genuinely weird, and i kind of like some of their music as well

Yeah, they were actually a few different bands through out their history so it is hard to blanket them all with crap or not crap so I am assuming we are talking about the "Court of the.." era. For that, I agree with the Midge as I am not a fan of all of it but it is so far over the top, I am just thankful they ever entered the studio at all rather than just spending all their advance on hallucinogens.

In highschool I liked those three records with Fripp/Belew/Levin/Bruford but Adrian Belew's lyrics and voicings do not age with time very well it seems.

I have not heard anywhere near everything they've done, but I am going to give a not crap based on the song "Moonchild" alone.

As far as I'm concerned, very simply Not Crap. I'd rather they just never sang, though.

Of the King Crimson albums I own, here's how I evalute them:

Red- Not Crap.......absolutely not crap.
In the Court of the Crimson King- Crappier
Discipline- Not Crap, mostly...
Islands- Shit
Three of a Perfect Pair- Crappier, but not total crap
Thrak- Not Crap
Vroom- Not Crap

geiginni wrote:However, "The Letters" off Islands is about as CRAP as it gets. Horrible, horrible. What the hell was Pete Sinfield smoking, anyway?

Amen to that.....hehe.

I vote Not Crap, because of how inspiring they were to me as a kid.

Some of their stuff is the steamiest of turds.

"elephant talk" is Not Crap, and it inspired the career of Primus. Take that as you will.

The fact that Fripp refers to "Starless..." as "Braless and Scrotal Sac" is Not Crap.

Tony Levin is also an amazing bassist.