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Yeah... Those are from some obscure solo records he did. I'm a Yes fan and I don't even have those. Olias is brilliant. Unlike any King Crimson record, one can listen to that from start to finish without the "ewwww, this is shit" factor (unless you like groovy 60's music and diarreah soft rock ballads with slobbery tuneless vocals). In fact, it is very much in an ambient electronic mode, and sounds better than anything Eno ever did. The Tolkein-esque lyrics are almost indiscernable in the haze of rich vocal harmonies. But, this just in -- progressive rock is often conceptual and has stories in the lyrics. King Crimson has stories about mad medieval kings and the like. The lyrics are just poorly written, and more importantly, delivered extremely poorly. Anderson is one of the better vocalists of that era.

KC didn't even write their lyrics. They outsourced it. Whetton phoned in the vocals. The keyboards were token. Any progressive rock band is better than KC.

Say what you want about Yes. I brought them up because people think Steve Howe is in a retirement home or something. No, he's still better than Fripp and doing better things.

Fripp is good, but I am now voting crap because he takes credit for techniques he didn't invent and there are just so many better guitarists. The Frippertronics marketing thing is crap. As people mentioned, he held back in King Crimson and also held back King Crimson.

Check out this UK record. It's Bruford, Whetton, Holdsworth and Jobson. Fripp would have never gone for great keyboard playing. It would upstage him. He definately held that band back. Their keyboards were a joke. Holdsworth is so much better. His rock style is beyond Fripp, and his jazz influence makes for a much more diverse vocabulary.

We seem to agree on a few things it seems. I never thought Frippertronics was the big a deal to be honest. However,s if he didn't invent it then why hasn't someone put their hand up to say they did? I prefer Fripp minus the Frippertronics to be honest - for example the guitar solo on Baby's or Fire or St Elmo's Fire.

I prefer minimal keyboards over Wakeman type wankery. It's one of the reasons I like Eno and also the minimal mellotron in early KC. 1970s keyboards sound so cheesy nowadays for the most part. I can only really stand piano, hammond and mellotron. I pretty much hate moogs. 1970s Keyboard players are usually such dicks. Checkout Keith Emerson for example. Eno was a master at not overusing keyboards and he said he had little respect for most key players who would take half a day getting the "right" wibbly wobbly sound.

Eno and Fripp are like Edison, and I respect people like Tesla. They weren't innovative, but were good at self promotion and using other people's ideas as their own.

Someone brought up Eno's Oblique Strategies in the Eno thread, and this is exactly what I am talking about. He gives a funny label to thinking outside of the box, alternative paradigms and contingency plans, throws together some cards, and people buy it as a good decision-making model? Now granted, he does look cool and is well spoken. He re-invents the wheel with confidence...

Crimson's early music is cheesy as hell. "In the Court" is hippie music, far more hippie than any tree-hugging, Earth-loving Yes material. They simply made music that is not very timeless, except for a select few pieces. Why much of the independent rock community regards Crimson so highly is puzzling to me. Apart from a few excellent songs (which you could fit on half of a CD), most of their work is uninspiring. They have one of the smallest excellent/crap ratios of any of the 70's progressive rock bands.

I have a feeling KC were given VCS-3's in return for being name-dropped in advertising. My "In the Wake of Poseiden" liner notes has a scrap book with ads, and they show the VCS-3 ad where KC are mentioned. It is typical for musical instrument makers to give away gear in return for saying "so and so uses this gear". I just think it is funny, because they don't do much with it at all. They were extremely popular at that point, coming in at the charts one slot below the Beatles (yes, Fripp managed to include the charts in the liner notes -- shameless self promotion, just like Edison).

The thing about simple keyboards is that they are just that. A few notes that anyone can play. Eno's lack of respect for people who take time to program their synth is all the more reason I don't love his work. I like some of it, but it comes across as lazy to me. He has more in common with hip-hop and techno (in terms of the way he structured music) than with progressive rock. He seems to feel his ideas are so great, that one or two ideas per soundscape are enough. For me, I hear the song for 30 seconds, realize it is a neat, tidy 3-minute tune with this same theme repeated, and it's like -- big whoop.

I am not an Emerson fan. There is also a misconception that Yes music is nothing but re-hashed classical music with grandiose solos. For one, I at least know Wakeman has talent. Everyone who stacks a keyboard on top of another keyboard is exhibiting Wakeman influence. He was the first guy to do this (when he played for the Strawbs), and the attention he got from this "stunt" is what made Yes want to hire the guy. Beyond that, there is plenty of ambient atmosphere and sound scaping on Yes records. Close to the Edge is a perfect example. "Awaken" is another good example. But if that ambient music was all they did, I would not like Yes at all. It is their diversity in composition that keeps me listening. It is the homogeneity of Eno that bores me after the first few tunes...

The people I know who love Eno also tend to love shoegaze music and a lot of music where simplistic form is much more important than substance. It's the Stanley Kubric version of modernity where everything is white and simple. That's a very 60s-70s idea of modernity...

Crimson also have some questionable lyrics:

Crimson Lyrics wrote:Health-food faggot with a bartered bride
Likes to comb his hair with a dipper ride
Once had a friend with a cloven foot
Once he called the tune in a chequered quit

The first time I heard this, I thought I must be hearing things. That's as bad as the N word. But no... They say it, and they are not talking about a pile of sticks.

Maybe if Fripp was more concerned about his health, he wouldn't have to sit down at the back of the stage during his recent concerts (recent meaning within the past 15 years) with those chipmunk cheeks he has had since the 70's.

Fripp & Eno -- good but hardly great unless you haven't heard much else from that time. Forgettabout Yes and Genesis. I know they are not palatable to most (though still better than Crimson). What about Henry Cow, Present, Univers Zero, Magma, Faust, etc.? Fripp and Eno are good with techniques, but better at promoting themselves, and this is why they are regarded so higly in the anals of music history.

Without a doubt, Fripp and Eno are more influential than Henry Cow or Present. But seriously, I grew out of Bauhaus by the 12th grade... Anyway, I saw them around the late 1990s, and it was the funniest show I ever saw (and they weren't trying to be funny)... But that is another story.

Your stories are boring, and all the praise of Henry Cow and Univers Zero (Whom I listened to extensively in the '70s) won't make them Cooler than Eno.

Fripp has always sat! I beleive he tried standing once or twice and it didn't jive. He was offended when people called him a mushroom while on his stool. those elitist hippies...

don't ignore the supreme unbridledness of the tres 70s albums: Lark's Tongues in Aspic, Starless & Bible Black, and Red

totally raw distorted guitar, with a touch of full clean guitar, not at all nasally like most 70s recording, with the occasional flanger for spice.

fripp is not crap because he is always coming out with a new bag of tricks
saw him and belew improv for an hour before porcupine tree, and they can really play without having to rely on the written note

He sounds like Worzel Gummidge when he speaks.

Not crap.

yut wrote:
He wasn't a great guitarist when Crimson started out. It's pretty obvious on "In the Court".

I had heard this said too (fripp himself said it in an interview).
A '69/'70 live bootleg i aquired however, put paid to that for me.
If the time of recording is correct, this guy could rip, even then, whether he says so or not. Also the drumming and especially bass/singing on that bootleg is fucking outrageous.

If i mention prog rock to people that don;t know prog rock, they say "oh god, what like Yes and stuff?". Very few of them have heard of King Crimson.
I'm not using that to Yes's detriment (i love Yes) but rather to make the point that as far as i can tell, KC were never really *that* big, or certainly not the "leaders" (for want of a better term) of a genre. Because of this i don;t think the "this is the exact same as nirvana in the 90's" point washes. To my mind, they're more analogous to something like the Melvins or Jesus Lizard if one is making reference to that period of 90's indie-rock in comparison with KC.
However, that's pretty irrelevant isn't it.

Yut seems to think that it's a proven fact that KC albums are not listenable all the way through, that they are all 80% filler and 20% good. I happen to disagree strongly. It's not fact. I happen to like KC a lot. I think *everything* on Red is amazing. I think most of In The Court is amazing (and i find it absolutley listenable throughout), and i think Discipline is listenable throughout, and a great record.

It's also pretty easy to accuse math-rock fans of puring over KC because they're the cool prog band to like if you're into shellac. I don;t think it has a lot to do with that. I like the Jesus Lizard and Don Cab a lot, and KC sounds similar to these bands at times (even in atmosphere, in terms of sounding a bit evil and nasty) so it would make sense that i like KC given that i like this kind of angular and abrasive music. King crimson, from the off were pretty dischordant at times, this appeals to me a lot, whether or not people from a band on touch 'n' go, John Peel, Richard Branson or someone on the EA forums says they're good or not.

It's pretty easy to slag off a band's lyrics as well (the mighty Zeppelin's get really really REALLY shit at times) but i think they were the product of an era, and it's easy to criticise them outside of that era, maybe i'm wrong and they're just shit, but i rate the first verse of In the Court's first song, for containing the lines "...neurosurgeons scream for more, at paranoia's poison door..." which, while possibly not very clever or poetic, is, i think, a very cool line, because it sounds scary and mental, which was a pretty good indication of the sounds that were going to follow.

I understand that you don't like KC as much as you like Yes or Genesis yut, and that you think they are over-rated. This is pretty similar to me thinking KC and Yes are both great (although i find Yes more patchy than KC personally, and not liking Genesis at all. That's about that isn't it?

I enjoy Fripp's guitar playing a lot. NOT CRAP.

yut wrote:The first time I heard this, I thought I must be hearing things. That's as bad as the N word. But no... They say it, and they are not talking about a pile of sticks.

Sorry to bump this thread, but I couldn't let you go on with this ignorance. The use of "faggot" in this song is actually referring to a vegetarian meatball.

Though, honestly, I thought the lyric was cooler when I didn't know that.

Anyway, carry on.

Not crap. I was listening to the first League of Gentlemen record when I found this post.