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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsetts Podcast. Today

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Speaker 1: our guest is the one and only Robert frim Robert,

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Speaker 1: did you practice today?

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Speaker 2: I have not yet strapped on a guitar today, Bob.

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Speaker 2: But may I also say you have a second guest,

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Speaker 2: David Singleton, who is my business business partner, King Crimson Producer,

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Speaker 2: and we've been engaged in various forms of musical and

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Speaker 2: professional activities since about nineteen eighty nine. I say this

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Speaker 2: because David has a far greater intelligence than mine. And

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Speaker 2: there's also a philosophy graduate from Cambridge University, one of

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Speaker 2: the two press these universities in England, whereas I am

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Speaker 2: from working class stock and grammar school education and has

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Speaker 2: really been educated by the life of a professional musician.

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Speaker 1: Okay, since you mentioned David, you're both on the call

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Speaker 1: here today. The two of you are going on tour

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Speaker 1: imminently on the West coast of California. Can you tell

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Speaker 1: me about that. Why David's involved in what you're going

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Speaker 1: to do?

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Speaker 2: Well, David's involved because he has a superior intellect of mine.

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Speaker 2: He's also has a far greater overview of my affairs

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Speaker 2: than I do, because I tend to be more specifically

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Speaker 2: focused in the moment with what I'm doing. For example,

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Speaker 2: a working musician walks on stage, plugs in, and begins

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Speaker 2: to play, and their focus tends to be very specifically

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Speaker 2: located in that moment during the performance. Now, when I

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Speaker 2: walk off stage age, my recall tends to be better.

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Speaker 2: If the gig has been really bad. If the gig sucks,

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Speaker 2: you remember more of it. If it takes off and

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Speaker 2: flies away, you're in a different place, and when you

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Speaker 2: land on earth you don't quite have access to that

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Speaker 2: same place until you take off and fly again. However, David,

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Speaker 2: who maybe for example, watching from the auditorium, has a

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Speaker 2: better distance and overview of what has gone on, and

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Speaker 2: also a far better skill set in terms of analysis

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Speaker 2: than I do, so his opinion is infinitely more reliable

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Speaker 2: than mine. So he's coming along when I stumbled. He

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Speaker 2: will tell people what I meant to say had I

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Speaker 2: been a younger, more intelligent man.

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Speaker 3: Our talks grew out of talks that we used to

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Speaker 3: give the all the King Crimson shows. So before the

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Speaker 3: King Crimson Shows, we used to do a thing called

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Speaker 3: the Royal Package, where some fans could come in early

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Speaker 3: and I recall when we were originally planning what we

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Speaker 3: might do before the shows. I said, well, somebody should

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Speaker 3: talk to the fans, you know, for the hour before

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Speaker 3: the show, And I remember distinctly Robert saying to me, David,

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Speaker 3: you should talk to the fans. I love it when

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Speaker 3: you do the work and I earn the money, which

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Speaker 3: wasn't true, by the way, because he shares the money.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, so I began talking to fans before Robert

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Speaker 3: joined me, one of the band members join me, and

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Speaker 3: so to some extent, we're now doing those talks without

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Speaker 3: the show.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Robert, you're a man who has very distinct opinions,

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Speaker 1: So it's funny that you talk about trusting Dave. Is

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Speaker 1: Dave unique or you're more trusting than your image.

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Speaker 2: David is one of two people who I trusted to

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Speaker 2: give me objective and accurate feedback on anything that was

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Speaker 2: particularly a rising in my life, or shall we saying

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Speaker 2: King Crimson the fis Bill Reeflin and David Singleton were

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Speaker 2: the two characters who if anyone in the band felt

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Speaker 2: that Robert needed to be told a particular something but

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Speaker 2: maybe they were afraid to tell him, then they would

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Speaker 2: go to either Bill Reeflin, who was our drummer and

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Speaker 2: keyboard player in the twenty fourteen twenty eighteen incarnations. They

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Speaker 2: would go to Bill Rieflin or to David Singleton, both

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Speaker 2: of whom I trust to be entirely impartial and give

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Speaker 2: me the good, bad news, or whatever it might have been.

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Speaker 2: There were very few people, very very few people who

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Speaker 2: were like this.

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Speaker 1: But you seem so warm and friendly right now? Is

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Speaker 1: this your normal demeanor? Because your reputation is not that.

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Speaker 2: It's true, my reputation is appalling, and it's interesting as

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Speaker 2: an older man to look back consider why why this

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Speaker 2: might be. And I'm beginning to come up with a

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Speaker 2: few clues is to why my reputation is appalling. But

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Speaker 2: since I trust David, David, why do you think my

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Speaker 2: reputation is appalling?

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Speaker 3: Well, I'll answer that in two ways. Firstly, the very

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Speaker 3: first time Robertson and I went out doing a speaking tour,

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Speaker 3: it had a subtitle that awful Man and his manager

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Speaker 3: We didn't, which wasn't a tagline that we added. Somebody else,

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Speaker 3: some wit came up with it when we were about

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Speaker 3: to go on tour and said, oh, this is what

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Speaker 3: you should call it. That awful man and his manager.

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Speaker 3: And the main reason I think Robert has that reputation

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Speaker 3: is because he prioritizes the music in all situations. So

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Speaker 3: if you have a show or you're recording, Robert prioritizes

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Speaker 3: the music, not the social or And for some people,

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Speaker 3: I think that probably irks them.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but Robert, let's say, in this hypothetical you walk

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Speaker 1: into a coffee shop, are you the warmest guy or

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Speaker 1: do you'd say, hey, this is exactly what I want

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Speaker 1: and you're happy if it's not perfect. Would someone encounter

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Speaker 1: this so called appalling reputation if you were just in

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Speaker 1: everyday life.

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Speaker 2: Probably I find that if you'd like a buy and

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Speaker 2: large overview. If someone comes to me with a flea

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Speaker 2: in their ear, they tend to leave with two a

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Speaker 2: flea in each year. If someone comes to me with

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Speaker 2: an attitude, they tend to leave with more of the

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Speaker 2: same attitude. For example, if they come up to me

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Speaker 2: with an open heart, they tend to find a person

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Speaker 2: with an open heart. There are exceptions to this, and

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Speaker 2: I can recall a few of them. For example, if

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Speaker 2: I go into a coffee shop and I'm reading, for

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Speaker 2: someone to come up and say excuse me, mister Fripp.

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Speaker 2: I didn't want to interrupt you. My response might be

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Speaker 2: to actually quote Jimmy Hendrix in the same situation. Then

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Speaker 2: why are you so If a person comes up knowing

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Speaker 2: they're interrupting me, I might remind them that they know better,

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Speaker 2: or on some cases I've simply ignored them.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you're in your home right now. I don't want

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Speaker 1: the specific address, but where is it?

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Speaker 2: Generally it's in Middle England. It's about thirty miles south

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Speaker 2: of Birmingham. It's geographically middle England. It's in the County

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Speaker 2: of Worcester, and it's what is called a Georgian market town.

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Speaker 2: That most of the buildings on the high street, Bridge Street,

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Speaker 2: and where we are right in the center of town

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Speaker 2: for the market square. It's Georgian. That is approximately mid

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Speaker 2: eighteenth century. However, David, who lives in the old vicarage

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Speaker 2: in town, looks out his window and sees the abbey.

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Speaker 2: I look out our front windows and see the abbey

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Speaker 2: about two hundred yards away as the crowflies. So we're

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Speaker 2: looking at the site of Christian worship in this town

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Speaker 2: since about seven hundred a d. Now, to an American

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Speaker 2: this is maybe kind of astonishing, since the colonies were

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Speaker 2: only set up, as we know, in the early seventeenth century.

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Speaker 2: To have an ongoing site of worship in any religion

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Speaker 2: for a period of what thirteen hundred years thirteen hundred

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Speaker 2: and twenty years is quite astonishing. At the end of

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Speaker 2: our garden, I live here with my wonderful wife Toy.

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Speaker 2: We walk down to the garden. At the end of

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Speaker 2: the garden is the River Avon. You turn left and

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Speaker 2: go up twenty miles you'll pass William Shakespeare's old cottage

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Speaker 2: old house. If you turn right and go down about

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Speaker 2: one hundred miles you will pass Sting's House just outside Salisbury.

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Speaker 2: So at the River Avon here the Vikings used to

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Speaker 2: come up river and beat people up in our town

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Speaker 2: and beastly characters that they were. They would burn down

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Speaker 2: the wooden Christian Church in town, so eventually it was

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Speaker 2: rebuilt in I think early twentieth century of Stone and

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Speaker 2: the local Worthy, tough guy, the alpha male of the time,

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Speaker 2: the local Worthy Night saw the Vikings off in a

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Speaker 2: big punch up up the hill here. He saw them

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Speaker 2: offer I think about ten seventy five, and they never

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Speaker 2: came back. So we've had relative peace in town through

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Speaker 2: about thousand years. So, David, would you add to this

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Speaker 2: what am I missing?

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Speaker 3: No? I thought that was wonderful. I was gonna say

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Speaker 3: when you said relative piece in town, that's obviously until

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Speaker 3: Robert moved in.

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Speaker 1: So Robert, why this general location in England?

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Speaker 3: All right?

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Speaker 2: When I first met my wife in nineteen eighty three,

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Speaker 2: but we met again in nineteen eighty five working on

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Speaker 2: a charity record for to raise money for children's schooled

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Speaker 2: in West Virginia, associated with the charity of which I

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Speaker 2: was at that time the president. I met my wife

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Speaker 2: and proposed. In a week. We had a date on

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Speaker 2: the Friday, she went back to London, returned for our

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Speaker 2: second date Friday one week later, and I proposed. At

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Speaker 2: that time, my little elderly mother was alive, So my

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Speaker 2: wife moved to my part of the world because we

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Speaker 2: knew that maybe not too far down the road, one

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Speaker 2: day the phone would go and the voice would say,

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Speaker 2: you need to come now. Well, after my wonderful little

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Speaker 2: mother died in nineteen ninety three, we could then be anywhere.

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Speaker 2: And in nineteen ninety nine my wife's parents retired. She

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Speaker 2: bought them a cottage just half a mile up river

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Speaker 2: where there is a boat club that Toya essentially throughout

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Speaker 2: her youth, about age I think two or three onwards.

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Speaker 2: My wife became associated with this specific location. She moved

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Speaker 2: her parents into retirement to this location, and at that

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Speaker 2: point it became obvious that we should change from Wiltshire, Wiltshire,

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Speaker 2: Dorset up to Worcestershire here to be in near them.

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Speaker 2: So that's why we're here.

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Speaker 1: Why did you know or how did you know she

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Speaker 1: was the one so quickly?

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Speaker 2: How could you not know that you've just met your wife?

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Speaker 1: How old were you when you met your wife?

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Speaker 2: At thirty nine? Was when we had our first date.

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Speaker 1: And I proposed, okay, they are all these rock stars

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Speaker 1: who do drugs sleep with a lot of women, but

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Speaker 1: not all of them. Iani Anderson told me, you know

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Speaker 1: that he was living a more conventional life while the

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Speaker 1: members of his men were partying. You'd already had a

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Speaker 1: lot of success, not to riet he'd been on the road.

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Speaker 1: Had you partaken so called of the fruits of the

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Speaker 1: road or were you in your hotel room practicing? What

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Speaker 1: was your life like before you met to it?

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Speaker 2: Well, I never took drugs, Yes, I practiced in my

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Speaker 2: hotel room for hours and hours and hours. Did I

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Speaker 2: socialize from time to time, Yes, But in nineteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 2: Peter Simfield, the lyricist for the first King Crimson, who

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Speaker 2: wrote some astonishing words, he commented that Robert practiced in

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Speaker 2: his hotel room for eight hours a day. Now, from

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Speaker 2: my position today, looking at Peter and looking at Robert,

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Speaker 2: and asked to take a decision on these two young

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Speaker 2: men's future, I would be inclined to say that guitarist

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Speaker 2: is likely to succeed. And in terms of being a nasty, horrible,

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Speaker 2: creepy person. To come back to what David said, and

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Speaker 2: since we're talking about nineteen sixty nine King Crimson, Michael

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Speaker 2: Jarles the drummer, astonishing drummer, probably the drummer of his

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Speaker 2: generation in rock music. He said, there are three three

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Speaker 2: areas for a band, the music, the money, and the

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Speaker 2: social life. Any two of those you will have a

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Speaker 2: successful band. And I would say any three of those

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Speaker 2: and you have an astonishingly successful band. But going back

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Speaker 2: to it, my priority working as a professional musician is

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Speaker 2: the music. There are some professionals who take an alternative

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Speaker 2: style of alternative you and that's entirely legitimate, which is

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Speaker 2: this is a lifestyle that I would like, the socializing

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Speaker 2: with the other members of the band, the life on

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Speaker 2: the road, and so on. If that's congenial for them, fine,

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Speaker 2: that is not my primary concern, and a life on

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Speaker 2: the road has been distinctly non congenial for me as

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Speaker 2: a person. In terms of the money, my attitude has

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Speaker 2: been this is coming from the background of the nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixties and King Crimson began essentially as a cooperative venture.

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Speaker 2: Share the money, and after the dissolution of the first

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Speaker 2: King Crimson and the subsequent incarnations, then I've kept to this.

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Speaker 2: If you ask a person in the band to make

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Speaker 2: the commitment that you were making, you share the money

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Speaker 2: with them, and if you don't share the money with them,

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Speaker 2: you can't legitimately ask them to make the commitment that

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Speaker 2: you are. So for me, I've worked with the musicians

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Speaker 2: that personally were exceptionally difficult for me to work with

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Speaker 2: if I felt that these were the musicians needed to

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Speaker 2: make this music available. So, in other words, the social

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Speaker 2: aspects of working within a group have not been a

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Speaker 2: priority for me personally. The money neither. Particularly it comes

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Speaker 2: down to the music.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So you mentioned not taking drugs. Is that a philosophy?

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Speaker 1: Did you just stumble into that and you didn't take drugs?

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Speaker 1: Tell me more about that.

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Speaker 2: It was always very clear to me that this was

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Speaker 2: not a way for me, Just that clear.

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Speaker 1: What about alcohol?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I've pushed the boat out a young man of

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Speaker 2: my generation that didn't take drugs, and we were now

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Speaker 2: looking at the early nineteen sixties. What he might do, however,

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Speaker 2: is have a pint of cider on the Saturday night

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Speaker 2: even too, and it would be rough cider, and why roughsider?

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Speaker 2: Because it was one shilling and one pence and on

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Speaker 2: a Saturday night. If you're only getting five shillings a

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Speaker 2: week for your earnings, or even five pounds a week

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Speaker 2: for your earnings, that was all you could afford. So

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Speaker 2: age sixteen or seventeen, I would go down to the

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Speaker 2: Cellar Club in Pool to see the rock groups playing

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Speaker 2: in the Cellar Club. Greg Lake and his band was

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Speaker 2: one of them. And for two shillings and two pence

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Speaker 2: and the price of a bus ride there, which is

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Speaker 2: about a shilling, you could have a relatively straightforward and

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Speaker 2: enjoy full Saturday night out. It was affordable. Did I

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Speaker 2: grow older? And develop a taste in something finer than

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Speaker 2: rough sided. Yes, I quite like sparkling wine. Champagne is fine,

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Speaker 2: but I'm not snobbish about it. I'm very happy to

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Speaker 2: have prosecco, and I have learned to drink margaritas. My

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Speaker 2: wife makes astonishing monster margaritas, so I have also enjoyed

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Speaker 2: monster margaritas on many occasions with Adrian Blue, we would

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Speaker 2: go out to some modest Mexican restaurants and have the

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Speaker 2: monster margaritas. But I do not drink when I'm working.

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Speaker 1: So other than your wife, where's the best margarita you've had?

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Speaker 2: Now you have me, I tell you what. I had

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Speaker 2: a really good margarita at Daryl's house in not October

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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two. We did our live at Daryl's house,

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Speaker 2: and then afterwards I wasn't anticipating drinking, but it did

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Speaker 2: feel like an appropriate moment. So I had a margarita

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Speaker 2: and it was very, very good.

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Speaker 1: And you know, traditionally margarita's come with salt on the rim.

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Speaker 1: Are you a traditionalist or do you say? No salt?

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Speaker 2: Classic salt margarita on the rocks, preferably crushed ized, no doubt,

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Speaker 2: fresh line fresh line, and.

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Speaker 1: Does it matter whether it's Quervo eighteen hundred or just

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Speaker 1: whatever tequila's on hand.

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Speaker 2: I'm not snobbish. I prefer white tequila. Blue a garth

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Speaker 2: goes down very nicely, indeed. But now here's the one.

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Speaker 2: I was in Mexico in Cernavaca with my pal Leo,

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Speaker 2: who organized guitar craft and guitar circle courses at to Potsdam,

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Speaker 2: and we were in the restaurant, which was formerly the

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Speaker 2: house of Diego Rivera, and we were having lunch together

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Speaker 2: and I thought, well, I'm not working, I'll pus shake

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Speaker 2: the boat. I'll have a margarita. And Leah explained to me,

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Speaker 2: you don't get margaritas in Mexico any more than you

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Speaker 2: used to get pizzas in Italy. He said, we drink mescal.

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Speaker 2: I thought, all right, I'll give this a chop and

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Speaker 2: I took my first sip and I thought, oh, that

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Speaker 2: tastes nice. I'll have a second one. Once I got

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Speaker 2: to the end of my first mescal, I realized, now,

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Speaker 2: now a second one is really a step too far.

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Speaker 1: Okay, what kind of kid were you growing up? Were

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Speaker 1: you a member of the group, were you under sports?

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Speaker 1: Were you that odd kid. It was always by themselves.

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Speaker 2: Probably all of those. I think it changed when I

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Speaker 2: was about age nine or ten and my reading skills

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Speaker 2: had developed, and at that point I would tend to

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Speaker 2: stay in more evenings than not reading. When I became

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Speaker 2: a guitarist at eight eleven, this was a very good,

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Speaker 2: natural and developing tendency. Because if you are a musician,

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Speaker 2: an Aspen musician, and or a composer or writer, you

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Speaker 2: have to have what Professor John Slaboda in his Psychology

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Speaker 2: for Musicians refers to as the capacity of strong interestpect.

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Speaker 2: If you are a serious practicer, this is four to

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Speaker 2: eight hours of your life at least, and if you're

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00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:14,600
Speaker 2: a young concert pianist it might be twelve sixteen hours

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00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 2: a day now to sit on a chair mostly on

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Speaker 2: your own, focusing on your practicing or your writing. That

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00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:28,479
Speaker 2: much time on your own for most inverted comrasordinary people

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Speaker 2: would be a struggle. If, however, you have an innate

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Speaker 2: or developed capacity for introspection, which is healthy, this is

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Speaker 2: what Professor Roboda refers to. This is a strong and

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Speaker 2: healthy capacity for introspection, not not somehow a failing to

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Speaker 2: engage socially.

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Speaker 1: Okay, is like your wife. As soon as you started

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Speaker 1: playing the guitar, you said, this is it. How did

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Speaker 1: you make the transition from a non player to a player?

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Speaker 2: When I met my wife, I practiced less than hitherto.

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Speaker 1: Ok, let me rephrase this question. How did you first

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Speaker 1: get an instrument? And was guitar your first instrument?

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Speaker 2: Yes, it was December twenty fourth, nineteen fifty seven, Christmas

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Speaker 2: Eve and my mother, who had bought me all my

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Speaker 2: Christmas presents. But I believe the day before I said

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Speaker 2: I want a guitar for Christmas. So my mother and

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Speaker 2: I went out shopping into Bournemouth, which was nine miles

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Speaker 2: from Wimborne, where we lived. And this area in Dorset

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Speaker 2: based around actually just four miles north of Wimburne is

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Speaker 2: the Fripp family village where the Trips have gone back

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Speaker 2: father to father for four hundred years. For example, in

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Speaker 2: the village where Toya and myself had our first datum

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Speaker 2: where we got married. My great great great great great

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Speaker 2: grandfather Robert Fripp died in seventeen fifty four, but my

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00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 2: father took the geniality back a little further actually to

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Speaker 2: fifteen ninety in Edmonsham, which is five miles north of that,

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Speaker 2: so that's a slight distraction. Now back we went from

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Speaker 2: Wimborne into Bournemouth. We went round all the music shops

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Speaker 2: in Bournemouth, finding nothing appropriate until write about five o'clock

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00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 2: at the end of our shopping day, to Min's Music

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Speaker 2: of Westbourne. And as we were there in the shop,

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Speaker 2: a woman came in with this guitar and she said,

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Speaker 2: I would like to return this to you. We're getting

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00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 2: a better guitar for my So we stepped forward and

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00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 2: said we will buy this, and the Eggermann Freys instrument

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00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:13,400
Speaker 2: bought for six guineas, is now in the cellar directly

345
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 2: below the study were speaking. It was an appalling instrument,

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00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:23,160
Speaker 2: a really, really terrible instrument which creppled my left hand

347
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:30,639
Speaker 2: action for years. Even in nineteen seventy I remember having

348
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 2: to practice to develop a more relaxed left hand grip

349
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 2: after learning to play this instrument. You'd need players to

350
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:45,120
Speaker 2: put the strings down above the seventh threat. The action

351
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 2: was so bad. But anyway, that was my first guitar

352
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 2: and was in three months. I knew this was my life.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you take the guitar home, what do you do?

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Speaker 1: First of all, there's the issue of tuning it. You

355
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: don't know how to read music? What were your steps?

356
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 2: All right? Well, the man in men's music obviously knew

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00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 2: three or four chords to persuade people that this was

358
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 2: an instrument worth playing, and he tuned it up for us.

359
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 2: So I took it home and there was the guitar

360
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Speaker 2: tutor of the day. Was actually an appalling tutor, hugely

361
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Speaker 2: successful called play in a Day by Bert Whedon, which

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00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 2: many of the leading guitarists of the time looked back

363
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,640
Speaker 2: on and refer to it as the first tutor. It

364
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 2: was an appalling tutor. Nevertheless, this was where one began

365
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 2: at the time until we received better information. So about

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00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 2: three months after having the guitar, I went for my

367
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 2: first guitar lessons with Missus cah Felleen Gartel of the

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00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 2: kauf Mullen School of Music, kauf Mullen being three miles

369
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Speaker 2: down the road from Wimborne and where I grew up,

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Speaker 2: spending the first three years of my life in kauf Mullen.

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Speaker 2: Missus Gartel was a very good Salvation Army lady who

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Speaker 2: saw it as her work in life as educating children

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Speaker 2: in music. She was primarily a piano teacher, not an

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00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 2: awfully good guitar teacher, which she knew, and after my

375
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 2: first course of I believed ten or twelve lessons I

376
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 2: was her star student. So she sent me on to

377
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 2: a proper guitar teacher, Don Strike of Westbourne Arcade, who

378
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 2: was actually only two hundred yards from Min's Music where

379
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:59,160
Speaker 2: I bought the guitar but had not quite discovered him.

380
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 2: I wish i'd governed him earlier, and under Don Strike

381
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 2: I began to develop seriously and find my own way forward.

382
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 2: When I was seventeen, I visited Don Strike's music shop

383
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Speaker 2: on that particular Saturday afternoon. This is what young guitarists

384
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 2: would do. There were two shops in town. You go

385
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:31,199
Speaker 2: to Don Strike's in Westbourne Arcade and then maybe you

386
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 2: go to Eddie Moore's Music in not Westbourne it was.

387
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 2: It was before christ Church anyway, it was East Bournemouth,

388
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 2: and in between two shops there would be movement. I

389
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 2: went in one Saturday and Don Strike shook my hand

390
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 2: and acknowledged me as the better get guitarist. At the

391
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 2: time it didn't strike me particularly, but as I've got

392
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 2: older and from where I am now, I recognize this

393
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 2: as a very generous compliment from an older generation player

394
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 2: acknowledging a younger generation player.

395
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Speaker 1: Okay, when you take lessons, they teach you how to

396
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: read music. Do you read music today? Do you write

397
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: out charts?

398
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 2: Do I read music today? Yes, but slowly because it's

399
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 2: not part of my daily activity. Historically, when I became

400
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: a professional in nineteen sixty seven and moved to London,

401
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 2: way up until about two thousand and eight, I would

402
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 2: I would write, we might say compose with charts, but

403
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 2: within members of King Crimson, I would not give them charts.

404
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 2: I understand Charles Mingus didn't either, So what I would

405
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 2: do is show the music to the other members of

406
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 2: the band and invite their responses in return. But yes,

407
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 2: the quick answer is, Bob, I read music and wrote

408
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 2: music in the for bo that period of forty odd

409
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 2: years in my professional life.

410
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: Okay, paint the picture of what it's like in the

411
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: fifties growing up. I'm a little younger than you. I'm

412
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: growing up in the United States. We always hear about

413
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: a war hangover sort of life being in black and white.

414
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: Was that what it's like or is that an inaccurate description?

415
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 2: The quick answer is that's accurate to paint a broader picture.

416
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 2: I was born in nineteen forty six. My grandfather was

417
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 2: in the Marines and in Gallipoli. My uncle Bill was

418
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 2: in the Air Force and was shot down in October

419
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine and spent the next five years and

420
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 2: seven months in a twelve German prisoner of war camps,

421
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 2: including Stalagluff three, where he was one of the logistics

422
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 2: people planning the Great Escape. He was a navigator. His

423
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 2: pilot was one of those who escaped and was caught

424
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 2: and shot. So Uncle Bill refused to speak about his

425
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 2: war years for fifty years, and then fifty years later

426
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 2: he would begin to respond. Uncle Bill was a close

427
00:31:55,280 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 2: presence in my life growing up and that was a

428
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 2: real time for me. One generation removed, but growing up

429
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 2: in England, it was the time of austerity. For example,

430
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 2: in when I was three in nineteen forty nine, sweet

431
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 2: rationing was abandoned for three months and then it was reinstituted.

432
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 2: And I remember on a Saturday when we go to

433
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 2: the cinema with my father, my sister and myself, we

434
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 2: would stuff off and buy a shillings worst of sweets

435
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 2: on the way to the cinema, but it would be

436
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 2: ration based. And I remember the first time rationing came

437
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 2: off in nineteen forty nine. I was three and running

438
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 2: around in the attic of our home in corf Mullen

439
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 2: and I ran over the open trap door and fell

440
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 2: down from the attic with a big crump on the

441
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 2: landing below. And I was in bed when my sister

442
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 2: went to have her ration free suites for the first time.

443
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 2: So yeah, growing up in the fifties, not that at

444
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:20,239
Speaker 2: that age I was aware of any constructions. It was

445
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 2: the life we had. But after the event I could

446
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 2: look back and say austerity and my parents working class

447
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 2: lives continued, and to some extent today continues on. My

448
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 2: mother was the daughter of a Welsh miner who died

449
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 2: one long night at his age of fifty nine I

450
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 2: believe it was I believe it was nineteen forty eight

451
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 2: or nine. He died one long night, wheezing his life

452
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 2: of way from his punctured lungs. He had a wooden

453
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 2: leg because working down the mine at the Six Bells Colliery,

454
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 2: he'd got trapped on the pulley taking coal into the

455
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 2: crusher and one of his legs went into the coal

456
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 2: crusher and one of his mining pals pulled him off,

457
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 2: and my grandmother, Gladys Louise Green, her hair turned white

458
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 2: in a week, not knowing whether her husband would live

459
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:41,840
Speaker 2: or die. My father, at age sixteen, was told to

460
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 2: leave school because he needed to help bring money into

461
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 2: the family to help support his five brothers and sisters.

462
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 2: So that's my background. I was brought up with complete

463
00:34:55,719 --> 00:35:01,760
Speaker 2: confidence that I would succeed. Why because both my sister

464
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 2: and myself knew that we would succeed because we would work.

465
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 2: We would work until we would succeed. In other words,

466
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 2: this is a classic Protestant work ethic inculcated into us

467
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 2: by our parents who had done the same. We were

468
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 2: brought up to be independent and to work. So when

469
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 2: I went to London in September nineteen sixty seven, I

470
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 2: knew I would succeed because I would work. However, I

471
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 2: did not anticipate that my professional success would be a

472
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 2: public success. I thought it more likely that I would,

473
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 2: for example, end up in sessions. It never occurred to

474
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:52,839
Speaker 2: me that I would personally become well known.

475
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: Okay, in the US, we had the folk boom of

476
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 1: the early sixties and a lot of people got nylon

477
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,240
Speaker 1: string guitars, and then the Beatles hit in the beginning

478
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 1: of sixty four and seemingly everybody got an electric guitar.

479
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: Why was everybody picking up the guitar in England in

480
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven, Because it's not only you, there are

481
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: a lot of other legendary players. What was going on

482
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: was the guitar hip. It's like, why did you want

483
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: to play the guitar? Wor other people playing the guitar,

484
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: or what you heard on the radio? What was the motivation?

485
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:35,879
Speaker 2: All right, you're explaining, you're asking me to explain the zeitgeist.

486
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 2: I can't quite do that. Why music would reach over

487
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 2: and express itself through popular culture in such a way

488
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 2: that it brought a generation together with the conviction that

489
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 2: music will change the world. The cultural context would be

490
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:01,280
Speaker 2: In the mid nineteen fifties is a movement in England

491
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 2: called skiffle. One of the pivotal characters, very important character,

492
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 2: was Chris Barber. And you would have a skiffle group

493
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 2: which was probably derived from Woody Guthrie and other American

494
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 2: folk heroes through an English perspective, but you would have

495
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 2: a tea chest and a broom poll and a piece

496
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 2: of string that would be your base. You would have

497
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 2: a scrubbing board for rhythm, played with thumbnail what is it,

498
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 2: David thumbnails from sewing, yes, finger finger protectors from sewing,

499
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 2: and you would have perhaps number three guitarists thimbles, Thank

500
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 2: you thimbles, And that was the basic. Then Lonnie Donoghan

501
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 2: was a character who also came out of this same background,

502
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:01,879
Speaker 2: very popular, and then it became more sophisticated as Bob

503
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 2: Dylan became more familiar in England, and then it moved

504
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 2: on to electricity. Electricity for me nineteen fifty seven, fifty

505
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 2: six fifty seven, Elvis, I mean, Scottymore what a player.

506
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:25,919
Speaker 2: He was the first guitarist who made me think, yeah,

507
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:33,759
Speaker 2: Chuck Berry, Yeah, But we shouldn't forget Muddy Waters in Chicago,

508
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 2: Plugging in a Bank nineteen forty seven, forty eight, which

509
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 2: was the precursor to all of this. Would you go

510
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 2: back much further than that, I'm sure you could, but

511
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 2: really I think the beginning of it would probably be

512
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 2: forty seven forty eight were Muddy Rocks a in Chicago?

513
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 2: Then move forward to the Beatles, who are also looking

514
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:07,399
Speaker 2: primarily in American direction. When they begin. But something else

515
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 2: was going on with Beatles For me, the last example

516
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 2: of communal genius in popular music. Something astonishing. And when

517
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:25,359
Speaker 2: I heard A Day in the Life in nineteen sixty six,

518
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 2: sixty seven, sixty seven, that reunt he had reoriented the

519
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 2: direction of my life. Instead of going onto university in

520
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 2: taking a degree in the state management to become a

521
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 2: partner in my father's auctioneering and the state agency firm

522
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 2: in Wimborne, Dorset, I had to go to music. Why

523
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 2: in the same way that I recognized my wife, At

524
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 2: these pivotal moments in our life, we recognize this is

525
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 2: for me, it has to be and if we can't

526
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 2: recognize it, then something's off. Why can't we recognize what

527
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 2: is obvious? Well, fortunately, I think my instincts were good.

528
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in the UK. The Beatles hit in the

529
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 1: UK in sixty two, needless to say, they're playing in

530
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: the late fifties. Do you feel a burgeoning rock and

531
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:24,800
Speaker 1: roll scene? You know, Liverpool was revered in the US,

532
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:29,800
Speaker 1: but it's not a super classy looked upon finally city

533
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 1: in the UK to what the gwed Did you feel

534
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 1: a burgeoning scene or did you just turn on the

535
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: radio one day and heard love Me Do.

536
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:42,400
Speaker 2: Well. I remember hearing Love Me Do on the radio

537
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:46,959
Speaker 2: about sixty two three, and it didn't it didn't quite

538
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 2: do it for me. For me, it wasn't the strongest song.

539
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,720
Speaker 2: I was in what were called bait groups at the time.

540
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 1: Well a little bit, a little bit slower, a little

541
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 1: bit slower. You get a guitar, you're going for lessons,

542
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: what point do you decide to join a band and

543
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: play out? And how does that happen?

544
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:10,879
Speaker 2: Fourteen stroke fifteen and why? Because my guitar teacher, Don

545
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 2: Strike said, you're at the point where you need to

546
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 2: be in a band, you need to work with other musicians.

547
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 2: So age fourteen turning fifteen, I was in my first

548
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 2: beat group called the Ravens, and Gordon Haskell was another

549
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,720
Speaker 2: one of those players. I remember on the grammar school

550
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 2: playing field while we would throw in discus, he turned

551
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:41,399
Speaker 2: to me and said, hey, mush, if I bear buy

552
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:45,359
Speaker 2: a bass, can I join your band? And I said yes.

553
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 2: So that was our first band. And then that stopped

554
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 2: because I was taking my school examinations which were then

555
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 2: called O levels, and then at a seventeen beginning eighteen,

556
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 2: I was in my second beat group also with Gordon

557
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 2: House School, called the League of Gentlemen, and that was

558
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 2: a more mature expression. We would do covers for example,

559
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:13,840
Speaker 2: we would do Beatles covers for Seasons covers. We would

560
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:19,800
Speaker 2: do guitar instrumentals of the day like Orange Blossom Special

561
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 2: for example. Because I was quite to developed guitarist for

562
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 2: my age, we could take on guitar guitar pieces that

563
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 2: not many semi pro bands could do. That went on

564
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 2: until I was about eighteen nineteen, and at that point

565
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 2: I needed to take a levels to go on to

566
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 2: university so I could become a partner my father's firm,

567
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:51,360
Speaker 2: and I paid my way through college by being a

568
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 2: guitarist in the Majestic Hotel Jewish Hotel on Born's East Coast,

569
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 2: where a young guitarist called Andy Summers went on to

570
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:08,359
Speaker 2: London with Zoot Money's Big Role band that became the

571
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 2: citedentlic Dantallion's Chariot before Andy went off to the West

572
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:19,359
Speaker 2: Coast with Eric Burden and the Animals. So Andy went

573
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 2: off to London and I took over the guitar chair

574
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 2: for the next two and a half three years until

575
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 2: I went to London and moved to it Monee and

576
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 2: failure for a couple of years.

577
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: So you're going to university. Did you finish university?

578
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 2: I didn't even begin. I went up to university and

579
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 2: took my interview. I took my A levels, the next

580
00:43:56,880 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 2: standard in school examinations at two weeks notice, and had

581
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 2: a nay in economics being economic history, which was sufficiently

582
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 2: good to get me accepted. I even have my digs booked.

583
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 2: And then I heard A Day in the Life and Hendrix,

584
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:25,600
Speaker 2: Foxy Lady, Purple Hayes, Eric Clapton with the Blues Breakers,

585
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 2: the Bartok String Quartets, Stravinsky, Wright of Spring, and I

586
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 2: could no longer be the dutiful son. I was being

587
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 2: redirected in life. I went with it.

588
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: Okay, So you decide to go to London. Do you

589
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: know somebody in London? Where are you gonna stay? Do

590
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:47,840
Speaker 1: you have any work opportunities?

591
00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 2: The quick answer to all of those questions is no. However,

592
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 2: in Bournemouth there were the Giles brothers, Michael and Peter

593
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:02,439
Speaker 2: Giles and the They had just left a band called

594
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:07,320
Speaker 2: Trendsetters Limited. They were professionals. Peter was two years older

595
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 2: than me, Michael was four years older than me, and

596
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 2: when you're twenty one, that's very big. I became a

597
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:18,319
Speaker 2: professional musician on May the sixteenth, nineteen sixty seven, my

598
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 2: twenty first birthday, and then became available for work. And

599
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 2: Michael and Peter Giles were advertising for a singing organist.

600
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 2: I was tipped off to this by a local agent

601
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:37,719
Speaker 2: in Bournemouth, so I went an auditioned, and although I

602
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 2: can't sing and don't play organ I spent a month

603
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 2: rehearsing with them. And after a month I said to

604
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:52,360
Speaker 2: Michael Giles, and I thought humorously, I said, have I

605
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 2: passed the audition? Well, I mean the answer to that

606
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 2: is clearly yes, but not if you're asking Michael Giles,

607
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 2: because Michael's key characteristic is that Michael could never commit himself.

608
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 2: So Michael rolled himself a cigarette and looked down and

609
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,439
Speaker 2: put the cigarette in his mouth and writ it and said,

610
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 2: let's not be in too great a hurry to commit

611
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,760
Speaker 2: ourselves to each other. So, although I never learned whether

612
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 2: I passed the audition or not, we moved to London

613
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 2: in September. September, I think we might have moved a

614
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 2: month or two earlier because I had got US a

615
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 2: job working in La Dulta, not an Italian restaurant with

616
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 2: Douglas Ward, a cord of Vox accordion player backing an

617
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 2: Italian singer called Moreno. But we're now shooting off on

618
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 2: entirely tangential situations. But yes, I moved to London with

619
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 2: two people who had more experience than me. We moved

620
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:04,839
Speaker 2: up to essentially unemployment inignoranty for a year or two.

621
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:10,240
Speaker 2: We did have employment. We began, I believe, on the Monday,

622
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 2: and on the Thursday, we discovered that the agent was

623
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 2: ripping off ten pounds a week from our pay packet,

624
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 2: and we went on strike on the Friday in protest,

625
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 2: and we were sacked on the Saturday. And I was

626
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 2: unemployed for the next year or so.

627
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 1: Okay, but one can, because this is something we're not

628
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 1: familiar with in the US, but one can live on

629
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 1: the doll on unemployment and exist for that year.

630
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the quick answer. I lived on what was

631
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 2: called supplementary benefit, which meant on a Friday I would

632
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:56,320
Speaker 2: drive with Peter Giles in his nineteen fifty two Daimler.

633
00:47:57,040 --> 00:47:59,319
Speaker 2: It was a heap, but nevertheless, it would take us

634
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 2: as far as the Supplementary Benefits Office at Downshall Hill

635
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 2: in Hampstead, where we would get opelieve it was five pounds,

636
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 2: which would decounter fairly modest, not to say miserable existence.

637
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:18,840
Speaker 2: So on a Monday I had the choice of whether

638
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:23,400
Speaker 2: to buy an extra can of peas or half an

639
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 2: ounce of Golden Virginia rolling tobacco or old Holbury rolling tobacco,

640
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 2: or go up to Kilburn State Cinema where I could

641
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 2: see a film. So this was my choice on a

642
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 2: Monday evening, can of peas and eat more golden Holburn,

643
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 2: roll some more cigarettes or two or three see a film.

644
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 2: That was my life for about a year.

645
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 1: So then what happened after that year?

646
00:48:53,760 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 2: After that Ian McDonald came together with Charles J and Frip.

647
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 2: One of the giants fell out and another person called

648
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 2: Greg Lake came in. And Ian McDonald had an uncle

649
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:17,360
Speaker 2: called Angus Hunking, who was a retired very successful industrialist

650
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 2: from the North of England, very good man who to

651
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:28,760
Speaker 2: keep his second wife happy, he invested seven thousand pounds

652
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:34,480
Speaker 2: in his wife's nephew in McDonald's band, which enabled us

653
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 2: to stay afloat for a period of time and to

654
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 2: buy equipment, which is what we did, and this was

655
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 2: the beginning of King Crimson.

656
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 1: Okay, during the year that you're on the doll, what

657
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: is your musical situation? Is that when this band is

658
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:54,000
Speaker 1: forming or you playing other bands, what's going on during

659
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:54,439
Speaker 1: that year?

660
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 2: During that year I practiced two for six, eight, ten

661
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 2: twelve hours a day. Why because a sessional, professional musician

662
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 2: doesn't have the time to practice. May I say that

663
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 2: I have been mostly an exception to that, but that's

664
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 2: another story. During the time Charles, Charles and Fritt were

665
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 2: living in Ignominy from the late sixty seven into nineteen

666
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 2: sixty eight, we made demos in our modest accommodations at

667
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:34,920
Speaker 2: ninety three A Brondersbury Road, Kilburn, and we secured a

668
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 2: record deal with d RAM that's a branch of Decca Records.

669
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 2: And the person we spoke to at Decca Records is

670
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:46,799
Speaker 2: a famous character who turned down the Beatles, Dick Rowe.

671
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 2: That was the man we met at d RAM. He's

672
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,320
Speaker 2: also the A and R man that persuaded Leta Rosa

673
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 2: to record how Much is that Doggie in the Window?

674
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 2: Which she hated and was bullied and pushed into doing it,

675
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 2: and only ever sung at once the one take of

676
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:11,120
Speaker 2: how Much is that Doggie in the Window, which was

677
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 2: a massive hit for her that she refused ever to

678
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:19,800
Speaker 2: sing live now in case you think I'm just witchering

679
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 2: on bob Leta Rosa was a cabaret at the Majestic

680
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:31,319
Speaker 2: Hotel and at age nineteen, I accompanied her. Wow, so well,

681
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 2: we recognize life is a circle. We cannot escape our

682
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:39,280
Speaker 2: circle anyway. Coming back, so the one year of Charles

683
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:43,840
Speaker 2: charleson Tripp Poverty Enigma. Andy was essentially getting a record

684
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 2: deal and making a record which in its first year

685
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:51,320
Speaker 2: of relief worldwide attracted I believe four hundred seals.

686
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 1: Okay, a raging success. So how does that evolve into

687
00:51:57,920 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: King Crimson?

688
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 2: That's an interesting one. Probably Charles Jars and Fripp's only

689
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:13,479
Speaker 2: public I'm not sure is that success. But meanwhile Ian

690
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 2: McDonald had joined Charles, Charles and Fripp. I'll cut straight in.

691
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 2: So Charles Jarsonphrip was now a four piece. We through

692
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:28,479
Speaker 2: a professional connection that the Charles brothers had, we did

693
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 2: a thirty minute television show called Color Me Pop on

694
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:36,760
Speaker 2: BBC two television in England, which would broadcast I believe

695
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 2: in November nineteen sixty eight, Charles Jons Fripp kind of

696
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:45,840
Speaker 2: broke up on the same day or night of release.

697
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:49,319
Speaker 2: It was fairly obvious to me that Charles Charson Frip

698
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 2: and Ian McDonald had no chance whatsoever a professional success.

699
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 2: So I put it to the other members of the band. Look,

700
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 2: I don't feel I can continue working with Peter, but

701
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 2: I have a pal in Bournemouth who sings, plays guitar

702
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:18,040
Speaker 2: and plays bass, Greg Lake, and he can replace either

703
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 2: myself or Peter, whatever you feel. And Ian MacDonald and

704
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 2: Michael Giles figured that no, it was probably better moving

705
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 2: forward that I stay in Peter leave, which is what happened.

706
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 2: And Greg Lake moved from Bournemouth to London and had

707
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 2: nowhere to live. And for the first three days of

708
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:45,279
Speaker 2: Greg being in London he slept in bed with me,

709
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:50,400
Speaker 2: my four foot six modest bed in our modest accommodations.

710
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:54,839
Speaker 2: Before we got an apartment or pad as it would

711
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:59,240
Speaker 2: be called back then, be caught a pad together off

712
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:02,839
Speaker 2: off West Point Grove.

713
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:07,399
Speaker 1: How did you know Greg Lake and what was his

714
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 1: status and how much hunger did he have before you

715
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:11,919
Speaker 1: picked him from obscurity?

716
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 2: Well, Greg was at that time probably more successful than

717
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 2: we were. But to go back, Greg was one of

718
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 2: the young players on the Bournemouth pool music scene as

719
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 2: I was. He was a couple of years younger than me.

720
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 2: And I've mentioned the Seller Club earlier. Well, I would

721
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 2: climb over the wall of the Cellar Club and get in,

722
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:44,920
Speaker 2: which I did, and I was at Greg Lake's band.

723
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:52,920
Speaker 2: The name currently escapes me because I'm talking too much,

724
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 2: but I saw them doing. An addition, we were young

725
00:54:56,640 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 2: characters the same age, young teenage boys with g and music.

726
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 2: We became very very close, as young young characters do.

727
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 2: I went to London, I stayed in touch with Greg.

728
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:14,760
Speaker 2: Greg joined the bank called the Gods, who had Ken Hensley,

729
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 2: who went on to Uriah, and we stayed in touch,

730
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:24,160
Speaker 2: good pals, And when Peter was leaving, I was in

731
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 2: touch with Greg and said would you like to come

732
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 2: to London. It was fairly obvious that Greg was a

733
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:35,240
Speaker 2: lifer in music. You know, you recognize each other. We're

734
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 2: not here as a lifestyle, We're here because this is

735
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 2: what we do. And it was fairly obvious to anyone

736
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:46,960
Speaker 2: in Bonemouth at the time that Greg was one of

737
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 2: those characters who would succeed.

738
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:52,120
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you get a manager and a record

739
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 1: deal for King Crimson.

740
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 2: Through the connection with d Ram. They knew Noel Gay.

741
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 2: Noel Gay's background was in publishing, but they also had management.

742
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:14,919
Speaker 2: Since Charles, Charles and Fripp were a new artist on

743
00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:20,239
Speaker 2: the d RAM label, we needed management. So they were

744
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:23,800
Speaker 2: in touch with Noel Gay, who took on Charles, Charles

745
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 2: and Fripp. And two young characters working at Noel Gay

746
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 2: were David Anthoven and John Gayden who were just about

747
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 2: to go independent. So this was EG Management who split

748
00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:46,000
Speaker 2: off from Noel Gay and took King Crimson Charles, Charles

749
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 2: and Fripp, becoming King Crimson with them, which became a

750
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:55,200
Speaker 2: legal issue because Noel Gay. When King Crimson suddenly had

751
00:56:55,239 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 2: this remarkably successful first album, Noel Gay said, but hey,

752
00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:06,360
Speaker 2: Noel Gay manages King Crimson, not EG Management. So a

753
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:10,480
Speaker 2: settlement was made by Wichie. Noel Gay received I think

754
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:13,759
Speaker 2: two percent in the court of Crimson King for a

755
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:17,360
Speaker 2: year or two. So you had Entoven and Gayden, a

756
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:23,440
Speaker 2: new generation management firm managing King Crimson, who were therefore

757
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:25,880
Speaker 2: available for a new record deal.

758
00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:28,160
Speaker 3: I was going to say, and I think if I

759
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:32,600
Speaker 3: remember rightly, they became excited because they saw the TV

760
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:36,960
Speaker 3: show that you mentioned earlier. I believe so, yes, because

761
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 3: they weren't aware really of what Charles Jars and Fripp

762
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:42,640
Speaker 3: were doing, and they saw that TV shows that the

763
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:44,920
Speaker 3: main thing that served was that those who saw it

764
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 3: and then decided they wanted to manage you.

765
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 2: Yes, well. On January the thirteenth, nineteen sixty nine, King Crimson,

766
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:59,680
Speaker 2: who then didn't quite have a name, nevertheless began began

767
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:02,840
Speaker 2: rehearsing in the basement of the Fulham Palace Cafe in

768
00:58:02,920 --> 00:58:07,720
Speaker 2: Fulham Fulham Palace Road. Why because we had taken of

769
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 2: the seven thousand pounds which Angers Hunking had generously lent us.

770
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 2: It wasn't a gift, it was alone that he never

771
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:21,080
Speaker 2: ever believed in his wildest dreams we would repay. But nevertheless,

772
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:23,240
Speaker 2: if it kept his wife happy, then he'd do it.

773
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:27,479
Speaker 2: So armed with our new equipment and money to pay

774
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 2: rent on our rehearsal room, we began rehearsing. And what

775
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 2: we would do is invite people down to see us.

776
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:38,440
Speaker 2: And of the two of the first people to come

777
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 2: down to see us, after I believe ten days rehearsal

778
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:44,760
Speaker 2: ent over in the Gaden, and they thought, yeah, this

779
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 2: is good. And they went away and they came back,

780
00:58:49,040 --> 00:58:52,920
Speaker 2: and the second time they came back, they realized this

781
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 2: isn't a good band, this is something else. And we

782
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 2: established the convention of inviting people down to see us.

783
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 2: For example, the Moody Blues came down to see us

784
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:10,280
Speaker 2: and we played for them, and Tony Clark, their record producer,

785
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:20,240
Speaker 2: and then with various record companies taking an interest, Chris

786
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 2: Blackwell of Island Records sent down Muff Winwood to see us.

787
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:31,280
Speaker 2: And Muff Winwood was the brother of Steve Winwood, who

788
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 2: I believe we probably know well. And Muff Windwood was

789
00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 2: utterly unable to see what was in front of him,

790
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 2: and he remarked, went over and Gaydon, they're like the Tremlers,

791
00:59:47,880 --> 00:59:50,920
Speaker 2: who were an excellent band, but very unlike King Crimson.

792
00:59:51,880 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 2: And he said to us, you have no image. You

793
00:59:57,720 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 2: won't be able to work live unless you have a

794
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:04,680
Speaker 2: hit single. So he went back to Chris Blackwell and

795
01:00:04,760 --> 01:00:11,479
Speaker 2: said what I've just said, and Chris Blackwell, I wasn't

796
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:13,959
Speaker 2: in the room, but I think the response that I've

797
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:18,600
Speaker 2: received is something like you said what And for me,

798
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:23,920
Speaker 2: I have all always taken After that, Muff Windwood is

799
01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 2: a reliable direction to the way to move in life.

800
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 2: So if Muff points that way, I go that way.

801
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:37,880
Speaker 2: He established a standard for me, so anyway other characters

802
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:44,080
Speaker 2: would come down and essentially on the basis of those

803
01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:50,160
Speaker 2: performances in a very small basement of a Fulham Palace cafe,

804
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:57,080
Speaker 2: that established our beginning. From this the connections were made.

805
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 2: We did a week in Changes, a club in Newcastle

806
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 2: had just opened a Bank February of nineteen sixty nine,

807
01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 2: which had been booked on the basis of Charles Charles

808
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:14,640
Speaker 2: and Fripp Calumy Pop Show. But the first King Crimson

809
01:01:14,760 --> 01:01:18,720
Speaker 2: live performance was in April nineteen sixty nine at the

810
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 2: Speakeasy Club, which was something of a defining performance.

811
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:27,720
Speaker 1: But how do you ultimately get a record deal and

812
01:01:27,800 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 1: make that record.

813
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:41,360
Speaker 2: Different record companies made different offers. Mercury Records, I believe,

814
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:44,120
Speaker 2: offered three hundred and fifty thousand pounds at the time,

815
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:51,000
Speaker 2: which was huge Island Records in England because Entopen and

816
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 2: Gayden and the band felt this was the right the

817
01:01:54,760 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 2: right label, young generation label for US and in America

818
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:06,520
Speaker 2: Atlantic Records Arma Ertigan Arma Ertigan flew to London, I

819
01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:11,840
Speaker 2: believe it may have been the second or third Speakeasy performance.

820
01:02:12,600 --> 01:02:16,000
Speaker 2: He flew to England to see the band and make

821
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:22,920
Speaker 2: a personal connection to get us for Atlantic respect mister Ertigan,

822
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:27,160
Speaker 2: which he did. So we had the record, the record

823
01:02:27,160 --> 01:02:33,760
Speaker 2: deal Island Records in England, Atlantic in America, and we

824
01:02:33,880 --> 01:02:42,080
Speaker 2: made the record in seven days and one for final mixing. Ah,

825
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:44,480
Speaker 2: I'd have to check the timeline, but that was probably

826
01:02:44,520 --> 01:02:48,240
Speaker 2: around July August. We had a week in Morgan Studios

827
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:52,200
Speaker 2: which didn't work at all with Tony Clark, the Moody

828
01:02:52,240 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 2: Blues producer. He he didn't see or hear us quite

829
01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:03,520
Speaker 2: So the band make made a choice in principle that

830
01:03:03,600 --> 01:03:07,800
Speaker 2: we would rather make our own mistakes and produce ourselves

831
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 2: than have a successful, well known, established producer who couldn't

832
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:17,200
Speaker 2: quite see what we were. So those tapes were abandoned

833
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 2: and then we moved into Wessex Studios in North London,

834
01:03:21,960 --> 01:03:26,120
Speaker 2: near Islington, where we made in the Court of the

835
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:27,880
Speaker 2: Crimson King very quickly.

836
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:31,240
Speaker 3: Well, very quickly. It's interesting because it actually happened the

837
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:33,920
Speaker 3: other way around. They made the record first, because in

838
01:03:33,960 --> 01:03:37,840
Speaker 3: fact David Entoven funded the record and if I'm right, Roberts, yes,

839
01:03:37,880 --> 01:03:41,120
Speaker 3: he did so that rather than getting the record deal

840
01:03:41,160 --> 01:03:44,120
Speaker 3: and then then paying for the record, the management actually

841
01:03:44,200 --> 01:03:48,280
Speaker 3: paid for the record and then licensed the record to

842
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 3: the various record labels.

843
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 2: Yes, David Entaven took out a mortgage on his news

844
01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:57,959
Speaker 2: property twenty two peters from place I believe, in order

845
01:03:58,040 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 2: to get in order to get funds. So I tell

846
01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:05,640
Speaker 2: you this is this is a long story. But what

847
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:07,640
Speaker 2: I'm going to do, Bob, is leave you talking to

848
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 2: David while I take a quick bathroom break and I'll

849
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:11,600
Speaker 2: be right there.

850
01:04:18,920 --> 01:04:20,440
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this I was going to

851
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 1: ask Kim. I mean, at first with the Tony Clark

852
01:04:23,720 --> 01:04:27,880
Speaker 1: usually when a label makes a record, it's very hard

853
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:30,640
Speaker 1: to convince him to throw that project away. But I

854
01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:34,160
Speaker 1: guess since the managers were selling the record, they didn't

855
01:04:34,200 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 1: really you know, they needed to get it right.

856
01:04:36,800 --> 01:04:41,520
Speaker 3: So yes, the as I said, the record fortunately in fact,

857
01:04:41,640 --> 01:04:44,400
Speaker 3: was funded by the by the management, not by the

858
01:04:44,440 --> 01:04:47,800
Speaker 3: record label. When Tony Clark produced it, they thought they

859
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:49,640
Speaker 3: were going to put it out on the Moody Blues label.

860
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:52,400
Speaker 3: They just started a label, and the Moody Blues were

861
01:04:52,440 --> 01:04:55,840
Speaker 3: thinking of putting out the record as produced by Tony Clark.

862
01:04:56,280 --> 01:05:01,640
Speaker 3: They went into Morgan Studios with Tony Clark, and there

863
01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:03,520
Speaker 3: was at least a week of that they recorded most

864
01:05:03,560 --> 01:05:07,480
Speaker 3: of the same pieces, and then the band decided this

865
01:05:07,680 --> 01:05:11,760
Speaker 3: wasn't going anywhere. We've actually released, fortunately because the management

866
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:14,480
Speaker 3: paid for we have subsequently released those recordings that they

867
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:19,880
Speaker 3: were owned by King Crimson. But I have the diaries

868
01:05:19,920 --> 01:05:23,200
Speaker 3: of David Enthoven and it was a huge shock because

869
01:05:23,240 --> 01:05:28,360
Speaker 3: they were funding this record. I think these were these

870
01:05:28,400 --> 01:05:31,360
Speaker 3: were people with astonishing belief in the band they had

871
01:05:31,600 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 3: because literally, you know, the band came along and said,

872
01:05:33,680 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 3: we want to throw away this recording that we just

873
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:38,760
Speaker 3: made with this very reputable producer because we don't like

874
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:41,360
Speaker 3: it and we'd like to do it again. And David

875
01:05:41,400 --> 01:05:44,240
Speaker 3: had to go and then mortgage his house in order

876
01:05:44,280 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 3: to throw away those recordings and say, okay, we're going

877
01:05:46,920 --> 01:05:49,680
Speaker 3: to do it again and even work well, it's maybe

878
01:05:49,720 --> 01:05:51,240
Speaker 3: worse from his point of view on the band, and

879
01:05:51,240 --> 01:05:53,560
Speaker 3: we're now going to produce ourselves because we don't think

880
01:05:53,600 --> 01:05:58,760
Speaker 3: anybody can produce it properly. Astonishing faith he showed. And

881
01:05:58,880 --> 01:06:02,520
Speaker 3: therefore and they went back into the studio producing themselves,

882
01:06:02,520 --> 01:06:05,600
Speaker 3: and that's the record that everybody now knows.

883
01:06:05,840 --> 01:06:11,120
Speaker 1: So with hindsight, do you believe the Tony Clark record

884
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:12,280
Speaker 1: would have been successful.

885
01:06:13,960 --> 01:06:18,400
Speaker 3: It wouldn't have been King Crimson. So if you listen

886
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:22,360
Speaker 3: to it, it doesn't sound it doesn't really sound like

887
01:06:22,440 --> 01:06:28,600
Speaker 3: King Crimson. It sounds like some strange morephing of King

888
01:06:28,640 --> 01:06:32,400
Speaker 3: Crimson and the Moody Blues. It's much softer around the edges,

889
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:33,280
Speaker 3: much more.

890
01:06:34,880 --> 01:06:34,960
Speaker 2: So.

891
01:06:36,240 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 3: I don't think it might have been successful. It wouldn't

892
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:44,160
Speaker 3: have been the astonishing success that the final record was.

893
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:46,520
Speaker 3: It wouldn't have been iconic. It wouldn't have been iconic and

894
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:50,640
Speaker 3: hugely different in the same way that in the course

895
01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:52,760
Speaker 3: of Crimson King is. It would have been much more

896
01:06:52,800 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 3: of a something that was perfectly pleasant. But I don't

897
01:06:56,680 --> 01:06:58,240
Speaker 3: think it would have changed the world in the same

898
01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:07,080
Speaker 3: way the Robert always records it was that the piece

899
01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:09,919
Speaker 3: I talked to the wind. I think he was made

900
01:07:09,920 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 3: to sit there and play that guitar part about twenty times.

901
01:07:13,360 --> 01:07:16,880
Speaker 3: And oddly enough, I'd done an interview with Robert and

902
01:07:17,040 --> 01:07:18,160
Speaker 3: he had told me this story.

903
01:07:18,160 --> 01:07:18,479
Speaker 1: I didn't.

904
01:07:18,520 --> 01:07:20,200
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I believe it bout we were

905
01:07:20,200 --> 01:07:22,240
Speaker 3: there all night, David. I was going on and on

906
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:24,439
Speaker 3: and on, and he was saying, play it again, play

907
01:07:24,480 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 3: it again. I don't like it, Yes, play it again,

908
01:07:26,560 --> 01:07:28,760
Speaker 3: play it again, and he said. We began to get

909
01:07:28,760 --> 01:07:30,400
Speaker 3: more and more fractious, and we were more and more

910
01:07:30,480 --> 01:07:34,760
Speaker 3: rude back down the talk back to this producer, and

911
01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:40,360
Speaker 3: oddly enough I then found some tapes quite recently, only

912
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:42,240
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago. I found some tapes, and

913
01:07:42,240 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 3: I was listening to these tapes, not knowing what they were,

914
01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:48,440
Speaker 3: and I heard this take of I talked to the

915
01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:52,560
Speaker 3: Wind going on and on, and then I heard Robert

916
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:56,480
Speaker 3: and Ian McDonald getting rather direct with the producer, and

917
01:07:56,520 --> 01:07:59,360
Speaker 3: I realized that I had found this recording that Robert

918
01:07:59,400 --> 01:08:01,400
Speaker 3: had been telling me out for years, and here it was,

919
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:04,000
Speaker 3: and I finally had found it and could listen to it,

920
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:11,240
Speaker 3: and so we released it in for the fiftieth anniversary

921
01:08:11,280 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 3: of in the course of the Crimson King. I don't

922
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:16,040
Speaker 3: know if you know, but recordings that are unreleased fall

923
01:08:16,080 --> 01:08:19,000
Speaker 3: out of copyright if they've not been released within fifty.

924
01:08:18,760 --> 01:08:21,439
Speaker 1: Years in the UK anyway, Yeah.

925
01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:24,479
Speaker 3: Yes, So when we found those recordings, we realized that

926
01:08:25,000 --> 01:08:27,479
Speaker 3: we needed to release them all with the fiftieth years.

927
01:08:27,479 --> 01:08:30,439
Speaker 3: So for the fiftieth anniversary of the album, we put

928
01:08:30,479 --> 01:08:35,759
Speaker 3: out all the sessions, including these rather the endless Morgan

929
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:37,680
Speaker 3: Studios recordings. If I talked to the.

930
01:08:37,640 --> 01:08:42,920
Speaker 1: Wind from the perspective of the consumer, the listener in

931
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:47,599
Speaker 1: the court of the Crimson King was an instant smash.

932
01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:51,880
Speaker 1: Was that your perception or what were your feelings of time?

933
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:55,519
Speaker 2: Oh? Right? Firstly, if I may, I would draw a

934
01:08:55,560 --> 01:09:00,680
Speaker 2: distinction between a listener or audience or auditor and the

935
01:09:00,760 --> 01:09:10,560
Speaker 2: consumer or customer. Going right back. Then, the band immediately

936
01:09:11,280 --> 01:09:16,720
Speaker 2: was hugely successful live, hugely. It became the band of

937
01:09:16,760 --> 01:09:25,000
Speaker 2: the time, and the only band that Ian McDonald considered

938
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:29,599
Speaker 2: Blue King Crimson Off the stage was Free. We worked

939
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:35,040
Speaker 2: with them in Red Car in the middle nineteen sixty nine.

940
01:09:35,160 --> 01:09:38,600
Speaker 2: Free were phenomenal. Coss Off what a player, Rogers, what

941
01:09:38,680 --> 01:09:42,760
Speaker 2: a singer. But essentially when we came on stage it

942
01:09:42,800 --> 01:09:46,599
Speaker 2: was almost impossible to follow us. We were an astonishing band,

943
01:09:47,479 --> 01:09:56,080
Speaker 2: astonishing band, and the album when it was released, it

944
01:09:56,120 --> 01:10:01,400
Speaker 2: was already primed. The word was on the street. The

945
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:05,720
Speaker 2: turning point in terms of numbers and public attention was

946
01:10:05,840 --> 01:10:09,720
Speaker 2: probably the Hyde Park Festival with the Rolling Stones in

947
01:10:09,800 --> 01:10:14,240
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine. They were about six hundred and fifty

948
01:10:14,320 --> 01:10:20,439
Speaker 2: thousand people there. So at the time, if you're not

949
01:10:20,479 --> 01:10:24,720
Speaker 2: going to have success through mainstream media, television and radio,

950
01:10:25,200 --> 01:10:28,200
Speaker 2: how will you reach a huge number of people. Well,

951
01:10:28,240 --> 01:10:32,360
Speaker 2: the answer was live festivals, which are often free festivals,

952
01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:37,080
Speaker 2: and Hyde Park in July nineteen sixty nine was the

953
01:10:37,160 --> 01:10:40,719
Speaker 2: opportunity for the Rolling Stones to come back into live

954
01:10:40,760 --> 01:10:46,320
Speaker 2: performance after a break. And the story of EG getting

955
01:10:46,400 --> 01:10:51,080
Speaker 2: us onto the roster is a story in itself, but

956
01:10:51,800 --> 01:10:58,720
Speaker 2: we were probably the hit of that particular show and

957
01:10:59,479 --> 01:11:03,640
Speaker 2: what was known within the industry and club level grassroots

958
01:11:04,280 --> 01:11:08,200
Speaker 2: suddenly moved out. All the young Americans in Hyde Park

959
01:11:08,800 --> 01:11:14,360
Speaker 2: went back to America with the word, young hippies from

960
01:11:14,400 --> 01:11:18,800
Speaker 2: Europe went back to Europe with the word. And then

961
01:11:19,200 --> 01:11:23,120
Speaker 2: in the end of November nineteen sixty nine in America,

962
01:11:23,200 --> 01:11:27,200
Speaker 2: we played the West Palm Beach Festival three day festival,

963
01:11:27,280 --> 01:11:31,679
Speaker 2: also with the Stones. It broke King Crimson and Grand

964
01:11:31,760 --> 01:11:36,360
Speaker 2: Funk Railroad in America. So at that point that the

965
01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:38,960
Speaker 2: grassroots the word has moved out big time.

966
01:11:39,479 --> 01:11:43,120
Speaker 1: Okay, So coming from England, what was your personal experience

967
01:11:43,160 --> 01:11:48,480
Speaker 1: of being in the US.

968
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:57,479
Speaker 2: One of liberation England was poor. America was wide open.

969
01:11:58,080 --> 01:12:02,040
Speaker 2: I mean America in the fifties and sixties. This was

970
01:12:02,080 --> 01:12:07,000
Speaker 2: the American time. It changed into the seventies and onwards.

971
01:12:07,120 --> 01:12:13,559
Speaker 2: The particular change from America from sixty nine to seventy

972
01:12:13,680 --> 01:12:19,920
Speaker 2: seventy one was probably the huge success of rock music

973
01:12:22,360 --> 01:12:26,439
Speaker 2: and records. The growth industry in America from sixty eight

974
01:12:26,479 --> 01:12:30,320
Speaker 2: to seventy eight was in the record industry, with I

975
01:12:30,360 --> 01:12:34,519
Speaker 2: think four billion dollars generated, which now wouldn't say much,

976
01:12:34,560 --> 01:12:38,320
Speaker 2: but that back then was quite considerable. And when the

977
01:12:38,360 --> 01:12:42,240
Speaker 2: young English bands began touring America essentially about sixty eight

978
01:12:43,360 --> 01:12:47,920
Speaker 2: and into sixty nine, the music industry, certainly in its

979
01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:53,879
Speaker 2: live aspects was not quite professional. For example, King Crimson

980
01:12:53,920 --> 01:12:57,000
Speaker 2: would land in America in October nineteen sixty nine and

981
01:12:57,080 --> 01:13:00,680
Speaker 2: the tool wasn't set up. Why well, you had a

982
01:13:00,720 --> 01:13:04,759
Speaker 2: few club gigs here there, and Frank Barcelona, a key

983
01:13:04,840 --> 01:13:10,719
Speaker 2: figure in establishing English rock music in America, premiere talent

984
01:13:11,439 --> 01:13:15,720
Speaker 2: hid fillin shows along the way, so Hendricks would. But

985
01:13:16,400 --> 01:13:19,439
Speaker 2: nineteen six to eight land in America, play New York

986
01:13:19,479 --> 01:13:24,640
Speaker 2: one night, Los Angeles the next. I'm exaggerating, but in

987
01:13:24,760 --> 01:13:28,760
Speaker 2: principal too, David Bowie, the same King Crimson. We had

988
01:13:28,760 --> 01:13:32,760
Speaker 2: a more measured progression, but it certainly wasn't set up.

989
01:13:33,240 --> 01:13:35,640
Speaker 2: But then when the money began to come in, you

990
01:13:36,200 --> 01:13:39,439
Speaker 2: moved from clubs and you move from the film alls

991
01:13:39,439 --> 01:13:47,479
Speaker 2: into sports stadium. And with the shift in commerce, there

992
01:13:47,600 --> 01:13:53,000
Speaker 2: was a shift in the attitude towards the musician, so

993
01:13:53,720 --> 01:14:01,160
Speaker 2: speaking in general terms, from say sixty nine to seventy seven.

994
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:04,599
Speaker 2: When I moved to New York in February seventy seven.

995
01:14:05,560 --> 01:14:11,360
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty nine, the differential, the separation between audience

996
01:14:12,160 --> 01:14:16,639
Speaker 2: and musician, there wasn't one. For me, it was fluid.

997
01:14:16,680 --> 01:14:19,519
Speaker 2: We were all on the same side. We were all

998
01:14:19,640 --> 01:14:24,519
Speaker 2: there to be part of this changing the world with music.

999
01:14:24,640 --> 01:14:29,400
Speaker 2: That was my perspective. And I don't believe Peter Simfield

1000
01:14:29,439 --> 01:14:32,720
Speaker 2: said to me as a criticism, you were never a hippie,

1001
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:37,840
Speaker 2: So this isn't an old hippie wittering on. This is

1002
01:14:37,920 --> 01:14:44,200
Speaker 2: my experience. But increasingly, and this began to change around

1003
01:14:44,320 --> 01:14:49,600
Speaker 2: seventy four, the young roppers at person on stage is

1004
01:14:49,680 --> 01:14:53,920
Speaker 2: now separated from a member of the audience and from

1005
01:14:53,960 --> 01:14:58,320
Speaker 2: the young music writers who began to develop an attitude

1006
01:14:58,360 --> 01:15:04,640
Speaker 2: which in America was reflect perhaps with Lester Bangs for example,

1007
01:15:05,360 --> 01:15:09,719
Speaker 2: but in England in nineteen seventy six or seventy seven.

1008
01:15:11,400 --> 01:15:16,040
Speaker 2: My sense of being on stage was who the fuck

1009
01:15:16,120 --> 01:15:21,439
Speaker 2: do you think you are? Very English attitude, whereas walking

1010
01:15:21,520 --> 01:15:24,559
Speaker 2: on the street newly arrived in New York in nineteen

1011
01:15:24,600 --> 01:15:28,240
Speaker 2: seventy seven, the young character will come up and say, hey,

1012
01:15:28,360 --> 01:15:31,840
Speaker 2: frip what you're doing? There was one of the couragement

1013
01:15:31,960 --> 01:15:39,160
Speaker 2: and support which I found lacking in England. So increasingly

1014
01:15:40,400 --> 01:15:47,240
Speaker 2: my orientation in terms of a geographical area which has

1015
01:15:47,320 --> 01:15:51,880
Speaker 2: my focus from nineteen seventy three, switched to the US

1016
01:15:52,720 --> 01:16:00,640
Speaker 2: from England, stroke England Europe. Why because it was possible

1017
01:16:00,840 --> 01:16:05,960
Speaker 2: and supported by the audience and the industry, and the

1018
01:16:06,040 --> 01:16:12,760
Speaker 2: industry because money was involved in the audience, because there

1019
01:16:12,840 --> 01:16:18,320
Speaker 2: was something real in the music, that's my perception. And

1020
01:16:18,439 --> 01:16:23,599
Speaker 2: King Crimson at this time didn't quite fit in. We

1021
01:16:23,680 --> 01:16:33,600
Speaker 2: weren't mainstream rock. We we played with Zzy Top in Denver,

1022
01:16:34,240 --> 01:16:40,360
Speaker 2: I believe in nineteen seventy four, and someone pulled the

1023
01:16:40,400 --> 01:16:43,559
Speaker 2: plug on us, pulled the power on us, and twenty

1024
01:16:43,680 --> 01:16:48,640
Speaker 2: minutes into our set we went blank. Someone didn't like

1025
01:16:48,720 --> 01:16:52,439
Speaker 2: what we were doing. Recent press has suggested that I've

1026
01:16:52,479 --> 01:16:56,479
Speaker 2: been blaming Billy Gibbons for this nonsense. Billy Gibbons has

1027
01:16:56,520 --> 01:16:59,880
Speaker 2: my full respect and easy top for a fabulous band,

1028
01:17:00,240 --> 01:17:05,240
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, what became known as progressive rock and progue

1029
01:17:08,360 --> 01:17:10,160
Speaker 2: did have some antipathy.

1030
01:17:12,160 --> 01:17:16,200
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk business for a minute. The record is

1031
01:17:16,400 --> 01:17:22,559
Speaker 1: licensed to Island in Atlantic. Who owns all that stuff today?

1032
01:17:24,200 --> 01:17:24,519
Speaker 3: I do?

1033
01:17:25,560 --> 01:17:26,960
Speaker 1: How did you end up owning it.

1034
01:17:28,600 --> 01:17:32,840
Speaker 2: Twenty one years of litigation and dispute which is ongoing?

1035
01:17:33,760 --> 01:17:35,479
Speaker 1: What is still ongoing.

1036
01:17:36,160 --> 01:17:40,840
Speaker 2: Litigation and dispute over who owns the copyrights and who

1037
01:17:40,880 --> 01:17:45,080
Speaker 2: is therefore entitled to assign them to whomever they dispose?

1038
01:17:46,280 --> 01:17:52,479
Speaker 1: Okay, you've had a fifty plus year career. What do

1039
01:17:52,600 --> 01:17:55,920
Speaker 1: you not own recording wise? Or what is in litigation

1040
01:17:56,200 --> 01:17:57,439
Speaker 1: recordings wise?

1041
01:17:58,640 --> 01:18:01,120
Speaker 2: Let's speak about this in June of this year.

1042
01:18:03,280 --> 01:18:07,920
Speaker 1: Okay, let me change the question. The business is much

1043
01:18:07,960 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 1: more sophisticated with a much more information today, irrelevant of

1044
01:18:13,200 --> 01:18:17,360
Speaker 1: the ownership of the copyrights in the recordings, in the

1045
01:18:17,439 --> 01:18:24,599
Speaker 1: songs you're busy rehearsing performing. I can't believe your eye

1046
01:18:24,720 --> 01:18:27,640
Speaker 1: was on business that much. Do you feel that you

1047
01:18:27,680 --> 01:18:32,520
Speaker 1: were ripped off in these rough and tumble years.

1048
01:18:32,120 --> 01:18:34,040
Speaker 2: Well, the answer has to be yes, and I can

1049
01:18:34,080 --> 01:18:38,960
Speaker 2: give you a detailed analysis virtually month by month, week

1050
01:18:39,040 --> 01:18:41,400
Speaker 2: by week, and day by day. Why because I still

1051
01:18:41,479 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 2: have the correspondence. But if we go back to nineteen

1052
01:18:45,280 --> 01:18:51,360
Speaker 2: sixty nine when we began our relationship with Entoven, Gayden,

1053
01:18:51,840 --> 01:18:55,880
Speaker 2: John and Gaydon as a YouTube interview where he is

1054
01:18:55,920 --> 01:19:00,519
Speaker 2: describing how the young Robert Fripp explained to him upon

1055
01:19:00,600 --> 01:19:04,320
Speaker 2: which the relationship between EG and King Crimson would develop,

1056
01:19:05,720 --> 01:19:15,960
Speaker 2: which was shared interest seventy thirty copyright ownership between King

1057
01:19:16,040 --> 01:19:19,400
Speaker 2: Crimson and EG Management. And this was all fine and

1058
01:19:19,439 --> 01:19:25,599
Speaker 2: went on until I believe it was February the twenty sixth,

1059
01:19:25,720 --> 01:19:33,760
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, when Enthoven and Sam Alder, who went

1060
01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:40,280
Speaker 2: into EG towards about October November nineteen seventy chartered accountant

1061
01:19:41,080 --> 01:19:45,840
Speaker 2: as a backroom boy to take care of the accountancy

1062
01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:58,280
Speaker 2: and the stuff stuff. But Sam Older lied, He came

1063
01:19:58,320 --> 01:20:01,640
Speaker 2: and he lied, and he said that the members of

1064
01:20:01,760 --> 01:20:06,679
Speaker 2: King Crimson had to assign the copyright interest to EG

1065
01:20:08,640 --> 01:20:11,200
Speaker 2: so that we could get our money. Essentially, this was

1066
01:20:11,240 --> 01:20:14,800
Speaker 2: a lie, and it was a lie which had to

1067
01:20:14,800 --> 01:20:21,599
Speaker 2: be challenged in nineteen ninety one when the obfuscation came

1068
01:20:21,640 --> 01:20:27,400
Speaker 2: to a head when EG sold King Crimson copyrights to

1069
01:20:27,479 --> 01:20:33,880
Speaker 2: BMG Music Publishing and Virgin Records. At that point, the

1070
01:20:33,920 --> 01:20:37,880
Speaker 2: beginning of my first major involvement in litigation and dispute

1071
01:20:38,280 --> 01:20:43,040
Speaker 2: for six years and seven months from ninety one to

1072
01:20:43,280 --> 01:20:51,439
Speaker 2: ninety seven began. It's been ongoing to date and has

1073
01:20:51,640 --> 01:20:59,720
Speaker 2: been probably more attracting of my attention than my musical life,

1074
01:21:00,000 --> 01:21:04,400
Speaker 2: and even more of that has fallen on David and

1075
01:21:04,560 --> 01:21:09,360
Speaker 2: decland Colgan of Panegyric Records are distributor. But back in

1076
01:21:09,400 --> 01:21:11,680
Speaker 2: the early days, what I did was set up the

1077
01:21:11,720 --> 01:21:16,160
Speaker 2: structure and left it to management I trusted and should

1078
01:21:16,200 --> 01:21:19,200
Speaker 2: not have done. And that's another story as to why

1079
01:21:19,240 --> 01:21:24,960
Speaker 2: I did and should not have and when finally it

1080
01:21:25,040 --> 01:21:28,760
Speaker 2: went off course for various reasons, I had to give

1081
01:21:28,800 --> 01:21:29,719
Speaker 2: it my full attention.

1082
01:21:30,800 --> 01:21:35,840
Speaker 1: Okay, litigation is very expensive and it takes time and

1083
01:21:35,920 --> 01:21:40,200
Speaker 1: its heartache. Is this about the money or is this

1084
01:21:40,320 --> 01:21:42,400
Speaker 1: about equity? What is right.

1085
01:21:45,080 --> 01:21:52,879
Speaker 2: Both? For example, two members of the original King Crimson

1086
01:21:52,960 --> 01:22:00,080
Speaker 2: have died not being paid the money there owed. There

1087
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:02,439
Speaker 2: are two more members of their first King Crimson, and

1088
01:22:02,560 --> 01:22:06,799
Speaker 2: not in great health. I certainly hope they're paid before

1089
01:22:06,800 --> 01:22:09,120
Speaker 2: eventity they do fly away.

1090
01:22:09,400 --> 01:22:09,479
Speaker 3: Me.

1091
01:22:10,200 --> 01:22:14,120
Speaker 2: I'm in great health. I do dead weights of one

1092
01:22:14,240 --> 01:22:17,320
Speaker 2: hundred kilograms, which from men of seventy seven isn't bad.

1093
01:22:17,840 --> 01:22:20,200
Speaker 2: And I am going to live long enough to make

1094
01:22:20,240 --> 01:22:23,880
Speaker 2: sure these fuck wits in the music industry hand over

1095
01:22:24,040 --> 01:22:24,760
Speaker 2: what we're out.

1096
01:22:25,960 --> 01:22:30,800
Speaker 1: Let's say, hypothetically you're victorious across the board. Let's say

1097
01:22:30,920 --> 01:22:33,920
Speaker 1: you end up owning all of these rights.

1098
01:22:34,160 --> 01:22:37,160
Speaker 2: No, I already own them. Let's say we're being a

1099
01:22:37,240 --> 01:22:38,960
Speaker 2: paid for the David over to ye.

1100
01:22:39,080 --> 01:22:43,080
Speaker 3: Yes, so the ownership is not in dispute. So following

1101
01:22:43,560 --> 01:22:46,320
Speaker 3: the dispute that Robert has talked about in the early nineties,

1102
01:22:47,080 --> 01:22:52,400
Speaker 3: certainly in terms of the recordings, it was finally agreed that,

1103
01:22:52,800 --> 01:22:55,280
Speaker 3: in fact, what was agreed was that the rights that

1104
01:22:55,360 --> 01:22:58,760
Speaker 3: Virgin Records thought they had obtained they would keep for

1105
01:22:58,800 --> 01:23:02,080
Speaker 3: ten years and then they return them to Robert. So

1106
01:23:03,320 --> 01:23:06,480
Speaker 3: in the early two thousands, the rights and the recordings

1107
01:23:07,680 --> 01:23:13,479
Speaker 3: were definitively assigned to Robert. The problem has been that

1108
01:23:13,920 --> 01:23:17,759
Speaker 3: periodically things get licensed in by major labels in various

1109
01:23:17,760 --> 01:23:22,080
Speaker 3: different ways, and you don't get always get it paid

1110
01:23:22,080 --> 01:23:24,640
Speaker 3: according to those contracts. That is ongoing.

1111
01:23:25,600 --> 01:23:29,120
Speaker 1: Okay, So the lawsuit that we read about about placing

1112
01:23:29,160 --> 01:23:33,040
Speaker 1: certain songs on streaming services, those are the lawsuits we're

1113
01:23:33,080 --> 01:23:33,640
Speaker 1: referring to.

1114
01:23:33,720 --> 01:23:36,720
Speaker 3: That's a lidic yes, yes, and that one is that

1115
01:23:36,800 --> 01:23:39,920
Speaker 3: one unfortunately is sub judices. So until May, we're not

1116
01:23:40,120 --> 01:23:41,400
Speaker 3: talking a lot about that one.

1117
01:23:41,520 --> 01:23:45,799
Speaker 1: Yes, okay. So going back, you're Robert, you own this stuff?

1118
01:23:47,000 --> 01:23:50,000
Speaker 1: Would you ever sell it yourself?

1119
01:23:51,280 --> 01:23:51,360
Speaker 3: No?

1120
01:23:53,720 --> 01:23:54,200
Speaker 2: Okay?

1121
01:23:54,760 --> 01:24:00,200
Speaker 1: You have nowhears and some may say, well, Robert not

1122
01:24:00,280 --> 01:24:03,080
Speaker 1: going to live forever if they pay you twenty Actually

1123
01:24:03,160 --> 01:24:05,120
Speaker 1: the money would be here today. What would you say

1124
01:24:05,160 --> 01:24:05,439
Speaker 1: to that?

1125
01:24:06,439 --> 01:24:12,120
Speaker 2: I'd saying, my inheritor in all the copyrights is David Singleton.

1126
01:24:12,600 --> 01:24:17,719
Speaker 2: That's in my will. Why because I trust David to

1127
01:24:17,760 --> 01:24:22,200
Speaker 2: execute his responsibilities towards the catalog as I trust that

1128
01:24:22,280 --> 01:24:22,760
Speaker 2: I have done.

1129
01:24:24,240 --> 01:24:28,960
Speaker 3: And I think our view is that Robert owns those

1130
01:24:29,000 --> 01:24:31,320
Speaker 3: copyright He does in fact own them personally, but I

1131
01:24:31,320 --> 01:24:34,400
Speaker 3: think Robert owns those copyrights on behalf of all the musicians.

1132
01:24:34,880 --> 01:24:44,320
Speaker 2: That is correct, Yes, okay.

1133
01:24:44,800 --> 01:24:49,480
Speaker 1: In the film about King Crimson, one of the players

1134
01:24:49,520 --> 01:24:53,639
Speaker 1: mentions that you wash your hands twenty times a day.

1135
01:24:54,640 --> 01:24:55,720
Speaker 1: What would you say to that?

1136
01:24:58,400 --> 01:25:01,760
Speaker 2: I was surprised when I heard that. Going back to

1137
01:25:01,760 --> 01:25:04,960
Speaker 2: when I was working with Jamie Mirror in nineteen seventy

1138
01:25:05,000 --> 01:25:09,000
Speaker 2: two into early seventy three. I don't believe I had

1139
01:25:09,000 --> 01:25:13,320
Speaker 2: a hand washing fetish. However, what I've always been very

1140
01:25:13,360 --> 01:25:16,559
Speaker 2: careful to do when I put a guitar on and

1141
01:25:16,600 --> 01:25:23,080
Speaker 2: I play guitar, I must have clean hands. I don't want.

1142
01:25:24,080 --> 01:25:27,760
Speaker 2: I don't want stickiness from picking up cakes, for example,

1143
01:25:28,600 --> 01:25:33,200
Speaker 2: or buttered toast to be transferred to the strings. So

1144
01:25:34,080 --> 01:25:37,479
Speaker 2: at that particular time, would I wash my hands before

1145
01:25:37,479 --> 01:25:41,559
Speaker 2: playing guitar. Yes, I didn't recognize that I have a

1146
01:25:41,600 --> 01:25:46,760
Speaker 2: hand washing fetish, which I certainly don't today. But nevertheless,

1147
01:25:46,880 --> 01:25:50,519
Speaker 2: Jamie Muhror is a person I respect and I trust

1148
01:25:50,560 --> 01:25:54,200
Speaker 2: his opinion, and if Jamie felt that I was an

1149
01:25:54,200 --> 01:25:57,599
Speaker 2: annual fetishist of some kind, then I would certainly give

1150
01:25:57,800 --> 01:26:01,759
Speaker 2: some credence to his opinion. Actually, if I am convinced

1151
01:26:01,800 --> 01:26:04,439
Speaker 2: there's no date most people in the world are, is

1152
01:26:04,479 --> 01:26:07,519
Speaker 2: that FIP is very very fucked up in the creepy person.

1153
01:26:08,640 --> 01:26:11,880
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say I say, Robert, we'll go into the

1154
01:26:11,920 --> 01:26:15,120
Speaker 1: airport and we go, we get in the car, we've

1155
01:26:15,200 --> 01:26:17,880
Speaker 1: left your house. Are you going to say, fuck, I

1156
01:26:17,960 --> 01:26:20,800
Speaker 1: forgot to lock the front door or I left the

1157
01:26:20,920 --> 01:26:24,160
Speaker 1: stove on. Is that part of your personality or those

1158
01:26:24,160 --> 01:26:25,200
Speaker 1: wouldn't even occur to you.

1159
01:26:26,439 --> 01:26:29,720
Speaker 2: They might occur to me, but I am not obsessive compulsive.

1160
01:26:30,280 --> 01:26:32,960
Speaker 2: That's my view. We'd have to ask my wife, and

1161
01:26:33,120 --> 01:26:34,519
Speaker 2: my wife wife say, yes.

1162
01:26:34,360 --> 01:26:34,720
Speaker 1: He is.

1163
01:26:34,760 --> 01:26:39,760
Speaker 2: He's really he's very strange person. Well, actually he does

1164
01:26:39,800 --> 01:26:43,200
Speaker 2: say that. What I would do if I felt is

1165
01:26:43,240 --> 01:26:46,559
Speaker 2: there a likely chance that I've left my front door unlocked?

1166
01:26:47,160 --> 01:26:50,840
Speaker 2: I would check the keys in my purse. I would

1167
01:26:50,880 --> 01:26:54,439
Speaker 2: then if I couldn't find them, I would found my

1168
01:26:54,560 --> 01:26:58,559
Speaker 2: wife and say, ah, have is the front door lock?

1169
01:26:58,800 --> 01:27:02,559
Speaker 2: Or I would say our personal secretary to say if

1170
01:27:02,600 --> 01:27:06,200
Speaker 2: she would check the front door, I called Mark Axel

1171
01:27:06,320 --> 01:27:10,880
Speaker 2: Powell are superb building person and ask him to check it.

1172
01:27:10,960 --> 01:27:14,439
Speaker 2: What I would not do is throw a moody fit

1173
01:27:14,680 --> 01:27:16,960
Speaker 2: and in sayst we drive back thirty miles to the

1174
01:27:16,960 --> 01:27:17,439
Speaker 2: front door.

1175
01:27:18,479 --> 01:27:24,760
Speaker 1: Okay. OCD can be very debilitating emotionally. One can be

1176
01:27:24,880 --> 01:27:31,360
Speaker 1: tortured by these thoughts and repetitions. So would your wife

1177
01:27:31,439 --> 01:27:35,080
Speaker 1: say that your need to rehearse every day and to

1178
01:27:35,160 --> 01:27:39,320
Speaker 1: get certain things right or excessive or she would say, no,

1179
01:27:39,439 --> 01:27:40,440
Speaker 1: that's not excessive.

1180
01:27:42,200 --> 01:27:46,360
Speaker 2: Well, my wife is an actress, musician, and performer and

1181
01:27:46,560 --> 01:27:52,280
Speaker 2: understands partecular on the stage. Play, for example, the amount

1182
01:27:52,320 --> 01:27:57,040
Speaker 2: of rehearsing you have to do. So my wife might

1183
01:27:57,120 --> 01:28:03,280
Speaker 2: say here, very strange, but I don't think she would

1184
01:28:03,400 --> 01:28:08,640
Speaker 2: query my need to know. I'm walking on stage with

1185
01:28:08,800 --> 01:28:14,800
Speaker 2: musicians who were rehearsed and practiced to play, except the

1186
01:28:14,800 --> 01:28:17,439
Speaker 2: play Olympics standard challenges for a musician.

1187
01:28:18,479 --> 01:28:19,360
Speaker 3: I'm going to say she might.

1188
01:28:19,760 --> 01:28:20,160
Speaker 2: She might.

1189
01:28:20,280 --> 01:28:22,759
Speaker 3: She might ask you to practice Fracture where she doesn't

1190
01:28:22,760 --> 01:28:23,639
Speaker 3: have to listen to it.

1191
01:28:24,400 --> 01:28:30,040
Speaker 2: Oh yes, Now, when King Crimson were reforming in twenty

1192
01:28:30,120 --> 01:28:34,439
Speaker 2: thirteen for twenty fourteen the Final Incarnation, ID go into

1193
01:28:34,479 --> 01:28:37,920
Speaker 2: the cellar of our home and I would practice and

1194
01:28:38,080 --> 01:28:41,200
Speaker 2: practice and practice to play this piece called Fracture, which

1195
01:28:41,240 --> 01:28:46,000
Speaker 2: is unplayable. It's technically of such a standard is taken

1196
01:28:47,080 --> 01:28:52,320
Speaker 2: fifty years really for other guitarists to approach. It's horrible.

1197
01:28:53,760 --> 01:28:57,040
Speaker 2: And my wife had enough of this, and I used

1198
01:28:57,080 --> 01:29:00,240
Speaker 2: to have to go down to the cellar and lock

1199
01:29:00,320 --> 01:29:02,840
Speaker 2: the door of the cellar because it's a very old door,

1200
01:29:02,880 --> 01:29:06,719
Speaker 2: and would fly open and turn my guitar amp little,

1201
01:29:07,360 --> 01:29:10,679
Speaker 2: very small practice, turn it down so she could no

1202
01:29:10,760 --> 01:29:15,599
Speaker 2: longer hear this motor perpetro going on for two hours.

1203
01:29:15,600 --> 01:29:16,960
Speaker 2: As I we'd come up to speed.

1204
01:29:17,960 --> 01:29:21,720
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, tell us a little bit more specifically

1205
01:29:22,479 --> 01:29:27,040
Speaker 1: what the practice entails at.

1206
01:29:26,960 --> 01:29:34,479
Speaker 2: Different parts in our musical life. The emphasis changes. If

1207
01:29:34,520 --> 01:29:37,320
Speaker 2: I can quote Charlie Parker, and frankly, I think all

1208
01:29:37,360 --> 01:29:41,799
Speaker 2: of us should accept Parker's advice. You learn your instrument,

1209
01:29:41,920 --> 01:29:46,360
Speaker 2: you learn the music, and then you forget all this

1210
01:29:46,760 --> 01:29:50,080
Speaker 2: Parker said, chit and then you just play. So at

1211
01:29:50,120 --> 01:29:53,920
Speaker 2: different parts of our musical life, to begin with, we're

1212
01:29:53,960 --> 01:29:58,519
Speaker 2: practicing the instrument, how to play the instrument, how on

1213
01:29:58,600 --> 01:30:01,519
Speaker 2: the guitar, the left and the ro hand work together,

1214
01:30:03,120 --> 01:30:14,160
Speaker 2: fingerboard knowledge, musical knowledge, then harmony, rhythm, how the hands

1215
01:30:14,240 --> 01:30:18,479
Speaker 2: come together with fingerboard and musical knowledge, and then learning

1216
01:30:18,600 --> 01:30:25,560
Speaker 2: the repertoire that we're engaging with. In terms of practicing improvisation,

1217
01:30:26,360 --> 01:30:29,960
Speaker 2: throw it away, sit down, without thought, play, have fun,

1218
01:30:30,320 --> 01:30:34,360
Speaker 2: and a very good professional musician often needs to be reminded.

1219
01:30:34,920 --> 01:30:39,679
Speaker 2: Have fun, abandoned concern for right, wrong or anything else.

1220
01:30:40,160 --> 01:30:46,960
Speaker 2: Let's remember the bird, play, just play. So in the

1221
01:30:49,080 --> 01:30:55,680
Speaker 2: in the incarnation period twenty fourteen twenty one, my primary

1222
01:30:56,920 --> 01:31:04,120
Speaker 2: address for practicing is the Calisenic side of it. We'll

1223
01:31:04,160 --> 01:31:09,160
Speaker 2: assume that I've learned the rudiments of music assume that

1224
01:31:09,320 --> 01:31:12,920
Speaker 2: I know that I'm learned the repertoire, which is King

1225
01:31:12,960 --> 01:31:17,320
Speaker 2: crimson repertoire. The challenge is, as a man in his

1226
01:31:17,520 --> 01:31:22,679
Speaker 2: late sixties and early seventies, is he able to perform

1227
01:31:22,960 --> 01:31:27,280
Speaker 2: at an athletic level at the degree of a man

1228
01:31:27,320 --> 01:31:32,200
Speaker 2: of twenty five? And the answer is no. So my

1229
01:31:32,400 --> 01:31:38,280
Speaker 2: primary practicing area for the final incarnation of King Crimson

1230
01:31:39,200 --> 01:31:48,519
Speaker 2: was how to be calisenically reliable. If you take the

1231
01:31:48,600 --> 01:31:54,080
Speaker 2: analogy of an athlete, an Olympic quality athlete, these are

1232
01:31:54,120 --> 01:32:01,200
Speaker 2: the challenges. Can you expect an Olympic athlete age seventy

1233
01:32:02,560 --> 01:32:04,680
Speaker 2: to do what they were doing at twenty three or

1234
01:32:04,680 --> 01:32:09,680
Speaker 2: twenty five? And if the answer is reliably no, what

1235
01:32:09,920 --> 01:32:14,040
Speaker 2: does that athlete at that age have to do in

1236
01:32:14,160 --> 01:32:17,759
Speaker 2: order to meet the challenge? And that was my question

1237
01:32:18,600 --> 01:32:22,840
Speaker 2: and my response was constant calisenic practicing.

1238
01:32:24,520 --> 01:32:28,360
Speaker 1: Okay, you don't have the athleticism of a younger man,

1239
01:32:28,800 --> 01:32:32,360
Speaker 1: but do you believe the end quality of what you're

1240
01:32:32,520 --> 01:32:36,920
Speaker 1: producing is improved with age for some reason because of

1241
01:32:37,000 --> 01:32:39,320
Speaker 1: wisdom and the other stylistic elements.

1242
01:32:40,600 --> 01:32:44,559
Speaker 2: I wouldn't claim wisdom, but I am happy to say

1243
01:32:44,600 --> 01:32:52,360
Speaker 2: I have a lot more experience and does that support

1244
01:32:52,400 --> 01:32:54,840
Speaker 2: me when I walk on stage, And I would say yes,

1245
01:32:54,880 --> 01:32:59,600
Speaker 2: and why because when I walk on stage, I know,

1246
01:33:00,560 --> 01:33:07,480
Speaker 2: without any doubt whatsoever, music is there and it is available.

1247
01:33:08,600 --> 01:33:12,360
Speaker 2: It never ever goes away. Do I know that for

1248
01:33:12,360 --> 01:33:15,799
Speaker 2: a fact? Yes? Do I know that for certainty? Yes?

1249
01:33:16,400 --> 01:33:20,000
Speaker 2: How because I've paid my joes as a professional musician

1250
01:33:20,840 --> 01:33:26,600
Speaker 2: now for fifty seven years. What I also know is

1251
01:33:27,160 --> 01:33:30,400
Speaker 2: music doesn't go away. Music is always present. But I

1252
01:33:30,439 --> 01:33:34,000
Speaker 2: am not. So my focus is not on the music,

1253
01:33:34,040 --> 01:33:39,759
Speaker 2: which I trust. My focus on whether I can be present.

1254
01:33:39,960 --> 01:33:43,920
Speaker 2: That is, can I rely upon myself to walk on

1255
01:33:44,080 --> 01:33:49,400
Speaker 2: stage and whatever horseshit is thrown at me? Can I

1256
01:33:49,560 --> 01:33:53,639
Speaker 2: hold myself in the place for at least the duration

1257
01:33:53,800 --> 01:33:58,000
Speaker 2: of the performance. And the answer to that is mostly yes.

1258
01:33:58,880 --> 01:34:05,240
Speaker 2: But they are except situations that defeat me even today.

1259
01:34:06,880 --> 01:34:12,080
Speaker 1: Okay, what is your opinion of live versus recordings? Recordings

1260
01:34:12,080 --> 01:34:15,760
Speaker 1: are permanent in performances or evanescent.

1261
01:34:17,000 --> 01:34:25,040
Speaker 2: For me, music is in life. It's like gardening. If

1262
01:34:25,080 --> 01:34:28,839
Speaker 2: you're not there when the rose blossoms, it's gone.

1263
01:34:29,280 --> 01:34:29,519
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1264
01:34:29,560 --> 01:34:31,200
Speaker 2: I can take a photo of it and put it

1265
01:34:31,200 --> 01:34:33,040
Speaker 2: out on my computer. I think, Oh, wasn't that a

1266
01:34:33,120 --> 01:34:37,040
Speaker 2: nice rose? But it's not there and the scent when

1267
01:34:37,080 --> 01:34:40,760
Speaker 2: you're there in the moment and it's real, but it

1268
01:34:40,800 --> 01:34:45,840
Speaker 2: won't stay. What might stay is the quality of my

1269
01:34:46,040 --> 01:34:51,680
Speaker 2: experiencing in such a way that I may return to

1270
01:34:51,840 --> 01:34:56,400
Speaker 2: that moment in my experience and access it again. And

1271
01:34:56,439 --> 01:35:00,639
Speaker 2: that only is possible if I am present. I'm present

1272
01:35:00,920 --> 01:35:06,280
Speaker 2: here now, inside my body, my experiencing, my feelings and

1273
01:35:06,400 --> 01:35:11,000
Speaker 2: with the rose. So for me, live performance is a

1274
01:35:11,040 --> 01:35:15,880
Speaker 2: hot date and a record is a love letter. Now,

1275
01:35:16,000 --> 01:35:18,559
Speaker 2: I love getting letters from my wife, but I would

1276
01:35:18,640 --> 01:35:20,360
Speaker 2: rather take her in a tight embrace.

1277
01:35:22,080 --> 01:35:26,120
Speaker 1: So recordings, in even recordings of live performances, are what

1278
01:35:26,200 --> 01:35:30,200
Speaker 1: you leave behind. To what degree are you concerned with legacy?

1279
01:35:32,680 --> 01:35:36,080
Speaker 2: Well, if I said, off the top of my head,

1280
01:35:36,080 --> 01:35:39,280
Speaker 2: I don't give a flying fuck, I would then have

1281
01:35:39,400 --> 01:35:44,640
Speaker 2: to say, then, why is it that DGM from approximately

1282
01:35:44,760 --> 01:35:49,320
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five to twenty fifteen made the focal point

1283
01:35:49,400 --> 01:35:59,240
Speaker 2: of its existence in securing the archive? And why then

1284
01:35:59,400 --> 01:36:03,519
Speaker 2: will we release as close definitive editions of all King

1285
01:36:03,560 --> 01:36:08,479
Speaker 2: Crimson's life recorded music as we possibly can. Well, I'd

1286
01:36:08,479 --> 01:36:14,200
Speaker 2: have to say that I keep my wife's love letters.

1287
01:36:16,040 --> 01:36:18,679
Speaker 2: I would still rather have a hot date with her,

1288
01:36:19,240 --> 01:36:23,040
Speaker 2: But I still keep the love letters. So we still

1289
01:36:23,080 --> 01:36:25,800
Speaker 2: have love letters from King Crimson to any members of

1290
01:36:25,840 --> 01:36:31,200
Speaker 2: the audience, for those who didn't manage to get on

1291
01:36:31,240 --> 01:36:34,160
Speaker 2: a hot day and for those that did.

1292
01:36:34,880 --> 01:36:37,320
Speaker 1: Let's say you're performing live and we started with this.

1293
01:36:38,280 --> 01:36:42,479
Speaker 1: I have sat with acts very depressed after a show,

1294
01:36:42,720 --> 01:36:46,519
Speaker 1: feeling they gave a bad performance when the audience has

1295
01:36:47,439 --> 01:36:51,880
Speaker 1: loved it with raaging response. What is the goal of

1296
01:36:52,040 --> 01:36:55,400
Speaker 1: the gig? Is it about the communication with the audience

1297
01:36:55,439 --> 01:36:58,040
Speaker 1: and the response in the audience or is the audience

1298
01:36:58,040 --> 01:37:02,360
Speaker 1: separate and is it about getting the music performed perfectly.

1299
01:37:04,720 --> 01:37:09,880
Speaker 2: I'll respond to that tangentially. Bob the musician can only

1300
01:37:10,080 --> 01:37:13,320
Speaker 2: ever say I felt that was a good show. I

1301
01:37:13,400 --> 01:37:16,360
Speaker 2: felt that was a bad show. It's entirely subjective. It

1302
01:37:16,400 --> 01:37:23,320
Speaker 2: has no relevance. Listening to King Crimson's live recordings, there

1303
01:37:23,360 --> 01:37:30,320
Speaker 2: are performances which sound terrible but which I recall in

1304
01:37:30,479 --> 01:37:36,240
Speaker 2: the moment were astonishing for the band members the audience.

1305
01:37:36,360 --> 01:37:41,160
Speaker 2: This was an event, but the quality of that event

1306
01:37:41,880 --> 01:37:47,160
Speaker 2: did not allow itself to be contained or captured by

1307
01:37:47,160 --> 01:37:52,240
Speaker 2: the recording of it. I have also heard live recordings

1308
01:37:52,280 --> 01:37:56,760
Speaker 2: that are stunning that from a position on stage, I

1309
01:37:56,840 --> 01:38:01,599
Speaker 2: thought this.

1310
01:37:59,400 --> 01:37:59,880
Speaker 1: This was.

1311
01:38:01,560 --> 01:38:06,920
Speaker 2: So in the live performance, what are the factors that

1312
01:38:07,040 --> 01:38:12,440
Speaker 2: make the event? Primarily three factors, the music, the musician,

1313
01:38:12,800 --> 01:38:17,559
Speaker 2: and the audience. If the three come together, something can happen.

1314
01:38:18,400 --> 01:38:23,920
Speaker 2: There is a fourth term which nevertheless has to be included,

1315
01:38:23,960 --> 01:38:27,719
Speaker 2: and that is the music industry, because if the music

1316
01:38:27,840 --> 01:38:33,320
Speaker 2: industry will not accept what you're doing, it's an extreme.

1317
01:38:33,400 --> 01:38:39,439
Speaker 2: It will bury you, as I believe English punk music

1318
01:38:39,560 --> 01:38:42,479
Speaker 2: was essentially buried in the American music industry in the

1319
01:38:42,520 --> 01:38:47,759
Speaker 2: late seventies. But in the live event itself, you have music,

1320
01:38:48,240 --> 01:38:52,559
Speaker 2: musicians and the audience. If the music is a live

1321
01:38:52,760 --> 01:38:57,600
Speaker 2: and vibrant the audience might miss it and the musicians

1322
01:38:57,680 --> 01:39:02,320
Speaker 2: might miss it, but perhap perhaps it manages to squeeze

1323
01:39:02,400 --> 01:39:07,320
Speaker 2: its way onto tape and going back there you have it.

1324
01:39:07,479 --> 01:39:12,600
Speaker 2: I will now have an example of David Singleton completely

1325
01:39:12,800 --> 01:39:18,240
Speaker 2: failing to understand a musical event that was going on. David,

1326
01:39:18,640 --> 01:39:23,640
Speaker 2: which broad short Church, Oh yeah, live live soundscapes? Was

1327
01:39:23,680 --> 01:39:29,400
Speaker 2: it two thousand and eight lunchtime performance in this church

1328
01:39:29,520 --> 01:39:35,080
Speaker 2: of soundscapes? And when I listened back to the music,

1329
01:39:36,640 --> 01:39:39,920
Speaker 2: there was some remarkable stuff going on. And yet at

1330
01:39:39,960 --> 01:39:43,040
Speaker 2: the time David was having a terrible time and thought

1331
01:39:43,040 --> 01:39:44,599
Speaker 2: it sucked. Is this true, David?

1332
01:39:44,840 --> 01:39:48,080
Speaker 3: It is true, and it's exactly the reverse of what

1333
01:39:48,200 --> 01:39:54,000
Speaker 3: you originally described. When I'm always surprised when going through

1334
01:39:54,040 --> 01:39:57,080
Speaker 3: the tapes listening and I say, this is what this

1335
01:39:57,160 --> 01:39:59,639
Speaker 3: is the show, this is a wonderful show, And many

1336
01:39:59,640 --> 01:40:03,400
Speaker 3: of the B members will say you must be completely wrong.

1337
01:40:03,439 --> 01:40:06,680
Speaker 3: That was a horrible gig. And exactly Robert's quite right

1338
01:40:06,800 --> 01:40:09,000
Speaker 3: that there I was in Broadchalk. It's a home gig

1339
01:40:09,040 --> 01:40:12,120
Speaker 3: for me. So this was in my local church, and

1340
01:40:12,200 --> 01:40:17,439
Speaker 3: I was surrounded there for by numerous other pressures, and

1341
01:40:17,479 --> 01:40:21,360
Speaker 3: so I wasn't present. And if you'd ask me afterwards,

1342
01:40:21,400 --> 01:40:23,559
Speaker 3: I remember thinking, oh god, that was a horrible event.

1343
01:40:24,479 --> 01:40:28,519
Speaker 3: And you listen back and the music was fabulous, all right.

1344
01:40:28,600 --> 01:40:32,800
Speaker 2: I have another example here too, which was at Church

1345
01:40:32,880 --> 01:40:35,880
Speaker 2: Escapes live in Estonia, which I believe in two thousand

1346
01:40:35,920 --> 01:40:40,280
Speaker 2: and six live performances there where I would walk on

1347
01:40:40,400 --> 01:40:44,880
Speaker 2: stage with no idea what to play, and even while

1348
01:40:45,000 --> 01:40:48,559
Speaker 2: playing it, having no idea what to play, and then

1349
01:40:48,720 --> 01:40:52,840
Speaker 2: forty minutes lating later, having no idea what to play,

1350
01:40:54,240 --> 01:41:02,040
Speaker 2: but holding myself in place, force myself to remain in place,

1351
01:41:02,320 --> 01:41:08,599
Speaker 2: and engaged with no joy whatsoever. But trusting the event,

1352
01:41:09,280 --> 01:41:13,719
Speaker 2: trusting the music, trusting the audience and continuing to play.

1353
01:41:14,960 --> 01:41:18,559
Speaker 2: And from the church scapes in Estonia, I'm thinking of

1354
01:41:18,680 --> 01:41:25,840
Speaker 2: even Song, particularly the performance. The performances had something of

1355
01:41:25,880 --> 01:41:31,320
Speaker 2: which at the time I was oblivious, but long experience

1356
01:41:31,640 --> 01:41:38,480
Speaker 2: and the developed practice and discipline the solo guitarist improvising

1357
01:41:38,479 --> 01:41:41,320
Speaker 2: away was able to keep himself plugged in and sitting

1358
01:41:41,360 --> 01:41:41,920
Speaker 2: on a guitar.

1359
01:41:41,960 --> 01:41:48,360
Speaker 1: Still, Okay, you did during lockdown. You're continuing this YouTube

1360
01:41:48,400 --> 01:41:52,639
Speaker 1: series with your wife, and I was looking at them,

1361
01:41:52,920 --> 01:41:57,439
Speaker 1: and you did a cover of Golden Earrings Radar Love.

1362
01:41:58,320 --> 01:42:01,599
Speaker 1: I always liked that song. If you'd ask me before

1363
01:42:01,640 --> 01:42:03,880
Speaker 1: I saw it, what I would say, What are the

1364
01:42:03,920 --> 01:42:08,599
Speaker 1: odds that Robert Trupp even knows that record? Okay? Now

1365
01:42:08,640 --> 01:42:12,800
Speaker 1: you mentioned not only English punk and how that attitude

1366
01:42:12,840 --> 01:42:17,200
Speaker 1: poop uh look down on the old players, say show

1367
01:42:17,280 --> 01:42:19,639
Speaker 1: me something, but you all say it was killed by

1368
01:42:19,680 --> 01:42:24,320
Speaker 1: the US record business. To what degree and you mentioned

1369
01:42:24,400 --> 01:42:28,000
Speaker 1: sting earlier? To what degree are you a student of

1370
01:42:28,040 --> 01:42:30,760
Speaker 1: the game? To what degree do you marinate in this?

1371
01:42:30,960 --> 01:42:33,280
Speaker 1: To what degree do you know this? Do you only

1372
01:42:33,360 --> 01:42:36,679
Speaker 1: do it for business purposes? Do you like this music?

1373
01:42:37,040 --> 01:42:40,280
Speaker 2: Tell me about this all right, well you don't now

1374
01:42:40,280 --> 01:42:45,639
Speaker 2: he saw on King Crimson's final performance in Central Park

1375
01:42:45,680 --> 01:42:48,840
Speaker 2: and New York. Was it July the first? Nineteen seventy four,

1376
01:42:48,920 --> 01:42:54,840
Speaker 2: David Yep. King Crimson's support act was Callden Ahring. No,

1377
01:42:54,960 --> 01:42:58,000
Speaker 2: I don't know that at there you are, and the

1378
01:42:58,080 --> 01:43:02,880
Speaker 2: drama would reliably leap out his kit at the big finale. Now,

1379
01:43:04,200 --> 01:43:09,920
Speaker 2: going back to Frank Barcelona of Premier Talent, what Frank

1380
01:43:10,040 --> 01:43:15,600
Speaker 2: would do. Frank Barcelona would do is put together astonishing

1381
01:43:15,800 --> 01:43:20,760
Speaker 2: combinations of acts that no one would believe would fit

1382
01:43:20,840 --> 01:43:27,920
Speaker 2: together on the same stage. So King Crimson Film nor

1383
01:43:27,920 --> 01:43:34,479
Speaker 2: Reast nineteen sixty nine, was it October November? Top of

1384
01:43:34,520 --> 01:43:37,400
Speaker 2: their bill. Joe Corker and the Grease Band second on

1385
01:43:37,520 --> 01:43:40,800
Speaker 2: the bill, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac third on the bill,

1386
01:43:41,200 --> 01:43:44,400
Speaker 2: King Crimson fourth on the bill, Voices of East Tarlan.

1387
01:43:45,120 --> 01:43:49,439
Speaker 2: They're moving into seventy one and seventy two and seventy

1388
01:43:49,520 --> 01:43:52,519
Speaker 2: three and seventy four other acts on the bill Black

1389
01:43:52,600 --> 01:43:58,960
Speaker 2: Oak Arkansas. Now you can kind of understand just King Crimson,

1390
01:43:59,080 --> 01:44:03,599
Speaker 2: Black Sabbath Joint Heading or King Crimson and Slade because

1391
01:44:03,640 --> 01:44:10,680
Speaker 2: they're both English bands, lackocarkinsall. I love them, Jim Dandy,

1392
01:44:11,479 --> 01:44:15,280
Speaker 2: what a great band, But not in the media. You

1393
01:44:15,400 --> 01:44:19,759
Speaker 2: think these two characters would be honest. Well, Golden Earing,

1394
01:44:19,800 --> 01:44:22,000
Speaker 2: where did that come from? I have no idea, but

1395
01:44:22,040 --> 01:44:25,400
Speaker 2: they were a great band in the field. Now, Golden

1396
01:44:25,560 --> 01:44:30,040
Speaker 2: Earrings manager was a man called Freddie Hine who went

1397
01:44:30,120 --> 01:44:34,839
Speaker 2: to take over Polydor Records in New York about nineteen

1398
01:44:34,960 --> 01:44:42,120
Speaker 2: seventy seven, at the time the EG Music left their

1399
01:44:42,200 --> 01:44:48,160
Speaker 2: licensees and moved to Polydor. So once again you have

1400
01:44:48,280 --> 01:44:51,160
Speaker 2: this remarkable circle of people you can't take out of

1401
01:44:51,200 --> 01:44:54,600
Speaker 2: your circle. So the manager of Golden ear Ring that

1402
01:44:54,720 --> 01:44:58,160
Speaker 2: was supporting King Crimson on our last performance in nineteen

1403
01:44:58,200 --> 01:45:03,120
Speaker 2: seventy four with Radar Love and so on, Toy and

1404
01:45:03,200 --> 01:45:08,320
Speaker 2: Robert cover Radar Love. Years later. There are a number

1405
01:45:08,360 --> 01:45:14,000
Speaker 2: of King Crimson fans who have publicly expressed some dissatisfaction

1406
01:45:14,960 --> 01:45:20,479
Speaker 2: with me performing with Toyer, and my comment to Mojo

1407
01:45:20,960 --> 01:45:26,479
Speaker 2: or Q magazine in twenty twenty two was I don't

1408
01:45:26,600 --> 01:45:29,439
Speaker 2: give a fuck. I am seventy six and this is

1409
01:45:29,520 --> 01:45:34,120
Speaker 2: my life now with my wife. My wife when Lockdown

1410
01:45:34,200 --> 01:45:42,200
Speaker 2: began was very insistent. Lockdown in Iowa Town in England

1411
01:45:42,320 --> 01:45:48,120
Speaker 2: at the time was terrifying, Bob, the fear was palpable.

1412
01:45:50,600 --> 01:45:52,920
Speaker 2: The only time we'd really come out on the street

1413
01:45:53,000 --> 01:45:57,040
Speaker 2: would be on a Thursday evening at six o'clock, when

1414
01:45:57,840 --> 01:46:00,720
Speaker 2: people would come out of their houses and on the

1415
01:46:00,720 --> 01:46:05,760
Speaker 2: step of the front door and clap and applaud to

1416
01:46:05,840 --> 01:46:10,280
Speaker 2: give acknowledgment, recognition and gratitude to first responders and the

1417
01:46:10,320 --> 01:46:14,800
Speaker 2: health services. So we'd look down the street and there

1418
01:46:14,840 --> 01:46:18,799
Speaker 2: would be our neighbors down the street and we would

1419
01:46:18,840 --> 01:46:21,880
Speaker 2: wave to them and across the square and back, and

1420
01:46:21,960 --> 01:46:25,759
Speaker 2: this was the only contact we had with our neighbors.

1421
01:46:26,400 --> 01:46:30,760
Speaker 2: And on occasion, because we're on the main route to

1422
01:46:30,920 --> 01:46:36,080
Speaker 2: ambulances six o'clock, an ambulance would come by by all

1423
01:46:36,160 --> 01:46:38,080
Speaker 2: the people on the street replauding them.

1424
01:46:38,520 --> 01:46:39,200
Speaker 1: Very moving.

1425
01:46:40,080 --> 01:46:44,040
Speaker 2: But it was a time of palpable fear. And my

1426
01:46:44,200 --> 01:46:49,559
Speaker 2: wife said to me, we're performers. We have a responsibility

1427
01:46:49,640 --> 01:46:54,439
Speaker 2: to people. We have a responsibility to keep the spirits up.

1428
01:46:55,680 --> 01:46:57,920
Speaker 2: So when my wife then gave me a two to

1429
01:46:58,000 --> 01:47:01,920
Speaker 2: two and point out down the garden to the river's

1430
01:47:02,040 --> 01:47:04,840
Speaker 2: edge at the end of our garden and said we

1431
01:47:04,880 --> 01:47:09,559
Speaker 2: are going to be dancing to Swan Lake, I took

1432
01:47:09,680 --> 01:47:13,000
Speaker 2: the tights. My wife's tights were a bit small on me.

1433
01:47:13,320 --> 01:47:16,760
Speaker 2: I can I can put in gently between frenzy. The

1434
01:47:16,880 --> 01:47:20,160
Speaker 2: tights were not comfortable, but my discomfiture was covered by

1435
01:47:20,200 --> 01:47:22,960
Speaker 2: the tutu. And we went down and we danced a

1436
01:47:23,040 --> 01:47:24,840
Speaker 2: swan lake and it moved.

1437
01:47:24,560 --> 01:47:25,240
Speaker 1: On from there.

1438
01:47:26,240 --> 01:47:32,160
Speaker 2: We began filming. I suppose you would call them covers. Uh.

1439
01:47:33,720 --> 01:47:39,520
Speaker 2: I think maybe some people think we were taking the piss,

1440
01:47:39,560 --> 01:47:40,360
Speaker 2: not at all.

1441
01:47:41,400 --> 01:47:41,960
Speaker 1: We are.

1442
01:47:45,080 --> 01:47:51,200
Speaker 2: Very respectful of the artists here who've generated these songs.

1443
01:47:52,120 --> 01:47:56,200
Speaker 2: And here I am playing a smoke on the water

1444
01:47:56,560 --> 01:48:03,320
Speaker 2: mister Blackmore's famous riff. I I am very respectful of this.

1445
01:48:03,680 --> 01:48:07,120
Speaker 2: Let's face, it's a classic riff. So when we move

1446
01:48:07,240 --> 01:48:11,080
Speaker 2: on to increasing numbers of covers and then in live

1447
01:48:11,120 --> 01:48:17,080
Speaker 2: performances this past year of classics, are you going to

1448
01:48:17,160 --> 01:48:21,439
Speaker 2: go my way? I mean the classic riff stunning and

1449
01:48:21,479 --> 01:48:26,240
Speaker 2: the solo breath taking, and then you move on to

1450
01:48:26,320 --> 01:48:29,920
Speaker 2: the newer artists. I mean, these are challenges for me

1451
01:48:30,920 --> 01:48:34,920
Speaker 2: to learn a repertoire with which I am not mostly familiar.

1452
01:48:36,439 --> 01:48:40,120
Speaker 2: Why because I was developing a King Crimson repertoire which

1453
01:48:40,479 --> 01:48:44,920
Speaker 2: eventually I became locked into. So here I was learning

1454
01:48:45,000 --> 01:48:47,679
Speaker 2: rock songs in the tuning I haven't used for thirty

1455
01:48:47,720 --> 01:48:52,880
Speaker 2: five years, doing my best to honor the original performers

1456
01:48:52,920 --> 01:48:55,799
Speaker 2: and the original intentions that gave live to the music,

1457
01:48:56,800 --> 01:49:02,120
Speaker 2: and much to our surprise, it took off. It was

1458
01:49:02,280 --> 01:49:06,760
Speaker 2: one of the two so called Internet sensations in the

1459
01:49:06,880 --> 01:49:13,759
Speaker 2: United Kingdom from Lockdown. The other one was Sophie Sophie Aspects,

1460
01:49:15,360 --> 01:49:22,839
Speaker 2: Yeah Kitchen Disco. She was the other one that really

1461
01:49:23,680 --> 01:49:28,240
Speaker 2: kicked in. So we eventually began to find something of

1462
01:49:28,280 --> 01:49:34,639
Speaker 2: another approach, which we we're maintaining. We do one We

1463
01:49:34,680 --> 01:49:38,920
Speaker 2: do one new song a month at the moment, plus

1464
01:49:38,960 --> 01:49:43,200
Speaker 2: access to our archive. I can't even remember all the

1465
01:49:43,280 --> 01:49:48,960
Speaker 2: songs we've covered, and we do our upbeat moments and

1466
01:49:49,040 --> 01:49:53,920
Speaker 2: the brief and the aim remains the same. We have

1467
01:49:54,080 --> 01:50:00,960
Speaker 2: a responsibility in challenging times to do what we can

1468
01:50:01,080 --> 01:50:05,200
Speaker 2: to support the spirits of our audience, good people out there.

1469
01:50:05,880 --> 01:50:10,799
Speaker 2: And some of the personal messages, some public, some personal

1470
01:50:10,880 --> 01:50:14,960
Speaker 2: we've received from people at their heartbreaking, the conditions of

1471
01:50:15,040 --> 01:50:21,200
Speaker 2: people locked up in small studio apartments in high rises

1472
01:50:21,800 --> 01:50:25,479
Speaker 2: while their mother is dying in hospital and they can't

1473
01:50:25,520 --> 01:50:27,680
Speaker 2: see them, and then they can't even get to the

1474
01:50:27,760 --> 01:50:32,160
Speaker 2: funeral while our prime minister in Downing Street is having parties.

1475
01:50:33,400 --> 01:50:41,120
Speaker 2: I mean, this is profoundly offensive, but we can't. We

1476
01:50:41,160 --> 01:50:44,040
Speaker 2: can only address what we can address, so we continue

1477
01:50:44,080 --> 01:50:44,559
Speaker 2: to do so.

1478
01:50:45,680 --> 01:50:49,519
Speaker 1: Okay, just diving a little deeper. You're a player and

1479
01:50:49,560 --> 01:50:55,040
Speaker 1: a composer. Are you also a fan? Like if I started,

1480
01:50:55,080 --> 01:50:57,639
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. There was this being Charlie

1481
01:50:58,240 --> 01:51:01,160
Speaker 1: Terry Thomas who became a record Is this all the

1482
01:51:01,240 --> 01:51:04,519
Speaker 1: kind of stuff you know? Or these are just certain

1483
01:51:04,640 --> 01:51:05,680
Speaker 1: records that you know.

1484
01:51:11,920 --> 01:51:15,519
Speaker 2: Well, when I was on the road, it was flat

1485
01:51:15,560 --> 01:51:19,320
Speaker 2: out on the road, and the music we would get

1486
01:51:19,360 --> 01:51:22,320
Speaker 2: to hear would essentially be the other artist we're working with.

1487
01:51:23,960 --> 01:51:27,960
Speaker 2: And whereas when I first moved to London, you would

1488
01:51:28,040 --> 01:51:31,559
Speaker 2: have gatekeepers who would say you need to listen to this,

1489
01:51:32,840 --> 01:51:37,280
Speaker 2: and we still get this. My wife says you should

1490
01:51:37,320 --> 01:51:41,759
Speaker 2: listen to this, because my wife that keeps her fingers

1491
01:51:41,880 --> 01:51:44,679
Speaker 2: very much on the pulse of things. So my wife

1492
01:51:44,720 --> 01:51:46,920
Speaker 2: would say, listen to this and see if you think

1493
01:51:47,000 --> 01:51:50,840
Speaker 2: we can do a good thing with this. But I

1494
01:51:50,880 --> 01:51:58,200
Speaker 2: think probably our determining musical direction is really when we're younger,

1495
01:51:58,520 --> 01:52:03,639
Speaker 2: and for me, although I have been profoundly touched by

1496
01:52:03,760 --> 01:52:10,439
Speaker 2: recorded music, I still tend to be more attached to

1497
01:52:10,560 --> 01:52:14,920
Speaker 2: music I've seen live. Some exceptions obviously Beatles Day and

1498
01:52:15,000 --> 01:52:17,920
Speaker 2: The Life Hendrix. I didn't get to see Hendrix Life,

1499
01:52:18,040 --> 01:52:20,439
Speaker 2: although he did get to see King Crimson Life. Now

1500
01:52:20,600 --> 01:52:28,880
Speaker 2: say so, yes, I am connected to music through records,

1501
01:52:30,439 --> 01:52:34,080
Speaker 2: but for me, once again, really it's live. I have,

1502
01:52:34,280 --> 01:52:38,240
Speaker 2: for example, in our abbey over here, which has been

1503
01:52:38,320 --> 01:52:44,720
Speaker 2: standing since about eleven forty, I have been there listening

1504
01:52:44,840 --> 01:52:53,680
Speaker 2: to appalling concerts of semi pro symphony orchestras, watching the

1505
01:52:53,720 --> 01:52:57,760
Speaker 2: beat move outwards from the conductor to the edge of

1506
01:52:57,800 --> 01:53:02,679
Speaker 2: the large symphony orchestra, the tuning wavering as it went.

1507
01:53:04,439 --> 01:53:08,120
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, it has a power in the moment if

1508
01:53:08,120 --> 01:53:13,479
Speaker 2: we're able to be open to it. So yeah, not

1509
01:53:13,680 --> 01:53:20,920
Speaker 2: many leading rock bands come through our town, so I

1510
01:53:21,080 --> 01:53:26,560
Speaker 2: have to rely increasingly on YouTube and Spotify. But it's secondhand.

1511
01:53:27,520 --> 01:53:30,200
Speaker 2: So my wife makes her suggestions and I follow them.

1512
01:53:30,520 --> 01:53:31,400
Speaker 2: Is the quick answer.

1513
01:53:32,000 --> 01:53:35,599
Speaker 1: Okay, you reference the Prime Minister needless.

1514
01:53:36,360 --> 01:53:39,519
Speaker 2: Oh I'm I'm going to need a piss before we

1515
01:53:39,560 --> 01:53:42,479
Speaker 2: get into that one. All right, all right, back.

1516
01:53:42,439 --> 01:53:49,800
Speaker 1: Take another take another piss. So, David, you certainly know

1517
01:53:49,960 --> 01:53:56,360
Speaker 1: Robert extremely well. Is his talking and demeanor today typical

1518
01:53:56,439 --> 01:53:59,160
Speaker 1: of him? Or is it a typical.

1519
01:54:00,920 --> 01:54:04,559
Speaker 3: No, that's the man I know. Oddly enough, when I

1520
01:54:04,600 --> 01:54:08,679
Speaker 3: do interviews, the most common question is, I've been working

1521
01:54:08,680 --> 01:54:11,400
Speaker 3: with Robertsons nineteen eighty nine, I think, and you know,

1522
01:54:11,520 --> 01:54:15,000
Speaker 3: how have you spent that long working with this awful

1523
01:54:15,479 --> 01:54:18,639
Speaker 3: whatever perception they have of this man? And I always

1524
01:54:18,640 --> 01:54:20,800
Speaker 3: give the same answer, which is that I've never met

1525
01:54:20,800 --> 01:54:26,160
Speaker 3: that man. You know, I've never met the horrible man

1526
01:54:26,200 --> 01:54:33,240
Speaker 3: that people suggest. So I think because we have a

1527
01:54:33,320 --> 01:54:37,960
Speaker 3: very common aim, Robert and I think we we certainly

1528
01:54:37,960 --> 01:54:40,320
Speaker 3: in business together. We have a common aime. The music

1529
01:54:40,360 --> 01:54:46,480
Speaker 3: comes first, the art comes first. So I've never really

1530
01:54:46,520 --> 01:54:49,680
Speaker 3: met the irascable person that everybody talks about.

1531
01:54:50,040 --> 01:54:52,760
Speaker 1: Do you believe it's a misperception or you're in No.

1532
01:54:53,560 --> 01:54:56,560
Speaker 3: I know I've met enough people to know that it's

1533
01:54:56,600 --> 01:54:59,640
Speaker 3: not a misperception. And as Robert himself said, I think

1534
01:54:59,680 --> 01:55:01,600
Speaker 3: that when he said, I think if someone comes to

1535
01:55:01,640 --> 01:55:03,680
Speaker 3: him with a flea and in their ear, he'll send

1536
01:55:03,680 --> 01:55:05,680
Speaker 3: them back with two. I think that was where that

1537
01:55:05,880 --> 01:55:10,920
Speaker 3: was where this started, you know, several hours ago. So

1538
01:55:10,920 --> 01:55:14,160
Speaker 3: so I think if people have an attitude, you know,

1539
01:55:14,920 --> 01:55:19,640
Speaker 3: he will respond in kind. So no, I'm sure it's very,

1540
01:55:19,760 --> 01:55:26,200
Speaker 3: very real. But I've enjoyed working with him. We've been

1541
01:55:26,200 --> 01:55:28,000
Speaker 3: I said, We've been at it since nineteen eighty nine

1542
01:55:28,040 --> 01:55:31,280
Speaker 3: in various different ways, and we're still at it.

1543
01:55:32,680 --> 01:55:33,760
Speaker 1: And how did you meet him?

1544
01:55:35,960 --> 01:55:38,480
Speaker 3: I was working at a studio. I was producing a

1545
01:55:38,520 --> 01:55:41,520
Speaker 3: record in the studio in the town that he referred

1546
01:55:41,560 --> 01:55:43,720
Speaker 3: to at the beginning of twan Cranbourne in Dorset, that

1547
01:55:43,880 --> 01:55:48,200
Speaker 3: he'd used for working on King Crimson tracks, and Roberts

1548
01:55:48,240 --> 01:55:52,120
Speaker 3: sacked his sound engineer halfway through the tour and phoned

1549
01:55:52,200 --> 01:55:54,680
Speaker 3: up the studio owner to say, do you know someone

1550
01:55:54,680 --> 01:55:56,480
Speaker 3: who could step in at short notice? Who might be

1551
01:55:56,520 --> 01:55:59,680
Speaker 3: able to come out? And the studio owner came through

1552
01:55:59,720 --> 01:56:01,720
Speaker 3: and said, David, what are you doing in two weeks time?

1553
01:56:02,560 --> 01:56:03,960
Speaker 3: And I said, but I'm free, and he said, what

1554
01:56:03,960 --> 01:56:07,840
Speaker 3: do you fancy going out to America? So I flew

1555
01:56:07,880 --> 01:56:12,360
Speaker 3: out to Seattle to join Robert halfway through that tour,

1556
01:56:13,400 --> 01:56:17,160
Speaker 3: and I think I've worked on every single King Crimson

1557
01:56:17,200 --> 01:56:21,240
Speaker 3: release since then. So we literally we got on very

1558
01:56:21,240 --> 01:56:23,800
Speaker 3: well and have carried on ever since.

1559
01:56:25,440 --> 01:56:28,920
Speaker 1: So was it an instant bonding or did you have

1560
01:56:28,960 --> 01:56:30,440
Speaker 1: to earn his trust?

1561
01:56:30,800 --> 01:56:33,840
Speaker 3: No, it was it wasn't an instant bonding. I think

1562
01:56:33,920 --> 01:56:40,080
Speaker 3: I was. I was evidently instantly competent, so that side

1563
01:56:40,120 --> 01:56:45,000
Speaker 3: I think I was, because but you know, it works

1564
01:56:45,040 --> 01:56:47,560
Speaker 3: in stages. So the first at the first age, I

1565
01:56:47,640 --> 01:56:50,960
Speaker 3: was just a live sound engineer. He was actually recording

1566
01:56:51,000 --> 01:56:53,200
Speaker 3: Sunday all over the world with Toyer at the time.

1567
01:56:53,800 --> 01:56:55,960
Speaker 3: So immediately after that he asked me if i'd come

1568
01:56:55,960 --> 01:56:58,880
Speaker 3: and record Toyer's vocals on that record, which I did.

1569
01:57:00,040 --> 01:57:03,160
Speaker 3: We assembled the record, and I can remember at the

1570
01:57:03,160 --> 01:57:06,640
Speaker 3: time they were discussing running orders, saying, oh, well haven't

1571
01:57:06,680 --> 01:57:09,120
Speaker 3: you thought of this running order? It might work, and

1572
01:57:09,880 --> 01:57:14,080
Speaker 3: which was probably the beginning of when Robert someone begins

1573
01:57:14,080 --> 01:57:16,120
Speaker 3: to think, well your tastes, you know, trust your taste

1574
01:57:16,160 --> 01:57:20,440
Speaker 3: as opposed to simply your competence. And so no, it's

1575
01:57:20,440 --> 01:57:24,680
Speaker 3: a gradual process that went on over time, over years.

1576
01:57:25,200 --> 01:57:26,040
Speaker 2: What have I missed?

1577
01:57:26,080 --> 01:57:30,400
Speaker 3: David? He was asking how we came to work together.

1578
01:57:31,760 --> 01:57:35,120
Speaker 3: I was telling him about nineteen eighty nine flying out

1579
01:57:35,240 --> 01:57:39,120
Speaker 3: to do a Guitar Craft Court tour, and then I

1580
01:57:39,160 --> 01:57:41,520
Speaker 3: think I've worked on every recording that followed that. Immediately

1581
01:57:41,560 --> 01:57:44,080
Speaker 3: after that, I recorded Toyers vocals on Sunday all over

1582
01:57:44,120 --> 01:57:51,160
Speaker 3: the world, and then we did frame by frame, and

1583
01:57:51,840 --> 01:57:53,560
Speaker 3: in fact, I can tell you Robert's sense of humor

1584
01:57:53,720 --> 01:57:58,000
Speaker 3: doing frame by frame. I can recall this was the

1585
01:57:58,080 --> 01:58:00,960
Speaker 3: very first It was a four CD action of King Crimson,

1586
01:58:01,480 --> 01:58:04,760
Speaker 3: and Virgin Records phoned up Robert and said that they

1587
01:58:04,800 --> 01:58:08,040
Speaker 3: wanted a radio edit of twenty first century Schizoid Man.

1588
01:58:08,880 --> 01:58:10,720
Speaker 3: And I heard Robert on the phone saying, well, there

1589
01:58:10,720 --> 01:58:14,040
Speaker 3: isn't a three minute version of that track. And I

1590
01:58:14,080 --> 01:58:17,240
Speaker 3: said to Robert, of course there is, and he said why,

1591
01:58:17,280 --> 01:58:20,120
Speaker 3: and I said, well, I can remember what I thought

1592
01:58:20,160 --> 01:58:23,200
Speaker 3: when I very first heard that track, which was I

1593
01:58:23,320 --> 01:58:25,960
Speaker 3: like the first verse, I like the second verse, not

1594
01:58:26,000 --> 01:58:27,800
Speaker 3: sure what's happening in the middle, and I quite like

1595
01:58:27,840 --> 01:58:31,120
Speaker 3: the third verse, and a man with a sense of humor.

1596
01:58:31,200 --> 01:58:33,760
Speaker 3: Robert allowed me to make that edit and it got released,

1597
01:58:36,080 --> 01:58:39,520
Speaker 3: and I then learned that from Robert's perspective, I was hearing,

1598
01:58:39,680 --> 01:58:43,520
Speaker 3: in a sense, hearing the track completely upside down, because

1599
01:58:43,520 --> 01:58:46,760
Speaker 3: I think Robert would regard in many of these tracks,

1600
01:58:46,760 --> 01:58:49,480
Speaker 3: is you know that the beginning is a jumping off

1601
01:58:49,480 --> 01:58:52,880
Speaker 3: point for the middle in a sense, in a sense,

1602
01:58:52,920 --> 01:58:54,760
Speaker 3: that's the core of the track, Whereas I was hearing

1603
01:58:54,800 --> 01:58:56,240
Speaker 3: it completely the other way around.

1604
01:58:57,760 --> 01:58:59,960
Speaker 2: I trust David's sense of things above my own.

1605
01:59:01,840 --> 01:59:03,840
Speaker 1: Okay, you were going to give us a reading on

1606
01:59:03,880 --> 01:59:06,640
Speaker 1: the UK today.

1607
01:59:06,280 --> 01:59:09,320
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that was what I was intending to do, Bob.

1608
01:59:10,360 --> 01:59:13,040
Speaker 2: What I would say is, at the moment, they would

1609
01:59:13,120 --> 01:59:18,280
Speaker 2: seem to be a lack of confidence in the power

1610
01:59:18,360 --> 01:59:23,160
Speaker 2: possessors and those who stand above us and nominally serve

1611
01:59:23,280 --> 01:59:35,280
Speaker 2: the interests of the populace. There seems to be a

1612
01:59:35,440 --> 01:59:41,480
Speaker 2: lack of accountability on behalf of those who have power

1613
01:59:41,600 --> 01:59:47,560
Speaker 2: in our lives. There's a huge structural breakdown, and part

1614
01:59:47,600 --> 01:59:54,120
Speaker 2: of that is utterly terrifying, and part of it is

1615
01:59:54,240 --> 02:00:00,000
Speaker 2: remarkably heartening, because if we believe that going back fifties

1616
02:00:00,120 --> 02:00:05,720
Speaker 2: sixty years, that our interest is in making a new world,

1617
02:00:06,320 --> 02:00:08,880
Speaker 2: then the old world has to give way for that

1618
02:00:08,960 --> 02:00:13,640
Speaker 2: to be possible. So what we're seeing as a structural

1619
02:00:13,720 --> 02:00:19,200
Speaker 2: breakdown might actually be a necessary precondition for a new

1620
02:00:19,240 --> 02:00:23,840
Speaker 2: world appearing. Nevertheless, along the way, let's face it is

1621
02:00:23,920 --> 02:00:35,360
Speaker 2: pretty bumpy. DGM has its statement the Ethical Business. The

1622
02:00:35,480 --> 02:00:40,120
Speaker 2: four pillars of the ethical business Honesty, responsibility, equity, goodwill.

1623
02:00:40,720 --> 02:00:46,040
Speaker 2: These are four very simple criteria for making a value

1624
02:00:46,120 --> 02:00:50,440
Speaker 2: judgment in terms of for example, our dealings with a

1625
02:00:50,480 --> 02:00:57,480
Speaker 2: record company. Are they honest? Are they responsible? Do they

1626
02:00:57,600 --> 02:01:01,920
Speaker 2: view us equitably? The good will involve? Then the answer

1627
02:01:01,960 --> 02:01:05,600
Speaker 2: to all four is now. But at least it gives

1628
02:01:05,640 --> 02:01:10,000
Speaker 2: us criteria that we can base a course of action upon.

1629
02:01:11,440 --> 02:01:15,200
Speaker 2: I think two thousand and eight and the rescue of

1630
02:01:15,240 --> 02:01:23,600
Speaker 2: the world's financial system exacerbated the profound inequality of which

1631
02:01:23,640 --> 02:01:29,160
Speaker 2: we're all pretty much aware nowadays. Was it necessary? Well,

1632
02:01:29,200 --> 02:01:34,440
Speaker 2: I think it was at least inevitable. So what do

1633
02:01:34,560 --> 02:01:40,160
Speaker 2: we do? In nineteen seventy four, after five or six

1634
02:01:40,240 --> 02:01:43,240
Speaker 2: years on the road as a professional working musician, I

1635
02:01:43,280 --> 02:01:48,280
Speaker 2: was in despair, sitting there in Putney, London, in despair

1636
02:01:48,400 --> 02:01:49,840
Speaker 2: at the madness.

1637
02:01:49,320 --> 02:01:49,880
Speaker 3: Of the world.

1638
02:01:49,920 --> 02:01:54,720
Speaker 2: The world is mad. Nowadays I sit here in my

1639
02:01:54,880 --> 02:02:00,720
Speaker 2: study in Middle England, and I think the world is mad.

1640
02:02:02,040 --> 02:02:05,280
Speaker 2: And I suppose if I lave myself, I could become

1641
02:02:05,360 --> 02:02:14,200
Speaker 2: despairing in strange and uncertain times. Sometimes a reasonable person

1642
02:02:14,320 --> 02:02:19,600
Speaker 2: might despair. But hope is unreasonable, and love is greater

1643
02:02:19,800 --> 02:02:24,120
Speaker 2: even than this. So where can I find hope? Well,

1644
02:02:24,200 --> 02:02:29,080
Speaker 2: for me, one primary element, if you like, proof of

1645
02:02:29,120 --> 02:02:34,480
Speaker 2: hope is that I know that music never goes away

1646
02:02:35,120 --> 02:02:40,360
Speaker 2: despite the best efforts of the music industry. Music survives

1647
02:02:40,440 --> 02:02:44,160
Speaker 2: the music industry, well, that's hope. So what I do

1648
02:02:44,280 --> 02:02:46,760
Speaker 2: is I strap on and I rock out. I walk

1649
02:02:46,800 --> 02:02:50,440
Speaker 2: on stage with my wonderful little wife and play rock

1650
02:02:50,480 --> 02:02:53,640
Speaker 2: classics with classic riffs that get people on their feet,

1651
02:02:53,760 --> 02:02:58,960
Speaker 2: cheering and shouting and punching the air. The music is

1652
02:02:59,080 --> 02:03:03,480
Speaker 2: not constrained and by players in the music industry. For me,

1653
02:03:03,560 --> 02:03:08,760
Speaker 2: that's hope. Love well known and again perhaps, but hope

1654
02:03:08,840 --> 02:03:10,120
Speaker 2: is more readily available.

1655
02:03:11,400 --> 02:03:13,560
Speaker 1: And tell us a little bit about mister Bennett.

1656
02:03:15,200 --> 02:03:23,240
Speaker 2: Mister Bennett was a brilliant and flawed man, intellectual powerhouse.

1657
02:03:23,840 --> 02:03:29,240
Speaker 2: For example, as a mental discipline, he would he would

1658
02:03:29,240 --> 02:03:38,280
Speaker 2: play a game of three dimensional chess through visualization. That's yeah.

1659
02:03:38,680 --> 02:03:43,840
Speaker 2: He was a polymath, multi linguist. I think as a

1660
02:03:43,880 --> 02:03:49,400
Speaker 2: younger man, probably very arrogant, which tends to come with

1661
02:03:50,400 --> 02:03:53,960
Speaker 2: extraordinary intellectual powers.

1662
02:03:54,200 --> 02:03:54,720
Speaker 1: He was.

1663
02:03:57,600 --> 02:04:03,800
Speaker 2: Nineteen twenty one. He was British Intelligence in Turkey and

1664
02:04:04,040 --> 02:04:08,160
Speaker 2: I believe signed the visa allowed kimel outa Turk to

1665
02:04:08,280 --> 02:04:12,600
Speaker 2: move into Turkey, for which he still is respected in

1666
02:04:12,680 --> 02:04:19,800
Speaker 2: Turkey to this day. I understand mister Bennett worked hard

1667
02:04:20,560 --> 02:04:25,240
Speaker 2: and upset lots of people, but after nineteen sixty nine,

1668
02:04:25,280 --> 02:04:30,040
Speaker 2: something changed for him. In my view, he came to

1669
02:04:30,640 --> 02:04:42,040
Speaker 2: a realization that after that everything was different, and he

1670
02:04:44,240 --> 02:04:48,960
Speaker 2: was a voice for young people that were looking for

1671
02:04:50,000 --> 02:04:54,640
Speaker 2: a figure with experience and authority. And when I came

1672
02:04:54,680 --> 02:04:59,200
Speaker 2: across him, this was very clear. Young people at the

1673
02:04:59,240 --> 02:05:02,440
Speaker 2: time were maybe go to the East, or go on pilgrimages,

1674
02:05:06,240 --> 02:05:11,920
Speaker 2: put on blue robes, or various forms of other cultures.

1675
02:05:12,840 --> 02:05:17,440
Speaker 2: But for me, I found mister Bennett. This was an

1676
02:05:17,440 --> 02:05:22,560
Speaker 2: Englishman who wore English, those that I understood, spoke the

1677
02:05:22,640 --> 02:05:25,040
Speaker 2: language that I understood, and he was only one hundred

1678
02:05:25,080 --> 02:05:31,160
Speaker 2: miles down the road. So this was it for me,

1679
02:05:32,800 --> 02:05:35,360
Speaker 2: and I met him a month before he died. So

1680
02:05:35,400 --> 02:05:38,720
Speaker 2: this is a very powerful experience for me, which funnily

1681
02:05:38,840 --> 02:05:43,480
Speaker 2: enough increases in power the older I get as I

1682
02:05:43,560 --> 02:05:48,720
Speaker 2: recognize that connections can be made in a moment that

1683
02:05:48,840 --> 02:05:51,600
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be an extended moment in clock time.

1684
02:05:51,640 --> 02:05:55,320
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, the contact and connection can be made that

1685
02:05:55,680 --> 02:06:00,480
Speaker 2: enjuers and persists through time. It's like hearing a particular

1686
02:06:00,520 --> 02:06:04,400
Speaker 2: piece of music. It stays with you forever. Why because

1687
02:06:04,440 --> 02:06:07,120
Speaker 2: it's spoken to you, It's made a connection with you.

1688
02:06:09,240 --> 02:06:13,160
Speaker 2: And for those who feel that these experiences maybe it's

1689
02:06:13,400 --> 02:06:18,000
Speaker 2: a cosmic Witterer wittering on, I suggest that pretty well

1690
02:06:18,800 --> 02:06:25,880
Speaker 2: most of us at least have these experiences which are

1691
02:06:26,000 --> 02:06:31,480
Speaker 2: very direct for us, and we don't necessarily have to

1692
02:06:31,560 --> 02:06:34,760
Speaker 2: explain them. We accept that they're real. So this was

1693
02:06:34,840 --> 02:06:42,000
Speaker 2: mister Bennett who had the rare capacity to express complex

1694
02:06:42,200 --> 02:06:48,440
Speaker 2: notions in straightforward English. Why because what he was talking

1695
02:06:48,480 --> 02:06:53,160
Speaker 2: about was in his experience in nineteen sixty nine. In

1696
02:06:53,200 --> 02:06:56,480
Speaker 2: my view, he went somewhere and then he came back.

1697
02:07:00,240 --> 02:07:06,800
Speaker 2: Quote Hassan Schussud, very important figure in Turkish Sufism. And

1698
02:07:06,960 --> 02:07:11,879
Speaker 2: mister Bennett knows more about the mechanisms of the spirit,

1699
02:07:12,080 --> 02:07:15,680
Speaker 2: the mechanics of the spiritual life, than any person in

1700
02:07:15,720 --> 02:07:19,960
Speaker 2: the West since mister Eckart. Now, what do I know

1701
02:07:20,080 --> 02:07:23,720
Speaker 2: about that? I can't possibly comment on that. What I

1702
02:07:23,800 --> 02:07:27,400
Speaker 2: can say is mister Bennett spoke with authority which spoke

1703
02:07:27,440 --> 02:07:32,680
Speaker 2: to me in a language which persuaded me that I

1704
02:07:32,720 --> 02:07:36,400
Speaker 2: actually knew what mister Bennett was talking about. How could I?

1705
02:07:37,160 --> 02:07:41,080
Speaker 2: But nevertheless he persuaded me that I could in such

1706
02:07:41,120 --> 02:07:45,040
Speaker 2: a way that I've persisted ever since. And mister Bennett

1707
02:07:45,080 --> 02:07:50,720
Speaker 2: and missus Bennett uh part of my everyday life every day?

1708
02:07:52,520 --> 02:07:54,520
Speaker 1: Can you give us just a little more depth for

1709
02:07:54,640 --> 02:07:58,640
Speaker 1: those who are unfamiliar with the man. What one might

1710
02:07:58,720 --> 02:08:04,280
Speaker 1: say his lessons are and what you took from his words.

1711
02:08:04,040 --> 02:08:09,040
Speaker 2: Well, mister Bennett said, I teach I teach you how

1712
02:08:09,080 --> 02:08:13,800
Speaker 2: to cook, not what to cook. So what mister Bennett

1713
02:08:13,800 --> 02:08:15,880
Speaker 2: would do is teach you how to walk into a kitchen,

1714
02:08:15,960 --> 02:08:20,320
Speaker 2: pick up the implements, pick up the recipe, and make

1715
02:08:20,360 --> 02:08:23,320
Speaker 2: the mail. The recipe you chose was up to you.

1716
02:08:23,880 --> 02:08:28,520
Speaker 2: So another is very practical. What are the mechanics of

1717
02:08:28,560 --> 02:08:31,840
Speaker 2: the musical life? I can tell you that. What are

1718
02:08:31,840 --> 02:08:34,640
Speaker 2: the mechanics of the spiritual life? Mister Bennett could tell

1719
02:08:34,680 --> 02:08:37,400
Speaker 2: you that too. What I can say now at age

1720
02:08:37,440 --> 02:08:42,240
Speaker 2: seventy seven, they're exactly the same. I'm not sure that

1721
02:08:42,360 --> 02:08:45,440
Speaker 2: helps you at all, Bob doesn't. No, I can take

1722
02:08:45,560 --> 02:08:49,000
Speaker 2: that and grove from that. But let me put it

1723
02:08:49,080 --> 02:08:49,920
Speaker 2: a different way.

1724
02:08:50,480 --> 02:08:55,240
Speaker 1: You say he's part of your life every day, and

1725
02:08:55,400 --> 02:08:58,160
Speaker 1: he was playing on your computer in the background. What

1726
02:08:58,240 --> 02:09:07,760
Speaker 1: is your everyday interact action or lesson like, well.

1727
02:09:06,320 --> 02:09:09,760
Speaker 2: Every day I'm cooking, So my lessons in how to

1728
02:09:09,840 --> 02:09:13,680
Speaker 2: cook are ongoing every day. My father and my mother,

1729
02:09:13,840 --> 02:09:16,560
Speaker 2: my biological father and mother are with me every day

1730
02:09:16,560 --> 02:09:20,360
Speaker 2: as well. My spiritual father and my spiritual mother are

1731
02:09:20,400 --> 02:09:21,640
Speaker 2: with me every day as well.

1732
02:09:23,200 --> 02:09:28,600
Speaker 1: Okay, going from the sublime to the ridiculous, we're here.

1733
02:09:28,760 --> 02:09:31,920
Speaker 1: It's just as you're wearing a tie. When did this

1734
02:09:32,080 --> 02:09:37,240
Speaker 1: sartorial change happen? In what is behind it?

1735
02:09:37,240 --> 02:09:46,160
Speaker 2: It began around twenty twelve. Now, in terms of why

1736
02:09:46,240 --> 02:09:50,280
Speaker 2: this is an interesting one, I trust my feet when

1737
02:09:50,280 --> 02:09:53,080
Speaker 2: they go walking. When my feet go walking, I follow

1738
02:09:53,120 --> 02:09:58,560
Speaker 2: where they go. And when my feet have taken me

1739
02:09:58,640 --> 02:10:03,000
Speaker 2: to a place at which i've I recognize, ah, I

1740
02:10:03,120 --> 02:10:06,920
Speaker 2: need to be here. My feet brought me here. So

1741
02:10:07,200 --> 02:10:09,960
Speaker 2: trusting my feet where they go walking, that is my

1742
02:10:10,120 --> 02:10:14,480
Speaker 2: sense of direction, which is internal. I don't have to

1743
02:10:14,600 --> 02:10:19,720
Speaker 2: rationalize to myself where I'm going. But once I'm there,

1744
02:10:19,880 --> 02:10:23,360
Speaker 2: I might do that. I might look back and say

1745
02:10:24,680 --> 02:10:31,160
Speaker 2: why has my external appearance changed? And the answer might

1746
02:10:31,240 --> 02:10:35,040
Speaker 2: be something on the inside has changed. So at that

1747
02:10:35,200 --> 02:10:40,920
Speaker 2: point I monitor my experience to see how my experience

1748
02:10:41,280 --> 02:10:45,040
Speaker 2: of how I experience my experience and lived my life

1749
02:10:45,800 --> 02:10:50,680
Speaker 2: might have changed. In other words, I seek to better

1750
02:10:50,840 --> 02:10:52,560
Speaker 2: understand where I am now.

1751
02:10:53,720 --> 02:10:57,120
Speaker 1: So your exterior is evidence of your injury?

1752
02:10:58,520 --> 02:11:03,320
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's true. What would you say, bomb, Oh.

1753
02:11:03,240 --> 02:11:05,480
Speaker 1: We you know this goes to my next question. We've

1754
02:11:05,520 --> 02:11:08,760
Speaker 1: been around a long time, you know. I remember when

1755
02:11:08,800 --> 02:11:13,760
Speaker 1: long hair was a significant signifier, after the Beatles came out.

1756
02:11:13,800 --> 02:11:16,080
Speaker 1: I remember the turn of the decade of the seventies,

1757
02:11:16,560 --> 02:11:19,879
Speaker 1: when it became an affectation. You could not judge somebody

1758
02:11:19,920 --> 02:11:22,280
Speaker 1: based on their long hair, which is when I cut

1759
02:11:22,280 --> 02:11:25,240
Speaker 1: my hair off. We live in an era, you know.

1760
02:11:25,280 --> 02:11:27,360
Speaker 1: You grew up to talk about the sixties in the seventies,

1761
02:11:27,400 --> 02:11:31,720
Speaker 1: where it was internal, whereas now there's so much external

1762
02:11:31,760 --> 02:11:33,960
Speaker 1: with the trappings. Let me show you how much money

1763
02:11:34,000 --> 02:11:38,040
Speaker 1: I have, et cetera. We're all looking for points of

1764
02:11:38,320 --> 02:11:42,400
Speaker 1: uniqueness in a standardized world. We all have the same phone,

1765
02:11:42,480 --> 02:11:45,560
Speaker 1: we have the same watch. We have this, so on

1766
02:11:45,720 --> 02:11:51,760
Speaker 1: some level it does send a message. In your particular case,

1767
02:11:52,680 --> 02:11:58,240
Speaker 1: you are dressing in a way a typical of people

1768
02:11:58,320 --> 02:12:01,960
Speaker 1: from your background, generation, walk of life. OI. So therefore

1769
02:12:02,040 --> 02:12:04,560
Speaker 1: it stands out to the point that I comment on it,

1770
02:12:05,160 --> 02:12:09,280
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that you know that this will have

1771
02:12:09,320 --> 02:12:12,480
Speaker 1: an effect on people who look at you. Whatever they

1772
02:12:12,560 --> 02:12:15,480
Speaker 1: might say. They might say, this is a serious guy,

1773
02:12:16,320 --> 02:12:19,960
Speaker 1: this guy is it's an act. Maybe he's all, I mean,

1774
02:12:20,440 --> 02:12:21,800
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're aware of all that.

1775
02:12:22,920 --> 02:12:28,160
Speaker 2: Oh right, Well, couple of comments at first, the going

1776
02:12:28,200 --> 02:12:32,920
Speaker 2: back to twenty twelve, I noticed that people on the

1777
02:12:32,960 --> 02:12:36,560
Speaker 2: street were dressing in a shall we say, relaxed fashion,

1778
02:12:37,680 --> 02:12:42,160
Speaker 2: People of my age, old geezers, even older than me.

1779
02:12:42,760 --> 02:12:47,640
Speaker 2: This town has the highest average age of any town

1780
02:12:47,680 --> 02:12:51,720
Speaker 2: in England. And there are old people I see shopping

1781
02:12:51,800 --> 02:12:54,880
Speaker 2: on the older than me Bob, shopping on the street today,

1782
02:12:54,920 --> 02:12:58,680
Speaker 2: and they've put on the suit to go out shopping.

1783
02:13:00,080 --> 02:13:04,160
Speaker 2: Now I understand this from my youth. What you wore

1784
02:13:04,280 --> 02:13:07,160
Speaker 2: in your house was not what you wore to go

1785
02:13:07,240 --> 02:13:10,720
Speaker 2: out in public. You would change to go out in public.

1786
02:13:11,360 --> 02:13:15,080
Speaker 2: And still in people much older than me, and there

1787
02:13:15,080 --> 02:13:17,560
Speaker 2: are a few of them in town go out shopping

1788
02:13:17,560 --> 02:13:20,760
Speaker 2: in a suit and tie. And I can tell because

1789
02:13:20,760 --> 02:13:24,520
Speaker 2: the suit is too big, because the man of eighty

1790
02:13:24,560 --> 02:13:27,760
Speaker 2: odd has shrunk within the suit which may or may

1791
02:13:27,760 --> 02:13:30,440
Speaker 2: not have fitted him sixty years ago when he first

1792
02:13:30,480 --> 02:13:33,320
Speaker 2: had it. It was his marriage suit, his funeral suit,

1793
02:13:34,080 --> 02:13:38,200
Speaker 2: and his Sunday suit. So part of it was seeing

1794
02:13:39,040 --> 02:13:41,560
Speaker 2: a new generation of people on our street who were

1795
02:13:41,680 --> 02:13:46,160
Speaker 2: dressing in a relaxed fashion. And for me it was

1796
02:13:46,200 --> 02:13:49,880
Speaker 2: a little too relaxed in some cases. I'm not going

1797
02:13:49,960 --> 02:13:55,400
Speaker 2: to use the word scruffy. Shall we say it was

1798
02:13:55,440 --> 02:13:59,240
Speaker 2: exception he relaxed. I wished to go another way now,

1799
02:13:59,360 --> 02:14:03,360
Speaker 2: also in twenty twelve, looking back, I would say that

1800
02:14:03,520 --> 02:14:07,240
Speaker 2: I had myself been scruffy for a number of years. Why,

1801
02:14:08,000 --> 02:14:11,440
Speaker 2: because I lived my life on the road, going away

1802
02:14:11,480 --> 02:14:15,040
Speaker 2: for six or eight weeks, even three weeks. What do

1803
02:14:15,120 --> 02:14:21,280
Speaker 2: you do? My answer was, I wear black? Why? Because

1804
02:14:21,320 --> 02:14:25,440
Speaker 2: everything's black. If it gets dirty, you don't see it

1805
02:14:25,520 --> 02:14:28,880
Speaker 2: so much. You have the same black jeans, black socks,

1806
02:14:29,080 --> 02:14:32,920
Speaker 2: black knickers, black t shirts black, but all the rest

1807
02:14:32,920 --> 02:14:36,400
Speaker 2: of it is all black. It's very, very straightforward and

1808
02:14:36,560 --> 02:14:40,760
Speaker 2: requires no thought whatsoever. And having come off the road

1809
02:14:40,800 --> 02:14:45,000
Speaker 2: in twenty ten with the intention never ever to work

1810
02:14:45,240 --> 02:14:50,880
Speaker 2: live again, I was making a sea change. I changed

1811
02:14:50,920 --> 02:14:51,640
Speaker 2: now I dressed.

1812
02:14:52,040 --> 02:14:57,360
Speaker 1: Okay, you're not recognized everywhere, so I'm sure there are

1813
02:14:57,400 --> 02:15:00,840
Speaker 1: places you go that are public, places where are not recognized.

1814
02:15:00,880 --> 02:15:04,680
Speaker 1: Maybe an airplane, maybe a restaurant. Do you find that

1815
02:15:04,800 --> 02:15:09,760
Speaker 1: people tweat you differently when you're dressed with a tie,

1816
02:15:09,840 --> 02:15:10,400
Speaker 1: et cetera.

1817
02:15:11,880 --> 02:15:15,000
Speaker 2: All right, one or two things on this Since Toy

1818
02:15:15,080 --> 02:15:19,560
Speaker 2: and Robert have become an Internet sensation in England. It

1819
02:15:19,920 --> 02:15:23,400
Speaker 2: used to be that wherever I go anywhere with my wife,

1820
02:15:23,440 --> 02:15:28,280
Speaker 2: my wife was recognized and I was overlooked. However, with

1821
02:15:28,400 --> 02:15:33,520
Speaker 2: our Internet sensation, we go over the road to our

1822
02:15:33,560 --> 02:15:35,880
Speaker 2: wonderful coffee shop in Pain and we're sitting in the

1823
02:15:35,880 --> 02:15:38,960
Speaker 2: window and people come in and speak to us that

1824
02:15:39,320 --> 02:15:43,920
Speaker 2: we'd never seen before, So not so much. There is

1825
02:15:44,040 --> 02:15:49,760
Speaker 2: also a situation I was in Venice with my wife.

1826
02:15:49,880 --> 02:15:52,480
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think when this was about two thousand

1827
02:15:52,480 --> 02:15:56,760
Speaker 2: and six, and we were there in April, which is

1828
02:15:56,840 --> 02:15:59,840
Speaker 2: the beginning of tourist season. So to get away from

1829
02:15:59,840 --> 02:16:04,120
Speaker 2: the buld burgeon in crowds, we walked to the very

1830
02:16:04,240 --> 02:16:08,440
Speaker 2: very further test quietest place over there in Venice, and

1831
02:16:08,520 --> 02:16:12,440
Speaker 2: we were completely alone on a street in Venice until

1832
02:16:12,480 --> 02:16:18,160
Speaker 2: a solitary Italian gentleman appeared and he said, freep, freep, freep,

1833
02:16:18,600 --> 02:16:24,880
Speaker 2: you are freep, and my wife was astonished. My wife

1834
02:16:24,920 --> 02:16:29,880
Speaker 2: was astonished, the only person in this deserted part of Venice.

1835
02:16:30,200 --> 02:16:36,800
Speaker 2: No srip. So anyway, moving on to am I universally recognized, No,

1836
02:16:37,000 --> 02:16:41,200
Speaker 2: of course not. However in King Crimson contexts mostly so,

1837
02:16:43,720 --> 02:16:49,080
Speaker 2: and in context where I am known or not. Does

1838
02:16:49,400 --> 02:16:54,600
Speaker 2: how I dress have an effect? The answer is yes,

1839
02:16:54,720 --> 02:16:59,840
Speaker 2: without any doubt whatsoever. Why because here is a character

1840
02:17:01,680 --> 02:17:07,800
Speaker 2: who was very intentionally chosen his suit, what he's wearing,

1841
02:17:08,520 --> 02:17:12,240
Speaker 2: his tie. If they check out the socks, they will

1842
02:17:12,280 --> 02:17:16,000
Speaker 2: see the socks of those not conventionally chosen, and the

1843
02:17:16,120 --> 02:17:20,039
Speaker 2: tie is mostly not conventionally chosen neither. Here at the

1844
02:17:20,120 --> 02:17:25,680
Speaker 2: moment I'm dressed, I'm dressed down comfortably, but I still

1845
02:17:25,720 --> 02:17:28,920
Speaker 2: have my rather nice silk tie, which I acquired from

1846
02:17:28,959 --> 02:17:34,640
Speaker 2: the charity shop down the street for ten pounds. So yes,

1847
02:17:35,080 --> 02:17:39,040
Speaker 2: if you walk into the first class British airwayte lounge,

1848
02:17:39,600 --> 02:17:43,840
Speaker 2: he throw Why because Daryl Hall sent me a first

1849
02:17:43,840 --> 02:17:47,960
Speaker 2: class ticket to fly to live at Daryl's house. Most

1850
02:17:48,000 --> 02:17:50,240
Speaker 2: of the people in the first class lounge and in

1851
02:17:50,320 --> 02:17:56,720
Speaker 2: first class are dressed in a very relaxed fashion, not

1852
02:17:56,840 --> 02:18:01,280
Speaker 2: to say scruffy. Why Because they're so rich they don't

1853
02:18:01,360 --> 02:18:06,199
Speaker 2: give a hoot. So first class people are scruffy. People

1854
02:18:06,360 --> 02:18:10,200
Speaker 2: in business class tend to be smart, more smartly dressed.

1855
02:18:10,640 --> 02:18:15,080
Speaker 2: Why because a first class concier's pal of mine said,

1856
02:18:16,040 --> 02:18:21,080
Speaker 2: people in first class know who they are. People in

1857
02:18:21,200 --> 02:18:25,000
Speaker 2: cattle class knew who they are. But people in business

1858
02:18:25,040 --> 02:18:30,280
Speaker 2: class are aspirational. They want to move to the front.

1859
02:18:31,040 --> 02:18:35,720
Speaker 2: So people in business class tend to be more smartly dressed. Me,

1860
02:18:36,520 --> 02:18:40,720
Speaker 2: wherever I sit nowadays, it will be more smartly dressed.

1861
02:18:41,160 --> 02:18:47,119
Speaker 2: Why primarily to put a demand upon myself. And secondly,

1862
02:18:47,240 --> 02:18:51,240
Speaker 2: if there's a likelihood for you to be upgraded, if

1863
02:18:51,280 --> 02:18:55,600
Speaker 2: you look impeccably smart, your chances have just gone up.

1864
02:18:57,959 --> 02:19:03,280
Speaker 1: Okay at your age, having seen so much. We live

1865
02:19:03,320 --> 02:19:08,200
Speaker 1: in a music business is completely different in that the

1866
02:19:08,320 --> 02:19:11,040
Speaker 1: era of in the court of the Crimson King doesn't

1867
02:19:11,080 --> 02:19:14,760
Speaker 1: happen for anybody anymore. You cannot have that level of

1868
02:19:14,879 --> 02:19:20,160
Speaker 1: ubiquity no matter who you are. How do you soldier forward?

1869
02:19:20,240 --> 02:19:22,519
Speaker 1: And how do you keep your optimism?

1870
02:19:24,720 --> 02:19:28,279
Speaker 2: Two questions, Bob, would you choose one of them first? Please?

1871
02:19:28,600 --> 02:19:30,519
Speaker 1: How do you soldier forward?

1872
02:19:32,240 --> 02:19:37,080
Speaker 2: It's part of my discipline to keep going, so I

1873
02:19:37,200 --> 02:19:41,560
Speaker 2: decide keep going. So the question is then am I

1874
02:19:41,640 --> 02:19:45,320
Speaker 2: able to rely upon myself? So what I do in

1875
02:19:45,360 --> 02:19:48,560
Speaker 2: the morning when I get up, say hello God and

1876
02:19:48,600 --> 02:19:52,119
Speaker 2: send out my good thoughts the immediate family and friends

1877
02:19:52,760 --> 02:19:56,560
Speaker 2: and distant family and friends. From there, I moved to

1878
02:19:56,640 --> 02:20:01,400
Speaker 2: my physical regime of physical exercises and the I get

1879
02:20:01,440 --> 02:20:06,680
Speaker 2: in the cold shower. Why because my body doesn't want

1880
02:20:06,920 --> 02:20:09,680
Speaker 2: to get into the cold shower any more than it

1881
02:20:09,720 --> 02:20:14,320
Speaker 2: wants to do its exercises. But this is the animal

1882
02:20:14,360 --> 02:20:16,720
Speaker 2: that carries me round life, and it will not tell

1883
02:20:16,760 --> 02:20:19,760
Speaker 2: me what I do. I tell my body what to do,

1884
02:20:20,480 --> 02:20:22,800
Speaker 2: and then I move from this to my morning sitting,

1885
02:20:23,520 --> 02:20:26,840
Speaker 2: and then from that I enter my day having told

1886
02:20:26,879 --> 02:20:32,240
Speaker 2: myself that I will you will keep going. And in

1887
02:20:32,360 --> 02:20:35,480
Speaker 2: terms of optimism, why am I optimistic? Because I have

1888
02:20:35,640 --> 02:20:39,920
Speaker 2: decided to be optimistic. I'm a reasonable person. And if

1889
02:20:40,160 --> 02:20:45,920
Speaker 2: a good reason, a reasonable person would despair. So reason

1890
02:20:46,000 --> 02:20:51,280
Speaker 2: isn't sufficient. I have to trump reason, and I trump it,

1891
02:20:51,360 --> 02:20:56,960
Speaker 2: first of all with hope, which we've just discussed. I

1892
02:20:57,000 --> 02:21:00,920
Speaker 2: trump this with hope and with discipline. I am unable

1893
02:21:01,000 --> 02:21:02,440
Speaker 2: to hold myself on course.

1894
02:21:04,080 --> 02:21:06,880
Speaker 1: Let me go just a little bit thread the needle,

1895
02:21:06,920 --> 02:21:09,880
Speaker 1: which may not be what you're literally doing right now,

1896
02:21:09,879 --> 02:21:14,000
Speaker 1: but you're familiar with You have these very dedicated fans.

1897
02:21:14,800 --> 02:21:17,840
Speaker 1: You could pick one of the albums from your catalog,

1898
02:21:18,800 --> 02:21:22,600
Speaker 1: you know, Islands Lizard Red, and you could say I

1899
02:21:22,640 --> 02:21:26,680
Speaker 1: am going to play this album for a year live

1900
02:21:27,400 --> 02:21:32,640
Speaker 1: because the audience will love this. Okay, would that be

1901
02:21:33,320 --> 02:21:37,480
Speaker 1: emotional and intellectual death for you? Do you have to

1902
02:21:37,560 --> 02:21:41,080
Speaker 1: keep pushing the envelope to make it interesting to you.

1903
02:21:43,800 --> 02:21:49,200
Speaker 2: I continue to challenge myself. An example of that well,

1904
02:21:49,360 --> 02:21:52,840
Speaker 2: going on the road with David for two weeks, for example,

1905
02:21:53,400 --> 02:21:57,600
Speaker 2: or having a guitar course between one hundred and one

1906
02:21:57,720 --> 02:22:02,119
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty people and to near Mendoza in Argentina

1907
02:22:02,240 --> 02:22:07,720
Speaker 2: this late April, and then doing festival performances and live

1908
02:22:07,760 --> 02:22:10,160
Speaker 2: shows with Toy later in the year. These are all

1909
02:22:10,280 --> 02:22:16,440
Speaker 2: challenges for me. Is are they intellectual challenges? Yep, certainly

1910
02:22:16,480 --> 02:22:22,000
Speaker 2: going on the road with David it is Are they

1911
02:22:22,160 --> 02:22:23,320
Speaker 2: personal challenges?

1912
02:22:23,440 --> 02:22:23,680
Speaker 1: Yes?

1913
02:22:23,760 --> 02:22:26,280
Speaker 2: You have one hundred people come along and they look

1914
02:22:26,360 --> 02:22:30,480
Speaker 2: to me to give them advice. Yes, that a challenge, certainly.

1915
02:22:31,080 --> 02:22:35,119
Speaker 2: Is that an intersectional intellectual challenge? Not as much as

1916
02:22:35,160 --> 02:22:39,199
Speaker 2: it is a challenge to my feelings how to engage

1917
02:22:39,200 --> 02:22:43,680
Speaker 2: on a feeling level with these people. Am I likely

1918
02:22:43,800 --> 02:22:47,400
Speaker 2: to go on the road and play a particular King

1919
02:22:47,480 --> 02:22:51,640
Speaker 2: Crimson album for one year to keep people happy? I

1920
02:22:51,760 --> 02:22:59,640
Speaker 2: think that's unlikely. I think if I were to choose

1921
02:22:59,640 --> 02:23:03,720
Speaker 2: as Pacific repertoire to play live for period of time,

1922
02:23:05,280 --> 02:23:12,600
Speaker 2: I would have to choose that repertoire. I really, really

1923
02:23:12,800 --> 02:23:17,000
Speaker 2: really would like to play this, and it is within

1924
02:23:17,280 --> 02:23:22,880
Speaker 2: the current athletic and calisonic standards, which I can ask

1925
02:23:23,040 --> 02:23:27,680
Speaker 2: myself to honor. But do I believe that I will

1926
02:23:28,440 --> 02:23:31,040
Speaker 2: invite a number of other players to set off on

1927
02:23:31,080 --> 02:23:34,240
Speaker 2: the road to do that with me? I think that's unlikely.

1928
02:23:36,440 --> 02:23:39,480
Speaker 1: Okay, So if we brought your wife in right now,

1929
02:23:40,160 --> 02:23:44,000
Speaker 1: would your demeanor and style of speech be the same

1930
02:23:44,400 --> 02:23:48,160
Speaker 1: or would it be more colloquial and less measured.

1931
02:23:49,680 --> 02:23:52,640
Speaker 2: The latter And we'll leave it at that.

1932
02:23:52,959 --> 02:23:59,320
Speaker 1: Robert, Oh god, I can't get you guys enough. This

1933
02:23:59,360 --> 02:24:03,039
Speaker 1: has been very stimulating and I'm sure it will be

1934
02:24:03,160 --> 02:24:07,879
Speaker 1: that way for my audience. Thanks so much for doing this.

1935
02:24:08,720 --> 02:24:09,640
Speaker 2: Till next time.

1936
02:24:10,120 --> 02:24:11,640
Speaker 1: This is Bob Left sets