Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsetts Podcast. Today
Speaker 1: our guest is the one and only Robert frim Robert,
Speaker 1: did you practice today?
Speaker 2: I have not yet strapped on a guitar today, Bob.
Speaker 2: But may I also say you have a second guest,
Speaker 2: David Singleton, who is my business business partner, King Crimson Producer,
Speaker 2: and we've been engaged in various forms of musical and
Speaker 2: professional activities since about nineteen eighty nine. I say this
Speaker 2: because David has a far greater intelligence than mine. And
Speaker 2: there's also a philosophy graduate from Cambridge University, one of
Speaker 2: the two press these universities in England, whereas I am
Speaker 2: from working class stock and grammar school education and has
Speaker 2: really been educated by the life of a professional musician.
Speaker 1: Okay, since you mentioned David, you're both on the call
Speaker 1: here today. The two of you are going on tour
Speaker 1: imminently on the West coast of California. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me about that. Why David's involved in what you're going
Speaker 1: to do?
Speaker 2: Well, David's involved because he has a superior intellect of mine.
Speaker 2: He's also has a far greater overview of my affairs
Speaker 2: than I do, because I tend to be more specifically
Speaker 2: focused in the moment with what I'm doing. For example,
Speaker 2: a working musician walks on stage, plugs in, and begins
Speaker 2: to play, and their focus tends to be very specifically
Speaker 2: located in that moment during the performance. Now, when I
Speaker 2: walk off stage age, my recall tends to be better.
Speaker 2: If the gig has been really bad. If the gig sucks,
Speaker 2: you remember more of it. If it takes off and
Speaker 2: flies away, you're in a different place, and when you
Speaker 2: land on earth you don't quite have access to that
Speaker 2: same place until you take off and fly again. However, David,
Speaker 2: who maybe for example, watching from the auditorium, has a
Speaker 2: better distance and overview of what has gone on, and
Speaker 2: also a far better skill set in terms of analysis
Speaker 2: than I do, so his opinion is infinitely more reliable
Speaker 2: than mine. So he's coming along when I stumbled. He
Speaker 2: will tell people what I meant to say had I
Speaker 2: been a younger, more intelligent man.
Speaker 3: Our talks grew out of talks that we used to
Speaker 3: give the all the King Crimson shows. So before the
Speaker 3: King Crimson Shows, we used to do a thing called
Speaker 3: the Royal Package, where some fans could come in early
Speaker 3: and I recall when we were originally planning what we
Speaker 3: might do before the shows. I said, well, somebody should
Speaker 3: talk to the fans, you know, for the hour before
Speaker 3: the show, And I remember distinctly Robert saying to me, David,
Speaker 3: you should talk to the fans. I love it when
Speaker 3: you do the work and I earn the money, which
Speaker 3: wasn't true, by the way, because he shares the money.
Speaker 3: But anyway, so I began talking to fans before Robert
Speaker 3: joined me, one of the band members join me, and
Speaker 3: so to some extent, we're now doing those talks without
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 1: Okay, Robert, you're a man who has very distinct opinions,
Speaker 1: So it's funny that you talk about trusting Dave. Is
Speaker 1: Dave unique or you're more trusting than your image.
Speaker 2: David is one of two people who I trusted to
Speaker 2: give me objective and accurate feedback on anything that was
Speaker 2: particularly a rising in my life, or shall we saying
Speaker 2: King Crimson the fis Bill Reeflin and David Singleton were
Speaker 2: the two characters who if anyone in the band felt
Speaker 2: that Robert needed to be told a particular something but
Speaker 2: maybe they were afraid to tell him, then they would
Speaker 2: go to either Bill Reeflin, who was our drummer and
Speaker 2: keyboard player in the twenty fourteen twenty eighteen incarnations. They
Speaker 2: would go to Bill Rieflin or to David Singleton, both
Speaker 2: of whom I trust to be entirely impartial and give
Speaker 2: me the good, bad news, or whatever it might have been.
Speaker 2: There were very few people, very very few people who
Speaker 2: were like this.
Speaker 1: But you seem so warm and friendly right now? Is
Speaker 1: this your normal demeanor? Because your reputation is not that.
Speaker 2: It's true, my reputation is appalling, and it's interesting as
Speaker 2: an older man to look back consider why why this
Speaker 2: might be. And I'm beginning to come up with a
Speaker 2: few clues is to why my reputation is appalling. But
Speaker 2: since I trust David, David, why do you think my
Speaker 2: reputation is appalling?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll answer that in two ways. Firstly, the very
Speaker 3: first time Robertson and I went out doing a speaking tour,
Speaker 3: it had a subtitle that awful Man and his manager
Speaker 3: We didn't, which wasn't a tagline that we added. Somebody else,
Speaker 3: some wit came up with it when we were about
Speaker 3: to go on tour and said, oh, this is what
Speaker 3: you should call it. That awful man and his manager.
Speaker 3: And the main reason I think Robert has that reputation
Speaker 3: is because he prioritizes the music in all situations. So
Speaker 3: if you have a show or you're recording, Robert prioritizes
Speaker 3: the music, not the social or And for some people,
Speaker 3: I think that probably irks them.
Speaker 1: Okay, but Robert, let's say, in this hypothetical you walk
Speaker 1: into a coffee shop, are you the warmest guy or
Speaker 1: do you'd say, hey, this is exactly what I want
Speaker 1: and you're happy if it's not perfect. Would someone encounter
Speaker 1: this so called appalling reputation if you were just in
Speaker 1: everyday life.
Speaker 2: Probably I find that if you'd like a buy and
Speaker 2: large overview. If someone comes to me with a flea
Speaker 2: in their ear, they tend to leave with two a
Speaker 2: flea in each year. If someone comes to me with
Speaker 2: an attitude, they tend to leave with more of the
Speaker 2: same attitude. For example, if they come up to me
Speaker 2: with an open heart, they tend to find a person
Speaker 2: with an open heart. There are exceptions to this, and
Speaker 2: I can recall a few of them. For example, if
Speaker 2: I go into a coffee shop and I'm reading, for
Speaker 2: someone to come up and say excuse me, mister Fripp.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to interrupt you. My response might be
Speaker 2: to actually quote Jimmy Hendrix in the same situation. Then
Speaker 2: why are you so If a person comes up knowing
Speaker 2: they're interrupting me, I might remind them that they know better,
Speaker 2: or on some cases I've simply ignored them.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in your home right now. I don't want
Speaker 1: the specific address, but where is it?
Speaker 2: Generally it's in Middle England. It's about thirty miles south
Speaker 2: of Birmingham. It's geographically middle England. It's in the County
Speaker 2: of Worcester, and it's what is called a Georgian market town.
Speaker 2: That most of the buildings on the high street, Bridge Street,
Speaker 2: and where we are right in the center of town
Speaker 2: for the market square. It's Georgian. That is approximately mid
Speaker 2: eighteenth century. However, David, who lives in the old vicarage
Speaker 2: in town, looks out his window and sees the abbey.
Speaker 2: I look out our front windows and see the abbey
Speaker 2: about two hundred yards away as the crowflies. So we're
Speaker 2: looking at the site of Christian worship in this town
Speaker 2: since about seven hundred a d. Now, to an American
Speaker 2: this is maybe kind of astonishing, since the colonies were
Speaker 2: only set up, as we know, in the early seventeenth century.
Speaker 2: To have an ongoing site of worship in any religion
Speaker 2: for a period of what thirteen hundred years thirteen hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty years is quite astonishing. At the end of
Speaker 2: our garden, I live here with my wonderful wife Toy.
Speaker 2: We walk down to the garden. At the end of
Speaker 2: the garden is the River Avon. You turn left and
Speaker 2: go up twenty miles you'll pass William Shakespeare's old cottage
Speaker 2: old house. If you turn right and go down about
Speaker 2: one hundred miles you will pass Sting's House just outside Salisbury.
Speaker 2: So at the River Avon here the Vikings used to
Speaker 2: come up river and beat people up in our town
Speaker 2: and beastly characters that they were. They would burn down
Speaker 2: the wooden Christian Church in town, so eventually it was
Speaker 2: rebuilt in I think early twentieth century of Stone and
Speaker 2: the local Worthy, tough guy, the alpha male of the time,
Speaker 2: the local Worthy Night saw the Vikings off in a
Speaker 2: big punch up up the hill here. He saw them
Speaker 2: offer I think about ten seventy five, and they never
Speaker 2: came back. So we've had relative peace in town through
Speaker 2: about thousand years. So, David, would you add to this
Speaker 2: what am I missing?
Speaker 3: No? I thought that was wonderful. I was gonna say
Speaker 3: when you said relative piece in town, that's obviously until
Speaker 3: Robert moved in.
Speaker 1: So Robert, why this general location in England?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: When I first met my wife in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: but we met again in nineteen eighty five working on
Speaker 2: a charity record for to raise money for children's schooled
Speaker 2: in West Virginia, associated with the charity of which I
Speaker 2: was at that time the president. I met my wife
Speaker 2: and proposed. In a week. We had a date on
Speaker 2: the Friday, she went back to London, returned for our
Speaker 2: second date Friday one week later, and I proposed. At
Speaker 2: that time, my little elderly mother was alive, So my
Speaker 2: wife moved to my part of the world because we
Speaker 2: knew that maybe not too far down the road, one
Speaker 2: day the phone would go and the voice would say,
Speaker 2: you need to come now. Well, after my wonderful little
Speaker 2: mother died in nineteen ninety three, we could then be anywhere.
Speaker 2: And in nineteen ninety nine my wife's parents retired. She
Speaker 2: bought them a cottage just half a mile up river
Speaker 2: where there is a boat club that Toya essentially throughout
Speaker 2: her youth, about age I think two or three onwards.
Speaker 2: My wife became associated with this specific location. She moved
Speaker 2: her parents into retirement to this location, and at that
Speaker 2: point it became obvious that we should change from Wiltshire, Wiltshire,
Speaker 2: Dorset up to Worcestershire here to be in near them.
Speaker 2: So that's why we're here.
Speaker 1: Why did you know or how did you know she
Speaker 1: was the one so quickly?
Speaker 2: How could you not know that you've just met your wife?
Speaker 1: How old were you when you met your wife?
Speaker 2: At thirty nine? Was when we had our first date.
Speaker 1: And I proposed, okay, they are all these rock stars
Speaker 1: who do drugs sleep with a lot of women, but
Speaker 1: not all of them. Iani Anderson told me, you know
Speaker 1: that he was living a more conventional life while the
Speaker 1: members of his men were partying. You'd already had a
Speaker 1: lot of success, not to riet he'd been on the road.
Speaker 1: Had you partaken so called of the fruits of the
Speaker 1: road or were you in your hotel room practicing? What
Speaker 1: was your life like before you met to it?
Speaker 2: Well, I never took drugs, Yes, I practiced in my
Speaker 2: hotel room for hours and hours and hours. Did I
Speaker 2: socialize from time to time, Yes, But in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: Peter Simfield, the lyricist for the first King Crimson, who
Speaker 2: wrote some astonishing words, he commented that Robert practiced in
Speaker 2: his hotel room for eight hours a day. Now, from
Speaker 2: my position today, looking at Peter and looking at Robert,
Speaker 2: and asked to take a decision on these two young
Speaker 2: men's future, I would be inclined to say that guitarist
Speaker 2: is likely to succeed. And in terms of being a nasty, horrible,
Speaker 2: creepy person. To come back to what David said, and
Speaker 2: since we're talking about nineteen sixty nine King Crimson, Michael
Speaker 2: Jarles the drummer, astonishing drummer, probably the drummer of his
Speaker 2: generation in rock music. He said, there are three three
Speaker 2: areas for a band, the music, the money, and the
Speaker 2: social life. Any two of those you will have a
Speaker 2: successful band. And I would say any three of those
Speaker 2: and you have an astonishingly successful band. But going back
Speaker 2: to it, my priority working as a professional musician is
Speaker 2: the music. There are some professionals who take an alternative
Speaker 2: style of alternative you and that's entirely legitimate, which is
Speaker 2: this is a lifestyle that I would like, the socializing
Speaker 2: with the other members of the band, the life on
Speaker 2: the road, and so on. If that's congenial for them, fine,
Speaker 2: that is not my primary concern, and a life on
Speaker 2: the road has been distinctly non congenial for me as
Speaker 2: a person. In terms of the money, my attitude has
Speaker 2: been this is coming from the background of the nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties and King Crimson began essentially as a cooperative venture.
Speaker 2: Share the money, and after the dissolution of the first
Speaker 2: King Crimson and the subsequent incarnations, then I've kept to this.
Speaker 2: If you ask a person in the band to make
Speaker 2: the commitment that you were making, you share the money
Speaker 2: with them, and if you don't share the money with them,
Speaker 2: you can't legitimately ask them to make the commitment that
Speaker 2: you are. So for me, I've worked with the musicians
Speaker 2: that personally were exceptionally difficult for me to work with
Speaker 2: if I felt that these were the musicians needed to
Speaker 2: make this music available. So, in other words, the social
Speaker 2: aspects of working within a group have not been a
Speaker 2: priority for me personally. The money neither. Particularly it comes
Speaker 2: down to the music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you mentioned not taking drugs. Is that a philosophy?
Speaker 1: Did you just stumble into that and you didn't take drugs?
Speaker 1: Tell me more about that.
Speaker 2: It was always very clear to me that this was
Speaker 2: not a way for me, Just that clear.
Speaker 1: What about alcohol?
Speaker 2: Yes, I've pushed the boat out a young man of
Speaker 2: my generation that didn't take drugs, and we were now
Speaker 2: looking at the early nineteen sixties. What he might do, however,
Speaker 2: is have a pint of cider on the Saturday night
Speaker 2: even too, and it would be rough cider, and why roughsider?
Speaker 2: Because it was one shilling and one pence and on
Speaker 2: a Saturday night. If you're only getting five shillings a
Speaker 2: week for your earnings, or even five pounds a week
Speaker 2: for your earnings, that was all you could afford. So
Speaker 2: age sixteen or seventeen, I would go down to the
Speaker 2: Cellar Club in Pool to see the rock groups playing
Speaker 2: in the Cellar Club. Greg Lake and his band was
Speaker 2: one of them. And for two shillings and two pence
Speaker 2: and the price of a bus ride there, which is
Speaker 2: about a shilling, you could have a relatively straightforward and
Speaker 2: enjoy full Saturday night out. It was affordable. Did I
Speaker 2: grow older? And develop a taste in something finer than
Speaker 2: rough sided. Yes, I quite like sparkling wine. Champagne is fine,
Speaker 2: but I'm not snobbish about it. I'm very happy to
Speaker 2: have prosecco, and I have learned to drink margaritas. My
Speaker 2: wife makes astonishing monster margaritas, so I have also enjoyed
Speaker 2: monster margaritas on many occasions with Adrian Blue, we would
Speaker 2: go out to some modest Mexican restaurants and have the
Speaker 2: monster margaritas. But I do not drink when I'm working.
Speaker 1: So other than your wife, where's the best margarita you've had?
Speaker 2: Now you have me, I tell you what. I had
Speaker 2: a really good margarita at Daryl's house in not October
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two. We did our live at Daryl's house,
Speaker 2: and then afterwards I wasn't anticipating drinking, but it did
Speaker 2: feel like an appropriate moment. So I had a margarita
Speaker 2: and it was very, very good.
Speaker 1: And you know, traditionally margarita's come with salt on the rim.
Speaker 1: Are you a traditionalist or do you say? No salt?
Speaker 2: Classic salt margarita on the rocks, preferably crushed ized, no doubt,
Speaker 2: fresh line fresh line, and.
Speaker 1: Does it matter whether it's Quervo eighteen hundred or just
Speaker 1: whatever tequila's on hand.
Speaker 2: I'm not snobbish. I prefer white tequila. Blue a garth
Speaker 2: goes down very nicely, indeed. But now here's the one.
Speaker 2: I was in Mexico in Cernavaca with my pal Leo,
Speaker 2: who organized guitar craft and guitar circle courses at to Potsdam,
Speaker 2: and we were in the restaurant, which was formerly the
Speaker 2: house of Diego Rivera, and we were having lunch together
Speaker 2: and I thought, well, I'm not working, I'll pus shake
Speaker 2: the boat. I'll have a margarita. And Leah explained to me,
Speaker 2: you don't get margaritas in Mexico any more than you
Speaker 2: used to get pizzas in Italy. He said, we drink mescal.
Speaker 2: I thought, all right, I'll give this a chop and
Speaker 2: I took my first sip and I thought, oh, that
Speaker 2: tastes nice. I'll have a second one. Once I got
Speaker 2: to the end of my first mescal, I realized, now,
Speaker 2: now a second one is really a step too far.
Speaker 1: Okay, what kind of kid were you growing up? Were
Speaker 1: you a member of the group, were you under sports?
Speaker 1: Were you that odd kid. It was always by themselves.
Speaker 2: Probably all of those. I think it changed when I
Speaker 2: was about age nine or ten and my reading skills
Speaker 2: had developed, and at that point I would tend to
Speaker 2: stay in more evenings than not reading. When I became
Speaker 2: a guitarist at eight eleven, this was a very good,
Speaker 2: natural and developing tendency. Because if you are a musician,
Speaker 2: an Aspen musician, and or a composer or writer, you
Speaker 2: have to have what Professor John Slaboda in his Psychology
Speaker 2: for Musicians refers to as the capacity of strong interestpect.
Speaker 2: If you are a serious practicer, this is four to
Speaker 2: eight hours of your life at least, and if you're
Speaker 2: a young concert pianist it might be twelve sixteen hours
Speaker 2: a day now to sit on a chair mostly on
Speaker 2: your own, focusing on your practicing or your writing. That
Speaker 2: much time on your own for most inverted comrasordinary people
Speaker 2: would be a struggle. If, however, you have an innate
Speaker 2: or developed capacity for introspection, which is healthy, this is
Speaker 2: what Professor Roboda refers to. This is a strong and
Speaker 2: healthy capacity for introspection, not not somehow a failing to
Speaker 2: engage socially.
Speaker 1: Okay, is like your wife. As soon as you started
Speaker 1: playing the guitar, you said, this is it. How did
Speaker 1: you make the transition from a non player to a player?
Speaker 2: When I met my wife, I practiced less than hitherto.
Speaker 1: Ok, let me rephrase this question. How did you first
Speaker 1: get an instrument? And was guitar your first instrument?
Speaker 2: Yes, it was December twenty fourth, nineteen fifty seven, Christmas
Speaker 2: Eve and my mother, who had bought me all my
Speaker 2: Christmas presents. But I believe the day before I said
Speaker 2: I want a guitar for Christmas. So my mother and
Speaker 2: I went out shopping into Bournemouth, which was nine miles
Speaker 2: from Wimborne, where we lived. And this area in Dorset
Speaker 2: based around actually just four miles north of Wimburne is
Speaker 2: the Fripp family village where the Trips have gone back
Speaker 2: father to father for four hundred years. For example, in
Speaker 2: the village where Toya and myself had our first datum
Speaker 2: where we got married. My great great great great great
Speaker 2: grandfather Robert Fripp died in seventeen fifty four, but my
Speaker 2: father took the geniality back a little further actually to
Speaker 2: fifteen ninety in Edmonsham, which is five miles north of that,
Speaker 2: so that's a slight distraction. Now back we went from
Speaker 2: Wimborne into Bournemouth. We went round all the music shops
Speaker 2: in Bournemouth, finding nothing appropriate until write about five o'clock
Speaker 2: at the end of our shopping day, to Min's Music
Speaker 2: of Westbourne. And as we were there in the shop,
Speaker 2: a woman came in with this guitar and she said,
Speaker 2: I would like to return this to you. We're getting
Speaker 2: a better guitar for my So we stepped forward and
Speaker 2: said we will buy this, and the Eggermann Freys instrument
Speaker 2: bought for six guineas, is now in the cellar directly
Speaker 2: below the study were speaking. It was an appalling instrument,
Speaker 2: a really, really terrible instrument which creppled my left hand
Speaker 2: action for years. Even in nineteen seventy I remember having
Speaker 2: to practice to develop a more relaxed left hand grip
Speaker 2: after learning to play this instrument. You'd need players to
Speaker 2: put the strings down above the seventh threat. The action
Speaker 2: was so bad. But anyway, that was my first guitar
Speaker 2: and was in three months. I knew this was my life.
Speaker 1: Okay, you take the guitar home, what do you do?
Speaker 1: First of all, there's the issue of tuning it. You
Speaker 1: don't know how to read music? What were your steps?
Speaker 2: All right? Well, the man in men's music obviously knew
Speaker 2: three or four chords to persuade people that this was
Speaker 2: an instrument worth playing, and he tuned it up for us.
Speaker 2: So I took it home and there was the guitar
Speaker 2: tutor of the day. Was actually an appalling tutor, hugely
Speaker 2: successful called play in a Day by Bert Whedon, which
Speaker 2: many of the leading guitarists of the time looked back
Speaker 2: on and refer to it as the first tutor. It
Speaker 2: was an appalling tutor. Nevertheless, this was where one began
Speaker 2: at the time until we received better information. So about
Speaker 2: three months after having the guitar, I went for my
Speaker 2: first guitar lessons with Missus cah Felleen Gartel of the
Speaker 2: kauf Mullen School of Music, kauf Mullen being three miles
Speaker 2: down the road from Wimborne and where I grew up,
Speaker 2: spending the first three years of my life in kauf Mullen.
Speaker 2: Missus Gartel was a very good Salvation Army lady who
Speaker 2: saw it as her work in life as educating children
Speaker 2: in music. She was primarily a piano teacher, not an
Speaker 2: awfully good guitar teacher, which she knew, and after my
Speaker 2: first course of I believed ten or twelve lessons I
Speaker 2: was her star student. So she sent me on to
Speaker 2: a proper guitar teacher, Don Strike of Westbourne Arcade, who
Speaker 2: was actually only two hundred yards from Min's Music where
Speaker 2: I bought the guitar but had not quite discovered him.
Speaker 2: I wish i'd governed him earlier, and under Don Strike
Speaker 2: I began to develop seriously and find my own way forward.
Speaker 2: When I was seventeen, I visited Don Strike's music shop
Speaker 2: on that particular Saturday afternoon. This is what young guitarists
Speaker 2: would do. There were two shops in town. You go
Speaker 2: to Don Strike's in Westbourne Arcade and then maybe you
Speaker 2: go to Eddie Moore's Music in not Westbourne it was.
Speaker 2: It was before christ Church anyway, it was East Bournemouth,
Speaker 2: and in between two shops there would be movement. I
Speaker 2: went in one Saturday and Don Strike shook my hand
Speaker 2: and acknowledged me as the better get guitarist. At the
Speaker 2: time it didn't strike me particularly, but as I've got
Speaker 2: older and from where I am now, I recognize this
Speaker 2: as a very generous compliment from an older generation player
Speaker 2: acknowledging a younger generation player.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you take lessons, they teach you how to
Speaker 1: read music. Do you read music today? Do you write
Speaker 1: out charts?
Speaker 2: Do I read music today? Yes, but slowly because it's
Speaker 2: not part of my daily activity. Historically, when I became
Speaker 2: a professional in nineteen sixty seven and moved to London,
Speaker 2: way up until about two thousand and eight, I would
Speaker 2: I would write, we might say compose with charts, but
Speaker 2: within members of King Crimson, I would not give them charts.
Speaker 2: I understand Charles Mingus didn't either, So what I would
Speaker 2: do is show the music to the other members of
Speaker 2: the band and invite their responses in return. But yes,
Speaker 2: the quick answer is, Bob, I read music and wrote
Speaker 2: music in the for bo that period of forty odd
Speaker 2: years in my professional life.
Speaker 1: Okay, paint the picture of what it's like in the
Speaker 1: fifties growing up. I'm a little younger than you. I'm
Speaker 1: growing up in the United States. We always hear about
Speaker 1: a war hangover sort of life being in black and white.
Speaker 1: Was that what it's like or is that an inaccurate description?
Speaker 2: The quick answer is that's accurate to paint a broader picture.
Speaker 2: I was born in nineteen forty six. My grandfather was
Speaker 2: in the Marines and in Gallipoli. My uncle Bill was
Speaker 2: in the Air Force and was shot down in October
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine and spent the next five years and
Speaker 2: seven months in a twelve German prisoner of war camps,
Speaker 2: including Stalagluff three, where he was one of the logistics
Speaker 2: people planning the Great Escape. He was a navigator. His
Speaker 2: pilot was one of those who escaped and was caught
Speaker 2: and shot. So Uncle Bill refused to speak about his
Speaker 2: war years for fifty years, and then fifty years later
Speaker 2: he would begin to respond. Uncle Bill was a close
Speaker 2: presence in my life growing up and that was a
Speaker 2: real time for me. One generation removed, but growing up
Speaker 2: in England, it was the time of austerity. For example,
Speaker 2: in when I was three in nineteen forty nine, sweet
Speaker 2: rationing was abandoned for three months and then it was reinstituted.
Speaker 2: And I remember on a Saturday when we go to
Speaker 2: the cinema with my father, my sister and myself, we
Speaker 2: would stuff off and buy a shillings worst of sweets
Speaker 2: on the way to the cinema, but it would be
Speaker 2: ration based. And I remember the first time rationing came
Speaker 2: off in nineteen forty nine. I was three and running
Speaker 2: around in the attic of our home in corf Mullen
Speaker 2: and I ran over the open trap door and fell
Speaker 2: down from the attic with a big crump on the
Speaker 2: landing below. And I was in bed when my sister
Speaker 2: went to have her ration free suites for the first time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, growing up in the fifties, not that at
Speaker 2: that age I was aware of any constructions. It was
Speaker 2: the life we had. But after the event I could
Speaker 2: look back and say austerity and my parents working class
Speaker 2: lives continued, and to some extent today continues on. My
Speaker 2: mother was the daughter of a Welsh miner who died
Speaker 2: one long night at his age of fifty nine I
Speaker 2: believe it was I believe it was nineteen forty eight
Speaker 2: or nine. He died one long night, wheezing his life
Speaker 2: of way from his punctured lungs. He had a wooden
Speaker 2: leg because working down the mine at the Six Bells Colliery,
Speaker 2: he'd got trapped on the pulley taking coal into the
Speaker 2: crusher and one of his legs went into the coal
Speaker 2: crusher and one of his mining pals pulled him off,
Speaker 2: and my grandmother, Gladys Louise Green, her hair turned white
Speaker 2: in a week, not knowing whether her husband would live
Speaker 2: or die. My father, at age sixteen, was told to
Speaker 2: leave school because he needed to help bring money into
Speaker 2: the family to help support his five brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2: So that's my background. I was brought up with complete
Speaker 2: confidence that I would succeed. Why because both my sister
Speaker 2: and myself knew that we would succeed because we would work.
Speaker 2: We would work until we would succeed. In other words,
Speaker 2: this is a classic Protestant work ethic inculcated into us
Speaker 2: by our parents who had done the same. We were
Speaker 2: brought up to be independent and to work. So when
Speaker 2: I went to London in September nineteen sixty seven, I
Speaker 2: knew I would succeed because I would work. However, I
Speaker 2: did not anticipate that my professional success would be a
Speaker 2: public success. I thought it more likely that I would,
Speaker 2: for example, end up in sessions. It never occurred to
Speaker 2: me that I would personally become well known.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the US, we had the folk boom of
Speaker 1: the early sixties and a lot of people got nylon
Speaker 1: string guitars, and then the Beatles hit in the beginning
Speaker 1: of sixty four and seemingly everybody got an electric guitar.
Speaker 1: Why was everybody picking up the guitar in England in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven, Because it's not only you, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of other legendary players. What was going on
Speaker 1: was the guitar hip. It's like, why did you want
Speaker 1: to play the guitar? Wor other people playing the guitar,
Speaker 1: or what you heard on the radio? What was the motivation?
Speaker 2: All right, you're explaining, you're asking me to explain the zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: I can't quite do that. Why music would reach over
Speaker 2: and express itself through popular culture in such a way
Speaker 2: that it brought a generation together with the conviction that
Speaker 2: music will change the world. The cultural context would be
Speaker 2: In the mid nineteen fifties is a movement in England
Speaker 2: called skiffle. One of the pivotal characters, very important character,
Speaker 2: was Chris Barber. And you would have a skiffle group
Speaker 2: which was probably derived from Woody Guthrie and other American
Speaker 2: folk heroes through an English perspective, but you would have
Speaker 2: a tea chest and a broom poll and a piece
Speaker 2: of string that would be your base. You would have
Speaker 2: a scrubbing board for rhythm, played with thumbnail what is it,
Speaker 2: David thumbnails from sewing, yes, finger finger protectors from sewing,
Speaker 2: and you would have perhaps number three guitarists thimbles, Thank
Speaker 2: you thimbles, And that was the basic. Then Lonnie Donoghan
Speaker 2: was a character who also came out of this same background,
Speaker 2: very popular, and then it became more sophisticated as Bob
Speaker 2: Dylan became more familiar in England, and then it moved
Speaker 2: on to electricity. Electricity for me nineteen fifty seven, fifty
Speaker 2: six fifty seven, Elvis, I mean, Scottymore what a player.
Speaker 2: He was the first guitarist who made me think, yeah,
Speaker 2: Chuck Berry, Yeah, But we shouldn't forget Muddy Waters in Chicago,
Speaker 2: Plugging in a Bank nineteen forty seven, forty eight, which
Speaker 2: was the precursor to all of this. Would you go
Speaker 2: back much further than that, I'm sure you could, but
Speaker 2: really I think the beginning of it would probably be
Speaker 2: forty seven forty eight were Muddy Rocks a in Chicago?
Speaker 2: Then move forward to the Beatles, who are also looking
Speaker 2: primarily in American direction. When they begin. But something else
Speaker 2: was going on with Beatles For me, the last example
Speaker 2: of communal genius in popular music. Something astonishing. And when
Speaker 2: I heard A Day in the Life in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: sixty seven, sixty seven, that reunt he had reoriented the
Speaker 2: direction of my life. Instead of going onto university in
Speaker 2: taking a degree in the state management to become a
Speaker 2: partner in my father's auctioneering and the state agency firm
Speaker 2: in Wimborne, Dorset, I had to go to music. Why
Speaker 2: in the same way that I recognized my wife, At
Speaker 2: these pivotal moments in our life, we recognize this is
Speaker 2: for me, it has to be and if we can't
Speaker 2: recognize it, then something's off. Why can't we recognize what
Speaker 2: is obvious? Well, fortunately, I think my instincts were good.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in the UK. The Beatles hit in the
Speaker 1: UK in sixty two, needless to say, they're playing in
Speaker 1: the late fifties. Do you feel a burgeoning rock and
Speaker 1: roll scene? You know, Liverpool was revered in the US,
Speaker 1: but it's not a super classy looked upon finally city
Speaker 1: in the UK to what the gwed Did you feel
Speaker 1: a burgeoning scene or did you just turn on the
Speaker 1: radio one day and heard love Me Do.
Speaker 2: Well. I remember hearing Love Me Do on the radio
Speaker 2: about sixty two three, and it didn't it didn't quite
Speaker 2: do it for me. For me, it wasn't the strongest song.
Speaker 2: I was in what were called bait groups at the time.
Speaker 1: Well a little bit, a little bit slower, a little
Speaker 1: bit slower. You get a guitar, you're going for lessons,
Speaker 1: what point do you decide to join a band and
Speaker 1: play out? And how does that happen?
Speaker 2: Fourteen stroke fifteen and why? Because my guitar teacher, Don
Speaker 2: Strike said, you're at the point where you need to
Speaker 2: be in a band, you need to work with other musicians.
Speaker 2: So age fourteen turning fifteen, I was in my first
Speaker 2: beat group called the Ravens, and Gordon Haskell was another
Speaker 2: one of those players. I remember on the grammar school
Speaker 2: playing field while we would throw in discus, he turned
Speaker 2: to me and said, hey, mush, if I bear buy
Speaker 2: a bass, can I join your band? And I said yes.
Speaker 2: So that was our first band. And then that stopped
Speaker 2: because I was taking my school examinations which were then
Speaker 2: called O levels, and then at a seventeen beginning eighteen,
Speaker 2: I was in my second beat group also with Gordon
Speaker 2: House School, called the League of Gentlemen, and that was
Speaker 2: a more mature expression. We would do covers for example,
Speaker 2: we would do Beatles covers for Seasons covers. We would
Speaker 2: do guitar instrumentals of the day like Orange Blossom Special
Speaker 2: for example. Because I was quite to developed guitarist for
Speaker 2: my age, we could take on guitar guitar pieces that
Speaker 2: not many semi pro bands could do. That went on
Speaker 2: until I was about eighteen nineteen, and at that point
Speaker 2: I needed to take a levels to go on to
Speaker 2: university so I could become a partner my father's firm,
Speaker 2: and I paid my way through college by being a
Speaker 2: guitarist in the Majestic Hotel Jewish Hotel on Born's East Coast,
Speaker 2: where a young guitarist called Andy Summers went on to
Speaker 2: London with Zoot Money's Big Role band that became the
Speaker 2: citedentlic Dantallion's Chariot before Andy went off to the West
Speaker 2: Coast with Eric Burden and the Animals. So Andy went
Speaker 2: off to London and I took over the guitar chair
Speaker 2: for the next two and a half three years until
Speaker 2: I went to London and moved to it Monee and
Speaker 2: failure for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: So you're going to university. Did you finish university?
Speaker 2: I didn't even begin. I went up to university and
Speaker 2: took my interview. I took my A levels, the next
Speaker 2: standard in school examinations at two weeks notice, and had
Speaker 2: a nay in economics being economic history, which was sufficiently
Speaker 2: good to get me accepted. I even have my digs booked.
Speaker 2: And then I heard A Day in the Life and Hendrix,
Speaker 2: Foxy Lady, Purple Hayes, Eric Clapton with the Blues Breakers,
Speaker 2: the Bartok String Quartets, Stravinsky, Wright of Spring, and I
Speaker 2: could no longer be the dutiful son. I was being
Speaker 2: redirected in life. I went with it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you decide to go to London. Do you
Speaker 1: know somebody in London? Where are you gonna stay? Do
Speaker 1: you have any work opportunities?
Speaker 2: The quick answer to all of those questions is no. However,
Speaker 2: in Bournemouth there were the Giles brothers, Michael and Peter
Speaker 2: Giles and the They had just left a band called
Speaker 2: Trendsetters Limited. They were professionals. Peter was two years older
Speaker 2: than me, Michael was four years older than me, and
Speaker 2: when you're twenty one, that's very big. I became a
Speaker 2: professional musician on May the sixteenth, nineteen sixty seven, my
Speaker 2: twenty first birthday, and then became available for work. And
Speaker 2: Michael and Peter Giles were advertising for a singing organist.
Speaker 2: I was tipped off to this by a local agent
Speaker 2: in Bournemouth, so I went an auditioned, and although I
Speaker 2: can't sing and don't play organ I spent a month
Speaker 2: rehearsing with them. And after a month I said to
Speaker 2: Michael Giles, and I thought humorously, I said, have I
Speaker 2: passed the audition? Well, I mean the answer to that
Speaker 2: is clearly yes, but not if you're asking Michael Giles,
Speaker 2: because Michael's key characteristic is that Michael could never commit himself.
Speaker 2: So Michael rolled himself a cigarette and looked down and
Speaker 2: put the cigarette in his mouth and writ it and said,
Speaker 2: let's not be in too great a hurry to commit
Speaker 2: ourselves to each other. So, although I never learned whether
Speaker 2: I passed the audition or not, we moved to London
Speaker 2: in September. September, I think we might have moved a
Speaker 2: month or two earlier because I had got US a
Speaker 2: job working in La Dulta, not an Italian restaurant with
Speaker 2: Douglas Ward, a cord of Vox accordion player backing an
Speaker 2: Italian singer called Moreno. But we're now shooting off on
Speaker 2: entirely tangential situations. But yes, I moved to London with
Speaker 2: two people who had more experience than me. We moved
Speaker 2: up to essentially unemployment inignoranty for a year or two.
Speaker 2: We did have employment. We began, I believe, on the Monday,
Speaker 2: and on the Thursday, we discovered that the agent was
Speaker 2: ripping off ten pounds a week from our pay packet,
Speaker 2: and we went on strike on the Friday in protest,
Speaker 2: and we were sacked on the Saturday. And I was
Speaker 2: unemployed for the next year or so.
Speaker 1: Okay, but one can, because this is something we're not
Speaker 1: familiar with in the US, but one can live on
Speaker 1: the doll on unemployment and exist for that year.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the quick answer. I lived on what was
Speaker 2: called supplementary benefit, which meant on a Friday I would
Speaker 2: drive with Peter Giles in his nineteen fifty two Daimler.
Speaker 2: It was a heap, but nevertheless, it would take us
Speaker 2: as far as the Supplementary Benefits Office at Downshall Hill
Speaker 2: in Hampstead, where we would get opelieve it was five pounds,
Speaker 2: which would decounter fairly modest, not to say miserable existence.
Speaker 2: So on a Monday I had the choice of whether
Speaker 2: to buy an extra can of peas or half an
Speaker 2: ounce of Golden Virginia rolling tobacco or old Holbury rolling tobacco,
Speaker 2: or go up to Kilburn State Cinema where I could
Speaker 2: see a film. So this was my choice on a
Speaker 2: Monday evening, can of peas and eat more golden Holburn,
Speaker 2: roll some more cigarettes or two or three see a film.
Speaker 2: That was my life for about a year.
Speaker 1: So then what happened after that year?
Speaker 2: After that Ian McDonald came together with Charles J and Frip.
Speaker 2: One of the giants fell out and another person called
Speaker 2: Greg Lake came in. And Ian McDonald had an uncle
Speaker 2: called Angus Hunking, who was a retired very successful industrialist
Speaker 2: from the North of England, very good man who to
Speaker 2: keep his second wife happy, he invested seven thousand pounds
Speaker 2: in his wife's nephew in McDonald's band, which enabled us
Speaker 2: to stay afloat for a period of time and to
Speaker 2: buy equipment, which is what we did, and this was
Speaker 2: the beginning of King Crimson.
Speaker 1: Okay, during the year that you're on the doll, what
Speaker 1: is your musical situation? Is that when this band is
Speaker 1: forming or you playing other bands, what's going on during
Speaker 1: that year?
Speaker 2: During that year I practiced two for six, eight, ten
Speaker 2: twelve hours a day. Why because a sessional, professional musician
Speaker 2: doesn't have the time to practice. May I say that
Speaker 2: I have been mostly an exception to that, but that's
Speaker 2: another story. During the time Charles, Charles and Fritt were
Speaker 2: living in Ignominy from the late sixty seven into nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight, we made demos in our modest accommodations at
Speaker 2: ninety three A Brondersbury Road, Kilburn, and we secured a
Speaker 2: record deal with d RAM that's a branch of Decca Records.
Speaker 2: And the person we spoke to at Decca Records is
Speaker 2: a famous character who turned down the Beatles, Dick Rowe.
Speaker 2: That was the man we met at d RAM. He's
Speaker 2: also the A and R man that persuaded Leta Rosa
Speaker 2: to record how Much is that Doggie in the Window?
Speaker 2: Which she hated and was bullied and pushed into doing it,
Speaker 2: and only ever sung at once the one take of
Speaker 2: how Much is that Doggie in the Window, which was
Speaker 2: a massive hit for her that she refused ever to
Speaker 2: sing live now in case you think I'm just witchering
Speaker 2: on bob Leta Rosa was a cabaret at the Majestic
Speaker 2: Hotel and at age nineteen, I accompanied her. Wow, so well,
Speaker 2: we recognize life is a circle. We cannot escape our
Speaker 2: circle anyway. Coming back, so the one year of Charles
Speaker 2: charleson Tripp Poverty Enigma. Andy was essentially getting a record
Speaker 2: deal and making a record which in its first year
Speaker 2: of relief worldwide attracted I believe four hundred seals.
Speaker 1: Okay, a raging success. So how does that evolve into
Speaker 1: King Crimson?
Speaker 2: That's an interesting one. Probably Charles Jars and Fripp's only
Speaker 2: public I'm not sure is that success. But meanwhile Ian
Speaker 2: McDonald had joined Charles, Charles and Fripp. I'll cut straight in.
Speaker 2: So Charles Jarsonphrip was now a four piece. We through
Speaker 2: a professional connection that the Charles brothers had, we did
Speaker 2: a thirty minute television show called Color Me Pop on
Speaker 2: BBC two television in England, which would broadcast I believe
Speaker 2: in November nineteen sixty eight, Charles Jons Fripp kind of
Speaker 2: broke up on the same day or night of release.
Speaker 2: It was fairly obvious to me that Charles Charson Frip
Speaker 2: and Ian McDonald had no chance whatsoever a professional success.
Speaker 2: So I put it to the other members of the band. Look,
Speaker 2: I don't feel I can continue working with Peter, but
Speaker 2: I have a pal in Bournemouth who sings, plays guitar
Speaker 2: and plays bass, Greg Lake, and he can replace either
Speaker 2: myself or Peter, whatever you feel. And Ian MacDonald and
Speaker 2: Michael Giles figured that no, it was probably better moving
Speaker 2: forward that I stay in Peter leave, which is what happened.
Speaker 2: And Greg Lake moved from Bournemouth to London and had
Speaker 2: nowhere to live. And for the first three days of
Speaker 2: Greg being in London he slept in bed with me,
Speaker 2: my four foot six modest bed in our modest accommodations.
Speaker 2: Before we got an apartment or pad as it would
Speaker 2: be called back then, be caught a pad together off
Speaker 2: off West Point Grove.
Speaker 1: How did you know Greg Lake and what was his
Speaker 1: status and how much hunger did he have before you
Speaker 1: picked him from obscurity?
Speaker 2: Well, Greg was at that time probably more successful than
Speaker 2: we were. But to go back, Greg was one of
Speaker 2: the young players on the Bournemouth pool music scene as
Speaker 2: I was. He was a couple of years younger than me.
Speaker 2: And I've mentioned the Seller Club earlier. Well, I would
Speaker 2: climb over the wall of the Cellar Club and get in,
Speaker 2: which I did, and I was at Greg Lake's band.
Speaker 2: The name currently escapes me because I'm talking too much,
Speaker 2: but I saw them doing. An addition, we were young
Speaker 2: characters the same age, young teenage boys with g and music.
Speaker 2: We became very very close, as young young characters do.
Speaker 2: I went to London, I stayed in touch with Greg.
Speaker 2: Greg joined the bank called the Gods, who had Ken Hensley,
Speaker 2: who went on to Uriah, and we stayed in touch,
Speaker 2: good pals, And when Peter was leaving, I was in
Speaker 2: touch with Greg and said would you like to come
Speaker 2: to London. It was fairly obvious that Greg was a
Speaker 2: lifer in music. You know, you recognize each other. We're
Speaker 2: not here as a lifestyle, We're here because this is
Speaker 2: what we do. And it was fairly obvious to anyone
Speaker 2: in Bonemouth at the time that Greg was one of
Speaker 2: those characters who would succeed.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you get a manager and a record
Speaker 1: deal for King Crimson.
Speaker 2: Through the connection with d Ram. They knew Noel Gay.
Speaker 2: Noel Gay's background was in publishing, but they also had management.
Speaker 2: Since Charles, Charles and Fripp were a new artist on
Speaker 2: the d RAM label, we needed management. So they were
Speaker 2: in touch with Noel Gay, who took on Charles, Charles
Speaker 2: and Fripp. And two young characters working at Noel Gay
Speaker 2: were David Anthoven and John Gayden who were just about
Speaker 2: to go independent. So this was EG Management who split
Speaker 2: off from Noel Gay and took King Crimson Charles, Charles
Speaker 2: and Fripp, becoming King Crimson with them, which became a
Speaker 2: legal issue because Noel Gay. When King Crimson suddenly had
Speaker 2: this remarkably successful first album, Noel Gay said, but hey,
Speaker 2: Noel Gay manages King Crimson, not EG Management. So a
Speaker 2: settlement was made by Wichie. Noel Gay received I think
Speaker 2: two percent in the court of Crimson King for a
Speaker 2: year or two. So you had Entoven and Gayden, a
Speaker 2: new generation management firm managing King Crimson, who were therefore
Speaker 2: available for a new record deal.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, and I think if I
Speaker 3: remember rightly, they became excited because they saw the TV
Speaker 3: show that you mentioned earlier. I believe so, yes, because
Speaker 3: they weren't aware really of what Charles Jars and Fripp
Speaker 3: were doing, and they saw that TV shows that the
Speaker 3: main thing that served was that those who saw it
Speaker 3: and then decided they wanted to manage you.
Speaker 2: Yes, well. On January the thirteenth, nineteen sixty nine, King Crimson,
Speaker 2: who then didn't quite have a name, nevertheless began began
Speaker 2: rehearsing in the basement of the Fulham Palace Cafe in
Speaker 2: Fulham Fulham Palace Road. Why because we had taken of
Speaker 2: the seven thousand pounds which Angers Hunking had generously lent us.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a gift, it was alone that he never
Speaker 2: ever believed in his wildest dreams we would repay. But nevertheless,
Speaker 2: if it kept his wife happy, then he'd do it.
Speaker 2: So armed with our new equipment and money to pay
Speaker 2: rent on our rehearsal room, we began rehearsing. And what
Speaker 2: we would do is invite people down to see us.
Speaker 2: And of the two of the first people to come
Speaker 2: down to see us, after I believe ten days rehearsal
Speaker 2: ent over in the Gaden, and they thought, yeah, this
Speaker 2: is good. And they went away and they came back,
Speaker 2: and the second time they came back, they realized this
Speaker 2: isn't a good band, this is something else. And we
Speaker 2: established the convention of inviting people down to see us.
Speaker 2: For example, the Moody Blues came down to see us
Speaker 2: and we played for them, and Tony Clark, their record producer,
Speaker 2: and then with various record companies taking an interest, Chris
Speaker 2: Blackwell of Island Records sent down Muff Winwood to see us.
Speaker 2: And Muff Winwood was the brother of Steve Winwood, who
Speaker 2: I believe we probably know well. And Muff Windwood was
Speaker 2: utterly unable to see what was in front of him,
Speaker 2: and he remarked, went over and Gaydon, they're like the Tremlers,
Speaker 2: who were an excellent band, but very unlike King Crimson.
Speaker 2: And he said to us, you have no image. You
Speaker 2: won't be able to work live unless you have a
Speaker 2: hit single. So he went back to Chris Blackwell and
Speaker 2: said what I've just said, and Chris Blackwell, I wasn't
Speaker 2: in the room, but I think the response that I've
Speaker 2: received is something like you said what And for me,
Speaker 2: I have all always taken After that, Muff Windwood is
Speaker 2: a reliable direction to the way to move in life.
Speaker 2: So if Muff points that way, I go that way.
Speaker 2: He established a standard for me, so anyway other characters
Speaker 2: would come down and essentially on the basis of those
Speaker 2: performances in a very small basement of a Fulham Palace cafe,
Speaker 2: that established our beginning. From this the connections were made.
Speaker 2: We did a week in Changes, a club in Newcastle
Speaker 2: had just opened a Bank February of nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: which had been booked on the basis of Charles Charles
Speaker 2: and Fripp Calumy Pop Show. But the first King Crimson
Speaker 2: live performance was in April nineteen sixty nine at the
Speaker 2: Speakeasy Club, which was something of a defining performance.
Speaker 1: But how do you ultimately get a record deal and
Speaker 1: make that record.
Speaker 2: Different record companies made different offers. Mercury Records, I believe,
Speaker 2: offered three hundred and fifty thousand pounds at the time,
Speaker 2: which was huge Island Records in England because Entopen and
Speaker 2: Gayden and the band felt this was the right the
Speaker 2: right label, young generation label for US and in America
Speaker 2: Atlantic Records Arma Ertigan Arma Ertigan flew to London, I
Speaker 2: believe it may have been the second or third Speakeasy performance.
Speaker 2: He flew to England to see the band and make
Speaker 2: a personal connection to get us for Atlantic respect mister Ertigan,
Speaker 2: which he did. So we had the record, the record
Speaker 2: deal Island Records in England, Atlantic in America, and we
Speaker 2: made the record in seven days and one for final mixing. Ah,
Speaker 2: I'd have to check the timeline, but that was probably
Speaker 2: around July August. We had a week in Morgan Studios
Speaker 2: which didn't work at all with Tony Clark, the Moody
Speaker 2: Blues producer. He he didn't see or hear us quite
Speaker 2: So the band make made a choice in principle that
Speaker 2: we would rather make our own mistakes and produce ourselves
Speaker 2: than have a successful, well known, established producer who couldn't
Speaker 2: quite see what we were. So those tapes were abandoned
Speaker 2: and then we moved into Wessex Studios in North London,
Speaker 2: near Islington, where we made in the Court of the
Speaker 2: Crimson King very quickly.
Speaker 3: Well, very quickly. It's interesting because it actually happened the
Speaker 3: other way around. They made the record first, because in
Speaker 3: fact David Entoven funded the record and if I'm right, Roberts, yes,
Speaker 3: he did so that rather than getting the record deal
Speaker 3: and then then paying for the record, the management actually
Speaker 3: paid for the record and then licensed the record to
Speaker 3: the various record labels.
Speaker 2: Yes, David Entaven took out a mortgage on his news
Speaker 2: property twenty two peters from place I believe, in order
Speaker 2: to get in order to get funds. So I tell
Speaker 2: you this is this is a long story. But what
Speaker 2: I'm going to do, Bob, is leave you talking to
Speaker 2: David while I take a quick bathroom break and I'll
Speaker 2: be right there.
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this I was going to
Speaker 1: ask Kim. I mean, at first with the Tony Clark
Speaker 1: usually when a label makes a record, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to convince him to throw that project away. But I
Speaker 1: guess since the managers were selling the record, they didn't
Speaker 1: really you know, they needed to get it right.
Speaker 3: So yes, the as I said, the record fortunately in fact,
Speaker 3: was funded by the by the management, not by the
Speaker 3: record label. When Tony Clark produced it, they thought they
Speaker 3: were going to put it out on the Moody Blues label.
Speaker 3: They just started a label, and the Moody Blues were
Speaker 3: thinking of putting out the record as produced by Tony Clark.
Speaker 3: They went into Morgan Studios with Tony Clark, and there
Speaker 3: was at least a week of that they recorded most
Speaker 3: of the same pieces, and then the band decided this
Speaker 3: wasn't going anywhere. We've actually released, fortunately because the management
Speaker 3: paid for we have subsequently released those recordings that they
Speaker 3: were owned by King Crimson. But I have the diaries
Speaker 3: of David Enthoven and it was a huge shock because
Speaker 3: they were funding this record. I think these were these
Speaker 3: were people with astonishing belief in the band they had
Speaker 3: because literally, you know, the band came along and said,
Speaker 3: we want to throw away this recording that we just
Speaker 3: made with this very reputable producer because we don't like
Speaker 3: it and we'd like to do it again. And David
Speaker 3: had to go and then mortgage his house in order
Speaker 3: to throw away those recordings and say, okay, we're going
Speaker 3: to do it again and even work well, it's maybe
Speaker 3: worse from his point of view on the band, and
Speaker 3: we're now going to produce ourselves because we don't think
Speaker 3: anybody can produce it properly. Astonishing faith he showed. And
Speaker 3: therefore and they went back into the studio producing themselves,
Speaker 3: and that's the record that everybody now knows.
Speaker 1: So with hindsight, do you believe the Tony Clark record
Speaker 1: would have been successful.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't have been King Crimson. So if you listen
Speaker 3: to it, it doesn't sound it doesn't really sound like
Speaker 3: King Crimson. It sounds like some strange morephing of King
Speaker 3: Crimson and the Moody Blues. It's much softer around the edges,
Speaker 3: much more.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: I don't think it might have been successful. It wouldn't
Speaker 3: have been the astonishing success that the final record was.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't have been iconic. It wouldn't have been iconic and
Speaker 3: hugely different in the same way that in the course
Speaker 3: of Crimson King is. It would have been much more
Speaker 3: of a something that was perfectly pleasant. But I don't
Speaker 3: think it would have changed the world in the same
Speaker 3: way the Robert always records it was that the piece
Speaker 3: I talked to the wind. I think he was made
Speaker 3: to sit there and play that guitar part about twenty times.
Speaker 3: And oddly enough, I'd done an interview with Robert and
Speaker 3: he had told me this story.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I believe it bout we were
Speaker 3: there all night, David. I was going on and on
Speaker 3: and on, and he was saying, play it again, play
Speaker 3: it again. I don't like it, Yes, play it again,
Speaker 3: play it again, and he said. We began to get
Speaker 3: more and more fractious, and we were more and more
Speaker 3: rude back down the talk back to this producer, and
Speaker 3: oddly enough I then found some tapes quite recently, only
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago. I found some tapes, and
Speaker 3: I was listening to these tapes, not knowing what they were,
Speaker 3: and I heard this take of I talked to the
Speaker 3: Wind going on and on, and then I heard Robert
Speaker 3: and Ian McDonald getting rather direct with the producer, and
Speaker 3: I realized that I had found this recording that Robert
Speaker 3: had been telling me out for years, and here it was,
Speaker 3: and I finally had found it and could listen to it,
Speaker 3: and so we released it in for the fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 3: of in the course of the Crimson King. I don't
Speaker 3: know if you know, but recordings that are unreleased fall
Speaker 3: out of copyright if they've not been released within fifty.
Speaker 1: Years in the UK anyway, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yes, So when we found those recordings, we realized that
Speaker 3: we needed to release them all with the fiftieth years.
Speaker 3: So for the fiftieth anniversary of the album, we put
Speaker 3: out all the sessions, including these rather the endless Morgan
Speaker 3: Studios recordings. If I talked to the.
Speaker 1: Wind from the perspective of the consumer, the listener in
Speaker 1: the court of the Crimson King was an instant smash.
Speaker 1: Was that your perception or what were your feelings of time?
Speaker 2: Oh? Right? Firstly, if I may, I would draw a
Speaker 2: distinction between a listener or audience or auditor and the
Speaker 2: consumer or customer. Going right back. Then, the band immediately
Speaker 2: was hugely successful live, hugely. It became the band of
Speaker 2: the time, and the only band that Ian McDonald considered
Speaker 2: Blue King Crimson Off the stage was Free. We worked
Speaker 2: with them in Red Car in the middle nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2: Free were phenomenal. Coss Off what a player, Rogers, what
Speaker 2: a singer. But essentially when we came on stage it
Speaker 2: was almost impossible to follow us. We were an astonishing band,
Speaker 2: astonishing band, and the album when it was released, it
Speaker 2: was already primed. The word was on the street. The
Speaker 2: turning point in terms of numbers and public attention was
Speaker 2: probably the Hyde Park Festival with the Rolling Stones in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine. They were about six hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand people there. So at the time, if you're not
Speaker 2: going to have success through mainstream media, television and radio,
Speaker 2: how will you reach a huge number of people. Well,
Speaker 2: the answer was live festivals, which are often free festivals,
Speaker 2: and Hyde Park in July nineteen sixty nine was the
Speaker 2: opportunity for the Rolling Stones to come back into live
Speaker 2: performance after a break. And the story of EG getting
Speaker 2: us onto the roster is a story in itself, but
Speaker 2: we were probably the hit of that particular show and
Speaker 2: what was known within the industry and club level grassroots
Speaker 2: suddenly moved out. All the young Americans in Hyde Park
Speaker 2: went back to America with the word, young hippies from
Speaker 2: Europe went back to Europe with the word. And then
Speaker 2: in the end of November nineteen sixty nine in America,
Speaker 2: we played the West Palm Beach Festival three day festival,
Speaker 2: also with the Stones. It broke King Crimson and Grand
Speaker 2: Funk Railroad in America. So at that point that the
Speaker 2: grassroots the word has moved out big time.
Speaker 1: Okay, So coming from England, what was your personal experience
Speaker 1: of being in the US.
Speaker 2: One of liberation England was poor. America was wide open.
Speaker 2: I mean America in the fifties and sixties. This was
Speaker 2: the American time. It changed into the seventies and onwards.
Speaker 2: The particular change from America from sixty nine to seventy
Speaker 2: seventy one was probably the huge success of rock music
Speaker 2: and records. The growth industry in America from sixty eight
Speaker 2: to seventy eight was in the record industry, with I
Speaker 2: think four billion dollars generated, which now wouldn't say much,
Speaker 2: but that back then was quite considerable. And when the
Speaker 2: young English bands began touring America essentially about sixty eight
Speaker 2: and into sixty nine, the music industry, certainly in its
Speaker 2: live aspects was not quite professional. For example, King Crimson
Speaker 2: would land in America in October nineteen sixty nine and
Speaker 2: the tool wasn't set up. Why well, you had a
Speaker 2: few club gigs here there, and Frank Barcelona, a key
Speaker 2: figure in establishing English rock music in America, premiere talent
Speaker 2: hid fillin shows along the way, so Hendricks would. But
Speaker 2: nineteen six to eight land in America, play New York
Speaker 2: one night, Los Angeles the next. I'm exaggerating, but in
Speaker 2: principal too, David Bowie, the same King Crimson. We had
Speaker 2: a more measured progression, but it certainly wasn't set up.
Speaker 2: But then when the money began to come in, you
Speaker 2: moved from clubs and you move from the film alls
Speaker 2: into sports stadium. And with the shift in commerce, there
Speaker 2: was a shift in the attitude towards the musician, so
Speaker 2: speaking in general terms, from say sixty nine to seventy seven.
Speaker 2: When I moved to New York in February seventy seven.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty nine, the differential, the separation between audience
Speaker 2: and musician, there wasn't one. For me, it was fluid.
Speaker 2: We were all on the same side. We were all
Speaker 2: there to be part of this changing the world with music.
Speaker 2: That was my perspective. And I don't believe Peter Simfield
Speaker 2: said to me as a criticism, you were never a hippie,
Speaker 2: So this isn't an old hippie wittering on. This is
Speaker 2: my experience. But increasingly, and this began to change around
Speaker 2: seventy four, the young roppers at person on stage is
Speaker 2: now separated from a member of the audience and from
Speaker 2: the young music writers who began to develop an attitude
Speaker 2: which in America was reflect perhaps with Lester Bangs for example,
Speaker 2: but in England in nineteen seventy six or seventy seven.
Speaker 2: My sense of being on stage was who the fuck
Speaker 2: do you think you are? Very English attitude, whereas walking
Speaker 2: on the street newly arrived in New York in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven, the young character will come up and say, hey,
Speaker 2: frip what you're doing? There was one of the couragement
Speaker 2: and support which I found lacking in England. So increasingly
Speaker 2: my orientation in terms of a geographical area which has
Speaker 2: my focus from nineteen seventy three, switched to the US
Speaker 2: from England, stroke England Europe. Why because it was possible
Speaker 2: and supported by the audience and the industry, and the
Speaker 2: industry because money was involved in the audience, because there
Speaker 2: was something real in the music, that's my perception. And
Speaker 2: King Crimson at this time didn't quite fit in. We
Speaker 2: weren't mainstream rock. We we played with Zzy Top in Denver,
Speaker 2: I believe in nineteen seventy four, and someone pulled the
Speaker 2: plug on us, pulled the power on us, and twenty
Speaker 2: minutes into our set we went blank. Someone didn't like
Speaker 2: what we were doing. Recent press has suggested that I've
Speaker 2: been blaming Billy Gibbons for this nonsense. Billy Gibbons has
Speaker 2: my full respect and easy top for a fabulous band,
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, what became known as progressive rock and progue
Speaker 2: did have some antipathy.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk business for a minute. The record is
Speaker 1: licensed to Island in Atlantic. Who owns all that stuff today?
Speaker 3: I do?
Speaker 1: How did you end up owning it.
Speaker 2: Twenty one years of litigation and dispute which is ongoing?
Speaker 1: What is still ongoing.
Speaker 2: Litigation and dispute over who owns the copyrights and who
Speaker 2: is therefore entitled to assign them to whomever they dispose?
Speaker 1: Okay, you've had a fifty plus year career. What do
Speaker 1: you not own recording wise? Or what is in litigation
Speaker 1: recordings wise?
Speaker 2: Let's speak about this in June of this year.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me change the question. The business is much
Speaker 1: more sophisticated with a much more information today, irrelevant of
Speaker 1: the ownership of the copyrights in the recordings, in the
Speaker 1: songs you're busy rehearsing performing. I can't believe your eye
Speaker 1: was on business that much. Do you feel that you
Speaker 1: were ripped off in these rough and tumble years.
Speaker 2: Well, the answer has to be yes, and I can
Speaker 2: give you a detailed analysis virtually month by month, week
Speaker 2: by week, and day by day. Why because I still
Speaker 2: have the correspondence. But if we go back to nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine when we began our relationship with Entoven, Gayden,
Speaker 2: John and Gaydon as a YouTube interview where he is
Speaker 2: describing how the young Robert Fripp explained to him upon
Speaker 2: which the relationship between EG and King Crimson would develop,
Speaker 2: which was shared interest seventy thirty copyright ownership between King
Speaker 2: Crimson and EG Management. And this was all fine and
Speaker 2: went on until I believe it was February the twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, when Enthoven and Sam Alder, who went
Speaker 2: into EG towards about October November nineteen seventy chartered accountant
Speaker 2: as a backroom boy to take care of the accountancy
Speaker 2: and the stuff stuff. But Sam Older lied, He came
Speaker 2: and he lied, and he said that the members of
Speaker 2: King Crimson had to assign the copyright interest to EG
Speaker 2: so that we could get our money. Essentially, this was
Speaker 2: a lie, and it was a lie which had to
Speaker 2: be challenged in nineteen ninety one when the obfuscation came
Speaker 2: to a head when EG sold King Crimson copyrights to
Speaker 2: BMG Music Publishing and Virgin Records. At that point, the
Speaker 2: beginning of my first major involvement in litigation and dispute
Speaker 2: for six years and seven months from ninety one to
Speaker 2: ninety seven began. It's been ongoing to date and has
Speaker 2: been probably more attracting of my attention than my musical life,
Speaker 2: and even more of that has fallen on David and
Speaker 2: decland Colgan of Panegyric Records are distributor. But back in
Speaker 2: the early days, what I did was set up the
Speaker 2: structure and left it to management I trusted and should
Speaker 2: not have done. And that's another story as to why
Speaker 2: I did and should not have and when finally it
Speaker 2: went off course for various reasons, I had to give
Speaker 2: it my full attention.
Speaker 1: Okay, litigation is very expensive and it takes time and
Speaker 1: its heartache. Is this about the money or is this
Speaker 1: about equity? What is right.
Speaker 2: Both? For example, two members of the original King Crimson
Speaker 2: have died not being paid the money there owed. There
Speaker 2: are two more members of their first King Crimson, and
Speaker 2: not in great health. I certainly hope they're paid before
Speaker 2: eventity they do fly away.
Speaker 3: Me.
Speaker 2: I'm in great health. I do dead weights of one
Speaker 2: hundred kilograms, which from men of seventy seven isn't bad.
Speaker 2: And I am going to live long enough to make
Speaker 2: sure these fuck wits in the music industry hand over
Speaker 2: what we're out.
Speaker 1: Let's say, hypothetically you're victorious across the board. Let's say
Speaker 1: you end up owning all of these rights.
Speaker 2: No, I already own them. Let's say we're being a
Speaker 2: paid for the David over to ye.
Speaker 3: Yes, so the ownership is not in dispute. So following
Speaker 3: the dispute that Robert has talked about in the early nineties,
Speaker 3: certainly in terms of the recordings, it was finally agreed that,
Speaker 3: in fact, what was agreed was that the rights that
Speaker 3: Virgin Records thought they had obtained they would keep for
Speaker 3: ten years and then they return them to Robert. So
Speaker 3: in the early two thousands, the rights and the recordings
Speaker 3: were definitively assigned to Robert. The problem has been that
Speaker 3: periodically things get licensed in by major labels in various
Speaker 3: different ways, and you don't get always get it paid
Speaker 3: according to those contracts. That is ongoing.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the lawsuit that we read about about placing
Speaker 1: certain songs on streaming services, those are the lawsuits we're
Speaker 1: referring to.
Speaker 3: That's a lidic yes, yes, and that one is that
Speaker 3: one unfortunately is sub judices. So until May, we're not
Speaker 3: talking a lot about that one.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay. So going back, you're Robert, you own this stuff?
Speaker 1: Would you ever sell it yourself?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: You have nowhears and some may say, well, Robert not
Speaker 1: going to live forever if they pay you twenty Actually
Speaker 1: the money would be here today. What would you say
Speaker 1: to that?
Speaker 2: I'd saying, my inheritor in all the copyrights is David Singleton.
Speaker 2: That's in my will. Why because I trust David to
Speaker 2: execute his responsibilities towards the catalog as I trust that
Speaker 2: I have done.
Speaker 3: And I think our view is that Robert owns those
Speaker 3: copyright He does in fact own them personally, but I
Speaker 3: think Robert owns those copyrights on behalf of all the musicians.
Speaker 2: That is correct, Yes, okay.
Speaker 1: In the film about King Crimson, one of the players
Speaker 1: mentions that you wash your hands twenty times a day.
Speaker 1: What would you say to that?
Speaker 2: I was surprised when I heard that. Going back to
Speaker 2: when I was working with Jamie Mirror in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: two into early seventy three. I don't believe I had
Speaker 2: a hand washing fetish. However, what I've always been very
Speaker 2: careful to do when I put a guitar on and
Speaker 2: I play guitar, I must have clean hands. I don't want.
Speaker 2: I don't want stickiness from picking up cakes, for example,
Speaker 2: or buttered toast to be transferred to the strings. So
Speaker 2: at that particular time, would I wash my hands before
Speaker 2: playing guitar. Yes, I didn't recognize that I have a
Speaker 2: hand washing fetish, which I certainly don't today. But nevertheless,
Speaker 2: Jamie Muhror is a person I respect and I trust
Speaker 2: his opinion, and if Jamie felt that I was an
Speaker 2: annual fetishist of some kind, then I would certainly give
Speaker 2: some credence to his opinion. Actually, if I am convinced
Speaker 2: there's no date most people in the world are, is
Speaker 2: that FIP is very very fucked up in the creepy person.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say I say, Robert, we'll go into the
Speaker 1: airport and we go, we get in the car, we've
Speaker 1: left your house. Are you going to say, fuck, I
Speaker 1: forgot to lock the front door or I left the
Speaker 1: stove on. Is that part of your personality or those
Speaker 1: wouldn't even occur to you.
Speaker 2: They might occur to me, but I am not obsessive compulsive.
Speaker 2: That's my view. We'd have to ask my wife, and
Speaker 2: my wife wife say, yes.
Speaker 1: He is.
Speaker 2: He's really he's very strange person. Well, actually he does
Speaker 2: say that. What I would do if I felt is
Speaker 2: there a likely chance that I've left my front door unlocked?
Speaker 2: I would check the keys in my purse. I would
Speaker 2: then if I couldn't find them, I would found my
Speaker 2: wife and say, ah, have is the front door lock?
Speaker 2: Or I would say our personal secretary to say if
Speaker 2: she would check the front door, I called Mark Axel
Speaker 2: Powell are superb building person and ask him to check it.
Speaker 2: What I would not do is throw a moody fit
Speaker 2: and in sayst we drive back thirty miles to the
Speaker 2: front door.
Speaker 1: Okay. OCD can be very debilitating emotionally. One can be
Speaker 1: tortured by these thoughts and repetitions. So would your wife
Speaker 1: say that your need to rehearse every day and to
Speaker 1: get certain things right or excessive or she would say, no,
Speaker 1: that's not excessive.
Speaker 2: Well, my wife is an actress, musician, and performer and
Speaker 2: understands partecular on the stage. Play, for example, the amount
Speaker 2: of rehearsing you have to do. So my wife might
Speaker 2: say here, very strange, but I don't think she would
Speaker 2: query my need to know. I'm walking on stage with
Speaker 2: musicians who were rehearsed and practiced to play, except the
Speaker 2: play Olympics standard challenges for a musician.
Speaker 3: I'm going to say she might.
Speaker 2: She might.
Speaker 3: She might ask you to practice Fracture where she doesn't
Speaker 3: have to listen to it.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, Now, when King Crimson were reforming in twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen for twenty fourteen the Final Incarnation, ID go into
Speaker 2: the cellar of our home and I would practice and
Speaker 2: practice and practice to play this piece called Fracture, which
Speaker 2: is unplayable. It's technically of such a standard is taken
Speaker 2: fifty years really for other guitarists to approach. It's horrible.
Speaker 2: And my wife had enough of this, and I used
Speaker 2: to have to go down to the cellar and lock
Speaker 2: the door of the cellar because it's a very old door,
Speaker 2: and would fly open and turn my guitar amp little,
Speaker 2: very small practice, turn it down so she could no
Speaker 2: longer hear this motor perpetro going on for two hours.
Speaker 2: As I we'd come up to speed.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, tell us a little bit more specifically
Speaker 1: what the practice entails at.
Speaker 2: Different parts in our musical life. The emphasis changes. If
Speaker 2: I can quote Charlie Parker, and frankly, I think all
Speaker 2: of us should accept Parker's advice. You learn your instrument,
Speaker 2: you learn the music, and then you forget all this
Speaker 2: Parker said, chit and then you just play. So at
Speaker 2: different parts of our musical life, to begin with, we're
Speaker 2: practicing the instrument, how to play the instrument, how on
Speaker 2: the guitar, the left and the ro hand work together,
Speaker 2: fingerboard knowledge, musical knowledge, then harmony, rhythm, how the hands
Speaker 2: come together with fingerboard and musical knowledge, and then learning
Speaker 2: the repertoire that we're engaging with. In terms of practicing improvisation,
Speaker 2: throw it away, sit down, without thought, play, have fun,
Speaker 2: and a very good professional musician often needs to be reminded.
Speaker 2: Have fun, abandoned concern for right, wrong or anything else.
Speaker 2: Let's remember the bird, play, just play. So in the
Speaker 2: in the incarnation period twenty fourteen twenty one, my primary
Speaker 2: address for practicing is the Calisenic side of it. We'll
Speaker 2: assume that I've learned the rudiments of music assume that
Speaker 2: I know that I'm learned the repertoire, which is King
Speaker 2: crimson repertoire. The challenge is, as a man in his
Speaker 2: late sixties and early seventies, is he able to perform
Speaker 2: at an athletic level at the degree of a man
Speaker 2: of twenty five? And the answer is no. So my
Speaker 2: primary practicing area for the final incarnation of King Crimson
Speaker 2: was how to be calisenically reliable. If you take the
Speaker 2: analogy of an athlete, an Olympic quality athlete, these are
Speaker 2: the challenges. Can you expect an Olympic athlete age seventy
Speaker 2: to do what they were doing at twenty three or
Speaker 2: twenty five? And if the answer is reliably no, what
Speaker 2: does that athlete at that age have to do in
Speaker 2: order to meet the challenge? And that was my question
Speaker 2: and my response was constant calisenic practicing.
Speaker 1: Okay, you don't have the athleticism of a younger man,
Speaker 1: but do you believe the end quality of what you're
Speaker 1: producing is improved with age for some reason because of
Speaker 1: wisdom and the other stylistic elements.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't claim wisdom, but I am happy to say
Speaker 2: I have a lot more experience and does that support
Speaker 2: me when I walk on stage, And I would say yes,
Speaker 2: and why because when I walk on stage, I know,
Speaker 2: without any doubt whatsoever, music is there and it is available.
Speaker 2: It never ever goes away. Do I know that for
Speaker 2: a fact? Yes? Do I know that for certainty? Yes?
Speaker 2: How because I've paid my joes as a professional musician
Speaker 2: now for fifty seven years. What I also know is
Speaker 2: music doesn't go away. Music is always present. But I
Speaker 2: am not. So my focus is not on the music,
Speaker 2: which I trust. My focus on whether I can be present.
Speaker 2: That is, can I rely upon myself to walk on
Speaker 2: stage and whatever horseshit is thrown at me? Can I
Speaker 2: hold myself in the place for at least the duration
Speaker 2: of the performance. And the answer to that is mostly yes.
Speaker 2: But they are except situations that defeat me even today.
Speaker 1: Okay, what is your opinion of live versus recordings? Recordings
Speaker 1: are permanent in performances or evanescent.
Speaker 2: For me, music is in life. It's like gardening. If
Speaker 2: you're not there when the rose blossoms, it's gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can take a photo of it and put it
Speaker 2: out on my computer. I think, Oh, wasn't that a
Speaker 2: nice rose? But it's not there and the scent when
Speaker 2: you're there in the moment and it's real, but it
Speaker 2: won't stay. What might stay is the quality of my
Speaker 2: experiencing in such a way that I may return to
Speaker 2: that moment in my experience and access it again. And
Speaker 2: that only is possible if I am present. I'm present
Speaker 2: here now, inside my body, my experiencing, my feelings and
Speaker 2: with the rose. So for me, live performance is a
Speaker 2: hot date and a record is a love letter. Now,
Speaker 2: I love getting letters from my wife, but I would
Speaker 2: rather take her in a tight embrace.
Speaker 1: So recordings, in even recordings of live performances, are what
Speaker 1: you leave behind. To what degree are you concerned with legacy?
Speaker 2: Well, if I said, off the top of my head,
Speaker 2: I don't give a flying fuck, I would then have
Speaker 2: to say, then, why is it that DGM from approximately
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five to twenty fifteen made the focal point
Speaker 2: of its existence in securing the archive? And why then
Speaker 2: will we release as close definitive editions of all King
Speaker 2: Crimson's life recorded music as we possibly can. Well, I'd
Speaker 2: have to say that I keep my wife's love letters.
Speaker 2: I would still rather have a hot date with her,
Speaker 2: But I still keep the love letters. So we still
Speaker 2: have love letters from King Crimson to any members of
Speaker 2: the audience, for those who didn't manage to get on
Speaker 2: a hot day and for those that did.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're performing live and we started with this.
Speaker 1: I have sat with acts very depressed after a show,
Speaker 1: feeling they gave a bad performance when the audience has
Speaker 1: loved it with raaging response. What is the goal of
Speaker 1: the gig? Is it about the communication with the audience
Speaker 1: and the response in the audience or is the audience
Speaker 1: separate and is it about getting the music performed perfectly.
Speaker 2: I'll respond to that tangentially. Bob the musician can only
Speaker 2: ever say I felt that was a good show. I
Speaker 2: felt that was a bad show. It's entirely subjective. It
Speaker 2: has no relevance. Listening to King Crimson's live recordings, there
Speaker 2: are performances which sound terrible but which I recall in
Speaker 2: the moment were astonishing for the band members the audience.
Speaker 2: This was an event, but the quality of that event
Speaker 2: did not allow itself to be contained or captured by
Speaker 2: the recording of it. I have also heard live recordings
Speaker 2: that are stunning that from a position on stage, I
Speaker 2: thought this.
Speaker 1: This was.
Speaker 2: So in the live performance, what are the factors that
Speaker 2: make the event? Primarily three factors, the music, the musician,
Speaker 2: and the audience. If the three come together, something can happen.
Speaker 2: There is a fourth term which nevertheless has to be included,
Speaker 2: and that is the music industry, because if the music
Speaker 2: industry will not accept what you're doing, it's an extreme.
Speaker 2: It will bury you, as I believe English punk music
Speaker 2: was essentially buried in the American music industry in the
Speaker 2: late seventies. But in the live event itself, you have music,
Speaker 2: musicians and the audience. If the music is a live
Speaker 2: and vibrant the audience might miss it and the musicians
Speaker 2: might miss it, but perhap perhaps it manages to squeeze
Speaker 2: its way onto tape and going back there you have it.
Speaker 2: I will now have an example of David Singleton completely
Speaker 2: failing to understand a musical event that was going on. David,
Speaker 2: which broad short Church, Oh yeah, live live soundscapes? Was
Speaker 2: it two thousand and eight lunchtime performance in this church
Speaker 2: of soundscapes? And when I listened back to the music,
Speaker 2: there was some remarkable stuff going on. And yet at
Speaker 2: the time David was having a terrible time and thought
Speaker 2: it sucked. Is this true, David?
Speaker 3: It is true, and it's exactly the reverse of what
Speaker 3: you originally described. When I'm always surprised when going through
Speaker 3: the tapes listening and I say, this is what this
Speaker 3: is the show, this is a wonderful show, And many
Speaker 3: of the B members will say you must be completely wrong.
Speaker 3: That was a horrible gig. And exactly Robert's quite right
Speaker 3: that there I was in Broadchalk. It's a home gig
Speaker 3: for me. So this was in my local church, and
Speaker 3: I was surrounded there for by numerous other pressures, and
Speaker 3: so I wasn't present. And if you'd ask me afterwards,
Speaker 3: I remember thinking, oh god, that was a horrible event.
Speaker 3: And you listen back and the music was fabulous, all right.
Speaker 2: I have another example here too, which was at Church
Speaker 2: Escapes live in Estonia, which I believe in two thousand
Speaker 2: and six live performances there where I would walk on
Speaker 2: stage with no idea what to play, and even while
Speaker 2: playing it, having no idea what to play, and then
Speaker 2: forty minutes lating later, having no idea what to play,
Speaker 2: but holding myself in place, force myself to remain in place,
Speaker 2: and engaged with no joy whatsoever. But trusting the event,
Speaker 2: trusting the music, trusting the audience and continuing to play.
Speaker 2: And from the church scapes in Estonia, I'm thinking of
Speaker 2: even Song, particularly the performance. The performances had something of
Speaker 2: which at the time I was oblivious, but long experience
Speaker 2: and the developed practice and discipline the solo guitarist improvising
Speaker 2: away was able to keep himself plugged in and sitting
Speaker 2: on a guitar.
Speaker 1: Still, Okay, you did during lockdown. You're continuing this YouTube
Speaker 1: series with your wife, and I was looking at them,
Speaker 1: and you did a cover of Golden Earrings Radar Love.
Speaker 1: I always liked that song. If you'd ask me before
Speaker 1: I saw it, what I would say, What are the
Speaker 1: odds that Robert Trupp even knows that record? Okay? Now
Speaker 1: you mentioned not only English punk and how that attitude
Speaker 1: poop uh look down on the old players, say show
Speaker 1: me something, but you all say it was killed by
Speaker 1: the US record business. To what degree and you mentioned
Speaker 1: sting earlier? To what degree are you a student of
Speaker 1: the game? To what degree do you marinate in this?
Speaker 1: To what degree do you know this? Do you only
Speaker 1: do it for business purposes? Do you like this music?
Speaker 2: Tell me about this all right, well you don't now
Speaker 2: he saw on King Crimson's final performance in Central Park
Speaker 2: and New York. Was it July the first? Nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 2: David Yep. King Crimson's support act was Callden Ahring. No,
Speaker 2: I don't know that at there you are, and the
Speaker 2: drama would reliably leap out his kit at the big finale. Now,
Speaker 2: going back to Frank Barcelona of Premier Talent, what Frank
Speaker 2: would do. Frank Barcelona would do is put together astonishing
Speaker 2: combinations of acts that no one would believe would fit
Speaker 2: together on the same stage. So King Crimson Film nor
Speaker 2: Reast nineteen sixty nine, was it October November? Top of
Speaker 2: their bill. Joe Corker and the Grease Band second on
Speaker 2: the bill, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac third on the bill,
Speaker 2: King Crimson fourth on the bill, Voices of East Tarlan.
Speaker 2: They're moving into seventy one and seventy two and seventy
Speaker 2: three and seventy four other acts on the bill Black
Speaker 2: Oak Arkansas. Now you can kind of understand just King Crimson,
Speaker 2: Black Sabbath Joint Heading or King Crimson and Slade because
Speaker 2: they're both English bands, lackocarkinsall. I love them, Jim Dandy,
Speaker 2: what a great band, But not in the media. You
Speaker 2: think these two characters would be honest. Well, Golden Earing,
Speaker 2: where did that come from? I have no idea, but
Speaker 2: they were a great band in the field. Now, Golden
Speaker 2: Earrings manager was a man called Freddie Hine who went
Speaker 2: to take over Polydor Records in New York about nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven, at the time the EG Music left their
Speaker 2: licensees and moved to Polydor. So once again you have
Speaker 2: this remarkable circle of people you can't take out of
Speaker 2: your circle. So the manager of Golden ear Ring that
Speaker 2: was supporting King Crimson on our last performance in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four with Radar Love and so on, Toy and
Speaker 2: Robert cover Radar Love. Years later. There are a number
Speaker 2: of King Crimson fans who have publicly expressed some dissatisfaction
Speaker 2: with me performing with Toyer, and my comment to Mojo
Speaker 2: or Q magazine in twenty twenty two was I don't
Speaker 2: give a fuck. I am seventy six and this is
Speaker 2: my life now with my wife. My wife when Lockdown
Speaker 2: began was very insistent. Lockdown in Iowa Town in England
Speaker 2: at the time was terrifying, Bob, the fear was palpable.
Speaker 2: The only time we'd really come out on the street
Speaker 2: would be on a Thursday evening at six o'clock, when
Speaker 2: people would come out of their houses and on the
Speaker 2: step of the front door and clap and applaud to
Speaker 2: give acknowledgment, recognition and gratitude to first responders and the
Speaker 2: health services. So we'd look down the street and there
Speaker 2: would be our neighbors down the street and we would
Speaker 2: wave to them and across the square and back, and
Speaker 2: this was the only contact we had with our neighbors.
Speaker 2: And on occasion, because we're on the main route to
Speaker 2: ambulances six o'clock, an ambulance would come by by all
Speaker 2: the people on the street replauding them.
Speaker 1: Very moving.
Speaker 2: But it was a time of palpable fear. And my
Speaker 2: wife said to me, we're performers. We have a responsibility
Speaker 2: to people. We have a responsibility to keep the spirits up.
Speaker 2: So when my wife then gave me a two to
Speaker 2: two and point out down the garden to the river's
Speaker 2: edge at the end of our garden and said we
Speaker 2: are going to be dancing to Swan Lake, I took
Speaker 2: the tights. My wife's tights were a bit small on me.
Speaker 2: I can I can put in gently between frenzy. The
Speaker 2: tights were not comfortable, but my discomfiture was covered by
Speaker 2: the tutu. And we went down and we danced a
Speaker 2: swan lake and it moved.
Speaker 1: On from there.
Speaker 2: We began filming. I suppose you would call them covers. Uh.
Speaker 2: I think maybe some people think we were taking the piss,
Speaker 2: not at all.
Speaker 1: We are.
Speaker 2: Very respectful of the artists here who've generated these songs.
Speaker 2: And here I am playing a smoke on the water
Speaker 2: mister Blackmore's famous riff. I I am very respectful of this.
Speaker 2: Let's face, it's a classic riff. So when we move
Speaker 2: on to increasing numbers of covers and then in live
Speaker 2: performances this past year of classics, are you going to
Speaker 2: go my way? I mean the classic riff stunning and
Speaker 2: the solo breath taking, and then you move on to
Speaker 2: the newer artists. I mean, these are challenges for me
Speaker 2: to learn a repertoire with which I am not mostly familiar.
Speaker 2: Why because I was developing a King Crimson repertoire which
Speaker 2: eventually I became locked into. So here I was learning
Speaker 2: rock songs in the tuning I haven't used for thirty
Speaker 2: five years, doing my best to honor the original performers
Speaker 2: and the original intentions that gave live to the music,
Speaker 2: and much to our surprise, it took off. It was
Speaker 2: one of the two so called Internet sensations in the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom from Lockdown. The other one was Sophie Sophie Aspects,
Speaker 2: Yeah Kitchen Disco. She was the other one that really
Speaker 2: kicked in. So we eventually began to find something of
Speaker 2: another approach, which we we're maintaining. We do one We
Speaker 2: do one new song a month at the moment, plus
Speaker 2: access to our archive. I can't even remember all the
Speaker 2: songs we've covered, and we do our upbeat moments and
Speaker 2: the brief and the aim remains the same. We have
Speaker 2: a responsibility in challenging times to do what we can
Speaker 2: to support the spirits of our audience, good people out there.
Speaker 2: And some of the personal messages, some public, some personal
Speaker 2: we've received from people at their heartbreaking, the conditions of
Speaker 2: people locked up in small studio apartments in high rises
Speaker 2: while their mother is dying in hospital and they can't
Speaker 2: see them, and then they can't even get to the
Speaker 2: funeral while our prime minister in Downing Street is having parties.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is profoundly offensive, but we can't. We
Speaker 2: can only address what we can address, so we continue
Speaker 2: to do so.
Speaker 1: Okay, just diving a little deeper. You're a player and
Speaker 1: a composer. Are you also a fan? Like if I started,
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. There was this being Charlie
Speaker 1: Terry Thomas who became a record Is this all the
Speaker 1: kind of stuff you know? Or these are just certain
Speaker 1: records that you know.
Speaker 2: Well, when I was on the road, it was flat
Speaker 2: out on the road, and the music we would get
Speaker 2: to hear would essentially be the other artist we're working with.
Speaker 2: And whereas when I first moved to London, you would
Speaker 2: have gatekeepers who would say you need to listen to this,
Speaker 2: and we still get this. My wife says you should
Speaker 2: listen to this, because my wife that keeps her fingers
Speaker 2: very much on the pulse of things. So my wife
Speaker 2: would say, listen to this and see if you think
Speaker 2: we can do a good thing with this. But I
Speaker 2: think probably our determining musical direction is really when we're younger,
Speaker 2: and for me, although I have been profoundly touched by
Speaker 2: recorded music, I still tend to be more attached to
Speaker 2: music I've seen live. Some exceptions obviously Beatles Day and
Speaker 2: The Life Hendrix. I didn't get to see Hendrix Life,
Speaker 2: although he did get to see King Crimson Life. Now
Speaker 2: say so, yes, I am connected to music through records,
Speaker 2: but for me, once again, really it's live. I have,
Speaker 2: for example, in our abbey over here, which has been
Speaker 2: standing since about eleven forty, I have been there listening
Speaker 2: to appalling concerts of semi pro symphony orchestras, watching the
Speaker 2: beat move outwards from the conductor to the edge of
Speaker 2: the large symphony orchestra, the tuning wavering as it went.
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, it has a power in the moment if
Speaker 2: we're able to be open to it. So yeah, not
Speaker 2: many leading rock bands come through our town, so I
Speaker 2: have to rely increasingly on YouTube and Spotify. But it's secondhand.
Speaker 2: So my wife makes her suggestions and I follow them.
Speaker 2: Is the quick answer.
Speaker 1: Okay, you reference the Prime Minister needless.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm I'm going to need a piss before we
Speaker 2: get into that one. All right, all right, back.
Speaker 1: Take another take another piss. So, David, you certainly know
Speaker 1: Robert extremely well. Is his talking and demeanor today typical
Speaker 1: of him? Or is it a typical.
Speaker 3: No, that's the man I know. Oddly enough, when I
Speaker 3: do interviews, the most common question is, I've been working
Speaker 3: with Robertsons nineteen eighty nine, I think, and you know,
Speaker 3: how have you spent that long working with this awful
Speaker 3: whatever perception they have of this man? And I always
Speaker 3: give the same answer, which is that I've never met
Speaker 3: that man. You know, I've never met the horrible man
Speaker 3: that people suggest. So I think because we have a
Speaker 3: very common aim, Robert and I think we we certainly
Speaker 3: in business together. We have a common aime. The music
Speaker 3: comes first, the art comes first. So I've never really
Speaker 3: met the irascable person that everybody talks about.
Speaker 1: Do you believe it's a misperception or you're in No.
Speaker 3: I know I've met enough people to know that it's
Speaker 3: not a misperception. And as Robert himself said, I think
Speaker 3: that when he said, I think if someone comes to
Speaker 3: him with a flea and in their ear, he'll send
Speaker 3: them back with two. I think that was where that
Speaker 3: was where this started, you know, several hours ago. So
Speaker 3: so I think if people have an attitude, you know,
Speaker 3: he will respond in kind. So no, I'm sure it's very,
Speaker 3: very real. But I've enjoyed working with him. We've been
Speaker 3: I said, We've been at it since nineteen eighty nine
Speaker 3: in various different ways, and we're still at it.
Speaker 1: And how did you meet him?
Speaker 3: I was working at a studio. I was producing a
Speaker 3: record in the studio in the town that he referred
Speaker 3: to at the beginning of twan Cranbourne in Dorset, that
Speaker 3: he'd used for working on King Crimson tracks, and Roberts
Speaker 3: sacked his sound engineer halfway through the tour and phoned
Speaker 3: up the studio owner to say, do you know someone
Speaker 3: who could step in at short notice? Who might be
Speaker 3: able to come out? And the studio owner came through
Speaker 3: and said, David, what are you doing in two weeks time?
Speaker 3: And I said, but I'm free, and he said, what
Speaker 3: do you fancy going out to America? So I flew
Speaker 3: out to Seattle to join Robert halfway through that tour,
Speaker 3: and I think I've worked on every single King Crimson
Speaker 3: release since then. So we literally we got on very
Speaker 3: well and have carried on ever since.
Speaker 1: So was it an instant bonding or did you have
Speaker 1: to earn his trust?
Speaker 3: No, it was it wasn't an instant bonding. I think
Speaker 3: I was. I was evidently instantly competent, so that side
Speaker 3: I think I was, because but you know, it works
Speaker 3: in stages. So the first at the first age, I
Speaker 3: was just a live sound engineer. He was actually recording
Speaker 3: Sunday all over the world with Toyer at the time.
Speaker 3: So immediately after that he asked me if i'd come
Speaker 3: and record Toyer's vocals on that record, which I did.
Speaker 3: We assembled the record, and I can remember at the
Speaker 3: time they were discussing running orders, saying, oh, well haven't
Speaker 3: you thought of this running order? It might work, and
Speaker 3: which was probably the beginning of when Robert someone begins
Speaker 3: to think, well your tastes, you know, trust your taste
Speaker 3: as opposed to simply your competence. And so no, it's
Speaker 3: a gradual process that went on over time, over years.
Speaker 2: What have I missed?
Speaker 3: David? He was asking how we came to work together.
Speaker 3: I was telling him about nineteen eighty nine flying out
Speaker 3: to do a Guitar Craft Court tour, and then I
Speaker 3: think I've worked on every recording that followed that. Immediately
Speaker 3: after that, I recorded Toyers vocals on Sunday all over
Speaker 3: the world, and then we did frame by frame, and
Speaker 3: in fact, I can tell you Robert's sense of humor
Speaker 3: doing frame by frame. I can recall this was the
Speaker 3: very first It was a four CD action of King Crimson,
Speaker 3: and Virgin Records phoned up Robert and said that they
Speaker 3: wanted a radio edit of twenty first century Schizoid Man.
Speaker 3: And I heard Robert on the phone saying, well, there
Speaker 3: isn't a three minute version of that track. And I
Speaker 3: said to Robert, of course there is, and he said why,
Speaker 3: and I said, well, I can remember what I thought
Speaker 3: when I very first heard that track, which was I
Speaker 3: like the first verse, I like the second verse, not
Speaker 3: sure what's happening in the middle, and I quite like
Speaker 3: the third verse, and a man with a sense of humor.
Speaker 3: Robert allowed me to make that edit and it got released,
Speaker 3: and I then learned that from Robert's perspective, I was hearing,
Speaker 3: in a sense, hearing the track completely upside down, because
Speaker 3: I think Robert would regard in many of these tracks,
Speaker 3: is you know that the beginning is a jumping off
Speaker 3: point for the middle in a sense, in a sense,
Speaker 3: that's the core of the track, Whereas I was hearing
Speaker 3: it completely the other way around.
Speaker 2: I trust David's sense of things above my own.
Speaker 1: Okay, you were going to give us a reading on
Speaker 1: the UK today.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that was what I was intending to do, Bob.
Speaker 2: What I would say is, at the moment, they would
Speaker 2: seem to be a lack of confidence in the power
Speaker 2: possessors and those who stand above us and nominally serve
Speaker 2: the interests of the populace. There seems to be a
Speaker 2: lack of accountability on behalf of those who have power
Speaker 2: in our lives. There's a huge structural breakdown, and part
Speaker 2: of that is utterly terrifying, and part of it is
Speaker 2: remarkably heartening, because if we believe that going back fifties
Speaker 2: sixty years, that our interest is in making a new world,
Speaker 2: then the old world has to give way for that
Speaker 2: to be possible. So what we're seeing as a structural
Speaker 2: breakdown might actually be a necessary precondition for a new
Speaker 2: world appearing. Nevertheless, along the way, let's face it is
Speaker 2: pretty bumpy. DGM has its statement the Ethical Business. The
Speaker 2: four pillars of the ethical business Honesty, responsibility, equity, goodwill.
Speaker 2: These are four very simple criteria for making a value
Speaker 2: judgment in terms of for example, our dealings with a
Speaker 2: record company. Are they honest? Are they responsible? Do they
Speaker 2: view us equitably? The good will involve? Then the answer
Speaker 2: to all four is now. But at least it gives
Speaker 2: us criteria that we can base a course of action upon.
Speaker 2: I think two thousand and eight and the rescue of
Speaker 2: the world's financial system exacerbated the profound inequality of which
Speaker 2: we're all pretty much aware nowadays. Was it necessary? Well,
Speaker 2: I think it was at least inevitable. So what do
Speaker 2: we do? In nineteen seventy four, after five or six
Speaker 2: years on the road as a professional working musician, I
Speaker 2: was in despair, sitting there in Putney, London, in despair
Speaker 2: at the madness.
Speaker 3: Of the world.
Speaker 2: The world is mad. Nowadays I sit here in my
Speaker 2: study in Middle England, and I think the world is mad.
Speaker 2: And I suppose if I lave myself, I could become
Speaker 2: despairing in strange and uncertain times. Sometimes a reasonable person
Speaker 2: might despair. But hope is unreasonable, and love is greater
Speaker 2: even than this. So where can I find hope? Well,
Speaker 2: for me, one primary element, if you like, proof of
Speaker 2: hope is that I know that music never goes away
Speaker 2: despite the best efforts of the music industry. Music survives
Speaker 2: the music industry, well, that's hope. So what I do
Speaker 2: is I strap on and I rock out. I walk
Speaker 2: on stage with my wonderful little wife and play rock
Speaker 2: classics with classic riffs that get people on their feet,
Speaker 2: cheering and shouting and punching the air. The music is
Speaker 2: not constrained and by players in the music industry. For me,
Speaker 2: that's hope. Love well known and again perhaps, but hope
Speaker 2: is more readily available.
Speaker 1: And tell us a little bit about mister Bennett.
Speaker 2: Mister Bennett was a brilliant and flawed man, intellectual powerhouse.
Speaker 2: For example, as a mental discipline, he would he would
Speaker 2: play a game of three dimensional chess through visualization. That's yeah.
Speaker 2: He was a polymath, multi linguist. I think as a
Speaker 2: younger man, probably very arrogant, which tends to come with
Speaker 2: extraordinary intellectual powers.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 2: Nineteen twenty one. He was British Intelligence in Turkey and
Speaker 2: I believe signed the visa allowed kimel outa Turk to
Speaker 2: move into Turkey, for which he still is respected in
Speaker 2: Turkey to this day. I understand mister Bennett worked hard
Speaker 2: and upset lots of people, but after nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: something changed for him. In my view, he came to
Speaker 2: a realization that after that everything was different, and he
Speaker 2: was a voice for young people that were looking for
Speaker 2: a figure with experience and authority. And when I came
Speaker 2: across him, this was very clear. Young people at the
Speaker 2: time were maybe go to the East, or go on pilgrimages,
Speaker 2: put on blue robes, or various forms of other cultures.
Speaker 2: But for me, I found mister Bennett. This was an
Speaker 2: Englishman who wore English, those that I understood, spoke the
Speaker 2: language that I understood, and he was only one hundred
Speaker 2: miles down the road. So this was it for me,
Speaker 2: and I met him a month before he died. So
Speaker 2: this is a very powerful experience for me, which funnily
Speaker 2: enough increases in power the older I get as I
Speaker 2: recognize that connections can be made in a moment that
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be an extended moment in clock time.
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, the contact and connection can be made that
Speaker 2: enjuers and persists through time. It's like hearing a particular
Speaker 2: piece of music. It stays with you forever. Why because
Speaker 2: it's spoken to you, It's made a connection with you.
Speaker 2: And for those who feel that these experiences maybe it's
Speaker 2: a cosmic Witterer wittering on, I suggest that pretty well
Speaker 2: most of us at least have these experiences which are
Speaker 2: very direct for us, and we don't necessarily have to
Speaker 2: explain them. We accept that they're real. So this was
Speaker 2: mister Bennett who had the rare capacity to express complex
Speaker 2: notions in straightforward English. Why because what he was talking
Speaker 2: about was in his experience in nineteen sixty nine. In
Speaker 2: my view, he went somewhere and then he came back.
Speaker 2: Quote Hassan Schussud, very important figure in Turkish Sufism. And
Speaker 2: mister Bennett knows more about the mechanisms of the spirit,
Speaker 2: the mechanics of the spiritual life, than any person in
Speaker 2: the West since mister Eckart. Now, what do I know
Speaker 2: about that? I can't possibly comment on that. What I
Speaker 2: can say is mister Bennett spoke with authority which spoke
Speaker 2: to me in a language which persuaded me that I
Speaker 2: actually knew what mister Bennett was talking about. How could I?
Speaker 2: But nevertheless he persuaded me that I could in such
Speaker 2: a way that I've persisted ever since. And mister Bennett
Speaker 2: and missus Bennett uh part of my everyday life every day?
Speaker 1: Can you give us just a little more depth for
Speaker 1: those who are unfamiliar with the man. What one might
Speaker 1: say his lessons are and what you took from his words.
Speaker 2: Well, mister Bennett said, I teach I teach you how
Speaker 2: to cook, not what to cook. So what mister Bennett
Speaker 2: would do is teach you how to walk into a kitchen,
Speaker 2: pick up the implements, pick up the recipe, and make
Speaker 2: the mail. The recipe you chose was up to you.
Speaker 2: So another is very practical. What are the mechanics of
Speaker 2: the musical life? I can tell you that. What are
Speaker 2: the mechanics of the spiritual life? Mister Bennett could tell
Speaker 2: you that too. What I can say now at age
Speaker 2: seventy seven, they're exactly the same. I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: helps you at all, Bob doesn't. No, I can take
Speaker 2: that and grove from that. But let me put it
Speaker 2: a different way.
Speaker 1: You say he's part of your life every day, and
Speaker 1: he was playing on your computer in the background. What
Speaker 1: is your everyday interact action or lesson like, well.
Speaker 2: Every day I'm cooking, So my lessons in how to
Speaker 2: cook are ongoing every day. My father and my mother,
Speaker 2: my biological father and mother are with me every day
Speaker 2: as well. My spiritual father and my spiritual mother are
Speaker 2: with me every day as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, going from the sublime to the ridiculous, we're here.
Speaker 1: It's just as you're wearing a tie. When did this
Speaker 1: sartorial change happen? In what is behind it?
Speaker 2: It began around twenty twelve. Now, in terms of why
Speaker 2: this is an interesting one, I trust my feet when
Speaker 2: they go walking. When my feet go walking, I follow
Speaker 2: where they go. And when my feet have taken me
Speaker 2: to a place at which i've I recognize, ah, I
Speaker 2: need to be here. My feet brought me here. So
Speaker 2: trusting my feet where they go walking, that is my
Speaker 2: sense of direction, which is internal. I don't have to
Speaker 2: rationalize to myself where I'm going. But once I'm there,
Speaker 2: I might do that. I might look back and say
Speaker 2: why has my external appearance changed? And the answer might
Speaker 2: be something on the inside has changed. So at that
Speaker 2: point I monitor my experience to see how my experience
Speaker 2: of how I experience my experience and lived my life
Speaker 2: might have changed. In other words, I seek to better
Speaker 2: understand where I am now.
Speaker 1: So your exterior is evidence of your injury?
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's true. What would you say, bomb, Oh.
Speaker 1: We you know this goes to my next question. We've
Speaker 1: been around a long time, you know. I remember when
Speaker 1: long hair was a significant signifier, after the Beatles came out.
Speaker 1: I remember the turn of the decade of the seventies,
Speaker 1: when it became an affectation. You could not judge somebody
Speaker 1: based on their long hair, which is when I cut
Speaker 1: my hair off. We live in an era, you know.
Speaker 1: You grew up to talk about the sixties in the seventies,
Speaker 1: where it was internal, whereas now there's so much external
Speaker 1: with the trappings. Let me show you how much money
Speaker 1: I have, et cetera. We're all looking for points of
Speaker 1: uniqueness in a standardized world. We all have the same phone,
Speaker 1: we have the same watch. We have this, so on
Speaker 1: some level it does send a message. In your particular case,
Speaker 1: you are dressing in a way a typical of people
Speaker 1: from your background, generation, walk of life. OI. So therefore
Speaker 1: it stands out to the point that I comment on it,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that you know that this will have
Speaker 1: an effect on people who look at you. Whatever they
Speaker 1: might say. They might say, this is a serious guy,
Speaker 1: this guy is it's an act. Maybe he's all, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're aware of all that.
Speaker 2: Oh right, Well, couple of comments at first, the going
Speaker 2: back to twenty twelve, I noticed that people on the
Speaker 2: street were dressing in a shall we say, relaxed fashion,
Speaker 2: People of my age, old geezers, even older than me.
Speaker 2: This town has the highest average age of any town
Speaker 2: in England. And there are old people I see shopping
Speaker 2: on the older than me Bob, shopping on the street today,
Speaker 2: and they've put on the suit to go out shopping.
Speaker 2: Now I understand this from my youth. What you wore
Speaker 2: in your house was not what you wore to go
Speaker 2: out in public. You would change to go out in public.
Speaker 2: And still in people much older than me, and there
Speaker 2: are a few of them in town go out shopping
Speaker 2: in a suit and tie. And I can tell because
Speaker 2: the suit is too big, because the man of eighty
Speaker 2: odd has shrunk within the suit which may or may
Speaker 2: not have fitted him sixty years ago when he first
Speaker 2: had it. It was his marriage suit, his funeral suit,
Speaker 2: and his Sunday suit. So part of it was seeing
Speaker 2: a new generation of people on our street who were
Speaker 2: dressing in a relaxed fashion. And for me it was
Speaker 2: a little too relaxed in some cases. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to use the word scruffy. Shall we say it was
Speaker 2: exception he relaxed. I wished to go another way now,
Speaker 2: also in twenty twelve, looking back, I would say that
Speaker 2: I had myself been scruffy for a number of years. Why,
Speaker 2: because I lived my life on the road, going away
Speaker 2: for six or eight weeks, even three weeks. What do
Speaker 2: you do? My answer was, I wear black? Why? Because
Speaker 2: everything's black. If it gets dirty, you don't see it
Speaker 2: so much. You have the same black jeans, black socks,
Speaker 2: black knickers, black t shirts black, but all the rest
Speaker 2: of it is all black. It's very, very straightforward and
Speaker 2: requires no thought whatsoever. And having come off the road
Speaker 2: in twenty ten with the intention never ever to work
Speaker 2: live again, I was making a sea change. I changed
Speaker 2: now I dressed.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're not recognized everywhere, so I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: places you go that are public, places where are not recognized.
Speaker 1: Maybe an airplane, maybe a restaurant. Do you find that
Speaker 1: people tweat you differently when you're dressed with a tie,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 2: All right, one or two things on this Since Toy
Speaker 2: and Robert have become an Internet sensation in England. It
Speaker 2: used to be that wherever I go anywhere with my wife,
Speaker 2: my wife was recognized and I was overlooked. However, with
Speaker 2: our Internet sensation, we go over the road to our
Speaker 2: wonderful coffee shop in Pain and we're sitting in the
Speaker 2: window and people come in and speak to us that
Speaker 2: we'd never seen before, So not so much. There is
Speaker 2: also a situation I was in Venice with my wife.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think when this was about two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, and we were there in April, which is
Speaker 2: the beginning of tourist season. So to get away from
Speaker 2: the buld burgeon in crowds, we walked to the very
Speaker 2: very further test quietest place over there in Venice, and
Speaker 2: we were completely alone on a street in Venice until
Speaker 2: a solitary Italian gentleman appeared and he said, freep, freep, freep,
Speaker 2: you are freep, and my wife was astonished. My wife
Speaker 2: was astonished, the only person in this deserted part of Venice.
Speaker 2: No srip. So anyway, moving on to am I universally recognized, No,
Speaker 2: of course not. However in King Crimson contexts mostly so,
Speaker 2: and in context where I am known or not. Does
Speaker 2: how I dress have an effect? The answer is yes,
Speaker 2: without any doubt whatsoever. Why because here is a character
Speaker 2: who was very intentionally chosen his suit, what he's wearing,
Speaker 2: his tie. If they check out the socks, they will
Speaker 2: see the socks of those not conventionally chosen, and the
Speaker 2: tie is mostly not conventionally chosen neither. Here at the
Speaker 2: moment I'm dressed, I'm dressed down comfortably, but I still
Speaker 2: have my rather nice silk tie, which I acquired from
Speaker 2: the charity shop down the street for ten pounds. So yes,
Speaker 2: if you walk into the first class British airwayte lounge,
Speaker 2: he throw Why because Daryl Hall sent me a first
Speaker 2: class ticket to fly to live at Daryl's house. Most
Speaker 2: of the people in the first class lounge and in
Speaker 2: first class are dressed in a very relaxed fashion, not
Speaker 2: to say scruffy. Why Because they're so rich they don't
Speaker 2: give a hoot. So first class people are scruffy. People
Speaker 2: in business class tend to be smart, more smartly dressed.
Speaker 2: Why because a first class concier's pal of mine said,
Speaker 2: people in first class know who they are. People in
Speaker 2: cattle class knew who they are. But people in business
Speaker 2: class are aspirational. They want to move to the front.
Speaker 2: So people in business class tend to be more smartly dressed. Me,
Speaker 2: wherever I sit nowadays, it will be more smartly dressed.
Speaker 2: Why primarily to put a demand upon myself. And secondly,
Speaker 2: if there's a likelihood for you to be upgraded, if
Speaker 2: you look impeccably smart, your chances have just gone up.
Speaker 1: Okay at your age, having seen so much. We live
Speaker 1: in a music business is completely different in that the
Speaker 1: era of in the court of the Crimson King doesn't
Speaker 1: happen for anybody anymore. You cannot have that level of
Speaker 1: ubiquity no matter who you are. How do you soldier forward?
Speaker 1: And how do you keep your optimism?
Speaker 2: Two questions, Bob, would you choose one of them first? Please?
Speaker 1: How do you soldier forward?
Speaker 2: It's part of my discipline to keep going, so I
Speaker 2: decide keep going. So the question is then am I
Speaker 2: able to rely upon myself? So what I do in
Speaker 2: the morning when I get up, say hello God and
Speaker 2: send out my good thoughts the immediate family and friends
Speaker 2: and distant family and friends. From there, I moved to
Speaker 2: my physical regime of physical exercises and the I get
Speaker 2: in the cold shower. Why because my body doesn't want
Speaker 2: to get into the cold shower any more than it
Speaker 2: wants to do its exercises. But this is the animal
Speaker 2: that carries me round life, and it will not tell
Speaker 2: me what I do. I tell my body what to do,
Speaker 2: and then I move from this to my morning sitting,
Speaker 2: and then from that I enter my day having told
Speaker 2: myself that I will you will keep going. And in
Speaker 2: terms of optimism, why am I optimistic? Because I have
Speaker 2: decided to be optimistic. I'm a reasonable person. And if
Speaker 2: a good reason, a reasonable person would despair. So reason
Speaker 2: isn't sufficient. I have to trump reason, and I trump it,
Speaker 2: first of all with hope, which we've just discussed. I
Speaker 2: trump this with hope and with discipline. I am unable
Speaker 2: to hold myself on course.
Speaker 1: Let me go just a little bit thread the needle,
Speaker 1: which may not be what you're literally doing right now,
Speaker 1: but you're familiar with You have these very dedicated fans.
Speaker 1: You could pick one of the albums from your catalog,
Speaker 1: you know, Islands Lizard Red, and you could say I
Speaker 1: am going to play this album for a year live
Speaker 1: because the audience will love this. Okay, would that be
Speaker 1: emotional and intellectual death for you? Do you have to
Speaker 1: keep pushing the envelope to make it interesting to you.
Speaker 2: I continue to challenge myself. An example of that well,
Speaker 2: going on the road with David for two weeks, for example,
Speaker 2: or having a guitar course between one hundred and one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty people and to near Mendoza in Argentina
Speaker 2: this late April, and then doing festival performances and live
Speaker 2: shows with Toy later in the year. These are all
Speaker 2: challenges for me. Is are they intellectual challenges? Yep, certainly
Speaker 2: going on the road with David it is Are they
Speaker 2: personal challenges?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: You have one hundred people come along and they look
Speaker 2: to me to give them advice. Yes, that a challenge, certainly.
Speaker 2: Is that an intersectional intellectual challenge? Not as much as
Speaker 2: it is a challenge to my feelings how to engage
Speaker 2: on a feeling level with these people. Am I likely
Speaker 2: to go on the road and play a particular King
Speaker 2: Crimson album for one year to keep people happy? I
Speaker 2: think that's unlikely. I think if I were to choose
Speaker 2: as Pacific repertoire to play live for period of time,
Speaker 2: I would have to choose that repertoire. I really, really
Speaker 2: really would like to play this, and it is within
Speaker 2: the current athletic and calisonic standards, which I can ask
Speaker 2: myself to honor. But do I believe that I will
Speaker 2: invite a number of other players to set off on
Speaker 2: the road to do that with me? I think that's unlikely.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if we brought your wife in right now,
Speaker 1: would your demeanor and style of speech be the same
Speaker 1: or would it be more colloquial and less measured.
Speaker 2: The latter And we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1: Robert, Oh god, I can't get you guys enough. This
Speaker 1: has been very stimulating and I'm sure it will be
Speaker 1: that way for my audience. Thanks so much for doing this.
Speaker 2: Till next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob Left sets