The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Outpost Cafe => Topic started by: Denis on October 29, 2017, 02:36:33 PM
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So, King Crimson. I'd never seen them before but listened to a lot of their music in high school and college, so when I learned they were going to be in town there was no way I was going to miss it. It was the first time King Crimson played in Raleigh since March 29, 1972 when they performed in Dorton Arena.
I'm glad I went and immediately wished they were playing for two nights.
The show was incredible. The music was delicate, brutal, technical, warm, dissonant, orchestrated, beautiful, unnerving, cacophonous, melodic, brilliant.
It was an assault.
Here's the setlist from the show.
Drumson Werning - Robert Fripp's Announcement
Intro: Islands Coda
Set 1:
Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One
Pictures of a City
Cirkus
Neurotica
Epitaph
Fallen Angel
Drumson Outbreak of Wonderment, Joy & Bliss Arising
The Letters
Breathless
(Robert Fripp song)
Islands
Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part Two
Set 2:
Indiscipline
The ConstruKction of Light
(part 1 only)
Moonchild
('The Dream' part only;… more )
The Court of the Crimson King
Hell Hounds of Krim
Easy Money
Lizard
("(c) The Battle of Glass… more )
Meltdown
Radical Action II
Level Five
Starless
Encore:
21st Century Schizoid Man
(with Gavin Harrison drum solo)
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Thanks for sharing that. I'm going to try to make one of the shows, but the closest one is the day after Thanksgiving family weekend.
I did see them at the Chicago Amphitheater from the first row of the first balcony about the time of Larks Tongue in Aspic (mid-seventies) and it was fantastic.
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Wow how cool.The current lineup sounds like it is firing on all cylinders,not too surprising i suppose.The chances of seeing them out here in New Zealand are pretty remote but mustn't grumble as i saw them in 2000 at Shepherds Bush Empire.
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The music was delicate, brutal, technical, warm, dissonant, orchestrated, beautiful, unnerving, cacophonous, melodic, brilliant.
It was an assault.
Sounds like King Crimson! Kicking myself for not going when they played here in Chicago. Haven't seen them since the "double trio" days in the 90s.
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Sounds like King Crimson! Kicking myself for not going when they played here in Chicago. Haven't seen them since the "double trio" days in the 90s.
If you're talking about the June 28, 2017 Chicago show, KC recorded it is selling a really nice double CD set of it for $20! WELL WORTH IT!!!
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That is an awesome setlist! I didn't realise they were plundering their '70s output so rigorously. Who is playing bass, and is their tone as rich as John Wetton's?
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It is Tony Levin, and has been for decades.
I must confess I haven't heard the band in a long long time, but I follow him on Facebook so I've seen some cool tour photography, as one expects from Levin.
https://tonylevin.com/road-diaries/king-crimson-2017-tour-pt2/
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Great band. The greatest in circulation. Seen them one year ago in Milan for my third time. Simply unbelievable. I am a great collector of their recordings and have more than 1500 of them. Not sure if I am the greatest in the world but none of the KC collectors that I know beats me. The most common sentence I hear is “I was thinking that my collection was quite complete”. If any of you taped the concert just pm me in private
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Tony Levin is a great player, but his style is nothing like Wetton's who - King Crimson Red era - was an extremely busy and aggressive player. Levin is all economical, the "what you leave out is more important than what you play"-school. He's also behind the beat (as many session musicians are, comes from all the studio practice probably) whereas Wetton was always pushing forward.
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Tony Levin is a great player, but his style is nothing like Wetton's who - King Crimson Red era - was an extremely busy and aggressive player. Levin is all economical, the "what you leave out is more important than what you play"-school. He's also behind the beat (as many session musicians are, comes from all the studio practice probably) whereas Wetton was always pushing forward.
That's interesting. I didn't know many studio musicians played behind the beat. I would have thought it might be the other way around. When I think of playing ahead of the beat, I associate that with innovative and complex bass lines. Jack Bruce would be an example. I usually enjoy listening to that. I like, for instance, somebody like Carl Radle, too. His bass on GH's "The Art of Dying" is kind of hypnotic and behind the beat. Somehow, though, playing behind the beat was ingrained in me from my youth. If I try to change that, it usually doesn't turn out very well.
This is not meant to detract from King Crimson, but here is one more example specifically dealing with the playing behind or ahead of the beat issue (which I actually wasn't expecting to find.)
http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2016/10/26/playing-ahead-or-behind-the-beat/
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Cool, so next time someone I'm playing with says I'm dragging, I can just say I was just trying to do some groovy slugging! ;D
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I guess if you spend your life in studios recording, do little live work, are relaxed with the recording situation and understand your role as not being the most important one on the recording, being subdued slightly behind the beat is a natural development.
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I don't personally think of playing behind the beat as something that's part of being secondary or subdued. But maybe I'm not looking at the whole picture. He joked around so much, I'm not even sure how serious he was, but I once talked to a recording engineer with a small studio who had worked with a few noteworthy people, though, like Gregg Allman. The engineer was also a bassist. But the point is he was saying the main difference between Northern and Southern studios is that bassists associated with Southern rock tended to play behind the beat. He seemed to act like that was something he preferred. I don't think of Leon Wilkeson or Berry Oakley as subdued. But especially if you're in a band with Duane Allman, it might be difficult to get the limelight. I like how Berry Oakley sounded, though, particularly in some of those live recordings. But I've never noticed whether he was playing behind the beat or not.
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Cool, so next time someone I'm playing with says I'm dragging, I can just say I was just trying to do some groovy slugging! ;D
At one place where I used to go, some of the people actually thought that playing behind the beat meant a person didn't have good timing. They were serious. On the other hand, doing it all the time might not necessarily be a good thing. Variety is the spice of life, to use a cliche.
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For me it isn't whether I'm behind or on-top-of or pushing it. Being locked into the drummer is the key. My drummer of nearly 40 years is a rock and roll guy all the way, but he's quite capable of playing most genres. Typically though he's usually just a bit behind. When we're synced up it never sounds like it's dragging or too slow. In those instances when I think it might be a little too behind, I hear recordings and it sounds rock solid, even as I distinctly remember thinking it not being quite so at the time.
Whatever part of the rhythmic structure you're in, being synchronized is what makes it work. You don't want to get too far away in either direction while maintaining a groove.
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I totally agree. Synchronizing with the drummer is critical. Now that i can look back all these years later, I realize I was around some unusually good drummers while I was learning to play. Most of them played behind the beat and I really got used to that. It did become something I preferred as time went on, though. Of course later when I was around drummers who didn't play that way, I made the necessary adjustments (but didn't like it as much.)
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It's a matter of personal preference, what kind of person you are and what music you play, there is no good and bad. If you are in a reggae band, you have to play behind the beat or it sounds like white-boy new wave reggae (The Police or Fischer-Z).
I once had a drummer in the band who was Bonham'esque behind the beat all the time. The guitarist loved him for it, but it drove me - weaned on Ian Paice's ever-so-slightly-ahead-of-the-beat swing - absolutely nuts. What sounded heavy to the others, sounded clumsy to me and I didn't like what it did to my bass playing either. And in my ears, Bonham/Jones as a rhythm section never - thanks Alan! -"drove the bus" like Paice/Glover (or Ward/Butler!) did. There was just more elegance in Purple's engine room, a track like Highway Star is fast, but there is nothing rushed or ham-fisted about it, it glides along. In contrast, when Zep play something a little faster like Rock'n'Roll or Immigrant Song, they invariably stomp (which a lot of people find appealing because it is so primal). Even a headbang number like Smoke On The Water never stomps.
But for a reason I never understood - Zep's enduring popularity must have something to do with it, the advent of disco in the late 70ies might have played a role too - behind the beat drumming became ever more popular in harder music from the 80ies onwards. A drummer once told me: "It's not that difficult to credibly ape some of the more overt things Bonham did, but that Paice swing thing is hard to get and you don't hear it that much in today's popular music anymore either, so people are just not used to and influenced by it." Paice says he heard big band music and Buddy Rich to death as a child as his father played in a big band in the 40ies and 50ies.
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That makes sense. One drummer that I used to play with a lot was a John Bonham fanatic. He would literally not tolerate any criticism of Bonham. I never got that interested in Led Zeppelin, though. I can't remember ever even buying one of their albums. But you had to listen to their music whether you wanted to or not. It seems like they were on the radio nonstop for years. But I liked Jimmy Page all right and also what he did with the Yardbirds. Also, I liked Keith Relf's quirky vocals more than Robert Plant's. I realize I'm really in the minority on that.
It's no surprise that the easier way of playing became the most popular. Needless to say, it's human nature to often take the easy way out. You don't hear too much complex harmonizing in music anymore, either. It's hard and takes talent. So why bother? The excuse is that that's no longer in style.
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I like harmony vocals a lot, but they rob you of the identification with that one singer as a listener. Harmony throughout sounds pleasant enough, but I find myself then less gripped by the lyrics, the overall sound takes over in my brain. :-\
Nevertheless, stuff like this - yes, it's corny, I know - I can be a sucker for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62GNQ1h-W14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UiO28GRIE4
And as a bass player I'm of course notorious for playing thirds where most other people would play the root or the fifth. Wishbone Ash spoiled me. :mrgreen:
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It's doubtful that harmony will come back anytime soon or maybe never. It was around for a very long time, though. Maybe they did go overboard with it. Certainly, the Eagles were masters at it.
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Well-executed and well-written harmony vocals are still all over the place, if you go looking.
I have been in love with this band for a few years now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pk_2dVPjms
Roger Waters is similarly smitten apparently, because Jess and Holly from Lucius have found a side gig as his backup singers on the current tour.
https://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2017/07/27/jess-wolfe-and-holly-laessig-of-lucius-on-tour-with-roger-waters
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Well those guys play behind the beat alright! :mrgreen:
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Yeah they do! Sounds good usually but my one complaint with them, having heard lots of versions of many of their songs, is that they can overdo it and sound draggy.