{"id":2846,"date":"2019-06-22T11:25:43","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T10:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=2846"},"modified":"2019-06-22T11:31:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-22T10:31:22","slug":"love-letters-and-hot-dates-the-curious-history-of-king-crimsons-live-albums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=2846","title":{"rendered":"Love Letters And Hot Dates\u2026 The Curious History Of King Crimson\u2019s Live Albums."},"content":{"rendered":"
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JOHN MARTIN celebrates KING CRIMSON\u2019s extensive live discography<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span>\u201cSometimes it\u2019s like angels descending from the clouds on chariots of fire, blowing trumpets of gold in your ear. Baby Blue, I was there\u201d <\/span>\u2013Robert Fripp, in the liner notes to Frame By Frame: The Essential King Crimson \u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

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Among the many gnomic pronouncements attributed to King Crimson curator (he won\u2019t accept any designation as vulgar as \u201cleader\u201d) Robert Fripp, one concerns the relationship between the studio album and the live show. The former, he assures us, is like a love letter, while the latter more closely approximates (or should) a hot date.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEach have their own value\u2026\u201d he asserts, though in his view: \u201cCrimson were always the band for a hot date. From time to time they could write a love letter too, but for me they were better in the clinches.\u201d This privileging of performance in Fripp\u2019s scheme of things has led to Crimson, in its various incarnations over 50 odd (sometimes very odd) years compiling what is probably rock\u2019s most prolific live discography (with only The Grateful Dead, I would imagine, coming close). But matters of the heart are never quite as cut and dried as Smart Alec aphorisms would have it and the tangled history of King Crimson live albums is littered with illicit affairs, blurred lines and deceptively dubbed dalliances\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

The original line up of the band (Fripp on guitar; Greg Lake, bass and vocals; Ian McDonald, flutes, horns and keys; Michael Giles, drums; Peter Sinfield, lyrics and lights) inaugurated the dreaded prog rock with their October 1969 debut release In The Court Of The Crimson King<\/i>. They also harshed many a mellow trip with the ferocity of their live work, unrepresented in any contemporary release but showcased since \u2019<\/span>97 in the Epitaph box set and a series of Collectors\u2019 Club mail order discs and downloads which capture the band at The Marquee, supporting the Stones In Hyde Park and playing The Fillmore East on the ill-fated US tour where a combination of homesickness, \u201chedonism\u201d and the proverbial \u201cmusical and personal differences\u201d ensured that this particular musical candle would burn twice as bright but (not even) half as long.<\/span><\/p>\n