It would be seven years between Red
and the next album from King Crimson,
the cover of which would be red,
adorned in the center of the jacket
with a silver Celtic knot, bearing the title
Discipline.
It was the first King Crimson album
I would ever hear, the first King Crimson
record I would ever buy, the beginning
of my life-long dedication to the band.
Here, Robert Fripp and Bill Bruford are
the only musicians on board from
the last outing, joined now by the
bass playing Chapman stick wielding
Peter Gabriel guy Tony Levin, and
on guitar and lead vocals the additional
and crazy guitar player from the break-
through album by Talking Heads, Remain in
Light, the one and only Adrian Belew.
This band was to me, as a budding
musician at the dawn of the new wave
movement, the perfect combination
of punk rock absurdism and prog rock.
Adrian Belew’s singing and his lyrics
were a 180 degree departure from all
the previous singers and lyricists from
King Crimson’s first decade. No more
cringey fantasy romanticism. No more
crooning. Instead, Adrian offered up
a witty and gritty sense of humor, a
refreshing and skillful tenor, and an
arty, spoken word flare to the proceedings.
From the very first track on Discipline,
“Elephant Talk,” we know this is not our
mama’s (or older sibling’s) King Crimson.
The opening riff, introducing much of
the world to the Chapman stick for the
first time, is rhythmically crazy and sonically
otherworldly, and when the drums kick in,
unlike almost any other King Crimson
track in the history of King Crimson,
listeners are gonna want to shake their
booties. And then Belew comes in, not
singing, really, but shouting, in alphabetical
order, from A to E, nothing but synonyms
for the word “talk,” ending with, of course,
the now iconic yelp, “Elephant talk,”
punctuated by Adrian’s guitar squawking
the trumpet noise of the pachyderm.
Absolutely absurd, completely delightful,
and funny. Every tune on Discipline is
terrific and surprising or beautiful or
hilarious and so absolutely rocking
and hypnotic. “I do think it’s good.”
All the 80’s records in this “trilogy,”
identified as such by the consistent
line up and the continuity of the art
design, stand outside of their era for me.
Despite the absurdity and zaniness
that was maybe a part of the new wave
and punk aesthetic, sonically, these
albums would be hard to pin down
as 80’s productions, except for those
moments where Bruford is experimenting
with electronic drums. He may have
been the first prog rocker with a set
of Simmons pads and surrounded by
Remo’s roto toms. So, other than the
occasional dated drum sound, these
albums are timeless for me while at
the same time a kind of self portrait
of where my musical mind was
during these years, finding the delicate
balance between prog and pop,
fawning over the instrumental mastery
but still hankering for a great melody.
These three albums, Discipline, Beat,
and Three of a Perfect Pair, thanks mostly
to Adrian Belew’s tuneful and nutty but
soulful contribution, did that for me. As
these three records progress, while holding
on to the prog and the soundscape and
the occasional improvisation, they get
more and more accessible. If one was
looking for King Crimson at their catchiest,
Three of a Perfect Pair might be the best
starting point, especially the first side,
although there are some damn
catchy ones on Beat as well. In any order,
though, they are all great records.
Between 1984 and their next studio album,
eleven years would pass. Not that these cats
weren’t busy–solo albums from Adrian
and a stint in a band called The Bears,
collaborations galore for Robert (one
of my absolute favorite David Sylvian
records was a Fripp collaboration), Tony
Levin continued making records and
touring with Peter Gabriel, and even
though I didn’t really keep track of his
projects, Bill Bruford was busy as well.
But in 1995, the band reconvened in
a super fun configuration, adding another
bass player and another drummer to
the existing bass players and drummers!
My favorite King Crimson record ever
is Thrak–but alas, I don’t have a vinyl
version (yet), so I won’t say anything
more about that album or the next
one, 2001’s The Construktion of Light.
My last vinyl edition of a King Crimson
album is the last studio album they’ve
made to date, 2003’s The Power to Believe.
This time, Bill Bruford is replaced by
Pat Mastelotto, and Tony Levin by Trey Gunn.
But it’s as crunchy and crimsony as ever,
as if Pat and Trey were cut from the exact
same cloth. Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp
remain, their dueling guitar weirdness
as complimentary as ever, and Adrian’s
singing and lyrics as strong as ever,
profound and moving in “Eyes Wide Open,”
super almost metal heavy in “Facts of Life,”
and as hilarious as ever in “Happy With
What You Have To Be Happy With,” where
he sings before the gloriously weird chorus,
“I’m gonna have to write a chorus. We’re
gonna have to sing the chorus.”
This is a dense, mostly instrumental album
with a deep, serious, long, sometimes ponderous
vibe. Not nearly as accessible as those
80’s Crimson albums or Thrak from the 90’s,
but a great, worthwhile listen just the same.
For further study, the 2022 50th anniversary
documentary film by Toby Ames is a must,
documenting the history of the band, of
course, but more interestingly, its most
recent live iteration, which brings together
three (count ’em, THREE) drummers, two
bass players, a keyboardist, horn player,
and two guitar players, one a vocalist,
for what seems to be the biggest King
Crimson band EVER. Will there be another
studio record? Who will be on it? What
will it be like? I hope so. I don’t care.
It will be awesome.
Notes on the vinyl editions:
- Discipline, Discipline Global Mobile Records, 2018, new pressing, remix and remaster of the original 1981 album by Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp, 200 gram black vinyl.
- Beat, Discipline Global Mobile Records, 2019, new pressing, remix and remaster of the original 1982 album by Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp, 200 gram black vinyl.
- Three of a Perfect Pair, Discipline Global Mobile Records, 2019, new pressing, remix and remaster of the original 1984 album by Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp, 200 gram black vinyl.
- The Power to Believe, Discipline Global Mobile Records, 2019 reissue edition of the original 2003 recording with bonus tracks, double black vinyl.
For more on all these guys: check out previous blog entries on The Beat, Adrian Belew, The Bears, and Peter Gabriel.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 