King Crimson

King Crimson is one of the longest lasting and most revered art rock bands that ever existed. Formed initially in the late 1960s, the original King Crimson was grouped together with other British bands like Genesis and Yes that were stretching the boundaries of rock with their musical virtuosity and the sheer size and scale of their pieces. Many of these bands, often labeled “prog” (for progressive), tried to infuse the rock idiom with more classical elements. In the eternal ebb and flow of popular music, prog rockers tried to make the simple structures of rock ‘n’ roll more sophisticated, more cerebral and academic by introducing arcane instrumentation, challenging meters, and pompous dimensions. This trend, along with advances in multi-track recording technology, led to the overblown, overproduced sludge of the '70s, which in turn led to the stripping of rock back to its three-chord roots that punk provided (which led to the operatic excesses of new wave which led to the frightful urgency of grunge and so on and so forth).

The original line-up of Crimson folded in the early '70s and the various members went off on their separate ways. About ten years later, founder and guitar guru Robert Fripp reformed and retooled the band with three other musicians, all of whom were at the top of their craft and well-known and well-respected for their adventurous musicality. Along with Fripp on guitar, the second incarnation (or perhaps it was the third, I think there were actually two versions of the early band) also included Adrian Belew on guitar, Tony Levin on bass and Chapman Stick, and Bill Bruford on drums. Belew has several times won Guitar Magazine’s Experimental Guitarist of the Year award for his phenomenal technique and willingness to push the envelope of guitar playing. He is literally able to coax any sound out of his guitar and has lent his talents to artists as diverse as Talking Heads and Frank Zappa. He also has a wonderfully clear and strong singing voice and became the lead vocalist of the band. Against type and despite his visibility, however, Belew isn’t the star of the band – everybody knows this is Robert’s baby and, even though they’re the best in the business, they’re all there by the graces of His Frippness. Tony Levin not only plays bass better than just about anybody else, he is also probably the world’s foremost authority on playing the Chapman Stick – an unusual hybrid electric stringed instrument that has the range of both the bass and guitar and on which notes can be sounded with both hands, at either end of the fret board. I had the pleasure of seeing him play bass once, and one particular track, he put on a glove that was kissing kin to Freddie Kruger’s Nightmare on Elm Street razor glove: the glove had sticks coming off each finger and each stick was topped with a rubber ball. This allowed him to strike or “pop” the bass strings with each finger, which he proceeded to do with alarming speed and accuracy. And Bill Bruford just likes to hit things, and isn’t too interested in keeping a mind (and body) numbing four-on-the-floor beat for very long.

This incarnation of King Crimson, my overall favorite, lasted for three critically popular albums (Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair) before disbanding again in the late '80s. Then, after another long hiatus, Robert Fripp called that version back together again and added two more musicians – Trey Gunn on Chapman Stick and Pat Mastelotto on drums. This led to a highly unusual configuration which Fripp called a “double trio” – with two guitarists, two bassists, and two drummers. Needless to say, this configuration could easily become unwieldy, and it’s only the frightfully accomplished musicianship of the members that made the lumbering giant work. Fripp called this particular group of musicians “terrifying”, and they made some of the most exhilaratingly challenging music ever created by rock musicians. King Crimson had always pushed at the edges of rock and many of their pieces are incredibly complicated affairs written in some of the most foreboding meters possible (one musician was quoted as saying he had to give up drugs to play in the band because the music was so hard to count.) Despite their tendency towards obscurity, there was (almost) always enough of a pop sensibility to make the music approachable. Much of that was thanks to the efforts of singer Adrian Belew, an avowed Beatles junkie whose smooth vocals and pop sensibilities often kept the band from falling off the cliff of self-importance.

Dinosaur, from Thrak, the only studio album that the double trio recorded, is a perfect example. A sly nod to the age and sensibilities of the band itself, Dinosaur shows off the strengths of the band perfectly. Starting with an unusual chord progression played by Belew through a guitar synthesizer, the band soon kicks into a menacing stomp featuring jagged guitar lines and thunderous drums before settling down into the first verse. Belew’s Lennonesque voice soars over the lurching, sputtering rhythms and then explodes into the second chorus.

Once the various pieces of the song start to fall into place, the band twists into the bridge, an unexpected and virtually unplayable collection of rhythms and counter-rhythms that gives way to another chorus before turning another sharp and unexpected corner and wandering off into deep space. The lurching Jurassic momentum that the band has built up dissipates completely into what sounds like an oboe solo followed by a thin string quartet (both played by Belew on his guitar – I’ve seen him do it) and then the music just fades away completely into what has to be the longest internal break I’ve ever heard in a song. Waiting and waiting in the mounting silence before it all comes crashing in like water crushing a dam. This one track covers more ground than most bands can manage in an entire career.

And it’s all played and recorded live.

After a couple of concert albums, the double trio broke up into many splinter groups, trying out different combinations of the six musicians to see what could happen, what new isotopes developed. Recently, King Crimson has reformed as a traditional quartet, but I find most of the music on that album tips over too far into the self-indulgent to be very appealing for long, but I’ll always keep my ears open in their direction and will probably spend the rest of my life happily sipping from the rich font of experimentation that King Crimson in its various permutations represents.