|
"King Crimson is, as always, more a way of doing things. When there is
nothing to be done, nothing is done: Crimson disappears. When there is music to
be played, Crimson reappears. If only all of life were this simple..."
-Robert Fripp
One of the only band's of its generation--and one of the very few of any period--to be
continually influential and innovative throughout its career, King Crimson's musical
adventure continues.
Back in November and December 2001, the band toured North America on the
Level 5 tour in support of The Level 5 EP, which includes material from King
Crimson's 2001 summer tour with TOOL. They entered the studio twice in the
spring and summer of 2002, recording the soon-to-be-released EP Happy With
What You Have To Be Happy With, and the forthcoming album The Power To
Believe, set to release later in 2003.
Through four decades of innovation, each lineup of the band created, and still
provides, a platform for propulsion, evolution, and mutation into the next.
The first incarnation of King Crimson, according to founding member Robert Fripp,
was conceived in 1968 and born on January 13th, 1969 in the Fulham Palace Cafe,
London (Fripp/Ian McDonald/Greg Lake/Michael Giles/Pete Sinfield). The band
stole the show when supporting The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park in 1969 and went
on to produce In The Court Of The Crimson King, (1969) described by Pete
Townshend as "an uncanny masterpiece" which became an iconic title in rock
music history.
Although hailed as "the next Beatles," King Crimson spent the next 30 years
evading, intriguing, and consistently surprising fans with each new project and
album, such as In The Wake of Poseidon (1970), Lizard (1970),
Islands (1971), Earthbound (1972), Larks' Tongues in Aspic
(1973) and the posthumous studio album Red (1974). Band members
along the way included jazz maestro Keith Tippet, Boz Burrell (Bad Company), Ian
Wallace (Dylan/Don Henley), John Wetton (Family), and Bill Bruford (Yes/Genesis).
Following Red, Fripp declared, "King Crimson is completely over for ever
and ever," and began work on solo projects and collaborations with artists such as
Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Daryll Hall, and Blondie. He then
reappeared in a reinvented King Crimson alongside Adrian Belew
(Zappa/Bowie/Talking Heads), Levin (Paul Simon/Lou Reed/John Lennon/Peter
Gabriel), and Bruford in 1981. At this point, Fripp felt, "the bleak Crim view
lightened"
and musical boundaries and vocabulary widened. Albums that followed include
Discipline (1981), Beat (1982), and Three Of A Perfect Pair
(1984), all now part of the
recently remastered series, which celebrates the 30th
anniversary of Crimson.
After tortuous but successful legal struggles with his management, Fripp set up
his own record label, Discipline Global Mobile, through which King Crimson, now
joined by Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto (Mister Mister), and the ProjeKcts
(Crimson's "alter-ego" band) continue to produce albums and archive releases;
from Vrooom (1994), B'Boom (1995), THRaKaTTak
(1996), Heavy
ConstruKction (2000) to Vrooom Vrooom (2001), which features live
tracks from the
band's performances in Broadway, New York, and Mexico City 1995/6.
Says Fripp about the future, "King Crimson lives in different bodies at different
times and the particular form
which the group takes changes. When music appears, which only King Crimson
can play, then sooner or later, King Crimson appears to play the music."
Backing the massive musical body that is King Crimson on select US dates will be the recently reformed Living Colour.
When the four members of Living Colour went their separate ways in 1995,
drummer
Will Calhoun grabbed his passport and started globetrotting. Over the course of the
next five years, Calhoun's journeys took him everywhere from Russia (as
a member of jazz great Wayne Shorter's touring band) to Australia (where he
studied tribal music while living with an Aborigine family in the Outback) to
Morocco, where he went to explore the trancelike sounds of Gnawan music.
Though his destinations were diverse, the question was always the same: When
is Living Colour getting back together? "It seemed like I was being asked almost
everywhere I went," says Calhoun. "It was amazing to learn that the music we
created had traveled so far around the world. I had everyone from [Montreux Jazz
Festival founder] Claude Nobs to Mick Jagger pull me aside and tell me we
needed to regroup. It really made me think about the art and energy of Living
Colour and the impact that we made. As an artist, you have to respect that."
That Living Colour's legacy has broken through obstacles of language, distance,
and culture comes as little surprise. Formed by guitarist/Black Rock Coalition
founder Vernon Reid in 1984, the quartet revised a Black music tradition that
extends from Chuck Berry and Little Richard to Jimi Hendrix and Parliament/Funkadelic. Over the course of their career, they released three critically acclaimed
albums (Vivid, Time's Up, and Stain) which sold over 4 million
copies combined,
earned a pair of Grammy Awards, two MTV Music Video Awards, and tore up
stages
around the world. They were perhaps the only band that could have opened for The
Rolling Stones, and they played the first groundbreaking Lollapalooza Tour.
Deciding that he didn't want to be "sitting around with regret at age 60," Calhoun
phoned Reid in December of 2000 and invited him to sit in with Headfake, a drum
& bass side project featuring former Living Colour bassist Doug Wimbish and on
occasion, vocalist Corey Glover. The guitarist agreed, and a gig was booked at the
band's old stomping ground of CBGB's under the winking banner of "Headfake
and Surprise Musical Guest."
The faithful turned out by the hundreds and the band didn't disappoint. On the
same small stage where they had been discovered more than a dozen years
earlier, a revitalized Living Colour blazed through searing renditions of "Cult of
Personality," "Love
Rears Its Ugly Head," "Time's Up," and "Type." In a review of the show, MTV
reported that "the foursome tore into [their set] with the fervor of newcomers."
"It was such an incredible feeling to look across the stage and see Corey standing
next to Vernon and Will playing behind them," recalls Wimbish. "You could see that
they were having a great time. After all those years, it was good to be able to share
a moment like that once again."
In fact, it felt so good they decided to do it again and played a string of sold-out
nationwide club dates, while also hitting South America and the European festival
circuit.
"It felt a little weird at first," says Reid. "But we started becoming a band again. And
based on the reaction we were getting at the shows, it was clear that our audience
still cares. Hell, people were coming up to me after gigs and saying we've
reaffirmed their faith in music. That's pretty powerful."
Inspired by fan reaction and eager to redefine its focus, the quartet began to write.
Fully aware that their long absence required one helluva re-entry vehicle, they took
time to craft the material carefully. "We spent a year and a half writing and recording
four albums worth of material," laughs Calhoun. "It was a long, drawn-out process,
but I think we needed to go through it to make the right record."
The much-anticipated result is CollideOscope (Sanctuary Records),
an
electrifying testament to the range and depth of Living Colour's artistry. The band's
first studio album in ten years sees them staying true to their roots, while keeping
their grooves current and hearts open. The songs are edgy, inventive, and
uncompromising, and rank among the band's best ever.
"We felt the record really had to say something," says Glover. "Over the years, we've
seen a lot of things go down that aren't being addressed and someone needs to
talk about that. We had an obligation then and we have an obligation now to speak
the truth, and we're never going to be afraid of that."
Looking at the world outside his window, Glover sees an America filled with
disillusion, injustice, and fear. It's a vista of ruin, its streets littered with broken and
abandoned promises and he channels the collective hurt into songs of monolithic
power. Like many of us, the seismic repercussions of the September 11th terrorist
attacks have forced him to reevaluate his perceptions of good and evil ("Song
Without Sin") while avoiding a life of fear ("A ? of When" and "Operation Mind
Control"). As Glover tells it, the latter two are flip sides of the same paranoia.
"'A ? of When' refers to 'the high alerts,' he says. "We have been told us time and
again, 'it may not happen today, tomorrow, or the day after that, but it'll happen
soon and it'll be very severe.' We're being kept in this state of suspended fear. It's
been said that you can run a lot of things by people in a state of confusion. That
leads to 'Operation Mind Control,' which is about those that go along with it all. It's
a gleeful sing-along of paranoia, saying, 'hey, this is fun—let's dance for the
surveillance cameras'."
The album's emotional linchpin is the achingly beautiful "Flying," a heart-wrenching
tale about a young couple whose tragic end comes suddenly and without warning.
In
a single moment, their dreams are both realized and erased, and no one takes
notice of their passing.
"It's a story about a guy who goes to work at the Trade Center on September 11
and decides that today is the day that he's finally going to ask out Carmen, a
co-worker," says Glover. "Ironically, they do wind up together, but it's certainly not
the
way he imagined it. It's the idea of taking this huge, tragic event and boiling it down
to its smallest essence, which is that it was about people. There were so many
people there that day, going to work, punching time clocks. Who knows how many
of them got to realize their dreams on that final day?" As the album spins on, Glover
talks pointedly and poignantly about consumerism ("Choices Mash Up / Happy
Shopper"), anxiety ("Holy Roller"), and global environment ("Sacred Ground"), all
against
a stunning backdrop of hypnotic grooves, honeyed melodies, and
speaker-shattering guitars.
Living Colour does a lot of things brilliantly—and they do most of them on
CollideOscope, offering an adventurous earful of soulful, raucous rock
("Lost Halo"),
reggae/dub ("Nightmare City") and electro-dynamics ("In Your Name"). Among the
album's many highlights is the band's blistering version of the AC/DC classic
"Back in Black."
"It's a song we've wanted to do for a long time, but it takes an interesting twist with
us," laughs Glover. "There are references to having nine lives and lynching with
lines like, 'they've got to catch me if they want me to hang.' That definitely takes on
new meaning when I sing them."
"On one hand, the idea of Living Colour doing 'Back in Black' is a no-brainer," adds
Reid. "But there's an unintended irony that comes into play because of the lyrics.
I've heard the song millions of times over the years and the only thing I remember
hearing clearly is the chorus. But it turns out there are certain lines in the verses
that give our rendition real resonance."
Produced by the band and mixed by Andy Stackpole, CollideOscope also
features a devastating cover of the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows." "We
originally planned to do it for a project that never materialized, but it fit perfectly on
this record" says Reid. "This song and 'A ? of When' are flipsides of the same coin.
On the former, you have fear and loathing, while the latter speaks about the
endless coming and going of life and that everything happens for a reason. It's a
classic song."
CollideOscope may have taken a year and a half to make, but it arrives just
in time and is definitely worth the wait. In an era when there's a cookie-cutter
sameness to so many of today's acts, the return of Living Colour recalls a time
when bands were praised for their uniqueness and willingness to take music to
the edge.
"As an artist, you want to make the right moves and step up the ladder," says
Calhoun. "But what does that mean for your integrity and artistry? If going up the
ladder means becoming more conservative and corporate, then you can have the
ladder. We don't want it. We'll just keep doing our own thing."
King Crimson Tour Dates:
10.27 | Orpheum Theater | Phoenix, AZ
10.28 | House of Blues | Anaheim, CA
10.29 | House of Blues | West Hollywood, CA
10.30 | House of Blues | West Hollywood,
11.02 | Warfield Theater | San Francisco,
11.05 | The Fillmore Auditorium | Denver, CO with Living Colour
11.07 | The Quest | Minneapolis, MN
11.08 | Park West | Chicago, IL with Living Colour
11.09 | Park West | Chicago, IL with Living Colour
11.11 | St Denis Theatre | Montreal, PQ
11.12 | Avalon | Boston, MA with Living Colour
11.14 | UPAC (Ulster Performing Arts Center) | Kingston, NY with Living Colour
11.15 | Beacon Theatre | New York, NY with Living Colour
11.16 | Electric Factory Philadelphia, PA with Living Colour
11.17 | The State Theatre | Falls Church, VA
11.21 | Metropolitan Theater | Mexico City, MX
11.22 | Metropolitan Theater | Mexico City, MX
Living Colour Tour Dates:
11.05 | The Fillmore Auditorium | Denver, CO with King Crimson
11.08 | Park West | Chicago, IL with King Crimson
11.09 | Park West | Chicago, IL with King Crimson
11.12 | Avalon | Boston, MA with King Crimson
11.14 | UPAC (Ulster Performing Arts Center) | Kingston, NY with King Crimson
11.15 | Beacon Theatre | New York, NY with King Crimson
11.16 | Electric Factory Philadelphia, PA with King Crimson
11.21 | City Limits | Tucson, AZ
11.22 | Cajun House | Scottsdale, AZ
11.23 | Coach House North | Santa Barbara, CA
11.25 | House of Blues | West Hollywood, CA
11.28 | Roseland Theater | Portland, OR
JamBase | World Wide
Go See Live Music!
|
