King Crimson - "Starless - Live in Europe" box set confirmed

Is anyone experiencing issues playing DVD-Audio disc 22? When I select any of the stereo mixes, it simply goes to 'stop' instead of playing the selected mix. I have a Denon 5910ci and Denon 3910 and it's not playing properly on either. Once you select one of the three mixes (on any of the three shows) the player goes to the stop mode and if you hit play, it plays the surround mix of the first show. Anyone else have this issue?

 

I commented on this upthread and no one responded. I also emailed DGM and asked them if the disc was defective or if they created a menu with choices that don't exist on the disc. I'm playing back with an Oppo BDP and when the 'audio' button is pressed during playback it shows that there is only one layer, the surround.

 

When did you email DGM? Any reply from them yet? This is a authoring issue on the DVD Audio disc which was not adequately tested prior to production. If it's not working on an OPPO or Denon machines, which are a large segment of the DVD Audio players in use, it's defective. This needs to be remedied with replacement discs sent to the folks who purchased this box. Would you please reply (or PM) the email address at DGM and I'll send one too. Thank you, and Happy Thanksgiving. If it wasn't for the Baystate, we'd have no Thanksgiving!

 

I would not use the address I tried. I got it from the DGM website and it has been several days without any response.. Forum member Jetman seems to know how to get in touch with them about something like this. You can try pm'ing him.

 

I sent a "feeler" out to Kelman who would know how to reach Sid Smith in order to ask him about the issue. I wouldn't be surprised if one or the other decides to check in here.

 

I haven't seen a box set of this scale without a couple inevitable goofs. The card that holds the bonus discs shows that the band played in Udine, Italy on the same date as Arlington, TX -- a decade before Phil Collins managed to do both the London and Philadelphia Live Aid concerts on the same day!

They could replace the Glasgow disc while they're at it.

 

I don't know what you mean, I can't find that mistake on my box set.

 

Oops. I was going by memory, it's actually Mainz. On the card that holds discs 25-26-27, it says that the Audio Curios on disc 26, tracks 8-10, were recorded in Mainz, "October 6, 1973" -- same as the Arlington TX gig.

 

What's wrong with the Glasgow disc?

 

"The Night Watch" has the solo from Zurich edited into the Glasgow performance, as it was on "The Great Deceiver" set, even though the DGM Glasgow download has the original performance intact. There's some detailed posts about this in the previous couple pages.

While I'm demanding things, I want an all-bootleg unedited Law of Maximum Distress/Mincer!

 

You're right, I hadn't noticed that, mainly because I hadn't read it!

 

Ah! Well, I'm sure they must have had a good reason to do what they did.

Regarding the DVD-A issue, John Kelman has indicated to me that he will be asking the head of Panegyric about it.

 

I think I have this figured out. Just haven't tested it by actually playing the disc yet because I'm listening to something else. I had a feeling this was a problem of having default settings in the player that would only allow either DVD-A or DVD-video playback but not both if they existed on the same disc. This seems to be the case. The Oppo has a switch in the set up menu for selecting either one. When I changed the setting to DVD-video the menu was for either surround or stereo playback, and both were allowed when I tried them. When I switched the setting to DVD-audio the menu showed three possible playback options, two in surround, but only the lossless surround could be chosen. Maybe some DVD-A players allow you to use that menu, but the Oppo doesn't. You have to select either DVD-A or DVD-video in the set up menu. See if your Denon has the same selector switch in the set up menu.

 

I claim ownership for this discovery. I reported it on post 620.
On the other hand I had not noticed the Glasgow solo switcheroo....

 

Anybody know why some the improvs are named, and at what point? I always assumed the titles on The Great Deceiver were invented retroactively at the time of release ("Sharks Lungs' in Lemsip" for one) but looking at the Starless set, there seem to be four categories:

1/ simply numbered, as in "Improv I, II, III..."
2/ improvs with apparently arbitrary subtitles, in Mainz for example: "Improv: The Savage," "...Arabica," "...Atria"
3/ improvs not designated as such, but titled in the manner of compositions, "The Law of Maximum Distress" (which I'm pretty sure was not written)
4/ titled after the city of performance, "Asbury Park," "Augsburg," which I guess was done at the time of first release (USA, 21st Century Guide To King Crimson, respectively)

Any theories about a method to this? Not that there needs to be one, just musing.

 

They're just using the titles designated to the improvs when they were first released. In the beginning of the KCCC they still bothered to name the improvs (i.e., the Mainz show) but by the time Heidelberg and Kassel were released they'd started naming them Improv I/II/III/etc and this continued with the DGM downloads. You're right on the money about the other improvs having titles leftover from TGD boxset and from the 21st Century Guide. Why Law of Maximum Distress no longer has the "Improv" designation is beyond me.

 

Weirder still is that "The Mincer" is specified as an improv sandwiched in the middle of this, and its got a written lyric in this context.

1 The Law Of Maximum Distress: Part I
2 Improv: The Mincer
3 The Law Of Maximum Distress: Part II

Better would have been a highfalutin pretentious title a la ITCOTCK: "The Law Of Maximum Distress (including 'The Mincer')"!

 

The drawback of having improvs without a distinctive title is that I keep forgetting which ones were my favorite, and I have to listen to many improvised pieces again until I'm able to re-locate them... wait, that's a good thing!

 

Well, after going through this box set thoroughly, I can say it's a hell of a release. Apart from the "Glasgow/Zurich solo switch" affair, I've still got no complaints about things that could have been done better , so I give it a solid 9/10

 

I'm not really a fan of those flowery retroactive titles, unless it came from the Band/Fripp.
He had some far-out personal titles for 1972-1974 pieces, and I think some were
brought into the digital age.

See also the writing on the tape boxes in the Starless booklet.
I don't have mine handy, but some interesting titles in there that deserve quoting!

I was seriously turned-off by the titles given to the recent Fripp/Eno Paris recordings.
I realize they were all anagrams, but it reads like a bad poetry experiement.

 

Some lost "blow" titles from the reel box picture in the Starless booklet,
with some interesting notes. Gotta love Fripp's sense of humor.

"Master Live Blow Reel"

From Glasgow:
"Tap Dance" (referring to what became We'll Let You Know)
"Mech Drum and Afterbirth" (referring to what became Tight Scrummy)
"Stop Your Tickling Jock" (referring to the improv preceding the Talking Drum.)

The Zurich note names the long Mincer/Law of Maximum improv "Herbal."

Then interestingly, some notes about Amsterdam:
"Trio - after Lament"

Does that mean RIGHT AFTER, as in before Book Of Saturday, or just later in the show?
No mention of the epic S&BB improv (at least on this reel box).

There has been speculation about the exact running order of the show,
this is either the cause of it, or just more of it.

I certainly feel like it comes naturally after the S&BB improv, but really who knows.

 

Maybe they wanted to include "Trio" after "Lament" on the SaBB album, who knows. It seems the order of the track list was never clear. excepting some numbers (the last four, for example). It's an epic show, it's really unfortunate that it couldn't be acurately reconstructed. Anyway, it's still epic.

 

Yes it's very interesting, Actually it does mention 'Stylus & Bible Black' (sic) as being track 4 on this 'blow reel' but no indication where it sat in the set. Track 5 on the reel is 'Trio', as you say listed as being 'after Lament'. It seems clear to me that this does mean Trio was played right after Lament. One might also assume that both those tunes came after 'S&BB' as that appears earlier on this reel. I have to say I've never been convinced 'Trio' was likely to have followed 'S&BB' directly and this would seem to confirm it.

On another point, Cross' Circus interview reproduced in the book mentions how late and rushed they were at the Amsterdam gig, so maybe 'LTIA 1' wasn't played that night after all.

 

I just reached this point, and you are so right! I was listening to the show, not looking and trying to remain surprised by the setlist, and thought: this one is conspicuously light on the improvisations, are they getting complacent? And then this one materializes from some unknown and mysterious place. An absolute killer. Was that really the end of the set? A smart and daring move to leave it there. Still, I didn't want to admit it was over and promptly put on The Great Deceiver box (The Road To Red portions, as I don't have that one).

The other thing I fall for every time are those sets where Easy Money segues right into Fracture.

 

Those two together work extremely well, but unfortunately the box features many reels going out during "Fracture" (4, to be precise).