I had a complicated commute this morning that included bus, train and underground. Thankfully, good old Crimson was there with me. The Concertgebouw concert, 11/23/73. Mesmerizing.
Keeping the Crimson mood: The 40th anniversary edition, which is actually the complete 6/28/74 show at Asbury Park.
On the tt: Dio was a cool singer. Good songwriter too! Nice production, being 1984 and all. I guess the style is heavy metal but it never gets cheesy or over the top.
I'm not big on heavy metal either, but I like that record and Holy Diver. And a few others. Just as long as it doesn't get to "metal" and 80s
One of the reasons I don't like Dio involvement with Black Sabbath is that the sound of the band became too much heavy metal for my taste. Not 80's hair metal, of course, but not my cup of tea (anyway, I love the live perfomances of "Black Sabbath", the song, which had never sounded as sinister before!). I also enjoy his days with Rainbow (even though I'm not very interested in Blackmore's career outside Deep Purple). "Catch The Rainbow" features some marvelous vocal work.
Pink Floyd, "Embryo" played live in Cicinatti, 11/20/71. The band explores the song during 30 minutes resulting in a amazing performance. Unfortunately, it's only available on an audience recording, but the quality is quite good. (If the 1972 King Crimson audience recordings sounded this good, I would buy the Larks box set without even thinking. Anyway, I'm still thinking about it... @Archtop, help me here ).
I think you need to weigh the importance of the extra studio material that you can (to my knowledge) only get in the Lark's box. There's a disc of session reels and another disc of alternate mixes and takes. I don't spend much time listening to studio Crimson (other than the debut) so I can't really comment strongly on those. An alternative to the box would be to get Zoom Club (Oct 13, 1972), Beat Club (Oct 17, 1972) and Guildford (Nov 13, 1972) at $16 each from the dgm live website. These are the three best sounding recordings of the available material ("best" being a relative term, meaning, maybe 5-6 out of 10) - and while Guildford is probably the worst of the three, there's some ridiculously crazy playing that makes it critical. What Wetton and Fripp do on Larks Tongues I after the theme is literally indescribably insane.
Not a fav at all, played less than five times in the last 20 years. But it does have a few classic songs so I'm keeping it.
I've listened to the session reels disc and it's great, in my opinion, and one of the reasons I'm still tempted by the box set. The other main reason is the quality of the playing. I've listened to the Beat Club performances, which I'm sure are the best-sounding live recordings of the box, and the absolute unpredactability of the improvisation piece left me speechless. If they weren't going to release another huge set in November (which I'm going to get no matter what), I would pull the trigger without any further ado.
Oh I'm gonna get the new big Crimson box - I just don't know how soon.... Today: Tony Malaby's TubaCello: Scorpion Eater Malaby on tenor & soprano saxophones Dan Peck: tuba Christopher Hoffman: cello John Hollenbeck: drums On clean feed Recorded 12/22 & 12/23/2013 in the studio in Brooklyn, NY Malaby as brilliant here as I've heard him on record. Rough, tough gritty compositionally based music with huge amounts of improvisation from all 4 of them. If anyone wants to hear younger masters of their domains, give Peck & Hoffman a listen. Nothing like great abstract improvisors on low brass or master bow manipulators playing cello or contrabass. Not a huge clean feed fan as the sound is not as great as I prefer (maybe compressed?!?!) but the music overcomes any actual or perceived (by me) sound deficiencies.
And what about the Larks' box set? Do you have it? Have you listened to those recordings? Any thoughts to share with this undecided poor fellow?
Don't have the Larks box. Will also be getting the highly praised Starless box to complete the circle with the Road to Red box. I'm slow on this stuff as I don't listen to Crimson nearly as much as the Dead OR free improv. In fact with a bit of GOGD thrown in, I'm on to my 4th free jazz/free improv type of album/CD over the last 2 days for the ride home later. Right NOW, it's hitting the spot. Trying to clear my calendar for a show this Friday night.
started this afternoon with a mono 1st... and then on to the UK fac vinyl of this... then I got a box at the front door, so something from that....
Yes, Beat Club is the best sounding of the lot (probably an 8/10, so I should amend my earlier sound quality ratings) by a fair bit (Zoom Club isn't too bad). Zoom Club and Beat Club are probably the closest they came to how the GoGD approached things (still not very close). There's a 44+ minute improv on Zoom Club which makes some Dark Stars seem compact. This comes immediately after a 22 minute improv.
I finally made up my mind and picked the box set up in a local record store. I listened to bits of each show to check the sound quality. The Zoom Club set sound quality is mediocre, but it gets better as the concert goes on, and it settles into an acceptable audience mood. The Beat Club is a good mono soundboard, the best sounding set in the box. The Hull Tehcnical College is much better than what I expected because all instruments are present and the "mix" breathes quite well (there's no mix, of course, thus the inverted commas). When Phil John drops his bombs ( ), distortion and saturation takes place all over. The Guildford set is a hot saturated mono soundboard. It has clarity, but the high frequencies are a mess. Fortunately, this one also gets better as the show goes on. The Oxford concert sounds a bit distant with lots of room ambience, but it's not bad, anyway. The Glasgow and Portsmouth are really poor audience recordings, and I don't picture myself exploring them much. The extra Rainbow concert is almost a bad joke that makes good old Charley Patton recordings sound like Steely Dan's Aja. It's clear why it's only a download for free. I can't say much about the performances, but the brief excerpts I've listened are quite promising . The problem is that now I'm thinking "what about Road to Red? Doesn't it deserve joining the family?" Thanks a lot for your comments, Archtop!
Good move getting the box. And yes, you need Road to Red much more than the Islands box. As for the Rainbow concert, it sounds to me as if the microphone was in a shoe box full of dirty socks in a dumpster on Pluto. OK, I'm exaggerating; it's not quite that good.
