Mellotronists

<< A little bit of my history with Mark II #123 and M400 #1285.... >>

phew! anyone else agog? les, where *have* you been hiding? how did you 
stumble across us? are you still in touch with frank levi III? how long did 
he work for the caped arsonist? and does anyone know if the mellotron janitor 
is still with us in tokyo?

so I went to see 21csb last night; no 'tron, just some rather smooth-sounding 
samples and some terrific playing by all on other instruments. 
(kevin ayers supported; a great shame he didn't have his shit together 
because his voice is still wonderful. guitars out of tune, uninvolved 
sidemen... under-rehearsed. I wanted to shout "where's that oldfield kid when 
you need him?" but I wasn't drunk enough. I think kev would've laughed).

never thought I'd see that lot together on stage this side of st peter's 
gate.... the original pieces were hard acts to follow, and this line-up 
(giles, giles, mcdonald, mel collins and jakko out of level 42) dealt with 
the added complexity of also tackling material by several line-ups they'd 
almost nowt to do with, altogether quite admirably. 
I thought catfood was taken a bit too unslinkily, but that was all. they 
stayed away from anything wetton-or-later, probably recognising this as the 
beginning of fripp's total ownership of the brand, and filled the set out 
nicely with GG&F and other non-crimson pieces, to about 40%.

and of course, peter giles never (officially) played bass with crimson, and 
he had to deal with forging continuity across three purveyors of the plunk 
(ranging in ability from lake to burrell, the latter taught his parts parrot 
fashion by his boss), while his brother michael had a similar job with his 
two immediate successors. interesting how much of his style turned up in 
bruford's playing, especially the bits that make you laugh or say "he *can't* 
do that there, surely?", though giles didn't attempt anything too elaborate 
with the parts written by/for wallace and mccullough.
 
bruford was a jazz drummer before crimson, really.... he didn't truly d
iscover the joys of violently clouting summat until he had to compete with 
wetton and muir, chris squire being an altogether more cerebral rhythm-mate 
and requiring of bruford only that the latter develop his 
"god-almighty-what-was-that?" rimshot sound in order to be heard above *that* 
rickenbacker. and he hates mellotrons. so it's unlikely but....
....it'd be great if he and wetton hooked up with david cross and jaime muir 
and found another guitarist for a quick run-through of the 72-74 sets. they 
could call themselves "the great deceivers" or "bobless and loudly back" or 
"one more fred nightmare" or "frippture" or..... "guitar lessons for 
toyah"..... maybe fripp would move on then, and stop interfering with his old 
tunes. the "american" retread of 21csm got a reconstruKCted airing, one 
sensed at the time, because it was being used in a car commercial, and I've 
successfully blotted out the high-tech horrors of the rest of the hour I 
endured at that shepherd's bush show. 

in the world of bob, 21csb are probably some sort of tribute band. for us, 
they were crimson sans the sombre, camera-shy and moody midi-fripp, and as 
much of an improvement over the construKCtion tosh as the waters-free-floyd 
are over the version with the 
sings-in-monotone-at-the-top-of-his-range-trying-to-sound-significant bassist 
who dumped syd in a way that makes jagger and richard's treatment of jones 
look friendly and patient.
("yeah, what *can* you play, brian?")

so anyway. damn them for not being arsed with a real 'tron- it's the only 
thing they got wrong. 
what's the story, martin? they could've had mine and andy's from just up the 
road, both recently fed and watered by youse brummies. and we've established 
that there are machines in japan in good shape for later in the tour.

anyway back at the venue- even the sbc ban on bands having their own 
merchandise outlets (and meanwhile quite happily flogging their own 
"classical" compilations, while the promoter was allowed to knock out 
t-shirts) didn't put them off: "we'll see you all out the back in 10 minutes 
for signin' an' that, and mel's got some old lindisfarne cd's to flog" or 
something like that. and they did, forcing sbc staff to find a wallpaper 
pasting table (eventually) for what few cd's remained, all this practically 
under the waterloo bridge. top notch.

and there was a bloke giving away free tabs (he said). no I didn't neck one.
and sid was there, he of crimso-tome, and lord stevie hackett, recently on 
the same stage his-self on fripp-stool w/ fripp-axe and almost 
fripply-rigid-behaviour while evelyn glennie ran about the stage barefoot 
hitting things with extreme precision and melodiousness. for the contracted 
hour, improvising their homework..... I'm guessing that hank marvin's 
lovechild was seated discreetly away from us proles last night, but he 
sauntered velvetly amongst us while kev's guitarist should have been doing 
pre-flight checks.

but so anyway, next in the quite-astonishing run of half-decent gigs in the 
smoke this year (and remember I've also survived bruford+copeland and jeff 
beck+roger waters+white stripes, aswell as television and a terrific sonic 
youth) is mad keith, making motor-bike noises with the big moog aswell as the 
hammonds. the band that weren't good enough first time round will blinkily, 
jacksonlee and (hopefully) o'listlessly attempt tarkus amongst (one would 
hope) some of their own hits. 
it would've been worth their trying for jakko but I think 21csb are off to 
japan soon. me and steve'll be in the choir loft, somewhere over where the 
back of the moog will be, hopefully, so's to avoid the very necessary knife 
chucking that, if he's bringing real leslies (and he will) could well have 
someone's eye out. 
it's like a long dream, all this. still to come are sparks (psst! guys! want 
to borrow a 'tron?), mountain and hawkwind again. and progwest. yikes!

duncan/radio massacre international/400nr1098 [feeling a bit left out, 
especially since the salley/streetly super-modern-classic tapeset is going to 
california sans it's white angular body-armour.]

p.s. 'pon pre-amps: I did something to 1098's eq when we first acquired the 
enormous cobweb from argents and found a keyboard inside. this tampering was 
on account of a previously-documented mildew problem later cured with meths 
and cotton wool on martinge's advice. sadly, the tapes were too far gone to 
recover fully, though there was a marked improvement. happily, the mankiness 
led to our discovery of half-speed-mode (long story) *and* we now have new 
copies, amongst many other fab tapes. and so now we have to run normal speed 
notes with the tone at half-way-round. I think john gave me a schematic once- 
I'll check what I did but it was about an extra 6dB at 8kHz, enough to get 
wallpaper off using the oboe.

Great e-mail, Duncan!

Rick

ferrograph@... wrote:

>  << A little bit of my history with Mark II #123 and M400 #1285.... >>
>
> phew! anyone else agog? les, where *have* you been hiding? how did you
>
> stumble across us? are you still in touch with frank levi III? how
> long did
> he work for the caped arsonist? and does anyone know if the mellotron
> janitor
> is still with us in tokyo?
>
> so I went to see 21csb last night...

Hi Duncan,

We were there - where were you?  A great gig anyway.  Ian couldn't be 
persuaded at any cost to use a tron although all of the individual members 
wanted to!  Next time perhaps.

Martinge

<A HREF="http://www.members.aol.com/tronbros/index.htm">Streetly Electronics - all things MELLOTRONIC</A> - click this link..........

US East Coast Agent: Jimmy Moore - JMoore6397@...

<< We were there - where were you? >>

L5 & 6, as I recall, about fifty feet in front of ian. weren't the lights 
annoying? I really loathe and detest those mac500's and anything else that 
swivels insanely, like the blitz had returned, and with the power to detach 
retinas all over the audience. and those naff gobo's on the rear screen.... I 
wanted to find the lighting guy and thump him, but steve stopped me. 
btw, this concert and most of the others at the south bank this year have 
been getting really shitty write-ups in london's "famous" time out "listings 
magazine". they described this gig as a "runt-king-crimson" while jackson and 
davison are described as "poor saps" in a scathing preview of emerson's 
forthcoming. they quite like the idea of pere ubu playing along to a film, 
but the headliners the same night, the electric prunes, are dismissed as just 
another revival moneyspinner. my mum used to say "if you can't think of 
anything nice to say then fuck off and keep y'r opinions to y'rself" only 
without the swearing. I'm not saying that journalists shouldn't have personal 
opinions, but they should try to be.... ah, I dunno..... dead, or something. 
it's like being back at school. I didn't become this deeply hip by trying to 
be as hip as someone else, I did it on my own. where's nick kent when you 
need him, eh?

duncan/m400nr1098, still sulking.

In the recent message <9d.2eb86029.2acbb4d6@...> you wrote...

> and of course, peter giles never (officially) played bass with crimson

Ahem. Are we forgetting 'Poseidon'?

Mike Dickson (tron@...) M400 #996
The Official Cynic of Streetly Electronics
Streetly Sample Library http://www.blackcat.demon.co.uk/tron/

<< > and of course, peter giles never (officially) played bass with crimson

Ahem. Are we forgetting 'Poseidon'? >>

no, mike, just checking everyone's attention span :-)

I actually meant he was sort of drafted in, as were a great number of 
musicians during the poseidon/lizard/islands period, rather than allowed to 
contribute as a full-time member.
no-one else could have rendered catfood quite like he; it was the remainder 
of 21csb who took it rather briskly, and the lack of tippety-tappety piano 
(the cat itself) sort of let it down. in fact, peter giles didn't like the 
piano and felt they might have managed more than their one top of the pops 
appearance without it..... 
his whole tenure during the poseidon sessions has a temporary feel about it; 
g,g,&m were really far more interested in their own project by this time and 
were helping fripp out at a bad time for the band, while peter's presence on 
the album is often forgotten because greg lake and gordon haskell also 
handled bass duties for the band at various times. and there's the disputes 
over writing credits, and the whole future of the band in jeopardy, with 
speculation that fripp might join elp.....
 
sid's book is a bit vague about this period, especially as to why greg 
relinquished 4-string duties before quitting the group altogether. fripp is 
quoted as saying that "peter was a better bass player anyway", in which it's 
possible to detect a hint of sour grapes; not only had greg deserted him too, 
but he'd extracted payment for these vocal sessions in the form of the 
crimson pa system which he didn't really need- elp had a huge advance from 
atlantic. and emerson, by this time, had publicly announced that he didn't 
want to share the stage with a guitarist like fripp... anyway, anyone who's 
heard lake's bass playing knows that fripp was talking through his trousers. 
if he'd felt badly enough, who knows what might have happened to poseidon? 
elton john singing? or brian ferry?
 
fripp is coming over as more and more of a curmudgeon these days, like he's 
the only true crimso, and I was furious with that rag "time out" for being 
dismissive of the 21csb line-up as some sort of half-arsed tribute band. 
these guys have earned their stripes and were much closer to the spirit of 
the original crimson... (&c&c rant rant rant)                                 
                                                                              
                                          

d/m400nr1098 and nine basses.

> I actually meant he was sort of drafted in, as were a great number of
> musicians during the poseidon/lizard/islands period, rather than
> allowed to contribute as a full-time member.

If you want to look on it in these terms then *all* KC musicians are
'drafted in' until either Fripp gets sick of them or they get sick of
Fripp. His babling about the membership's 'fluidity' (ie, we are all
mates really and anyone can come back if they want to) sounds like a
re-take on others' opinion of him.

> his whole tenure during the poseidon sessions has a temporary feel
> about it;

As does the whole of that album. It's sort of like 'here's another
record until we get some new ideas'. I am almost surprised why no one
has asked why the 21CSB started and finished their gigs with the same
song. If it was not for the Mellotron-fest that is 'Devils Triangle'
then it would hardly be worth buying. You would just have to play the
first album again. <UK-READERS-ONLY> Sort of like how you didn't have to
buy any Big Country records if you could remember the theme to 'Z Cars'.
</UK-READERS-ONLY>

> fripp is coming over as more and more of a curmudgeon these days, like he's
> the only true crimso, and I was furious with that rag "time out" for being
> dismissive of the 21csb line-up as some sort of half-arsed tribute band.

I certainly wouldn't describe them in thos terms at all. Put it this
way; Fripp notwithstanding, who else is suitably 'qualified' to be able
to play these particular songs?

Mike Dickson (tron@...) M400 #996
The Official Cynic of Streetly Electronics
Streetly Sample Library http://www.blackcat.demon.co.uk/tron/

Mike Dickson wrote....
"As does the whole of that album. It's sort of like 'here's another
record until we get some new ideas'. I am almost surprised why no one
has asked why the 21CSB started and finished their gigs with the same
song. If it was not for the Mellotron-fest that is 'Devils Triangle'
then it would hardly be worth buying".
Couldn't disagree more Mike. ITWOP in my humble opinion is nearly as good as 
ITCOTCK (certainly better recorded), and the concert I went to (Milton 
Keynes) they opened with Cat Food (I think) and certainly finished with the 
best version I've ever heard of 21stCSM! Of more concern to me was the 
obvious lack of good original solo stuff and the absence of new material. 
There was so much more early KC they could have done. 
Beam me up Scotty.
Andy K