Author's Note: REVelation Magazine was interested in a profile of the newly-reformed King Crimson in 1995. I kept getting comments and interviews as I wrote the piece, which grew beyond deadlines and editorial phone-calls. The scope of this piece ends in early 1996 but a lot has happened since then (including the rerelease of studio albums with new remastering and archival booklets). Crimson has influenced a new generation of artists (notably Living Colour, Primus, The Rollins Band and Tool). Cofounder Robert Fripp's approaches to the Zen of musicianship (Guitar Craft) and artistic development (Discipline Global Mobile) remain amongst the most innovative that I've yet encountered (if you look past the "prog-rock" label). Thanks to Mark Thornley and Peter Collins for their editorial thoughts.

Music can come from a place more real than life itself.
~~ William Blake

I always thought that King Crimson was a 'math rock' band, but I never listened to any of their stuff until I got Thrak. The first song [an instrumental called "Vrooom", which is also on the 1994 EP Vrooom as a rehearsal version] on it was so heavy and aggressive I literally freaked out. The concept of the album is two power trios playing together and the result is amazingly powerful. The songs are great, too and the interplay between Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew is just nuts!
~~ Kirk Hammett, Metallica [1]

In an era of pervasive nihilism, prime-time self-destruction and shallow chart sell-outs, few artists survive long enough to make their mark upon the music industry, let alone impart any creative essence to their audience. The progressive rock flagship King Crimson is one of the few that have succeeded. Its story and that of founding guitarist Robert Fripp has spanned the many structural/technological changes that the worldwide music recording industry has undergone since the late 1950s.

Summoning the Moonchild

King Crimson was formed in 1968, almost out of desperation by guitarist Robert Fripp, drummer Michael Giles, lyricist Peter Sinfield, bassist Greg Lake and keyboardist/woodwind player Ian McDonald, out of the shell of Giles, Giles & Fripp, a band that had spent 15 months promoting an album to no avail. Its debut album In The Court of King Crimson (1969) kick-started the British "progressive rock" movement; and the tortured face on the cover summed up the confused era perfectly. Hailed as "the new Beatles" by critics, Crimson performed increasingly larger concerts, opening the free Hyde Park concert that the Rolling Stones held in memory of Brian Jones. Artists such as David Bowie and Donovan jammed onstage, and on their first US tour, King Crimson blew contemporaries like Fleetwood Mac, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Band, Grand Funk Railroad and Joe Cocker offstage with their brutal performances.

Yet the combination of legal problems with their record label Decca, heavy touring, high critical expectations and petty infighting within the band took its toll. The line-up self destructed in December 1969 when Giles and McDonald left. Fripp and Sinfield formed the core around a group of revolving door musicians, as the music shifted from atonal heavy metal and mellotron drenched mood pieces to a romantic/chamber rock/jazz style. Over the next two and a half years Crimson recorded In The Wake of Poseidon (1970), which almost featured Elton John as a session vocalist, Lizard (1970), Islands (1971) and Earthbound (1972).

Amidst constant touring, Fripp contributed session work to various albums. On 8 September 1972, he recorded "The Heavenly Music Corp" with Brian Eno, who had introduced him to a tape delay system later dubbed Frippertronics. Released on the seminal No Pussyfooting (1973), the collaboration influenced the ambient rock movement, and Fripp often played the piece to open and close King Crimson's concerts. Fripp later collaborated with Eno on some of the their best work, including Evening Star (1975), Another Green World (1975) and Music for Films (1978).

Fragmentation of a Dream

Increasingly, King Crimson became fragmented, with New Music Express and other music press distorting the break-up between Fripp and Sinfield. The members became disillusioned with US arenas as Fripp struggled to maintain its focus.

Now acknowledged as Crimson's "leader", he redesigned and updated the band with bassist/vocalist John Wetton, drummer Bill Bruford (who left Yes to join King Crimson), and violinist David Cross in early 1973.

This line-up achieved a stability, live power and degree of improvisation that King Crimson had been hinting at since its formation. Avant-garde percussionist Jamie Muir performed with the band on Lark's Tongues In Aspic (1973), and the line-up also recorded Starless & Bible Black (1974) and Red later the same year.

Meeting People Is Easy . . . Touring Can Be Hell

However technical problems onstage plagued Crimson, alongside tour exhaustion and unusual working conditions: at two Italian gigs in November 1973 Fripp witnessed the crowd being beaten up by security guards, Maoists protesting by breaking into the concerts, and ticket scams. An encore was almost ruined by audience members pulling out the stage power cables. Tension between members manifested in incredible onstage improvisations, but the strain on Fripp led him to break-up the band after the Red recording sessions in September 1974.

In retrospect Fripp broke up King Crimson at its highpoint because he found that the band was unable to communicate directly with an alienated audience and that the commercial aspect of the business was vampiric. Crimson alumni later played in more commercially lucrative projects such as Bad Company, Asia and ELP.

King Crimson had primarily been a live outfit; its performances receiving critical praise that alluded the albums. However it became constrained by impersonal arena venues, and an audience that wanted to hear trademark tunes like "21st Century Schizoid Man." Fripp also foresaw the progressive scene stagnating - the music had become self-indulgent and bands (ELP and Pink Floyd) hid their music behind mammoth stage shows.

Sabbatical in Sherbourne

When Pete Sinfield coined the term "King Crimson" as a synonym for the Devil, he was aware of the Anglicised form of the Arabic phrase "B'il Sabab" ("Beelzebub"), defined as "the man with an aim." This could well describe Fripp, a chameleon-like cultural rebel to rival William Blake or Richard Wagner at the height of his Ring Cycle operas.

During the Red recording sessions, Fripp encountered the psychological/cosmological teachings of the Graeco-Armenian magus George Gurdjieff (who also influenced the recording artist Kate Bush). Crimson's perpetual instability and his own doubts about his high aims had created a charged atmosphere, Fripp was reading a book by Gurdjieff's pupil John Bennett, which posed the question Is There 'Life' on Earth?. Fripp reacted to its multiple implications. It was a transformative experience that led a now ego-less Fripp to virtually erase himself from the industry. He took a ten-month sabbatical at Sherbourne House, an "esoteric school" founded by Bennett. The harsh conditions of the school and practical philosophy he learnt about 'waking up' led to Fripp re-evaluating his goals and equipped him with the tools needed for his next stage of growth as an artist.

The Drive to 1981: Anti-Tours, Collaborations and Small Mobile Intelligent Units

He relocated to New York in 1977 and collaborated with many artists over the next four years, including Daryl Hall, The Roches, Peter Gabriel, Blondie and Talking Heads. The most enduring collaboration from this period was with Brian Eno and David Bowie on Bowie's 1977 'Heroes' album.

Before the demise of King Crimson, Fripp had discovered E.F. Schumacher and theorized about a "small mobile intelligent unit" to combat the dinosaurs, and he found kindred spirits in the eclectic punk, New Wave and avant-garde scene that embraced New York at the time.

He continued to experiment with the Frippertronics tape delay system. The experiments with textures - manipulating simple, repetitive, ringing patterns of notes, later influenced U2 guitarist The Edge, and his 'Heroes' work influenced U2's Achtung Baby (1991).

The Gurdjieff exercise of "self remembering" (a form of active meditation where the individual retains awareness of their inner, subjective thoughts and feelings whilst focusing attention on the objective world) were a focal point of Fripp's first solo effort, Exposure (1979), which featured a host of musicians including Daryl Hall, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. Fripp later downplayed Gurdjieff's influence on his work, after a hostile music press was baffled by his philosophical commentaries.

He moved from experimenting with rock's vocabulary to implementing his "small mobile intelligent unit" stratagems with the Frippertronics anti-tour later that year under the banner "The Drive to 1981." Playing at restaurants, record shops, radio stations, small clubs, museums, and recording industry offices, he created a situation where each gig was unique, directly involving the audience to fight growing acceptance of rock as a spectator sport. He would speak about the realities of the industry and creative music to dispel the co-dependency, myth and fantasy that were fostered. Fragments of this work were collected on Let The Power Fall (1981).

A further extension of this was the Discotronics phase with the short-lived band The League of Gentlemen, which created intellectual dance music.