Songwriter, lyricist, Pete Sinfield has passed. Sinfield had an early involvement with progressive rock band King Crimson. Sinfield wore many hats in his years working with Crimson. He wrote song lyrics, helped out with the band’s stage rigging, made suggestions about Crimson’s branding, acted as the resident hipster, providing the other members with ideas about what to wear to fit the image of the times, and even contributed bits of playing EMS VCS 3 synthesizer to the group’s sound. Eventually, he wore out his welcome with the band and went on to work with Emerson, Lake and Palmer providing more lyrics to [More]
Mike Pinder was a founding member, and once the keyboardist, of the band The Moody Blues. Pinder passed recently. Mr. Pinder was an acolyte of the weird instrument, The Mellotron. What was The Mellotron? I asked ChatGPT to provide some illumination. Here is what they said: A Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in the early 1960s. It works by triggering prerecorded sounds stored on magnetic tape when a musician presses the keys on its keyboard. Each key on the Mellotron is connected to a tape playing a recording of an instrument, such as strings, flutes, or choirs, allowing [More]
Another bass playing giant has left us. John Wetton enters the ranks of those beloved bass players who have recently passed away. Chris Squire, Lemmy, and Greg Lake preceded Wetton into the afterlife and all were unique and irreplaceable. John Wetton always impressed me with his passionate, powerful vocals and his strong, at times, brutal bass chops. He ripped it up with King Crimson for years and had stints in Roxy Music, Family, UK and Asia. An utterly immense talent. I saw this tour of the three piece dynamo known as UK. They opened for Jethro Tull in Oakland, CA. Their [More]
Greg Lake was a legend in the annuls of progressive rock. He was a co-founder of King Crimson with Robert Fripp. With the band, Lake was a youthful, energetic lad with a sonorous voice and a powerful bass player. Although he remained for only one Crimson album, he did the vocals for this particular song on Crimson’s second recorded venture, “In The Wake Of Poseidon”, which I always found very appealing. Lake would go on to join Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer in ELP (Emerson, Lake and Palmer). This outfit allowed him to play guitar as well as handle bass and [More]
Here is an easily digestible grouping of profiles on popular progressive rock bands from England. Witness some brilliant footage of King Crimson, Genesis and those lovable space cadets, Hawkwind in concert. This video might get you to start searching in depth for more clips on these bands. I am investigating Genesis. Such theatricality! The King Crimson segments featuring the lunatic percussion playing of Jamie Muir are also most memorable.
A phenomenal band live is augmented by percussionist Jamie Muir for more aural madness. The band performs “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part 1”. Muir flirts between hammered percussion, drum set, referee’s whistle, bird call and bike horn. Wonderful.
Wow. Who else every played like these maniacs? King Crimson circa 1974: David Cross, Bill Bruford, John Wetton and Robert Fripp. Mellotron, violin, viola, electric piano, guitar, bass, drums, percussion. A rock chamber orchestra. Scathing.