Robert Fripp

because David has a far greater intelligence than mine. And there's also a philosophy graduate from Cambridge University, one of the two press these universities in England, whereas I am from working class stock and grammar school education and has really been educated by the life of a professional musician.

you remember more of it. If it takes off and flies away, you're in a different place, and when you land on earth you don't quite have access to that same place until you take off and fly again. However, David, who maybe for example, watching from the auditorium, has a better distance and overview of what has gone on, and also a far better skill set in terms of analysis than I do, so his opinion is infinitely more reliable

than mine. So he's coming along when I stumbled. He will tell people what I meant to say had I been a younger, more intelligent man.

you should talk to the fans. I love it when you do the work and I earn the money, which wasn't true, by the way, because he shares the money. But anyway, so I began talking to fans before Robert joined me, one of the band members join me, and so to some extent, we're now doing those talks without the show.

keyboard player in the twenty fourteen twenty eighteen incarnations. They would go to Bill Rieflin or to David Singleton, both of whom I trust to be entirely impartial and give me the good, bad news, or whatever it might have been. There were very few people, very very few people who were like this.

is because he prioritizes the music in all situations. So if you have a show or you're recording, Robert prioritizes the music, not the social or And for some people, I think that probably irks them.

I can recall a few of them. For example, if I go into a coffee shop and I'm reading, for someone to come up and say excuse me, mister Fripp. I didn't want to interrupt you. My response might be to actually quote Jimmy Hendrix in the same situation. Then why are you so If a person comes up knowing they're interrupting me, I might remind them that they know better, or on some cases I've simply ignored them.

I look out our front windows and see the abbey about two hundred yards away as the crowflies. So we're looking at the site of Christian worship in this town since about seven hundred a d. Now, to an American this is maybe kind of astonishing, since the colonies were only set up, as we know, in the early seventeenth century. To have an ongoing site of worship in any religion for a period of what thirteen hundred years thirteen hundred

and twenty years is quite astonishing. At the end of our garden, I live here with my wonderful wife Toy. We walk down to the garden. At the end of the garden is the River Avon. You turn left and go up twenty miles you'll pass William Shakespeare's old cottage old house. If you turn right and go down about one hundred miles you will pass Sting's House just outside Salisbury. So at the River Avon here the Vikings used to come up river and beat people up in our town

and beastly characters that they were. They would burn down the wooden Christian Church in town, so eventually it was rebuilt in I think early twentieth century of Stone and the local Worthy, tough guy, the alpha male of the time, the local Worthy Night saw the Vikings off in a big punch up up the hill here. He saw them offer I think about ten seventy five, and they never came back. So we've had relative peace in town through

about thousand years. So, David, would you add to this what am I missing?

second date Friday one week later, and I proposed. At that time, my little elderly mother was alive, So my wife moved to my part of the world because we knew that maybe not too far down the road, one day the phone would go and the voice would say, you need to come now. Well, after my wonderful little mother died in nineteen ninety three, we could then be anywhere.

And in nineteen ninety nine my wife's parents retired. She bought them a cottage just half a mile up river where there is a boat club that Toya essentially throughout her youth, about age I think two or three onwards. My wife became associated with this specific location. She moved her parents into retirement to this location, and at that point it became obvious that we should change from Wiltshire, Wiltshire, Dorset up to Worcestershire here to be in near them. So that's why we're here.

is likely to succeed. And in terms of being a nasty, horrible, creepy person. To come back to what David said, and since we're talking about nineteen sixty nine King Crimson, Michael Jarles the drummer, astonishing drummer, probably the drummer of his generation in rock music. He said, there are three three areas for a band, the music, the money, and the social life. Any two of those you will have a successful band. And I would say any three of those

and you have an astonishingly successful band. But going back to it, my priority working as a professional musician is the music. There are some professionals who take an alternative style of alternative you and that's entirely legitimate, which is this is a lifestyle that I would like, the socializing with the other members of the band, the life on

the road, and so on. If that's congenial for them, fine, that is not my primary concern, and a life on the road has been distinctly non congenial for me as a person. In terms of the money, my attitude has been this is coming from the background of the nineteen sixties and King Crimson began essentially as a cooperative venture. Share the money, and after the dissolution of the first King Crimson and the subsequent incarnations, then I've kept to this.

If you ask a person in the band to make the commitment that you were making, you share the money with them, and if you don't share the money with them, you can't legitimately ask them to make the commitment that you are. So for me, I've worked with the musicians that personally were exceptionally difficult for me to work with if I felt that these were the musicians needed to make this music available. So, in other words, the social aspects of working within a group have not been a

priority for me personally. The money neither. Particularly it comes down to the music.

for your earnings, that was all you could afford. So age sixteen or seventeen, I would go down to the Cellar Club in Pool to see the rock groups playing in the Cellar Club. Greg Lake and his band was one of them. And for two shillings and two pence and the price of a bus ride there, which is about a shilling, you could have a relatively straightforward and enjoy full Saturday night out. It was affordable. Did I grow older? And develop a taste in something finer than

rough sided. Yes, I quite like sparkling wine. Champagne is fine, but I'm not snobbish about it. I'm very happy to have prosecco, and I have learned to drink margaritas. My wife makes astonishing monster margaritas, so I have also enjoyed monster margaritas on many occasions with Adrian Blue, we would go out to some modest Mexican restaurants and have the monster margaritas. But I do not drink when I'm working.

used to get pizzas in Italy. He said, we drink mescal. I thought, all right, I'll give this a chop and I took my first sip and I thought, oh, that tastes nice. I'll have a second one. Once I got to the end of my first mescal, I realized, now, now a second one is really a step too far.

If you are a serious practicer, this is four to eight hours of your life at least, and if you're a young concert pianist it might be twelve sixteen hours a day now to sit on a chair mostly on your own, focusing on your practicing or your writing. That much time on your own for most inverted comrasordinary people would be a struggle. If, however, you have an innate or developed capacity for introspection, which is healthy, this is

what Professor Roboda refers to. This is a strong and healthy capacity for introspection, not not somehow a failing to engage socially.

father to father for four hundred years. For example, in the village where Toya and myself had our first datum where we got married. My great great great great great grandfather Robert Fripp died in seventeen fifty four, but my father took the geniality back a little further actually to fifteen ninety in Edmonsham, which is five miles north of that, so that's a slight distraction. Now back we went from

Wimborne into Bournemouth. We went round all the music shops in Bournemouth, finding nothing appropriate until write about five o'clock at the end of our shopping day, to Min's Music of Westbourne. And as we were there in the shop, a woman came in with this guitar and she said, I would like to return this to you. We're getting a better guitar for my So we stepped forward and said we will buy this, and the Eggermann Freys instrument bought for six guineas, is now in the cellar directly

below the study were speaking. It was an appalling instrument, a really, really terrible instrument which creppled my left hand action for years. Even in nineteen seventy I remember having to practice to develop a more relaxed left hand grip after learning to play this instrument. You'd need players to put the strings down above the seventh threat. The action was so bad. But anyway, that was my first guitar and was in three months. I knew this was my life.

at the time until we received better information. So about three months after having the guitar, I went for my first guitar lessons with Missus cah Felleen Gartel of the kauf Mullen School of Music, kauf Mullen being three miles down the road from Wimborne and where I grew up, spending the first three years of my life in kauf Mullen. Missus Gartel was a very good Salvation Army lady who saw it as her work in life as educating children

in music. She was primarily a piano teacher, not an awfully good guitar teacher, which she knew, and after my first course of I believed ten or twelve lessons I was her star student. So she sent me on to a proper guitar teacher, Don Strike of Westbourne Arcade, who was actually only two hundred yards from Min's Music where I bought the guitar but had not quite discovered him. I wish i'd governed him earlier, and under Don Strike I began to develop seriously and find my own way forward.

When I was seventeen, I visited Don Strike's music shop on that particular Saturday afternoon. This is what young guitarists would do. There were two shops in town. You go to Don Strike's in Westbourne Arcade and then maybe you go to Eddie Moore's Music in not Westbourne it was. It was before christ Church anyway, it was East Bournemouth, and in between two shops there would be movement. I went in one Saturday and Don Strike shook my hand

and acknowledged me as the better get guitarist. At the time it didn't strike me particularly, but as I've got older and from where I am now, I recognize this as a very generous compliment from an older generation player acknowledging a younger generation player.

the band and invite their responses in return. But yes, the quick answer is, Bob, I read music and wrote music in the for bo that period of forty odd years in my professional life.

and shot. So Uncle Bill refused to speak about his war years for fifty years, and then fifty years later he would begin to respond. Uncle Bill was a close presence in my life growing up and that was a real time for me. One generation removed, but growing up in England, it was the time of austerity. For example, in when I was three in nineteen forty nine, sweet rationing was abandoned for three months and then it was reinstituted.

And I remember on a Saturday when we go to the cinema with my father, my sister and myself, we would stuff off and buy a shillings worst of sweets on the way to the cinema, but it would be ration based. And I remember the first time rationing came off in nineteen forty nine. I was three and running around in the attic of our home in corf Mullen and I ran over the open trap door and fell down from the attic with a big crump on the

landing below. And I was in bed when my sister went to have her ration free suites for the first time. So yeah, growing up in the fifties, not that at that age I was aware of any constructions. It was the life we had. But after the event I could look back and say austerity and my parents working class

lives continued, and to some extent today continues on. My mother was the daughter of a Welsh miner who died one long night at his age of fifty nine I believe it was I believe it was nineteen forty eight or nine. He died one long night, wheezing his life

of way from his punctured lungs. He had a wooden leg because working down the mine at the Six Bells Colliery, he'd got trapped on the pulley taking coal into the crusher and one of his legs went into the coal crusher and one of his mining pals pulled him off, and my grandmother, Gladys Louise Green, her hair turned white in a week, not knowing whether her husband would live

or die. My father, at age sixteen, was told to leave school because he needed to help bring money into the family to help support his five brothers and sisters. So that's my background. I was brought up with complete confidence that I would succeed. Why because both my sister and myself knew that we would succeed because we would work. We would work until we would succeed. In other words, this is a classic Protestant work ethic inculcated into us by our parents who had done the same. We were

brought up to be independent and to work. So when I went to London in September nineteen sixty seven, I knew I would succeed because I would work. However, I did not anticipate that my professional success would be a public success. I thought it more likely that I would, for example, end up in sessions. It never occurred to me that I would personally become well known.

or what you heard on the radio? What was the motivation?

was Chris Barber. And you would have a skiffle group which was probably derived from Woody Guthrie and other American folk heroes through an English perspective, but you would have a tea chest and a broom poll and a piece of string that would be your base. You would have a scrubbing board for rhythm, played with thumbnail what is it, David thumbnails from sewing, yes, finger finger protectors from sewing, and you would have perhaps number three guitarists thimbles, Thank

you thimbles, And that was the basic. Then Lonnie Donoghan was a character who also came out of this same background, very popular, and then it became more sophisticated as Bob Dylan became more familiar in England, and then it moved on to electricity. Electricity for me nineteen fifty seven, fifty six fifty seven, Elvis, I mean, Scottymore what a player.

He was the first guitarist who made me think, yeah, Chuck Berry, Yeah, But we shouldn't forget Muddy Waters in Chicago, Plugging in a Bank nineteen forty seven, forty eight, which was the precursor to all of this. Would you go back much further than that, I'm sure you could, but really I think the beginning of it would probably be forty seven forty eight were Muddy Rocks a in Chicago? Then move forward to the Beatles, who are also looking

primarily in American direction. When they begin. But something else was going on with Beatles For me, the last example of communal genius in popular music. Something astonishing. And when I heard A Day in the Life in nineteen sixty six, sixty seven, sixty seven, that reunt he had reoriented the direction of my life. Instead of going onto university in taking a degree in the state management to become a partner in my father's auctioneering and the state agency firm

in Wimborne, Dorset, I had to go to music. Why in the same way that I recognized my wife, At these pivotal moments in our life, we recognize this is for me, it has to be and if we can't recognize it, then something's off. Why can't we recognize what is obvious? Well, fortunately, I think my instincts were good.

So that was our first band. And then that stopped because I was taking my school examinations which were then called O levels, and then at a seventeen beginning eighteen, I was in my second beat group also with Gordon House School, called the League of Gentlemen, and that was a more mature expression. We would do covers for example, we would do Beatles covers for Seasons covers. We would do guitar instrumentals of the day like Orange Blossom Special

for example. Because I was quite to developed guitarist for my age, we could take on guitar guitar pieces that

not many semi pro bands could do. That went on until I was about eighteen nineteen, and at that point I needed to take a levels to go on to university so I could become a partner my father's firm, and I paid my way through college by being a guitarist in the Majestic Hotel Jewish Hotel on Born's East Coast, where a young guitarist called Andy Summers went on to London with Zoot Money's Big Role band that became the citedentlic Dantallion's Chariot before Andy went off to the West

Coast with Eric Burden and the Animals. So Andy went off to London and I took over the guitar chair for the next two and a half three years until I went to London and moved to it Monee and failure for a couple of years.

redirected in life. I went with it.

twenty first birthday, and then became available for work. And Michael and Peter Giles were advertising for a singing organist. I was tipped off to this by a local agent in Bournemouth, so I went an auditioned, and although I can't sing and don't play organ I spent a month rehearsing with them. And after a month I said to Michael Giles, and I thought humorously, I said, have I

passed the audition? Well, I mean the answer to that is clearly yes, but not if you're asking Michael Giles, because Michael's key characteristic is that Michael could never commit himself. So Michael rolled himself a cigarette and looked down and put the cigarette in his mouth and writ it and said, let's not be in too great a hurry to commit ourselves to each other. So, although I never learned whether I passed the audition or not, we moved to London

in September. September, I think we might have moved a month or two earlier because I had got US a job working in La Dulta, not an Italian restaurant with Douglas Ward, a cord of Vox accordion player backing an Italian singer called Moreno. But we're now shooting off on entirely tangential situations. But yes, I moved to London with two people who had more experience than me. We moved up to essentially unemployment inignoranty for a year or two.

We did have employment. We began, I believe, on the Monday, and on the Thursday, we discovered that the agent was ripping off ten pounds a week from our pay packet, and we went on strike on the Friday in protest, and we were sacked on the Saturday. And I was unemployed for the next year or so.

So on a Monday I had the choice of whether to buy an extra can of peas or half an ounce of Golden Virginia rolling tobacco or old Holbury rolling tobacco, or go up to Kilburn State Cinema where I could see a film. So this was my choice on a Monday evening, can of peas and eat more golden Holburn, roll some more cigarettes or two or three see a film. That was my life for about a year.

Greg Lake came in. And Ian McDonald had an uncle called Angus Hunking, who was a retired very successful industrialist from the North of England, very good man who to keep his second wife happy, he invested seven thousand pounds in his wife's nephew in McDonald's band, which enabled us to stay afloat for a period of time and to buy equipment, which is what we did, and this was the beginning of King Crimson.

another story. During the time Charles, Charles and Fritt were living in Ignominy from the late sixty seven into nineteen sixty eight, we made demos in our modest accommodations at ninety three A Brondersbury Road, Kilburn, and we secured a record deal with d RAM that's a branch of Decca Records. And the person we spoke to at Decca Records is a famous character who turned down the Beatles, Dick Rowe.

That was the man we met at d RAM. He's also the A and R man that persuaded Leta Rosa to record how Much is that Doggie in the Window? Which she hated and was bullied and pushed into doing it, and only ever sung at once the one take of how Much is that Doggie in the Window, which was a massive hit for her that she refused ever to sing live now in case you think I'm just witchering on bob Leta Rosa was a cabaret at the Majestic Hotel and at age nineteen, I accompanied her. Wow, so well,

we recognize life is a circle. We cannot escape our circle anyway. Coming back, so the one year of Charles charleson Tripp Poverty Enigma. Andy was essentially getting a record deal and making a record which in its first year of relief worldwide attracted I believe four hundred seals.

So Charles Jarsonphrip was now a four piece. We through a professional connection that the Charles brothers had, we did a thirty minute television show called Color Me Pop on BBC two television in England, which would broadcast I believe in November nineteen sixty eight, Charles Jons Fripp kind of broke up on the same day or night of release. It was fairly obvious to me that Charles Charson Frip and Ian McDonald had no chance whatsoever a professional success.

So I put it to the other members of the band. Look, I don't feel I can continue working with Peter, but I have a pal in Bournemouth who sings, plays guitar and plays bass, Greg Lake, and he can replace either myself or Peter, whatever you feel. And Ian MacDonald and Michael Giles figured that no, it was probably better moving forward that I stay in Peter leave, which is what happened. And Greg Lake moved from Bournemouth to London and had

nowhere to live. And for the first three days of Greg being in London he slept in bed with me, my four foot six modest bed in our modest accommodations. Before we got an apartment or pad as it would be called back then, be caught a pad together off off West Point Grove.

but I saw them doing. An addition, we were young characters the same age, young teenage boys with g and music. We became very very close, as young young characters do. I went to London, I stayed in touch with Greg. Greg joined the bank called the Gods, who had Ken Hensley, who went on to Uriah, and we stayed in touch, good pals, And when Peter was leaving, I was in touch with Greg and said would you like to come to London. It was fairly obvious that Greg was a

lifer in music. You know, you recognize each other. We're not here as a lifestyle, We're here because this is what we do. And it was fairly obvious to anyone in Bonemouth at the time that Greg was one of those characters who would succeed.

to go independent. So this was EG Management who split off from Noel Gay and took King Crimson Charles, Charles and Fripp, becoming King Crimson with them, which became a legal issue because Noel Gay. When King Crimson suddenly had this remarkably successful first album, Noel Gay said, but hey, Noel Gay manages King Crimson, not EG Management. So a settlement was made by Wichie. Noel Gay received I think two percent in the court of Crimson King for a

year or two. So you had Entoven and Gayden, a new generation management firm managing King Crimson, who were therefore available for a new record deal.

So armed with our new equipment and money to pay rent on our rehearsal room, we began rehearsing. And what we would do is invite people down to see us. And of the two of the first people to come down to see us, after I believe ten days rehearsal ent over in the Gaden, and they thought, yeah, this is good. And they went away and they came back, and the second time they came back, they realized this

isn't a good band, this is something else. And we established the convention of inviting people down to see us. For example, the Moody Blues came down to see us and we played for them, and Tony Clark, their record producer, and then with various record companies taking an interest, Chris Blackwell of Island Records sent down Muff Winwood to see us. And Muff Winwood was the brother of Steve Winwood, who

I believe we probably know well. And Muff Windwood was utterly unable to see what was in front of him, and he remarked, went over and Gaydon, they're like the Tremlers, who were an excellent band, but very unlike King Crimson. And he said to us, you have no image. You won't be able to work live unless you have a

hit single. So he went back to Chris Blackwell and said what I've just said, and Chris Blackwell, I wasn't in the room, but I think the response that I've received is something like you said what And for me, I have all always taken After that, Muff Windwood is a reliable direction to the way to move in life. So if Muff points that way, I go that way.

He established a standard for me, so anyway other characters would come down and essentially on the basis of those performances in a very small basement of a Fulham Palace cafe, that established our beginning. From this the connections were made. We did a week in Changes, a club in Newcastle had just opened a Bank February of nineteen sixty nine, which had been booked on the basis of Charles Charles

and Fripp Calumy Pop Show. But the first King Crimson live performance was in April nineteen sixty nine at the Speakeasy Club, which was something of a defining performance.

He flew to England to see the band and make a personal connection to get us for Atlantic respect mister Ertigan, which he did. So we had the record, the record deal Island Records in England, Atlantic in America, and we made the record in seven days and one for final mixing. Ah, I'd have to check the timeline, but that was probably around July August. We had a week in Morgan Studios which didn't work at all with Tony Clark, the Moody

Blues producer. He he didn't see or hear us quite So the band make made a choice in principle that we would rather make our own mistakes and produce ourselves than have a successful, well known, established producer who couldn't quite see what we were. So those tapes were abandoned and then we moved into Wessex Studios in North London, near Islington, where we made in the Court of the Crimson King very quickly.

wasn't going anywhere. We've actually released, fortunately because the management paid for we have subsequently released those recordings that they were owned by King Crimson. But I have the diaries of David Enthoven and it was a huge shock because

they were funding this record. I think these were these were people with astonishing belief in the band they had because literally, you know, the band came along and said, we want to throw away this recording that we just made with this very reputable producer because we don't like

it and we'd like to do it again. And David had to go and then mortgage his house in order to throw away those recordings and say, okay, we're going to do it again and even work well, it's maybe worse from his point of view on the band, and we're now going to produce ourselves because we don't think anybody can produce it properly. Astonishing faith he showed. And therefore and they went back into the studio producing themselves, and that's the record that everybody now knows.

I talked to the wind. I think he was made to sit there and play that guitar part about twenty times. And oddly enough, I'd done an interview with Robert and he had told me this story.

a couple of years ago. I found some tapes, and I was listening to these tapes, not knowing what they were, and I heard this take of I talked to the Wind going on and on, and then I heard Robert and Ian McDonald getting rather direct with the producer, and I realized that I had found this recording that Robert had been telling me out for years, and here it was, and I finally had found it and could listen to it, and so we released it in for the fiftieth anniversary

of in the course of the Crimson King. I don't know if you know, but recordings that are unreleased fall out of copyright if they've not been released within fifty.

a singer. But essentially when we came on stage it was almost impossible to follow us. We were an astonishing band, astonishing band, and the album when it was released, it was already primed. The word was on the street. The turning point in terms of numbers and public attention was probably the Hyde Park Festival with the Rolling Stones in nineteen sixty nine. They were about six hundred and fifty

thousand people there. So at the time, if you're not going to have success through mainstream media, television and radio, how will you reach a huge number of people. Well, the answer was live festivals, which are often free festivals, and Hyde Park in July nineteen sixty nine was the opportunity for the Rolling Stones to come back into live

performance after a break. And the story of EG getting us onto the roster is a story in itself, but we were probably the hit of that particular show and what was known within the industry and club level grassroots suddenly moved out. All the young Americans in Hyde Park went back to America with the word, young hippies from Europe went back to Europe with the word. And then in the end of November nineteen sixty nine in America, we played the West Palm Beach Festival three day festival,

also with the Stones. It broke King Crimson and Grand Funk Railroad in America. So at that point that the grassroots the word has moved out big time.

but that back then was quite considerable. And when the young English bands began touring America essentially about sixty eight and into sixty nine, the music industry, certainly in its live aspects was not quite professional. For example, King Crimson would land in America in October nineteen sixty nine and the tool wasn't set up. Why well, you had a few club gigs here there, and Frank Barcelona, a key figure in establishing English rock music in America, premiere talent

hid fillin shows along the way, so Hendricks would. But nineteen six to eight land in America, play New York one night, Los Angeles the next. I'm exaggerating, but in principal too, David Bowie, the same King Crimson. We had a more measured progression, but it certainly wasn't set up. But then when the money began to come in, you moved from clubs and you move from the film alls

into sports stadium. And with the shift in commerce, there was a shift in the attitude towards the musician, so speaking in general terms, from say sixty nine to seventy seven. When I moved to New York in February seventy seven. In nineteen sixty nine, the differential, the separation between audience and musician, there wasn't one. For me, it was fluid. We were all on the same side. We were all there to be part of this changing the world with music.

That was my perspective. And I don't believe Peter Simfield said to me as a criticism, you were never a hippie, So this isn't an old hippie wittering on. This is

my experience. But increasingly, and this began to change around seventy four, the young roppers at person on stage is now separated from a member of the audience and from the young music writers who began to develop an attitude which in America was reflect perhaps with Lester Bangs for example, but in England in nineteen seventy six or seventy seven. My sense of being on stage was who the fuck

do you think you are? Very English attitude, whereas walking on the street newly arrived in New York in nineteen seventy seven, the young character will come up and say, hey, frip what you're doing? There was one of the couragement and support which I found lacking in England. So increasingly my orientation in terms of a geographical area which has my focus from nineteen seventy three, switched to the US

from England, stroke England Europe. Why because it was possible and supported by the audience and the industry, and the industry because money was involved in the audience, because there was something real in the music, that's my perception. And King Crimson at this time didn't quite fit in. We weren't mainstream rock. We we played with Zzy Top in Denver, I believe in nineteen seventy four, and someone pulled the plug on us, pulled the power on us, and twenty

minutes into our set we went blank. Someone didn't like what we were doing. Recent press has suggested that I've been blaming Billy Gibbons for this nonsense. Billy Gibbons has my full respect and easy top for a fabulous band, But nevertheless, what became known as progressive rock and progue did have some antipathy.

have the correspondence. But if we go back to nineteen sixty nine when we began our relationship with Entoven, Gayden, John and Gaydon as a YouTube interview where he is describing how the young Robert Fripp explained to him upon which the relationship between EG and King Crimson would develop, which was shared interest seventy thirty copyright ownership between King

Crimson and EG Management. And this was all fine and went on until I believe it was February the twenty sixth, nineteen seventy six, when Enthoven and Sam Alder, who went into EG towards about October November nineteen seventy chartered accountant as a backroom boy to take care of the accountancy and the stuff stuff. But Sam Older lied, He came and he lied, and he said that the members of King Crimson had to assign the copyright interest to EG

so that we could get our money. Essentially, this was a lie, and it was a lie which had to be challenged in nineteen ninety one when the obfuscation came to a head when EG sold King Crimson copyrights to BMG Music Publishing and Virgin Records. At that point, the beginning of my first major involvement in litigation and dispute for six years and seven months from ninety one to

ninety seven began. It's been ongoing to date and has been probably more attracting of my attention than my musical life, and even more of that has fallen on David and decland Colgan of Panegyric Records are distributor. But back in the early days, what I did was set up the structure and left it to management I trusted and should not have done. And that's another story as to why I did and should not have and when finally it went off course for various reasons, I had to give it my full attention.

were definitively assigned to Robert. The problem has been that periodically things get licensed in by major labels in various different ways, and you don't get always get it paid according to those contracts. That is ongoing.

playing guitar. Yes, I didn't recognize that I have a hand washing fetish, which I certainly don't today. But nevertheless, Jamie Muhror is a person I respect and I trust his opinion, and if Jamie felt that I was an annual fetishist of some kind, then I would certainly give some credence to his opinion. Actually, if I am convinced there's no date most people in the world are, is that FIP is very very fucked up in the creepy person.

What I would not do is throw a moody fit and in sayst we drive back thirty miles to the front door.

And my wife had enough of this, and I used to have to go down to the cellar and lock the door of the cellar because it's a very old door, and would fly open and turn my guitar amp little, very small practice, turn it down so she could no longer hear this motor perpetro going on for two hours. As I we'd come up to speed.

Parker said, chit and then you just play. So at different parts of our musical life, to begin with, we're practicing the instrument, how to play the instrument, how on the guitar, the left and the ro hand work together, fingerboard knowledge, musical knowledge, then harmony, rhythm, how the hands come together with fingerboard and musical knowledge, and then learning

the repertoire that we're engaging with. In terms of practicing improvisation, throw it away, sit down, without thought, play, have fun, and a very good professional musician often needs to be reminded. Have fun, abandoned concern for right, wrong or anything else. Let's remember the bird, play, just play. So in the in the incarnation period twenty fourteen twenty one, my primary

address for practicing is the Calisenic side of it. We'll assume that I've learned the rudiments of music assume that I know that I'm learned the repertoire, which is King crimson repertoire. The challenge is, as a man in his late sixties and early seventies, is he able to perform at an athletic level at the degree of a man of twenty five? And the answer is no. So my primary practicing area for the final incarnation of King Crimson

was how to be calisenically reliable. If you take the analogy of an athlete, an Olympic quality athlete, these are the challenges. Can you expect an Olympic athlete age seventy to do what they were doing at twenty three or twenty five? And if the answer is reliably no, what does that athlete at that age have to do in order to meet the challenge? And that was my question and my response was constant calisenic practicing.

music doesn't go away. Music is always present. But I am not. So my focus is not on the music, which I trust. My focus on whether I can be present. That is, can I rely upon myself to walk on stage and whatever horseshit is thrown at me? Can I hold myself in the place for at least the duration of the performance. And the answer to that is mostly yes. But they are except situations that defeat me even today.

hot date and a record is a love letter. Now, I love getting letters from my wife, but I would rather take her in a tight embrace.

But I still keep the love letters. So we still have love letters from King Crimson to any members of the audience, for those who didn't manage to get on a hot day and for those that did.

the recording of it. I have also heard live recordings that are stunning that from a position on stage, I thought this.

late seventies. But in the live event itself, you have music, musicians and the audience. If the music is a live and vibrant the audience might miss it and the musicians might miss it, but perhap perhaps it manages to squeeze its way onto tape and going back there you have it. I will now have an example of David Singleton completely failing to understand a musical event that was going on. David,

which broad short Church, Oh yeah, live live soundscapes? Was it two thousand and eight lunchtime performance in this church of soundscapes? And when I listened back to the music, there was some remarkable stuff going on. And yet at the time David was having a terrible time and thought it sucked. Is this true, David?

so I wasn't present. And if you'd ask me afterwards, I remember thinking, oh god, that was a horrible event. And you listen back and the music was fabulous, all right.

and engaged with no joy whatsoever. But trusting the event, trusting the music, trusting the audience and continuing to play. And from the church scapes in Estonia, I'm thinking of even Song, particularly the performance. The performances had something of which at the time I was oblivious, but long experience and the developed practice and discipline the solo guitarist improvising away was able to keep himself plugged in and sitting on a guitar.

the US record business. To what degree and you mentioned sting earlier? To what degree are you a student of the game? To what degree do you marinate in this? To what degree do you know this? Do you only do it for business purposes? Do you like this music?

would do. Frank Barcelona would do is put together astonishing combinations of acts that no one would believe would fit together on the same stage. So King Crimson Film nor Reast nineteen sixty nine, was it October November? Top of their bill. Joe Corker and the Grease Band second on the bill, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac third on the bill, King Crimson fourth on the bill, Voices of East Tarlan.

They're moving into seventy one and seventy two and seventy three and seventy four other acts on the bill Black Oak Arkansas. Now you can kind of understand just King Crimson, Black Sabbath Joint Heading or King Crimson and Slade because they're both English bands, lackocarkinsall. I love them, Jim Dandy, what a great band, But not in the media. You think these two characters would be honest. Well, Golden Earing, where did that come from? I have no idea, but

they were a great band in the field. Now, Golden Earrings manager was a man called Freddie Hine who went to take over Polydor Records in New York about nineteen seventy seven, at the time the EG Music left their licensees and moved to Polydor. So once again you have this remarkable circle of people you can't take out of your circle. So the manager of Golden ear Ring that was supporting King Crimson on our last performance in nineteen seventy four with Radar Love and so on, Toy and

Robert cover Radar Love. Years later. There are a number of King Crimson fans who have publicly expressed some dissatisfaction with me performing with Toyer, and my comment to Mojo or Q magazine in twenty twenty two was I don't give a fuck. I am seventy six and this is my life now with my wife. My wife when Lockdown began was very insistent. Lockdown in Iowa Town in England at the time was terrifying, Bob, the fear was palpable.

The only time we'd really come out on the street would be on a Thursday evening at six o'clock, when people would come out of their houses and on the step of the front door and clap and applaud to give acknowledgment, recognition and gratitude to first responders and the health services. So we'd look down the street and there would be our neighbors down the street and we would wave to them and across the square and back, and this was the only contact we had with our neighbors.

And on occasion, because we're on the main route to ambulances six o'clock, an ambulance would come by by all the people on the street replauding them.

the tutu. And we went down and we danced a swan lake and it moved.

the newer artists. I mean, these are challenges for me to learn a repertoire with which I am not mostly familiar. Why because I was developing a King Crimson repertoire which eventually I became locked into. So here I was learning rock songs in the tuning I haven't used for thirty five years, doing my best to honor the original performers and the original intentions that gave live to the music, and much to our surprise, it took off. It was one of the two so called Internet sensations in the

United Kingdom from Lockdown. The other one was Sophie Sophie Aspects, Yeah Kitchen Disco. She was the other one that really kicked in. So we eventually began to find something of another approach, which we we're maintaining. We do one We do one new song a month at the moment, plus access to our archive. I can't even remember all the songs we've covered, and we do our upbeat moments and

the brief and the aim remains the same. We have a responsibility in challenging times to do what we can to support the spirits of our audience, good people out there.

And some of the personal messages, some public, some personal we've received from people at their heartbreaking, the conditions of people locked up in small studio apartments in high rises while their mother is dying in hospital and they can't see them, and then they can't even get to the funeral while our prime minister in Downing Street is having parties. I mean, this is profoundly offensive, but we can't. We can only address what we can address, so we continue to do so.

we can do a good thing with this. But I think probably our determining musical direction is really when we're younger, and for me, although I have been profoundly touched by recorded music, I still tend to be more attached to music I've seen live. Some exceptions obviously Beatles Day and The Life Hendrix. I didn't get to see Hendrix Life, although he did get to see King Crimson Life. Now say so, yes, I am connected to music through records,

but for me, once again, really it's live. I have, for example, in our abbey over here, which has been standing since about eleven forty, I have been there listening to appalling concerts of semi pro symphony orchestras, watching the beat move outwards from the conductor to the edge of the large symphony orchestra, the tuning wavering as it went. But nevertheless, it has a power in the moment if we're able to be open to it. So yeah, not many leading rock bands come through our town, so I

have to rely increasingly on YouTube and Spotify. But it's secondhand. So my wife makes her suggestions and I follow them. Is the quick answer.

in business together. We have a common aime. The music comes first, the art comes first. So I've never really met the irascable person that everybody talks about.

very real. But I've enjoyed working with him. We've been I said, We've been at it since nineteen eighty nine in various different ways, and we're still at it.

And I said, but I'm free, and he said, what do you fancy going out to America? So I flew out to Seattle to join Robert halfway through that tour, and I think I've worked on every single King Crimson release since then. So we literally we got on very well and have carried on ever since.

We assembled the record, and I can remember at the time they were discussing running orders, saying, oh, well haven't you thought of this running order? It might work, and which was probably the beginning of when Robert someone begins to think, well your tastes, you know, trust your taste as opposed to simply your competence. And so no, it's a gradual process that went on over time, over years.

doing frame by frame. I can recall this was the very first It was a four CD action of King Crimson, and Virgin Records phoned up Robert and said that they wanted a radio edit of twenty first century Schizoid Man. And I heard Robert on the phone saying, well, there

isn't a three minute version of that track. And I said to Robert, of course there is, and he said why, and I said, well, I can remember what I thought when I very first heard that track, which was I like the first verse, I like the second verse, not sure what's happening in the middle, and I quite like the third verse, and a man with a sense of humor.

Robert allowed me to make that edit and it got released, and I then learned that from Robert's perspective, I was hearing, in a sense, hearing the track completely upside down, because I think Robert would regard in many of these tracks, is you know that the beginning is a jumping off point for the middle in a sense, in a sense, that's the core of the track, Whereas I was hearing it completely the other way around.

in our lives. There's a huge structural breakdown, and part of that is utterly terrifying, and part of it is remarkably heartening, because if we believe that going back fifties sixty years, that our interest is in making a new world, then the old world has to give way for that to be possible. So what we're seeing as a structural breakdown might actually be a necessary precondition for a new world appearing. Nevertheless, along the way, let's face it is

pretty bumpy. DGM has its statement the Ethical Business. The four pillars of the ethical business Honesty, responsibility, equity, goodwill. These are four very simple criteria for making a value judgment in terms of for example, our dealings with a record company. Are they honest? Are they responsible? Do they view us equitably? The good will involve? Then the answer to all four is now. But at least it gives us criteria that we can base a course of action upon.

I think two thousand and eight and the rescue of the world's financial system exacerbated the profound inequality of which we're all pretty much aware nowadays. Was it necessary? Well, I think it was at least inevitable. So what do we do? In nineteen seventy four, after five or six years on the road as a professional working musician, I was in despair, sitting there in Putney, London, in despair at the madness.

the music industry, well, that's hope. So what I do is I strap on and I rock out. I walk on stage with my wonderful little wife and play rock classics with classic riffs that get people on their feet, cheering and shouting and punching the air. The music is not constrained and by players in the music industry. For me, that's hope. Love well known and again perhaps, but hope is more readily available.

a figure with experience and authority. And when I came across him, this was very clear. Young people at the time were maybe go to the East, or go on pilgrimages, put on blue robes, or various forms of other cultures. But for me, I found mister Bennett. This was an Englishman who wore English, those that I understood, spoke the language that I understood, and he was only one hundred miles down the road. So this was it for me,

and I met him a month before he died. So this is a very powerful experience for me, which funnily enough increases in power the older I get as I recognize that connections can be made in a moment that doesn't have to be an extended moment in clock time. But nevertheless, the contact and connection can be made that enjuers and persists through time. It's like hearing a particular piece of music. It stays with you forever. Why because it's spoken to you, It's made a connection with you.

And for those who feel that these experiences maybe it's a cosmic Witterer wittering on, I suggest that pretty well most of us at least have these experiences which are very direct for us, and we don't necessarily have to explain them. We accept that they're real. So this was mister Bennett who had the rare capacity to express complex notions in straightforward English. Why because what he was talking

about was in his experience in nineteen sixty nine. In my view, he went somewhere and then he came back. Quote Hassan Schussud, very important figure in Turkish Sufism. And mister Bennett knows more about the mechanisms of the spirit, the mechanics of the spiritual life, than any person in the West since mister Eckart. Now, what do I know about that? I can't possibly comment on that. What I can say is mister Bennett spoke with authority which spoke to me in a language which persuaded me that I

actually knew what mister Bennett was talking about. How could I? But nevertheless he persuaded me that I could in such a way that I've persisted ever since. And mister Bennett and missus Bennett uh part of my everyday life every day?

seventy seven, they're exactly the same. I'm not sure that helps you at all, Bob doesn't. No, I can take that and grove from that. But let me put it a different way.

why has my external appearance changed? And the answer might be something on the inside has changed. So at that point I monitor my experience to see how my experience of how I experience my experience and lived my life might have changed. In other words, I seek to better understand where I am now.

with the trappings. Let me show you how much money I have, et cetera. We're all looking for points of uniqueness in a standardized world. We all have the same phone, we have the same watch. We have this, so on some level it does send a message. In your particular case, you are dressing in a way a typical of people from your background, generation, walk of life. OI. So therefore it stands out to the point that I comment on it, and I'm sure that you know that this will have

an effect on people who look at you. Whatever they might say. They might say, this is a serious guy, this guy is it's an act. Maybe he's all, I mean, I'm sure you're aware of all that.

Now I understand this from my youth. What you wore in your house was not what you wore to go out in public. You would change to go out in public. And still in people much older than me, and there are a few of them in town go out shopping in a suit and tie. And I can tell because the suit is too big, because the man of eighty odd has shrunk within the suit which may or may not have fitted him sixty years ago when he first had it. It was his marriage suit, his funeral suit,

and his Sunday suit. So part of it was seeing a new generation of people on our street who were dressing in a relaxed fashion. And for me it was a little too relaxed in some cases. I'm not going to use the word scruffy. Shall we say it was exception he relaxed. I wished to go another way now, also in twenty twelve, looking back, I would say that I had myself been scruffy for a number of years. Why, because I lived my life on the road, going away for six or eight weeks, even three weeks. What do

you do? My answer was, I wear black? Why? Because everything's black. If it gets dirty, you don't see it so much. You have the same black jeans, black socks, black knickers, black t shirts black, but all the rest of it is all black. It's very, very straightforward and requires no thought whatsoever. And having come off the road in twenty ten with the intention never ever to work live again, I was making a sea change. I changed now I dressed.

I'm trying to think when this was about two thousand and six, and we were there in April, which is the beginning of tourist season. So to get away from the buld burgeon in crowds, we walked to the very very further test quietest place over there in Venice, and we were completely alone on a street in Venice until a solitary Italian gentleman appeared and he said, freep, freep, freep,

you are freep, and my wife was astonished. My wife was astonished, the only person in this deserted part of Venice. No srip. So anyway, moving on to am I universally recognized, No, of course not. However in King Crimson contexts mostly so, and in context where I am known or not. Does how I dress have an effect? The answer is yes, without any doubt whatsoever. Why because here is a character who was very intentionally chosen his suit, what he's wearing,

his tie. If they check out the socks, they will see the socks of those not conventionally chosen, and the tie is mostly not conventionally chosen neither. Here at the moment I'm dressed, I'm dressed down comfortably, but I still have my rather nice silk tie, which I acquired from the charity shop down the street for ten pounds. So yes, if you walk into the first class British airwayte lounge, he throw Why because Daryl Hall sent me a first

class ticket to fly to live at Daryl's house. Most of the people in the first class lounge and in first class are dressed in a very relaxed fashion, not to say scruffy. Why Because they're so rich they don't give a hoot. So first class people are scruffy. People in business class tend to be smart, more smartly dressed. Why because a first class concier's pal of mine said, people in first class know who they are. People in cattle class knew who they are. But people in business

class are aspirational. They want to move to the front. So people in business class tend to be more smartly dressed. Me, wherever I sit nowadays, it will be more smartly dressed. Why primarily to put a demand upon myself. And secondly, if there's a likelihood for you to be upgraded, if you look impeccably smart, your chances have just gone up.

wants to do its exercises. But this is the animal that carries me round life, and it will not tell me what I do. I tell my body what to do, and then I move from this to my morning sitting, and then from that I enter my day having told myself that I will you will keep going. And in terms of optimism, why am I optimistic? Because I have decided to be optimistic. I'm a reasonable person. And if a good reason, a reasonable person would despair. So reason

isn't sufficient. I have to trump reason, and I trump it, first of all with hope, which we've just discussed. I trump this with hope and with discipline. I am unable to hold myself on course.

I would have to choose that repertoire. I really, really really would like to play this, and it is within the current athletic and calisonic standards, which I can ask myself to honor. But do I believe that I will invite a number of other players to set off on the road to do that with me? I think that's unlikely.