KING CRIMSON: USA (1975)
1) Walk On... No Pussyfooting;
2) Lark's Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 2; 3) Lament; 4) Exiles; 5) Asbury Park; 6) Easy Money; 7) 21st Century Schizoid Man; 8*) Fracture; 9*) Starless.
General verdict: A solid sample
of the band's mid-Seventies live power, though fairly obsolete for the true fan.
These days, all (both) live albums that King
Crimson released back in the day look pitifully pitiful and obnoxiously
obsolete against the huge, painstakingly assembled, comprehensive boxsets such
as Starless and The Road To Red — in fact, USA,
a record originally assembled from two shows (Asbury Park, New Jersey, and
Providence, Rhode Island) played on June 28 and 30, 1974, has by now been
completely integrated inside The Road To
Red, including the restoration of shortened tracks to their full running
length (yes, now you actually get to hear how the improvisation on ʽEasy Moneyʼ
got brought to a suitable conclusion, rather than just fade out). However, it
is unlikely that I will be listening to those boxsets in their entirety any time
soon, much less provide meaningful reviews for them — on the other hand, a
short record such as USA is perfect
as a representative sampler, and while it certainly does not disclose all the secrets of the Bruford-Wetton-Cross
era King Crimson, it does a good job of capturing most of their good moments,
coasting on some of the questionable ones, and omitting all of the bad ones. (My
own edition — the 30th anniversary one — also adds ʽFractureʼ and ʽStarlessʼ to
the original LP: very grateful for the latter, still in doubt about the
former).
Since there was no tour for Red, most of the material here is taken
from Larks' Tongues In Aspic, plus a
live take on ʽLamentʼ and ʽSchizoid Manʼ as the obligatory crowd favorite — the
only track from the original line-up to have survived into the math-rock age. For
the typical symph-prog band, this would have probably resulted in a mere
multiplication of entities; but King Crimson always seemed to grow an extra
pair on stage, and with the sound quality finally being up to par (after the
shameful Earthbound debacle), USA played its significant part in
1975, as a well-rounded epilogue to classic King Crimson, a band whose
self-burial, it could be argued, was highly symbolic of the end of the Golden
Age of rock music in general.
You do have to wait quite a bit, though. The
first three tracks (not counting the brief atmospheric introduction, «loaned»
by Fripp from his joint album with Brian Eno) are good, but not spectacular —
well, ʽLarks' Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 2ʼ is always spectacular, but I have yet to
hear a version that would honestly kick the ass of the snappy studio original
(largely because Fripp has never bothered to reproduce the poisonous tones of
the guitar riff). Neither ʽLamentʼ nor ʽExilesʼ were fabulous songs to start
with, and the live performances do not do much to save them; somehow, I feel
that they were included primarily in order to raise the percentage of vocal
numbers on the final record (sort of a parting gift to Wetton), although
ʽExilesʼ has a stronger, fuller vocal performance from John here and a pretty
guiding electric solo from Robert.
Things start really cooking on the second side, though. ʽAsbury Parkʼ is an
improvisation, named after the venue where it was played, and now that I am
relistening to it, I am pretty damn sure that this is the track that should have replaced ʽProvidenceʼ on Red in order to rid it of the last
traces of imperfection. Although the funky groove of the track is far from the
most complex pattern ever played by these guys, the groove itself is beastly, and Fripp plays some of his
wildest passages here — launching into frenzied fits of shredding one minute, stretching
out with psychedelic jazzy noodling the other, while the rhythm section is doing
its own thang in proto-metallic mode. Compared to the improvisations on Earthbound, this is a completely
different matter — tighter, heavier, nastier, even punkier, if I might borrow the term for a bit. (And I appreciate
the truncated version, by the way: the full 12-minute performance has them unnecessarily
going into free-form chaotic mode at one point).
Meanwhile, the truncated version of ʽEasy Moneyʼ
annihilates the studio version, tightening it up, bringing Wetton's vocals more
up front, putting extra fuzz on the bass, and, eventually, turning into a long,
slow, meditative jam, with more of those howling guitar tones offset by Cross'
Mellotron playing. I am not sure why they edited out the ending (perhaps Fripp
felt that the LP side was running out of space already), but in any case, ʽEasy
Moneyʼ is one of those vocal numbers that really came to life on stage rather
than in the studio.
And, finally, the ʽSchizoid Manʼ thing. Since
they did not have a brass section with them, and since David's violin was way
too feeble-sounding for such heavy numbers, the burden is entirely on Fripp's
shoulders here, and he gives the performance of a lifetime — the solo is
positively smouldering, as he launches into head-spinningly speedy runs,
turning that guitar into an atomic spinning top at times, before bringing the
band to an even more frenetic noisy climax midway through the song. Nothing
truly tops the apocalyptic siren calls of the original in terms of sonic depth,
but in terms of sheer maniacal energy, this here is one of the best ever
versions of this song, even by the generally high standards of the 1973-74
concert performances.
And back in 1975, it probably made sense that
King Crimson would say its final goodbye to the world with the same song with
which it originally said hello — and bringing it «up to eleven», no less.
Overall, there was a sense of disillusionment in the air of 1974-75, a general
feeling that the intellectual and spiritual ambitions of rock music might have
somewhat overstepped its actual capacity for progressive development; and while
bands like Yes, drawing most of their inspiration from idealism, were rather ill
equipped to fight that feeling, King Crimson, especially in their post-Sinfield
days, were the perfect vehicle to embrace it and let it explode them from
within. They entered this life with a big fuck-you to humanity, and then they
left it with the exact same fuck-you, only a bigger one. And with a guy as
serious and inscrutable as Robert Fripp, nobody at the time could say for sure
that this was not really the end of
the road for KC.
Technical
footnote: with Road To Red now available for Crimheads
worldwide, I suppose the only — strange — reason for them to own USA separately is for the violin
overdubs that were laid down in the studio by Eddie Jobson, presumably because
Cross' parts were poorly captured; it is Eddie's, rather than David's, work
that you hear on ʽLarks' Tonguesʼ and ʽSchizoid Manʼ, and I guess it fits in
just as well as David's. On the other hand, I do not suppose that USA will ever get deleted out of the
catalog, because there is still such a thing as judging a band's live potential
by a well-rounded, economical live album, rather than the millstone of their
entire touring history placed around your neck and usurping all of your private
life.
"(sort of a parting gift to Wetton)"
ReplyDeleteFunny how everybody carefully fails to mention the band Wetton went to after King Crimson .... (his own explanation: after all the weird stuff he wanted to play some good straightforward rockmusic, even if Roxy Music paid better).
Didn't he briefly play for Uriah Heep?
DeleteThe fact that you need to ask this question nicely illustrates my point (the answer is yes, of course - he recorded and coproduced the albums Return to Fantasy and High and Mighty, information that can be easily found on Wetton's own website).
DeleteHe also played for U.K., a band I know very little about other than the fact I was not impressed by two of their supposedly best songs when I checked them out rcently. (In the dead of night, mental medication)
DeleteTechnically, the original mix of USA (complete with Eddie Jobson overdubs) *is* available on "The Road To Red" - it's just only included on the audio-only DVDs that come with the set.
ReplyDeleteI’m glad GS discussed “Asbury Park”, one of my favorite KC tracks, ever.
ReplyDelete"Asbury Park" is good, but perhaps an even better replacement for "Providence" on Red would have been "Dr. Diamond" (the version from the Mainz concert).
ReplyDelete