King Crimson

12-17-08 The first King Crimson album

Interesting to me, my involvement with this iconic album. It was by noticing it that I became aware of King Crimson. I believe it was at a Wallach’s Music City – a store where you could ‘audition’ records in little booths. It must not’ve been long after it’s release (in the US), perhaps 1970?

“What’s that?”, I asked. A woman (who would’ve been all of perhaps 20 years of age, to my 12) says to me, “That’s so ugly!”. “Will you sell it to me?”, I innocently ask. It got marked “99 cents”, and was put out in what was known as the “bargain bin”. And I’ve never looked back.

I remember offending someone at my school (one of the college students who watched the kids at lunchtime?) by referring to the debut K.C. LP (or indeed to any pop music) in superlative terms, such as “That’s the best record!” or maybe “That’s my favorite record!”. “Why talk about music like that?” – or thereabouts. What? The sourpuss must’ve only liked Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell!

I first saw K.C. live in 1973, on the “Larks’ Tongues” tour. At that point, I think they were trying to distance themselves from the iconic nature of the debut K.C. album. Were they even selling shirts, at that point? I doubt it, otherwise I would have a very old T-shirt of it in my stuff! I think at that point, it was all about “moving on” – and not “dwelling on the past”. Took a few years for pop culture nostalgia to really rake in the attention / bucks.

I seem to recall Mr. Fripp speaking about the cover of the LP, that it had been hanging in the offices of the management company that he had been working with, not being cared for. The outcome of that is that the painting of it is in Mr. Fripp’s possession, apparently. Fair enough. And it’s rather fitting that the man who created K.C.’s image only ever did one LP cover (then he passed away).

In summer of 2007, I went to Tokyo – as I like to do. We were in a suburban mall, and way down at the end of the hall, I could see the mighty K.C. cover peeking out at me. “I know what’s going on down there!”, I told my GF. She acknowledged the iconic cover, without being overly familiar with it’s music. When I had my 50^th birthday party this past summer, I insisted on a huge blow-up of the cover for decoration at my festivities. It was the first poster that was purloined, when we went to ‘take everything down’ (after finishing with our event). I think it went to an old friend – a worthy home.

And lately, we’ve seen that the debut K.C. album ranks very highly in Japan – appearing in both the critics and reader’s polls in the “Rock 100 Best Albums” book, as published by Record Collector Magazine (Japan). I would’ve pegged it for ‘cult status’, but Top 4 in both lists? Does that mean that people in Japan actually listen to this record?

I have 6 or 7 variants on it – US & UK pressings, Japanese pressings – LP’s, CD’s, little paper album cover CD’s, re-masterings etc. I even have several singles taken from this LP! I would refer you to a King Crimson CD boxed set, “Epitaph Vols. 1 – 4” for more information about this album. This set has a ton of live K.C., circa 1969.