Is It Jazz or Something More Seditious?

[Bernie]

Glad I got to see the last ever US Crimson show last year. (...)

(Btw, I just can't stand the tinny sound of an ovation. Never could, never will. )

Was there any official announcement saying King Crimson was over for good ? By the way I'm not too keen on Ovation guitars either...They have been valuable guitars for live acts, but whoever really cares for acoustic guitars, usually doesn't remain with them for to long once he has owned a genuine all solid woods valuable acoustic I think. Robert Fripp said - in other words - the Ovations were consistent, all with the same tone, which was necessary in an all acoustic large band (otherwise you get differences with the other guitars)...

 

[MacGuild]

(Btw, I just can't stand the tinny sound of an ovation. Never could, never will. )

I tried to like Ovations, really did, but I ended up selling every one I ever owned.
Build a guitar out of mahogany and it sounds like mahogany. Build a guitar out of effectively an advanced plastic composite of wound-glass and resin, and it sounds like plastic, glass and resin, no matter how nice the piezo pickups are.
Plus I reckon the Lyrachord and Sitka Spruce expand and contract at distinctly different rates and that can cause some bizarre problems. Ovations can be difficult to repair sometimes, like trying to find someone who can fix a DeLorean in rural Saskatchewan.

 

[Midnight Toker]

Was there any official announcement saying King Crimson was over for good ? By the way I'm not too keen on Ovation guitars either...They have been valuable guitars for live acts, but whoever really cares for acoustic guitars, usually doesn't remain with them for to long once he has owned a genuine all solid woods valuable acoustic I think. Robert Fripp said - in other words - the Ovations were consistent, all with the same tone, which was necessary in an all acoustic large band (otherwise you get differences with the other guitars)...

Nothing "official", but there where whispers from within that basically said that announcing a final tour just takes away from the tour and puts the focus on the finality. Plus you look the fool if you decide to go for one more round in a few years time. But overall, the quiet understanding in all Crimson circles has been that this last tour was Fripp's last w/ Crimson. (I'm sure there will be offshoots w/ other members still playing together in one Crimsonesque form or another.)

 

[jp]

I first learned about Fripp through early King Crimson, collabs with Andy Summers and Brian Eno, and of course the outstanding work on Bowie recordings. In addition to the 80s King Crimson, I really liked the Eno/Fripp records and his solo record League of Gentleman. It was pretty cutting edge stuff for 1981, and you can hear burbles of the newer KC in it.

I explored his playing and music philosophy, approaches to practice, and his New Standard Tuning for a bit, just to see what it was about. I thought it was interesting, some of it made a lot of sense. As I had done with other players, I followed the old adage, "Throw the sh--against the wall, take what sticks and leave what falls."

Then in college, I met some players who were really into him and frequently attended Fripp's Guitar Craft seminars. They seemed a lot more into it than I was, and one guy dogmatically evangelized the entire Fripp approach to any guitar player who would listen. He even shaved his head and got tiny glasses. One time at an open stage with his back to the crowd, he played syncopated scales for about 10 minutes straight. Yikes! I noped my way out of there after the first two minutes.

I still love Fripp's playing, and I was lucky enough to see the new King Crimson on a couple of tours. So incredible! I hope they come this way again sometime soon.

I just stumbled across this cover of Bowie's "Heroes" from 2016.

 

[JohnW63]

Sorry, an Ovation fan veer coming in to land...

"but whoever really cares for acoustic guitars, usually doesn't remain with them for to long once he has owned a genuine all solid woods valuable acoustic I think"

Oh dear...

"I reckon the Lyrachord and Sitka Spruce expand and contract at distinctly different rates and that can cause some bizarre problems. Ovations can be difficult to repair sometimes, like trying to find someone who can fix a DeLorean in rural Saskatchewan."

And that one too!

Ovations have a different tonal spectrum, but it is well within the guitar tone. In my view, most of the people who have tried Ovations have been playing the thin body "stage " guitars. That seems to be the most common ones I've seen in music stores.

Here is a nice rendition of a popular song on an Ovation classical.


This guy seems to get the Rain Song from Zeppelin down OK on an Ovation.


Or this Cat Stevens guy. OK , he's plugged in.


As far as Ovation guitars , the vast majority of the top and body issues have come from people who treat them like they are made of all plastic. Treat a nice all wood acoustic guitar like that and it won't be in good shape either. I bought mine in about 1980 and never knew what humidifying was until about 8 years ago. No splits no cracks or separations at all. Standard top repairs are not anymore difficult to repair than others. I sent on of mine to Fixit and he had no issues repairing a top seam split. It's a flat top with a circular sound hole or a multi-hole top with a nice round hole in the back. Again, the access to the wood is no different. Now, the neck to body joint is hard to deal with I've heard.

I need to come up with a nice little sound sample of one of mine. Maybe a 6 and 12 string thing. Put some playing where my mouth is, I guess.

OK... I now return you to the normally scheduled thread topic....

 

[Prince of Darkness]

Was there any official announcement saying King Crimson was over for good ? By the way I'm not too keen on Ovation guitars either...They have been valuable guitars for live acts, but whoever really cares for acoustic guitars, usually doesn't remain with them for to long once he has owned a genuine all solid woods valuable acoustic I think. Robert Fripp said - in other words - the Ovations were consistent, all with the same tone, which was necessary in an all acoustic large band (otherwise you get differences with the other guitars)...

I think he also liked the shallow bodies of the models he was using for this as well, which made them very comfortable instruments to play

 

[walrus]

Here's a great article on Ovation and specifically their linkage to Glen Campbell. They sure sounded good in Campbell's hands...

https://americana-uk.com/the-unsung-heroes-of-americana-ovation-guitars

walrus

 

[Bernie]

Sorry, an Ovation fan veer coming in to land...

"but whoever really cares for acoustic guitars, usually doesn't remain with them for to long once he has owned a genuine all solid woods valuable acoustic I think"

Oh dear...

"I reckon the Lyrachord and Sitka Spruce expand and contract at distinctly different rates and that can cause some bizarre problems.

In the early 70s Ovation was about the only guitar make to come along with built-in electronics JohnW 63 (at least were they in my country the only option at the time); therefore many professional musicians went using them for live work...As I mentioned "they have been valuable guitars for live acts"... Not so true these days with many newer systems - that were not around - that allowed many acoustic guitarists to keep their favourite instruments and have them set up with on board electronics at times. Though for stage work Ovations remain among the best, the guitars themselves do not appear to fulfil quite a few top artists' tastes...The Led Zeppelin tune is played with an acoustic-electric tone I think on this video, and the original was played on electric guitar. The nylon string guitar above does not compete with the best Spanish, German or French guitars I've heard here (can't speak for U.S. made luthiers' guitars as we don't get them around), though it sounds quite good (expression remains limited and all notes are pretty even, with a lack of the dynamics variations one would expect from a flamenco or classical top concert player)...I do not say Ovations are not good, nor that they are not good value however. I've own a Guild D-40 in the late 70s (a guitar I would mention among "all solid-woods valuable acoustic"), and we had serious problems getting a real good sound through an amp. One night we were gigging, a guy came along with an Ovation, plugged in for a jam and he had such a better (louder) tone I got kind of ashamed, or at least embarrassed...Next I picked-up a Takamine (no way as good as the Guild was as an acoustic). "Yussuf" Cat Stevens is playing plugged in ( he has many other guitars including Guilds)...Anyhow are you sure you'd get an Ovation these days ? I understand that people can be happy with an Ovation but I'm not tempted for now - it may be just a matter of teste but it's mine and others too seem to think the same. . . °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° .JP I got to know King Crimson with their album 'In the Court of the Crimson King' (1st one), and for me this group was more than just Robert Fripp's : Pete Sinfield (lyrics and light shows), Greg Lake (vocals and bass), Michael Gilles (drums and percussion), and Ian Mac Donald (flute, saxophones, reeds and mellotron) were very important members too...I've liked John Wetton as well and several others including David Cross and Mel Collings for instance, and I'm glad that the 2015 line-up I hear on videos had such a good singer (sounds almost like John Wetton when doing that time's repertoire) and Mell Collins on saxophone and flute, as they are so important in making the link with the 1st KC line-up, or Mr Stick with the 2nd episode's - those outstanding drummers making forget Bill Bruford without the slightest doubt..I own an album ( a set of 3 CDs) by King Crimson, with many artists from the King Crimson's history making their own attempts at incarnating the group (or concept?) , and none of them did really convince me (but they still did those recordings). It's this album with the 1st recording ever, by Fripp, Gilles and Gilles with some of the material from their 1st album - previously mentioned. It seems to me that King Crimson without Robert Fripp ain't really King Crims °°°°° °°°°°° . I sincerely hope there will be other King Crimson tours Midnight Toker (but hopefully not with Toyah Willcox on vocals - unless after some serious progress and brain's boost - though she is quite funny after all). Thanks for the infos about King Crimson's future, though not very optimistic...

 

[Canard]

I saw them on the Discipline tour. If I remember correctly, the line up was Fripp (of course), Andrian Belew, Tony Levin, and Bill Bruford. The group was almost frightening in its intensity and focus. Belew was an excellent, highly eccentric foil to the industrial, machine-like precision of the rest of the group.

Fripp has always been a bird on his own idiosyncratic flight path right back to the Giles, Giles, and Fripp and sometimes McDonald days.

I remember Fripp stating in the book that accompanied The Essential King Crimson - Frame by Frame that at one of Crimson's early gigs, Donovan (a huge name at the time) inserted himself on stage with them to jam. They did Kansas City. It would cool and maybe horrific if a tape existed - 21st Century Schizoid Mellow Yellow Kansas City?

 

[Canard]

And now he does this:

(had to find an episode that would be considered "appropriate" for LTG)



walrus

Lockdown drives people to do desperate things.

 

[Canard]

Although he did historically play Gibsons, Robert Fripp now mainly plays a custom Fernandes Les Paul copy.

This is quite a common trend. As collectors values of guitars soar, so too does theft. The last time I saw Terje Rypdal he had left his vintage Strat at home and was using a new, but pimped, Mexican one. No Gibson J-200 in Pete Townshend's hands the last time I saw him - Takamine. Martin Barre from Jethro Tull doesn't take his Les Paul out anymore. I saw Bert Jansch a year or two before he died - no vintage Martin - but a Yamaha, which was a great guitar. A friend who has had Les Pauls, Strats, and Teles nicked from off the bandstand or from hotel rooms, now has a collection of Tokai Les Pauls and Strats. His Gibsons and Fenders never leave his home.

I have a lovely vintage F-30, a hog, one. It is my favourite guitar in the whole world. In part because this status, it is not the one I most commonly leave out to play spontaneously. A very nice 1980s Morris Ovation-clone held down the sofa beater slot for a very long time. It has been supplanted by my P-240 Memoir. I would be upset if either of these two latter guitars were damaged but not heartbroken.

If I were going to do a Sunday Lunch which mercifully for the world at large I am not, I would probably just use the P-240.

 

[MacGuild]

Oh dear...

"I reckon the Lyrachord and Sitka Spruce expand and contract at distinctly different rates and that can cause some bizarre problems. Ovations can be difficult to repair sometimes, like trying to find someone who can fix a DeLorean in rural Saskatchewan."

And that one too!

Heh.
I would have few complaints being stuck on a desert island with a quilted maple Celebrity Standard; I loved the neck on the one I had.
Although I never quite mastered the art of playing an Ovation while sitting down.
Just for context, the reason I mentioned the expansion and contraction rates of composite material versus wood is because I live in a much more extreme climate than Southern California, where bone dry -20C is ordinary this time of year, although the summers are more like Seattle, and the humidity here ranges in extremes from very heavy to none. This is an unusual micro-climate, so humidity-related Ovation issues would likely be my mileage varying, not yours.

I have two electric dehumidifiers in my house. In the summer, they collect over 80-pounds of water a day. In the winter, next to nothing. This region is particularly challenging for guitars.

Great YouTube samples, by the way, John. Dude playing the nylon string Ovation is tremendous. I also felt that was the best sounding of the three guitars.

Fripp has always been a bird on his own idiosyncratic flight path

Pretty much nails it. I don't always understand what he's doing, it can be fascinating though. Who knows, a century from now guitar geeks may talk about Fripp like he was Bach.

 

[Bernie]

Yeah that's a point I forgot to answer; "the Lyrachord and Sitka spruce expand and contract at distinctly different rates and that can cause some bizarre problems...". A friend in Africa had an Ovation guitar that he brought (driving) from Europe, and the top was split where the 2 wooden parts are normally stuck, from the sound hole to the fretboard (if I remember well)...So I can confirm, extreme climate variations are hard to handle for an Ovation steel strings (I myself brought a nylon string guitar similar trip, it didn't show any signs of whatever issues (but I was dropping strings down to no tension when travelling - during daytime -). °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°"Who knows, a century from now guitar geeks may talk about Fripp like he was Bach". Yes MacGuild, who knows, but I don't think it would go that far though. He is to be remembered however I believe

 

[Canard]

The other thing about Fripp is that he always had one foot or ear in the UK (very) Avant Garde music scene. There is a lot of influence of the now-deceased Yorkshire guitarist (whose initials match the abbreviation for decibels) - he who must not be named - the influence shows up in things like the instrumental sections of Moonchild. Fripp seems to have known musicians from the scene because they show up as group members or session players - pianist Kieth Tippet - percussionist Jaime Muir (ex-Music Improvisation Company) - and the various horn and reed players who show up on albums like Lizard. Few things exist without some sort of root structure.

 

[Bernie]

(...) Pretty much nails it. I don't always understand what he's doing, it can be fascinating though. Who knows, a century from now guitar geeks may talk about Fripp like he was Bach.

Maybe not really appropriate here, but still interesting to wonder what rock music is gonna be in a few centuries, what will last, what won't...Here by a close partner (bass player and singer on 1st King Crimson's LP) Greg Lake, a 'classical' cover of 'The Sage', from an Emerson, Lake & Palmer recording www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5LX93BTVIs

 

[chazmo]

I tried to like Ovations, really did, but I ended up selling every one I ever owned.
Build a guitar out of mahogany and it sounds like mahogany. Build a guitar out of effectively an advanced plastic composite of wound-glass and resin, and it sounds like plastic, glass and resin, no matter how nice the piezo pickups are.
Plus I reckon the Lyrachord and Sitka Spruce expand and contract at distinctly different rates and that can cause some bizarre problems. Ovations can be difficult to repair sometimes, like trying to find someone who can fix a DeLorean in rural Saskatchewan.

Mac, did you ever try one of their Adamas models? Oh my, I was converted after that.

 

[Prince of Darkness]

Maybe not really appropriate here, but still interesting to wonder what rock music is gonna be in a few centuries, what will last, what won't...Here by a close partner (bass player and singer on 1st King Crimson's LP) Greg Lake, a 'classical' cover of 'The Sage', from an Emerson, Lake & Palmer recording www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5LX93BTVIs

Greg Lake was also the singer, though not bass player on the second King Crimson LP

 

[Bernie]

Sure

 

[MacGuild]

Mac, did you ever try one of their Adamas models? Oh my, I was converted after that.

Sadly, no. Unlucky! I've never managed to be in the same room as one. Great reminder, though. Every few years I circle back to Ovation thinking, hmmm, I oughta give these guys another chance. Those Adamas Ovations certainly look stunning, they are gorgeous guitars. As a stand-alone object, I'd happily take one home and be content to stare at it.
I'm my own worst enemy at times. Back when I had an Ovation jones going, I didn't really know how to properly amp an acoustic, so I was probably blaming my equipment for my own cluelessness.

 

[chazmo]

Yeah, definitely get your hands on one, Mac. Like the carbon-fibre Windsong guitars of a few years ago, they might change your mind about tone-"woods"!