King Crimson - 'In the Court of the Crimson King' (Atlantic)

Whoa, I still have this? And it still bears the $2.99 price tag from when I grabbed it, a distinct memory during my college years, the only decent record in an otherwise worthless store if I recall correctly. I took what's a fairly standard path through 'punk' and out the other side - King Crimson were a symbol of ridiculous bombast and awfulness to me in high school, as by that point the Belew years had turned them into a symbol of overly technical, emotionless music for intelligent white men that likely have some social problems. (Whether that's true or not, I dunno; I suspect that a reevaluation of 80s Crimson through today's ears would be significantly more positive in outlook.) Then I got into experimental music, eventually looking back toward progressive sounds from the 70s, and then Crimson is a force you have to reckon with. For me, Fripp's work with Eno came first (not so much the full collaborations but even just that hot-shit solo on 'St. Elmo's Fire'); then, the Giles, Giles and Fripp record. Eventually, I wound up hearing Larks Tongues in Aspic and admitting that, yes, King Crimson had some undeniably cool material. And this all started here, their debut, which sounds a lot more like Genesis than the percussive time signature journeys on Larks or Red. The last time I played this record, which was likely the only time, my verdict was that In The Court of the Crimson King was an uneasy mix; mid-tempo prog-pop built around flutes + epic male vocals for the most part, not bad but not earth-shattering – and then the infallible power of '21st Century Schizoid Man'. It's been covered and parodied a bunch (Unrest comes to mind but I'm sure there's others) but when I put this on on a snowy February morning in Helsinki, I had to crank it and jump around the room with glee. The rest of the record is the easier material to parody, but it's a solid entry in the genre. Greg Lake's singing is quite good, and as he ruminates on the foibles of mankind in 'Epitaph' it's rather convincing, particularly in the epic fade out, 'I fear tomorrow I'll be crying', and that's before late capitalism had really started twisting the screws as fiercely as today. 'Moonchild including The Dream and The Illusion' would be memorable enough just for the title, but the romantic, wistful lyrics are actually rather beautiful and there's a great improvised breakdown 3/4 of the way through that gets into some good call and response jib-jabs. Here, Fripp's guitar is jazzing around some spazzy (but not aggressive percussion); it suggest that they were listening to (if not outright being influenced by) European improvisation of the time, Brötzmann and the Dutch guys, etc. There's a false ending on the last track, which allows just enough pause to contemplate how idiosyncratic this album actually is. It sounds more like 2 or 3 different bands, like a compilation. Given how big King Crimson became subsequently, I know that there's hardcore fans with far deeper insights than I, who are scoffing at this writeup. But this is a personal journey through a wall of vinyl, so I can close this writeup by saying simply: 'I just like how it sounds'. Even early on in his career, Fripp was focused on getting a good recording - and anyway, the scary face on the front cover is great, and would be worthy enough to appear on a future Voivod album cover. Camper Van Chadbourne did a pretty great cover of 'I Talk To The Wind' which I prefer to the original, but maybe I'm just more familiar with it.

Killing Joke (EG/Malicious Damage)

I'm always remembering this record as much more harsh and aggressive than it actually is. I blame the cover artwork, a masterpiece of bleak dystopia, which makes even Crass records seem cuddly by comparison.  The photos are actually taken from actual uprisings in Northern Ireland, so the spirit of unrest is prevalent throughout Killing Joke. This stark monochrome presentation, the weird typeface for the song titles which looks backwards until you squint and see it's not, and the presence of synthesisers are factors which probably cause me to remember this as some sort of Ministry-like wall of industrial noise, or even sounding a little like Big Black. That's not really true, as the opener 'Requiem' actually has some new wave residue and the songs tend to favour soaring, majestic vocals. So each time I listen to this, somewhat less often than once per year, I'm reminded that it's not as scary or nasty as I thought – which is not to say it lacks 'tude. It's a confident debut by a band who amassed a decent career, though I never heard any of their subsequent music, content as I am with my incorrect conception. 'The Wait' is the closest to my memory's image, a punchy stomper with growled vocals, and it's followed up by 'Complications', where the vocalist's English accent is most prevalent, poking out form the echo effects. 'Bloodsport' brings in a somewhat infectious rhythm and the synths punctuate buzzsaw guitars which amass into something, well, rather accessible. It's not hard to imagine this playing in a disco for drunk youngsters, at least in an interesting disco. I am 99% sure I chronicled this anecdote before somewhere on this blog but it's too funny not to mention again: In my high school, there was a kid who wrote band names on his notebook and jacket, to be cool, even though he didn't actually listen to to the bands, which made him the ultimate early 90s sinner - a 'poseur'. Anyway, he would frequently get the band names wrong, mostly just misspellings like 'IRON MAYDEN' or whatever, but I remember he had written 'KILLER JOKE' on either his notebook or jacket, I don't remember which, and, well, that's the whole story. But KILLER JOKE is a great band name, an even better one than Killing Joke.