Learning Math from the Crimson King, Part One
In this ongoing series, I will discuss how King Crimson was instrumental (pun intended) to the creation of the genre known as math rock.
Before we begin, I have to make a few disclaimers. First, I don't actually intend to prove that King Crimson single-handedly created math rock, nor am I denying that other rock bands, progressive or otherwise, also experimented with polyrhythms, odd time signatures, and choppy, dissonant chords. At a certain level, these are common to most forms of progressive rock. However, I've always been fascinated by the particular ways in which King Crimson approached these compositional techniques. My real goal is to revisit some of my favorite moments in King Crimson's discography with a specific focus on the band's development, rhythmic and otherwise.
Secondly, math rock is a notoriously controversial term. The genre owes as much to progressive rock as it does to punk and post-punk. The techniques mentioned above are starting points, but from there, it's hard to nail down what actually belongs to this genre and what has simply been influenced by it. Bands like Slint and Don Cabellero are safely locked-in, but there are disagreements when bands like This Town Needs Guns are brought into the discussion due to what some perceive as diluting influences - in this case, emo and alternative rock. As a counterpoint, I would offer Off Minor, which I believe is just as much of a math rock band as it is an emo or post-hardcore band. Genre classifications get so weird that I've seen especially dissonant or knotty groups like Hella and Yowie called "brutal prog". Thus, I'm going to avoid genre classifications where possible and instead focus on Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them (sorry, Potter fans).
Finally, there are going to be a lot of links. The only "essential" ones for our discussion are the embedded YouTube videos - everything else is basically a footnote of some sort.
Fripp is notable for being the only person to have played in every incarnation of King Crimson. Something like two-dozen musicians have been in the band at some point or another. For reference, the current touring band features eight of them, including Fripp.
We begin our journey with the band's short-lived original lineup, specifically during the summer of 1969. Debut albums from Genesis and Yes were on their way. Led Zeppelin had just released two eponymous albums, The Beatles were finishing Abbey Road, and at the end of this summer, Jimi Hendrix would electrify the world with his rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner". It was around this time that a new band, formed out of the ashes of the unsuccessful Giles, Giles, and Fripp, had not-so-quietly begun rehearsing and performing material...
The first King Crimson lineup consisted of Greg Lake on vocals and bass, Ian McDonald on mellotron and wind instruments, Michael Giles on drums, and Robert Fripp on guitar. Peter Sinfield wrote the band's lyrics and ran the lights at live shows. This merry band of miscreants was toiling away somewhere in London, hard at work on what would become In The Court of the Crimson King.
In the midst of these recording sessions, the fledgling band had the opportunity to open for the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park. King Crimson had played about 23 shows at this point, so they were no strangers to live performances. Hyde Park was different. It was an open air concert with an estimated attendance of over 100,000 people (some more enthusiastic estimates go as high as 650,000). For the first time, King Crimson would be unleashed upon a general audience. There was also the matter of opening for The Rolling bloody Stones.
King Crimson's performance on July 5th, 1969 was immortalized by a slightly gritty audience recording containing three tracks from Court, a few songs that would never see official releases, and two covers. The band kicked things off with "21st Century Schizoid Man", a dystopian jazz-rock banger that endures as one of King Crimson's most well-known songs. At the time, Pete Townshend of The Who called its opening notes "the heaviest riff that has been middle-frequencied onto that black vinyl disc since Mahler's 8th." The track's searing lyrics and dueling saxophone/guitar parts have even made it into Guitar Hero 5 and Kanye West's song "Power", but I digress. Our discussion of rhythm inevitably brings us to the instrumental middle section known as "Mirrors" and its so-called "Schizoid break":
Before we begin, I have to make a few disclaimers. First, I don't actually intend to prove that King Crimson single-handedly created math rock, nor am I denying that other rock bands, progressive or otherwise, also experimented with polyrhythms, odd time signatures, and choppy, dissonant chords. At a certain level, these are common to most forms of progressive rock. However, I've always been fascinated by the particular ways in which King Crimson approached these compositional techniques. My real goal is to revisit some of my favorite moments in King Crimson's discography with a specific focus on the band's development, rhythmic and otherwise.
Secondly, math rock is a notoriously controversial term. The genre owes as much to progressive rock as it does to punk and post-punk. The techniques mentioned above are starting points, but from there, it's hard to nail down what actually belongs to this genre and what has simply been influenced by it. Bands like Slint and Don Cabellero are safely locked-in, but there are disagreements when bands like This Town Needs Guns are brought into the discussion due to what some perceive as diluting influences - in this case, emo and alternative rock. As a counterpoint, I would offer Off Minor, which I believe is just as much of a math rock band as it is an emo or post-hardcore band. Genre classifications get so weird that I've seen especially dissonant or knotty groups like Hella and Yowie called "brutal prog". Thus, I'm going to avoid genre classifications where possible and instead focus on Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them (sorry, Potter fans).
Finally, there are going to be a lot of links. The only "essential" ones for our discussion are the embedded YouTube videos - everything else is basically a footnote of some sort.
What even is King Crimson?
King Crimson is a (primarily) British band that has been pushing the boundaries of rock music into astounding and occasionally alarming territory since the late 1960's. The band's founding guitarist, Robert Fripp, has written that King Crimson is less of a band and more of "a learning process", "a way of doing things", and "a place where the conditioned and unconditioned meet."Fripp is notable for being the only person to have played in every incarnation of King Crimson. Something like two-dozen musicians have been in the band at some point or another. For reference, the current touring band features eight of them, including Fripp.
We begin our journey with the band's short-lived original lineup, specifically during the summer of 1969. Debut albums from Genesis and Yes were on their way. Led Zeppelin had just released two eponymous albums, The Beatles were finishing Abbey Road, and at the end of this summer, Jimi Hendrix would electrify the world with his rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner". It was around this time that a new band, formed out of the ashes of the unsuccessful Giles, Giles, and Fripp, had not-so-quietly begun rehearsing and performing material...
1969 - The King Holds Court
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| The 1969 lineup at the 9th National Jazz, Pop, Ballads, and Blues Festival in Plumpton. |
In the midst of these recording sessions, the fledgling band had the opportunity to open for the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park. King Crimson had played about 23 shows at this point, so they were no strangers to live performances. Hyde Park was different. It was an open air concert with an estimated attendance of over 100,000 people (some more enthusiastic estimates go as high as 650,000). For the first time, King Crimson would be unleashed upon a general audience. There was also the matter of opening for The Rolling bloody Stones.
King Crimson's performance on July 5th, 1969 was immortalized by a slightly gritty audience recording containing three tracks from Court, a few songs that would never see official releases, and two covers. The band kicked things off with "21st Century Schizoid Man", a dystopian jazz-rock banger that endures as one of King Crimson's most well-known songs. At the time, Pete Townshend of The Who called its opening notes "the heaviest riff that has been middle-frequencied onto that black vinyl disc since Mahler's 8th." The track's searing lyrics and dueling saxophone/guitar parts have even made it into Guitar Hero 5 and Kanye West's song "Power", but I digress. Our discussion of rhythm inevitably brings us to the instrumental middle section known as "Mirrors" and its so-called "Schizoid break":
In the liner notes for the live compilation Epitaph, Fripp wrote that "21st Century Schizoid Man" was a collaborative effort featuring "the opening riff (Greg) modified by Ian (the chromatic F, F#, G) and my fast running lines. It was Michael’s suggestion to play the fast 'Schizoid' break in rhythmic unison." And what a suggestion that was. From the blazing fast pentatonic run at the beginning to the baffling starts and stops, the "Schizoid Break" had a tendency to shock audiences into silence - just listen to that echo between each burst of notes.
Over the years, there have been lively debates about this section's time signature. While most will agree that the "Mirrors" is primarily in 6/8, the "Schizoid break" has caused some disagreement: some believe that it's straight 4/4, and the rest have their own debates regarding the various combinations of time signatures that could possibly be in play. In any case, this mathematical mischief and lethal precision made quite an impression, particularly on some of King Crimson's contemporaries. Bill Bruford, who was drumming for Yes at the time, later recalled hearing "21st Century Schizoid Man" performed earlier that year:
"Unbelievable. We were scared to death. Nobody knew that rock musicians could play like that. To execute rapid passages that were deafeningly loud, then exactly the same passage - the everybody-playing-unison thing - but very, very quiet...I mean, this was scary. This was the best group in the world."
Fripp and the boys may have opened with their most legendary song, but they ended their set with one of their most menacing. Skipping to the end of the Hyde Park tape, we arrive at the 1969 lineup's monstrous cover of "Mars, the Bringer of War", which some will recognize as the first movement of Gustav Holst's The Planets. The original is known for being extremely percussive: at the start, string sections typically introduce the song's ostinato by playing it with the wooden backs of their bows, as if to mimic the sound of a distant army approaching. King Crimson's cover is a mid-paced adaptation of the thunderous middle section, which marches with military precision to a steady 5/4 beat. It's much more straightforward than "Schizoid Man" - in fact, you can hear people clapping along quite naturally. That being said, I don't think anyone was able to predict where the song eventually went:
In the words of one perplexed concert-goer: "I thought an orchestra was playing but through my binoculars saw only four blokes on the stage." Fripp, Lake, and Giles lock into that stomping, syncopated groove as McDonald commands his mellotron like an organist scoring a horror movie. The piece's climax, beginning at 8:28, is absolutely devastating. The final minutes feel like a controlled demolition. As the band violently dismantles the last song of their set, King Crimson manager David Enthoven slowly cranks away at an air raid siren beneath the stage (regrettably not included in the link above, which is from a performance near the end of the US tour). This was heavy stuff in more ways than one.
While "Mars" isn't nearly as complex as "Schizoid Man," its pummeling, staccato rhythm makes it worthy of inclusion here. In "Mars" we find the basis for numerous Crimson songs, which I will be discussing more specifically in future posts. I don't mean to shortchange "Mars" by only giving it half the space afforded to "Schizoid Man," but as we will see, "Mars" was much more than just the bringer of war.
The Hyde Park show was an important milestone for King Crimson. From the opening riff of "21st Century Schizoid Man" to the apocalyptic end of "Mars", the band was honing a sound both intimidating and strangely alluring. The most ironic thing about these songs is that each track's crowning moments were made possible by a certain intensity that, in Fripp's words, "generated enough momentum to keep the group moving, and it did, until falling over six months later." The original lineup of King Crimson dissolved in December of 1969, after a run of shows in the United States. The band had "leapt to everywhere from nowhere and back again, all within nine months."
Nonetheless, these early songs would prove instrumental (pun intended) for future King Crimson material, as Robert Fripp would continue to experiment with odd meters and unusual, heavy sounds with each new incarnation of the band. We end part one of our story with the seeds of math rock sown in Hyde Park by a startlingly talented lineup that did not survive the year. Fripp summed it up rather well in a diary entry written after the Hyde Park performance:
"Standing ovation. Mammoth success, of importance which will take time to appreciate. We'll look back to see this day in years to come and fully realise its significance."
Bonus track:
If you want to hear my favorite live performance of "21st Century Schizoid Man" and can put up with a similarly lo-fi (and slightly boomier) audience recording, this is a near-perfect rendition of the song, performed at Fillmore East in New York right before the 1969 lineup folded. The sheer intensity of this performance is truly a thing to behold. "Mirrors" as a whole sounds so irresponsibly fast that it's a wonder that the band managed to nail the "Schizoid break" note-for-note. Just a heads up: there's no volume slider on the embedded player, so you might want to adjust your volume. This is a loud one.