Tag: King Crimson

King Crimson: Double Duo 2000 Tour

Exclusive to nugs.net, twenty-eight more hi-res official concert recordings from King Crimson are now available to stream in the nugs app or order online.  Courtesy of the prog-rock icons’ archivist, read more about the transformative ‘Double Duo’ North America tour from the turn of the century, featuring the dynamic lineup of Adrian Belew  (guitar & vocals), Robert Fripp  (guitar), Trey Gunn (touch guitar), and Pat Mastelotto  (acoustic and electronic percussion).

In 1999, with Bruford now committed to pursuing his own band Earthworks and Levin signed up for a world tour with the singer Seal, a new King Crimson coalesced around Belew, Fripp, Gunn, and Mastelotto It had taken the best part of three years and over 50 gigs by the ProjeKcts for this particular version to present itself. In a bitter-sweet twist, Levin’s tour with Seal was unexpectedly canceled and Belew lobbied for the bassist’s inclusion when he and Fripp met in Nashville in August 1999. However, Fripp’s instinct was to go with the Double Duo as he now dubbed the group. Levin was sanguine about the new line-up in his online diary. “Robert has wisely decided to go ahead anyway, with the invitation to Bill and me that we can come back for the next incarnation. I agree that it’s time for a Crimson release and tour — if we wait for everyone to be available, it could take years.”

The state of flux typifying this period threatened to engulf Belew who had qualms not only about the amount of time Fripp envisaged the new group should tour but also his own role within the new line-up.  In September, as Fripp was packing his bags at his house in Dorset ahead of his return to America he received a call from Crimson’s manager Richard Chadwick with the news that Belew had quit. “Crimson usually breaks up after tours or during rehearsals,” Fripp noted at the time. “The Double Duo is a first in that it has broken up before rehearsing, recording and touring.  Even for Crimson, this is an achievement.”

These teething problems were overcome and the new quartet decamped to Belew’s basement studio with the challenge of writing and recording an album’s worth of new material in just eight weeks. They succeeded, in fact, in recording two albums, as they also completed an album of improvisations, under the name “Projekct X”.

Released in 2000, the 12th King Crimson studio album finds a slimmed-down quartet breaking new ground as well as retooling older themes with FraKctured and Lark’s Tongues In Aspic Part IV, both containing some of Fripp’s most terrifyingly complicated lines to date.

Alongside Pat Mastelotto’s arsenal of electronic drums and Trey Gunn’s growling touch guitar, Adrian Belew’s scarily manic soloing and his penchant for surreal lyrics run riot during the roiling, skewed gait of The World’s My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum. And they even Crimsonise the humble 12-bar with ProzaKc Blues.

2000 saw the band touring in support of the album in Europe, Japan and North America, with the new songs featuring heavily in the set alongside sections of improvisation, old favourites from the 80s and 90s, plus an acoustic solo spot from Adrian, and on many nights an encore of David Bowie’s Heroes.

Stream the new releases along with the full King Crimson archival catalog and hundreds of other artists exclusively on nugs when you start a free 7-day trial.

King Crimson is Now Streaming on nugs!

Out now and exclusively on nugs, this announcement brings fans worldwide the full 2014 Tour, a special time in King Crimson history with the first outing of “The Seven-Headed Beast Of Crim.” Enjoy these shows now, and be on the lookout for monthly archival releases to hit the app this year. In addition to streaming, CDs and hi-res downloads are also available. 

King Crimson has been described as “a way of doing things”. It is a band that has existed in many different incarnations, beginning in 1969, with the line-up of Fripp, McDonald, Lake, Giles and Sinfield, which recorded the seminal album “In The Court of the Crimson King”, often cited as the genesis of progressive rock.

“The impact of this group in England, from its first performance on April 9th. 1969 at the Speakeasy in London, is difficult to convey 25 years afterwards unless one were part of it: something like the explosive impact of punk seven years later. A considerable influence on the musicians and groups of its generation, it is also the only Crimson which could have been a massive commercial success. Inevitably, it drew as much hostility as support. 

There was something completely other which touched this group and which we called our “good fairy”. After reflecting on how we went from abject failure to global commercial and musical success in nine months, I concluded after several years of reflection that sometimes music leans over and takes us into its confidence. This was one of those times.”

This initial incarnation lasted less than a year, setting a trend for regular dissolutions and changes of line-ups over the next 50 years.  “I have noticed that when Crimson is about to get successful in a big way it breaks up, regularly.” as Fripp noted.

Although they recorded thirteen studio albums, many regarded as classics, King Crimson is generally regarded as essentially a live band, best seen in live performances which could re-orientate the lives of both band members and the audience. “Records and live performance are two worlds. One is a love letter, the other a hot date. Crimson were always the band for a hot date and from time to time they could write a love letter too. But for me they were better in the clinches. Like, in London in the Spring of 1969, Amsterdam in November 1973, The Savoy, New York over three nights in November 1981. Sometimes it’s like angels descending from the clouds on chariots of fire, blowing trumpets of gold in your ear.” 

In Fripp’s opinion there have been four definitive line-ups. 1969, 1974, particularly at their final show in NY Central Park July and on the album Red, 1981, and the final 2014-2021 incarnation.

“The 1972/4 Crimson was rocking rock which looked to rock rather than jazz for its spirit, drawing mainly on a European vocabulary both for writing and improvising. In no way a fusion band, the group increasingly needed improvisation to stay alive. This didn’t show much in the studio albums, but live it stepped sideways and jumped. 

Live, the 1981 Crimson were more song based than the earlier lineups but Tony, Ade, Billy & Bob could also rock out and shred wallpaper at three miles.”

Of the final incarnation” “It is remarkable. The best band I’ve been in, musically, personally, professionally.”

Fans all have their opinion over their favourite line-up and album. The intention behind DGMLive is to release all the live recordings of King Crimson alongside their studio albums and the recording sessions which led to them. A remarkable catalogue of a remarkable band.

Exclusive King Crimson Concerts Now Available

Start a free 7-day streaming trial to nugs and get instant access to the full King Crimson concert archives, plus more official live catalogs from the world’s greatest touring artists.