Bill's PurpleCrayon Blog

BILL'S BLOG EXCERPTED ON KING CRIMSON FAN SITE


Darren, the webmaster of ProjeKction, a way cool fan-operated King Crimson news and commentary site, stumbled across my entry in Bill's Blog and excerpted it on his site.

That generated a tidal wave of visitors to this site.

In fact, since I posted my blog entry about my history with Robert Fripp, King Crimson and the British prog band Galahad (among many others), PurpleCrayon Direct has received 500 visitors from some 15 different countries!

I've posted a couple of excerpts of my interviews with ex-King Crimson musicians on the Projekction site. Feel free to take a look.

Keep Purple!

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MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT: PURPLECRAYON TO TAKE OVER BRITISH PROGRESSIVE ROCK BAND GALAHAD'S WEB SITE, HELP PROMOTE THE BAND WORLDWIDE

About 10 years ago, I began to research a book on progressive rock, what likely would have been the first.

I spoke to many, many prog rock musicians from around the world, including Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), Annie Haslam (Renaissance), Kerry Livgren (Kansas), Ken Hensley (Uriah Heep), Ed (Ozric Tentacles), Mike Pinder (Moody Blues), Gayle Ellet (Djam Karet), Frank Bornemnn (Eloy), Leslie Bradley (inventor of the Mellotron), Dave Brock (Hawkwind), Andy Latimer (Camel), Geoff Mann (Twelfth Night - his last interview before passing away), Kit Watkins (Camel, Happy the Man), Fish (Marillion), Steve Howe (Yes), Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson), Bruce Pilato (Greg Lake's manager and sometime author of CD booklet liner notes), Steve Rothery (Marillion), Steve Hackett (Genesis), Nick Barrett (Pendragon), Gilbert Gandil (Pulsar), Martin Orford (IQ), Clive Nolan (Pendragon), Steve Holly (Wings), Eddie Jobson (UK), Stuart Nicholson (Galahad), Mick Box (Uriah Heep) and others. I also interviewed heads of progressive record labels at that time, including Willebrord Elsing from SI Music and Bernard Gueffier from MUSEA.

During the course of my research, I discovered that I was talking to a lot of King Crimson alumni. So I thought, "I wonder if I should turn this into a book about King Crimson?" And I contacted Crimson head honcho Robert Fripp to see if he was interested in the idea.

Surprisingly, he was. Fripp declined to be interviewed, of course, but he encouraged me to proceed with my book idea. I believe he said, "The only viable book on King Crimson that could be written is King Crimson from the perspective of all of its members." And then he provided me with contact info for key King Crimson musicians who had been in (or involved with) the band since its debut in 1969. I let my fingers do the walking and I called all of them.

Unfortunately, to focus on King Crimson I had to abandon my book on progressive rock. That, I did. Reluctantly. But, oh, what a heady time I entered into!

Over the course of the next few years, I spoke to a large number of musicians who were in Crimso, including Ian McDonald, Pete Sinfield, John Wetton, Boz Burrell, Jamie Muir, David Cross, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Adrian Belew, Keith Tippett, Ian Wallace, Richard Palmer-James, Dik Fraser, Richard Vickers, and more. I even interviewed Tony Arnold, the engineer who helped Fripp remaster the King Crimson CDs the first time around.

I can't describe the feeling of calling up a world-famous musician, only to be told, "Yeah, Mike Giles and I were just talking about you" or "Bill Bruford said that? I'd better call him to see how he's doing." Or -- and this is the ultimate thrill -- to get a phone call on a lazy weekend afternoon, pick it up and hear on the other end, "Bill Murphy? Robert Fripp." What a trip.

I was thrilled to speak to all of those talented people. Heroes of mine, actually. I respected all of them. One -- Ian McDonald of King Crimson and Foreigner fame -- became a long-time friend of mine. I spent a few weekends at his place in New York and loved every second of it. (One night, we ordered Indian take-away from a nearby neighborhood restaurant. We brought it back to his place. It must have been 9:00 or 9:30 at night. His apartment windows were open. Outside, the unmistakable sound of New York could be heard plainly - sirens wailing, car horns honking. And there I sat eating Indian food while Ian regaled me with his tales of life in Crimson and Foreigner. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.) Ian McDonald is an enormously talented musician, and a painfully self-effacing and genuinely kind-hearted person. (I have an interview tape with Ian in which he talks through, track by track, every song on In The Court of the Crimson King. His stories were fascinating.)

At one point, a few years after I began the project (1997 perhaps?), Robert Fripp called me up to invite me to London to the King Crimson reunion and CD playback of Epitaph, a box set of live Crimson recordings from the first incarnation of the band. (I'm written about in the booklet of that box set.) So I flew to England to meet Fripp and the other members of King Crimson. (True story: The first time I laid eyes on Robert Fripp was in the bathroom of the hotel that hosted the playback. As I washed my hands at the sink, I looked up in the mirror and who should be coming out of the stall behind me? Why, it was none other than Robert Fripp! "You'll have to forgive me for not shaking your hand at this moment," he said in his typically dry manner.) At the playback, I sat at a table with Mike Giles and his daughters. During a couple of songs, I'd look up to see Mike remembering the moment the music was recorded. Sometimes, he'd punctuate a particular stirring passage with a "Yes!" and a huge grin.

I took photos of the playback. One of my favorite shots is of Mike Giles and Greg Lake giving each other a hug upon first meeting.

Needless to say, this was an incredibly enjoyable time in my life. However -- isn't there always a "however"? -- I noticed a certain undercurrent in my interviews with the Crimson alumni that was negative, almost cynical. The timing of my interviews was between the last King Crimson album of the '80s (Three of a Perfect Pair, 1984) and the first one in the mid '90s (Vroom, 1994 and Thrak, 1995). And I think that had a lot to do with it. For Bill Bruford, especially, it was a particularly low point personally. You have to remember, this was an in-between time for King Crimson. The previous incarnations of Crimso were history (and at least one or two of the musicians resentful) and the next incarnation hadn't yet been formed. Plus, publishers rejected my book proposal because they thought King Crimson was dead and buried. Old news. How wrong they were! (Undaunted, I planned to self-publish because I was so excited about the subject matter.)

I continued to interview, but I couldn't shake the feeling that people enjoyed a love/hate relationship with Robert Fripp. A couple of them were downright angry at him. (Plus, Fripp was embroiled in an ugly legal battle with former label E'G at this time.) If I printed interviews verbatim (as I'd planned to), they would have cast Fripp in a disparaging light. And if I included information about the legal squabbles, it would have made the book even darker. But if I left out that information, I wouldn't be presenting the real story of King Crimson. What to do? In the end I felt the information I had would taint the entire book project by turning it into a He said/She said airing of dirty laundry. For a band I loved as much as King Crimson, that simply wouldn't do.

So I gave up the project, even though I was told things that I doubt anyone else has ever heard before. (To be sure, the negativity about Crimson and/or Fripp wasn't the only reason for me not finishing the project. But it was the major one.)

Later, a fine chap named Sid Smith picked up where I left off and eventually published the first biography on King Crimson. I was sad to lose the opportunity, but my conscience was clean. The book I wanted to write, I couldn't. The book Sid wanted to write, he did. That was that. (I'll never forget the phone call I received from Ian McDonald one afternoon. Always the gentleman, Ian told me he had been contact by Sid. Ian asked me if it would be okay for him to talk to Sid for Sid's book. Ian didn't want Sid to spoil my book project for me. I told Ian it was okay.)

Despite the loss of being the first to publish a book on King Crimson, I had a great time getting to know all of the musicians I interviewed. I can also take pride in knowing that I was partially responsible for getting the musicians in Crimso to speak to one another again after years of silence, even estrangement. When I'd call up one of them, they'd ask who I talked to. I'd relay some stories. They'd inevitably tell me, "I should call..." I believe I put Ian McDonald in touch with Greg Lake. And prompted John Wetton to call Bill Bruford. And I got everyone talking about everyone to the point where they decided to put aside their rivalries and feelings of ill will. I believe that synergy lead to the Epitaph playback in London, as a matter of fact.

I still have all of my interview tapes. And I still have stories and information I didn't see in Sid Smith's book. Someday, I'll figure out a way to tell the Crimson story that I came to know -- but leave out the bitterness and rivalries. Or maybe keep them in. Now that a relatively upbeat book on Crimso has been published, maybe the time is right for one that tells -- to borrow Paul Harvey's words -- "the rest of the story."

(By the way, my chat with Mike Pinder and Leslie Bradley, developer/builder of the Mellotron, gave me goose bumps. I'd love to relate those stories in some fashion.)

Another benefit of me being on this long strange trip was that I got to know Stuart Nicholson from the fine British progressive rock band Galahad. He was one of my first interviews when my book was about progressive rock in general. I found Stu to be gracious and witty and incredibly humble considering his remarkable vocal talent.

Stu and I also kept in touch over the years. In the mid '90s, I became editor of GalaHAPPENINGS, a newsletter I printed in the States and shipped to Stu in England for him to mail to the Galahad fan club. I did that for about a year. Maybe a little more. It was a blast to interview the members of Galahad, transcribe the tapes, print the newsletter and ship it out. It was Stuart who drove up from Dorset to pick me up at Heathrow and take me into London for the King Crimson reunion/playback. Stu drove me all over London that weekend and I'm forever grateful for his kindness.

As the years moved on, so did my advertising career. I moved to St. Louis. Then to Milwaukee. Then back to Grand Rapids where it all started. Over the years, I lost touch with Stuart. I thought my days working with Galahad were over.

Until this month.

As I browsed the Galahad web site a week or two ago, I noticed their current webmaster (Stuart Cormie) had posted a noticed a month or two prior asking if anyone wanted to take over the site. I sent him an e-mail to inquire if he'd found anyone yet. I also sent an e-mail to Stuart Nicholson, my friend from Galahad.

A few days later, Stuart Nicholson called from England one evening while I was at work. We chatted a bit. Swapped stories about music, technology, life. We also talked about the Galahad web site. Long story short, PurpleCrayon Direct will now be responsible for the Galahad web site.

I'll be working with gifted web programmer/designer Kyle Adams on the project. Kyle is the genius behind other PurpleCrayon Direct web projects, including Life is Zen and Zen Reality Show. He's also working with me at Circle Theatre to help keep the Circle web site up to date.

I'm really looking forward to working again with Stuart, Roy, Spencer and others in Galahad. I have a few ideas for their web site that I'll bounce off Stu and Company when they return home from recording sessions for their latest album.

As always, I'll keep everyone informed.

Keep Purple!

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