‘Discipline’ covers for the win.

At the risk of over-treating the topic…well, I cain’t hep it, so here we go. Essentially, YouTube’s “suggested” algorithms have come through for the win here, and it just makes sense to put these clips together.

The original

The title track of King Crimson’s 1981 masterpiece Discipline just blew me away on my very first listen, in Brent Holman’s dorm room on the Stanford campus…thirty-six years ago now. By the time we’d got to the last track on the record, I was already stunned and hooked on Crim for life (yeah…the album really is that good), but out of the glorious semi-controlled chaos that is “The Sheltering Sky” (about which I’ve gushed a bit before, on its own), the record then concludes with this polymetric tour-de-force.

Are you friggin’ kidding me?

That sequencing–“Sheltering Sky” into “Discipline” to end the album–is on the shortest of short lists of brilliant mastering layout on any record you care to name. And you know what, folks? The craziest part is that the more you dig inside this piece, the more astonishing it gets, both in its complexity and–ironically–in its minimalist simplicity.

I think you can see this idea illustrated nicely in a couple of the “suggested” clips that YouTube has brought in front of me, of people variously covering the individual parts of “Discipline”. And so we have…

The covers

First, I saw Tom Way covering Bill Bruford’s drum part on the song; that got its own post, but it belongs here too as part of the set.

Sounds pretty note-perfect to me, and the visual of watching him play it puts you much better inside how glorious a part it really is. But hell, that’s just the first one. I also found this cover of Tony Levin’s Stick part, by The Hungarian Stickist.

The story goes that Tony Levin got the gig with the ’80s Crim by being able to play that part right away at the audition, which is pretty mind-blowing in itself. He’s a bass legend for a reason!

And finally, I saw this piano cover of the two guitar parts, together, with what looks like Robert’s part on the top and Adrian’s part on the bottom. This one is truly mesmerising; one can totally see the connection with minimalists like Reich and Glass as Robert “drops a note” against the 5/4, or “adds a note” over Belew’s 16/16…and they keep going, and eventually it catches up again…

Just sensational. And by this time perhaps my point is asserting itself: so much of interest is going on in any one of these parts, that all The Awesome actually might get a bit lost when it comes together. But somehow, the assembly lays out beautifully, and even rocks in its own way. Which is what leads me to conclude with…

The comments

Actually, the very first “suggested” clip I saw wasn’t a full bass cover, but instead was bassist Paul Thompson, at pdbass, highlighting the bass part and giving it some analysis. I think Paul says it all rather well:

And all of this suggesting was probably kicked off by my first discovering the hour-long interview that Rick Beato did with the band which is being assembled to stage the upcoming BEAT tour, playing the music of the ’81-’84 Crimson. In Rick’s interview they cover a little analysis of “Discipline” specifically, and as with everything Beato it’s worth listening to.

At any rate, it occurred to me that these covers should be brought together with the original, and some thoughtful analysis as well. So now, they’re bookmarked…together.

Drum cover of ‘Discipline’.

Okay, I admit I have lately had ’80s Crim on the brain, what with the promised BEAT tour and all, and that’s probably what surfaced this suggested clip into my feed. Whatever the reason, though, this definitely seemed worth bookmarking, as it gives a great visual context for what’s going on in a piece that first blew my mind (gulp) thirty six years ago. Drummer Tom Way covers Bill Bruford’s part on ‘Discipline’.

Now anyone who has spent any time here knows that Bruford is my favorite drummer of all time, and of course the part itself is amazing, between the truly crazy rhythms juxtaposed against the constant pulse…

But what really sticks out at me about this clip is placing it in the overall context of the group piece. For example, one of the challenges that Robert Fripp imposed on Bruford, for the ’80s Crim, was to de-emphasize or eliminate the use of hi-hat, to open up that sonic space for something different. Here, Way (who nails it btw from what I can hear) uses the acoustic hi-hat for the pulse (Bruford used an electronic hat), but the pulse only, and you can see, here, what Bruford did with the rest of the kit to work the subdivisions usually played on the hat… Just marvelous.

And the way the rhythms played against each other, too. With so much else of interest going on simultaneously, I hadn’t really “heard”, before, the 17/16 in the drums in the early stages of the piece; to my untrained ear it sounded mostly like a steady stream of undistinguished 16th notes. But I should have known better, and now, to see the drummer play it gives a visual to the very deliberate, if subtle, complexity that almost hides in plain sight.

And finally, although Tom Way (about whom I know nothing other than this) seems to play things note perfect to my ears, there is the idea that Bruford was probably improvising a number of the accents later in the piece, and that of course is a huge part of the reason I love Bruford’s style so much. To capture and recreate the one that made the record is impressive enough on its own, but I can’t help but think that he played it differently every night.

Anyway, bookmarked!

Make Weird Music talks to Steve Vai about the upcoming BEAT tour.

UPDATE, 4/22/24: For whatever reason, the video clip seems to have been pulled back at MWM…no idea why at this writing…so, in the event it’s a permanent problem, I’m glad I got to see it when I did! Anyway, the original post:

---

Bless him, Anthony Garone at Make Weird Music interviews Steve Vai about his learning Robert Fripp’s parts for the upcoming BEAT tour, and I gotta say it’s looking promising!

Vai pretty clearly seems to be putting his full attention toward this project, with obvious reverence for the material and for Robert’s unique individual -fu*, and I daresay that portends well for the result. (Maybe I can pull a magic rabbit out of the hat and make it down to Denver in November to see the show scheduled there, with Dave of course. One can dream.)

Anyway, the interview is worth checking out, and gets a bookmark here.

This whole BEAT tour thing has inspired me to intentionally reacquaint myself with ’80s Crim, and it’s been a delight to come back to it all over again. That was some original stuff, and it holds up even better than I remembered.

______________________
* Given his own [rather justifiable] position as a legendary guitar god in his own right, Vai seems to have a humble and respectful personality that really comes through strongly when he talks about certain people. For me, the most obvious is watching him talk about Frank Zappa–for anyone interested, just search for a YouTube clip of Vai talking about his time with Zappa (his audition for the band is especially amusing) and you’ll see what I mean–and watching him talk about Robert, here, reminds me a lot of that. Again, I think this portends well for the tour!

New MIDI machines in MIDI Guitar 3.

Via LoFiLeif…well, just check this out.

As of this writing I am not in a good place metaphysically, and it has been frustrating to have had so little time and real attention to pay to this beta period for MIDI Guitar 3. (I was already off my game when the beta invite came in, and things haven’t relented at all since then.) However, aside from my personal aggravations, just look at this stuff!

The software developer in me gets the sense that the beta effort is at that tipping point now where the main criticals (e.g. stability, tracking, control layer) are now shored up and the big brain(s) are now more freed up to work on features. That’s an exciting moment in a software effort.

I may not have had the cycles to do the T&E I’m capable of and which this beta seems to deserve, but what I am is utterly grateful to have been invited in the first place, and for the communication channels of the beta forum and especially LoFiLeif’s amazing YouTube channel. The overall MG3 beta effort, at least as I can see it from my flawed and imperfect chair, just seems exceedingly well done.

Things like that can sustain one through surprisingly rough waters, and I needed the inspiration today.

BEAT: ’80s Crim played 40 years later…!

I was not expecting to see this today, but–oh my.

Adrian Belew recruits Steve Vai, Tony Levin, and Danny Carey to tour the music of 1980s King Crimson…and the four of them talk about it for an hour with Rick Beato.

Well, I certainly hope they record some of this, as I’m guessing I may not get a chance to be anywhere near where they’re actually playing. And…yeah, you could say I’m interested to hear what they do with this material. (Geez Louise!)

Of course I’m such a Crim fanboi that I immediately entertain the “who would I assemble to play the Fripp and Bruford parts, if it were me?” question. Now, FTR I suspect that both Vai and Carey will do wonderfully here, both because they have the skills and the personal investment in the music, but of course it can be fun to play the what-if game too… I’ll probably chew on it more over the next couple days, but right now I might go with Guthrie Govan for the Robert parts; I don’t know of anyone more convincingly chameleonic than Guthrie. For Bruford, though–man, that one’s tough. I think the one who is closest in style and approach may actually be Stewart Copeland, especially if he puts his mindset back in the Curved Air days. The other one that comes up for me is Gavin Harrison, but in terms of effectively inhabiting Bruford’s space I’m not sure whether Harrison or Carey would do it better. Hmm…

(The what-if game is interesting here precisely because it’s challenging. Both Fripp and Bruford are utterly unique voices, and anyone has their work cut out for them to even get close. Now, the music itself can stand on its own, and even if Vai and Carey simply play like Vai and Carey, it’ll probably be worth listening to. But I do have some hopes, knowing what I do about each of them; if they do channel effectively, it could wind up well past “worth listening to” and get toward “pretty spectacular”. I’m certainly willing to be impressed!)