RE: Adrian Belew (and other related matters)

["MIKO" <m-i-k-o@attbi.com>]

I'll definitely have to find that album myself!  Anyone wanna lend me a
tape or cd of it?

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Richards [mailto:kohntarkosz@yahoo.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 11:30 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: Adrian Belew (and other related matters)


<<I came upon Adrian via Laurie Anderson's Mr. 
  Heartbreak album.>>

I REMEMBER THAT ALBUM!!! After reading that
article in Guitar Player, I saw that it mentioned
Mr Heartbreak in his "selected discography", so
when I saw it at the library, I borrowed it. I
remember listening to Sharkey's Day, and there's
this guitar solo at the beginning of the song
that sounds like a circular saw going nuts or
something like that. I heard that, and
immediately said "THAT's ADRIAN!!!". The other
thing that stands out for me about that album is
that William S Burroughs did the vocal on the
closing song, Sharkey's Night. Well, this is how
green I was, I didn't even know who William S
Burroughs was!!! I mean, I was all of about 12 or
so at the time, but I didn't know the name, and
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have known the names
of any of his books (not even Naked Lunch or The
Soft Machine). So, I'm listening to this track,
and I'm picturing an old black guy doing the
spoken word thing there! I think that's the only
time I've ever heard anything and thought "That
guy sounds black!". :-)


<< A year later, I was interning for Roma Baron
on the preproduction of Home of the Brave.  Spent
most of my days in the studio with that Fender 
Mustang and the man himself.>>

But he had it refinished by then, right? There
were two different guitars, both of which, I
think were originally painted by the guy who did
the cover for Twang Bar King. Then later, he
either had another one done, or had at least one
of them refinished, because I remember seeing
photos of him playing a blue one (the Twang Bar
King/Three Of A Perfect Pair guitars were
primarily white and black).

> Believe it or not MTV actually aired a concert
from the Three Of A Perfect Pair tour.

 Are you thinking of the bizzare "Joan Jet" and 
 friends show?  I was shocked when I caught that
on MTV. King Crimson opening up for Joan 
 Jett.  Will wonders ever cease?>>

I have absolutely no recollection of what you're
talking about. No, the concert I'm talking about
was a video release that Crimson put out called
Live In Japan. MTV, basically took, and it edited
it down to about an hour (it was originally more
like 90 minutes long), cutting out a number of
songs, including Red, Larks Tongues pts. 2 and 3
(no, they didn't do part 1), Industry, and Man
With A Open Heart. I had no idea they had played
these songs on this show until years later, when
I bought a bootleg video of the show (before
Discipline reissued it) and saw a long set list
on the back cover than what was on the video.
There's some great "candid" moments at the start
of the video, of each band member, Bill Bruford
exclaims "The very same jacket that brought you
Larks Tongues In Aspic!", and there's also a
couple great bits of Adrian getting some VERY
sweet sounds from his gear at soundcheck. 

Anyway, as far as I can remember, MTV aired the
Crimson thing as one of the regular Saturday
Night Concerts. 

But come to think of it, I also remember seeing
King Crimson on TV on a show on, I think, the
Showtime channel. They showed them playing
Sleepless and one other song that I didn't know.
I remember that's where I first saw Bruford's
Simmons electronic drumkit of doom. What he did
was, he had a regular Simmons SDS-7 drumkit, and
he took five of the pads, and had them set up to
mirror his acoustic drum set, so he had two
snares (one acoustic, one electronic), I think
just three Simmons tom toms (can't remember if he
had acoustic toms as well), and a double bass
drum rig (one acoustic and one electronic). Then,
he had the other seven pads mounted vertically
behind him, and he had to stand up to play them
(I later read he did that so that audience
members could connect movements he made with his
hands to the respective sounds that they heard).
On this show, though, it seemed like he had way
more than seven drum pads mounted behind him. I
didn't realize it was only seven until I saw a
brochure at a local music store for Simmons,
where Bruford explained the setup (this was a
four page thing that also had a piece on Cyndi
Lauper's drummer, and I think an essay written by
some nerd who worked for Simmons, and had a photo
of a Simmons rig with like 12 or 13 pads mounted
on what looked like synthesizer stands, and it
folded out to a huge poster of a drawing of an
anonymous drummer playing a similiar over the top
Simmons rig). 

Anyway, as I recall, this show (which as I said,
I THINK aired on Showtime, but it might have been
HBO instead) would usually show like 2 or 3 bands
on each show, so maybe that's where you saw Joan
Jett and Crimson on the same show (I have no idea
who else was on this show that I saw, I only
remember Crimson). 

Getting back to Belew, any of you guys ever see
the Electronic Guitar instructional video he put
out around this same time period? We didn't have
a VCR back then, and as far as I know, this thing
is long out of print, but I so badly wanted to
see it. I remember seeing the ads for it on MTV,
I think they played a clip of Paint The Road, as
Adrian basically plugs the video. I keep my eye
out for it on E-bay, but the bids are always up
to like 40 bucks!!! :-| 

=====
May you never thirst!
The Scuba Diver Presently Known As Chris

"What do you get when you give a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?"-James
Earl Jones

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com