Frippin' Out Part 1 - Before Crimson

Warning: This post contains no metal and barely any prog.

Another Warning: I HATE whimsical boopty doopty Black Adder-Downton Abbey-Harry Potter British school boy BULLSHIT but this shit fuckin' rules.

It would be pretty lame to make a King Crimson megapost on Ill Con, especially in light of their recent battles with Spotify. Every dork on the internet knows and loves KC. You would be hard pressed to find a techy guitar player that doesn't worship Red and I know I've fallen into a YouTube rabbit hole or 3 watching old Crimson footage. So hey let's not be lame, let's be awesome and post these pre-Crimson all-killer-no-filler little known recordings by one of the greatest psychedelic rock outfits ever: Giles, Giles and Fripp.

Their first and only release, 1968's "The Cheerful Insanity Of..." is exactly that. Totally drugged out, blissful, trippy and silly. A bit Bonzo Dog Band, a little Beach Boys, A LOT of Monty Python, all Fripp'd out with his jazzy shreds all over. Just a complete awesome (non-brutal) listen.

here

I'm not going to get into a whole bio and life story on these guys because British people are hella boring. Basically these two bros (actual brothers) wrote a buncha songs and needed a singer and keyboard player. They took out an ad and this awesome guitar player that couldn't sing answered instead. They let him live with them and proceeded to produce a ton of home demos. Their demos kicked so much ass that they got a record deal and put out that thing I just posted up there ^^. These demos circulated in the underground prog dork circles for years and now I present to you THE BRONDESBURY TAPES for your listening pleasure. I like these a lot. Better than the actual album.

here

These songs are pretty much the polar opposite of the cold, bleak paranoia one feels when listening to early KC. Some say this has a lot to do with the poor reception/sales of "The Cheerful Insanity Of..." Fripp was essentially beaten down by the music industry his first go 'round. A lot of that negative energy was channeled into his new band a year later and is one of the reasons those first albums are so fucking magical.

Next time: PART 2 - After Crimson! The NYC Trilogy and lots of cocaine with Eno and Bowie!