Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

Released: 1973
Tracks: The Song Remains the Same; The Rain Song; Over the Hills and Far Away; The Crunge; Dancing Days; D’yer Mak’er; No Quarter; The Ocean
Best track: The Rain Song
Track to skip: D’yer Mak’er

One of the problems when you have albums as eclectic as this, is that some of the song transitions are just jarring.  Song Remains > Rain Song is one of these.  Now, I LOOOOOVE The Rain Song, but there’s not proper flow from track 1 to track 2.  I’ll get over it.  The Rain Song is gorgeous and one of my favorite Led Zep songs without a doubt.  It’s such a well-composed piece of music.  From the perfect acoustic guitar layering to the spot-on & stunning introductions of the mellotron and bass guitar, and yes, even extending to the lyrics here, it’s just a brilliant song.  Over the Hills and Far Away is another classic song and then there’s the James Brown Funk of The Crunge to end Side 1.  This might be the first instance of the band being truly goofy on record.  The song is decent, but it at least manages to make me crack a smile.  It’s kind of a throw-away, but it at least shows that the band could tackle funk, even if it’s a shade whiter than what James Brown offered up.

Side 2 doesn’t flow any better than Side 1, but that’s expected.  I absolutely DESPISE D’yer Mak’er.  I hate it.  I’m not alone in this either, as John Paul Jones has expressed his distaste for it as well.  I’m in good company!  An interesting take on reggae before too many people really knew what it was, but it still sucks as a song.  By far, the worst Led Zeppelin song they ever wrote.  I can’t figure out why people like it so much.  I really don’t care if it’s stupidly fun (it isn’t), it’s simply a horrible song.  So, yeah, there’s that MAJOR misstep, but the rest of Side 2 is good.  Dancing Days is fun as hell, No Quarter is possibly the trippiest thing they ever wrote and features some really cool piano from John Paul Jones.  No Quarter is a very cool song.  Houses of the Holy closes with an absolute classic in The Ocean.  I love how you can hear a studio phone ringing very slightly during Jimmy Page’s guitar solo here.  The change in this song where they go into the walking bassline with guitar solo is just awesome.  What a cool way to end the song and the album.

What to make of an album that features Led Zep’s worst and possibly best songs, is completely without flow and doesn’t quite feel like they really put a lot of effort into it?  OK, the effort’s there, but it’s lazy when you compare it to the previous 4 albums.  To be honest, I don’t listen to this as an “album” very often.  I love the songs (except one…), but I don’t love the album as a whole.  I just can’t get rid of the thought that there’s a certain degree of laziness here.

Rating: 86

Released: 1991
Tracks: [Disc 1 – 1969-1971] 21st Century Schizoid Man; I Talk to the Wind; Epitaph; Moonchild (edit); In the Court of the Crimson King; Peace – A Theme; Cat Food (single edit); Groon; Cadence and Cascade (remix); The Sailor’s Tale (abridged); Ladies of the Road; Bolero (remix); [Disc 2 – 1972-1974] Larks’ Tongues in Aspic: Part One (abridged); Book of Saturday; Easy Money; Lark’s Tongues in Aspic: Part Two; The Night Watch; The Great Deceiver; Fracture (abridged); Starless (abridged); Red; Fallen Angel; One More Red Nightmare; [Disc 3 – 1981-1984] Elephant Talk; Frame By Frame; Matte Kudesai; Thela Hun Ginjeet; Heartbeat; Waiting Man; Neurotica; Requiem; Three of a Perfect Pair; Sleepless; Discipline; The Sheltering Sky; The King Crimson Barber Shop; [Disc 4 – Live 1969-1984] Get Thy Bearings (1969); Travel Weary Capricorn (1969); Mars (1969); The Talking Drum (1973); 21st Century Schizoid Man (1973); Asbury Park (1974); Larks’ Tongues in Aspic: Part Three (excerpt) (1984); Sartori in Tangiers (1984) Indiscipline (1982)
Best track: [Disc 1] Epitaph [Disc 2] too hard to pick one [Disc 3] Frame By Frame [Disc 4] The Talking Drum
Tracks to skip: [Disc 1] none [Disc 2] none [Disc 3] Requiem [Disc 4] Larks’ Tongues in Aspic: Part Three

Disc 1 features 67 minutes that highlight the early incarnations of the band, from 1969-1971.  Nearly the entirety of the debut album is here; only a (thankfully) shortened version of Moonchild is different.  It’s very nice to hear the tune without the plodding improvisation that follows on the album proper.  The other three albums that this time period covers are In the Wake of Poseidon, Lizard and Islands.  With half of this disc focusing on only 1 album, the other three tend to get shafted.  In my opinion, anyway.  Poseidon has 3 tracks, which is good, but I would have loved to hear Pictures of a City or the title cut on here.  Peace – A Theme is the same version, but then there’s also the inclusion of the single edit of Cat Food (along with its B-side, Groon…seeing its first CD release) and a remixed version of Cadence and Cascade.  Due to legal problems with former member Gordon Haskell, his contributions on here were replaced.  On Cadence and Cascade Adrian Belew does a wonderful job with the vocals and Tony Levin replaced Haskell’s bass on Bolero.  Bolero is the only track from 1971’s Lizard.  It works in its place on this disc, but having 1 track from Lizard really sells it short.  Lizard’s a difficult listen, sure, but the material is still good.  I have to say, I have no problem with Haskell being replaced, esp. vocally.  Belew sings Cadence MUCH better than Haskell did.  Sailor’s Tale and Ladies of the Road represent the Islands album here and they’re definitely the best tracks from that album.

To be honest, I think Fripp did a good job on this first disc.  Of course there are some songs missing, but for the most part it really represents the essential songs from the first 4 albums.  The sequencing is good and I found myself really enjoying a number of these tracks on this listen – Epitaph, Cadence and Cascade & the Sailor’s Tale especially.  Best track on the disc?  Today it was Epitaph; it continues to be a brilliant and moving song.

Disc 2 is concentrated on the brutally powerful ’72-’74 lineup.  By taking the best moments from this band, disc 2 becomes something completely out of this world.  Power, pure and simple.  Granted, there are a ton of beautiful moments on here (Book of Saturday, The Night Watch, the first section of Starless to point out the obvious ones), but the overwhelming sense on this disc is of a band that literally stomps on you.  It’s insane how good these guys are.  As I said, I was already familiar with the Discipline lineup of Crimson prior to buying this set, but it was really this 2nd disc that made me a fan for life.  Discipline is the greater album, but if you take the entirety of this lineup vs. the ’81-’84 lineup, there’s no doubt that this 70’s version of King Crimson is the best the band has ever been.  Nothing comes close, really.  They are absolutely fearless and they had the most perfect chemistry.

I think the abridged version of Larks’ 1 is quite good.  Even with excising the violin solo (and a little bit more before it), it doesn’t suffer as a composition.  Amazing piece of music.  The abridged version of Fracture still presents a great song, but I really don’t like the edit there.  I mean, Fripp completely cut out the really cool middle section.  In removing that, the song feels incomplete.  As for the edit on Starless (one of Crimson’s overall greatest achievements), it’s blasphemy.  The 1st section is absolutely beautiful, but you NEED that 2nd section!  The fade from Starless into Red is fantastic, but completely chopping off the 2nd half of the song just KILLS me.  Without that second part, there’s no tension and no release.

What I noticed more than anything else on this disc was John Wetton’s phenomenal bass playing.  Not only technically great (I love his bass line in Book of Saturday), but his tone destroys me.  He’s such a commanding presence on this disc.  It might be Fripp’s band, but Wetton’s the star here.  I simply can’t pick a best track on this disc.  Edited as they are, they’re all great.  Only this sonically-great, but slightly weak version of Easy Money is the only downer here.  It’s not bad by any means, but as I said in the Larks’ review, it’s just feeble compared to the live versions of the tune.  Otherwise, this disc is simply amazing.

Disc 3 contains nearly the whole Discipline album, minus Indiscipline – a live version of the track is on Disc 4.  Discipline is definitely the best of the three 80’s KC albums (Discipline, Beat & Three of a Perfect Pair), but 6 songs might be a bit too heavy on this disc.  Additionally there are four from Beat and then only two from TOAPP, with the only previously unreleased studio track from this bunch, The King Crimson Barber Shop ending the disc.  So this disc contains 6/7 from Discipline, half of Beat…and yet only 2 from Three of a Perfect Pair – which is a much better album than Beat.  I don’t get it.  Requiem annoyed the piss out of me on this listen.  It could have easily been swapped out for another song from TOAPP or if you just have to another Beat track, use Neal and Jack and Me.  It’s Fripp’s decision, though, so I’m just being nitpicky.

This disc is quite good, but it’s a bit much of the interlocking guitar stuff.  I thought I’d never say that!  Yes, Discipline is my favorite King Crimson album, but I wish TOAPP was better represented here.  Not that the title track and Sleepless aren’t great songs or anything, they definitely are; I just wish there was better representation from the album.  Except for Requiem, all of these songs are fantastic compositions and illustrate that Crimson was fully capable of completely reinventing themselves in 1981.  You want “progressive”?  That’s it.  Reinvention without selling out (I’m looking at you, Yes).  I could pick any number of songs that could be “best on the disc”, but the reality is that it’s still Frame By Frame.  Amazing composition.  I love the inclusion of the KC Barber Shop (all voices by Tony Levin) – it’s a fun and humorous way to end this studio portion of the boxset.

Disc four is the live disc of the box and the first instance of any “archival” Crimson material to be released.  Only Asbury Park (an improv recorded at Asbury Park, NJ, on 6/28/74) had been previously issued (from USA).  All three of the 1969 tracks (Get Thy Bearings, Travel Weary Capricorn & Mars) see their first ever appearance on a Crimson album here.  All of these songs have subsequently been released in conjunction with their respective full shows.  Quick descriptions: 1-3 from 1969, 4-6 from 1973/1974 and 7-9 from 1982/1984.

Man, I enjoy the hell out of this disc.  It’s a great hour-long slice of King Crimson as a live band.  All three versions of the band get to show off their chops and how destructive this music was in a live setting.  Only the ’71-’72 version of the band is missing here, but…let’s be honest…nothing they ever did measured up to any of the music on this disc.  The only misstep on this disc is Larks’ Three.  While Fripp’s playing is rather scorching on here, the song is the ploddy mess it always is.  The more time goes on, the less use I have for this song.  Otherwise, this disc is incredibly solid.  The version of Mars here is excellent; truly menacing stuff.  I mentioned in my review of The Nightwatch of how amazing The Talking Drum is here.  Some excellent bass playing from John Wetton on this one.  And then there’s his really cool solo on Schizoid Man – very nice.  It is SO hard to pick a best track from this disc – it could be Mars, Talking Drum or Asbury Park.  OK, I’ll go with the Talking Drum.  It’s one of the best representations of what this ’73 band could do.

This set is no longer available, unfortunately.  In 2004 & 2005 Robert Fripp released 2 box sets which are essentially expanded versions of this one: The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson.  Vol. 1 covers 1969-1974 (4 discs, live and studio) and Vol. 2 covers 1981-2003 (also 4 discs, live and studio).  In 2006 we got the “Condensed 21st Century Guide” which is a 2-disc set featuring studio highlights from 1969-2003.  That’s probably the best 2-disc summation of this wildly inventive band.  As for this Great Deceiver box?  This is really good stuff.  My favorite disc of the set is that 2nd disc, the one featuring 1973/1974 band.  The 4th live disc is right behind it.  Truthfully, the entire set is stellar.  After listening to all 4+ hours of this, you get a good sense of what King Crimson could do.  Regardless of era, they blow you away.  This is truly powerful music and just a great all-around package.

Rating: 96

The Mongol Beach Party – w/ The Afterparty (19th) & The Last Call Girls (20th)
12/19-20/08 - The Record Bar, Kansas City, MO

Setlist for the 20th:

Set 1: Scrumptious, Big Game, M – For Show, Plans & Ideas, Red Shift, Strange, Remiss, What I Find, Drive, The Grind, The Grind (Away)

Set 2: Food, Spider, Ice Head, Mr. Things, Kiss on the Lips, Jigsaw Man, Lolita, Scary Movies, Kokracha’s Homecoming, Big Hands, It’s Wrong, Gone

Encore: Silence is Toothpaste

Wow, this is truly one of my favorite weekends of music ever.  In college I was a big Grumpy fan and I was later introduced by a friend named Carolyn to The Mongol Beach Party.  MBP kind of evolved into Grumpy & featured 4 of the 5 Grumpsters and a similar musical vocabulary.  I immediately fell in love with the Mongols at the first listen of Jigsaw Man.  Technically, the first song I heard of theirs was Lolita, but I didn’t know what to think about that one at first listen.  It was Jigsaw Man that made me a fan for life.  Of course, the album Toast was even better than those two songs and there was no stopping me then.  Carolyn gave me dubs of Toast and the Mongol’s 4-song demo.  I was fortunate enough to find a copy of the actual CD a few years later which might as well have been the Holy Grail for me.  Unfortunately Grumpy only lasted another year or two once I came aboard and of course there was no chance I’d ever get to see MBP in action.  Well, until mid 2008.

The band decided to get back together and do a couple of reunion shows in Kansas City right before Christmas.  As soon as I found out about these gigs I obsessed with going.  My wife was cool enough to get us plane tickets from North Carolina and tickets to the shows for my birthday and I was ecstatic.  2 nights in a row of the Mongols!  Hell yeah, I say.

We had a great time in Kansas City anyway (first time in Missouri for either of us) and found some amazing BBQ while there.  Julie hadn’t listened to them too much (she was more familiar with Grumpy thanks to my constant musical bombardment of them) so she didn’t want to see 2 nights in a row of some band.

The show on the 19th was opened by KC’s The Afterparty who really weren’t that great of a band.  I thought it was rather boring alt-country with a distinct lack of stage energy.  Some of the songs were decent, but their energy on stage definitely took away from that.  At some shows I might get all down because of this, but I was so pumped for the Mongol Beach Party that nothing could bring me down.

Man, to see those Grumpy guys together again on stage was amazing.  Jeff Freling (guitar & vocals), Bill Belzer (drums), Mark Southerland (sax, harmonica & dancing) and Kyle Dahlquist (trumpet, trombone, vocals & more dancing) were the ones who made up Grumpy (along with bassist Thomas Montgomery, who was in the audience for these shows).  For me, these 4 guys are some of the best players around.  Top-notch musicianship all around and Jeff Freling is absolutely one of my favorite songwriters.  The other two Mongols, Christian Hankel (lead vocals & percussion) and Scott Easterday (bass & vocals), were the unknown elements for me.  Of course I enjoyed their contributions to the Toast album, but I really had no idea how good (or not) they were.  Oh yeah, I have to mention, I was decked out in my Grumpy t-shirt.  Right from the first notes of Scrumptious it was clear that Scott was going to brilliantly hold down the fort and that Christian absolutely OWNED that stage.  He’s a fantastic vocalist with a spectacular stage presence.  With those 6 guys on the same stage it’s almost impossible to catch all of the amazing musical moments that are flying by, seemingly at a million miles an hour.  I thought, “who to watch?”  Thankfully I had 2 nights to soak it all in.

I don’t have the official setlist for the 1st night, but Christian did later get me what they played on the 2nd night.  Most of the set was the same, with maybe 6 or 7 songs switched out between the nights.  Roughly the same order on both nights.  The songs (that I know of) that were played the first night that weren’t on the second were: Shiny Suit, Traveling Song & White Elephants.  This show they played all of the tracks from the album except for Gone.

The show was amazing.  I danced and sang my ass off and I had a total blast.  Whatever opinions I had on the band before this show were completely shattered.  In one evening they shot up to become one of my favorite bands and definitely one of the greatest live bands I’ve ever seen.  The energy in that place was incredible.  With the crowd full of die-hards who knew all of the words and the band absolutely ON FIRE, it was impossible that anyone in that room was not going to have a great time.  My wife loved it too.

The 2nd night was me solo and that didn’t bother me.  I’ve never had a problem going to shows on my own.  It had been years since I used that much energy as I did at the first show, but I was determined that I would do it again.  During the course of the evening I was fortunate enough to talk with the entire band except for the horn section.  All were extremely cool guys and it was great to meet them.  The 2nd show opener was The Last Call Girls who were an all-female band (dude drummer, though), hard-hitting country stuff.  I liked them a LOT better than the first night’s opener.  They had good songs and really good musicianship.

This 2nd Mongol show featured the “alternate” guitar solo for Scary Movies where Jeff Freling does an absolutely kick ass Robert Fripp impression.  This attention to detail, playing the two different solos from both recorded versions of the song, was wonderful for me.  While the 1st night had a great nervous energy, the 2nd night found the band more relaxed and seriously digging into the material.  For only rehearsing as a band for a week, they were *extremely* tight.  As great of musicians as they were back when I last saw Grumpy in ’96 or ’97, all of them had improved by leaps and bounds.  They’re all true professionals and have only improved their skills over the years.  Freaking blew me away how great they all were.  Just phenomenal.

They did indeed play Gone on the 2nd night and also the kick ass slow & bluesy Remiss where Scott Easterday took lead vocals.  That song blew me away.  One of the best highlights for the shows was during the 2nd night’s “It’s Wrong” and what seemed like the whole crowd singing along with Jeff’s middle bit, “you know I care, but I’m not always there…”.  Oh man, it was incredible the vibe that gave off.  For both nights the whole band was just stellar all the way through.  Maybe there were mess ups here and there, but I didn’t hear any.  Very few bands I’ve seen live have matched the Mongols’ enthusiasm, excellence and spirit as on these two nights.  I can’t say enough how GREAT these shows were.  Just excellent all the way through.

What a great birthday present!  Thanks, Julie.  I can’t wait to see them again this August 21st & 22nd, once again in Kansas City.  Should be a fun time!