Robert Fripp's Diary for Thursday, 1st September 2005

Robert Fripp's Diary

	Thursday, 1st September 2005

B&B Most Acceptable, Sandy Park, nr. Chagford, Devon.

If all B&Bs were of this quality, hotels would be mostly unnecessary in my life as a Happy Gigster. What distinguishes Parford Well from most establishments I have visited is the care that is taken, and the concern for quality, in all aspects of the B&B.

Yesterday, before leaving for the studio, I made the bed (I'm not sure how many guests honour Clean Sheets & Tidy). When I returned last night, the bed had been remade -- to a much higher standard than I was capable of delivering -- Clean Sheets & Remarkably Tidy. The host needn't have done this, but returning as a guest to an impeccably made-bed, rather than a functionally efficient made-bed, was quite a treat.

The breakfasts are fab, too, and eaten from a period dining table.

10.41 Super Audio Mastering, Monks Withecombe, Chagford, Devon.

We are working on the Appendix: the unreleased Daryl songs. Now, it's Daryl Hall as punk singer -- Disengage (Mix 26 alternate vocal) -- and a stomping NY3 (New York, New York, New York) .

12.13 Exposure & onto Mary. Daryl's pipes on this are extraordinary, particularly given that he was improvising the vocal.

12.48 Chicago. The words on this, as on most of the songs, are by Joanna Walton. The first line is You smile like Chicago. We had a conversation on this during the Exposure recording period:

JW: Your smile reminds me of the South Side of Chicago.
RF: How is that?
JW: Very mixed.

Joanna was on the PA103 Lockerbie flight. She had been booked on the earlier flight, but changed it.

13.29 Disengage (mixes 28 & 26) tickled & vibrated.

14.40 NY3 (New York, New York, New York) a blaster of a performance by Daryl, driven along by Narada Michael Walden on drums. Daryl was replaced by the real life Your House My House of one hot night in Hell's Kitchen during the summer of 1978.

14.56 For the professional, the industry is a large part of how you get to where you're going. For the aspirant artist, the industry is a large part of what stops you getting there.

14.58 Easter Sunday.

Not quite sure how this track got onto a reel of Exposure re-mixes from September 1983, but here it is. Easter Sunday is a Frippertronic loop played at the last performance of the North American Music System tour, in Toronto on Easter Sunday, April 3rd. 1983. Tony Arnold recorded two RF solo overdubs, firstly on a Takamine acoustic & then solo electric, rare examples of (IMO) successful soloing over a Frippertronic/Soundscape. My guess is, I took it to Marcus Studios for mixing with Brad Davies while working on the Exposure remixes.

15.41 An alternative version of Chicago: with both Peter Hammill & Terre Roche.

16.07 The Last Great New York Heartthrob was an early working title, complete with album cover of a photo session within the Radio City Music Hall, NYC, home of The Rockettes.

http://www.projekction.net/textonly/thread.php?topic_id=2392
http://www.elephant-talk.com/exposure/expoweb1.htm
http://www.elephant-talk.com/exposure/expolyr.htm

(The first) album version was famously denied release in 1978, due to problems with Daryl Hall's manager Tommy Mottola, who insisted that the album be listed as "Daryl Hall & Robert Fripp" and released on RCA. Fears that it would jeopardize his commercial appeal were also voiced, resulting in Fripp replacing many of Hall's original vocals. Fripp encountered similar record company resistance and reasoning from Chrysalis, when Blondie was approached to record a version of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" for inclusion on Exposure. A request for a guest vocal by Debbie Harry, which was similarly thwarted. A live recording exists of Blondie performing this song (as well as Heroes and Louie Louie) with Fripp on guitar at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, England on January 12, 1980.

Playing with Blondie at CBGBs, NYC & the Odeon, London, recording Fade Away & Radiate (from Parallel Lines) was wonderful fun; part of the freewheeling, well-spirited engaging that were part of the conjunction of time, place & persons. In sharp distinction, I remember a conversation (at a Blondie promo event) with one of the two main partners in Chrysalis that remains a classic example of artist>business>artist exchange.

16.22 1983, the track from Under Heavy Manners, is also on one of our reels. So, we are re-vibrating that as well. It sounds good. Boy! The repetitive picking is astonishing & I'm exhausted just listening to it. The long, continuo line is played in real time & without break, overdubbed with a repetitive harmony line & then guitar solo, all over-and-under a Frippertronic loop.

17.27 While Simon was having a haircut from a visiting barber-person, I seized the moment to suffer an eruptile e-flurry in the studio corridor outside the control-room door: 10 days offline. Yow!

Now, to vibrate & tickle the Second Edition.

19.10 We are playing the master off an ATR desk. The ATR comes with fairy dust: there is Instantly a listening difference. Suddenly, a deeper music emerges from where before, on the Studer, there was only music. Now, the music has air around it. Astonishing. Simon used the ATR for re-mastering ITCOTCK from the recently-discovered first-generation master. Bu the ATR has a problem: bumps appear randomly on the digital transfer. Simon thinks this is the result of a faulty power supply, related to the studio being struck by lightning recently. A newly-ordered replacement power unit left Philadelphia 3 hours ago.

20.26 North Star vibrated.

21.18 Your House My House pumped & stomped.

21.35 Terre Roche is singing Mary.

Simon: yes! that's it! Simon is right.

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