February 17, 1972
	Grande Ballroom    Detroit, MI

Shock Treatment   May 17, 2010
Written by dubhthaigh

Among the more interesting parts of this recording are the shock treatments delivered with increasing intensity as firt Burrell, and then Fripp attempt an accomodation with the PA system. The last one leaves one hanging for a moment. Did Fripp survive?

Are you sure this concert wasn’t conducted at Yale?

I’d laugh harder but I had just finished asking Ben Crowe to wire the bespoke guitar orderd to deliver increasingly intensified shocks every time I hit the wrong note or barred the wrong chord.  And I didn’t attend Yale. Catholic school instead. Anyway, I am among those who have found this iteration of Crim to be my least favourite, mostly because of the material. Whenever I hear how incredibly they play, even in a recording as lo-fi as this one, and that inspite of the heroic efforts of the DGM pixie dusters, I want to eat my words. Collins plays like Coltrane circa ’62: sheets of sound, bordering somewhere between chaos and ecstasis, Burrell and Wallace locked in like they were Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones, and Fripp as avant and out there as he’s ever been because that’s exactly where he needs to be, this recording hangs somewhere in that clearing where everything is revealed and yet held back simultaneously. Had they a sense that the end was near? They’re in the Motor City and the wheels are off the wagon. When people speak of how terrifying Crim’s music can be, this is what they are thinking of. And this take on 21st Century Schizoid Man is among my favourites.

Not so bad for a version of Crim I have had trouble appreciating. In fact, the more I listen to it, I do think it’s good.

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