35 years ago this week Tony Levin, Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew and Bill Bruford set up their equipment in the CV Lloyde music store in downtown Champaign, Illinois to work on the follow-up to Beat.
The process of making an album is never a straightforward affair. Even at the best of times, when a group is riding high and firing on all creative cylinders, the process can still be something of a struggle. So when a band is in a less-than optimal state, things can be tough. Very tough indeed. As Tony Levin notes, “In the studio it’s always a battle; wielding guitars like weapons to fight the clock, the headphone mix, budget, record company demands - we struggle to capture some of the magic that happens effortlessly every night in front of an audience.”
The magic which Levin refers to was conspicuously absent by the time the group reconvened, three months after their successful European tour, for the writing sessions at Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in January 1983.
In other circumstances the thirteen days allocated to the sessions should have been enough to establish the foundations of the next record. However, by the end although there was a series of interesting fragments and motifs to sift through, nothing at that point that could be described as definitively pointing the way forward.
In his notes to the 2002 KCCC 21 release edited from the sessions, Fripp offered this perspective on why the group had failed to make significant progress at that time.
“A perilous moment for an established band is the writing and recording period that follows a successful album and tour. The momentum of touring, even touring that tires and exhausts the players, propels band life forwards. Audiences cheer; new situations and places and people provide distractions from the inevitable frictions that arise between touring musicians who spend more time with each other than with their close families and friends.
Reservations, compromises, pet notions and clichés that have been put on hold during the development of a beginning repertoire, are now aired. Why not play like I used to play? Why don’t we try this bright idea?
King Crimson’s failure to recognise or develop the material available from these Champaign-Urbana sessions of 1983 was paralleled 14 years later by the Nashville sessions (CLUB13) of May 1997. Why? Perhaps because…
1. There was no one in charge. This is a feature of King Crimson’s particular way of working: not autocratic; not democratic; not anarchistic; aspiring to equity while not quite recognizing that equality is better sought in the commonality of aspiration and commitment than mere functional capacity.
2. A gradual dis-integration of the relationships in the band.
3. A division of income that was equitable to the letter but failed to encourage those doing most of the compositional work.
So:
1. Without a single directing individual;
2. Without a group individuality that is available to a coherent group;
3. Without the equitable distribution of writing royalties;
the writing and recording process is likely to go off-course; or less likely to get on-course.
The equity intended in the equal division of publishing royalties is fair where there is an equal contribution from all members. After all, why encourage an excellent player and non-writer to make a dud contribution simply to get more publishing? The original Crim intent in 1969 was to separate musical and financial choices, that a musical decision may be seen to be free of any financial self-interest; and to acknowledge the equality of commitment.
Adrian felt that as the main writer of songs – melodies and lyrics – who also contributed his instrumental part, it was unfair that he received only 25% of the publishing. I believe Adrian was right.
This inequity-pursuing-equity continued into the very recent history of DGM. The Venal Leader could not be seen to be receiving more than other members even though his share of, at least, the planning and organisational work was significantly greater; and David Singleton felt he should not receive more than one of the musicians, even though his salary became around 20% of market rate. Clearly, DGM has not been a career option for the purely ambitious. And this is true also of much of King Crimson’s strained history.”
With the results of the Champaign-Urbana sessions being inconclusive, Belew returned home to finish work on his second solo album, Twang Bar King, Fripp prepared to embark upon a string of Frippertronic concerts in the US, while Bruford and Levin went into their respective session work. The group reconvened in the UK in May and June, while Fripp and Belew met up in July for further writing session. However, it was not until the sessions at Bearsville Studios in November 1983 that Three Of A Perfect Pair finally fell into place.
In 2014 CV Lloyde, which had been part of downtown Champaign for 147 years relocated to a business park in Urbana where they are still trading.
The site of the old CV Lloyde building today
