50 years ago on this date, Greg, Bob, Pete, Mike, and Ian decided to name their new band King Crimson.
Momentous days are filled with mundane activities rather than any lightning bolt epiphanies. Thus Ian McDonald records in his dairy for January 22nd 1969 that he got up at three in the afternoon and washed his hair.
After picking up Peter Sinfield and a plugboard the pair drove to the Fulham Palace Road café for a rehearsal with Greg, Bob and Mike. Sometime after 10.00, Ian had dropped Bob off home and went on to a friends place to hang out and listen to some sounds on the John Peel show. It was after 4.00 a.m. in the morning by the time he got back home, an unremarkable, fairly typical day in the life of this young musician.
Almost as an afterthought, he adds to his diary, “looks as though we are called ‘King Crimson,’” the very first time the name appears in McDonald’s journal of the time.
