Hugh's Archive Deep Dive: 2
Robert Fripp outside 443 West 51st St, New York City, looking west towards 10th Avenue in summer of 1978.
Your house
My house
Your house
My house
This is not your house
Words that could easily describe the turnover of sublets and short-term rentals going on in Hells Kitchen, the mid-town district of Manhattan west of 8th Avenue, that was home to Robert for several months in 1978 but, as everyone familiar with the Exposure album already knows, they are among the ‘indiscretions’ gathered on Robert’s tape recorder that punctuate the album, in this case edited together to create the vocal track to the frenetic NY3.
Hell’s Kitchen, a neighbourhood with a shady past of gangs and slum dwellings, so named for its level of hellishness surpassing that of regular Hell. In the late 70s to an arriving musician of the small and mobile kind it was an affordable place to call home. The neighbourhood is characterised by older town houses mostly divided into walk-up apartments. To this day strict zoning rules preserve its low-rise nature with new development not allowed above 6 stories.
As the story goes, during the summer heatwave of ’78 an argument had broken out between a mother, father and their pregnant daughter who resided in one of the neighbouring units. It seemed to go on for hours and Robert, unable to sleep because of all the noise, turned a seeming disadvantage into an advantage by acquiring some ‘found sound’ that might be of use for future recording projects.
Writing in 2005 at the time of the Exposure third edition remaster, Robert noted: “I was told by my landlord, several years later, that the family arguments downstairs continued after the pregnant daughter became a mother.”
Having spent some time living in a loft on the Bowery a move uptown might have seemed like a move away from the energy of the music scene that was centred around CBGB but, with the Theatre District close by, the midtown west area has long been associated with an artistic community. The Actors Studio that nurtured so much famous acting talent is on West 44th, and the Manhattan Plaza, two 46 story towers, among the few high rises in the area and where highly coveted sliding scale tenancies come with a restriction stipulating that 70% of its residents must come from the performing arts - a rare exception to the market free-for all of Manhattan real estate.
Among a number of TV studios and comedy clubs in the area there were also two significant recording studios, the Record Plant at 321 West 44th, where in June 1978 Robert had added the guitar solo to Blondie’s Fade Away And Radiate, and the Hit Factory where he had produced Peter Gabriel's second album and collaborated with Daryl Hall on Sacred Songs, and was now working on his own solo album.
Inside the West 51st Street apartment
Since moving to New York in February of 1977 Robert had lived in several locations including at Waterside Plaza overlooking the East River. While there a scary collision with a yellow cab as he was crossing the street to take the subway to go to the studio had left him bruised but able to continue. But the move to Hells Kitchen placed him in literal walking distance of the Hit Factory which was three blocks away down 9th Avenue and thus he was ideally placed to work on the completion of Exposure.
Although a studio with the same name does exist in Manhattan today, the 353 West 48th location closed in 1981, the Hit Factory studio moving to West 54th until 2005. And with the Record Plant closing its doors in 1987, since then the entire face of New York’s music scene as it had existed in the late 70s has changed utterly.
The music places may have gone but what of the music?
Enter the Exposure band, about to be performing the album (with much encouragement from Robert) in its entirety over two nights in New York at City Winery and fittingly, among other dates, at the Daryl’s House venue in Pawling, NY.
Daryl Hall who sang on much of the original, only to have his record label RCA intervene to limit his contribution to two songs in case his association with Fripp harmed his pop credentials. One of those that had to be dropped was New York, New York, New York, repurposed on the final album master as NY3 with a recording of an arguing family from a hot night in Hells Kitchen taking Daryl’s place.
Check out the Exposure band that includes another of the vocalists from the original album Terre Roche, as well as King Crimson’s longest serving drummer Pat Mastelotto.
For the in-depth Fripp in New York experience across 32 discs Robert Fripp - Exposures boxed set
Also available: Exposure 4th edition CD/DVD or LP
Photos by Roberta Bayley.
