bradman
Better than Steve
Posts: 5,116
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Post by bradman on Sept 26, 2019 4:38:42 GMT
Really interesting read, thanks.
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Post by respiratoryproblems on Sept 26, 2019 6:50:25 GMT
I knew there was a reason I preferred Jakko to Adrian Belew.
Is this thread somewhere to gather up as many burn quotes from their heroes as possible? Here’s the Jonny Greenwood one for example:
“We had a few complaints that the MP3s of our last record wasn't encoded at a high enough rate. Some even suggested we should have used FLACs, but if you even know what one of those is, and have strong opinions on them, you're already lost to the world of high fidelity and have probably spent far too much money on your speaker-stands.”
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Post by respiratoryproblems on Sept 26, 2019 6:52:46 GMT
One more from the same interview:
“I find this sound quality stuff both fascinating and ridiculous. It’s like the pixel resolution of digital cameras: higher numbers are better, but that discussion always pushes the actual photography to one side, somehow.”
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Post by dccblowup on Sept 26, 2019 14:16:48 GMT
Well, I bet Adrian Belew also thinks audiophools are full of shit. This
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daved
Better than Steve
Posts: 10,420
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Post by daved on Sept 26, 2019 15:35:25 GMT
The Belew era is the only KC I can listen to.
Sorry.
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Post by aggressivebeta on Sept 26, 2019 19:37:58 GMT
Post that over at the Hoffman forums and it will disappear, possibly along with your account
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Post by Boozin' Susan on Sept 26, 2019 19:49:14 GMT
Now somebody stick that into one of their King Crimson threads and see how long it lasts.
I remember when Michael Fremer chickened out of the James Randi Challenge. Good times.
What are the details of this? What was Fragile Fremer’s excuse?
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Post by krabapple on Oct 1, 2019 5:13:03 GMT
Jakko is correct about audiophilia of course. And he seems to be an interesting and clued-in guy. He's doing a great job fronting the latter day King Crimson.
But my god, some of his surround mixes are abortions.
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Post by respiratoryproblems on Oct 2, 2019 7:07:40 GMT
That sounds right up my street - I absolutely love Kew. Rhône. but somehow hadn’t heard about The Lodge.
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Post by dccblowup on Oct 2, 2019 13:41:24 GMT
My guess is his vocal range and desire to do the old songs with an English accent had to do with the hiring (plus he is a fine guitarist). Below would have a tough time pulling off Islands.
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Post by Brick Wall on Oct 2, 2019 14:29:37 GMT
Van der Graaf Generator
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Post by Sanjay Gupton on Oct 2, 2019 15:24:23 GMT
Now somebody stick that into one of their King Crimson threads and see how long it lasts.
I remember when Michael Fremer chickened out of the James Randi Challenge. Good times.
Fremer backed out of that? Why? I'd think he'd like an easy million bucks. He says he can hear the differences between cables, so why wouldn't he do that? Hasn't he even said he's done blind tests and been right over 90% of the time?
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Post by respiratoryproblems on Oct 2, 2019 17:52:17 GMT
It is always nice to hear that someone knows and loves Kew. Rhône. I think there are about twenty of us in the world. The Lodge album came and went around 1988. It is supposedly the sequel to Kew. Rhône., but I don't really see it, other than that it is Peter Blegvad and John Greaves (with Lisa Herman making only a brief appearance) doing another album together, which is good enough. It doesn't really sound much like Kew. Rhône., but what does?? It's much darker in theme and feel. It is so sublime you don't even initially take in just how sinister and unnerving the record is. What they did this time around was assemble a really tight band with Blegvad's brother Kristoffer as lead singer, Jakko Jakszyk doing the heavy lifting guitar parts (and hearing it lately, I only now realize just how much singing Jakko is actually doing here; it sounds like the entirety of those otherworldly, hazy wall of "background" voices that emerge from the murky depths is entirely Jakko), and Anton Fier on drums. In fact, I think they got the deal with Island Records for this album because of the success of Anton Fier's Golden Palominos, which Blegvad was also involved in. Of course Island didn't do a damn thing to distribute, much less promote, the Lodge at all, so after two gigs it ended. The album seemed to be dumped straight into the cut out bins for whatever the usual mysterious reason is. Probably some hotshot exec hoping for another Golden Palominos fluke college radio hit, then hearing this and saying, "What the fuck did we just pay for??" Weirdly, more than a decade later remaindered CD copies suddenly appeared everywhere. More weirdly, Peter Blegvad blamed Jakko for turning the album into a "heavy rock record" (it isn't), even though Blegvad was happy to have him play on several of his subsequent solo albums. John Greaves revisited some of the Lodge material on his Songs album, having Robert Wyatt sing the definitive version of "The Song." Of course it is Wyatt singing, so what is going to be better than that? (Wyatt also delivers equally astonishing vocal takes on "Kew Rhone" and "Gegenstand" on that record.) An odd thing I remember is that I had a friend who described Kristoffer Blegvad's singing on the Lodge album as "sounding like Adrian Belew minus the irritating David Byrne homage," which is exactly how Belew sang when King Crimson returned in the 1990s. I wonder if he had listened to the Lodge record? Who knows, maybe Robert Fripp heard it and said "I should just get that guitarist instead." Nice. Gonna give this a listen.
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Post by krabapple on Oct 4, 2019 22:54:26 GMT
Never heard his surround mixes (I don't listen to surround mixes anyway), and I have no interest in the King Crimson oldies revue, but good for him on having a presumably well paying, steady gig. I am sure he is doing a good job with it. I will give Jakko props for his guitar playing on that Lodge (Blegvad and Greaves) album. He is *really fucking good* on that. I have no idea how typical that record is of his playing, but he is utterly fantastic on it. There is not one trace of flashiness or wanking, no solos and no desire to do so. It's like if Van der Graaf Generator had a guitarist, it would be like this. At Radio City a few weeks ago, a third or more of the KC show was taken up with instrumental stuff from the 00s (barely familiar to me) and group improvs, relentlessly angular and difficult to play. Jakko handled the co-lead guitar of all that, plus guitar and vocals on the 'oldies' from the 80s and 70s, and '69, with no obvious problems I could hear.
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Post by krabapple on Oct 4, 2019 23:22:02 GMT
Now somebody stick that into one of their King Crimson threads and see how long it lasts.
I remember when Michael Fremer chickened out of the James Randi Challenge. Good times.
Fremer backed out of that? Why? I'd think he'd like an easy million bucks. He says he can hear the differences between cables, so why wouldn't he do that? Hasn't he even said he's done blind tests and been right over 90% of the time? One, he's full of shit (you can count the number of proper double blind tests he's done on one hand, if that), and two, instead of Pear Anjou cables that prompted the original challenge (Pear Anjou vs Monster cables), Fremer wanted to change the terms and use his own pair of Tara Evolution ($16,000) cables instead -- a model that has mysterious little doohickeys in-line at one end (they're 'directional' speaker cables you see). Various advisers warned him that this was nonsense, and at the very least they'd have to be measured first for flat frequency response. Then the maker of the Pear Anjous said he wouldn't provide cables for the test anyway because he doesn't trust Randi, and Randi said fuck it. I remember too that Stereophile (I vaguely recall it was the odious, smug Art Dudley, or perhaps editor John Atkinson himself?) made a curious and repellent ruckus about 'Randi' being a stage name and therefore why believe anything he says? Anyway, here's a Gizmodo article that lays out varying conflicting accounts at the time.
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