Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 16 Nov 1992 09:32:58 EST
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Robert Fripp called me "clueless"

There's a new King Crimson Xmas box set called _The Great Deceiver_, four CD's
of the _Starless and Bible Black_ band live in concert, 23 Oct 73 thru 30 June
74 (the second to last concert for this band, presented in its entirety). The
68-page booklet picks up where the booklet from _Frame By Frame_ leaves off,
including all the reviews of _Frame By Frame_. I wrote two of those reviews,
and apparently I nettled Fripp, because he went on to say:

The Boston critic and music writer Michael Bloom, in a review of "The Essential
King Crimson," suggested that in the Scrapbook to that set I adopted a rather
hard-done-by tone in terms of my dealings with musicians and management. While
not wishing to become a member of The Whine Society, regarding the management
position Mr. Bloom is uninformed and, as might have been said by the Crimson
members on these present records, Clueless and Slightly Slack.

I confess I'm proud to have nettled Mr. Fripp into singling me out for public
ignominy! All things considered, I feel like my response should be: "That's
MISTER Clueless to you!"

As to the music, I think it's swell. There are a number of improvs, maybe 40%
of the nearly 5 hours running time-- although some of these improvs are really
extended intros to relatively amorphous songs like "Exiles," to which Fripp
assigned titles and extra CD index marks. The playing is tremendous-- Bruford
and Fripp are both at the top of their game, and David Cross was considerably
cleverer live than on record. (Wetton doesn't particularly turn me on here--
but it's possible I'm retroactively holding Asia against him.) There are good
versions of all the favorites from _Starless_ and _Larks' Tongues_, including
the original improvs from which "We'll Let You Know" and "Providence" were
excerpted. And there are some curios: performances of "Cat Food" and "Peace:
A Theme" (Glasgow 1973), quite astonishing, and the never before released
"Doctor Diamond." I think this set is gonna be more valuable to the hard core
Crimson fans than last year's "Essential" overview box (unless you've already
got all this stuff on bootlegs of reasonable quality :-)

I have some complaints, which I'll state briefly: (1) No Jamie Muir-- why not?
(2) Related to that, why cover barely eight months of the band's two year run?
Something like half the material comes from their last week, leading up to the
farewell concert at Central Park, which has been bootlegged all over the world.
The set list didn't change much from night to night. (3) In consequence, there
is some redundancy. Fripp begs our pardon in the liner notes for including two
different takes of "The Talking Drum," which I don't mind at all because that
tune was basically a skeleton for a jam. But he doesn't say why we needed to
hear four takes of "Easy Money," a song which has come to exemplify for me all
of John Wetton's weaknesses, and the guitar solos weren't all that stunning.
(4) Fripp's insufferable liner notes. He blathers about how "these young men"
(i.e. the group at the time) had no idea what they were grappling with, like he
knows better now. Robert Fripp, read my lips: this band in its "ignorance" made
infinitely better music than you've been able to muster since.
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