Author Topic: RIP Greg Lake.  (Read 2061 times)

RIP Greg Lake.
« on: 08 December, 2016, 08:33:20 pm »
For some context you may want to also look at this thread:- https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=100657.0

By a sad coincidence, I took delivery of the remastered CD of Brain Salad Surgery today.
I wanted to put the whole of Karn Evil 9 onto my Ipod so that I could listen to it in the car (or at home and not to have to faff about turning the LP over after part 1. Not that my turntable is currently plugged into the rest of the system.....).

Not the best of days since, like Jurek, ELP were part of my musical education.
I remember the Alan "Fluff" Freeman show on Saturday afternoons. He had "Welcome back my friends..." as a jingle and that's what led me to seek out ELP.
Ironically, the Fluff show also directed me towards punk courtesy of New Rose by the Damned; prog rock was everything that punk opposed yet I got into both through the same radio programme.
In the same delivery was a Savages CD. They're about the most punk band that I can think of atm.
Small world.

Yes, RIP Greg.

Martin

Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #1 on: 08 December, 2016, 09:32:12 pm »

Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #2 on: 08 December, 2016, 09:50:43 pm »
A lot of prog is waiting to be mined for 'Game of Thrones' style soundtracks. Epitaph by King Crimson is a prime example. This is obviously the vocal  off the 8 track master, with some other instruments, because they were ambitious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfgD3LJ6Xb8

I went to a mate's party in Manchester about 10 years ago, and a Filipina friend of his brought their Karaoke machine along. It had Epitaph on it, and we had a go at singing along, a forlorn task.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer was the first album I bought with my own money, in 1973, when the prices came down after our EEC entry, VAT being a lot less than Purchase Tax. I was 14.

Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #3 on: 08 December, 2016, 10:00:48 pm »
A lot of prog is waiting to be mined for 'Game of Thrones' style soundtracks. Epitaph by King Crimson is a prime example. This is obviously the vocal  off the 8 track master, with some other instruments, because they were ambitious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfgD3LJ6Xb8

I went to a mate's party in Manchester about 10 years ago, and a Filipina friend of his brought their Karaoke machine along. It had Epitaph on it, and we had a go at singing along, a forlorn task.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer was the first album I bought with my own money, in 1973, when the prices came down after our EEC entry, VAT being a lot less than Purchase Tax. I was 14.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer  was a sh!t hot album. Very much of its time.

Jaded

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Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #4 on: 09 December, 2016, 12:08:57 am »
I saw ELP at the Wembley Empire Pool.

They were loud in the toilets.
It is simpler than it looks.

Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #5 on: 09 December, 2016, 12:22:44 am »
Yes, musicians hate those toilet gigs.  I saw them in Newcastle, where they had a stage all to themselves.

Jaded

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Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #6 on: 09 December, 2016, 12:38:43 am »
It was safer on the ears to be in the toilets.
It is simpler than it looks.

Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #7 on: 09 December, 2016, 10:27:13 am »
I believe you!

Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #8 on: 09 December, 2016, 11:27:01 am »
The NME review of the Wembley Arena gig makes for interesting reading. http://ladiesofthelake.com/cabinet/nme74.html

Stadium rock was in its infancy, and ELP were in the forefront.

Quote
Somehow as Keith and Carl positioned themselves among their equipment it was like the machinery was more immense than the man and had to be boarded carefully, in the fashion of astronauts placing themselves in a space capsule. Swiftly the spikey, leathered, bucanneer [sic] figure of Emerson struck the two opening chords of  “Hoedown” and take-off was successfully completed.

In execution the show was faultless. Somebody said later it might as well have been a film of the show, perfected some while back. At headlong speed, Emerson’s manic, spiralling solos were note-for-note exact, mostly the slides were beautifully apt, and the spots pounded the stage with colour. All was triumphal in the extreme.

So much so everybody in the hall appeared glazed by it all. It was odd. Only when Emerson took a portable keyboard, spurting blobs of fire into the front 30 rows, with a muscular roadie to help him on and off stage, did anybody edge forward in their seats.

This all happened some way into “Tarkus”, which, played in full is a rather exhausting piece to follow. It’s changed a little over the years, with Lake playing more guitar, but still seems rather heavy-handed and laborious in parts.

Wisely they followed it up with a lighter spell led by Lake, featuring “Still You Turn Me On”, “Take A Pebble” and “Lucky Man”.The band could benefit from more of these spells of tranquility and contrast.

Lake is also an excellent songwriter, and has one of the few strong, pure English voices in rock. “Lucky Man” was really effective with his voice echoing around the auditorium.

All three then wandered off into a spell in which Emerson led them on piano through various conglomerations of jazz and classics until at one point they sounded like a supervamped trio at the Talk of The Town or somewhere.

Finally they headed back towards the heavier areas of techno-rock with the suite from “Brain Salad Surgery”, a piece that varies from strength to over-embellishment.

Palmer gave a spectacular drum solo, rattling around his extravagant set-up, battering two huge gongs, pulling  a cord with his teeth  that rang an enormous bell and eventually revolving together with his complicated apparatus.

The piece ended with music encircling the building and Keith’s Moog sort of blowing up.

Before returning for an encore they waited until the applause had lasted maybe five minutes, Emerson then telling the audience, “We really needed to hear that.”

The Astronaut reference is interesting. Other groups had 'Space' shows, Parliament/Funkadelic for instance. The images of prog bands at their mixing desks coincided with the height of the space race.

robgul

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Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #9 on: 09 December, 2016, 11:33:12 am »
I heard I Believe in Father Christmas 3 times before 0830 this morning - I played my copy, it was then on the radio at home then as I sat down in the doctor's waiting room at 0820 it was played on the radio there.

To me it has to be in my all-time top 5 Christmas records along with the offerings from Mr Wood, Mr Holder, Mr McGowan/Ms McColl and Mr Crosby.

Rob

Jaded

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Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #10 on: 09 December, 2016, 03:26:26 pm »
The NME review of the Wembley Empire Pool Arena gig makes for interesting reading. http://ladiesofthelake.com/cabinet/nme74.html


It is simpler than it looks.

Re: RIP Greg Lake.
« Reply #11 on: 09 December, 2016, 04:29:50 pm »
The NME review of the Wembley Empire Pool Arena gig makes for interesting reading. http://ladiesofthelake.com/cabinet/nme74.html



They did take their time renaming it. The pool went out of use in 1948, and it became the Wembley Arena in 1978. I remember seeing Frank Zappa there in 1988,