Fripples and Not a Bit Slack: Two of a Perfect Trio

Story by Bill Kopp

When is a band King Crimson and when is it not? While this perhaps isn’t the question of the ages, it’s an issue that looms large when presented with an evening’s entertainment in the form of a show date on the Two of a Perfect Trio tour. Featuring the separate and combined stratospheric talents of the Adrian Belew Power Trio and an outfit calling itself Stick Men, this three- or four-set concert presents all manner of progressive, boundary-pushing music, and includes no less than three members/ex-members of the legendary King Crimson. (And the other three [younger] players are no slouches, either.)

Over the course of its existence (1969 forward; the band is currently on its umpteenth hiatus), the formidable and influential King Crimson has had a revolving cast of characters. Sometimes the band lineup would change completely between albums. Only guitarist Robert Fripp has appeared on every King Crimson release, but Fripp takes great pains to make clear that he is not the group’s leader. Nearly twenty musicians have been — at various points in history – full-fledged members of the band; household names (well, in prog-leaning households, anyway) who have left their mark within the band include Greg Lake (the band’s original bassist/vocalist who left to find fame with Emerson and Palmer); Ian McDonald (later to found Foreigner, of all things); Boz Burrell (taught to play bass by Fripp, Boz eventually joined Bad Company); John Wetton (later of UK and Asia); and Bill Bruford (formerly of Yes).

And those are only a few Crimson alumni, covering the period pre-1975. In the midst of that decade, Fripp disbanded the group (to the displeasure of Wetton and Bruford) to work instead as what he called a “small, mobile, intelligent unit” (or something like that), collaborating with edgy artists such as Brian Eno.

After developing his Frippertronics tape-loop guitar style (a better name might be Enotronics, but that’s an issue for another day), releasing a diverse and challenging solo album (Exposure) and touring with a punk/dance outfit called The League of Gentlemen, Fripp convened a new band around 1980. Originally called Discipline, this quartet version of King Crimson brought back Bruford on drums, but — for the first time – included a pair of American musicians. Singer/guitarist Adrian Belew had worked with Talking Heads and Frank Zappa, and brought a newfound song-based sensibility to the band (not to mention the ability to make a guitar sound like a charging rhinoceros). Journeyman bassist/Chapman Stick player Tony Levin performed the dual role of holding down the low notes (a la a traditional bassist) and acting in many ways as a “third guitarist” with his innovative Stick work.

That 1980s configuration of King Crimson was the band’s longest-surviving lineup: releasing three albums (Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair), the quartet arguably pushed Crim’s musical boundaries farther than any previous lineup, and actually sold records in the process. Unsurprisingly, that lineup, too, would eventually go on hiatus.

Some ten(!) years later – we’re up to the mid-nineties now in our little saga – the four men returned to active Crim duty, but now the band was augmented by two additional players: Trey Gunn (Stick) and Pat Mastelotto (drums). Described as a “double trio” (two guitars, two Sticks, two drum kits) and with a stunning (even by Crimson standards) versatility, this lineup held together for four years before the band split into a confusing array of sub-groups (generally referred to as fraKctalisations [sic] or ProjeKcts [sic again]). Some of these offshoots were song-based, some were avant-garde, improvisational, atmospheric, ambient, etc.

The group would re-re-re-form for a four-year period at the dawn of the 21^st century as a quartet (Fripp, Belew, Gunn, and Mastelotto, with Levin designated as an “inactive fifth member”). Then, a by-now-predictable hiatus; then a new lineup (but no new music) from Fripp, Belew, Levin, Mastelotto and Porcupine Tree’s Gavin Harrison.

Then — you guessed it — another hiatus. During (and between) all of these formations, reformations and periods of supposed inactivity, all of the various characters remained busy with projects (if not projeKcts) of their own. Which, finally, brings us to present day.

Guitarist Adrian Belew has toured regularly in recent years with his own Power Trio; though following the instrumental configuration (guitar/bass/drums) established by Cream and others, the Power Trio nonetheless moved in knottier, more avant-garde directions. But Belew’s technical brilliance (often expressed via MIDI-enabled guitar) is tethered to the ground by his innate sense of melody, and a song-based approach that keeps his musical explorations from getting too out-there for relatively mainstream tastes.

The 2011 lineup of Belew’s Power Trio includes a pair of young, jaw-droppingly talented players. Bassist Julie Slick released her self-titled progressive instrumental album in 2010, and plays in a thundering, solid yet busily inventive style. Drummer Tobias Ralph is equally talented and innovative behind the drum kit.

Tony Levin remained and remains busier than any other three musicians one might care to name. Having played on well over 500 albums to date (including releases by Peter Gabriel, Alice Cooper and John Lennon), Levin’s ability to apply his expertise to any sort of musical project is nothing sort of astonishing. Tony always brings exactly what is needed: if it’s straight-ahead, precise rhythm section work that’s needed, that’s what he delivers. If it’s exploratory, head-swirling lines on the Chapman Stick, Levin’s the go-to guy.

Levin’s latest project (well, one of many; he also has a fascinating new self-titled album with Yes drummer Alan White and avant-garde guitarist David Torn titled Levin Torn White) is Stick Men. In this outfit he’s joined by Austrian musician Markus Reuter, who plays a device of his own invention called touch guitar. A bit similar to an instrument played by former King Crimson member Trey Gunn, the touch guitar looks much like a standard guitar, albeit with the control knobs placed conveniently on the “wrong” side. The instrument is like the Stick (it’s tapped), and Reuter holds it nearly vertically; that, plus his quiet, unassuming onstage demeanor makes him look like a 21^st century prog-rock Bill Wyman.

While he got his professional start in relatively mainstream pop band Mr. Mister, drummer Pat Mastelotto is a progressive drummer of the first order. With a style that is at once all his own yet reminiscent of a cross between Bill Bruford and Jamie Muir, Pat applies his skills to a “standard” drum set augmented with electronic pads, various handheld accoutrements (some of which he uses in place of drum sticks) and a sense of mischief that recalls Frank Zappa’s bands.

Both trios – the Adrian Belew Power Trio and Stick Men – have included King Crimson pieces in their onstage repertoire. And between the six players, three are (or were) members of that group. Combine the two trios and you have – yep – a “double trio.” And Markus Reuter can, when he wants to, sound exactly like Fripp on his touch guitar.

So when is a band King Crimson (or, at least, a ProjeKct) and when is it not? And where did the idea for the Two of a Perfect Trio tour originate? “I think it was me,” says Belew. (“I think it was me,” quips Mastelotto.) “We did a band camp, and from that, it seemed natural to say, ‘Okay, let’s see if we can do more with this.’ We talked for the last year or more about this idea of sharing tours. And as we got into getting the band camp organized, we realized, ‘Hey: we’ll be pretty much there, pretty much ready to go. Maybe we should do it then.’”

“And,” Pat Mastelotto adds, “it seemed pretty obvious that with the two trios double-billed, we could bring everybody out. We were lucky when the ‘kids’ (Julie Slick and Tobias Ralph) came up while we were doing the camp, So we got a little bit of rehearsal in.” (“That’s the only rehearsal we had,” Adrian Belew interjects.) Owing to “a bunch of visa issues,” Markus Reuter wasn’t present for those rehearsals.

Pat Mastelotto doesn’t see a huge difference between the drumming style he brings to progressive works like King Crimson’s “B’boom” and the technique he uses on more pop-oriented material for other artists. “I’m the same guy,” he says. “I was listening to King Crimson when I was 12, 13 years old. It’s [about] the song and the material,” he says, giving an example. “There used to be this thing called a record store,” he laughs. “And you used to think, ‘Where is this record going to sit?’ So if I go work for an artist that I don’t know, I think, ‘does she want to be next to Bjork or Sheryl Crow?’ So,” he continues, “it wouldn’t be appropriate to play some of the things we do in Crimson in a pop band.”

Still, there’s overlap in terms of influences, and that pervades Pat’s work in interesting and unexpected ways. “There’s a Mr. Mister song, ‘Kyrie,’” he notes, referring to that band’s 1985 Billboard #1 hit. “The drums don’t come in [for a while] and then they bash in. That’s a Crimson thing. That’s the influence of being a kid listening to Crimson, a band that wants to scare ya,” he laughs.

“I’m silly enough,” reflects Adrian Belew, “that even when I was a kid listening to music, [I thought] that avant-garde tastes and pop music tastes were compatible. I listened to Stravinsky at the same time as I listened to the Beach Boys. To me, it could all go together somehow, and that’s what I’ve always tried to do.”

“Although,” Belew continues, “Sometimes you do — for the listener at least — separate it out a little bit for the listener, to make it clear for them that, ‘This is what this record is about, and this is not what that record’s about.’”

Speaking of Stravinsky, in concert Stick Men often play an arrangement of “Firebird Suite” that is both faithful to the composer’s intent and decidedly modern and heavy. The Chapman Stick plays a large role in that. Though the instrument is not well-known and is still thought of as exotic, Tony Levin has been working with the Stick for thirty-five years. “I got it in 1976,” he recalls. Tony quickly gained proficiency on the Stick: “It’s very different [from bass] but I didn’t have a hard time with it, because I played the bass with a tapping technique before I got the Stick.” Four years later, he brought it to King Crimson. There “it seemed to come into its own,” he says, “because King Crimson seemed like the right setting for that sort of progressive instrument.”

“I’ve played a lot of different styles of music,” says Tony. “And I approach the music and play what’s appropriate. I don’t think about trying to bring one style into the other. But,” he adds, “I don’t even think intellectually about the music. I just listen to it, and play what seems right for it. Except for classical, where I play what it says on the page,” he laughs.

In the later configurations of King Crimson, Robert Fripp’s role on record increasingly took the form of an atmospheric style, one closer to his Soundscapes projects than to the bruising, metallic shards of sound found on, say, 1974’s Red. When the six players on the Two of a Perfect Trio tour convene onstage to cover classic Crimson material, Adrian Belew says that the arrangements are “pretty close” to the originals. “We did a little bit of editing on ‘Frame by Frame’ and ‘Dinosaur’ and so on. Markus kind of takes over Robert’s parts whenever needed.” Reuter ably handles what Belew characterizes as “some of the fast running lines, and some of the Soundscape-type things.”

“I was already playing – in the Trio – six or seven King Crimson songs,” Adrian says, “So I had already pared them down a little bit.” He chuckles inwardly and notes that “They sound a lot better this way; ‘Dinosaur’ is back to where it should be.”

Our conversation took place backstage at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville TN, the third night of the Two of a Perfect Trio tour. Sound check – open to VIP ticket holders – was brief and allowed little in the way of fine-tuning. “I look forward to the day when we get to do a big, long sound check,” says Belew. With long drives between gigs most days on this tour, that day may not come soon.

On the subject of live sound mix quality, all three players agree that they haven’t paid much attention to technological advances; to a man they believe that the room often has more to do with the sound quality than anything else. (Most would agree that the Bijou is a good room.) And in the end, the players onstage have the most influence over it. “I remember when I saw Jimi Hendrix,” Pat Mastelotto recalls. “He had Billy Cox [on bass] and Mitch Mitchell [on drums]. You couldn’t hear a note of Mitch Mitchell; all I heard was guitar. But the act before them was Buddy Miles. And I heard every fuckin’ note of the drums. So it impressed me as a kid: ‘Oh, that’s the way a guy cuts through so you hear him in the house.’”

For the Two of a Perfect Trio tour, the combined groups reach back into the King Crimson catalog, often performing “Red” and selections from Discipline and Beat. “A lot of what we’re trying to do here,” Belew says, “is [VROOOM and THRAK era] double-trio material, because we finally have that instrumentation.” After the Power Trio set, another trio (Belew, Levin and Mastelotto) comes out and does “Three of a Perfect Pair” and “Sleepless.” Then they’re joined by Markus Reuter, covering Fripp’s parts and creating an alternate version of the 80s Crim lineup. Finally, they’re joined by Julie Slick and Tobias Ralph for the double trio material.

So — again – is this endeavor King Crimson, a ProjeKct, or something else? Belew gamely attempts to unpack the issue. “The new Jakszyk, Fripp and Collins album, A Scarcity of Miracles, which Tony plays on – that’s a ProjeKct. We don’t call this [tour and configuration] a ProjeKct. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been in King Crimson for thirty years — Tony has, too – and it’s a celebration of that. But it’s not a ProjeKct, and we’re not necessarily planning on putting out any records or anything.” So for fans – of King Crimson and/or of one or several of the players involved – this Two of a Perfect Trio tour is a rare opportunity to witness this musical spectacle. The final date on the tour is scheduled for Asheville NC’s annual Moogfest festival, October 28-30.

On the subject of King Crimson itself — whatever that name means in 2011 – Belew offers an update. “I’ll tell you what I know. Robert [Fripp] has talked to me a few times, and he’s said that for the next two years at least, he’s going to be dealing with litigation. [He’s] trying to get money owed to him, and he doesn’t have the time to concentrate on music. So for at least the next two years, he has said to me, ‘I’m not going to be doing music.’”

“Right after he said that,” Belew adds with a laugh, “they put out the new Jakszyk, Fripp and Collins album! So, I don’t know. We just wait around and find out.”

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Part of my recent experience seeing the Two of a Perfect Trio show in Knoxville TN had a fly-on-the-wall quality to it. A few vignettes stand out in my memory, but including them in my feature/interview (above) wouldn’t have made any sort of narrative sense. So I’ve collected these random, mostly-unconnected bits here instead. File most of them under “Life on the Road.”

It’s Okay. I’m Supposed to Be Here
Being a music journalist sometimes requires carrying oneself with an it’s-okay-I’m-supposed-to-be-here air; anything less can cause you to miss the show or interview. Ill-prepared promoters and/or tour managers often forget to put your name on the guest list as promised. That was not the case here (the Two of a Perfect Trio tour has a great publicist), but one must always come prepared for an untoward eventuality.

In this case, I arrived at the venue (the historic Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville) a few minutes before the appointed 4pm time. The doors were locked, and nobody was around. To the left of the main doors was a single door marked OFFICE or somesuch. It was open, so I went in. Not only were there no people inside, the half-dozen or so rooms/offices (on a few floors) were pretty much bereft of furniture. It looked as if the place was recently abandoned.

On the ground floor of this empty office area, there was a split door made of heavy steel. Sort of like what I used to call a Mr. Ed door, it was split horizontally around waist height. The bottom section was locked. But the top section wasn’t: I opened it to find the Bijou’s lobby on the other side. I hopped over the lower half into the lobby and headed toward the auditorium and stage. I passed a sound tech, and gave him that well-practiced it’s-okay-I’m-supposed-to-be-here look, and kept on walking. I met up with the tour manager and band right on time.

Bedtime Lullabyes
My interview would take place after sound check, which meant I would have a couple of hours to unwind after the drive on winding mountain roads. So I settled in to a seat a few rows back from the stage and silently observed the six band members arrive (one by one or in pairs) and begin setting up their own equipment. A pair of house technicians was on hand to assist, but for the most part everybody handled their own equipment. Refreshingly non-rockstar-ish, I thought (I’m sure they would have appreciated roadies, of course).

By the time all of them had arrived, touch guitarist Markus Reuter had finished setting up his own system (a single touch guitar with no backup instrument in sight; amplifier; laptop on a stand). He took a brief break, exiting the stage with laptop in tow. Reuter returned a few moments later, holding his laptop. The screen was bright and glowing, and I eventually realized that the full-screen image on it was his wife back in Austria, via Skype. Markus took the laptop around to each of his tour mates, allowing each of them to say hello and chat briefly with his wife.

When Mrs. Reuter spoke to Tony Levin, she made it clear how much she missed Markus, imploring Tony to “take good care of him” on the tour. Tony smiled and thanked her for the use of her husband for the tour. He then playfully assured her, “I take good care of him. I play him quiet, soothing music every night before bed!”

A Drain Below
While Adrian Belew was setting up his system (the centerpiece of which is his Signature Parker Fly MIDI guitar), one of the other players mentioned to him the stories-high sign on the building’s exterior. It name-checked many of the well-known artists who had graced the Bijou’s stage. They all had a chuckle, noting that his name had been spelled Adrain [sic] Belew. From there, the conversation devolved into silliness, with band members subjecting their names to wordplay. The clear winner of these was A Drain Below.

Spontaneous Percussion
Once Pat Mastelotto got his drum kit set up, one of his fellow players – I can’t recall which now – came over to him and made eye contact. Pat started clapping out a beat: one of those impossibly tricky time signatures one finds on some King Crimson songs. I dunno: 12/7 or somesuch. This other player proceeded to add a sympathetic clapping beat to that. Wordlessly, Power Trio drummer Tobias Ralph joined in. The result was a no-words, no-drums “prog rock drum circle.” It went on for a few minutes. I wish I had recorded it or taken a photo.

That Was No Lady
Once all the band members were set up, and immediately before sound check began, Adrian Belew’s wife came onstage and slipped some cash into Adrian’s pocket. (It looked like a $20 but I can’t be sure. Spending money for dinner is my best guess.) She proceeded to approach each of the other five members — each busy and preoccupied to varying degrees. She was trying hard not to draw attention to herself, and she clearly didn’t want to disturb the musicians while they were setting up.

She gingerly approached Tony Levin from behind, silently stuck a bill into his pocket, and quickly retreated. Tony jumped a bit and joked, “Who was that lady?” Not missing a beat, Adrian quoted the old vaudeville line: “That was no lady. That was my wife!” Laughs all around.

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger…Marquee
At the tail-end of my interview with Adrian, Pat and Tony, I asked Tony Levin what it felt like to be the only non-billed member of the touring Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe group in the late 1980s. For him, it’s about the music. “I don’t care about the billing at all,” he shrugged. “My mind was occupied on that tour by trying to fill the shoes of Chris Squire, without sounding like a guy who’s just copying Chris Squire.” Adrian Belew waggishly added, “There was no room left on the marquee for his name, anyway!” Pat Mastelotto chuckled, “You should’ve seen the posters when the tour was Tony Levin, Alan Holdsworth, Terry Bozzio and me. ‘Mastelotto Bozzio:’ that’s a lot of fuckin’ o’s!”

Belew, Kopp, Levin, Mastelotto: The next supergroup?

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