Tag: Steve Vai

Belew/Levin/Vai/Carey

Not to limit myself to a single answer to this question, but Beat is my favorite currently-active band. I hope (they’ve hinted) that they’re working on an album of original music. The primary work here, covering the music of King Crimson’s 80s ouvre, lends itself to a lot of things that I resonate with in terms of a creative approach to rock music.

They have the deepest pocket of any rock band I can think of, and I love their mathy-ness. They’re algo-rhythmic®! I hear the Beatles in this music. King Crimson’s next phase would be more overt about the connection, but the basic sonics of this band harken back in the melodicism, the collaborative writing process between Fripp and Belew, and the exacting approach to arrangements.

On the other hand, I can note the similarity of “Neon Heat Disease” to “Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish” by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band off of Trout Mask Replica. So.. is 80s Crimson a perfect amalgam of Revolver and Trout Mask with a forward-looking technical bent? I think the case could be made by plunking the needle down on this album.

Tony Levin is the second vocalist on this, and he’s also taken over keyboards from Fripp. He also provided many of the photographs of the band that grace the inside of this triple gatefold and booklet. His presence in this re-imagining of the original music is vital to its success.

Steve Vai’s replacement of Fripp works because there’s a line he treads between copying and originating. He has to honor that huge presence that would otherwise be missing without disappearing as a separate entity. One early indication of how he approached this is his solo in Heartbeat. It sounds like electric erhu. That’s a really cool way to interpret Fripp’s playing and take it somewhere else entirely at the same time, by adding an unexpected third element. There’s nascent world-music ambitions in the 80s Crimson music sourced here, and adding sonics that suggest new contexts is absolutely in keeping.

What Danny Carey adds most significantly here is that he plays all of these songs on a set of acoustic drums. I think the music from the later source albums is greatly improved by this one change. I don’t recall seeing any electronic drums in Carey’s setup from the show (you can correct me if you know different) and the essential liveness of the sounds he provides raises all of the music from the second and third albums up to the sonic level of the first album. I get that Bruford wanted to push the envelope on the sound palate he was using, but this live recording makes an excellent case for the irreplaceability of percussion sounds coming from skin and bone, not curated electrons.

This is one of my most important objects from my move back to analog music. I love vinyl in all its machine-age glory. Carey’s drumming here is evidence for my case. Music must be made by flesh and bone and all of the worldly materials. I fully believe that, and here’s some strong evidence.

–

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment and a like, and as always, subscriptions are welcome and encouraged!