Fripp & Eno & Absinthe

Article 1146 of alt.music.progressive:
Newsgroups: alt.music.progressive
Path: mork!snow
From: snow@netcom.com (Tim Szeliga)
Subject: Re: King Crimson
Message-ID:
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 92 13:56:08 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
References: <1992jul9.055634.13699@husc3.harvard.edu>

In article <1992jul9.055634.13699@husc3.harvard.edu> verbit@coolidge.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:
>In article "Stephen P. Marting" writes:
>
>>> One more thing: Someone who's well-versed in Fripp's solo works... could
>>> you give me some recommendations?
>
The ever-popular "Swastika Girls" of Fripp and Eno. The cover depicts close-
cropped Fripp and Eno sitting in a Hall of Mirrors, on clear lucite furniture,
Eno playing solitaire with a deck of pornographic playing cards.
The cover is much better than the album. The music is atonal,
highly repetitious -- if it wasn't such High Art, you'd think it was
just two guys messing around in a studio with tape loops.

During spring break of my junior year, a sadistic friend and I discovered
his late father's wine cellar hidden in the basement (the lock never
broke, but the hasps came right out with a crowbar). We discovered scotch
from the thirties, Italian wines and vermouth, lots of anisette and Sambuca,
and three bottles of absinthe. We had the scotch on the first day, until
his mother and older brother found us sprawled on the sofa, playing
backgammon and drinking whiskey twice as old as we were. The good
stuff was confiscated, leaving us with the cordials, the liqueurs and the absinthe.

We spent the next two weeks on the sofa, playing acey-deucey, working our
way through the absinthe and listening to Fripp and Eno and "June 1, 1974"
(Eno, Ayres, Nico). The absinthe, made in Italy during the Mussolini regime,
was authentic, with wormwood and alkaloids that are probably still embedded
in my kidney stones. The effect is a cross between mescaline and morphine.
DeCarlo would switch the speed on the old entertainment console to 78rpm,
which meant that, at least, Swastika Girls would be over sooner. Sometimes,
in particularly perverse mood, he would set the speed to 16 2/3 and the
torment would last twice as long. It did not effect the quality of the music,
merely its duration.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tim Szeliga
Voice: (612) 725-3259 BBS: (612) 725-3230 (8N1)
UUCP: apple!netcomsv!frost!tim Internet: tim@snow.nohrsc.nws.gov
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"He needs, without knowing, those old Renaissance formulas equating C-sharp
minor with longing, sudden modulation to E major with a glimpse of heaven.
How dare an obnoxious greaser four years younger than he turn the Civil War
tune "Aura Lee" into the Hit Parade standard "Love Me Tender," without a
wiggle of concern for the underpinning chordal message? Either this language
has no content, or tonal tastes have festered, fixed for 100 years or more.
Both options terrify him."
The Goldbug Variations
Richard Powers