Prime Time is coming like a ghost town.. :(

TAE

All you have is now
Just sayin....damn dead mans party ...all things must pass....dust in the wind :laughings: how many other song titles describe the demise of this once quite entertaining place in cyberspace?


 

Well, there's this.
Then there's this;



And for the cynical, just for good measure, there's this:



Or was that just a little naughty ?:eek:
 
And for the cynical, just for good measure, there's this:





Or was that just a little naughty ?:eek:


Oh Damn That was a good one...... Greg Lake was such a bad ass... Loved that album totally changed my musical direction and songwriting back in that place and space in time.
 
I too adore that album but there are two bits on it that do absolutely nothing for me, never have done, despite me giving them chances over a couple of decades. One is the second part of {the instrumental improvisation} "Moonchild." It's like their slightly more challenging take somewhere in between the direction the Stones veered in with "Gomper" and the Beatles with "Revolution 9." It's a great piece up until then.
The other one that does nothing for me is....."Epitaph." I know it's Crimson blasphemy but I've just never liked it. Whereas everything else on the album {Except the aforementioned bit} is just out of this world, "Epitaph" sounds like it's trying to be but just never gets there. Interestingly, Greg Lake stated that when he was older, whenever he'd hear "Epitaph" it reminded him of how inexperienced as a singer he was at the time, or something like that.
Oh well.
 
I too adore that album but there are two bits on it that do absolutely nothing for me, never have done, despite me giving them chances over a couple of decades. One is the second part of {the instrumental improvisation} "Moonchild." It's like their slightly more challenging take somewhere in between the direction the Stones veered in with "Gomper" and the Beatles with "Revolution 9." It's a great piece up until then.
The other one that does nothing for me is....."Epitaph." I know it's Crimson blasphemy but I've just never liked it. Whereas everything else on the album {Except the aforementioned bit} is just out of this world, "Epitaph" sounds like it's trying to be but just never gets there. Interestingly, Greg Lake stated that when he was older, whenever he'd hear "Epitaph" it reminded him of how inexperienced as a singer he was at the time, or something like that.
Oh well.

Maybe because at the time I was more a drummer than a keyboard player I just was amazed by the whole damn thing. I turned 16 in September of 69. I had a wild hippie type cousin who was in the La La land "in crowd" ...ya know love in's and all that whacky stuff that was happening and he turned me on to an 8 track of the album...and to getting loaded.:eek:...What was even more cool as I had become friends with an incredible keyboardist who's parents owned a Hammond Organ store and he hipped me to the mellotron and a lot of what was going on musically on the album.

I love the whole dang album and do a short version of moon child that I dig doing ... I played that tape till it wouldn't play...many an evening out cruising in my Van listening to it with friends while partying...good memories...

Epitaph probably because of the time with the fear of being drafted and shipped off to Vietnam hanging over my head was a breath of sanity into the insanity that was going on so I hold it dear to my heart. Lake may of not liked his vocals but to me his performance was fantastic and filled with sincere emotion he took some daring vocal ventures there IMO. I got to see him a few times over the years with ELP and was always a fan.. I actually got to see Crimson in 1971 and later in the 80's with Adrian Balew on board...that was bad ass...
 
a Hammond Organ store
In my life, I've had two Hammonds and a fake ! The first one, I saw an ad in a local paper and went out to some village in the middle of nowhere almost at the dead of night where this old guy and his wife lived and I had a look. The guy's wife looked decidedly uncomfortable with me being there and when I listened to the organ, my first thought was that it didn't sound like the thing Jon Lord played ! It sounded like one of those jolly pub "knees up" type of organs, a sound that I hate. But I thought that once I got it home, I'd have forever to tinker about with it. I would have had a long play while at the guy's house but it was so late and I really picked up on his wife's nervousness {not to mention my organ playing was shit and I was embarrassed}, so I just handed over the cash, he helped me get it in the minibus I drove there and off I went. It took an age to get it into my flat alone when I got home !
The next day, I realized I'd made a big mistake because no matter what I did, the only thing about this organ that was remotely connected with Hammond was the metal label. It was a heap of crap really. I don't think I recorded a thing with it.
A few weeks later I located an actual shop that dealt in organs in a strange little village called Chobham and this time, I went by day, had a good long look around, had a good play on the Hammonds there and made my choice. I had also taken a friend to help me transport it ! It was a great organ and I had it for the next 8 years. I would've had it up to the present day {I got it in '93} but I had to sell it when my wife was expecting our first child ~ space issues. My piano and Fender Rhodes went at the same time. I more than got my moneysworth out of that organ, though. As for the fake, well, that's the B4 virtual organ from NI. It's basically just the VSTi Hammond and it has loads of sounds, only a few of which are great. But I only need a few and one can customize it which says it all, really. I wouldn't get rid of it {unless I had space and could get a real one again}.
hipped me to the mellotron
I'm not entirely sure at which point I really became a devotee to the ways of Tron. Tons of songs I loved had mellotron in them but I didn't realize this for decades. But by about '96/'97, I must've been a tronlover because I heard about a guy that fixed and sold them near to where I lived. I never did find the place because although the road he was on was in this article I read, I couldn't find any shop. There were loads of warehouse type buildings there and it was one heck of a task finding it and I didn't. And no one I asked knew what the heck a mellotron was. When I'd sold my authentic keyboards and was replacing them with modules {back in 2001} I was never impressed with the mellotrons in the modules. There'd usually be only 4 or so sounds and they weren't impressive. But once I heard MTRON {by GMedia} I was like "Yayy !!!" It's really good and has more sounds than I'll ever need. I got Mike Pinder's mellotron Samples too and the sounds there are pretty much the same as MTRON although there are some variations and some wicked Chamberlains too. Pinder was instrumental in the development of the mellotron when it nefariously found its way to my hometown of Birmingham in the early 60s, via Streetly electronics.

and a lot of what was going on musically on the album.
Crimson's use of the mellotron on the album is pretty groundbreaking but what I love about them on this debut is their sheer variety. It's like they had taken note of where psychedelia was going and the way it was morphing into progressive rock and pulling in influences from folk, jazz, nascent heavy rock and classical as well as avant garde and found that with Ian McDonald able to turn his hand to a few instruments, Lake and Fripp also on guitar with McD, there weren't many places they couldn't go ~ sometimes in the same song !



many an evening out cruising in my Van listening to it with friends while partying...good memories...
When my kids and I used to do long journeys, I'd often have it playing, along with "Lark's tongue in aspic" and Yes' "Fragile." To this day, there's a host of songs from the 3 albums that my older son {due to turn 18 in a couple of weeks} loves. From the debut he loves "21st Century Schizoid man" and "The court of the Crimson king." Back in the early 2000s we rocked many a street to those tunes !
Lake may of not liked his vocals but to me his performance was fantastic
Despite not being a fan of the song, I'd have to agree with you.
As for Lake, I don't think he disliked his vocals on it. He actually said "As to how well it was sung, well, it was a job.When I listen back to my vocals from that time they sound to me very naive ~ all the singing techniques that I didn't find out about until later aren't there and I wince a lot and think 'Oh fuck, you could've done that a lot better'." Mcdonald on the other hand thought "It's my favourite track on the album. It's just a beautifully structured song and a perfect vehicle for Greg. In my opinion, it's Greg's best vocal performance ~ anywhere."
 
In my life, I've had two Hammonds and a fake !

All I can say is I was one lucky mofo to be weaned on hammonds by easily the most knowledgeable and baddest assed 15 year old Hammond player alive in 1969. It started out as a friendship of pot smoking and chasing a couple girls..Then I saw him play and was just blown away! Then I started delivering them with him for some seriously good cash in 1969 $5 a delivery DAMN! Then I started playing drums for him doing 3 dog night and Lee Michael's stuff...holy shit he was good...He started showing me riffs, said I had a great ear and should try and learn...the rest was misery.. In a matter of a year I knew all the models of hammonds what the differences were..Leslies were being made 10 miles from where I lived in Pasadena...It was La La land so there were a ton of musicians and M3's could be bought for a song...and they sound bad ass through a leslie...

Flash forward 5 years at 21 I quit my job ..sold my van and bought my first rig..... A Hammond M3 with a 910 leslie, A Peavey Musician amp with 4 12's, an Elka string ensemble and a Roland SH3 synth...Rock Stardom here I come! @ 1974 that whole rig was just under $4K that was shit load of money back then but I was committed..or should have been..:eek:

Well it took a few years to get in a band that could actually do something but we did it..It was crazy times here in LA. Think of this Van Halen, Quiet Riot ( with Randy Rhodes) and Motley Crue not to mention all the punk acts like X and John Doe were all local acts playing in San Gabriel east of LA...I mean back yard parties and beer bars... There were about 3 bands that were really good at what I would call "prog rock bands" with my band "Cheap Day Return" being one of them...None of us got signed...VH was the first local "Rock" band to get signed CDR was the last local band to play with them after they were signed...That was a night to remember...

Below are a picture and a video of me back in 77 with the rig I described earlier...you kind of get an idea of what we were up to... sure had a ton of fun in the almost 5 years we did our thing...then it was off to the salt mines for the next 40 years :eek:

Casablanca 1979.jpg



So literally I pretty much gave up playing once my girls were born... 35 years later a good friend who was huge fan of the guitarist in that band was dying of lung cancer and asked if we'd put on a jam for him....Dave Macias the guitarist who was standing still and ripping it up in the previous video put this impromptu jam together with a bass player and drummer he'd worked with in the past in a cover band...I came in just to jam...In this song mind you I had never played the song once in my life nor ever jammed it with them just faking it....but we took it to a fun place... not bad for a jam

On the Hammond thing I ended up owning a B3 and actually hauled it around when I started playing again in my mid 50's ...then I saw a band using a nord and was sold...sold the B3 got my first Nord and the rest is just pure joy... I now use a Nord Electro 4 and a Yamaha MODX 8 ...That'sa MOX8 in this video.....

 
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LOL you can really see the rig in this one...One of my nick names was Mot I was never a skinny guy and those asshats in the band all were...that is the skiniest I ever was ever!



4 years later and a little cocaine infusion...you can really hear the Hammond in this one...This was one of greatest gigs...Headlining the Hollywood Palladium
 
Happy news year MO FO's! In carrying on the original theme of this thread ( Songs that fit in with the slow death of "Prime Time") ... I must ask.......Why do the birds go on singing?

 
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