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."