“Who plays like that? Nobody”
“If I’ve learned one thing, it’s never let people write songs about going on their fucking holidays.”
Robert Fripp
It’s early on the morning of January 6, 2010 and somewhere between Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead, Robert Fripp is looking out of his hotel window at the heavy overnight snowfall and his snowed-in car. He’s in this neck of the woods to work with Steven Wilson, who is remixing King Crimson’s Islands for the then-current 40th anniversary series.
Fortunately, help is at hand in the shape of Jakko Jakszyk who lives nearby and rings up Fripp. In addition to working on remixes of his old album, the guitarist is also engaged on a new project with Jakszyk that will eventually be released as A Scarcity Of Miracles. Given the scarcity of snow ploughs or shovels, Jakszyk’s offer to drive Fripp over to Wilson’s is gratefully accepted.
Dropping Fripp off at Wilson’s house, Jakszyk goes home to work on tracks he recorded with Robert and Mel Collins, who had been over the previous day before the snow. Aside from a guest spot on King Crimson’s Red, this is the first time Collins has played directly on a full album session with Fripp since Islands in 1971.
At the appointed hour Jakszyk drives over to Wilson’s house and waits for Fripp to emerge. Upon entering Jakszyk’s car, Fripp doesn’t even say hello but instead launches off with his normally demure Dorset accent now exasperated in tone and laden with expletives as he recites some of the Peter Sinfield’s lyrics to Formentera Lady, the opening track from Islands.
‘Here O-fucking-dysseus charm-ed for dark fucking Circe fucking fell/Still her fucking perfume lingers, still her fucking spell.’ He turns to Jakko and sighing heavily says, “If I’ve learned one thing, it’s never let people write songs about going on their fucking holidays.” Convulsed with laughter, Jakszyk says to the man behind one of his favourite King Crimson albums, “Oh Robert, don’t spoil the magic.” To which, Fripp, digging deeper into his native West Country accent, smilingly replies, “Plenty magic still left there, boy!”
Alongside the obvious humour of the moment, what this encounter also highlights is the fact that at the time Jakszyk taxied Fripp from Steven Wilson’s home, the events and associations surrounding the making of Islands was still capable of eliciting a deep, emotional response in Fripp despite being nearly 40 years ago in his past. Fripp once said that period from 1970 to the summer of 1972 was something he’d rather not go through ever again.
For a long time, the -era band were very much the forgotten King Crimson, a group overshadowed by 1969’s groundbreaking debut and eclipsed by era that followed. This part of Crimson history was represented by an album hurriedly recorded on the hoof in between gigs and, until the 2000s, a live legacy that could only be found on the infamous , whose dubious bootleg sonics meant that Atlantic Records declined to even release it in the country where it had been recorded. In just two years they released three albums that were by turns accomplished, challenging, bold, innovative, quixotic, and, for all their differences and idiosyncrasies, unmistakably Crimson despite the turbulence that was evident had you been following the pages of the music press at the time.
