This summer is about to get manic! YIPEEEEEE! It’s festival season!
There are so many great shows coming up. MASPALOMAS PRIDE, EXMOUTH FEST, ALICANTE, The LETS ROCK festivals, UPTON HOUSE, IRLAM LIVE, ASHBOURNE and MANY, MANY MORE!
……hopefully we will have that much-publicised heat wave too.
It’s my birthday in two weeks and I’m flying all over the place. Gran Canaria Pride next week, then on to Menton, France for a couple of stolen days with my hubby.
My birthday present this year is a trip to Seattle, to see the opening three KING CRIMSON shows at the MOORE THEATRE.
I fly out crack of dawn on the 11th June after playing the Longlands Club in Middlesborough and then return on the Thursday for the ASHBOURNE FESTIVAL on the Friday.
It will be good to be out there. GET IN YOUR CAR AND DRIVE with the Humans v KC needs to be rehearsed and played.
My hometown has become a hub of musical scoundrels and international talent since the Fripp/Cox team have persuaded our creatives to move here.
This means many social evenings and adventures into the arts. I am used to going out on my own in the past because Fripp has never been around, now, suddenly I am part of a team, arranging trips to the theatre and to concerts.
I am loving the energy it has brought into my life.
Let’s say the conversations never veer away from the intriguing. Even though 9 out of 10 times the topic is King Crimson but that’s always been the case, it’s Fripps only topic of conversation, until I flash a video of BABY METAL in his face and he goes “OMG WHAT THE F—- IS THAT”, and I say…”Progression?”
Over Easter we had Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and Bill Rieflin with us…….it was wonderful and as wild as we Fripps manage to get. In fact we were on the brink of being very Rock n Roll. Roll over Motley Crew….tables/TV’s n’ plate smashing comes next.
In fact when the band returned to rehearsals at the Millennium Studios on the Monday, a little worse for wear, their sound technician, Chris Porter commented……”good weekend then, I can tell.”
Chris Porter is staying in town too. Chris produced George Michael (Careless Whisper), Elton John, Take That to name a few. He is now part of the KC team.
Chris and I have a lot in common, our paths have crossed lots in the 80s. It’s good to have him at the dinner table fighting my corner when the KC’s become like teasing big brothers.
Living with Robert Fripp cannot be construed as a convention of normality. He practices guitar at least 4 hours a day in his den in the cellar and it isn’t “plinkerty plinkerty M.O.R.”…….it’s more like a mouse on a harp after it has taken Benzedrine.
Then you add Bill Rieflin to the household and suddenly you not only have a demented mouse on the harp in the cellar but another demented mouse on the keyboards in the attic.
And on the middle floor is me.
This house is industrious.
In my office/studio I am writing away for the Humans and Crimson Queen 2 plus learning lines for the films SWIPERIGHT, TO BE SOMEONE, DREGGS , HOUND……. AND because in November I am about to play one of the most formidable Queens in England’s history there’s a lot of historical facts to swat up on too…
No wonder a visiting builder once told his starstruck parents when they asked what we were up to these days “theses guys are the busiest people I have ever met!”
If thought-waves had volume we’d be so bloody loud.
I’d like to say there is equality in the house. I’d like to say gender doesn’t inflict/imply/influence the outcome of debate…….but it F—— does…I am outnumbered!
Funnily enough the visiting Americans are super respectful…..but put Fripp and Rieflin together and we have a “what do you know little sister” routine going on….that’s until they want food/washing/shopping and patching up……..that’s the equality on Fripp/Cox home turf.
BUT….I am not complaining because psychologically I have the upper hand.
(Fripp I know you’re reading this).
A friend pointed out that this kind of complacency from my boys comes, not only from them being comfortable with me but deep down they know they NEED me, deep down they know they CAN’T function without me.
For example they think the washing machine is a salad dryer.
Last weekend Frippy and I spent the day with Brian Eno learning as much as you can in one day about Russian Avant-garde composers. The first thing Eno did when I arrived was show me a picture he had saved on his phone of a pair of shoes he had bought his daughter. This moved me so much. To see some one like Eno being a dotting father. It was also really lovely to see Fripp and Eno together again……they fit together so well.
A couple of days ago I took the team to see Laura Mvula at Cheltenham Festival. She was fantastic. So accomplished for such a tender age. Her mother sat proudly on the row behind us. Laura was nervous no one would come to see her but the tent was packed with an audience in rapture and on their feet for the encores. She was great.
For someone as creative as Laura perhaps it is better her talent isn’t confined by record sales, but instead she is an innovator, a culture maker, inspiring others around her.
I would certainly see the events in January as allowing her creative spirit free to roam fresher and more exhilarating possibilities……go girl…the world is yours.
Right, I’m off to run some lines and to become a year older……..see you out there.
HELLO THERE!