Re: projekt2 review sat.iman huntington L.I.New York

["T.W. Hartnett" <hartnett.t@apple.com>]

>I have seen several incarnations of fripp projects but this one takes
>the cake. Musicianship and artistry in a improvised style that made me
>and those I was with wish it would continue all night. What a show! What
>a band! Fripp and the fernandes sustainer gtrs and tons of other stuff
>sounded great. adrian on vdrums never ceased to amaze with sounds and
>pure energy. But the trip of the night was watching trey gunn wrestle
>with the gigantic 8string bass. Visually, a very interesting show.
>sonically another revelation provided by another incarnation of KC.
>Adrian and trey signed cd's and chatted politelly with the crowd after
>the show. RF was no where to be found. I think he had fun though. we
>sure did. One last point: the inter media arts center which was the
>venue for this gig was perfect. It seemed like the balcony of an old
>movie theatre customized to work as a music hall. General admission
>insured the most die hard fans get the best seats. but in reality
>everyone had a good seat and a good time. catch these guys if you
>can!!!!

Wow!  Sounds like you had a great time.  Contrast with the NY Times 
review below.  Seems even the big boys encounter some of the same 
problems that we've discussed regarding experimental music and audience 
expectations.  I wonder if Mr. Watrous would have similarly criticized a 
black band that drew a predominantly black audience:

Fine-Tuning Appeal for a Certain Audience
          Projekct Two
          Irving Plaza

          Sociologists looking for the demographic connection between 
bands and their audiences have a good test case in Projekct Two, a King 
Crimson spinoff group featuring Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew and Trey Gunn. 
At Irving Plaza on Wednesday night, the musicians attracted a medium-size 
audience of virtually all white men between 30 and 40. Casual inquiry 
found that wives and girlfriends hated the music and after one hearing 
vowed never to return.

          Maybe it's the music's athleticism, its self-interested
virtuosity, that alienates women. Through two short sets, the three 
musicians soloed and soloed, working a tired post-apocalyptic musical 
landscape. The tempos mostly stayed the same, and the music, grinding and 
rumbling and mechanical, sometimes had a few sampled words that filtered 
through it all.

Mr. Fripp, playing guitar, and Mr. Gunn, playing an eight-string 
guitar-ish instrument, improvised over Mr. Belew's drums. All three used 
all sorts of samples and synthesizers to change the sound of their 
instruments. The sound of organs and synthesized strings and pianos 
wafted in and out of the music.

          Mr. Fripp and Mr. Gunn often swapped solo space, with Mr. Gunn
sometimes holding long, distorted notes as a background for Mr. Fripp's 
buzzing note flurries. Then the two came together to play metallic lines 
passing as melodies. With all the simulated instruments available, the 
three musicians created walls of sound. But there was no getting away 
from the
feeling that somewhere, under all the blur and noise, they were taking 
more of an interest in the technological possibilities of their 
instruments than in actually thinking through the problems of making 
music demographically generous.
          -- PETER WATROUS