Re: New Adrian Belew Interview

[Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

Here's the comments I submitted to the online mag: 

The Power to Repeat

As someone who's been in love with King Crimson since I discovered Adrian's work on Laurie Anderson's Mr. Heartbreak album, I'll take the risk of disagreeing with him about TPTB. I don't think it's nearly as interesting as TCOL, which, IMHO, is one of their strongest albums. Part of my issues with it are the little voice synth stuff happening. It totally grates on my nerves for some reason. Not sure why he's dragging out lyrics from an older solo Belew tune and running them through a Digitech Vocalist. Surely you could think of something new, no? And eyes wide open is so sweet, I need to pass on it almost every time. Maybe one of the reasons I'm bitter is that I bought this album twice for some reason. First time as a "teaser" album, then almost the identical album in a slightly different "finished" form. That was kind of lame. I'd loved to have heard really rough stuff on the teaser, or totally different mixes. Oh yeah, I also bought a lot of these tunes on the Level 5 album as well. With all that said, I think TPTB is still a great album and many of the songs have made it into my iPod where they pop up from time to time and amaze and inspire. If you're looking for an entry to KC, get one of the 3 80's albums or TCOL. I think they're better representations of great song writing and interesting playing.

Mark Sottilaro