ELP Digest Wednesday, 17 Mar 1993 Volume 3 : Issue 6 The "Just part of the social whirl" Edition Today's Topics: ELP Radio Broadcast TONIGHT!!!! Check local stations! ELP Article - Circus Magazine Re: Live ELP:circa 1973 ELP request Karn Evil 9 [ Hi! A short digest this time but I wanted to get it out quickly since I've just confirmed that tonight's ELP concert from LA is being simulcast around the US. If you're interested, please read the first message of this Digest now. - John - ] Digest, mailing address, and administrative stuff to: J.Arnold@bull.com\ = for now, these are the same ELP-related info that you / want to put in the digest to: J.Arnold@bull.com Note: The opinions, information, etc. contained in this digest are those of the original message sender listed in each message below. They are not necessarily those of the mailing list/digest administrator or those of any institution through whose computers/networks this mail flows. Unless otherwise noted, the individual authors of each entry in the Digest are the copyright holders of that entry. Please respect that copyright and act accordingly. I especially ask that you not redistribute the ELP Digest in whole or in part with acknowledging the original source of the digest and each author. Thanks! ------------------------------------------------------------ To: arnold Subject: ELP Radio Broadcast TONIGHT!!!! Check local stations! Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 10:33:11 EST From: arnold Hi! I finally broke down and called the ELP 900 number when someone mentioned a rumor of an ELP concert being simulcast tonight from LA. The ELP info lione confirms that tonights concert from the WIltern Theater in LA will be simulcast (7:30 pacific time; 10:30 eastern time) on approx. 150 classic rock stations. I've had no luck finding a source in my local area but I just got a phone message from my brother who says he heard that it is going to be on a New Hampshire station (101.1 FM; I don't know the call letters) at 10:30. Unfortunately, I can't get this station at home and am hoping someone closer to their could tape it so those of us out of range can swap stuff for it. So, please check your local stations and see if anyone in your area is broadcasting it. If you find out, please let me know (especially if you tape it) and we can use ELP list as a way for people who get this news too late to get copies. So, start scanning those dials or calling those stations now! If I get a decent size list of stations carrying the broadcast by the time I leae ork today, I'll send the list out in hopes that some of you get it in time. Sorry for the late notice. - John - ------------------------------ Date: 04 Mar 93 23:05:13 EST From: Robert Adams <73277.56@CompuServe.COM> To: Subject: ELP Article - Circus Magazine FROM CIRCUS MAGAZINE ISSUE 154 APRIL 28 1977 ELP'S GRANDEST DESIGN ELP's music is the cosmic soundtrack for an ultraviolent age of endless struggle between man and machine. The buck-skinned savage with a brain full of computer data knifes the screaming mood synth to death. In the nearly three years since the appearance of WBMFTTSTNE many have wondered aloud if the long-suffering synths had finally exacted their revenge. Was Keith Emerson, who introduced the rock-classical fusion and the synth to rock, reduced to plunking piano in the back room of a pub? But the long hiatus has only been a period of study and preparation for a great leap forward. With Works, Vol.1, the trio stake out a legacy for the ages, to a time when rock will be no more than a memory. The first new material by ELP since BSS, WV1 is a sprawling, somewhat confused collection of solo and group efforts, a precursor to this summer's massive tour. ELP have never done things by halves and for this trip, their first tour since 1974, they are mounting their most spectacular live show ever. In addition to the sense-jangling blend of lights and sounds, antique gongs and futurist manifestos of classical masterworks, the show that never ends will include (on some stops) a 70-piece orchestra of hand-picked musicians, none of whom have experienced the nonstop craziness of a big rock tour. "It'll blow their minds," promises Manticore mainman Mario Medious, "they won't know what hit them. The band know they're not going to make any money out of it, even playing stadiums, but they feel it's their music, their lifework they're presenting. Only one thing's for sure, if it doesn't work they won't do it again." Keith's new music requires players who can do more than just read. "In classical music," KE says, "you have to read your parts rather like an office clerk, and I've found that, having worked with orchestras in America and England, it breeds a certain type of person rather like a bank clerk. I've been at concerts where I've seen guys reading their tennis results during a hundred bars rest. When I did the Sadler Wells gig with the Nice, I was amazed to look down in the orchestra pit and see all the music stands with crosswords on them, all filled in. Obviously, during the breaks they'd all got their puzzles out. I can't work with guys like that." The long-awaited WV1, which went gold immediately upon release, is an affirmation that has held ELP throughout 7 turbulent years. The double set allows a side for each player's solo efforts and a final side of new group material. Although their innate musical leanings are obviously different, their mutual respect for each other has held them together. Emerson the classicist, Lake the gentle romantic, and Palmer the prince of percussion each blow their minds out on their solo sides and come together in two masterworks on the penultimate ELP side. "There's no other musician who's got all the properties Greg has," according to Emerson. "He's got an incredibly good business head. And Carl freaks me out completely. He's always got his practice books and a set of sticks in his cage and he *never* stops practicing, on an ariplane, anywhere." Keith and Carl spent much of the last three years studying and improving as musicians. Palmer returned to the Guildhall School of Music and mastered the art of symphonic and tuned percussion, while Emerson studied with a private teacher to work out the technical aspects of performing and writing. The release of WV1 had been scheduled and then held back several times due to the band's desire to have every track as perfect as they could make it. "We tended to get so critical of ourselves," Lake reveals, "that we'd record something, mix it, take it home, listen and say, 'Well, I don't like it after all,' so we'd go back into the studio, do another version, and decide, 'Well, maybe the first one was best after all'." Emerson's solo contribution is his "Piano Concerto #1," in which puts aside his electronic hardware for his first love - the acoustic piano. The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Mayer, accompanies him. Although sprawling and too long, the "Concerto" is filled with exciting passages. The climax is a solo piano section in the "Toccata Con Fuoco," proving once and for all that Emerson measures up to the great classical pianists like Andre Watts, Vladimir Horowitz, Claudio Arrau, and Rudolf Serkin. While he is not yet a composer on the level of the masters he admires, his work is streets ahead of Jon Lord's pseudo-romantic excercises, for instance. The "Concerto" is Emerson's first large-scale orchestral work since "The Five Bridges Suite" w/the Nice, but eschews the rock band/orchestra fusion for a straight classical performance. This is music of oceans and mountaintops and if ELP tried to pull it off in, say, a stadium in Ft.Worth, the audience is either going to love it or riot and tear the place apart. Greg Lake, producer and lyricist for ELP, is also their in-house romantic. His simple, accessible love songs provide a breather in between KE's technical ecstacies. On his solo side he comes up with six of these beauties, recorded in London and Paris. The lyrics are mostly written by his old pal from the King Crimson days, Pete Sinfield, who also co-produced the side. "Lend Me Your Love Tonight," contains the immortal lines "Divine and universal whore complete me/the lamp of laughter dies too soon to live reflected in a spoon." "C'est La Vie" is basically a folky tune recalling "Lucky Man," with Greg's guitar and (of all things) an accordian prominent in the arrangement. "Hallowed Be Thy Name," originally intended for BSS, features all of ELP plus a 90-piece orchestra and a 100-voice choir. Lake has a lovely voice but for some reason had to drown it out in echo on "Nobody Loves You Like I Do," another ELP oddity. Carl Palmer makes the most of his solo side. CP has spent a considerable amount of time studying orchestral and tuned percussion since the WBMFTTSTNE tour. It shows. An arrangement of themes from Prokofieff's "Scythian Suite", titled "the Enemy God," features tympanies and orchestra (the latter arranged and conducted by Harry South). "LA Nights" is onme of the earliest pieces on WV1, recorded during a break on the last tour over two years ago. "I did the basic tracks in LA with Keith and Joe Walsh on guitar," CP recalls, "and we finished it off in London." The mood drums and spitting guitar rush furiously, like a 90-MPH ride down Sunset Blvd, breaking into some hard-driving rock. After LA Nights it's back to London for Bach's "Two-Part invention in D minor", a subdued mood piece featuring CP on vibes aided by the South strings. "Food For Your Soul," and the oldie, "Tank," are vehicles for CP's incredible speed and added power playing. This boy hasn't been lazing around his country mansion. He's just itching to get back on the road and try out his latest refinements on his self-designed percussion synth. CP, by his own admission, used to think of himself as just a R&R drummer, but judging from the music here, he's obviously gone way beyond. The 4th ELP side of WV1 contains the band's 1st studio recordings since 1973, and consists of 2 pieces: Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," arranged for the trio by KE, and the original group composition, "Pirates." KE has always excelled in his interpretations of classical pieces in rock format: witness such extravaganzas as their LP version of Mussorgsky's "PAAE", Ginastera's "First Piano Concerto" (which became "Toccata" on BS) and, of course, their early arrangement of a Copland piece, the "Hoedown" on Trilogy. "Copland heard my arrangement of Hoedown and he was knocked out by it," recalls KE. "The only thing he said was why hasn't I played the triplets in a certain bar. We'd altered it with a very finely dotted quaver because it didn't swing the other way. I get great enjoyment out of playing other people's music. When I did Ginastera's piece I went to his home in Geneva and played it for him and he said it was eactly the way he'd envisioned it." Copland will probably enjoy the new treatment of FFTCM also, especially when the writer's royalties start rolling in. "Pirates" is an extended masterwork featuring ELP augmented by the prestigious Orchestra de l'Opera of Paris. The basic tracks were done in Montreux; the orchestration (conducted by Godfrey Salmon) was added in Paris and, finally, Lake's vocal was superimposed in London. It's bombastic cinema for the ears with themes so rich and vivid that you can almost see the water splashing off the ship bows - almost see the pirates drink a toast to the devil in goblets of stolen gold before setting sail for Eldorado. ELP view WV1 (also recorded and ready is WV2, a single LP entirely performed and written by the band) as their legacy to the ages. The tour, featuring music from their entire career, will be recorded for a possible live set, and the band is looking forward to touring again. "It's hell", says KE, "the first gig after a long layoff I go out there like a zombie, like someone being pushed out from the wings yelling 'No, I can't.' Then you're stuck out there in front of all those people. But after the first gig is over I'm fine." With their reputations secure for the ages, there's only one more thing for ELP to do: a version of Haydn's "Farewell Symphony." During the performance all the members of the orchestra get up one by one and go home. The piece was Haydn's way of asking his patron for a vacation. In the ELP version, one by one, pieces of equipment will leave the stage and go home until nothing remains but a couple of knives and a guitar jack. <> ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 11:40:10 -0500 From: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) To: arnold@cyclades.ma30.bull.com Subject: Re: Live ELP:circa 1973 >"Clarence L. Gordon" writes: >For those of you who do not realize this, but I just bought the live album >"Welcome back my friends...Ladies and Gentlemen...Emerson,Lake & Palmer"!!! >I found it as a Japanese import and a local cd store called CD Warehouse >here in Sunnyvale, CA. I asssume any store that can order imports can get >it. Be prepared for a steep price though--$42. In case anyone is interested, Ranjit Padmanabhan (ranjit@netcom.com) still lists "Welcome Back..." in his CD pricelist at $34.95. I have no association with Ranjit except as a *very* satisfied customer. His prices and service are both excellent. Dan //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ | Dan Barrett -- Dept of Computer Science, Lederle Graduate Research Center | | University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 -- barrett@cs.umass.edu | \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------ Date: 05 Mar 93 19:57:05 EST From: Joe Gerardi <72721.73@CompuServe.COM> To: "J. Arnold" Subject: ELP request Hi All: I just found out about this list, and I wanted to say hello and see what was available here. I have been an ELP fan since 1970 when the first album came out, and have played keyboards in many bands that have done ELP since 1973. I got to see the Black Moon tour 3 times: Garden State Arts Center (New Jersey) in July, Kingswood Music Theatre (Toronto) in August, and Massey Hall (Toronto) in January. I have a large collection of ELP sheet music, so if anyone has any questions about that or equipment, feel free to ask away. I'm not really familiar with how to use these Internet lists (I'm accessing via CompuServe E-Mail) so if any of you have any suggestions or tips, I'd greatly appreciate them. ..Joe ------------------------------ Received: by BANYAN.UMMED.EDU with VINES ; Tue, 9 Mar 93 13:05:04 EST Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 12:51:53 EST From: Brian=Podesta%COMPUTER%UMASS@BANYAN.UMMED.EDU Subject: Karn Evil 9 To: j.arnold@bull.com If have a question re: Karn Evil 9 Has there been any facts relating to how the name of this song was created? My thoughts: Karn Evil 9 - a play on the word Carnival. With the words representing KE - Keith Emerson. Secondly - I wonder how much Lake was thinking about the Beatles tune "...Roll up - Roll up for the mystery tour.." KE9: "..Roll up...See the show" Thks. ------------------------------ End of ELP Digest [Volume 3 Issue 6] ************************************