Omg............uk

[MasterCylinder]

Still going through all my old classic CDs & tapes.......................here is another definitely in the top five.

Found the original UK from 1978..........what a fantastic piece of work..........surely every prog-dog in the world loves this stuff.........can you believe this is 31 years ago ?

I put in in the changer and started it loud.............by the time we got to NEVERMORE and MENTAL MEDICATION, I was screaming at my wife from the other room............"turn that fu##er up.........it sounds great".

Can't wait to get home from work today just to crank it up again !

[Troy]

31 years ago. yeesh.

It would have been 1979 or 1980 for me. I was a courier, driving 300 miles a day, all over CA. Every day I had a 1.5 hour layover in fabulous Stockton. I'd grab dinner and hang out. I remember finding this on 8-track in a little record store on one of the layovers. It was a $2 cut out. I popped that sucker in the car player when I continued on the night portion of my run. It didn't leave the player the rest of the night. I still consider it one of the most important albums in the genre and play it fairly frequently when I'm driving at night.

[MasterCylinder]

" I still consider it one of the most important albums in the genre"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Troy and I agree on much music............not everything, of course...............but I believe the quote above reflects the Holy light of Gospel truth.

[Hyfi]

Still going through all my old classic CDs & tapes.......................here is another definitely in the top five.

Found the original UK from 1978..........what a fantastic piece of work..........surely every prog-dog in the world loves this stuff.........can you believe this is 31 years ago ?

I put in in the changer and started it loud.............by the time we got to NEVERMORE and MENTAL MEDICATION, I was screaming at my wife from the other room............"turn that fu##er up.........it sounds great".

Can't wait to get home from work today just to crank it up again !

You beat me to it. This morning I grabbed the UK - Live from Boston, 1978. I planned to post about it as soon as I got to work but have been side tracked since getting here. What a fantastic Live disk this is.

Track 4 Carrying No Cross sounds a whole lot like some BrandX off of LiveStock.

I am pretty sure I got this from BarryL back when I put together The Many Skins Of Bruford. The disk includes bonus tracks including one that did not make it to the disk which is Forever Until Sunday which was originally done between tracks 4 and 5.

Rock On MC, still riding that same wave!

[BradH]

31 years ago. yeesh.

Yeah, that's disturbing. I was a junior in high school in Colorado Springs when this came out in Winter of '78. It was love at first sight. I'm thinking, cool, a little bit more of King Crimson with Bruford & Wetton - and Holdsworth is there so that'll be killer after hearing Bruford's Feels Good To Me in heavy rotation. I'm always thinking of the combinations of musicians and the resulting sound. But this was fully the equal of Crimson albeit in a more fusion direction. Later that summer I was in Colo and my old school buds from Oklahoma saw this line up at a festival headlined by Van Hurlin. (Turns out Eddie was a big Holdsworth fan.) I was sick with jealousy. When U.K. became a 3-piece on Danger Money it didn't strike me as all that great until I saw that lineup opening for Tull and was knocked out. Then it made sense in a big way. But that first U.K. album is the last of the truly great prog albums, the last that holds up to the best of the genre. It's a standard classic for me. Every few months I'll pull it out (the disc) and play along on my trusty Carvin LB-70. Massive fun to play, just a blast.

[MasterCylinder]

I'm thinking, cool, a little bit more of King Crimson with Bruford & Wetton - and Holdsworth is there so that'll be killer after hearing Bruford's Feels Good To Me in heavy rotation. I'm always thinking of the combinations of musicians and the resulting sound. But this was fully the equal of Crimson albeit in a more fusion direction.

I may get slammed for this..........but, if I'm reading you correctly, I agree that first UK was CrimsonPlus...........the Wetton vocals..........the Bruford touch...........even the violin.........but for my money, I also prefer Holdsworth over Fripp..................in addition, not to knock Crimson, but these compositions and arrangements were extremely well thought out...........and I LOVED the fusion direction.

[Hyfi]

I may get slammed for this..........but, if I'm reading you correctly, I agree that first UK was CrimsonPlus...........the Wetton vocals..........the Bruford touch...........even the violin.........but for my money, I also prefer Holdsworth over Fripp..................in addition, not to knock Crimson, but these compositions and arrangements were extremely well thought out...........and I LOVED the fusion direction.

I'll join ya with Haldsworth over Fripp. I can remember seeing him with Jon Luc Ponty and never lost respect for his talents. It was very close to the UK release year.

[Troy]

Yeah, I saw the 3 piece UK open for Tull too. Thought they stole the show from an aging Tull band. It's also the only time I ever saw Bozzio play live. Man, what a monster. Anderson stole Jobson for Tull because of that tour.

[3-LockBox]

This one eludes me...I mean, it's OK, but it never blew me away the way it does some of you. It has its moments, but I don't dig the keyboards on sections of this album at all.

The John Payne era Asia is almost a dead ringer for this group, if any of you are interested.

[Finch Platte]

The John Payne era Asia is almost a dead ringer for this group, if any of you are interested.

Asia=UK?!? Nope.

[BradH]

I may get slammed for this..........but, if I'm reading you correctly, I agree that first UK was CrimsonPlus...........the Wetton vocals..........the Bruford touch...........even the violin.........but for my money, I also prefer Holdsworth over Fripp..................in addition, not to knock Crimson, but these compositions and arrangements were extremely well thought out...........and I LOVED the fusion direction.

Funny, I never made the violin connection until you mentioned it but that makes sense. I guess I would've called it Crimson Equal instead of Crimson Plus, although I suppose you could make a hell of an argument in U.K.'s favor. But there's a raw aggression to Red that's unique in the prog canon and, before that, Lark's Tongues was itself a turn toward a fusion direction. I've always thought of Lark's as being a little influnced by Mahavishnu Orchestra, (I did make the violin connection that time). Bruford definitely saw Crimson as an oppurtunity to play jazzier stuff compared to Yes. He also saw U.K. as a fusion band but Wetton & Jobson did not. Hell, he even thought Yes was going to be a jazz group when they started. So he was always pushing more and more in this direction. Which is odd because I agree, U.K.'s stuff was better constructed and arranged compared to Crimson, not something always associated with fusion.

On another note, I think Bruford's next album after leaving U.K., One Of A Kind, is as good as anything we've talked about. It's like a perfect fusion album - no crappy vocals from Annette Peacock this time, the return of Stewart and Berlin, and even some killer songs left over from the U.K. tour like "Sahara of Snow" and "Forever Until Sunday". Beautiful. Right up there with Clarke's Schooldays or, I would argue, Brand X's Do They Hurt? (which nobody else seems to heart as much as me).

Btw, I remember a press release in '76 talking about a trio formed by Wakeman, Wetton & Bruford. Being a bunch of progheads, we were throughly jazzed about that but it supposedly fell apart because the press exposed it or some bs reason. Bruford later said he never had any intention of playing what the other two wanted and "Beelzebub" from those sessions later turned up on his first solo record. Notice how pure fusion oriented "Beelzebub" is. Apparently, that was the embryonic form of U.K. because the idea of Wakeman was replaced by the reality of Jobson, then Bruford brought in Holdsworth fresh from Feels Good To Me. But if you read behind the lines of Bruford's story on the Wakeman thing you can already see the tension between pop and fusion that eventually split U.K. apart. Too bad, they were selling out soccer stadiums in Europe.

Anderson stole Jobson for Tull because of that tour.

He wanted Bozzio too, but Bozzio was already commited to making Missing Persons a success. The guy was f*cking unreal. I saw him five times, once with U.K., three times with Missing Persons and once with Jeff Beck. It was always funny seeing him with Missing Persons because most of the audience was there for Dale or the the videos or whatever. At some point in the show, everyone in the building became aware they were in the presence of greatness and even the band members would all stare in awe at Terry Bozzio during "U.S. Drag". It happened every time I saw them.

[Dave_G]

Bozzio was the bomb on drums, I agree, I saw him once playing with ________, dang it I can't remember. I like UK stuff but it doesn't floor me, I prefer Asia, esp. their new concert dvd where they mix it up and play all sorts of stuff (Asia, Yes, Crim, etc). Dang - never saw that band either. It's gonna drive me nuts until I figure out who I saw Bozzio drum for...

Dave

[MasterCylinder]

It's gonna drive me nuts until I figure out who I saw Bozzio drum for...

Dave

BLACK LIGHT SYNDOME ???

[Dave_G]

No...it was in the 80's, did he ever play for Jeff Beck?

[BradH]

BLACK LIGHT SYNDOME ???

HA! I wish. They never did a single show. Bozzio said in an interview that he & Levin organized tours but Stevens backed out every time. Real flakey. He said the only way it would happen in the future is if they got Stevens legally commited on paper to doing the tour, otherwise they're not going to bother.

[MasterCylinder]

No...it was in the 80's, did he ever play for Jeff Beck?

Well...............he is the drummer on the GUITAR SHOP release so maybe they did a supporting tour.

[Finch Platte]

No...it was in the 80's, did he ever play for Jeff Beck?

Yup, but how could you forget that?

He also played w/ Zappa, you know.

Edit- I've been looking for this, without any luck.



Anyone who caught Jeff Beck's set at Eric Clapton's 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival (or even the two-song DVD excerpt) was probably salivating at the hope that an entire performance with the same band would appear on CD and DVD. This is it, 72 minutes and 16 tracks compiled from a week of shows at the U.K.'s famed Ronnie Scott's, and it's as impressive as any Beck fan would expect. The guitarist's last official U.S.-released live disc was from his 1976 Wired tour (an authorized "bootleg" of his 2006 tour with bassist Pino Palladino is available at gigs and online; others pop up as expensive imports), making the appearance of this music from just over three decades later a long-awaited, much-anticipated event. Only one track, the frenzied "Scatterbrain," is repeated here from the 1976 album, but with an entirely different, and arguably more sympathetic, band backing him along with a far longer playing time, this disc is the stronger of the two. Veteran drummer Vinnie Colaiuta nimbly keeps the beat, Jason Rebello's keyboards aren't nearly as intrusive as Jan Hammer's, and young bassist Tal Wilkenfeld's rubbery lines both underpin and, in the case of "Cause We've Ended as Lovers," take the lead when called on with vibrant proficiency and a sure sense of the bottom end needed for Beck's excursions into funk, fusion, reggae, jazz, and rock. The entirely instrumental concert focuses predominantly where you'd expect it to -- on Beck's innovative leads as he tears into his catalog of fusion fare, going back to Blow by Blow, with a surprise opening of "Beck's Bolero" from his Jeff Beck Group rock years. A short rendition of Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" that segues into a tense "Brush with the Blues" is a disc highlight, as it shows Beck pulling out many of his six-string tricks and taps into his blues background. "Space Boogie" gives drummer Colaiuta a chance to shine with double-speed licks, and affords keyboardist Rebello a spotlight for his jazz piano skills. But it's Beck who slams into the track with aggressive fluidity, shooting out sizzling solos as the band pushes him along. His sensitive cover of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," a longtime live staple, is a showstopper bringing Beck's intensity to an arrangement that has stops, starts, and unexpected turns and is, like the guitarist, never predictable. Through it all, Beck's guitar sings, cries, moans, and shouts with as much emotion as a vocalist, showing that an instrument can sing as effectively as a human being, but only in the right hands.


Tracks

Title
Composer
Time

1 Beck's Bolero Page 3:29
2 Eternity's Breath McLaughlin 1:14
3 Stratus Cobham 4:47
4 Cause We've Ended as Lovers Wonder 5:17
5 Behind the Veil Hymas 5:09
6 You Never Know Hammer 3:20
7 Nadia Sawhney 3:41
8 Blast from the East Hymas 4:40
9 Led Boots Middleton 4:23
10 Angel (Footsteps) Hymas 5:41
11 Scatterbrain Beck, Middleton 4:32
12 Goodbye Pork Pie Hat/Brush wi Beck, Hymas, Mingus 6:14
13 Space Boogie Hymas, Phillips 4:20
14 Big Block Beck, Bozzio, Hymas 5:49
15 A Day in the Life Lennon, McCartney 4:46
16 Where Were You Beck, Bozzio, Hymas 2:51

[BradH]

I've been looking for this, without any luck.

Didn't know that was a dvd, just thought it was a cd. Looks like a "must have" for me. Colaiuta is one of my favorites on drums. I can't wait to see him doing "Space Boogie" - that was Simon Phillips' killer moment on There And Back.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Still looking for that? PM me.

[C-Z]

I'm with Troy - Love that UK album. Only problem is that my only copy is on open reel tape. Haven't hooked up that old Teac for years. Is it hard to find on CD?

[MasterCylinder]

Is it hard to find on CD?

You can get it used at Amazon............hard to find NEW.

[3-LockBox]

I'll sell my copy.

[BarryL]

I've got the UK albums on vinyl. The first is the better of the two, but it was never one of my favorites. Good, yes, and essential in any prog collection.

I'm pretty sure Bozzio and Jobson were both on the Zappa tour I saw. I'll have to go check my autographed Zoot Allures album.

[Auricauricle]

That looks like a great DVD, and that's a nicely written review, Finch! Stupid me let Flash go a couple of years ago, but still hold on to Wired...

Man you guys are really making me jealous what with the gigs you've been to. Hy, your post reminds me when I was a kid, jamming on Enigmatic Ocean. My poor classmates thought I was nuts. Poor, benighted fools!

[Hyfi]

That looks like a great DVD, and that's a nicely written review, Finch! Stupid me let Flash go a couple of years ago, but still hold on to Wired...

Man you guys are really making me jealous what with the gigs you've been to. Hy, your post reminds me when I was a kid, jamming on Enigmatic Ocean. My poor classmates thought I was nuts. Poor, benighted fools!

I wore that out along with Mystical Adventure and Taste for Passion. Saw JLP several times back then.

About the same time is when I was walking home one night and heard Bruford from the window of a kid I did not really know. I knocked on his window to ask what it was and that was that.