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HISTORICAL FACTS: King crimson | History Defined

"You have to go and live in London for seven years. You'll be rejected 99 times out of a hundred." Watch Robert Fripp give a hopeful young musician some unflinching truth in 1985

An insight into the place King Crimson's Robert Fripp calls the "centre of the universe"

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10 bands who peaked with the first song on their first album

Some bands just get it right first time

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"I thought: 'Can I even play this stuff?' Y'know, a sixty-five-year-old Steve Vai taking on Robert Fripp at thirty-five." Steve Vai on the challenge of playing King Crimson with BEAT – and the one change he's made

In 2024, four monster instrumentalists teamed up to play music from three killer King Crimson albums – and they're finally coming to Europe

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‘What are you doing shaving my balls?!’: Rockstar suffers heart attack, left baffled as orderly gives him totally shorn scrotum

21st century hairless man.

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Former King Crimson drummer Michael Giles returns with Shadows/Solo, his first album for 25 years

Michael Giles' Shadows/Solo kickstarts a series of archival releases which incudes work with Jamie Muir and a five-disc box set

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Toyah and Robert Fripp return with their most disturbing Sunday Lunch video yet

Quick! Somebody fetch the bug spray!

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“Some fans preferred it to Genesis… I had record labels asking for my next album, and half a band forbidding me from doing it”: The unexpected consequences of Steve Hackett’s Voyage Of The Acolyte

Guitarist believes his solo debut proved Genesis had a future after Peter Gabriel’s departure – but it also led to two years of soul-searching

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“I shuffled into this big open room, and Tina was there and she was very upset. She said to me, ‘If we get rid of David, would you join the band?’”: Adrian Belew insists he was asked to replace David Byrne in Talking Heads

He didn’t regard it as a serious offer though

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“I had no idea who they were. My manager said, ‘You should talk to this guy named Trent Reznor’”: How Adrian Belew ended up working with Nine Inch Nails

The King Crimson legend worked on The Downward Spiral with Reznor, but a planned tour never took place

Guitar World

“It would be interesting to revisit some of the songs, but it’s never going to happen. I don’t know who isn’t talking to who these days”: Judy Dyble was always amazed at the quality of her collaborators

In 2018, Fairport Convention’s first female vocalist found herself inspired by a trapped rainbow, a bad Elvis impersonator and her early work with Giles, Giles and Fripp

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“He wanted $200 for it. Now it’s worth millions”: Andy Summers was skeptical of Telecasters at first – until he found one that would become one of his main Police guitars

The Strat-lover’s head was eventually turned by a modded Tele that ended up becoming one of his go-to guitars

Guitar World

“I asked for a cash discount. The shop assistant said, ‘I could phone up Eric Clapton and he’d come and buy it’”: Robert Fripp’s life in three guitars

The King Crimson founder has enjoyed the company of all kinds of guitars in his time –from the good, bad to the ugly – but these are the three that have meant the most to him

Guitar World

“Let’s not forget he was still learning how to sing as ‘Bryan Ferry.’ I know I captured a fantastic atmosphere, complete with mistakes”: Some of Roxy Music hated Virginia Plain, but its producer loved it

Former King Crimson man Pete Sinfield tried to balance prog and pop sensibilities on the 1972 single, and had answers for the criticisms levelled at it

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“Here’s a diary entry from July 24, 1974: ‘Argument with Bill Bruford. Bill says, ‘They might as well get a session guitarist’”: The making of Red, the album that pushed King Crimson to the brink

Robert Fripp digs into his long-unopened personal diaries with Guitar World as he shares the story of the relentlessly heavy and ambitious 1974 prog classic

Guitar World

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Debate: Will the return of Rush be the biggest prog event of 2026?

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson own the limelight all year, or can King Crimson, Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Crown Lands and The Pineapple Thief grab headlines?

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“We started each day by doing yoga and breathing exercises. Then we took mushrooms and it got a little too psychedelic!” The prog duo who lost their label for being too weird, and decided to get even weirder

Rush, Yes and King Crimson inspired them to confound expectations and create a three-album arc of otherworldly spirituality – in an era when, they believe, there’s no way to win the music industry game

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"Frequently melancholy and austere, this is music that rewards active listening rather than offering up easily consumed hooks or sing-alongs":Steven Wilson seeks the sweet spot between pop precision and progressive wizardry on Hand. Cannot. Erase.

Inspired by a tragic modern story, Steven Wilson's Hand. Cannot. Erase. is often hailed as his masterpiece. But is it?

Guitar World

“I saw a recent video on YouTube on the 10 precursors to heavy metal, and Schizoid Man wasn’t among them. That’s absurd”: Robert Fripp explains how King Crimson paved the way for heavy metal

Robert Fripp says the band doesn't get enough credit for its hard-hitting groundwork

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“He was unable to write something with delight in it. Suffering battle fatigue, he wrote of asking what it’s like back home. It’s epic”: William Shatner’s surprising Christmas album with Jethro Tull, Yes and King Crimson alumni

The Star Trek icon gets silly and serious in turns as he discusses what the season means to him, the secret to living long and prospering, and the presents Kirk and Spock might give each other

Guitar World

“Robert said, ‘Would you be prepared to play bass?’ And I thought, ‘Four strings, six strings... what could be the problem?’”: Greg Lake started out as a guitarist – before being convinced by Robert Fripp to switch to bass when joining King Crimson

Lake went on to form Emerson, Lake & Palmer – ELP – with keyboardist Keith Emerson and drummer Carl Palmer, creating one of rock’s first super-groups

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King Crimson affiliates BEAT announce one-off London show for June

Adrian Belew, Danny Carey, Tony Levin and Steve Vai will play their first UK show as BEAT in June

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“We heard King Crimson synchronised music with visuals at gigs. I thought we could use that, since we didn’t have Mick Jagger to run around or anything”: Remembering Rick Davies, from tramping around Germany to leading Supertramp around the world

Former colleagues recall the life and times of a driven but introverted musician who endured tough challenges to see his lifelong vision achieved – and updated his joke book while he did it

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“It was an awful mistake to overlook his album. But you could be excused for not sticking with it”: Fired by King Crimson, this prog poet assembled a group of A-list colleagues and took them on a trip into the unknown. They got lost – or so it seemed

His only solo release merged Genesis, Greenslade and Soft Machine vibes with an additional experimental edge. But the real beauty is that it couldn’t have been made any other time than the early 70s

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Robert Fripp dons Satanic nun costume as Toyah sings an AC/DC classic and we may never sleep again

Just another Halloween-themed afternoon in the Fripp-Willcox kitchen

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“When the band played, we sold out to 14,000 people a night. If I play, I’m not sure 14 people will turn up”: He's fought off a crisis of confidence, but the frontman of one of prog’s greatest groups still doesn’t know who he is

Adopted soon after birth, his search for clues to his identity inspired a book which then inspired an album – and there’s a reason it’s not a completely prog work

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