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UNBELIEVABLE: 7 | History Defined

“We were both big ELP fans, and I’m sure if you look at our record collections back then you’d have seen Yes, Greenslade, King Crimson…” How electronic music duo Underworld grew up with a world of prog

No one would call dance outfit Underworld a prog band. But they grew up influenced by the whole genre, it appears

Louder

“Robert had a plan laid out that we would do three records in three years”: Adrian Belew on how King Crimson made an underrated prog classic in “this industrial musical junkyard we created”

Adrian Belew reveals what went on behind the scenes during the making of the band’s dual-personality 10th album, Three of a Perfect Pair – the final studio release from the Fripp/Belew/Levin/Bruford crew

Guitar World

“The producer was able to see through me to be like, ‘You don’t sound like you believe any of this.’ I love that psychology”: District 97’s Leslie Hunt took singing lessons before she tracked Stay For The Ending

Chicago outfit’s prog and pop balancing act benefitted from listening to their fans – and Bill Bruford

Louder

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“I’m 16 and they were my heroes… They started to laugh because I was also playing the echo parts. I didn’t know they were a special effect”: Obsessive attention to detail was always Eddie Jobson’s superpower

From a backstage performance for Curved Air to being dragged onstage by Frank Zappa and out-complicating King Crimson, the UK violinist has managed to ignore distractions from making music

Louder

“His style is so specific and refined. It's not something I could just jump into”: Steve Vai explains the hardest part of replicating Robert Fripp’s playing style

Vai will be touring King Crimson’s ‘80s material with Beat in the fall, and he’s spoken about his preparations – which includes working with Roland on three purpose-built guitars

Guitar World

“The guitar is still a very healthy ingredient in pop music. You get Ed Sheeran, and even Taylor Swift is playing a guitar”: Steve Vai answers the question ‘Is guitar music dead?’

Steve Vai offers his take on whether the guitar is still a relevant instrument in contemporary music

Guitar World

“Jimi Hendrix came down to see us – he came up to me and said, ‘Shake my left hand, man, it’s closer to my heart’”: King Crimson’s Robert Fripp on the time he met Jimi Hendrix

Robert Fripp recalls Jimi Hendrix calling King Crimson “the best band in the world”

Guitar World

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“We started thinking, ‘Well, who could possibly be in the band?’ The only person I could think of was Steve”: Adrian Belew on how he and Steve Vai are forming a new guitar partnership ahead of a King Crimson supergroup tour

'Beat' will tour the band's ’80s material later this year, and the group's guitar duo is working on a partnership that can do the Belew/Fripp double act justice

Guitar World

“We didn’t go ‘That’s your job’ – we’d say ‘Why don’t you have a go?’ I can remember playing solos on Stylophone… In some places it was like 'the Martians have landed!‘” How Family made Bandstand, and where it took them

With a pre-King Crimson John Wetton on bass and a clutch of idiosyncratic songs with busy arrangements, the 1972 release cemented Roger Chapman and co’s position as one of the most influential bands of the era

Louder

Listen to Jakko Jakszyk and Mel Collins' new version of I Talk To The Wind

An all-star reimaging of King Crimson's debut album, Reimagining The Court Of The Crimson King, to be released in April

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"I call Bill Bruford and blurt out 'how would you like to be in a rock band again?' Bill says, 'And do what? Sit around a luggage carousel all day?' But he gave us his blessing." Adrian Belew opens up on the formation of Beat

Adrian Belew has formed Beat with Tony Levin, Danny Carey and Steve Vai to perform King Crimson's 80s reportoire

Louder

“Robert Fripp is one of our historical geniuses… I will be putting my best foot forward to respect this great music”: Steve Vai, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Danny Carey reveal full details of new King Crimson supergroup tour

The Fripp-approved band – which will revisit and reinterpret tracks from Crimson's Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair albums – will hit virtually every corner of the US and Canada this fall

Guitar World

“We were really screwing with the system, removing applause from live tracks to sound like studio tracks – the exact opposite of what people do today”: How King Crimson made stealth live album Starless And Bible Black

King Crimson’s 1974 ”excruciating, teeth-pullingly difficult” album Starless And Bible Black sowed the seeds of their looming breakup

Louder

From King Crimson to A-list hired gun with Talking Heads, Frank Zappa and David Bowie, Adrian Belew created his own language on the guitar – here are his 10 greatest guitar moments

With King Crimson, Talking Heads, as a solo artist, it didn't matter: Adrian Belew manipulated the guitar like no-one else, bending sound into new shapes

Guitar World

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“You pick five interesting guys, lock them in a room together… and if they make an album without actually killing each other first, it will at least be an interesting album”: How King Crimson made Larks’ Tongues in Aspic

The 1973 release steered a new line-up into uncharted waters, resulting in a work that could only have been made by a band who were “prepared to jump off the cliff”

Guitar World

“Steve Vai is the only guitarist who could play my parts. I’m totally psyched for this”: Robert Fripp gives his blessing for a new King Crimson supergroup, featuring Steve Vai, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Danny Carey

The star-studded lineup will perform tracks from King Crimson's ’80s albums – and it was Fripp who suggested the group's name

Louder

“Robert Fripp watched the show from the wings. As I was playing I was thinking, ‘Oh, I stole this line from Robert… that’s a riff from him too!’” Billy Sheehan’s obsession with King Crimson’s Red

Mr Big, Whom Gods Destroy and Sons of Apollo bassist once spent two weeks listening to nothing else

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Robert Fripp endorses new Adrian Belew Crimson project Beat

Adrian Belew has teamed up with Tony Levin, Danny Carey and Steve Vai as Beat to perform King Crimson's 80s reportoire

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Louder

Listen to Todd Rundgren's version of King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man

All-star reimaging of King Crimson's debut album, Reimagining The Court Of The Crimson King, to be released in April

Louder

Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox have returned to the internet with a sparkling new episode of that thing they do at the weekend

Two of Britain's most popular light entertainers are back to enliven your week with a cover of Shocking Blue's classic Venus

Louder

“Stumbling on King Crimson and Gentle Giant was eye-opening for me. I went, ‘How can you do that so fast?’”: ex-Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars reveals his secret love of 70s prog

Forget Shout At The Devil – Mick Mars is all about 21st Century Schizoid Man

Louder

“I put an ad in Melody Maker – ‘musicians only need apply!’ – and we got Peter and Michael Giles, and Robert Fripp”: So many artists wanted to be part of Judy Dyble’s world

Late singer decided to avoid staying in bands too long after being fired from Fairport Convention – “I’d leave before they could throw me out” – but believed the split sent both parties hurling into adventures they’d otherwise have missed

Louder

“People would ask: ‘Is David Byrne a genius or a moron?’ I wanted to nip that ‘moron’ bit in the bud, so it was better to say ‘genius.’ The truth is somewhere in between”: The prog credentials of Talking Heads

The eccentric post-punk outfit certainly progressed with albums including More Songs About Buildings And Food, Fear Of Music and Remain In Light… but were they actually progressive?

Louder

“If there’s a message it’s live every day as if it’s your last. I went through a very sticky patch… The freedom of not being enslaved by addiction is marvellous”: John Wetton’s return from the darkness

With Asia on the rocks and a scuppered solo deal, the singer found himself struggling with alcohol in the 90s - before he finally earned himself a reprieve

Louder

Toyah and Robert Fripp continue to bring the noise with chaotic old-skool cover of (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)

"It's a brand new instalment and it's a good one!" says Willcox

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