Berlin, with Fripp & Eno...

"...I think what this section needs is a bathtub half-filled with kedgeree to liven it up a bit...", muses Brian, pulling thoughtfully on a duty-free Camel light. "What do you reckon Bob?" But Fripp's miles away, mumbling away tartly to himself, when he isn't singing The Wurzels then current hit, "Oi am a Zyder Drinker" that is. "Beck? Oi'll shittim! Page? Oi'll shittim! Weedon? Oi'll shittim! Ooo arr-ooo-arr-ay, Ooo-arr-ooooh-arr-ayyyyy!!!" and so he rambles on like an Alzheimered cretin until Eno tugs at his beard with a tuning fork and yells "Eh? Eh? Kedgeree Bob? Kedgeree!!??

The initial sessions have been a bit of a washout - not helped by my having been completely off my face on Harpic since the middle of 1975. They really shouldn't be allowed to sell it to 12 year olds, should they? Eno's been grappling with the white noise introduction to "I Left Some Kippers at the Nuremburg Rally" while Fripp's supposed to be working out a tortuous guitar figure for the, as yet, untitled instrumental ("Greasy Plinth") that will open the sequence of lengthy mood pieces that make up side two of "Heron Pickling in the Weimar Republic". It's not easy being seminal.

I stroll outside with Visconti for a crafty joint and leave the two giants of progressive rock arguing over guitar parts. "For the billionth and the last time Brian, it's called the fecking *bridge*...." I ask after Tony's then-wife, the singer Mary Hopkin. "Oh she's alright, I suppose..." he shrugs. "Still Welsh...." He tails off with a helpless sigh and I give him an apologetic pat on the shoulder. "Maybe we could get her in to do some Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doos on the the middle eight of "My Teutonic Espadrille"? Or has that incontinence of hers cleared up?"...


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

Subscribe


Podcasts

Music