Dearth of Official Live KC Releases?

[JKL2000]

Since KC recorded most performances for reference, and recorded some for eventual official release (for “posterity, as Belew mentions on the unofficial Montreal 1984 release), why did so few shows ever make it to eventual official release? Perfectionism? Procrastination? Or was it all simply to finance their retirement? Fripp must have answered this question, right?

[jcarr73729]

Are you talking about 2015 and after, or prior to 2015?
As far as I know, almost all the official recordings prior to 2015 have been released through record labels, boxed sets or downloads.
DGM are still working on the leftovers from 2001 and 2003, but they take time to digitise, master, etc.
There are somewhere in the region of 500 official live releases (not including cleaned-up audience records), so how many do you need?

[Haruspex Carnage]

i think there's one last official KCCC to be issued and new ones will just be of the current band...but otherwise they're just releasing old shows as they find/remaster them.

[Paulrus]

Of all prog bands, KC is the last one I think of when it comes to live release shortages. Official or otherwise.

[calyx]

I agree the thread title sounds like a joke at first, but I get what Jed means. Until the 1990s, there were only two contemporary live releases "Earthbound" and "USA". Plus some live tracks on studio albums that were never credited as such.

It's not that bad, I guess, at least for the Seventies. The lack of a 1980s live album was probably down to how it ended - on a sour note, for Fripp. "Three Of A Perfect Pair" was a contractual obligation album, with minimal touring behind it (just USA and Japan).

The band's habits of recording gigs changed over the years - soundboard cassettes in 1969-72, soundboard reels in 1974, very little on any format in 1973, with the exception of the handful of shows recorded to multitrack by George Chkiantz (those used for the "Great Deceiver" boxed set + "The Night Watch".)

In 1980s it was back to no recordings at all - except the summer of 1982. The Montréal 1984 shows were recorded for a radio broadcast.

Then in the 1990s the band began to record all their shows systematically, à la Zappa.

[Paulrus]

In 1980s it was back to no recordings at all - except the summer of 1982. The Montréal 1984 shows were recorded for a radio broadcast.

I had thought Frejus was an official release back in the 80s but I see it actually first appeared in 1997, 15 years after the filming/recording. I'm guessing it was floating around as a bootleg before that.

And one of those Greek Theater shows from the 80s was damn near an official release. It was soundboard quality, and it seemed like everybody had a copy, whether you wanted it or not!

[NogbadTheBad]

Not sure I understand the question, there are mountains of official live KC releases, I personally have north of 30 official live Crimson releases.

[calyx]

Not sure I understand the question, there are mountains of official live KC releases, I personally have north of 30 official live Crimson releases.

I think he meant "back in the day", and primarily the 1980s band, which didn't have a live release during its lifetime, not until a good decade later.

[Dave (in MA)]

Maybe the question was intended to ask why, putting aside the flurry of live releases over the past 30 or so years, did the band put out only 2 live releases in their first 20 or so years.

[Mister Triscuits]

I had thought Frejus was an official release back in the 80s but I see it actually first appeared in 1997, 15 years after the filming/recording. I'm guessing it was floating around as a bootleg before that.

It was a VHS video released in 1984...but that release was aimed at the rental market; the mass market versions of that and the Three of a Perfect Pair live VHS came out in the '90s.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Oddly enough, I thouhgt this was going to be about recent releases. Since the reboot in the mid 2010s, there has been a released recording of every tour and now they are two tours behind and seemingly nothing in the pipeline. Maybe the pandemic slowed it down, but I feel like this is something that is the easiest to occur in pandemic times, in terms of musicians' activities.

[calyx]

It was a VHS video released in 1984...but that release was aimed at the rental market; the mass market versions of that and the Three of a Perfect Pair live VHS came out in the '90s.

You're right, I forgot about the video releases. Perhaps the thinking was that video was the way to go and audio-only live releases were now a thing of the past ?

[GuitarGeek]

You're right, I forgot about the video releases. Perhaps the thinking was that video was the way to go and audio-only live releases were now a thing of the past ?

Well, it certainly wasn't just King Crimson. Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, Marillion, Iron Maiden, and probably a whole bunch of others put out concert videos that didn't have corresponding live album releases. Maybe there was a belief there wouldn't be much of a market for a live album, perhaps because it was viewed as "too soon" for a live album (or in the cases of Tull or Genesis, too soon since the last live album).

Or maybe, as you say, there was a view in some quarters that, with the advent of MTV and other music video outlets, "video" was the way forward or something. I remember talk of bands putting out "video albums" and "video singles", though usually these had corresponding vinyl/cassette/8-track counterparts.

But I wonder if this wasn't one of those uniquely "Fripp" decisions. I remember reading about his "three year/album campaigns" or whatever it was, where apparently he'd sit down and decide what he was going to do for the next few years. I remember reading of "The Drive To 1981" and then "The Slide to 1984", and maybe he simply had penciled in a live album during that period.

Or maybe it was decided there wasn't enough demand for a live album. I mean, it's not like Heartbeat or Sleepless hijacked the Billboard charts (or even the Cashbox charts) and MTV or anything.

[unclemeat]

On importcds.com, you will find a large quantity of KC live CDs, unavailable on DGM or Burning Shed.
These appear to be Japan-only editions "Collector's Club" of many of the DGM Live downloads.