I think my favorite all-time band has always been King Crimson, for reasons I cannot explain. In Twitter-size bites with Sid Smith, I decided it might be time to explore some of them.

I began my affinity around 1974-75, when In The Court of the Crimson King was larger than my young life, with mellotrons, big ranges and drama.  Jewels glowing in the heat of pools of magma, consuming all in militaristic drum and brass.  Larks Tongues,  Red, and Starless and Bible Black soon followed into the queue, adding menace on the bass line and vocals while the percussion simply exploded through this incredibly controlled guitar.  Control and tension.  Cadence and Cascade.  Seeds of lightning.  I was hooked.

At this time I was also listening to Emerson, Lake and Palmer (Tarkus); Frank Zappa (Overnight Sensation); Jeff Beck (Blow By Blow), and was listening more to bands like Gentle Giant; YES; Renaissance; Genesis, Premiata Forneria Marconi and Banco from Italy, and Quiet Sun, from the U.K.  Strings and wind were as vital as electrified/amplified instruments, in addition to rhythms and assertive vocals.

These were the spectra I viewed the world through, as I left Boston with my family for a couple of years in Iran as civilian ex-pats.  All of these friends came along, in my suitcase.  I've made new friends, but kept the old, as every one of these spin on my playlist at monthly or more often today (OK, except Renaissance and Banco; the Ayatollah got my record collection and these two fell off of the replacement list.)

Throughout, the cleanest, rawest, "most real" recordings played the most were those Crim records.  John Wetton (RIP) became the Voice of Authority, full of anger  and hopeand regret as he made Easy Money (irony) being the "dangerous" member of his generation of Crim.  Gosh, I loved hearing him sing.

Not that he was the only one; Greg Lake (RIP) and Boz Burrell (RIP) were both good voices for the Crim.  Adrian Belew who is thankfully still rocking was a GREAT voice for Crimson, both in vocal and guitar, since his guitar "speaks" Crim-ean.  None of these had the edge and menace of Wetton, though Ade set a new standard for Control and Tension, Cadence and Cascade with a wider vocal register, keeping edge while replacing menace with wit.

Assholes: A Theory by Aaron James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First and foremost, this book is quite like Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" since 1) it's couched in academic (albeit friendly) language and 2) there's a lot to chew on - this is not a humorist book for a plane ride.It can be really funny, but the author's serious in his rigor on the subject.

It does provide several approaches for dealing with assholes, after qualifying between "asshole" and several other unpopular personality types/traits (humor applied here helps!) but the hard-boiled asshole isn't likely to change from them - though there's hope for the lesser-asshole-ish people you may encounter.

This is a great book for self-appraising our views of others, as well. Looking at so many strong character types gives us room to compare, contrast - and hopefully see that we can be less pretty than we'd like to be at times.

I found the afterward - "letter to an asshole" - to be a great summation; lengthy due to its completeness covering all of the areas discussed but well worth the read.

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