Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp, King Crimson

	£		35
	$		46

The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp

ORIGINAL COPY. Second UK PRESSING. Released 1970.  Stereo. Deram Records, catalogue number; SPA 423, Matrix numbers; ZAL-8330/1-2G.

Lovely copy of the original stereo reissue of the King Crimson boys' debut LP. It was issued in minute quantities in 1968, and this is the repress copy from 1970. Both issues were only ever pressed in very small numbers.

Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide value is £25

The last comparable condition copies sold on eBay for £30-£55.

99p start.

Overall Sleeve Condition : EXCELLENT.

Front cover: Laminated front cover. Original company inner sleeve. The laminate sleeve is glossy, with bright, unfaded colours. A few tiny creases. Light creases/ripples in the sleeve which mean the sleeve is not flat are the only thing which prevent me from garding this cover as MINT.

Rear cover: Clean white matt cover. One fingermark.

Edges: No rubs, no scuffs, no seam splits.

Corners: No rubs, no bends.

Opening Slit: No scuffs, no rubs, no tears.

Vinyl Condition, Visual:  MINT.

Unmarked and as new looking, does not look worn or seem to have had heavy play, kept in a polylined inner sleeve.

Vinyl Condition, Audible:  MINT.

Plays superbly. Well preserved and cared for, no decrease from the original sound quality. Kept in stunning condition by the previous owner. No skips, no jumps, no sign of any play, no wear.

Label Condition :  MINT.

Silver on blue Deram label.

Tracklist:

Backing Vocals - Breakaways, The
Cello - A. Ford , C. Tunnell
Engineer - Bill Price (tracks: A1, A2, A4 to A8, B1 to B5) , Martin Smith (7) (tracks: A3)
Keyboards - Mike Hill (3) , Nicky Hopkins
Performer - Michael Giles , Peter Giles , Robert Fripp
Photography [Cover] - Gered Mankowitz
Producer - Wayne Bickerton
Trombone - C. Hardie , T. Barker
Viola - J. Coulling , R. Patten
Violin - B. Pecker , G. Fields , G. Salisbury , K. Isaacs* , R. Cohen , W. Reid

This pre-King Crimson aggregate involves the talents of Michael Giles (drums/vocals), Peter Giles (bass/vocals), and Robert Fripp (guitar/vocals) accompanied by a plethora of studio musicians — most notably keyboardist Nicky Hopkins and backing vocalists the Breakaways. By any standards The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp is one of the more eclectic albums to have been issued during the psychedelic rock movement of the late '60s. The album was initially issued in September of 1968 on the Decca Records subsidiary Deram — whose releases were aimed specifically at the alternative or progressive rock market. That said, this disc is a far cry from the type of material that other artists on the label such as the Moody Blues, Caravan, or Pacific Drift were concurrently issuing. The original record album was divided into two sections: "The Saga of Rodney Toady" and "Just George," which were named after the respective spoken word pieces that link the musical works on the A- and B-sides. Musically, Giles, Giles & Fripp are wholly unlike anything before or since. Drawing upon folk, classical, pop, and even sacred music, each track brings a fresh listening experience. Among the highlights is the leadoff track, "North Meadow," which features some stunning fretwork from Fripp. Likewise, "Call Tomorrow" is a trippy noir tale involving an ambiguous practical joke. The classically influenced instrumental "Suite No. 1," as well as another one of Fripp's more esoteric compositions, "Erudite Eyes," likewise bear some semblance of sounds to come from the trio. While not everyone's cup of tea, there is a tremendous amount to enjoy on The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp for those whose expectations are not of King Crimson, but rather of lighthearted and decidedly folksy English tales.

If there is one group that embodies both the best and the worst aspects of progressive rock (from the standpoints of both its supporters and its detractors), it is King Crimson. During its first five years of existence, from 1969 through 1974, in a variety of different lineups, this band led by guitar/Mellotron virtuoso Robert Fripp broke lots of new ground in progressive rock, stretching both the language and structure of the music into realms of jazz and classical, all the while avoiding any of the pop or psychedelic sensibilities of the Moody Blues. The absence of those pop compromises, and the lack of an overt sense of humor, ultimately doomed King Crimson to nothing more than a large cult following, but made their albums among the most enduring and respectable of progressive rock relics.

King Crimson originally grew out of the remnants of an unsuccessful trio called Giles, Giles & Fripp. Michael Giles (drums, vocals), Peter Giles (bass, vocals), and Robert Fripp (guitar) had begun working together in late 1967, after playing in a variety of bands. Robert Fripp (born May 16, 1946, Dorset, England) had studied guitar in Bournemouth with a teacher named Don Strike, whose other students included a slightly younger Greg Lake. As a teenager, he'd played in a local band called the Ravens, whose lineup included vocalist Gordon Haskell, also a boyhood friend of Fripp's. From the spring of 1965 until the following spring, he and Haskell had been members of a group called the League of Gentlemen (the name taken from a very famous British crime-caper movie), and Fripp had also played guitar in the Majestic Dance Orchestra.

Michael Giles (born 1942, Bournemouth, Dorset, England) and Peter Giles had played with bandleader/brothers Dave and Gordon Dowland in a group called the Dowland Brothers from 1962 until 1964. More recently, they'd been part of a Bournemouth group called Trendsetters, Ltd., but had left that group in the summer of 1967 and were looking to put together a band of their own. They hooked up with Fripp in August of 1967, and by September the trio had journeyed to London in search of fame and fortune. Instead, they found an Italian singer for whom they played backup for a week before parting company.

At the time, British rock, and especially the London music scene, was in the process of evolving by leaps and bounds. The release of the Sgt. Pepper album in the summer of 1967, coupled with the ever druggier ambience both in everybody's songwriting and at the city's clubs, was causing a revolution in the sound of rock music. The totally unexpected success of what had been intended as a "stereo demonstration" record by the Moody Blues and the London Festival Orchestra, released by Decca Records' Deram imprint later that year, seemed to confirm that bands other than the Beatles could sell records of that type.

Deram Records, thanks to the Moody Blues, was suddenly a locus for this new sound, and the label was scrambling around for anything vaguely psychedelic and pretentious. One of their signings was Giles, Giles & Fripp, who began cutting their single "One in a Million" and a follow-up album, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp, during the summer of 1968. Neither sold in any quantities, however, and Keith Moon of the Who, reviewing the record in Melody Maker, even trashed the single and its production. In retrospect, Giles, Giles & Fripp's sound was too precious for words, with pop choruses (with a strange "French" feeling to the arrangements, in some people's ears) and jazzy guitar juxtaposed alongside odds songs and narrative tales.

Even as the album was in the works, however, the group's lineup was changing. London-born Ian McDonald (born June 24, 1946) and Peter Sinfield, working in a band called Infinity as singer/guitarists, joined up with the trio late in 1968. McDonald's enthusiasm for music dated back to age seven, when he was listening to the music of Louis Belson, Les Paul, and Earl Bostic. By 11 he was playing guitar and had joined his first band at 13. He was an unexceptional student, however, and after leaving school at 16, he made what seemed to be the mistake of his life by joining the army as a bandsman. He was in for five years, in the course of which he learned the clarinet, the saxophone, and the flute, as well as studying harmony and orchestration. He emerged a multi-instrumentalist and made his living playing in various orchestras and dance bands before hooking up with Sinfield, a poet, computer operator, and would-be guitarist and singer, in Infinity.

McDonald switched to saxes and keyboards while Sinfield provided the words to a couple of songs, "I Talk to the Wind" and "Under the Sky," written with McDonald. And then Judy Dyble, who had passed through the first Fairport Convention lineup, joined briefly as a singer. This lineup recorded demos of "I Talk to the Wind" and "Under the Sky," but Dyble exited quickly.

The band that shook out of this lineup, Giles, Giles & Fripp (Mark III), consisted of Fripp, McDonald, Giles, and Giles, and existed for about four months. Bassist Peter Giles, however, wasn't happy with the direction in which the new group was moving — Fripp left open the possibility that either he or Peter Giles could be replaced by Fripp's boyhood friend Greg Lake, who was proficient on both bass and guitar, at the decision of Michael Giles and Ian McDonald. At around this time of decision, Giles, Giles & Fripp ceased to exist, after having sold a total of 600 copies of their album. Peter Giles exited the scene on November 30, 1968, and Greg Lake joined two days later. This lineup, Fripp, Lake, McDonald, and Michael Giles, with fifth member Peter Sinfield writing their lyrics and later running their light show, among other functions, officially became King Crimson on January 13, 1969. 

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