Emerson, Lake, & Palmer - Pictures At An Exhibition

Once upon a time, Kieth Emerson bought a copy of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and said "how would you guys feel about turning this into a full showpiece for the band? We could take a few of the best parts, add some of our own, commission new paintings for it, the works." Greg Lake and Carl Palmer said "sure. Why not? That would make performing it pretty cool." Their label said "if you want to make a classical record it's gonna be distributed as a classical record" and they sadly put it in cold storage.

Fast forward a little, and somehow the trio made it through recording Tarkus without killing each other. At that point, they were grasping at straws to find anything they could agree on.

They had already recorded an actual performance of this piece and it is amazing. They do the intro with the new pipe organ at Newcastle City Hall, and Palmer has to vamp on a drum roll while Emerson literally runs back down to the stage for the next piece. This is just an EL&P concert. Emmerson's early Moog synthesizers are randomly detuning because the voltage controllers were affected by atmospheric conditions, they have to fade out between tracks because the applause breaks go on forever, they do their own wacky version of the nutcracker suite as an encore, and all the label could say was "we'll have to sell it as a bargain live album, but sorry we made you wait."

I told you i didn't really know the band because of my music specific ADD, but i'm a total fan-boy now. Their first 3 albums are spectacular, and i even secretly enjoy Love Beach because i have a morbid fascination with the last trainwreck of an album any band makes before their breakup (it's not really as bad as everyone says it is, but it does suck and you can't blame Lake and Palmer for voting themselves off the island, tax evasion charges be damned).

To summarize, i now adore Emerson, Lake & Palmer. They remind me of Gary Sandy's Andy Travis on WKRP. They look like dumb 70s jocks, but their music is pure madness.

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