Anecdote # 202

the first time I met robert was at The Bottom Line, well-known NYC nightclub.
I was there with david bowie and we we're all there to see steve reich's
new piece for 18 musicians.
(and a drummer, boomp chi)
the show was over, lights came up, david said,
"that's robert fripp sitting over there".
so I wandered over to say hi and he wrote his phone number on my arm!
later that week we met for coffee and conversation.
a few months later a call came,
"would your band GaGa like to open 5 shows
for robert fripp's band The League Of Gentlemen?"
"love to", said I. and so we did.

Anecdote # 202
Robert Fripp: The Man Revealed.
I should write a book.
hey wait, maybe I am!
one of our shows was at Bogart's in Cincinnati* which at that time had a large open balcony area upstairs which was used as a makeshift dressing room. the show was over and I was talking to a couple who had somehow made it up to the dressing room. I didn't really know the girl but I knew of her date Tall Dave Brown, a local guitarist. dave was, well...tall, about a head taller than I am. the girl was a head shorter than I am. robert was across the room changing out of his stage clothes. tall dave began relating how much he enjoyed the...blah blah blah and I would look up at him, then down at the girl. then up at him, and down at the girl. when I looked between them I could see robert.
he had his willy out and was making obscene faces at me!
so I'd look up at dave, down at the girl, and in between them at robert shaking his willy!
my expression must have been priceless.
because eventually they would turn around to see what I was looking at and robert would pretend to be tucking in his shirt, zipping up his pants.
they would turn to talk to me again and...I'd look up at dave, down at the girl, and there would be robert wagging his willy at me again.
and they would turn around, and robert would be looking down nonchalantly buttoning his shirt...and on and on it went.

that began our lifelong friendship (including free shock therapy).

*while watching The League Of Gentlemen's set with my manager stan hertzman I asked him what he thought of robert's "gamelan" guitar playing (which was featured that same year on the Talking Heads song 'I Zimbra' and was not unlike the music of steve reich). prophetically stan commented how much better it might be if I was singing and playing guitar over top of it. which is exactly what happened a year later with the formation of the 1981 King Crimson.