the night before the day I joined king crimson...

here's a postcard from nikitas, a russian restaurant in london.
I was standing in the upstairs bar of nakitas in london
waiting along with the very large party of talking heads
and crew to be seated downstairs in the dining room
for a dinner party celebrating the beginning of our
european tour of 1980.

we had just arrived in london (my second time there), were a bit
jet-lagged, hungry, and very animated about our upcoming tour.
talking heads was a 10-piece band at that point and with crew,
management, hangers-on, etc. it was indeed a large party waiting
to be seated at a long banquet table. we mingled with other
customers in a sort of holding pin area so crowded we were
literally elbow to elbow.

russian waiters dangerously waded through the crowd passing out
free shots of flavored vodkas. dangerous because they were lit on fire!
(the shots, not the waiters) I remember smelling something odd.
I turned around to see the back of a woman I didn't know
whose hair had caught on fire from the flaming vodkas
and I remember hitting her hair to try and put her out!

finally by the time we were ushered into the banquet room
we were all so pathetically drunk a food fight broke out!
the last thing I remember is dodging caviar snowballs!

the next morning at 9:00 robert fripp (who I barely knew) called.
he began by saying he knew I was not one for "raving" and so
felt safe in calling so early. he was wrong. I had a blistering hangover.
mortified I had already let down one of my heroes I sheepishly
asked if he could call back later.

when he did, it was to ask me to join what would become
king crimson.

to read a more complete version of this tale, refer to the 3/28/07
blog titled anecdote #606.