Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Welcome back my friends to the pain that never ends

Progressive rock, as it is often referred to with more than a hint of pejorative derision, has a reputation for pretention. Actually, it has a reputation for a lot of things, and I'm such a lucky guy that I get to answer to all the exciting stereotypes (such as the guy who wanted to meet me because he had never met a prog rock fan who was "younger than 30, and neither bald nor overweight" [1]). But sometimes reputations are earned, and with bands like Emerson, Lake & Palmer on the scene, it's small wonder that prog has a tendency to be regarded with the same warmth and affection as, say, the half-eaten raccoon carcass your dog left beneath the kitchen table.

ELP came to life as an ego project for flashy virtuosic keyboardist Keith Emerson, formerly of psychadelic band The Nice. He earned himself quite a reputation as a showman by doing exciting things such as setting fire to his keyboard during the band's hard-rocking interpretation of "America," from the musical West Side Story ?. He also netted himself a reputation as a twit by doing exciting things such as setting fire to an American flag during the band's hard-rocking interpretation of "America," a clever stunt that got him banned from Royal Albert Hall for a few decades. Ah, that zany '60s counter-culture.

Emerson began to believe his own press and came to fancy himself the keyboardist equivalent of Jimmy Hendrix - which was sort of true, in that he had the same skills with keys as Hendrix possessed with strings. But poor Emerson never realized that keyboardists are, in the words of Frank Zappa ?, nothing but frustrated guitarists. So when Emerson approached Hendrix with the idea of starting a supergroup starring the two of them, the American guitar legend simply gave him a cold, disdainful stare before returning to the important task of trying to kill himself with drugs. Not one to be deterred, Emerson vowed to make a supergroup no matter what. Unfortunately the zeitgeist of the era (either pot or heroin, most likely) caused him to think that the pudgy young bassist/vocalist of King Crimson, Greg Lake, would be almost as a good as Hendrix. In the sense that Lake lived through the decade he was actually better than Jimmy, but in terms of musical chops, erm... well, just remember that the lead instrument in 90% of ELP's songs is the keyboard and that electric guitars show up so rarely as to be a novelty. The band was rounded off with the inclusion of Carl Palmer, a young lad of about 13 or so who dreamed of being Bill Bruford.

Not wishing to settle for being known by some abstract concept or something, the group eschewed a name, choosing to entitle their band after themselves. Emerson noted that if they took the very democratic approach of listing their names alphabetically, it would be fair to everyone (especially since his name came first). And thus was born Emerson, Lake and Palmer, whose appellation put them in direct competition with wuss rockers Crosby, Stills and Nash.

As their first album went to market, the band toured in support of it and also began performing their live centerpiece - a new high water mark for preposterous self-indulgence in rock music, and one which made Inna-Godda-Da-Vita seem like a quiet exercise in self-restraint: a complete rock reinterpretation of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky's piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition." This included a lengthy electric organ wank session by Emerson (in the most literal sense; he had a Moog specially designed so he could carry part of the keyboard like a guitar and simulated, erm, self-gratification with it onstage while playing. To make it even more shameful, the mini-Moog even spat a burst of flame at the moment of "climax." Those of you who doubted Zappa's wisdom a few paragraphs ago should make a pilgrimage to the man's grave and apologize in person. Many people compare Keith Emerson to Yes ?' most famous keyboard virtuoso, Rick Wakeman, who went through a ridiculous Cosmic Traveller phase where he wore a sparkly gold cape onstage. Both have equally adept finger skills and both had their share of ego in the day; but the main difference is that Wakeman was extensively trained in classical music whereas Emerson did a lot of compensating for his incomplete knowledge of the subject, usually by "improving" others' works). Pictures also sported the addition of lyrics by Lake... some of which actually fit nicely and, at the very least, allowed me to BS my senior English teacher in high school by writing a comparison paper involving Crime and Punishment. (I never said I was proud of it, mind you.) Eventually, Pictures was released as a budget live album and sold surprisingly well, proving that if you saturate enough of the population with dope you can get away with pretty much anything.

From here, though, it was pretty much downhill for the band. Their second studio album was the Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde horror known as Tarkus (which transformed from an amazingly intense 20-minute epic song into a bunch of short insipid garbage when the record was flipped over). Next up was "Trilogy," whose album cover is so fruity you expect to open it up and see Carmen Miranda using it as a hat. After Trilogy came a brief pause where the band took stock of what their competition was doing. Yes had just come out with Close to the Edge (40 minutes, three songs) and was in the process of converting Buddhism to an 80-minute tone poem; Genesis ? had discussed the apocalypse in the lengthy Supper's Ready and was about to embark on its first double-record concept album; and Jethro Tull ? had given up the biting rock of Aqualung in favor of album-length rambles such as Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play (the latter of which included a ballet in the middle). Determined to up the stakes, ELP put their minds to work and created Brain Salad Surgery, effectively claiming a place as rock's most bloated and pretentious band. Even more bloated than the Allman Brothers Band, a group which regularly had up to 30 guitarists onstage at a time, which is a bit of an accomplishment, really.

After the release of 3-record live set "Welcome Back My Friends" (three discs may seem excessive until you realize Chicago's Live at Carnegie Hall was five, leaving ELP foundering in a sorry second place for the live overkill stakes) the band lapsed into silence. The silence that comes only as a result of each band member getting an inflated ego and thinking, "Right, I could do better without these schlubs holding me back," right before going solo and failing dismally. Yes and King Crimson both disintegrated at about this point in time as well, although Yes managed to rally for the unexpectedly wonderiffical Going for the One before fracturing terminally. ELP, sadly, had no such claim, reconvening solely for convenience - a double-album called "Works Vol. I" in which each band member contributed a side of solo material and one collaborative side. Unlike Pink Floyd's Ummagumma, some of the solo material was pretty decent, but this was entirely negated when the band produced Works Vol. 2, a single-disc disgrace that screamed "contractual obligation!" The cherry on the sundae of ignominy came in the form of the leisure suit-saturated Love Beach, ELP's final and least listenable album for the '70s. Then they quietly broke up to preserve what little dignity they had left.

Carl Palmer went on to join a totally new and different supergroup, Asia ?, which consisted of former King Crimson vocalist John Wetton as well as Steve Howe, Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn -- fragments of a very, very broken Yes. Asia actually kicked enormous amounts of pop chart butt in the early '80s by blithely pretending to have nothing whatsoever to do with prog rock. But Lake and Emerson weren't so fortunate, finding little success elsewhere and ultimately reconvening in the desperate hope of rekindling the ELP magic with the help of a random drummer whose last name started with P (hint: it didn't work).

Of course, all things come around again in time, and in the early '90s prog rock had a small resurgence of popularity among aging hippies and stupid kids like me who didn't know any better. Amidst this backdrop, ELP regrouped and released a new album which consisted primarily of schmaltzy Lake ballads and short power pop songs; they followed this up with a live album and another studio album which made Love Beach seem like a dizzying foray into musical excellence. ELP is apparently around today doing something or another, but between Greg Lake's deteriorating voice (cigarettes are bad, kids) and Keith Emerson's failing hands (abused through violent keyboard antics into RSI hell) it's pretty safe to say their salad days - brain salad or otherwise - are well and truly finished. But hey, that's why god gives old musicians archival tapes and fans with more money than brains. Official bootlegs, anyone?

With so much unmitigated pretention on display, it's surely no wonder that I consider ELP one of the greatest bands ever.

Recommended Listening (Earplugs optional)

Pictures at an Exhibition | 1971

In "Pictures" ELP attempted something never before done by a rock band, and to my knowledge never since either: convert a masterful piano concerto into a rock opera. The Who probably had little clue of the ramifications "Tommy" would bring about, but the blame for this puppy rests solely on their bony shoulders. Despite the fact that turning an extended classical solo composition into a lengthy rock and roll piece sounds like a bad idea, it actually works rather well in the context of 1970. I mean, this was the same era when people thought it would be a good idea to get naked and stoned and wallow in the mud listening to Bread. Compared to, say, the Bee Gees, or sequined polyester flare pants, "Pictures" is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. It falls a bit flat in a few places (namely, whenever Emerson starts noodling around in the mistaken belief that a synthesizer is inherently musical, even if it's not being used to make something even slightly reminiscent of music) but generally works out well from start to the familiar strains of the concluding passage, "The Great Gate of Kiev."

The album is rounded out by the inclusion of "Nutrocker," which is less obscene than it sounds - a live rock interpretation of the Dance of the Sugarplum Faeries from the Nutcraker Suite. Which is better than just about anything else by ELP by merit of being humorous, brief and energetic all at once.

Return of the Manticore | 1993

The obligatory "comprehensive" box set with just enough rarities and oddities to force the fanboy to shell out $60 for music he already owns. Actually, much of the previously unreleased material - new recordings of material by each member's former bands (including a very, very bad recreation of King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man) as well as a boring, sluggish, condensed remake of Pictures at an Exhibition - is largely forgettable. Some of the live rarities, such as Rondo, are fairly keen, but the real merit of this box is that it contains almost all of the band's good material and surprisingly little of the crap, meaning you can pick up The Return of the Manticore and consider your ELP collection as comprehensive as it really needs to be. Best of all, it was released before In the Hotseat, so none of that album's terrible musical concoctions are accounted for.

Works Live | 1994

Of all ELP's live albums, this is probably the most even. Which is ironic, because in its original incarnation as the single LP "Live" it was pretty wretched. But when the band remastered it, they added an entire second CD worth of live tracks from the short-lived but shockingly ambitious (they toured with their own complete orchestra, kids) Works Tour. Few of the big, overblown epics are represented here, instead offering a wider range of tracks... including some of the solo pieces from Works Vol. 1 and a fully-orchestrated version of Abaddon's Bolero that works really well. The only shortcoming is that the live orchestral version of Pirates is absent. And Lake seems to have removed the amplifier from his bass guitar, so that all you can hear is a faint snapping noise (not that you could ever really hear his bass over Emerson's cascade of synths, but still). Despite that, this is the most tasteful and listenable ELP live album, so if you really have to hear them in concert, this is the way to go.

Recommended Tracks

"Don't steal music" - Apple Computer

Good luck hunting this stuff down on Aimster or Morpheus or whatever program you music-thieving kids are using these days - unless you have broadband, you're probably not going to want to sit around for the whole 30 MB download of Karn Evil 9. People can make fun of prog rock's excesses, but it has anti-piracy built right in.

The Barbarian (1970)
Tarkus (studio, 1971)
From the Beginning (1972)
Hoedown (studio, 1972)
Karn Evil 9 (studio, 1973)
Fanfare for the Common Man (studio, 1977)
Theme from Peter Gunn (live, 1979)
Mars, Bringer of War (1986)

Interestingly enough, only half of these tracks are original compositions. Hmmm.

Essential Discography

Emerson, Lake and Palmer | 1970

Having foresaken all ideas of modesty and self-effacement, the band put together a debut album bearing their names (and at times other people's music, masquerading as theirs). Specifically, the introductory piece, a dark, brooding, bass-heavy instrumental called "The Barbarian" was actually an uncredited interpretation of "Allegro Barbaro" by Bela Bartok, a fact the composer's daughter called them on and reamed the band for in a legal battle. This eponymous album set the tone for most of the rest of their work; all the elements that would comprise the remainder of their albums were set in stone here.

The Barbarian: an instrumental riding on the coattails of a much more talented composer;
Take a Pebble: a gentle piece featuring Lake's acoustic guitar and some subdued piano and percussion by Emerson and Palmer (these were rare);
Knife-Edge: a loud and rather obnoxious "rock" song with lyrics so bad you could almost hear Yes prepping a lawsuit;
The Three Fates: Emerson-centric pseudo-classical self-absorption. If you add Kefka's theme to this, it becomes Dancing Mad!
Tank: another instrumental, with lots of percussion and synthesizers... and a bass line that becomes irrelevant after the second bar;
Lucky Man: a schamltzy Lake ballad with infantile lyrics (which is OK, since Lake wrote the song as a child; however, the later ELP albums consisted almost entirely of these songs, and don't have the same excuse).

Tarkus | 1971

The next album was Tarkus, whose title track about a giant armadillo tank monster who fights God encompassed the first side of the record and was, shockingly, really good. The second half of the album consisted entirely of terrible throwaway filler, though, including music ranging from the pointless ("Jeremy Bender") to the downright painful ("Bitches Crystal" and "Infinite Space," whose amateurish, heavy-handed attempts at theological philosophy would make Xenogears' staff proud: "If you believe/God makes you breathe/Why did he lose/Six million jews?"). Since the entirety of the song Tarkus can be found on several sets, my advice to anyone who lacks a strong sense of self-abuse skip this one entirely.

Trilogy | 1972

The title track of this album is among the band's worst offenses as it can't decide whether it's an unbearably maudlin ballad or a cloyingly peppy synth-rock workout. Also, be on the lookout for The Endless Enigma, another of those songs with terrible Pete Sinfeld lyrics. Restraint, boys, restraint. On the plus side, Trilogy did feature two more memorable bastardizations of classical music: "Abaddon's Bolero," (based on Ravel's "Bolero") and "Hoedown," the first of their rather enjoyable desecrations of Aaron Copland's works. Also included is "From the Beginning," a beautiful, haunting song which bears about as much resemblence to the rest of the band's catalog as "Dust in the Wind" does to Kansas' ouevre.

Brain Salad Surgery | 1973

Possibly the most dense and overwrought album ever to emerge from the prog scene. And that's saying something, considering this was released concurrently with Tales from Topographic Oceans. Beginning with a loud and very weird performance of popular British hymn "Jersalem" and moving onto a strange synth-percussion experiment based on the works of Albert Ginastera, the band pauses for a moment for the "amusing" "Benny the Bouncer" and "Still... You Turn Me On," another ballad with asinine lyrics ("Every day a little sadder/A little madder/Someone get me a ladder." Not kidding, honest) before launching into its science-fictiony magnum opus, "Karn Evil 9," a song so long it had to be split to fit into the space limitations of vinyl. "Karn Evil 9" tells, in three "impressions," some sort of story about a grim future where the human race is kept alive only as a carnival side show (geddit, "Karn Evil?" Hur hur hur). Or something like that - the song is as obtuse and incomprehensible as the most surreal anime you could imagine. After a completely out-of-place cheerful bit with steel drums, the song becomes a rather pretty piano piece which culminates in a story about a space captain whose ship's computer decides it's superior to humans and mutinies via an oscillating stereo panning effect. At which point both the song and band imploded, mercifully.

Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends | 1974

Determined to be like the "big boys," ELP released this 3-record live set which includes every worthwhile song they had recorded to that point (and others, as well) in a package bulky enough to compete with Yessongs and Chicago Live at Carnegie Hall. Although had they known about those 32 live Pearl Jam bootlegs they'd have realized their effort at massive self-importance was doomed to insignificance.

Of note here is the fact that this live set manages to include both of the band's "epic" works in their entirety - an extended version of "Tarkus" with some deft keyboard maneuvers by Emerson, and a rendition of all three movements of "Karn Evil 9" which comes to a crashing halt thanks to that most unfortunate of rock wankery indulgences, the interminable drum solo. Nevertheless, this album chronicles ELP at what was probably their peak: their live chops and interplay were still solid, and they had enough original material that they didn't have to resort to Pictures at an Exhibition. Too bad everything after this is an embarrassment to the human race.

Works Vol. 1 | 1977

Since E, L & P all realized that their names weren't interesting enough to sell solo albums without the presence of their bandmates, they lumped all their solo efforts into this dumping ground. Carl Palmer takes the slick, jazzy pop fluff approach, Greg Lake takes the weepy, sappy pop fluff approach, and Emerson presents his own piano concerto, which all things considered isn't too shabby. Still, the only real reason to listen to this album is for the hilariously bad epic "Pirates," featuring 13 minutes of pudgy, girlish Greg Lake waxing eloquent about adventurous life on the high seas via tortuous Pete Sinfeld lyrics, and the band's violently brilliant take on Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man."

Works Vol. 2 | 1978

The first of ELP's truly abominable recordings, this is less an album and more a compliation of B-sides and other crap not good enough to include on better records. The greatest crime on display is hearing Greg Lake's beautiful yet cynical ballad "I Believe in Father Christmas" stripped of its lush orchestra and choir and replaced with a bland synthesizer. Thanks for nothing, Emerson.

Love Beach | 1979

When prog rock bands get old, two things happen. One, their music solwly degenerates into maudlin adult-oriented pop bilge; and two, their epic 20-minute songs disappear in favor of radio-friendly short-format tunes. So what would happen if their long-format songs didn't fade into truncated oblivion as the music turns mushy, you ask? Wonder no more, because the answer rests here in the form of "Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman," a 20-minute-long schmaltzy ballad. It's even more boring than you might expect, and the rest of the album fares no better. The name of the album makes no pretense about the embarassing post-disco "leisure suits and sweet alcoholic drinks with umbrellas" atmosphere of the music contained within - to say nothing of the polyester bell-bottoms the trio sports on the cover. This is the sort of thing that more determined musicians like Robert Fripp work to have striken from the back catalog, and for good reason. The dissolution of the band at this point was in no way a tragedy.

Emerson Lake and Powell | 1986

"Eh? Shouldn't that be Palmer?" you ask. Alas, gentle reader, this album is (on the surface) a painfully embarrassing attempt by Greg Lake and Keith Emerson to cash in on their name recognition by churning out their obligatory "70s rock dinosaurs with an 80s sound" album (see also: 91210, Momentary Lapse of Reason, Out of Reach, Discipline, Pump, etc.). The "Powell" part comes as a result of the fact that Carl Palmer had much better things to do than tour with a couple of creaky old farts - or so it seemed at the time, back when Asia actually had some fans and no one had caught on to the fact that it, too, was full of creaky old farts. The E & L duo needed a P for maximum shamelessness, so they quickly enlisted former Black Sabbath and Whitesnake percussionist Cozy Powell, the first drummer they could find whose last name began with the correct consonant and who was sufficiently in need of money to accept equal billing for this abomination (and the resultant career suicide this entailed) along with his session fee.

The actual truth is: the album isn't entirely terrible, and in fact the song "Touch and Go" occasionally shows up as the intro for various television football programs. The legacy of terrible lyrics continues here ("They stick you in the corner like an old banjo/Strings are breakin' but ya can't say no/You're running with the devil/It's touch and go"), although for once the blame rests solo on Lake's shoulders as Pete Sinfeld was forced to go into hiding after the punk revolution. It's little surprise that the highlight of the album is the vocal-free rendition of "Mars, Bringer of War" from "The Planets" - an impressively faithful and cosmic-sounding take on Holst's best-known piece. And in any case, this beats the stuffing out of Love Beach. Just watch out for the CD version, which contains two "bonus" tracks - one, a pleasant but forgettable song who name fittingly eludes me; the other, a painful, humilating synthesizer-heavy instrumental remake of "The Loco-Motion." It's as horrible as it sounds.

Black Moon | 1991

ELP returns, although you'd be hard-pressed to realize it from Lake's husky aging-smoker voice, a sadly far cry from the energetic baritone he possessed less than a decade prior. Age is not kind to the music here, although the title track is decently rockin', and if you can get past the usual complement of gruesomely trite lyrics ("Put your hand into my hand/We can cross this desert made of sand" - as opposed to the other kinds of deserts, I suppose, like the one made of Pocky, or the type that's composed of miniature rubber duckies) it's a decent enough comeback album. Certainly better than Yes' attempt to make a comeback around the same time with "Union" and *shudder* "Talk."

Live at Royal Albert Hall | 1992

ELP's third live album, released for all intents and purposes a single album after 1979's "Live" (which is not listed here because it was repackaged 15 years later as the much better "Works Live"). Why? Because Love Beach and ELPowell are understandably omitted from the set recorded at RAH. Ultimately this album consists of a great deal of Black Moon material and the expected host of reworked older songs, including an enticing snippet of Tarkus that cruelly segues into the worst performance of "Knife-Edge" to date. The performance quality is quite a bit worse than heard on previous live albums, probably as a result of the band become old and creaky - particularly Palmer, whose drum work tries to make up for its newfound lack of complexity and finesse with sheer loudness. Which is strange, because Palmer's the only band member considered to be unafflicted by the ravages of time. What makes this album listenable is the pleasantly enjoyable rendition of Pirates, and the lengthy, energetic finale which combines "Fanfare for the Common Man" with "Rondo" (derived from Brubeck's "Rondo a la Turk," a live setpiece for Emerson since the days of the Nice) and "America"... and exploding electric organs, of course.

In the Hotseat | 1994

This album hurts too much to think about. Boring, tedious and uninspired power pop tunes made even worse by a producer who decided it would be a great idea to insert his young daughter's voice into the music, this album quickly disappeared from record bins (even bargain bins). And the wise are advised not to hunt it down.

Then and Now | 1998

One disc of live material from 1974 and one of live material from 1994 indicate the obvious fact that no one needs to have pointed out: the glory days for this band are long past.

Official Bootlegs | 2001

Pearl Jam does it. King Crimson does it. Marillion's been doing it for years. Zappa did it even earlier. So ELP decided to join in the fun and release several CDs worth of live bootlegs culled through the ages, featuring quite a bit of redundancy. How many different versions of Tarkus does someone need? Quite a few, if this 9-disc double-box set is indication. Admittedly, I've not listened to it yet as I don't have $90 to drop on substandard recordings of songs I already own on disc, but I suppose there are people out there who consider it a point of pride to be known as a hardcore ELP fan. This is for those people... but I guess they don't need me to tell them that.

[1] Note: This article was originally written before I was 30, fat and bald.