The lineup of the group, ever a constantly changing thing, consisted of founder and guitarist Robert Fripp, violinist/keyboardist David Cross, drummer Bill Bruford (formerly of Yes), and bassist/vocalist John Wetton (formerly of Family). By all accounts, life as a Crim was not the glamorous rock star trip. Fripp was known to be highly precise and sometimes demanding. This attention to detail was seen in the band's discography, from the jazz-psyche of debut The Court Of The Crimson King, to the highly prog (with all it's plusses and minuses) Lizard featuring vocals from Yes' Jon Anderson, to that current lineup which was walking a much harder line. They would eventually record the album Red which had the heavy chops to give even Black Sabbath a run for their money.
The band itself would splinter and find varying degees of success afterward. Bruford would have his solo work, continued Crimson work, and reunite with Yes mainstays in the Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe project. Cross would do other work in and around the Crimson camp but not really break out. Fripp maintained the group as well as releasing the solo disc Exposure. He was also a sought-after session player and producer for artists like Peter Gabriel and (I kid you not) Daryl Hall. Wetton bounced around a bit as bassist for Roxy Music, then Wishbone Ash, then forming the band U.K. with Allan Holdsworth and Eddie Jobson, before finally reaching a career peak as founder/bassist/vocalist for Asia.
The USA album features the Asbury Park performance, and the improvisation titled "Asbury Park," by and large. What I mean by "by and large" is that the disc-closing rendition of "21st Century Schizoid Man" was recorded at the Palace Theatre, Providence, RI. Beyond that, during the recording of the Asbury Park show, Cross was not properly mic'd up and, consequently, his parts were poorly recorded (if at all). Jobson was called in overdub those parts in the studio. Now, that might sound like some kind of sacrilege, or at least a deceptive practice but in actuality, most live recordings are "sweetened" in the studio. All across the musical spectrum, when official recordings are matched with bootlegs of the exact same performances, the differences can be stark and obvious. (Jobson, by the way, also landed in Roxy Music with Wetton though not at the same time. He plays on the Siren album and can be heard on the track "Love Is The Drug." Prog, it seems, is a ridiculously incestuous genre.)
USA was put out in 1975 following the release of Red and was seen as the last gasp of the Wetton years. But a funny thing happened in the 1980s. Suddenly the very thorny and weird, slightly druggy aspect of prog rock was mellowing and mainstreaming. People were accepting the art-rock eccentricities while, at the same time, the bands were less inclined to play ten minute songs. This is the era where Asia made a huge splash, Yes release 90125 and "Owner Of A Lonely Heart," Peter Gabriel introduced the rhythmic "Shock The Monkey" while his former band Genesis scored hits with "Misunderstanding," "Turn It On Again," and "No Reply At All."
King Crimson, now with Fripp, bassist Tony Levin, drummer Bruford, and former David Bowie/Talking Heads guitarist (on the Remain In Light record) Adrian Belew, became a college rock darling.
It would be preposterous to say that the USA tour in '74 was the breaking point that forced Crimson and bands like them to accept change. That change was still a few years off. But as a curio of a certain type of music nearing a stylistic end, being forced to either evolve or just meet the marketplace halfway, USA found a group not in much acceptance of that tidal pull. It also represents an oddity in that Asbury Park was once as much a must-stop tour space as venues in Hoboken and Brooklyn are now. Summer package festivals like the Warped Tour still come around, but Crimson's godchildren like Porcupine Tree or Tool certainly don't. And there lies one of the biggest hurdles before the town. Even though it still is very much a "music culture," it has become identified so deeply with a specific sound that it no longer is seen as a necessary location for others to plan dates in.
That's both a shame and a problem...a shame because it guarantees that committed audiences won't have the option of seeing bands they like in the city limits, thereby narrowing Asbury's potential. It's a problem because, until that lack of diversity is broken, the clubs and venues may suffer continued attrition, leaving themselves exposed to parties with no interest in Asbury's musical history whatsoever.
