ELP is my favorite band of ALL TIME!! The lineup features the keyboard wizardry of Keith Emerson, originally from The Nice; the delicate bass/guitar/voice & imaginative songwriting of Greg Lake, who came from King Crimson; and finally, the God of all drummers, Carl Palmer, who did a stint with Asia when ELP went on hiatus. Emerson & Lake also did a fantastic one-album project with Cozy Powell appropriately called Emerson, Lake & Powell. After that, Emerson & Palmer formed up with some guy named Robert Berry for a band called 3, and except for one song ("Talkin' Bout"), their music sucked! Also, Keith Emerson has done soundtracks for a number of extremely obscure movies: "Nighthawks", "Best Revenge", "Murderock" and "Harmageddon". Ring a bell? Hmm didn't think they would. Oh well enough of my babbling, on with the music:

"Emerson, Lake & Palmer"

1. "The Barbarian"--instrumental (4:28)
2. "Take a Pebble" (12:27)
3. "Knife-Edge" (5:05)
4. "The Three Fates"--instrumental: (7:43)
   • i. Clotho
   • ii. Lachesis
   • iii. Atropos
5. "Tank"--instrumental (6:47)
6. "Lucky Man" (4:37)

Several years ago I was hard up for cash so I sold all my ELP albums, knowing I would eventually upgrade to CD anyway. After scouring the used bins for years I managed to rebuild my entire collection, save for this particular album. It kept on eluding me for years so eventually I caved in and bought a new copy (heresy!)

"Pictures at an Exhibition"

• "Pictures at an Exhibition": (33:48)
  1. Promenade--instrumental
  2. The Gnome--instrumental
  3. Promenade
  4. The Sage
  5. The Old Castle--instrumental
  6. Blues Variation--instrumental
  7. Promenade--instrumental
  8. The Hut of Baba Yaga--instrumental
  9. The Curse of Baba Yaga--instrumental
  10. The Hut of Baba Yaga
  11. The Great Gates of Kiev
• Nutrocker--instrumental (4:22)

This is an adaptation of Mussorgsky's composition by the same name, performed live at Newcastle City Hall in 1971. Of course the band threw in their own creative bits (I don't think Mussorgsky had "Blues Variation" in mind when he composed it!) and it's an essential ELP classic. The CD tracks the album as side one and side two of the original LP.

A bit of personal trivia here. About a year ago I came down with a vicious illness that wound me up in the Intensive Care Unit for several days. Of course there's nothing more BORING than lying in a hospital bed, unable to move or do anything, all I could do was watch TV and of course you know how tedious that can be! Well, while watching some stupid gymnastics program, one of the floor routines was performed to ELP's "The Sage" from this album! It was so cool to hear an obscure song from my favorite band, like it was played for me specially to relieve me from my misery. For a little while, at least.

"Tarkus"

1. "Tarkus": (20:31)
   • i. Eruption--instrumental
   • ii. Stones of Years
   • iii. Iconoclast--instrumental
   • iv. Mass
   • v. Manticore--instrumental
   • vi. Battlefield
   • vii. Aquatarkus--instrumental
2. "Jeremy Bender" (1:41)
3. "Bitches Crystal" (3:54)
4. "The Only Way (Hymn)" (3:50)--includes J.S. Bach's "Toccata in F" and "Prelude IV"
5. "Infinite Space (conclusion)"--instrumental (3:18)
6. "A Time and a Place" (3:00)
7. "Are You Ready Eddy?" (2:09)

This was one of the first ELP albums I ever bought and the intricate, nearly ostentatious "Tarkus" literally blew me away. Neat album graphics, too. The song "Are You Ready Eddy?" is for ELP's engineer Eddy Afford, and sounds like a studio jam they did on the fly. Also Greg Lake's cynicism towards Christianity is made plain on the song "The Only Way":

People are stirred, moved by the Word
Kneel at the shrine, deceived by the wine
How was the Earth conceived, Infinite Space
Is there such a place?
You must believe in the human race
Can you believe, "God makes you breathe?"
Why did he lose six million Jews?...
Who looks on Life itself, who lights your way?
Only you can say
How can you just obey?
Don't need the Word, now that you've heard
Don't be afraid, Man is Man-made
And when the hour comes, don't turn away
Face the light of day
And do it your way...it's the only way.

"Trilogy"

1. "The Endless Enigma (part one)" (6:37)
2. "Fugue"--instrumental (1:57)
3. "The Endless Enigma (part two)" (2:00)
4. "From the Beginning" (4:14)
5. "The Sheriff" (3:22)
6. "Hoedown" (taken from "Rodeo")--instrumental (3:48)
7. "Trilogy" (8:54)
8. "Living Sin" (3:11)
9. "Abaddon's Bolero"--instrumental (8:13)

Another great ELP album...well, aren't they all? Actually, no! But I'll get to that later...anyway, "Hoedown" is a concert staple originally written by Aaron Copeland. "Trilogy" is easily one of their best songs ever, the instrumental bridge is a monster rocker! "The Endless Enigma" has been covered by Mastermind.

"Brain Salad Surgery"

1. "Jerusalem" (2:41)
2. "Toccatta"(adaptation of Ginastera's 1st Piano Concerto, 4th Movement)--instrumental (7:16)
   
3. "Still...You Turn Me On" (2:50)
4. "Benny the Bouncer" (2:15)
5. "Karn Evil 9" (29:32)
   • 1st Impression part 1
   • 1st Impression part 2
   • 2nd Impression--instrumental
   • 3rd Impression

Years ago, before I was into ELP, I saw this album cover featuring a hideous grey skull-like face with spikes or something shoved through the cheekbones. There was no band name apparent except for the title "Brain Salad Surgery", so I assumed it was a band name. My brother & I used to joke about it, how awful a band with that name must sound. Little did I know, that that very album was in fact THE BEST FUCKING ALBUM IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE AND ALL PARALLEL UNIVERSES AND EVERYWHERE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER!!! Let's take it step by step:

Jerusalem is a traditional-style hymn written decades ago by William Blake. It's quite odd to hear the normally anti-Christian Lake singing, "And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England's golden green/And was the Holy Lamb of God in England's pleasant pastures seen..." The song (NOT the ELP version, I'm afraid) was featured in the movie Chariots of Fire; also, Bruce Dickinson, of all people, has recorded his own version of it....

Toccatta is an arrangement of a piece by some obscure composer named Ginastera. For the longest time I had no idea who this guy was, and neither did anyone I asked who had a working knowledge of classical music. It wasn't until I showed a friend a preview of this very page who filled me in:

you will be interested to know that ALBERTO GINASTERA is an Argentine, born in 1916...not sure if he's still living. I don't know a lot about his music, except it is indeed very "modern" - lots dissonance and queer rhythms. (I respect it - but don't really like it!)

Dissonant and queer is right! The song also features a percussion solo by Carl Palmer and some wicked synthesizer noises. Oh, I should mention this part, ELP was one of the first bands to use synthesizers big-time. And understand this was back in 1974 or so, and the earliest synthesizers were real crude pieces of machinery, in fact you could only play one note at a time on most of them! So to hear them play something so lush & technical on an instrument slightly less advanced than a Timex Sinclair 9000 is quite impressive!

Still...You Turn Me On is an acoustic piece by Greg Lake and a concert staple. It's regarded a classic among all ELP fans, although I'm not especially excited by it...

Benny the Bouncer is a short, hilarious diddy about a knife-versus-cold-meat-pie fight in a pub. I think Keith Emerson does the vocals on this one, but I'm not positive.

Karn Evil 9: Well, where to start? To make it short, this is absolutely the best piece of musical artistry ever composed by anyone, anywhere. (Misplaced Childhood by Marillion is a distant second.) It's an audio journey starting with a walk through a circus-like festival, led by a pitchman offering such delights as "a stripper in a till" and "the Gypsy Queen in a glaze of Vaseline" (Greg Lake's anti-Christian sentiments poke in with the line, "Not content with that, with our hands behind our backs, we'll pull Jesus from a hat, get into that, get into that...") The journey continues into an aural array of juxtaposing moods, Keith Emerson's piano leading the way. Eventually the forces of heaven and Earth meet in mortal combat, and once the war ends, computers decide that man is inferior and they take over. Transcendent!

disc one:
1. "Hoedown"--instrumental (4:27)
2. "Jerusalem" (3:18)
3. "Toccata"--instrumental (7:23)
4. "Tarkus" (including Epitaph) (27:24)
5. "Take a Pebble" (including Still You Turn Me On and Lucky Man) (11:08)

disc two:
1. "Piano Improvisations"--instrumental (including Fugue and Little Rock Getaway) (11:53)
2. "Take a Pebble" (conclusion) (3:14)
3. "Jeremy Bender/The Sheriff" (5:24)
4. "Karn Evil 9" (35:19)

I held onto this filthy, scratchy 3-LP set for years, thinking I would never see the thing come out on CD. Well, surprise, surprise! The record company finally reissued ELP's entire back catalog, including this set, which I discovered used! The transfer to CD was masterfully done, with all the songs that had to be broken up into separate album sides mixed together properly. I was even more dazzled when I ran across their Works Live set, but again, we'll get to that later...

More about the song "Karn Evil 9"--years ago, I had a job back East and rode the bus/Metro every day. I had the live version of KE9 on one side of a tape and the commute took just as long as the song did to play. Also, one time when I was racing to LAX to pick up someone, I popped in KE9 (the studio version this time) and once again, the song lasted me all the way there. In fact, the moods in the song perfectly matched the ride--during the quiet, spooky part a cop came on the freeway (meaning I had to slow down from about 90), and he got off the freeway when the spooky part ended...and driving into massive concrete complex of the airport itself was matched by the ending part: "Rejoice, glory is ours..." Quite a trip!

"Works--Volume I" (dbl CD)

disc one:
1. "Piano Concerto No. 1: First Movement: Allegro Giojoso"--instrumental (9:18)
2. "Piano Concerto No. 1: Second Movement: Andante Molto Cantabile"--instrumental (2:09)
3. "Piano Concerto No. 1: Third Movement: Toccata Con Fuoco"--instrumental (6:50)
4. "Lend Your Love to Me Tonight" (4:00)
5. "C'est la Vie" (4:17)
6. "Hallowed Be Thy Name" (4:35)
7. "Nobody Loves You Like I Do" (3:56)
8. "Closer to Believing" (5:34)

disc two:
1. "The Enemy God Dances with the Black Spirits"--instrumental (3:16)
2. "L.A. Nights"--instrumental (5:42)
3. "New Orleans"--instrumental (2:45)
4. "Two Part Invention in D Minor" (J.S. Bach)--instrumental (1:53)
5. "Food for Your Soul"--instrumental (3:58)
6. "Tank"--instrumental (5:09)
7. "Fanfare for the Common Man"--intstrumental (9:38)
8. "Pirates" (13:20)

The concept for this album was for solo material by the three band members, one side for each, with the fourth side for group compositions. Keith Emerson's "Piano Concerto" may be no 1812 Overture, but it is quite pleasant. Greg Lake's songs (tracks 4-8) are nice but nothing special (you see what I'm getting at here), and "Lend Your Love..." continues his religious cynicism in the line, "No crucifix, I am not lame..." Carl Palmer's contributions (tracks 9-14) are funky, jazzy instrumentals in sort of a fusion vein. Joe Walsh performs guitar & adds some vocalizations to "L.A. Nights". And side four contains their classic adaptation of Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man", a concert-closer to this day, and "Pirates", another one of my favorite compositions by the band. I often imagine the music set to a short-film type video of the story told in the song, replete with Greg Lake decked out in pirate gear, whipping his rapier & shoveling his fists through piles of gold. I played this song for an old fogey co-worker once and he liked it, he said it sounded like the theme to a light-hearted stage play.

"C'est La Vie" has been covered by Nightingale on A Black Mark Tribute II.

"Works--Volume II"

1. "Tiger in a Spotlight" (4:34)
2. "When the Apple Blossoms Bloom in the Windmills of Your Mind I'll Be Your Valentine" --instrumental (3:55)
3. "Bullfrog"--instrumental (3:52)
4. "Brain Salad Surgery" (3:05)
5. "Barrelhouse Shake-Down"--instrumental (3:47)
6. "Watching over You" (3:55)
7. "So Far to Fall" (4:56)
8. "Maple Leaf Rag"--instrumental (1:55)
9. "I Believe in Father Christmas" (3:16)
10. "Close but Not Touching"--instrumental (3:19)
11. "Honky Tonk Train Blues"--instrumental (3:09)
12. "Show Me the Way to Go Home" (3:30)

Basically a bunch of outtakes from the Works I sessions, at least it appears so. Some good songs here ("Tiger in a Spotlight" kinda sounds like the Sesame Street theme!) and a few...er, well nothing here is absolutely horrible but I don't care for the slow songs ("Watching over You", et al) that much. "Maple Leaf Rag" is a ragtime classic originally by Scott Joplin. "Show Me the Way to Go Home" of course is an old song but I don't know who did it originally. "...Father Christmas" at first sounds like a departure from Greg Lake's religious cynicism, and I'm sure most people think it's a pleasant holiday tune, but actually paying attention to the lyrics dispels that illusion: "And I believed in Father Christmas, I looked to the skies with excited eyes/Then I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn and I saw him through his disguise." How true!

"Works Live" (dbl CD)

disc one:
1. "Introductory Fanfare" (0:52)
2. "Peter Gunn"--instrumental (3:33)
3. "Tiger in a Spotlight" (4:10)
4. "C'est la Vie" (4:14)
5. "Watching over You" (3:59)
6. "Maple Leaf Rag"--instrumental (1:13)
7. "The Enemy God Dances w/ the Black Spirits" --instrumental (2:46)
8. "Fanfare for the Common Man"--instrumental (10:55)
9. "Knife-Edge" (5:03)
10. "Show Me the Way to Go Home" (4:20)

disc two:
1. "Abaddon's Bolero"--instrumental (6:03)
2. "Pictures at an Exhibition" (15:42)
3. "Closer to Believing" (5:29)
4. "Piano Concerto No. 1: Third Movement"--instrumental (6:42)
5. "Tank"--instrumental (12:38)

About half of these songs were on a crappy vinyl record called ELP Live in Concert. I grooved to it, although when I first played it for a friend, and "Peter Gunn" came on, he rolled his eyes and said, "How many people have done THIS song?" Oh well, it takes all types I guess... anyway, when ELP reissued their back catalog, I saw this title and figured it was the same album under a different name. And it was...with TWICE AS MANY SONGS! Rejoice!!

A few more tidbits: The concert was performed in Montreal, with a 70-piece orchestra which complements many of the songs nicely without getting in the way of the music. "Pictures at an Exhibition" skips from the second "Promenade" straight into "The Hut of Baba Yaga". Carl Palmer rips away in his trademark drum solo in "Tank", which sounds more like the Works I version than the original one.

"Love Beach"

1. "All I Want is You" (2:34)
2. "Love Beach" (2:44)
3. "Taste of My Love" (3:31)
4. "The Gambler" (3:21)
5. "For You" (4:27)
6. "Canario (from Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre)"--instrumental (3:57)
7. "Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman" (20:16)
   
   • "Prologue/The Education of a Gentleman"
   • "Love at First Sight"
   • "Letters from the Front"
   • "Honourable Company (A March)"--instrumental

Amazing how ELP, after putting out some of the best music of all time, has also put out the WORST album of all time! I mean, just the title wants to make me puke (to say nothing of that travesty of a cover photo with the band members showing off their chest hair and Keith Emerson with a sock in his pants.) "The Gambler" is a good song, I suppose, but only because it rips off both "Tiger in a Spotlight" and "The Sheriff", which were classics in their own right. "Canario" is a second-rate Emerson instrumental, and not even the epic 20-minute "Officer and a Gentleman" can save itself from mediocrity. The other songs aren't even worth mentioning...or listening to!! The band broke up for over a decade after this one, although various members put out albums under the band names of Emerson, Lake & Powell and 3 during the 80's.

"Black Moon" (Japanese import)

1. "Black Moon" (6:58)
2. "Paper Blood" (4:28)
3. "Affairs of the Heart" (3:47)
4. "Romeo and Juliet"--instrumental (3:42)
5. "Farewell to Arms" (5:08)
6. "Changing States"--instrumental (6:02)
7. "Burning Bridges" (4:45)
8. "Close to Home"--instrumental (4:28)
9. "Better Days" (5:36)
10. "Footprints in the Snow" (3:52)
11. "A Blade of Grass"--instrumental (2:14)

ELP's 1991 comeback/reunion album, and they sound pretty good after all these years. It's no Brain Salad Surgery, but it's no Love Beach either! The first two tracks were overplayed on radio, but the instrumental "Changing States" is fantastic, and so is the super-rhythmic "Better Days". "Romeo & Juliet" is a Prokofiev piece (NOT Tchaikovsky as I said earlier...dammit I can never keep those Russian composers straight!)

This is also where the dreaded record company CONSPIRACY of putting extra songs on Japanese imports hit my favorite band...in fact, I didn't find out about the extra track, "Blade of Grass", until it was long out of print!! Finally, I located a Japanese distributor who had this & Hot Seat for a reasonable price, was just about to place an order when CDNow found 'em first. :) Of course, that coveted track turned out not to be a real song, but a short piano instrumental. Oh well...sucks to be me sometimes.

"Live at the Royal Albert Hall"

1. "Karn Evil No. 9 (1st Impression, part 2)" (1:45)
2. "Tarkus": (9:33)
   • I. Eruption
   • II. Stones of Years
   • III. Iconoclast
3. "Knife-Edge" (5:27)
4. "Paper Blood" (4:10)
5. "Romeo & Juliet"--instrumental (3:41)
6. "Creole Dance"--instrumental (3:17)
7. "Still...You Turn Me On" (3:18)
8. "Lucky Man" (4:38)
9. "Black Moon" (6:33)
10. "Pirates" (13:23)
11. "Finale (medley)"--instrumental: (14:41)
    • I. Fanfare for the Common Man
    • II. America
    • III. Rondo

ELP usually shines in concert, but on this CD they really start to show their age. It's not particularly awful, but they could have done better. The gems here are the live performance of "Pirates" (not done particularly well, I'm afraid) and a bit of "America" from Emerson's Nice days.

"Return of the Manticore" (box set)

I think I mentioned once that I refused to buy this box set monstrosity because of the extreme paucity of unreleased tracks...well, after spending $26 each for those two Japanese imports, holding out on this thing was kind of silly. Especially since it auctions for a relatively low price on eBay -- just $20.50, thank you very much. :) (Well, more like $25 with shipping...but it WAS brand new & sealed, and some $40 less than the list price!!!) So let's see what we got here...

Well, like I said, there's only EIGHT unreleased songs here (not counting "Pictures", which is the same as the Hot Seat version), three of which are lame rerecordings of songs that were perfectly fine to begin with: "Touch & Go", "21st Century Schizoid Man" & "I Believe in Father Christmas". In fact, I'm rather PISSED that they chose to rerecord that last one, instead of using the 45rpm version which is pretty much impossible to find on CD!!! A long time ago, I could have bought the sampler CD which contained the 6 "new" tracks, but declined since it didn't have the other three (spread out among all cds, which made buying just the CDs I wanted an exercise in futility.) Okay, about those other 3 songs: "Rondo" is basically a live version of that jam-fest they traditionally peform with their show-closer "Fanfare for the Common Man" (although it was recorded in 1970, so no "Fanfare" part here.) "Prelude & Fugue" is basically a studio recording of Emerson's "Piano Improvisations" solo; "Bo Diddley" is an interesting track, though, sounding like a cross between "Jeremy Bender" and "Benny the Bouncer".

As for the rest, well, it's all stuff from their umpteen albums, which of course I already got -- although, to put a bright face on the whole thing, it IS nice to have some tracks like "Karn Evil 9" and "Take a Pebble" mastered as a single track, with no fade-out between parts of the song. And heck, the music is AWESOME anyway (except the crappy "Love Beach" tracks, WHY did they have to include those??) -- just put these 4 discs on shuffle mode and you've got a pleasant afternoon of ELP-listening handy. Well, enough of this rant. For the ELP completist, this isn't a bad set after all...but ONLY if you get it DIRT CHEAP, like I did!!!

"In the Hot Seat" (Japanese import)

1. "Hand of Truth" (5:22)
2. "Daddy" (4:42)
3. "One by One" (5:07)
4. "Heart on Ice" (4:19)
5. "Thin Line" (4:45)
6. "Man in the Long Black Coat" (4:12)
7. "Change" (4:44)
8. "Give Me a Reason to Stay" (4:14)
9. "Gone Too Soon" (4:11)
10. "Street War" (4:24)
11. "Pictures at an Exhibition"--in Dolby Surround Sound (15:29)
    • i. Promenade
    • ii. The Gnome
    • iii. Promenade
    • iv. The Sage
    • v. The Hut of Baba Yaga
    • vi. The Great Gates of Kiev
12. "Hammer it Out"--instrumental (2:35)

Oh no, here we go again! The first track is a great bouncy, jazzy number which exemplifies their virtuosity for the 90's. The rest, however, really gives Love Beach a run for its money. Okay, maybe it's not THAT bad, "...Reason to Stay" is a pretty radio-friendly ballad, for example. However, some of the songs outright SUCK! Greg Lake's voice is totally worn out, and Keith Emerson plays like he has carpal tunnel syndrome (as a matter of fact, he did.) But worst of all is the lyrical banality--the song "Daddy" is HORRIBLE, and so is "Man in the Long Black Coat": "You know about people, people just float/She went with the man in the long black coat." Groan. Even the re-recording of "Pictures" sounds flat & unappetizing.

The Japanese reissue contains a bonus Emerson instrumental "Hammer it Out"; normally I try to ignore that greedy record company CONSPIRACY, but hey, it's ELP dammit...sure wish I could stop buying all my favorite artists' worst albums twice, though.

"I Believe in Father Christmas EP"

1. "I Believe in Father Christmas"--single version (3:32)
2. "Troika (from Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije Suite")"--instrumental (4:19)
3. "Humbug" (2:26)
4. "I Believe in Father Christmas"--LP version (3:18)
5. "Nutrocker"--live, instrumental (3:49)

This rare EP came to my attention when Amazon.com listed it as "out of print"...well, obviously it's just been reissued, because I just happened to browse CDNow's catalog and there it was! This one's a must-have for the "single" version of the song, featuring the choral accompaniment & the swelling orchestra at the end. "Humbug" is the b-side of said single, and is unavailable anywhere else; "Troika" (which is basically the instrumental part used in the "Father Xmas" song) is from Keith Emerson's Christmas CD. "Nutrocker" is the Pictures at an Exhibition version.

"Live in Poland"

1. "Welcome Back" [Karn Evil 9 1st Impression, part 2] (5:27)
2. "Touch and Go" (3:54)
3. "From the Beginning" (4:08)
4. "Knife Edge" (5:45)
5. "Bitches Crystal" (4:05)
6. "Piano Solo" (7:58)
7. "Take a Pebble" (6:37)
8. "Lucky Man" (4:22)
9. "Tarkus/Pictures at an Exhibition" (17:02)
10. "Fanfare for the Common Man/Rondo"--instrumental (17:57)

This album was recorded from a 1997 concert in Poland, and released exclusively in Poland. Why POLAND?? Do they have some huge underground fan base there? Well, it really doesn't matter except that it made this CD very hard to obtain, until it finally appeared in Century Media's catalog for a mere $12. (To make matters more confusing, my copy says it's printed in Austria. Huh?)

The tracklist closely matches the ELP show I saw in Oct. '96 (the one and only time I've seen the boys live) except, on that night, they opened with "Hoedown" instead of "Karn Evil 9" (dammit!) All of the songs sound pretty close to the versions on Then & Now, with one exception, the medley of "Tarkus" and "Pictures at an Exhibition", which KICKS ASS!! (The sections include the first four parts of "Tarkus", up to "Mass"; then from "The Hut of Baba Yaga" to the end.) All in all, good show. Get it if you can find it.

"Then & Now"

disc one:
1. "Toccata"--instrumental (3:35)
2. "Take a Pebble Excerpts" (18:21)
   • Still...You Turn Me On
   • Lucky Man
   • Piano Improvisations
   • Take a Pebble
3. "Karn Evil 9" (19:36)
   • First Impression pt. 2
   • Third Impression
4. "A Time and a Place" (4:05)
5. "Piano Concerto No. 1: Third Movement"--instrumental (4:51)
6. "From the Beginning" (4:14)

disc two:
1. "Karn Evil 9 (1st Impression pt. 2)" (5:25)
2. "Tiger in a Spotlight" (3:34)
3. "Hoedown"--instrumental (4:56)
4. "Touch and Go" (4:11)
5. "Knife Edge" (6:12)
6. "Bitches Crystal" (4:29)
7. "Honky Tonk Train Blues"--instrumental (3:42)
8. "Take a Pebble" (7:09)
9. "Lucky Man" (5:06)
10. "Fanfare for the Common Man/Blue Rondo a la Turk"--instrumental (22:10)
11. "21st Century Schizoid Man/America" (4:52)

If you haven't heard already, ELP has broken up AGAIN...which is a shame, because I heard they were supposed to be getting back to their progressive roots (instead of the Hot Seat travesty they inflicted upon us!) Instead, they left us with this double live set, so titled because it comes from two different times in their musical career...

The first three tracks ("Then") are basically excerpts from their appearance at the California Jam in 1974. The sound quality is AWFUL, and if you haven't figured out already by the time lengths, doesn't even contain the complete songs! If you've already heard Welcome Back My Friends... then you aren't missing anything special (in fact, "Piano Improvisations" sounds totally identical to the WBMF version, I guess it wasn't THAT improvised after all...) One curiosity is that part of the final verse of "Karn Evil 9 1st Impression" is missing -- apparently this was because the concert was broadcast on American TV, and the networks wouldn't let you say "virgin" on TV in '74.

The rest of the songs come from their '97/'98 tour, and while the production quality is near-perfect, the band is definitely showing their age. Greg's voice sounds awfully hoarse, and Keith can't always get the keyboard notes right (especially in "Hoedown"...ack!) On the other hand, it does offer several songs that were rarely, or never, played live before -- "Bitches Crystal", "A Time and a Place", "From the Beginning" -- and offers quite a twist on several of their concert standards, with synthesized keyboards & MIDI sequencers replacing the archaic moog/organ sound (especially on "Tiger in a Spotlight".) It also features their LONGEST "Fanfare/Rondo" concert closer to date...

videotapes:
• "Pictures at an Exhibition" (1970)

Hey, wanna hear me sound off some more on ELP? Check out Mark Prindle's Record Review site...

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