GREG LAKE ON RINGO STARR

Ringo Starr may appear to be the easygoing Beatle, but Greg Lake, who toured with him in 2001 as a member of Ringo's All-Starr Band, said in a phone interview that Ringo was the real leader of the band and very much in charge.

“It was quite an extraordinary experience, partly because he wasn't the person I was expecting. He's a lot better player than I really thought,” he said. “He's a very disciplined person. You only have to listen and focus on the drum parts in the Beatles and hear that they're all flawless. But he's very disciplined. Even with my music, he would keep on and on and on until it was absolutely right.”

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LINK: Greg Lake and Squids

Greg Lake and I at rehearsals (wearing my Tarkus shirt that Keith gave me!)

Yesterday, for the first time, I met Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. He was rehearsing for his one man show gigs where he performs songs from his solo career as well as from his days with King Crimson and ELP. I was called in to help program sounds and explain how the Nord Stage keyboard works. My friend Erik Norlander who plays keys with Asia FJP had put me in touch with guitar tech Andre Cholmondeley who I happened to have met previously at a Steven Wilson concert in Orlando. Small world! Andre asked me to come to Greg's rehearsals and help them. It was Sound of Contact's day off so fortunately I had a little bit of time to do something fun like that! 

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LINK: Greg Lake - The Rock Guitar Daily Interview

"Songs of a Lifetime is a celebration of the age of shared music. That's what it is. I spent a long time preparing the show, I recorded all the music from scratch to build the show into what it is. I was determined that it should not be one of those, 'legend in his own lunchtimes,' sitting on a stool boring everyone rigid. I wanted it to be entertaining, and I wanted it to be emotional." ~ Greg Lake

Well, he certainly made it that - if you've not yet seen, or heard Songs of a Lifetime, it is a tremendously well done overview of the musical journey of Greg Lake. He covers his life from an early adoration of Elvis and The Beatles to the high flying private jet days of ELP to what he considers the necessity of reconnecting with his fans in a return to the 'shared music' experience, and he's done it in an extremely entertaining and emotional package...

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GREG LAKE: Punk rock 'wasn't a musical movement'

King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer founding member Greg Lake slammed punk rock in a new interview, calling it a fashion trend instead of an artistic one.

Speaking to the Montreal Gazette, Lake disparaged the musical value of punk. “The punk thing wasn’t a musical movement,” he said. “It was a fashion movement. It was a hyping, marketing movement. There was no real music there, no cultural revolution there.

"Punk was [Sex Pistols manager Malcolm] McLaren trying to whip up some media hype to create a genre so that everybody could ride on the crest of another marketing wave," Lake added. "It was only a question of a few idiots wearing tartan kilts and putting gel in their hair so it stood up like spikes.

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