Exposure - The Album
Before we even get started, massive respect is due to Eric Tamm, whose exhaustive work “Robert Fripp - From King Crimson to Guitar Craft” is available online HERE and was a big help in preparing this episode.
As we explain in more detail, there are several versions of this album, but this is basically what the listener was presented with in 1979
About the lyricist on Exposure, Discogs has this to say:
Joanna Walton
Real Name: Joan Sheree Lichtenstein
American poet, born 26 December 1942 in New York, New York, New York. Lyricist and one-time girlfriend of Robert Fripp. In 1982, she married George L. Sheanshang. She was killed on 21 December 1988 in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, U.K.
In the liner notes of the Roches 1989 album, Speak, Terre Roche wrote “to the memory” of Walton, with whom she had worked on Robert Fripp’s 1979 album, Exposure. HERE is another Fripp/Walton collaboration
It’s worth heading over to YouTube for this half-hour video of Fripp being interviewed on something called “Boffomondo” in the middle of his tour promoting Exposure
What Came Before…
The later CD edit has the applause at the end of 21st Century Schizoid Man fading out gently; for the full force of the door being slammed in the audiences face, you have to go back to the vinyl version…
…but Fripp had already been collaborating with Brian Eno. This is one of Tom’s Favourites -
…I think we all know about the David Bowie stuff, but did you know about this?
…and everybody knows the second Peter Gabriel album, but had you heard this?
…or even this?
…which brings us to this. Fripp joins Blondie in a live performance of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, which the best disco song ever. This was to be on Exposure but … record labels.
…And what came after…The Promotional Tour
…which is the bit that really interests us. Armed with a farcically small amount of money from the record company, the “Small Intelligent Mobile Unit” set off with a guitar and two tape recorders to promote his new album by playing music that wasn’t on the album in a selection of unusual venues…
We both really love Hainbach, so here he is demonstrating how to do Frippertonics in the comfort of your own home.
…and here’s a breathless reaction video
It’s about time that the League of Gentlemen album was re-issued
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Robert Fripp - Exposure (1979)