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Product Details
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| 1. The Saga Of Rodney Toady: North Meadow |
| 2. The Saga Of Rodney Toady: Newly-weds |
| 3. The Saga Of Rodney Toady: One In A Million |
| 4. The Saga Of Rodney Toady: Call Tomorrow |
| 5. The Saga Of Rodney Toady: Digging My Lawn |
| 6. The Saga Of Rodney Toady: Little Children |
| 7. The Saga Of Rodney Toady: The Crukster |
| 8. The Saga Of Rodney Toady: Thursday Morning |
| 9. Just George: How Do They Know |
| 10. Just George: Elephant Song |
| 11. Just George: The Sun Is Shinning |
| 12. Just George: Ste No.1 |
| 13. Just George: Erudite Eyes |
| 14. Bonus Tracks: She Is Loaded |
| 15. Bonus Tracks: Under The Sky |
| 16. Bonus Tracks: One In A Million-Mono Single Version |
| 17. Bonus Tracks: Newly-Weds-Mono Single Version |
| 18. Bonus Tracks: Thursday Morning-Mono Single Version |
| 19. Bonus Tracks: Thursday Morning-Stereo Single Version |
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Rodney Was A Very Sad Young Man....",
By
This review is from: Cheerful Insanity of Giles Giles & Fripp (Audio CD)
Yes, I'm a huge fan of Crimson and Fripp and all the various cohorts and offshoots of the past 30 years, and this great album is where it all began. For a long time this was an expensive out of print collectors item. I originally taped it off the radio (WCVT - Towson St. University - RIP)back in 1980, when a fabulous DJ and great friend (Rod Misey)did his Sunday night music special and had a guest on the show who owned the album which was played in it's entirety and discussed on the air. I think I still have the cassette somewhere. I finally got a Japanese import CD of this in 1990, but unfortunately that doesn't have the bonus cuts that are on this version. This is excellent late 60's psychedelic pop, sometimes similar to the early Syd Barrett Pink Floyd, but with a jazzy tinge. Fripp's guitar is already in top form and shows the shapes of things to come in '69 when he and Mike Giles added some guys named Lake and McDonald and became we all know who. One of the coolest things about this record is it's lovely and very British sense of humor in the in between song bits, "The Saga Of Rodney Toady" (on side one of the original vinyl). And the "I know a man and his name is George" segments (side two) get a chuckle.
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oh come on now; Lighten Up :-],
By S. Nyland "Squonkamatic" (Six Feet Of Earth & All That It Contains) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Cheerful Insanity of Giles Giles & Fripp (Audio CD)
I'm kind of suprised by some of the negative comments posted regarding this little miracle of audio archiving. I mean, come on, what did you guys expect? This album bombed when it was first released, and there is a good reason for that -- it is not music for just anybody. In fact, unless you are on drugs or seriously mental, this album is really just for King Crimsonites and Frippofiles who will listen to anything with his mark on it.To a certain extent, Fripp carried the baggage of this album's miserable reception straight through his early King Crimson period; one can feel him releasing the angst and frustration on the Court of the Crimson King album all the way through Red, the last of the early KC records. To a certain extent, all of the fantastic, intoxicating negative energy that made those early LPs so interesting can be traced right back to the Cheerful Insanity album. You have to remember when evaluating it that this actually was their idea of solid entertainment ... what WERE they thinking? "North Meadow" is actually my favorite track on the disc these days, and combines a nice pastoral Jonathan King-ish folk ditty with what is actually some serious Fripp noodling at the end with a solo that anticipated, IMHO, Larks' Tongues in Aspic's Easy Money. The Saga of Rodney Toady seems to be an effort by Fripp to come to terms with his own childhood obesity [well documented in interviews I have on file] in a most English way -- by laughing at it, and himself. We hear hints at Fripp's damaged self esteem, his frsutration/fascination with sex, and his complete contempt for the staid, everyday British people who made his life miserable. The fact that they/he decided to use the Rodney Toady story as a framing device for their songs speaks to the "concept oriented" nature that would define later works like In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizard. The second 'song' on the CD, Newly-Weds, is worth the money alone for the CD because of one fact: Robert Fripp sings the lead vocal. He can barely hold a note, but you can tell that the guy was trying, and as such whenever I listen to the album I strain for that unique, mid-lands Fripp accent singing backup vocals. Imagine that: Bob Fripp singing. Ha ha ha. One in a Million was their first single from the LP, and you can understand the confusion it created when released during the beginning of summer 1968 when the world was in turmoil, Vietnam was raging, hippies and protesting was becoming a way of life ... and here come these three British maniacs, singing a song about conservative moral values. Other bands of the day sang songs of protest and social change, but Gile Giles and Fripp celebrate the life of a middle class, middle aged man who's insured for a couple of thousand, and he's almost due for a pension. Sound ridiculous? It is, and just as out of step with the fashionable counterculture of the time as "In the Court of the Crimson King" was a year later. Robert Fripp has very little use for the fashionably hip, and while One in a Million may be amongst the oddest songs he produced it is quite in step with his low key, midlands conservatism. The next track, Call Tomorrow, is a deceptively bleak sounding dirge that has some hilarious lyrics about a little tryst gone horribly wrong. That idea is also present in Digging My Lawn, a free form jazz riffed ditty that suggests some of the craziness that would later turn up on the Lizard album. Little Children gives us an early look at what would later become introspective mellotron fueled syrup like Exiles, Fallen Angel and I Talk to the Wind. The Krukster is probably the most Crimson-esque piece on the disc, a psychedelic renditioning of Dante on Acid with Fripp creating a pre-guitar craft riff that reaches into the stratosphere at it's climax ala Schizoid Man, Pictures of the City and the rare Groon. Side one then concludes with their second "single", Thursday Morning, a song that was too filled with positive youthful energy to compete with acts like Steppenwolf and Jefferson Airplane, but still nicely showcases the Giles Giles and Fripp effect of breaking off into little set-pieces based upon classical music that would later turn up in Moonchild. It's actually quite a nice song, but again you can kind of understand why nobody bought it at the time. Side two opens with perhaps the most bizarre cut on the disc, How Do The Know?, which if I am not mistaken has to do with the same anti-counterculturalism as One In a Million, but with a more obviously contemporary feel to the song ... this could have been one of the great psychedelic anthems of the time if it wasn't such a silly song, but you can still hear Fripp's resentment as being thought of as an "uncool" person when a young man. How do they know? Or more to the point, What do They Know? The Elephant Song was their last effort at a single from the album, and no it has nothing to do with Discipline's Elephant Talk and yes it is the most ridiculous track on the CD. Fripp would later refer to the frenetic environment of a Circus on Lizard, but again I think this song is more related to Fripp's identity issues ... fat men, bearded ladies, staid British commoners who respond to things with the expression "Very, very nice!" are all metaphors for the target of the song's satire. But just what that is I haven't the foggiest clue. One thing I do know is that it's not about an elephant eating peanuts. The Sun Is Shining is something I wish had been left off the CD, and is quite literally a party killer. Skip it; I am at a loss for why it was even recorded in the first place. Is it supposed to be a parody? Who knows. And what's up with the "I know a man and his name is George" routine that serves as the framing device for the second side? Maybe a few packets of grass too many found their way into the recording studios. Suite #1 is where most Frippofiles and Crimsonites willl get their money. This piece's staccato bursts of Frippery point directly to the 6/8 bridge in Scizoid Man and what would eventually become Starless and Bible Black's Fracture. But even at this early age you can hear that Bob Fripp was perhaps the most startling guitar craftsman of his age, and the middle mellotron/harmony section is a nice anticipation of the sounds that would later turn up on Court of the Crimson King, The Devil's Triangle, and Exiles. Every guitar playing person I know who I have played this track for sit back after the final burst of notes and remark "Holy Mackeral!" Now the version I have is an older Japanese import that concludes with the next track, Erudite Eyes, which is really the only 'contemporary late 60's guitar rock/psychedelia" piece on the album. The dreamy, perpecatious lyrics are nicely counterpointed by what is perhaps the most concise rendering of what Giles Giles and Fripp would have sounded like had they even gotten one gig. They did not. After the album disappeared they tried becoming a quintet with Ian MacDonald on woodwinds and with Fairport Convention's Judy Dyble singing, but it was of no use. The world just wasn't ready for a pastoral folk rock band with Robert Fripp on guitar no matter how it was to be packaged. The result of the negative response the LP garnered in 1968 led to bigger and better things, though, and The Cheerful Insanity's glib optimism is directly contrasted by the "End of the Universe" gloom and doom of In The Court of the Crimson King. You can understand the pessimism of that classic album even more after hearing the boys play their heart out on this LP, who's first year's total sales amounted to 400 units. That's pretty bad, but it doesn't mean the music is. Thankfully, carefully collected archives of the band were kept, and now a domestic version of the CD including some fascinating if even more obscure bonus tracks is availible for listeners who are willing to put their preconcieved notions of Crimsonalia aside and look at how Bobby Fripp, former school fat boy, became Robert Fripp, God of freak out metal/art guitar. It is a fascinating lesson in etymology, and one of the most entertaining albums he ever made.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Silly and Fun,
By
This review is from: Cheerful Insanity of Giles Giles & Fripp (Audio CD)
This is an early entry in the Robert Fripp discography, and not one I would entirely dismiss. The album title about sums it all up, but there is some very respectable playing and amusing and catchy Beatlesque (the default for 1967) tunesmithing. One baroque-inspired guitar piece foreshadows Fripp's later - and much harder edged - FRACTURE. There are also some other early prog elements here wedged in between the pop songs.
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