Bill Rieflin passed away on Tuesday, March 24.
I kept waiting for the light bulb to go off. The one that says: Bill is no longer here.
But it hadn’t.
Every move I made seemed to have him bumping into me. “What would Bill think of this reverb?” “Does Bill even like reverb?” “What about this edit?” “Does Bill even like edits?” "Would Bill think this curry is too spicy or not spicy enough?” and on and on.
This is no longer the case as of this Friday morning, three days since his departure. Now it feels like he is beginning to slide away.
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Some random Bill memories.
“The Repercussions Of Angelic Behavior”. This recording came about basically because we had worked so efficiently on Bill’s solo recording “Birth Of A Giant.” Bill had asked Robert Fripp and I to come in and do some tracking for his record. We nailed everything and ended up with extra studio time on our hands (actually, Bill’s hands.) So Bill said, “let’s keep playing.”
The premise for “Bill Of A Giant,” as he put forward to me, was: make something that sounds incredibly weird and fucked up. So, we carried that forward into the after-session improvisations that eventually were turned into “The Repercussions Of Angelic Behavior.” Which in my mind was the first of the King Crimson ProjeKcts. Not just because it was completely improvised with no discussions. But because of the freedom the musicians gave themselves and each other. Everyone had permission to go anywhere they chose, and the rest would follow and support the choices. None of this was discussed either. Just acted on.
As I remember it, Bill and I mixed most of “The Repercussions Of Angelic Behavior” at my place from ADATs on a sub-average 16-channel mixing board. It felt more like we were compiling demo tapes than making an actual record. Plus the music was so oddball that even we had no idea what was there until we finished and could sit back and take stock.
Bill’s original idea was that we wouldn’t have track names for the release. It would just be Track 1, Track 2, Track 3 where we needed it. On the actual CD artwork nothing is listed. When we decided to put out the release digitally and do a repressing, we figured we needed track names. I don’t remember if I came up with any of the names. But I do remember us laughing at many of Bill’s choices:
Brown Souffle
Retarded With Steam
Hootenanny At The Pink Pussycat Cafe
I had no idea what any of this meant. But they seemed to fit perfectly and fit with his perverse sense of the absurd.
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I remember one of Bill’s favorite David Lynch moments was from the film “Lost Highway.” The scene has Robert Blake phoning his own home while he is away, only to have the phone be answered by himself. He has some kind of strange conversation with himself. Something about this made such a big impression on Bill that he told me about the scene at least four, if not five, different times.
I assume this must connect to the title “Lost And Found Highway” on the “Repercussions Of Angelic Behavior” recording.
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In 1999, the composer/singer David Hykes invited me to do a series of performances with him. He also wanted some percussionists to join us, so I reeled in Bill and Greg Gilmore. David is a harmonic, overtone singer and the shows were put on under the name “Harmonic Antenna.” I remember almost nothing about the material, but I do remember David very generously inviting us into do a four-part vocal piece with him to close out the shows. (Brave man, inviting a guitarist and two drummers to vocalize!)
I could already do a bit of overtone singing, but David instructed us in his approach and ways to sound good together.
The one Bill-moment I remember from these rehearsals was when David was showing us how to move through the various harmonics. And while I could grab, decently enough, some of the upper harmonics, I could not “get” the very first overtone at the octave. It is pretty much the first thing you learn. I was struggling to hear and sing it and said so. Bill jumped right in and said “You’re doing it now!” And I was “What? I don’t hear any difference between the fundamental and the first overtone.” But, Bill kept saying “You’re doing it. You’re doing it. There it is. You’re doing it!”
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Bill had perhaps the best feel for the feeling of music than anyone I had ever known. The “feel” wasn’t something abstract for him. It was as concrete as color and shape to a painter.
I remember him telling me before his first rehearsals with King Crimson that the main thing he was going to go for was that the music should feel good. That the groove should feel good. He said it in a way that sounded like if he couldn’t achieve this, then he would bail on his participation with the group.
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Bill was the go-to guy for CD running orders. This is now a lost art and Bill was brilliant at it. He had a particular knack for finding an order that held all the material together and told a larger story. I am sure this had to do with how high a priority he put on the feel of the material.
BTW, Bill absolutely hated it when anyone would capitalize CD. “It’s fucking cd, not CD!”
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He had a giant Oxford English dictionary in active mode, on its own pedestal.
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I remember Bill telling me a story about being a kid at Catholic school. (Can that be true? Did Bill actually go to Catholic school? That seems absurd, so maybe I have it wrong. Maybe it was Sunday school? I don’t know.)
He said they were told to pick their personal Saint. Or maybe the Saint came with your birthday and then you got to pick from a short-list. Anyway, Bill picked the most obscure saint available. I assume to tweak everyone. The saint was Saint Pambo. The priest had to go do some research to see if it was a real Saint or if this little brat was just making shit up. But, he was real.
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The time that I hung out with Bill the most was about 20-ish years ago. The few years after I had first moved to Seattle. One time we met up at some bar that he liked in the Beltown area.
We sat at the bar next to a woman and two men. We were kind of minding our own business, but as usual with Bill he was open to interacting with whoever was around. She was quite drunk and struck up a conversation with us. After we exchanged some general pleasantries, she said “So….how did you two meet?” We told her through friends or something like that. Then she kept asking us more and personal questions. It became clear by question two or three that she was assuming that we were lovers. Bill and I answered all of her questions as clear and honestly as possible without destroying her assumption. It was a highly playful evening, and it seemed so natural to Bill to be putting someone on while at the same time being very generous with them.
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One time Bill said to me “I wish someone would have a party and the one rule would be: no one can talk about what they do.”
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Bill seemed to embody so many qualities I wish I had stronger in myself. Or even had at all.
Don’t get me wrong. He could be a seriously cranky mofo. But even with what I liked to call his “Scottish Enthusiasms” he was always present. Always there. Which made you: be there.
Godspeed, Sir Rieflin.
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Text from Bill for PR about "The Repercussions Of Angelic Behavior"
The Repercussions of Angelic Behavior:
is a live recording
is a studio record
is improvised
is composed
is a companion disc to Rieflin's 'Birth of a Giant'
is a companion disc to King Crimson's ProjeKct series
is an exciting and indispensable adventure into the musical unknown
is the medium for the release of the cover art
is considered in exactly the same way by Rieflin, Fripp, and Gunn alike
is a source of differing opinions between Rieflin, Fripp, and Gunn
all of the above
some of the above
none of the above
Everything on this record is intentional.
Except where not.
Bill with Nine Inch Nails
Duo record with Chris Connolly
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Bill and Greg Gilmore - rehearsals with David Hykes
Saint Pambo of Nitria