Blake & Fripp

Not entirely by coincidence I heard from Karl Blake - multi-instrumentalist, singer, ex-Lemon Kittens, Shock Headed Peters, The Underneath etc - the week I received the Pump LP which he features on. Good to be reconnected. I remember him turning up in the studio on Goldhawk Road in Shepherds Bush. Andrew and I played him a backing track and asked him to add guitar and vocals, which he did to great effect. It became Lung. He wrote the words in five minutes.

I first met Karl in 1980 at a Lemon Kittens / Metabolist / They Must Be Russians gig in London. I must have been 19. Also in the audience was Exposure-era Robert Fripp who had taken an interest in the Kittens' Danielle Dax; she would go on to design the next two Fripp sleeves plus sing on one of them. Anyway, I was a big King Crimson in the 70s, so I plucked up the courage and walked over to him. "Excuse me, are you Robert Fripp...?", I asked nervously. "No", he replied. The two friends he was with sniggered. I didn't know what to do, so simply said "Oh, sorry", and retreated into an embarrased hole. I've never forgiven him.