Robert Fripp And The Death of Gwen Stacy
In June of 1973, this comic hit the newsstands.
For the cost of two thin dimes, you were treated to one of the milestones of the genre, the death of Spider Man/Peter Parker’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy.
It’s a touchstone moment that rings throughout the sacred halls of pop culture.
Gwen Stacy has been portrayed in films, television, video games. Hell, she even has her own action figure.
Her latest incarnation is as the White Widow in the ongoing Marvel Comics series Spider Gwen.
Why does the death of Gwen Stacy continue to reverberate? Why is that one event stuck so firmly in the minds of comic book enthusiasts and why did it crossover to become general knowledge in pop culture?
I think it has to do with first loves.
I work at a bookstore. People tell me stories. A woman came in whose father’s memory was beginning to fail. She was asking for books on memory loss. As I took her to the section she told me that he couldn’t remember important recent events, but he could remember his first girlfriend like it was yesterday.
I was struck by this.
I told her that a young man’s first relationship is a seminal event in his life.
And then I thought about my first girlfriend.
And then I wrote this.
I felt uneasy for days after writing this. Sort of all mixed up, like when I was a kid. I came to the doors where I work wondering how I was going to mentally get through my day. There was a guy in a baseball hat that opened the door for me. I turned to thank him. That’s when I noticed it was Stephen King...
In 1973, Robert Fripp collaborated with Brian Eno on the brilliant ambient album No Pussyfooting.
Eno had recorded his debut solo album Here Comes The Warm Jets earlier that same year.
Fripp and Eno have worked together in some facet on 13 albums from 1973 to 2006/2007. Their partnership has remained vibrant for 34 years.
That’s longer than some marriages.
In his off hours from the various incarnations of King Crimson, Fripp has worked with many different artists from Matching Mole, Van der Graaf Generator, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Blondie and many more.
This is the Rosedale Diner in its heydey. When it went out of business the abandoned structure was dropped in a wooded area.
After dismal sales of their debut album Whole Oats, Daryl Hall and John Oates released the album Abandoned Luncheonette in 1973.
In 1971 J.G. Bennett established the IACE Sherborne, which offered a 10 month instruction/introduction in the Fourth Way. Fripp said "When I found Bennett, the top of my head blew off.” Fripp broke up King Crimson when he entered Sherborne in 1974, and his later pursuit of "small, mobile and intelligent units" is traceable to Bennett. Fripp remains involved in the promotion and dissemination of John Bennett's ideas, and continues to work with people that he met at Sherborne in the 1970's.
Robert Fripp as "Lemmy Caution" and Debbie Harry as "Natacha von Braun" from the never made remake of Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (film). It was set to be directed by Amos Poe who went on to make "The Foreigner" in 1978 instead. Debbie Harry starred as "Dee Trik" in that project, but Fripp wasn't part of it.
Robert Fripp at The Bathurst Street Theatre before his solo show.
Toronto, Canada August 1979
What can I say about gentrification that hasn’t already been said? In CBGB’s 33-year run from 1973-2006, they gave stage to 50,000 bands, a handful of whom changed the face of music in ways that still ring out today. I doubt very much that a John Varvatos clothing store will be able to produce a resume’ that impressive.
To be fair, Varvatos maintains a stage and still allows bands to play there.
King Crimson in the hotel garden, Tokyo, December 1981
Robert Fripp visiting Tower Records just after playing some Frippertronics, that sounded a bit like No Pussyfooting, using two Revox reel to reel recorders and his Les Paul in the store (they asked for no photos during that show), Campbell, CA 1978.
“I met him, his brother and mother while The Lounge Lizards were waiting to soundcheck before opening for a new band called Discipline (later named King Crimson) on May 8th, 1981 at the University of Liverpool!! I bought Bill Bruford a cup of tea that afternoon because the little old ladies didn't have enough change for his 10 or 20 pound note. :) Fripp was wandering around the University's Student Union without anyone bothering him, and Adrian Belew sat in the foyer re-stringing a few guitars, again with no one bothering him. Tony Levin got a chuckle out of my Peter Gabriel tour T-shirt! :)”
The 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing, which killed 3 people including 2 U.S. soldiers, was the last straw in a series of acts - including the 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, the Libyan occupation of uranium rich Chad, Gaddafi's continued support of the I.R.A., The Red Army Faction and the Red Brigades in addition to the Gulf of Sidra incident - which precipitated the U.S. bombing of Libya on April 15, 1986 (10 days after the Berlin attack) ordered by President Ronald Reagan.
The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988 is believed to have been a retaliation for the April '86 bombing raid.
Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit, via London and New York. On December 21, 1988, N739PA, the aircraft operating the transatlantic leg of the route, was destroyed by a terrorist bomb 38 minutes after takeoff, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew, in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing.
The bomb exploded at 7:03 pm on December 21, 1988. The wreckage left a 20 foot crater.
- February 21, 1973 - Libyan Flight 114 shot down by Israel over the sinai
- Chadian - Libyan conflict 1978-1987
- August 31, 1978 - Disappearance of Musa al-Sadr in Libya
- 1979 - U.S. places Libya on the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list
- August 1981 - U.S. shoots down two Libyan planes
- April 17, 1984 - Yvonne Fletcher murdered outside the Libyan embassy in London
- December 27, 1985 - Rome and Vienna airport attacks
- March 1986 - Gulf of Sidra incident
- April 5 1986 - La Belle Discotheque bombing 1:45 a.m.
- April 15, 1986 - Libya bombing raid - 12 minutes
- December 21, 1988 - Pan Am Flight 103 bombed 7:03 p.m
- 2001 January 31 - al-Megrahi found guilty of 270 counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. His co-defendant was found not guilty.
- August 20, 2009 - Megrahi was released from a Scottish prison due to terminal prostate cancer.
- October 20, 2011 - Gaddafi captured and killed during the Battle of Sirte
- May 20, 2012 - Megrahi dies of prostate cancer. No one else has ever been charged for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
Frank Terpil was a rogue CIA operative who helped Gaddafi set up terrorist training camps in Libya along with Edwin P. Wilson. Wilson was convicted but ultimately released from prison on September 14, 2004, after being incarcerated for 22 years. Terpil was believed to be hiding in Cuba. It is unclear whether or not he faked his own death Prior to President Obama's historic visit to Havana.
Clipper Maid of the Seas, Pan American World Airways Boeing 747-121, N739PA, takes off at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) March 12, 1987. The bomb exploded below the "P" in "PAN AM".
This is a simulation of the Lockerbie Bombing performed by the U.S. government in the 1990's. One can only imagine what this would have been like on a plane travelling 30,000 feet in the air going 499 miles per hour.
Large sections of the aircraft crashed onto residential areas of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 11 more people on the ground. The plane was carrying 50,000 gallons of jet fuel. The explosion split the fuselage in 2 and the pieces of the aircraft fell 6 miles to the ground. The wreckage was spread out over a mile.
The British Geological Society, which was located 14 miles away, registered the impact of the wreckage as a 1.6 on the Richter scale.
At least 3 of the victims, including 1 of the flight attendants, survived the initial impact, but died shortly after.
The flight crew were still strapped in the nose section and the instrument panel was flickering.
Bodies were retrieved from rooftops and gardens. Some bodies were never found.
It is unclear whether or not Joanna Walton’s body was found.
There are 10 men thought to be chiefly responsible for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland - 9 Libyans and 1 Swiss. Of the 10, 5 are dead. 3 of these, which includes Muammar Gaddafi, died of distinctly unnatural causes. 1 of the 5 died of cancer while being besieged until the moment of his passing to make a deathbed confession. 1 had a heart attack. 2 are in prison. 1 of the 2, Abdullah Senussi, was sentenced to death by a Libyan court in July of 2015 and it is unclear whether the sentence has been carried out. 1 is missing. Being that he was a high level official in the Gaddafi government, I don’t believe chances are good in post revolution Libya that he will be found alive. 2 are free. 1 of the 2 was acquitted by a Scottish court and the other, Swiss nation Bollier, has never been charged - although it could be argued that he is the one that bears the brunt of the responsibility and therefore has the most blood on his hands. He developed and sold the timer that was used in the suitcase bomb to the Libyan government.
July 30, 2000 interview with Robert Fripp conducted by Dick Tooley
RF: Originally Joanna Walton and I had this idea of entertaining friends at home in our lounge. Her with puppets or some performance piece and me with this series of tape improvisations. And we decided that since we would probably be evicted if we did it at home we should do it in a public situation, which was the Kitchen Arts & Video loft. And in order to find an appropriate name for the event, and this was only a one-off on a Sunday brunch concert, I came up with the name Frippertronics. Mainly because it was silly.
DT: Before we get into listening to North Star, I have to make a comment on the words to the album. Joanna Walton contributed the words, getting into some conceptual things, making the differentiation between the doorway and the door, the hallway and the hall, the window and the wind. Marvelous words.
RF: Remarkable woman, remarkable woman. When I first met her, she was not prepared to put up with too much nonsense from Robert or as she used to say, "YOU SEXIST LITTLE PIG!" And yes, it was an experience which enabled me to grow emotionally and catch up on some seven years of emotional hibernation as a member of a touring band in which one is generally prevented from experiencing oneself since it makes oneself more liable to manipulation by parties not really interested in one's personal development. So I had a short time to catch up quite a lot, and Joanna as I say in this particular fashion certainly helped me. Remarkable woman, she spent five years at Harvard doing philosophy and theology under Galbraith and all the Harvard heavies of the early sixties. Then left to become an actress, working quite a lot with Harvey Keitel. But when Harvey became successful and Joanna could have been, she in fact went to England and became a therapist, and founded a body called the Women's Free Arts Alliance. She moved to New York with me at the beginning of 1977, she's in fact a native New Yorker, and one level Exposure has to do with the kind of way a man and woman relate to each other in a contemporary situation, trying to be free of all the archetypes and so on. And how difficult that might be. So You Burn Me Up, I'm A Cigarette is my love song to Joanna. I May Not Have Had Enough Of Me, But I've Had Enough Of You, Chicago and North Star are her love songs to me. North Star, that point needed, that orientation needed in a relationship between man and woman. This is the very first time in his life Daryl Hall had ever sung these words. It's substantially a first take, he didn't even rehearse it. The backing track was recorded, I said, "There's the tape, there's the microphone, here's the words, go sing." And he sang.
1986 The Lady or The Tiger with Toyah Wilcox
The title of the 1986 Toyah and Robert Fripp collaboration was taken from a Frank R. Stockton short story published in 1882.
No guest appearances between 1986-1994
No collaborative albums from 1986-1991
No KC studio albums between 1984-1995
Bombing December 21, 1988
Robert Fripp 1988 - Angels in the Architecture
“I stand in the hallway
She stands in the hall
I stand at the doorway
She stands at the door
I lean in the window
She leans on the wind
I wait for beginnings
She waits for the end
For the end, for the end”
North Star
“Joanna was on the PA103 Lockerbie flight. She had been booked on the earlier flight, but changed it.”
Robert Fripp’s diary.
You can now own your own copy of the original musical vision Robert Fripp had when he started recording his first proper solo album. You will need a copy of “Exposure – 25th Anniversary Edition” and “Sacred Songs” by Daryl Hall. Now follow my tracklisting below for a glimpse of what might have been:
01 Preface (Exposure Disc 1)
02 You Burn Me Up I’m a Cigarette (Exposure Disc 1)
03 North Star (Exposure Disc 1)
04 Disengage (Exposure Disc 2)
05 Chicago (Exposure Disc 2)
06 Exposure (Exposure Disc 2 – bonus track version)
07 New York, New York, New York (Exposure Disc 2)
08 Haaden Two (Exposure Disc 1)
09 Mary (Exposure Disc 2 – bonus track version)
10 Breathless (Exposure Disc 1)
11 NYCNY (Sacred Songs track)
12 Water Music I (Exposure Disc 1)
13 Here Comes the Flood (Exposure Disc 1)
14 Water Music II (Exposure Disc 1)
15 Postscript (Exposure Disc 1)
For Further Reading:
- Marquee Moon by Bryan Waterman (33 ⅓)
- Hey Ho Let’s Go: The Story of The Ramones by Everett True
- Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York by James Wolcott
- Heroes: David Bowie and Berlin by Tobias Rüther
- Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
- Bowie in Berlin: A New Career In a New Town by Thomas Jerome Seabrook
- Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever by Will Hermes
- From The Velvets to The Voidoids: The Birth Of American Punk Rock by Clinton Heylin
- David Bowie’s Low by Hugo Wilcken (33 ⅓)
- Marvel Comics The Untold Story by Sean Howe
- Spider-Man: Death of Gwen Stacy TPB
- The Night Gwen Stacy Died by Sarah Bruni
For Your Viewing Pleasure:
- David Bowie: Five Years (2013)
- CBGB (2013)
- Bowie in Berlin: Ein Dokumentarifilm 1976-1979
Brian Eno: 1971-1977 - The Man Who Fell to Earth
- Blank City (2010)
- Alphaville (1965)
- Blank Generation (1980)
- The Foreigner (1978)
Recommended Albums:
- No Pussyfooting - Fripp & Eno 1973
- Horses - Patti Smith 1975
- Marquee Moon - Television 1977
- Blank Generation - Richard Hell and the Voidoids 1977
- Sacred Songs - Daryl Hall 1977
- Scratch - Peter Gabriel 1978
- No New York 1978
- Parallel Lines - Blondie 1978
- The Roches 1979
- Exposure - Robert Fripp 1979
- Fear Of Music - Talking Heads 1979
- Discipline - King Crimson 1981
- I Advanced Masks - Andy Summers & Robert Fripp 1982
Robert Fripp & The Death of Gwen Stacy Soundtrack:
- I Wanna Be Your Dog - The Stooges 1969
- Baby’s On Fire - Brian Eno 1973
- Love → Building on Fire - Talking Heads 1977
- Heroes - David Bowie 1977
- Here Comes The Flood - Peter Gabriel 1977
- Marquee Moon - Television 1977
- Warszawa - David Bowie 1977
- Blank Generation - Richard Hell & The Voidoids 1977
- Fade Away And Radiate - Blondie 1978
- I Zimbra - Talking Heads 1979
- North Star - Robert Fripp 1979
- Under Heavy Manners - Robert Fripp 1980
- Frame By Frame - King Crimson 1981
Overview
In 1973, comic books were only beginning to escape the formulas by which they had been produced for decades. Many of the conventions of the traditional comic book story were being challenged by Stan Lee's still young Marvel Comics. Conventions that for years had continued unquestioned: every story will be complete in an issue, no story will refer to events of a previous issue, nothing of any consequence can happen to change a character, and no one ever, ever dies.
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