‘ELP interview at - DURO DE ACOSTAR - TV show ’ (Thursday August 7, 1997)
(it would be translated as ‘hard to cheat’, it’s a slang’s phrase)
NOTE: I tried to make Roberto’s English better, but it was a hard task, I had to leave some (a lot) of his mistakes. ~ Gudrun
Roberto: (To the audience) You know that of all the big story that the symphonic rock has, the symphonic music that went from 1970 to 1976/75 where were Yes, Genesis, there was a trio that was enormous, a trio that sounded as if they were 20, but, because they wanted to play loud or for saving money? Who knows! There, with us, Emerson, Lake & Palmer!!!!!!!!!
Incredible! (looking at EL&P) there will be more applauses tomorrow night, but here we don’t have enough people, there is not enough people for you here.
Carl: No...
Greg: That’s a big problem, you’ve got such a big band, you already got it.
Roberto: Emerson, Lake and Thatcher (in reference to the band that always played in his program) Incredible band!
(Greg clap his hands to the band)
Roberto: You’d never warred about the position in the names in the group? No, the name would be called ‘Emerson, Lake & Palmer’, and Palmer said ‘no, it’s Palmer, Emerson & Lake’. You don’t fight?
Carl: We tried it! But it doesn’t sound good.
Roberto: Or you said (to Keith) the name of the group is Emerson, Emerson & Emerson!
Greg: Oh!
Roberto: (to Greg) and you know what I mean!
Keith: I will say nothing....
Carl: Well, I think we would adopt it!
Greg: Yeah (grinning)
Roberto: Have you ever envy, you have ‘envy’?
Carl: Envy
Robert: .... about Genesis or Yes, hearing their records? Or you don’t care about those records? Or other people.
Keith: I think it’s the counter’s break, commercial, you know, 3 minutes pop songs. And it doesn’t suit this band, we’re more interested into the....
Carl: the longer pieces.
Keith: Yeah, the longer pieces.
Carl: I think Genesis in the last five years had really attempted into a pop group, y’know, Yes maybe not as much.
Roberto: But you’ve heard that albums? Did you listen to the last Genesis’ album? You did that?
Carl: I did not, personally. Greg has all of them, he is a big fan of Genesis.
(lot of laughs in the audience)
Greg: I know what Keith and Carl are saying but I think that even though they make very commercial music, also they have good quality. But, y’know, but we are some more hard core in that way.
Roberto: hard core.
Greg: Yeah.
Roberto: So, you lead a little more Vandergraft Generator or something like that....
Carl: I think we are not like Vandergraft Generator.
Greg: I think you’d missed the name.
Roberto: No Vandergraft Generator.
Carl: No Vandergraft Generator.
Roberto: What’s the best rock and roll diet so as you don’t become old? The best diet for a rock-and-roller or man in music?
Carl: You mean ‘diet’?
Roberto: Diet.
Greg: A glass of Chardonnay, perhaps?
Keith: Chardonnay, especially Argentinian Chardonnay.
Carl: A little glass of Rioca (he meant Rioja), vino (wine) again?
Roberto: What?
Carl: Rioca
Roberto: Rioja
Carl: Vino tinto (red wine)
Roberto: Vino tinto (red wine), he speaks a little but fine! Do you have children?
Keith: My children are grown up, 27 and 21, two boys.
Greg: I have a daughter, she is 22.
Carl: (looking at both sides of his body) Not with me, but I do, yes.
Roberto: Always the drummer... And the children, they heard Emerson Lake & Palmer’s tunes, or they say ‘I don’t want to do that, I want ‘Spice Girls’?
Keith: I remember, when they were growing up, I go back to the living room, they just got back from school, and all of my albums were out on the floor, I said ‘What is this doing here?’ they said ‘Well, we’d been listening to, Dad, they’re pretty good’, I said ‘Oh, thank you, you’d found it out now?’.
Roberto: And don’t keep on recording any more, papi (daddy), and you (to Carl)?
Carl: Not really, my daughter has not got cheers into the band, yet. She is 14, and she’s not really into Spice Girls, she is, y’know, she is into that girly type group. Not progressive.
Roberto: And you (to Greg)?
Greg: My daughter doesn’t like music at all. She paints.... she is painting (moving his arms as asking ‘what can I do?’)
Roberto: Pictures of an exhibition
Greg: (with an incredible smile of a proud daddy) She likes to come and see the band. If ELP plays, she enjoys to come and see it, y’know, she was more into the band when she was 2 years old, when she was a little baby, she came and put her arms like this (rising his arms and smiling).
Roberto: Listen, now I want to talk about the most pathetic things in rock. I got 5 or 4, and you can give me more, if you have. I think the most pathetic thing is rock is Elvis Presley’s belly, Yoko Ono’s voice (he pronounced that as ‘Joko’)
Carl: What?
Roberto: Do you agree, ‘Joko’ Ono?
Keith: Yoko Ono.
Carl: (with his hands at the corner of his eyes, as Japanese and grinning at Greg) ‘You are bloody looker boy’
Roberto: (screams like Yoko)
Carl: Looker boy. And you like her Roberto, I bet I’d heard when you’d said you like Yoko Ono, yes!
Roberto: I like her, No!
Carl: Yes, yes, yes, (all are laughing)
Greg: Big Yoko Ono, big Yoko Ono’s fan!
Carl: And you’d tried that too right.
Roberto: And it doesn’t enter....
Carl: Sidewise, sidewise....
Roberto: Another things, Gary Glitter’s shoes, you’ve got Gary Glitter?
Carl: Yes, platforms..
Roberto: Rod Stewart’s hair (to Keith) most pathetic things in rock, you, tell me. Something you always hate in your lives, that you’d said ‘that is pathetic’.
Carl: Elton John’s glasses.
Roberto: (looking at his papers with the notes) I have it here, I have it here! ‘Elton John’s glasses!’, they were pathetic really.... one (to Keith)
Keith: Oh, boy! Oh, boy!
Roberto: Greg Lake
Greg: I don’t know, I should try to think, I mean.....
Roberto: Robert Fripp’s mind....
Greg: (laughs)
Keith: Big Savage’s organ?
Roberto: Who is Big Savage?
Keith: Sex Pistols....
Roberto: Oh! Sex Pistols (all are laughing very loud), yes, were a little pathetic, with that kind of T-shirts saying ‘I hate Pink Floyd’.
Keith: I actually like Sex Pistols, I have to confess.......
Carl: Yes? He is a Sex Pistols’ big fan!
Keith: I had all the posters, you know.
Roberto: Frank Zappa once said ‘rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read’.
Carl: Read it again.....
Roberto: Frank Zappa once said ‘rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read’. You agree with that?
Carl: If you say so.......
Roberto: No, Frank Zappa said......
Greg: I agree with first thing.
Roberto: ‘rock journalism is people who can’t write’?
Greg: More or less.
Roberto: And the last question, when does the decline, ‘decline’ of the group begins, when you.....
Carl: When it starts (correcting to Roberto)
Roberto: When it starts: when your record is on sale in all of the stores? When you jump around the stage and break an ankle? Or when the girls ask you ‘excuse me, haven’t you seen Leam Gallagher on the first row from Oasis?’ and you say (with a sad voice) ‘yes, that way’. When the decline begins or starts? You, tell me baby! (to Carl)
Carl: If I knew when it started I would tell you when it’s declined!!
Roberto: Ladies and Gentlemen, tomorrow ELP are going to play, Saturday and Sunday, it absolutely sold out, you’re sold out for tomorrow (he committed a mistake, the shows were on Friday and Saturday)
Carl: Completamente vendido, no hay más entradas (completely sold out, there are no more tickets).
Roberto: Sold out for MTV, are you going to play an unplugged with MTV, with the red curtain and play? No....
Greg: We’re talking about that......
Roberto: No, no, you’re the last group not to see on MTV
Greg: I think we should do it, really.
Carl: Yeah, yeah.
Roberto: So, play here unplugged.
Carl: No, no, no, y lo que pasa mañana es mejor! (what is going to happen tomorrow is better!)
(The program’s band plays Peter Gunn, and the show is over.)