What's Up With The Japanese?

Three Japanese bands, in their own ways, do 21st Century Schizoid Man total justice. Here's the string orchestra Seasons, with their impossibly gorgeous arrangement of the King Crimson classic that I can't stop watching. Below, a punk band named Z.O.A. and a rock outfit called Ninjen-Isu both take the original up a few notches. I don't know what it is with the Japanese, but they really, really get this song. Maybe their culture is even more fucked up than ours. A video of the King Crimson version can be found by clicking on the label below.

Twenty First Century Schizoid Man

OK. I admit to being in a mood. And not having much time. Here's some remnants of King Crimson, playing the fuck out of their 1969 classic. Enjoy. I have to confess to loving the beginning and the end and being a little bored by the geek stuff in the middle. I'm not sure which personnel here are original to King Crimson. I've placed another brief clip below from a 1969 Hyde Park performance. The video is out of synch with the music, which makes me think it's live footage set to the record. Nonetheless, the period is well-represented here.

Twenty First Century Schizoid Man

Cats foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoias poison door.
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Blood rack barbed wire
Polititians funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Death seed blind mans greed
Poets starving children bleed
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man.