David Singleton

David Singleton (born 1961) is an English record producer, audio engineer, record label director, musician, songwriter, author and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as the production and business partner of Robert Fripp of King Crimson.

Singleton is the co-owner/director (with Fripp) of the Discipline Global Mobile record label, half of the Ton Prob production team (again with Fripp) and the developer of the BootlegTV live concert streaming setup. Singleton has co-produced and/or engineered almost every Robert Fripp release (including King Crimson albums, EPs and archive releases) since 1992, and has also worked on releases by Bill Nelson, Bill Bruford, Europa String Choir and many others.

In addition to his production and label administration work, Singleton has pursued an intermittent career as musician and songwriter. He released a solo single in the early 1980s and was part of the 1990s art-pop band Camilla's Little Secret. His work as producer has extended beyond executive and technical roles to embrace creative musical collaborations, generally using his skills as an audio technician and an aficionado of found sound. Singleton has collaborated with King Crimson (as re-arranger/re-composer of band material) on several albums released during the 1990s and 2000s.

Singleton currently releases his own material under the alias of The Vicar – a multimedia project persona that has produced a story blog and videoblogs, printed fiction, graphic novels, and song albums.

Singleton's aim was to provide a potentially mobile recording service at a much lower cost than a standard studio, and to use this to encourage people and organisations with lower budgets to make recordings. To this end, he persuaded various recording equipment companies to sell him second-hand ex-demonstration equipment at a greatly reduced price: the proviso which he used to seal the deal was that the equipment would be used to record work by young people who might retain their interest in recording and thus become company customers in the future. In keeping with this initial pledge, early work with the Mobile included a recording of Britten's Noye's Fludde made at the Blandford Music Festival (released as an in-house recording) and assorted work with schools. Singleton also contributed outreach work at Youth Training Schemes encouraging young trainees towards their own careers in music production.

In 1987, Singleton wrote a set of his own songs with the intent of recording them with a large communal group of Dorset musicians.

During this period Singleton worked with assorted DGM-signed artists (Trey Gunn, California Guitar Trio, Gitbox, Tony Geballe, Jacob Heringman, Ten Seconds) as well as The Orb (via the Fripp/Orb/Thomas Fehlmann collaboration FFWD) and Bill Nelson (musician), and worked on archive recordings by King Crimson, The League of Gentlemen and The League of Crafty Guitarists. Post-1998, his production clients have included past and present King Crimson frontmen John Wetton and Jakko Jakszyk and classic American songwriter Melanie.

In 1996, Singleton was responsible for digitally collating, editing, re-arranging and partly re-composing a set of King Crimson live improvisations from their 1995 tour. This was released as the live album Thrakattak and was Singleton's first collaboration with King Crimson as a co-writer and performer (albeit at the post-production stage). He would follow this up in 2003 with a similar task on The Power to Believe, reworking a Robert Fripp soundscape to produce the album's final track.

Camilla's Little Secret (1992–1994) In 1992 (at around the same time that he and Fripp were first founding DGM) Singleton joined keyboard player and arranger Toby Campling-Richard's band Camilla's Little Secret as bass guitarist/pianist/co-producer. As well as Campling-Richards and Singleton, the band also featured Sunday All Over the World's drummer Paul Beavis and two singers (Martin Rawle and Georgia Lewis) with Fripp making occasional guest appearance on guitar under the pseudonym of Bobby Wilcox.

The first release by Camilla's Little Secret was the single "BEA" later in 1992. In March 1993 the band recorded and released a second single, a double-A-side on vinyl called "Tantalising Eyes", marketed with the tagline "Are you bored hearing the same guitar solo every time? There is now a record that can change every time you play it! Put it on your turntable and be amazed!" This effect was achieved by cutting two parallel concentric grooves on each side of the disc instead of the usual one, and pressing a different version of the song into each one – the result being that the single actually offered four detailed variations on the song, with a gramophone stylus likely to fit into and trace a different groove each time that the disc was played.

Camilla's Little Secret went on to record an album – 1994's The Steps – before breaking up. "Tantalising Eyes" was re-released as a vinyl single in April 2015, as part of Record Store Day 2015.

BootlegTV (1999–2001) In 1999, inspired in part by his ongoing work on reclaiming and remastering King Crimson's unreleased live recordings, Singleton (together with graphic designer Steve Ball) developed the idea of BootlegTV – an online music distribution service and video sharing website dedicated to archived live concerts. BootlegTV was originally envisaged as "(a way) to use the web to enable distribution of live music in a way that would undermine the illegal bootleg market while giving musicians an opportunity to manage and monetize a previously difficult-to-distribute asset that (was) gathering dust in their closet: their live concert recordings." Singleton also aimed to develop it as an appropriate business & distribution structure attuned to the original aims of DGM but incorporating new technology-driven changes.

Based in Seattle, the project was launched in November 1999 with the taglines "the beginning of the end of bootlegs" and "the evolution will be televised." An advertisement in Billboard magazine explained the idea in greater depth – "Your fans love a great bootleg. We'll make sure you get both the love and the money. At BootlegTV, we're about protecting the intellectual property of creative artists and rightful copyright holders. We're also about uniting new media, art and commerce in a way that makes the concert experience available to fans anywhere, anytime. As a result, artists reach a wider audience and everyone gets their due."

Besides Singleton, Ball and Fripp, other people contributing to the project were filmmaker Kenneth Thomas and sound designer Guy Whitmore. The BootlegTV roster was spearheaded by King Crimson (who committed footage of virtually all of their 2000 tour to the company) and other DGM acts. Other bands who signed up to the roster included The Tragically Hip. Other ideas considered for development by the company included investigations into a standalone form of "non-linear music"

Despite raising four million dollars in initial investment, BootlegTV folded in 2001, due a reluctance on the part of investors to continue supporting the original business plan. Fripp would later reflect that the concept had arrived too early and would have required broadband technology (which, at the time, was not widely available) to succeed. For several years, BootlegTV continued as a technology company called Bootleg Networks (championing the development of broadband and building tools to allow other companies to catalogue and stream their video archive content) although Singleton's involvement would be reduced. Various publicity stunts and culture-jamming incidents followed, ostensibly carried out by Punk: these included a period of incarceration within Facebook, 2013’s "Fart For Your Rights" campaign (a mock dirty protest aimed at Universal Music Group, who were at the time selling King Crimson's music without a proper legal agreement or due remuneration) and a 2014 iTunes app of drummer jokes.

The first Vicar single, "Count Your Blessings" was released in 2010, with the debut Vicar album Songbook #1 following three years later in 2013. A second Vicar album, Songbook #2 is currently being recorded. In 2015, Singleton launched the "Be the Singer"/"V Factor" initiative (inviting members of the public to record vocals to existing Vicar backing tracks, with the best performers to be invited to record material for Songbook #2) and an "#IamTheVicar" instagram campaign in which fans could photograph themselves obscuring their faces (a Vicar visual trademark) to appear on the cover of future Vicar releases.

Discography (selected) as producer for King Crimson (selected) King Crimson – Frame by Frame: The Essential King Crimson (compilation, 1991) – engineering, mixing King Crimson – The Great Deceiver (Live 1973–1974) (1992, reissued 2007) – mixing, liner notes King Crimson – Vrooom (1994) – digital editing, mastering King Crimson – Thrak (1995) – assistant producer, digital editing & assembly, composer King Crimson – Thrakattak (1996) – arranger, digital editing, mastering King Crimson – Epitaph (1997) – producer, liner notes King Crimson – The Night Watch (1997) – mixing King Crimson – Absent Lovers: Live in Montreal 1984 (1998) – engineering, editing, mixing, mastering King Crimson – Cirkus: The Young Persons' Guide to King Crimson Live (compilation, 1999) – producer, mixing, mastering King Crimson – The ProjeKcts (box set, 1999) – producer, engineering, mastering King Crimson – Heavy ConstruKction (2000) – producer, mastering King Crimson – Level Five (2001) – mastering King Crimson – Vrooom Vrooom (2001) – producer King Crimson – Happy with What You Have to Be Happy With (2002) – producer, engineering King Crimson – Ladies of the Road (2002) – producer King Crimson – The Power to Believe (2003) – editing, sequencing, production mastering, composer

for Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists – Show of Hands (1991) – mixing Robert Fripp – Soundscapes: Live in Argentina (1994) – producer, engineering, digital editing, mastering Robert Fripp String Quintet – The Bridge Between (1994) – producer, engineering, liner notes Robert Fripp – Radiophonics: 1995 Soundscapes, Vol. 1 (1995) – producer, digital editing, mastering Robert Fripp – A Blessing of Tears: 1995 Soundscapes, Vol. 2 (1995) – producer, engineering, digital editing, mastering Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists – Intergalactic Boogie Express: Live in Europe 1991 (1995) – producer, engineering, editing, mastering Robert Fripp – That Which Passes: 1995 Soundscapes, Vol. 3 (1996) – producer, digital editing, mastering Robert Fripp & The League of Gentlemen – Thrang Thrang Gozinbulx (1996) – producer, editing, mastering Robert Fripp – November Suite: 1996 Soundscapes – Live at Green Park Station (1997) – engineering, digital composition Robert Fripp – Pie Jesu (1997) – producer Robert Fripp – The Gates of Paradise (1998) – producer, digital composition Fripp & Eno – The Equatorial Stars (2005) – administration Robert Fripp – At the End of Time: Churchscapes – Live in England & Estonia, 2006 (2007) – editing, engineering, mastering Theo Travis/Robert Fripp – Thread (2008) – engineering, photography Theo Travis/Robert Fripp – Follow (2012) – engineering Robert Fripp/Andrew Keeling/David Singleton – The Wine of Silence (2012) – producer, engineering, treatments, revision, mixing consultant, composer, liner notes

for others

Sunday All Over the World – Kneeling at the Shrine (1991) – engineering, mastering, mixing FFWD – FFWD (1994) – engineering California Guitar Trio – Yamanashi Blues (1994) – remastering California Guitar Trio – Invitation (1995) – producer, mixing, mastering Gitbox – Touch Wood (1995) – remastering Various Artists – Guitars That Rule the World, Vol. 2: Smell the Fuzz: The Superstar Guitar Album (compilation, 1996) – producer, engineering, mixing Europa String Choir – The Starving Moon (1996) – producer, arranger, composer Ten Seconds – Ten Seconds (1996) – assembly, editing, mastering Trey Gunn – The Third Star (1996) – engineering Bill Bruford/Ralph Towner/Eddie Gomez – If Summer Had Its Ghosts (1997) – mastering Tony Geballe – Native of the Rain (1997) – producer, engineering Bill Nelson (musician) – Atom Shop (1998) – mastering ProjeKCt One – Live at the Jazz Cafe (1998) – engineering, mixing, mastering California Guitar Trio – Pathways (1998) – producer, mixing, mastering Various Artists – Sometimes God Smiles: The Young Person's Guide to Discipline, Vol. 2 (compilation, 1998) – producer, composer ProjeKCt Two – Space Groove (1998) – editing Bill Nelson (musician) – What Now, What Next? (1998) – mastering Bill Bruford's Earthworks – A Part, and Yet Apart (1999) – mastering John Wetton – Arkangel (1999) – engineering Melanie – Beautiful People: The Greatest Hits of Melanie (1999) – mastering Jacob Heringman – Black Cow (2000) – engineering Bill Bruford's Earthworks – The Sound of Surprise (2001) – mastering California Guitar Trio – CG3+2 (2002) – mastering Jacob Heringman – The Art of the Lute Player (2002) – engineering California Guitar Trio – The First Decade (compilation, 2003) – producer, mixing, mastering, remastering School Aid – "Where's the Money, Mr Blair?" single – producer (credited as "The Vicar"), composer Jakko M. Jakszyk – The Bruised Romantic Glee Club (2006) – engineering, mixing Jakszyk, Fripp & Collins – A Scarcity of Miracles (2011) – engineering

as solo artist, band member, songwriter or performing musician

as David Singleton

'If You Can Sing in Tune/Lazy Bugger' (single, 1981)

with Camilla's Little Secret

'BEA' (single, 1992) "Tantalising Eyes" (single, 1993 – due for reissue April 2015) The Steps (album, 1994)

as The Vicar

"Count Your Blessings" (single, 2010) Songbook #1 (2013) Songbook #2 (forthcoming)