King Crimson guitar maestro Robert Fripp and his wife Toyah Willcox dress up in crazy outfits year-round for their weekly Sunday Lunch YouTube series, so why would Halloween be any different?
In their latest video, the madcap duo celebrate the spookiest day of the year by transforming their now-famous kitchen into a cobweb-covered spider’s lair, with Fripp sporting mummy-style attire crawling with eight-legged critters, while Toyah wears, well, a costume hardly far removed from her usual getup. There is, however, a rather sizable arachnid covering her midsection.
And to pair with their meticulously crafted aesthetic, the couple have selected Black Sabbath’s spine-tingling 1971 classic Children of the Grave – from the same year’s Master of Reality – as the subject of this week’s video.
Watch in the video above as Fripp calls upon an LP-style electric guitar to serve up the track’s weighty riffs, while Toyah busts some of her tried-and-tested moves in the background.
Despite the reasonably innocuous nature of Fripp and Toyah’s Sunday Lunch YouTube covers series, a sect of King Crimson fans have expressed discontent with their antics. Fripp, however, is not at all bothered. “At age 76, why should I give a fuck?” he said last week.
“We’re keenly aware of what people have experienced during lockdown,” he told The Telegraph. “I mean, banged up in a small apartment while your mother’s dying and you can’t go to the funeral. My wife said to me, if all we’ve done in two years is help one person through their bad time, it’s all worth it.
“So I’m not sure if that meets a criteria of serving what is highest in music, but for me, it’s a real undertaking that I respect. And I am quite prepared to strap on a guitar and rock out to a classic riff in order to achieve it… But it upset some King Crimson fans.”
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Until last month, Fripp and Toyah’s Sunday Lunch series was by and large exclusively a double act. However, the enigmatic pair invited English actor and musician Chesney Hawkes into their home for a four-week residency from late September.
During their time together, the trio tackled The One and Only, from Hawkes 1991 album Buddy’s Song, The Killers’ Mr. Brightside, Bryan Adams’ Summer of ‘69 and Fountains of Wayne’s pop-punk anthem, Stacy’s Mom.
Other highlights of the Sunday Lunch series – which now comprises literally hundreds of cover videos – include Limp Bizkit’s Nookie, Pantera’s 5 Minutes Alone, Korn’s Blind and Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World, the latter of which the duo performed earlier this year in solidarity with Ukraine.
