As stage 4 restrictions keep everyone at home in the UK, King Crimson rocker Robert Fripp has been taking to his kitchen to deliver a series of wholesome covers with his wife, Toyah Wilcox.
The pair launched their virtual lockdown cover series, Sunday Lunch, last year, and have since built up a trove of covers by acts like Nirvana, David Bowie, Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Joan Jett and more.
The latest instalment of the series see’s the pair cut their teeth on a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s psych-rock classic, ‘Purple Haze.’ The cover saw the two musicians give a sly nod to the famously misheard lyric “Excuse me while I kiss the sky,” with Wilcox opting to sing “Excuse me while I kiss this guy,” whilst leaning over give Fripp a big, lipstick smeared smooch on the forehead. It’s painfully cute.
The Sunday Lunch series has truly embodied all that is coronavirus lockdown mania.
The covers are all excellent in their own oddball way, they’ve seen Toyah don an cheerleader outfit, rock out with a pair of dumbells and perform on an exercise bike.. A particular highlight in the canon includes a cover of Balck Sabbaths ‘Paranoid’, that saw Toyah perform a little song and dance behind bars.
The wacky performance somehow made it into Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi’s consciousness, who told Consequence of Sound “I think they’ve gone mad, actually. I think this lockdown has drove them mental.”
In an interview with The Guardian, Willcox explained how the beloved series came about. “Here I am in this house with this 74-year-old husband who I really don’t want to live without,” she said. “He was withdrawing, so I thought: ‘I’m going to teach him to dance.’ And it became a challenge.”
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Check out Robert Fripp and Toyah Wilcox cover ‘Purple Haze’ by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
