King Crimson Discography MCP Server

日本語版: README.ja.md

An MCP server that surfaces King Crimson record and live-performance data — including a curated incarnation (line-up era) model that shows how each song belongs to specific eras of the band.

What makes this different

Generic MusicBrainz/Discogs MCP servers can already fetch releases, credits, and pressings. This server does that too, but adds two things a band-agnostic discography tool structurally can't have:

• A cross-source integration layer keyed on MBID. MusicBrainz, Discogs, Cover Art Archive, and setlist.fm are stitched together so one release-group MBID gets you credits, physical editions, artwork, and live history without re-resolving identities per source.

• A King Crimson incarnation model. King Crimson's line-up turned over almost completely, many times, over five decades — the same song can mean a totally different band depending on the year. This server hand-curates eight line-up eras and cross-references every tracked song's live-performance history against them:

  Song	Incarnations it appears in
  "21st Century Schizoid Man"	Spread across every era — the band's signature
  "Starless"	Only the Larks' Tongues era and the Three-drummer era
  "Elephant Talk"	Born in the Discipline era, gone by the Three-drummer era

• A local, offline-first concert cache. Full concert history (1,200+ shows) is fetched once via refresh_setlist_cache and cached as JSON. Every subsequent song/tour/era query reads the cache — instant, and immune to setlist.fm's intermittent rate-limit failures during analysis.

Related MCP server: spotify-mcp

Tools

The incarnation model

Eight line-up eras, split on membership changes:

Boundaries are dates, not just years — 1972 in particular splits into the Islands-era "Earthbound" spring tour (Transitional) and the Wetton-era autumn tour (Larks' Tongues), since the band's membership genuinely changed mid-year.

Line-up eras are a matter of fan interpretation, and this is one reasonable cut, not the only one. The full definition lives in KING_CRIMSON_INCARNATIONS in king_crimson_mcp.py — edit it (members, key releases, date boundaries) to match your own view; the aggregation logic doesn't need to change.

Setup

# Python 3.10+ required (3.12 recommended)
uv venv --python 3.12
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -r requirements.txt

# configure secrets
cp .env.example .env
# then edit .env

.env variables:

• MCP_CONTACT — required by MusicBrainz policy; identifies your app to their API via the User-Agent header.

• DISCOGS_TOKEN — needed for get_editions (Discogs personal access token).

• SETLISTFM_API_KEY — needed for get_live_history, refresh_setlist_cache, and song_performance_history.

The server loads .env directly from its own directory at startup, so it works regardless of which shell environment launches it (notably: MCP Inspector does not forward its own shell's environment variables to the server process it spawns).

Running

# quick tool check via MCP Inspector
mcp dev king_crimson_mcp.py

Run refresh_setlist_cache once first — it fetches King Crimson's full concert history (~1,200 shows, ~40 seconds) and caches it locally. After that, song_performance_history reads from the cache and returns instantly.

Register with Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "king-crimson": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/king_crimson_mcp.py"],
      "env": { "MCP_CONTACT": "you@example.com" }
    }
  }
}

Secrets can live in .env next to the script, or in the env block above — either is read.

Data sources & attribution

This project is an unofficial client with no affiliation with or endorsement from MusicBrainz, the MetaBrainz Foundation, the Internet Archive, Discogs, or setlist.fm.

• MusicBrainz — free, no API key. Requires an identifying User-Agent with contact info (rate limit: 1 req/sec). Data is largely CC0; crediting MusicBrainz in your app is good practice.

• Cover Art Archive — a joint MusicBrainz / Internet Archive project. Images are contributed by individual uploaders; follow the same attribution etiquette as MusicBrainz.

• Discogs — requires a personal access token and a unique User-Agent (60 req/min authenticated). Use is subject to the Discogs API terms of service.

• setlist.fm — requires an API key (apply at api.setlist.fm). Any display of setlist.fm data must include an attribution link to the source setlist — every performance returned by this server includes its url for exactly that purpose; surface it wherever you show the data. setlist.fm data is user-submitted, so completeness and accuracy are not guaranteed.

Limitations

• setlist.fm data is user-submitted — some shows or songs may be missing or incorrect, especially from older tours.

• The incarnation boundaries are one interpretation of King Crimson's line-up history, not an official taxonomy.

• Performer credits depend on what MusicBrainz has cataloged for a given release; sparser releases yield sparser credits.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.