This is the earliest confirmed Floyd-related recording. Adam, Mike and Tim single. It was tracked down by those frisky folks over at Pigs On The Wing – many thanks! I wish I had some scans or other information to share. It sounds nothing like the Floyd. It’s Rick Wright with a bunch of his school friends.Flac format – sorry no scans for this.

Rapidshare:
Rick Wright – 1964-xx-xx AMT 45rpm

Ça y est, le numéro 3 du fanzine Speak to m(E) est sorti ! Si vous ne l’avez pas encore commandé, honte à vous ! Allez, un petit aperçu du numéro :

COUVERTURE

HOMMAGE A RICHARD WRIGHT
Un an déjà !

ACTUALITÉ
Syd Barrett le premier Pink Floyd / Syd Barrett, le Rock et autres trucs – interviews avec les auteurs!

DOSSIER
24 pages spécial rétrospective 2006-2007-2008 pour replonger dans l’actu de ces trois années exceptionnelles

MAIS AUSSI…

• La Black Strat
• A Momentary Lapse of Reason
• Oh By The Way

• Coffret Piper
• Look Of The Week ‘67
• les claviers de Rick part 1 – Les orgues
• Madcap’s Last Laugh

• The Australian Pink Floyd Show en France
• Sorties livre et DVD
• Figure libre
• etc…

Ça fait envie hein ? Ben moi je l’ai déjà lu^^ Vous pouvez le commander depuis le site du fanzine. Tarifs (frais de port compris) : 8€ pour la France / 10€ pour le reste de l’Europe.

Chapeau-bas et merci à toute l’équipe du fanzine pour ce beau projet

As  Who fan for 20-some years, I’ve been quite familiar with what is arguably the seminal rock opera, Tommy.  By contrast, I’ve only recently discovered Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  By radio play alone, I’ve heard and was very familiar with perhaps as much as half the The Wall’s songs.  But listening to it all the way through and reading up on it, I was surprised at the similarities in themes and even some of the plot between these two, which are among the most revered concept albums ever made.

To try to get a grip on these similarities, I did some extensive searching for summaries or synopses of the stories told by each album.  The following were, I feel, the simplest but most helpful.

TOMMY

British Army Captain Walker is reported missing in action during World War I, and is not expected ever to be seen again. Shortly after his wife, Mrs. Walker, receives this news, she gives birth to their son, Tommy.  Approximately four years later, Captain Walker returns home and discovers that his wife has found a new lover. Captain Walker confronts the two and kills the lover. Tommy witnesses this through his mirror. To cover up the crime, Tommy’s parents tell Tommy that he didn’t see it, didn’t hear it, and he will say “nothing to no one ever in [his] life”. A
traumatized Tommy becomes deaf, dumb, and blind.

Tommy’s subconscious reveals itself to him as a tall stranger dressed in silvery robes, and the vision sets him on an internal spiritual journey upon which he learns to interpret all physical sensations as music.

His thoughtless parents leave him to the care of his cousin, Kevin, who tortures him and later to the care of his uncle Ernie, an alcoholic child molester.  Uncle Ernie, like Kevin, takes abuses Tommy (in this case sexually) knowing he will not be caught.

Tommy’s brilliance at pinball is discovered, and quickly defeats the game’s tournament champion, making him an international celebrity, really like a rock mega-star.

His parents find a medical specialist to once more try to understand and cure his symptoms. After numerous tests, they are told that there is nothing medically wrong with him, and that his problems are psychosomatic. However, as they are trying to reach him, Tommy’s subconscious is also trying to reach out to them.  Tommy’s mother continues to try to reach him, and becomes frustrated that he completely ignores her while staring directly at a mirror. Out of this frustration
she smashes the mirror.  The smashing of the mirror snaps Tommy back into reality. Tommy’s cure becomes a public sensation and he attains guru-like status. Thereafter he assumes a quasi-messianic mantle and tries to lead his fans to an enlightenment similar to his own.

Tommy opens his own home to anyone willing to join him, and urges them to bring as many people with them as they can.  His home ultimately turns into a “holiday camp” run by Uncle Ernie, who is apparently motivated by greed and not spiritual enlightenment.  Tommy demands that his followers play pinball and blind, deafen and mute themselves in order to truly reach their spiritual height, but the heavy-handedness of his cult and the exploitation of its followers by his family and
associates cause his followers to revolt against him. Abandoned by his followers and worshipers, Tommy gains a new enlightenment.

Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(album)#Story_in_chronological_order

THE WALL

From the outset, Pink’s life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born to a war-ravaged nation that takes his father’s life in the name of “duty,” and an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of her love and phobias onto her son, Pink chooses to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life’s physical and emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, a country whose king signs his father’s death certificate with a rubber stamp, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion, each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world, Pink spirals into a void of insanity, cementing in place the final brick in the wall. Yet the minute it is complete, Pink begins to realize the adverse effects of total mental isolation, helplessly watching as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and thereby defiled his own life from birth. Culminating in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, the story ends with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of Pink’s life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphorical death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title “art.”

http://www.thewallanalysis.com/Intro.html

Is it just me, or are there some amazing similarities?  Here are those that jumped out at me.  Both Tommy and Pink lose their fathers who fight for Britain in a world war.  Tommy’s father is only presumed dead so long for his mother to take a new lover; Pink’s father is forever lost.

Most startlingly, the cruelty of parents, relatives and authority figures in general twist and warp the minds of the characters.  Tommy’s parents, indifferent and distant at best, turn him over to be tortured by a bully cousin and sick and twisted uncle.  Doctors torture him with ineffective “cures.”  Pink endures his overbearing mother and viciousness of wicked teachers.

Stardom is the temporary salvation, or at least solace, of each character.  Their celebrity, Tommy’s as a “pinball wizard” (really a rock star) and Pink’s as a rock star, bring them the fame and glory, make them little gods.  As is often the case in real life, that glory eventually becomes their emotional and psychological undoing.

While both arrive at their end point by extremely divergent paths, both cult-like figures, are taken down by their followers.  Tommy’s holiday camp attendees overthrow him.  Pink is “tried” in some fashion of a court for what in essence amount to war crimes.   Tommy is booted from his throne.  Pink’s wall is torn asunder.

At the risk of overstating the importance or depth of these works, there’s no doubt a more scholarly look at them might find more interesting and detailed similarities.  I’m neither a music nor literature expert.  My eyes are untrained to find themes, moods, tone and so on.  Nevertheless, there appear to be enough points of likeness between Tommy and The Wall to merit mention.  I’d love to read anything others might have said on the subject and welcome lots of feedback.

It only took 20-some years of fighting it, but I finally became one of the cool kids.  I broke down and picked up a few Pink Floyd albums.  No, I didn’t pay for them.  I got ‘em from the local library.  I’ve listened to bits of Dark Side of the Moon and I am listening to The Wall as I write.

I could never tell you why I never even gave Pink Floyd a chance.  I just didn’t.  The closest thing I had to a reason was that there were just “not my style.”  It’s not as if I’d never heard them.  They’re a staple of rock radio.  I’ve heard a few dozen songs on radio alone and probably bits and pieces of albums that friends have played.  But I never sat down and listened to a single album start to finish.  No, I didn’t even try to watch The Wall synced with The Wizard Of Oz.  Since I’ve never been a head, I suppose I never felt the need to really pay much attention.

Lately, though, I’ve felt like I’ve run out of good rock and roll.  I’m a Beatles fanatic but I’m trying not to OD on the new mono and stereo remasters, which have been in heavy rotation at home, work and in the car for 2 weeks.  I need to pick up the new Black Crowes album and that will quench my rock thirst. . . for a time.

For now, though, let’s see how I like the Floyd.

Poster for the 2007 Robert Pasternak exhibition, "Drawing Breath: Intuitive Figure Drawings"

Originally published October 31, 2007, on my since-abandoned Myspace blog.

Breathing has played an integral role in rock’s development since the very beginning. It’s safe to say that the form was, indeed, shaped by the constant, rhythmic intake of life-giving oxygen. One can’t imagine “Rocket 88,” widely acknowledged in melodic annals as the first true rock ‘n’ roll record, had neither Ike Turner nor his Kings of Rhythm (and, conversely, Sam Phillips — breathing is just as important for non-musicians as well) been inhaling and/or exhaling. In fact, Ike recalled to Mojo in 2000, “Only cat that wasn’t [breathing] was the motherfucker we sang about” — an automobile, the Olds 88, which lacks the necessary circulation and genetic architecture.

Unsurprisingly, this sparked a trend that continues to the modern day. Musicologists may challenge the legitimacy of genres and artists — often violently so — but most concur that the best music is recorded by breathers. Of course, many breathers eventually become non-breathers, the fate that befell one-half of the Fab Four, generally considered to have been the greatest and most revolutionary breathing band of all time. But months of careful research have concluded that both John Lennon and George Harrison were, in truth, oxygen-dependent during the sessions that yielded Double Fantasy and Brainwashed, respectively.

Breath, or the lack thereof, has been a perennial subject for songwriters. Jerry Lee Lewis recorded the hit “Breathless” in 1958, but, despite rumors to the contrary, was inhaling and exhaling freely in the studio (“Lotta thangs The Killah don’t do, killah,” he confessed in 1988 over a Coca-Cola. “One of ‘em is, I don’t not breathe.”), as were The Corrs in 2000. The only artist to have successfully acetated a song called “Breathless” while reportedly not breathing is Shankar Mahadevan, in 1998. However, since he’s still alive, we can assume this wasn’t a permanent condition.

One of the most famous (and staunch) advocates of breath were, of course, Pink Floyd, all of whom had been breathing since the 1940s. But it wasn’t until the mid-’60s, with the rise of Swinging London, that breathing became an important statement. “After marijuana and LSD, the natural high of breath seemed, well, natural, didn’t it?” Roger Waters explained to Rolling Stone in 1973, shortly after the release of his paean to breath, Dark Side of the Moon. “Besides, it was cheap to the point of free, although abundance and abuse could make you light-headed.”

“Most people think Dark Side is about insanity, the crisis of aging, the passage of time, things of that nature — critics especially,” he elaborated for Q in 1987. “But it’s not. It’s about what a powerful sensation breathing is. It’s got a fucking song called ‘Breathe,’ don’t it? ‘Breathe, breathe in the air/Don’t be afraid to care.’ That’s me saying, ‘Open your passages and let it all in. Air is wonderful.’ I tried a bit of the song earlier on a Ron Geesin album called The Body, but no one took it seriously, cos most of it was tape loops of yobbos farting and belching, and who wants to breathe that? Later we say, ‘Shorter of breath/and one day closer to death.’ I’m warning people, ‘This is what happens if you stop.’ As for ['The Great Gig in the Sky'], Rick [Wright] told Clare [Torry], ‘Explode with the joy of breath.’ “

David Gilmour agreed in a recent documentary for the BBC. “It was us who made breathing acceptable again, in the ’70s,” he said. “Look how many people were using their noses and mouths on a regular basis. They were breathing up a storm, among other things.”

Indeed, the ’70s proved to be boon years for breathers of all stripes. More people were breathing than ever before. But one artist in particular was about to turn the lessons of Floyd into an art form. In 1975, for the first time in rock ‘n’ roll history, someone audibly breathed on record: “Round and Round,” the penultimate track on Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic. It’s a galloping electric assault whose only respite arrives when Steven Tyler invades a welcome hush with the harsh release of a whispered “chaaahhhh…” “The music was just so dense and heavy, I felt like people needed a breather, literally,” Tyler later explained. “I did it on ‘Uncle Salty’ too.” It became a Tyler trademark of sorts, thus inspiring what’s known as the hard-rock or metal “chaaaahhhh…,” evoking ominous images of screeching ravens, churning skies, and jagged vistas.

The “chaaaahhh…” school eventually split into innumerable camps, including the New Wave “CHA!” (see Big Country, et al), a curt call that mocked the bacchanalian excess of ’70s rock. “Elongating the word was unnecessary,” Mark Mothersbaugh said in 1981. “It represented the dinosaur that rock had become. We kept it short and simple, returning the music to its roots in short, ebullient bursts of breath. No one needs to breathe that much or that hard. That’s not where we were coming from. Treat it like a sneeze. Do it, finish it, then proceed to the next idea. It’s a motto Devo still observes to this day.” In fact, the brisk cracks and snaps featured in the band’s classic “Whip It” were a demonstration of this new ideal.

But, whatever its history, whatever its long-term effect, one thing is clear as mountain air: breathing and music are inseparable. One is impossible without the other. Much like rock itself, the act of breathing is here to stay. And as long as musicians continue to breathe, it will never die.

http://alphainventions.com                           http://condron.us

The Late, Grammy-winning singer Miriam Makeba

great recent tweets…
~BK77: “90 & sunny in LA. why dont i live there? besides the gang violence, smog, crippled economy, crumbling state govt, & bad traffic, i mean.”
~runnerforchrist:”It is seldom indeed that one parts on good terms, because if one were on good terms one would not part.”-Marcel Proust   
          ———-
big music…
(all credit goes to billboard.com via myway.com-and of course, this great site www.thisdayinmusic.com, who can also be followed on Twitter with same name)
~1945, Born on this day, Rick Wright, keyboards, vocals, Pink Floyd, (1973 US No.1 & UK No.2 album ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, spent a record breaking 741 weeks on the US chart. 1979 UK and US No.1 single ‘Another Brick In The Wall, (part 2)’. Pink Floyd have sold over 200 million albums worldwide). Wright died on 15th Sept 2008 aged 65 from cancer. Wright appeared on the group’s first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967 alongside Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Nick Mason.
Billboard ranks the group’s 1973 album “Dark Side of the Moon” as the longest-charting album of all time. It stays on the magazine’s pop album chart for more than 10 years and sells more than 10 million copies.
          ———–
forwards…we get FWD’s…
(thanks to mannmade)
*Ways to Show You’re a Grown-Up*
~Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
~You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
~You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
~Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
~Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
~Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one. 
          ———-
in case you give a rat’s rear end…
*Fads of the 50’s*
Colored streamers for bicycle handlebars
baseball cards in your bike’s wheel spokes (to make a fwap-fwap sound)
TV Dinners
Drive-in theaters
Panty Raids
Letter Sweaters  
Jukeboxes
Fins and chrome on cars
Abstract expressionism
Diners
Teenyboppers
DA Haircut    
Blue suede loafers
Bunny hop
Sock Hops
          ———-
more events for this date…
~1944 Blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield is born in Chicago; member of the Paul Butterfield band and Electric Flag. Played on Dylan’s album ‘Highway 61 Revisited.’  He dies on Feb. 15, 1981, in San Francisco of an accidental drug overdose.   
~1933 1st singing telegram delivered (to Rudy Vallee, on his 32nd birthday), NYC
~1977 1st oil flow through the Alaska pipeline
~1991 Buffalo Bills beat Phila Eagles, 17-13 in American Bowl in Wembley
          ———-
random-ness…
~Lymph (V.), to walk with a lisp.
~”What’s another word for Thesaurus?”-Steven Wright
~”An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.”-Dan Rather
          ———-
and finally…your really big music note on this date…
*1973 A crowd of 600,000 gathers for a rock festival at Watkins Glen* Raceway, N.Y., to hear the Grateful Dead, the Band and the Allman Brothers Band.
 Over 600,000 rock fans attended. Many historians claimed the event was the largest gathering of people in the history of the United States. 150,000 tickets were sold for $10 each, but for all the other people it was a free concert.
(No, that’s not my ticket, but I was there. As the rain slowed-down, we wandered back to the concert site, catching the last of the Band’s set, and getting really close to the stage for the Allman Brothers Band. My biggest and best memory of Watkins Glen was being enthralled with the Allman Bros’ set! It didn’t matter that I had to stand (and sometimes crouch or sit) in the mud for a few hours-they were incredible!  And upon going back to a regular life, remember every week I would buy one of their LP’s…and yeah…they were just as awesome on vinyl as they were ‘live’.
Have some links here, in case you wanted to check out the story of the concert and some photos…Thanks to “Glen” and “Sabre_Fan” and “Mark Spaulding” for posting some great stuff!)
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Jam_at_Watkins_Glen
~http://www.glenphotos.com/summerjam/
~http://www.chronos-historical.org/rockfest/articles/WG1.html
          ———-

Going to wrap it up here with another memory…of Gary having this LP amongst his vast album collection…Caoi for now…

Korg SP250 digital piano

After weeks of deliberating I finally put my hard earned down on a Korg SP250 last week.

Having spent many hours fantasising about owning a Nord Stage or one of the top of the range Rolands, I had an unsual bout of sensibleness and realised that I neither required nor could afford such extravagance.

A trip to the local music shop rammed this fact home even harder as the assistant suggested I try out the Korg which was a quarter of the price of some of the previously mentioned digital wizardry.

Suffice to say I was knocked out enough by the sound and feel of the keys to place an order.  And now it sits comfortably in my home studio.

Having spent most of the weekend learning the intro to Pink Floyd’s Great Gig in the Sky I can honestly say the £559 I paid for the piano was an absolute bargain.  If, like me, you dont possess a fantastic knowledge of pianos and their individual nuances and tonal qualities, the SP250 will do you perfectly.  If the reviews on the web are to be believed, it isn’t that far off the RD700’s of this world.

Inbuilt speakers are handy, as is the metronome and while many will be dismayed at the lack of USB connectivity, it can be hooked up to your PC or Mac via MIDI, as you’d expect, if you wish to use it as a controller keyboard for your software synths.

As previously mentioned, the piano sounds come highly recommended and the electric pianos are more than adequate offering the enevitable Rhodes clone along with a few other punchy patches to boot.  Strings ain’t half bad either and complement the piano sounds nicely when used in tandem.

The organs are probably the weakest of the lot but still perfectly useable.  If truth be told, I have little interest in the other instruments, as my studio already contains everything from full orchestra sections to burning piano samples (courtesy of Omnisphere), therefore everything is covered and it’s not really the reason I bought the piano in the first place.  Those that are expecting a wealth of general midi sounds will be disappointed.  But then, GM is so 90s, isn’t it?

On the learning side of things, I’m still engrossing myself in some of YouTube’s tutorials and, in particular, as mentioned above, The Great Gig in the Sky.  Rick Wright, god rest his soul, wasn’t Mozart which makes his pieces quite a nice way of easing yourself into piano.  He uses relatively basic albeit unusual chord structures which are a joy to play.

Next up – it’s time to book some real lessons.

I was doing some research into the synths used on WYWH and went to Vintage Synth to take a look around, it’s one of the best, most thorough synth sites on the web. I found this pdf of Wright’s rigs throughout the years that someone took some time to put together. Drool worthy, for sure.

WrightGear-rev156.pdf

This video is a pleasure to watch. Wine glasses on stage…that’s playing on the edge. What would happen if someone caught on the of the glasses oddly and it crashed the entire table full? Maybe those are glued to the table. They have to trust that the crew put everything together correctly.

Putting on a great, fantastic live performance, like The Floyd, like David Gilmour, The Who, Rush, Yes, Cirque Du Soleil…it is NOT EASY…AT ALL. You can do great things at your own office job or whatnot, have healthcare, benefits, vacation…if you’re in the business of constructing a live show, there is none of that, for the most part, and there is the looming specter of the next day of work based upon the previous day’s result. The “knife edge” is attractive to some people, and some are just adrenaline junkies.

There is such a responsibility for each individual that was involved in setting the show up, from the smallest bit to the largest, for when the curtain opens that they did their part correctly and to a very high standard and that there is no failure anywhere in their setup. The little hidden things are what create the magic of the show. Like gluing wine glasses to a table…

Cela faisait un bout de temps que je voulais le faire, voici un petit récapitulatif de tous les concerts de Pink Floyd en France disponibles en téléchargement sur le site. Sont également inclus les concerts des membres en solo, les émissions de radio et bon nombre de vidéos !

1970

• Pink Floyd – Broadcasting From Europa 1 – 21 janvier, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Élysées Floyd – 23 janvier, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Paris – 23 janvier, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live at Saint-Tropez – DivX
• Pink Floyd – Live at Saint-Tropez – DVD
• Pink Floyd – Fête de l’Humanité – 12 septembre, SHN

1971

• Pink Floyd – Live in Lyon – 12 juin, SHN

1972

• Pink Floyd – Poitiers 1972 – 29 novembre, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Poitiers (Palais des Sports) – 29 novembre, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Saint Ouen (Palais des sports de l’île de la Jatte) – 2 décembre, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Lyon Gerland – 10 décembre, MP3

1973

• Pink Floyd – A Night With Roland – 13 et 14 janvier, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Paris (Palais des Sports) – 13 janvier, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Roland Petit Ballets – janvier, DVD

1974

• Pink Floyd – Colmar French Tour 1974 – 22 juin, MP3
• Pink Floyd – The Lost Second Set – 22 juin, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Colmar (Parc des Expositions) – 22 juin, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Versailles (Palais des Sports de la Porte de Versailles) – 24 juin, SHN

1977

• Pink Floyd – Pavillon De Pigs – 22 février, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Paris 1977 – 23 février, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Pavillon De Paris – 24 février, MP3

1984

• David Gilmour – Le Zenith Paris – MP3

1988

• Pink Floyd – Versailles – 21 et 22 juin, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Versailles (Place d’armes du Château de Versailles) – 21 juin, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Versailles – DVD
• Pink Floyd – Live in Grenoble (Stade Municipal) – 15 juillet, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Nice (Stade de l’Ouest) – 17 juillet, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Villneuve d’Ascq (Stadium Nord) – 28 juillet, SHN

1989

• Pink Floyd – Paris Bercy – du 27 juin au 1^er juillet, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Marseilles 1989.7.18 – 18 juillet, MP3

1994

• Pink Floyd – Chantilly Cream – 30 mars, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Bells from Notre-Dame – 30 juillet, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Esplanade des Quinconces, Bordeaux – 11 août, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Comfortablement Engourdi en France – 9 septembre, MP3
• Pink Floyd – France 1994 – 11 septembre, MP3

2005

• Nick Mason chez Ardisson – MPG

2006

• Roger Waters – Magny-Cours – MP3
• David Gilmour – Intronise le REX – MP3
• David Gilmour – La Claque ! – MP3
• David Gilmour – Have You Found It Up There, Andy ? – MP3

2008

• Hommage à Rick Wright sur Classic 21 – radio, MP3

2009

• Sur la route de Pink Floyd – radio, MP3
• Syd Barrett – Sous les étoiles exactement – radio, MP3

Merci à tous les uploadeurs : Roger Keith, Jean-Manuel, Mnzaou et InTheFlesh !

Yesterday’s (Sunday, March 22nd) edition of The Sunday Times of London published a fascinating article about Pink Floyd. Written by Robert Sandall, the article covers a lot of ground, including the relationship of the members of the band with its original leader, Syd Barrett, the death from cancer last year of keyboardist Rick Wright, and the long power struggle for control of the band that was waged by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. The article is a great piece of music journalism and is definitely a must-read for any Pink Floyd fan.

To read the article, click here.

Pink Floyd last performed at the Live 8 concert in London’s Hyde Park in July 2005. Pictured above at that show are (left to right) David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Rick Wright. The following year, Gilmour toured with Wright as a member of his band and Nick Mason appeared at some of Roger Waters’ solo concerts. But the rumored reunion tour of Pink Floyd will likely never happen now that Wright has passed away.

by MATT LARKIN

The Final Cut is the highly anticipated follow up to The Wall and what many regard as a low-grade b-side album, but this has to be the pinnacle of Pink Floyd’s catalogue. The opening track The Post War Dream lays the concept of the album out on the table, war, politics and grief.

Throughout the album bassist and songwriter Roger Waters’ voice is the one that is heard while guitarist Dave Gilmour only delivers backing vocals on Not Now John> It was through this period when the two band leaders’ strong personalities were clashing. Keyboardist and founding member Rick Wright was fired before the recording began and tension was high. Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason have said that they were in constant disagreement with Waters who was obsessed with being in control of everything.

And rightly so, as this may even be construed as a Waters solo album, which was performed by Pink Floyd. Many Floyd fans would rank this at the lowest in their list of greatest Floyd albums due to the creative control that Waters had over the album. But to others (including me) that’s exactly why this is their greatest work and why it does, in one disc, a much better job of what The Wall attempted to do in two.

The music itself is fairly simple if even basic, but it’s the simplicity that amplifies the effect of Gilmour’s solos and presence, or the feeling as the orchestra swells up and dissipates over us or when the saxophone rips out an emotional solo on a track like The Gunner’s Dream.

The album is dripping with the theme of War, in particular the Falkland’s and WWII. The writing about Margaret Thatcher does little to hide Waters political and even moral stance on war as he writes about his late father who died in WWII and the others who died have died through war. Throughout the album Waters condemns war, and tyrants like some of the residents in The Fletcher Memorial Home.

The Final Cut is defiantly the most personal writing from Waters, the most tense and dramatic album they’ve ever put in a sleeve, and it’s this that reinforces the most effective and key element of its music, the lyrics. If you’re looking for something to truly listen to and absorb and appreciate then you will listen this, Waters’ finest hour.

So, it’s Monday and I’m on my way to yet another job interview.  After the plethora of rejections in the “economically anemic” Vegas job market, I’m skeptical about landing a decent a job.  But, I do have Popperwork to do, including writing blogs.  While waiting for my bus (which is already 7 minutes late), I listen to some of Syd Barrett’s work with Pink Floyd.  Syd’s birthday lands on the 6th of this month, and I haven’t really reached out to touch his work in a long time.

Let there be no misunderstanding – Syd Barrett is the reigning king of 60s psychedelic Brit pop, and no one comes close.  The first Floyd singles, “Arnold Layne,” and the brilliant “See Emily Play,” blasts through my earphones, and I’m transported back to my first few days of high school.

- – - – - – -

I can still see the look on my friend Gary’s face when I told him that I had never heard an early Pink Floyd track called “Bike.”  We were freshmen in high school, and he had heard that I was the other “music and record freak” that was running around Canoga Park High School.  We had a few classes together, and in between lectures on “grading procedure,” conversation turned to Pink Floyd, and their early musical output.

Gary had a great love for Pink Floyd’s 60s music, especially the songs of Syd Barrett.  When he discovered that I had never had access to the Floyd material written by Barrett, he responded with a stony silence.  I’ll never forget “the look,” and the conversation that started with, “You mean to tell me that you’ve never heard ‘Astronomy Domine?’ ‘See Emily Play?’ ‘Lucifer Sam?’ ‘Bike?’ And you call yourself a Floyd fan!” Then, he started singing gleefully.

I’ve got a bike
You can ride it, if you like
It’s got a basket, a bell that rings
And things to make it look good
I’d give it to you if I could,
But I borrowed it

The next day, he loaned me a very strange Pink Floyd double album compilation called A Nice Pair.  The set consisted of the first two Floyd albums; The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, and A Saucerful Of Secrets.  It might have been his way testing me, to see if he could trust me with his records.  In good faith, I loaned him a few books on Jim Morrison that I was reading at the time.

Almost as soon as I got home, I plopped the first disc, The Piper, onto the turntable.  Slowly, several voices, blips from a Farfisa organ, drums, and guitars arise in a sonic swirl of psychedelia from my speakers.  The sound was hypnotic enough that I stopped pulling books from my backpack.  I stood where I was, and took in my first experience of a Syd Barrett song called “Astronomy Domine.”

Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.

This marks the beginning of Pink Floyd’s album career..  “Lucifer Sam” had a sharp riff like the theme from “Batman,” and was a wash of poetically, evocative lyrics.  Barrett’s lyrics were awash in images that sounded like a mad romp through some mystic, futuristic book of nursery rhymes.  Sharp and intense, songs like “Matilda Mother,” “Scarecrow,” and “The Gnome” sounded like the perfect soundtrack for the idyllic summer of ‘67 that had taken over England.  Instrumental numbers like “Interstellar Overdrive” and “Pow R. Toc H” were the sonic blueprint that Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason would later perfect in later songs like “Echoes,” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”

The Piper At The Gates of Dawn was written mostly by Barrett.  The album that followed, A Saucerful of Secrets,  would introduce the musical vision of bassist Roger Waters, as well as mark the debut of their new vocalist / guitarist David Gilmour.  It would also mark the end of Barrett’s contribution to Floyd with his one lone contribution to the album, “Jugband Blues.”

It’s awfully considerate of you to think of me here
And I’m much obliged to you for making it clear
That I’m not here.

By most accounts, Syd quit.  By other accounts, the effects of his LSD use made it hard for the other band members to work with him.  Syd would go on to record a few solo records under his own name, but none of that work shines as brilliantly as his work with Pink Floyd.  I ended up trading Gary 3 Simon and Garfunkel albums for his Floyd set.  I had become a Syd fan.

- – - – - – -

January 6th marks the birthday of Roger “Syd” Barrett, late of Pink Floyd and late of this earth.  Who knows what the world of music would have been like if Syd hadn’t decided to tattoo his brain with acid?  All I know is that the world of music would be a lost place without his contributions to 60s pop / rock.  Would Pink Floyd be the same band without Syd’s blueprint of musical experimentation?  Probably not.  Then again, why not just take out a copy of The Piper At The Gates of Dawn and find out for yourself?  Happy birthday, Syd.  Shine on, you crazy diamond!

(Lex Neon is also known as Alex Oliver, the quirky and often eccentric musical genius of “sunshine pop / rock” band Poppermost.  Check out their music and Lex’s rock rantings at http://www.poppermost.com).

(Note: the original release date for the album below is August 5, 1967)

Currently listening : The Piper at the Gates of Dawn By Pink Floyd