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Pink Floyd-Related Audio/Video (2 Viewers)

A pretty thorough and representative list of some of the better available unofficial live recordings.

http://www.collectorsmusicreviews.com/editorial/essential-floyd/

People often ask me which Floyd shows are essential, where to start, which recordings sound best, or which are historically significant, and thus I’ve elected to provide a resource that answers all of those questions and more. Hopefully, knowledgeable collectors of other artists’ work will follow in suit as well; this site isn’t limited to reviews alone – it is a resource for longtime collectors and those just starting out.

This project is a work in progress, and new items are unearthed all the time; I will be regularly maintaining this article and incorporating new information as it becomes available. I’ve included as many links to reviews within the CMR site as possible for a much more in-depth look at silver releases that I rank among the very best, and in many cases consider to be definitive. While I am sure there will be plenty of people that question the CD’s I’ve elected to reference, the true focus here is on the performances and general characteristics of known recordings.

Without further ado, these are the ones everyone needs to own, casual or fanatic, in one form or another, listed in chronological order (with much more to come):

BBC Studios, 201 Piccadilly, London, England – June 25th, 1968 – Extremely high quality recordings broadcast on BBC Radio. Should be released officially by the band without question, and hopefully someday this will transpire! – At The Beeb Vol. 1, Celestial Voices

BBC Maida Vale Studios, Maida Vale, London, England – December 2nd, 1968 – As above! – At The Beeb Vol. 1

BBC Paris Cinema, Lower Regent Street, London, England – May 12th, 1969 – As above! - At The Beeb Vol. 1, Celestial Voices

Concertbogebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands – September 17th, 1969 - Great document of the “concept” shows where various material was culled together into two suites: “The Man” and “The Journey,” portions of which have never appeared anywhere else afterwards – The Pink Jungle: The 68/69 Pre-FM Recordings, The Man Works Before the Afternoon (Shout To The Top – STTP 207/208)

Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA – April 29th, 1970- Fantastic sound and featuring one of the best versions of “A Saucerful Of Secrets” ever performed. One of the best recordings from the first U.S. tour of 1970, it deserves a place in any collection. – Westworld, Fillmore

KQED TV Studios, CA. – April 30th, 1970 – Fantastic recording for public television containing one of the best segues from “Green Is The Colour” into “Careful With That Axe Eugene” that I’ve heard, and the entire performance is quite spacey. Recently released as a DVD/CD package with upgraded audio by Sigma! – An Hour With Pink Floyd

BBC Paris Cinema, Lower Regent Street, London, England – July 16th, 1970 - Phenomenal sound quality, recorded for BBC broadcast. Contains the only known performance of “If” live and a rendition of “Atom Heart Mother” with brass and choir that is considered by many to be superior to the original album! – BBC Archives (stereo), BBC Archives (mono), Heart Involvement, Old Symphonies (Godfather Records – G.R. 125)

The Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA – September 26th, 1970 – My personal favorite recording from 1970; absolutely stellar sound, an intimate show for a small audience that is brimming with atmosphere. Absolutely essential for fans of the experimental era of Floyd! – Electric Factory

Altes Casino, Montreux, Switzerland – November 21st and 22nd, 1970 – The performance on the 21st was recorded by EMI Records with the intention of releasing a live album. These fantastic recordings are sourced from the EMI acetates. For the 22nd, there are a couple sources, one audience and the other believed to be from the soundboard. – Atom Hearted Montreux, Swiss Made , Montreux Casino (Hiwatt)

BBC Paris Cinema, Lower Regent Street, London, England – September 30th, 1971 – Astounding document recorded for BBC broadcast featuring the live debut of “One Of These Days,” one of the best versions of “Fat Old Sun” ever, and an equally impressive version of “Echoes.” This is another item worthy of official release. – BBC Archives (stereo), BBC Archives (mono), Heart Involvement

Golden Hall, San Diego, CA – October 17th, 1971 – Very clear audience recording capturing amazing detail. All versions of this show have cuts between the tracks, yet all music remains intact. The blues jam encore that is a staple of many Floyd shows is particularly good this evening. – Heart Of Darkness

Taft Auditorium, Cincinnati, OH – November 20th, 1971 – Notable for the longest version of “The Embryo” ever, even foreshadowing “Breathe” during the lengthy jam. This was the final performance of this song, and all of the songs are really stretched out. One of the last examples of Floyd improvising at such extreme lengths. – The Growing Embryo

Rainbow Theater, Finsbury Park, London, England – February 20th, 1972 – One of the best performances of “Eclipse/Dark Side Of The Moon” prior to the release of the LP. Includes vastly different versions of “On The Run” (then called “The Travel Sequence”) and “The Great Gig In The Sky” (then called “The Mortality Sequence”). – The Best Of Tour 72

Nakanoshima Sports Center, Sapporo, Japan – March 13th, 1972- Another one of the very best pre-LP performances of the “Eclipse” suite, and also notable for one of the very best renditions of “Careful With That Axe Eugene”; as GS said here, it will have you on the edge of your seat! – Memories Of The East

Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA – September 22nd, 1972 - Widely considered to be one of Pink Floyd’s all-time greatest performances, recorded in an amazing setting, and without question one of the most circulated live recordings of all time. Sadly, one of the very last performances of “A Saucerful Of Secrets” – Damn Braces: Bless Relaxes, At The End Of The Rainbow

Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, ON, Canada – March 11th, 1973 – Almost coinciding with the release of Dark Side Of The Moon, this is the debut performance of the suite in Toronto, captured in amazingly detailed, three-dimensional sound. Known also for the still unexplained “Yeeshkul” heard shouted throughout! – Obscure Night

Earls Court Arena, London, England – May 18th & 19th, 1973 – One of the best post-LP performances of Dark Side Of The Moon with amazing sound. Includes the tracks “Obscured By Clouds” and “When You’re In,” the latter of which rocks harder than most Floyd songs. – Earls Court 1973

Empire Pool, Wembley, Middlesex, England – November 16th, 1974 – Considered by some to be THE definitive post-LP performance of Dark Side Of The Moon, captured perfectly for broadcast by the BBC. There is some debate as to which night of the Wembley winter run was the actual best performance, but there is no question that this sounds the best. Again, worthy of official release. Alternatively, audience sources exist as well. – BBC Archives 1974, Raving Lunatics

The Forum, Los Angeles, CA – April 26th, 1975 – Extremely detailed recording that should be considered the absolute best of the 1975 tour; the sound quality is absolutely phenomenal. Notable for early versions of songs that would later evolve into material on the Wish You Were Here and Animals albums. Everyone needs to own some version of this recording! – The Late Great Millard Tapes , Pink Millard

Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY – June 17th, 1975 – Another fabulous document from the 1975 tour that is nearly as good as the L.A. and Boston shows. We’re very close to seeing the definitive edition of this concert, but in the meantime, there are some recent versions worth checking out. – Wishes Echoes And Desires, Nice Live Pair

Boston Gardens, Boston, MA – June 18th, 1975 – Easily, at the very least on par with the L.A. shows from earlier in the year in terms of capture, quality, and performance. If you’re only going to own two of the shows from 1975, then make sure this is one and the April 26th L.A. concert is the other! – Rave Master, Nice Live Pair

Ivor Wynne Stadium, Hamilton, ON, Canada – June 28th, 1975 – Final night of the 1975 North American tour and the subject of much debate amongst Floyd aficionados in that some feel the band sounds tired and the performance is lacking, while others (myself included) view it as a fitting conclusion to a great tour. Rich, three-dimensional stereo audience recording. – Hamilton ’75

Pavillion de Paris, Paris, France – February 22nd, 1977- By the time of the Paris concerts in 1977, Floyd had long shaken off the rust from a long hiatus that sometimes compromised the German dates the previous month, and this recording is truly awe-inspiring. There is haunting ambiance at the Paris shows that is seldom captured elsewhere. One of the best shows of the Animals tour in front of a truly engaged, yet respectful audience. – Funhouse

Tarrant County Convention Center, Fort Worth, TX – May 1st, 1977 – Some might consider this an odd choice to include in this list, but the fact is this is a fantastic audience recording that finds the band performing splendidly and Roger Waters in good spirits. The sound quality alone warrants further investigation and the band are totally collected compared to the last few shows of the tour! – Pigs Fly Over America

Alameda Coliseum, Oakland, CA – May 9th, 1977 – The best sound of any recording of the Animals tour. Prior to Roger Waters’ breakdown, the band really appears to be enjoying the show. Also notable for the very last performance of “Careful With That Axe Eugene.” Definitive Oakland, Oaklands, Mr. Pig

Boston Garden, Boston, MA – June 27th, 1977 - High quality audience recording that can be characterized as well-balanced and powerful, with minimal audience commentary. Not quite on par with the aforementioned Oakland recording, but pretty damn close, and certainly a much more pleasant document of the latter portion of this scandalous tour. – Boredom And Pain

Olympic Stadium, Montreal, Quebec, Canada – July 6th, 1977 – The last concert of the Animals tour, fraught with tension, scene of Roger Waters’ spitting incident that in turn, provided a catalyst for The Wall - Roar Ends

Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY – February 28th, 1980- Reknowned to be the absolute finest recording of The Wall performed live with amazing clarity, fantastic balance between the vocals, instruments, and audience. As close to an official release as you’ll ever find on a ROIO – Your Favorite Disguise, Brick By Brick (Great Dane – GDR CD 9313/ABC)

Earl’s Court, London, England – August 6th, 1980- Apart from some technical problems onstage during “Mother” and the first minute of Yudman’s introduction being muffled, this is certainly one of the best recordings from the 1980 tour available, full of dynamics and power. – The Warm Thrill Of Confusion

Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Germany – February 20th, 1981 – Utterly amazing three-dimensional sound with astounding clarity defines this recording. Unquestionably one of the most riveting, mesmerizing tapes of The Wall performed live. – Westphalian Wall

Earl’s Court, London, England – June 16th, 1981 – The penultimate concert in support of The Wall that was recently released and now easily ranks amongst the top 5 recordings of this tour. Clear, powerful, three-dimensional, and enthralling. – Watching The World Upon The Wall

Earl’s Court, London, England – June 17th, 1981 – The final performance of The Wall live with Roger Waters and one of the better recordings from this tour overall. Notable for being the last time Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason would share the same stage together for 24 years. – The Last Few Bricks

 
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I really enjoyed the making of DSOTM video you linked in here. Good stuff. Love this thread.

 
Thanks, the very next link in the OP is a one hour doc on the the making of Wish You Were Here, which you also may enjoy.

Another recommendation, especially for those interested in, as Waters calls it, the first chapter of the story, is a doc on Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett, which can be found in post #19. There are a lot of unofficial videos in this thread, but all three of these (including DSOM) are authorized, and available as blu-ray/DVD/itunes download.

 
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More background on the "lost album", the largely unused soundtrack material for Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (see post #40). He only used three tracks at the time, Rhino Records later came out with an edition containing a second disc, with four additional tracks each by Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia. The below version contains extra outtakes, and the set is comprised of only the Pink Floyd material (included or rejected).

There are a few "almost" Pink Floyd albums, besides this. At one time The Man And The Journey was considered in '69, but they opted for Ummagumma instead. Reportedly a concert was recorded for a potential live album at the Montreux casino in 1970 (different versions are called Smoking Blues, Swiss Made, Atom Hearted Montreux, Too Late For Mind Expanding, Too Early For The Gig, etc.), but among other things, it was marred by some technical difficulties and Gilmour laughing - possibly related. There were the aborted Household Objects sessions noted earlier (which I think were attempted even earlier than WYWH, and not necessarily prompted by Wright, and actually revisited later). At one time, before it was obvious the band was disintegrating, Waters intended to release a Wall follow up titled Spare Bricks. There are no doubt other examples, that is just off the top of my head.

Supposedly Stanley Kubrick wanted to use Atom Heart Mother for Clockwork Orange, but Waters vetoed it because the director might have chopped it up to better serve the purposes of the soundtrack.

http://worldoffloydbootlegs.blogspot.com/search/label/Pink%20Floyd%20outtakes

"This is the EXTENDED album of the Soundtrack for Zabriskie Point that never was, once performed entirely by Pink Floyd, now released by MQR. This Album is similar to the 1997 Rhino Soundtrack that was released with a bonus disc featuring eight extra tracks from Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia. In similar fashion we here extend the Lost Album with 8 complete songs recorded by Pink Floyd for the movie and rejected by M. Antonioni for one reason or another.

This is the natural product of years and years of passionate research applied to the Zabriskie Point topic by WRomanus. Over the years many theories have been presented, and we all know a good researcher has to prove his theories whenever possible. In recent years his dedication has yielded the deserved prizes.

"I had the luck to get from Glenn Povey what I call simply The Document, part of the ZP recording sheets of EMI studios. I was also able to make contact with Don Hall, the Music Adviser of the movie. I'm honored to say that this contact became a real friendship. With my great satisfaction almost all my theories, even the most incredible, were confirmed."

This Album is part of the Complete Zabriskie Point Collection (CD1) and the box set called A Total Zabriskie Point of View.

370 ROMAN YARDS THE LOST ALBUM
3:10 01. Heart Beat, Pig Meat
4:40 02. Country Song
1:54 03. Fingals Cave
5:55 04. Crumbling Land
5:44 05. Alans Blues
6:51 06. Oenone
6:53 07. Rain in the Country
5:02 08. Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up

THE EXTENTION
6:23 09. The Violent Sequence
2:12 10. Country Song Theme (band)
1:18 11. Country Song Theme (acoustic)
1:11 12. Take Off (version II)
6:37 13. Love Scene 1 (organ & guitar)
7:51 14. Love Scene 3 (band)
6:55 15. Love Scene 4 (piano & vibes)
6:44 16. Love Scene 5 (double vibes)

The History
In the summer of 1969 Michelangelo Antonioni completed the filming of his visionary and prophetic view of America and our society. All that was left was to complete the movie with a good soundtrack. Antonioni was interested in everything that was new and trendy among young people. Don Hall was on the air during his nocturnal DJ program on KPPC FM Pasadena when he was contacted personally by Antonioni at the end of the summer of 1969. Antonioni really liked Don and invited him to have some screenings of the movie. After that Don provided a list of songs he felt would work, most coming from his program. Antonioni asked MGM to hire Don as Music Advisor for the soundtrack and came back to Roma (Don still has a letter from Antonioni, sent from Rome with the list of the songs he'd like to be in the movie, all songs for the radio-desert sequences).

Still they had to find how to score all the main sequences: Beginning, Violent, Take Off, Love and Explosions sequences (and eventually more). Antonioni wanted original music for those sequences. Many artists and bands were contacted to write original music for the movie, but none of them was asked to write the whole soundtrack of the movie.

In October '69 Don was in Rome with Antonioni trying to find a way to score the whole movie in time for Christmas. Near the end of the month it happened that Clare Peploe (cowriter of the movie and Antonioni's girlfriend at the time) brought to Rome a brand new copy of the new Pink Floyd album, Ummagumma, from London. Antonioni, Don Hall and Clare listened to the new album with a small stereo at Antonioni's house in Rome. Antonioni REALLY liked Ummagumma and listened several times to the whole album. He liked Careful With That Axe, Eugene very much and told Don that he'd like a new version for the final sequence of Zabriskie Point. They decided to try and hire Pink Floyd to record all the original music they needed for the movie. MGM contacted Pink Floyd. After that Steve O'Rourke came to Rome alone during the first days of November '69 to check and organize it all. All was done in few days, and Pink Floyd came on the 15th of November with Pete Watts and Alan Stiles, cancelling some shows planned for their present tour. Antonioni and Don showed the movie to them several times with some scenes already scored, highlighting those without. At that point Steve and Roger Waters had a talk and asked Antonioni to try to score the whole movie. He, been enthusiastic about Ummagumma, agreed.

Pink Floyd produced a large quantity of music, especially for the Love Scene but Antonioni was not satisfied and the sessions ran longer than planned. In the end Pink Floyd went back to London with some songs to finish. Out of all the entire production of songs, including themes and variations, Antonioni ended up using only three songs. He kept on searching for "something better" till the last days before the premiere of the movie. In London Pink Floyd completed their final versions of eight songs with the intent of them being their eventual album for the Zabriskie Point soundtrack.

THE EXTENDED RECORD

What we at MQR present here is the closest thing possible to the album that would have been released by Pink Floyd in 1970 if they had been sole musicians on the soundtrack of the film, but extended with 8 more complete songs. The mixes on this record are either the mixes made by Pink Floyd for release, or as close as we could make using the material available. We have restored and enhanced everything using the best technology and skills available to us. The quality of these tracks varies due to the sources used, but we have done our best to make it all sound as good as possible.

THE SOURCES

Some songs used here were released officially, originally by MGM in 1970 and then in the extended edition by Rhino Records in 1997. Other songs come from two celebrated unofficial sources, the bootlegs Omayyad and A Journey Though Time and Space. Recently a better transfer of the ZP outtakes portion was made from the master tape used for Omayyad just for this work. All the outtakes come from A Journey Though Time and Space.

TITLES & SONGS
If this album had really been released in 1970 it wouldnt have a title any different than Soundtrack For The Film Zabriskie Point. A title is needed today to highlight this one from the multitude of collections released in the intervening years.
This title is invented based on Roman Session and assonance with the title of Omayyad. All the songs titles are real, although Country Song and Alans Blues were only working titles. We knew all the working titles with the find of The Document where all are listed. The three new titles, Fingal's Cave, Oenone and Rain in the Country, are taken from Omayyad, and for so many years were considered the fantasy titles of bootleggers. Last year Don Hall confirmed that he aired those songs on KPPC FM Pasadena and announced them with just those names, as they were written on the tape' boxes sent to him by Pink Floyd. Omayyad was made from a recording of that broadcasting

THE SONGS

1. Heart Beat, Pig Meat
This song is made up of the coming and going of Rick's Farfisa organ, Dave's excursions, recordings coming from televisions and talking lines by Don Hall, all over a heart beat like track created by tapping on a microphone. This is the first time Pink Floyd use a heart beat, but certainly not the last. It's the soundtrack for the opening sequence of the movie with the titles, and one of the three songs ultimately chosen by Antonioni. It was performed live sometime in early 1970 as the initial part of an experimental suite. The working title was Beginning Scene.

2. Country Song
With this song Pink Floyd meant to score some of the scenes in the desert with Daria driving her car as Don Hall confirmed. The song was adapted into several versions in different styles, all recorded with the intent of being used as Daria's Driving Theme. One of the two song for the movie with lyrics, which are in this case inspired by Alice in Wonderland, It came to us with its working title, probably because it was rejected before the end of the work.

3. Fingal's Cave
This name referred to Irish Mythology and a place in the Scottish isle of Staffa. This energetic song was written for the first Flying Scene of the movie together with two more songs. It is rare to hear a loud, bombastic blues number like this performed by Pink Floyd, and only a couple pieces on More come even close to it stylistically. The working title was Take Off (version I).

4. Crumbling Land
This is the long studio version with all the traffic noises recorded by Nick Mason in the streets of Rome.
Since the musical part is the same as the official one, a merge was made with the two. The result is a restored complete studio version. Having an unusual rhythm for a Pink Floyd song it's considered a country song, although in the end it's not. For the movie only 34 seconds were used, and those were from an early take, not from the final version. The title and some of the lyric content refer to Zabriskie Point (the place), to USA and the lyrics even include a reference to Michelangelo Antonioni. Its working title was Highway Song.

5. Alan's Blues
This song arrived to us with its strange working title, probably because, similar to Country Song, it was rejected before the end of the work. Although we have evidence that in December 1969 it was still intended to score a movie scene. Alan Stiles was a roadie, present in Rome for the sessions.
When this was not released the band paid tribute to him with another number, Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast. The base for this song was an attempt to satisfy Antonioni with a Blues for the Love Scene.
Once rejected for that, it was shortened to fit the roadhouse in the desert scene or perhaps another desert scene. This kind of blues was performed live many times over the next three years.

6. Oenone
The name refers to Greek Mythology, similar to Sisyphus recorded a few weeks before. Oenone was a nymph married to Paris of Troy. He left her for Helen of Sparta. Oenone was an isle as well, connected to the Sisyphus story (!). This song was surely written for the Love Scene, and Love Scene was likely a working title for it, as on the released tracks on the Rhino soundtrack. Pink Floyd tried four different musical styles to please Antonioni for that scene, including a blues. This is the style that worked the best, from Pink Floyd's point of view. It comes from several psychedelic approaches they tried under the direction of Antonioni.
Great psychedelic performance by Rick and Dave, using techniques they experimented with live during Set The Controls, A Saucerful of Secrets and The Man & The Journey.

7. Rain in the Country.
Along with The Narrow Way Part 1, this song almost certainly has it's roots in Baby Blue Shuffle in D Major and in the second part you can clearly hear the germination of Atom Heart Mother (in fact The Amazing Pudding was performed only one month later...). Probably another of many approaches to the Love Scene, Pink Floyd tried it for Antonioni coupled with the desert scenes as well, as Don Hall confirmed. One of Gilmour's more interesting early compositions which really showcases his acoustic playing. We aren't certain of the origins for the title but it was likely designed to create contrast with the dry locations of the movie. The working title for this remains unknown. In fact a dissimilar mix was called Unknown Song on the 1997 Rhino Expanded Soundtrack.

8. Come in Number 51, Your Time Is Up.
The perfect song for the final sequence. This song is the reason Pink Floyd were called to score the important scenes of the movie by Antonioni, who was impressed by Ummagumma. It's a remake of Careful with that Axe, Eugene, but with some variations. There is no whispered sentence before the shout, the shout itself bursts in together with the guitar solo, long and repeated. Dave's solo is absolutely vigorous and demoniac and the song reaches high levels of intensity. The end comes suddenly without the usual gradual slowing down.
The title refers to the TV series "Q", a surreal comedy show in the vein of (and forerunner to) Monty Python's Flying Circus, and its creator, comic Steve Milligan, who spoke that line. The working title was Explosions, in reference to the scene that it was to be used for.

THE OUTTAKES

9. The Violent Sequence.
This came from Rick Wright in Nov 69 and was rejected, leaving the scene with no music. It was one of the few ZP songs played live sometime in early 1970. Two years later it evolved into Us and Them.

10. Take Off (Version II)
The second attempt to satisfy Antonioni for the flight above LA. A 3rd unknown version was also written.

11 & 12. Country Song Themes
Two variations of Country Song used to score some desert scenes.

13 to 16. Love Song Variations
In this disc we have the various attempts at scoring the Love Scene. Pink Floyd clearly preferred the psychedelic angle for this scene."

 
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Thanks to General Tso and KarmaPolice for the feedback (not the Gilmour kind :) ).

Which One's Pink (an amusingly cynical Waters lyric from WYWH's Have A Cigar)?

On the origin's of Syd Barrett's band name.

http://sparebricks.fika.org/sbzine26/features.html

Unraveling the mysteries behind the Pink Floyd name

by Mike McIinnis

Ask the average music fan where the name 'Pink Floyd' came from, and you'll get a blank stare at best. And while most serious Floyd fans can correctly give the surnames of Misters Anderson and Council, most are not even remotely knowledgeable about their music. This only makes sense: Pink Anderson made very few recordings at all (and it seems unlikely that Syd Barrett ever heard any of them), and Floyd Council made even fewer--so few that even after 40 years of searching, Pink Floyd fans cannot seem to find them.

The result is that both Anderson and Council are basically remembered only as minor footnotes to rock and roll history, and that seemingly more by circumstance than by any major musical influence on the band that bore their names. In fact, those footnotes are frequently inaccurate and confusing. (For example, they are sometimes called "Georgia bluesmen" despite the fact that they hailed from the Carolinas.)

Even the details of how Barrett became acquainted with their names have become muddled over the years. As the story goes, Barrett took the names from his record collection. Some take this to mean that Barrett owned a record by Pink Anderson and another by Floyd Council, and perhaps he saw the sleeves side-by-side and had a flash of inspiration. Others suppose that both Anderson and Council appeared on a blues compilation album in Barrett's collection. A few even wishfully believe that Anderson and Council made a recording together.

Fact: There is no known recording of Floyd Council and Pink Anderson together. Fact: There is no solid evidence that the two ever played together, or even met. Fact: There is no known blues compilation album that features both of them. Fact: There are no known released recordings (let alone an entire album) under Floyd Council's name (though a few 1937 solo recordings were apparently issued under the name "Blind Boy Fuller's buddy").

These facts alone are enough to poke holes in most theories of how Syd came to know these obscure names. But allow me to pose another theory, one with at least a shred of evidence to support it. In 1962, the Philips label released a Blind Boy Fuller compilation called Country Blues 1935-1940 (BBL-7512). On the sleeve notes, blues historian Paul Oliver wrote "Curley Weaver and Fred McMullen, (...) Pink Anderson or Floyd Council--these were a few amongst the many blues singers that were to be heard in the rolling hills of the Piedmont, or meandering with the streams through the wooded valleys."

Finally! The names are side-by-side in print, years before Syd Barrett made them famous in very different circles. Is this the record that was part of Barrett's collection? Was it Paul Oliver who first put the name of Pink Anderson and Floyd Council together? Is it pure luck that Barrett didn't decide to name his band "Weaver McMullen", or "The Curley Fred Sound"? I believe that it was. And perhaps more importantly, I suspect that Barrett may have never heard the music of Pink Anderson or Floyd Council (unless one of Council's seven recordings with Fuller was included on that compilation). It may well have been the music of Blind Boy Fuller that Barrett found so inspiring.

Nonetheless, we are not fans of a band called "Blind Boy Weaver". Whatever the reason, Pink and Floyd are the names Barrett borrowed, and as such Anderson and Council are the men he immortalized. Without Barrett's influence, I'm sure both would be long forgotten to all but the most dedicated blues enthusiasts.

Floyd Council

Floyd Council was born September 2, 1911 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. By the 1920s he was a street musician under the tutelage of Leo and Thomas Stroud, and in the 1930s he worked on occasion with the blind singer/guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller is remembered mainly as a blues musician, but he also played the country ragtime and folk music of the region, and was a popular pre-war recording artist. He had been recorded in New York in the mid-'30s by ARC Records scout John Baxter Long, who is credited (perhaps erroneously) with composing some of Fuller's material.

Long reportedly heard Council playing on the streets of Chapel Hill in January 1937, and invited him to join Fuller and Long on a trip to New York the following week for a recording session. This was Fuller's third trip to New York, and Council's role was clearly that of a backing musician. Council made a second trip to record with Fuller in December, in sessions that also included Sonny Terry (who would later be cited by David Gilmour as an influence) on harmonica. During one these two trips recordings were made of at least six tunes featuring Council as a solo artist, released only under the name "Blind Boy Fuller's buddy". (Fuller's reputation was strong enough that other artists took names such as "Little Boy Fuller" or "Blind Boy Fuller No. 2"--or were given such names by record executives).

Council played in the Chapel Hill area in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, and performed live on local radio stations from time to time, both as a singer and a guitarist. He was promoted as "Dipper Boy" Council and "The Devil's Daddy-in-Law", though it has been surmised that these nicknames were dreamed up by promoters. He gradually gave up on playing due illness, and in the late '60s he suffered a debilitating stroke, though he remained mentally sharp. In 1969, he told an interviewer that he had recorded a total of 27 tracks, mainly during those 1937 sessions in New York. At least 3 songs were recorded in 1970, following his stroke, but were never released. Council died in Chapel Hill on May 9, 1976 (according to his death certificate--a copy of which can be found here, for those so inclined--though other sources say he died in June 1976 in Sanford, NC).

Pink Anderson

Substantially more is known about Pink Anderson, and while his name is still fairly obscure, his recordings are more widely available. The irony is that Syd Barrett may have never heard the music of the man whose name he immortalized.

Pinkney "Pink" Anderson was born in Laurens, South Carolina on February 12, 1900. He was raised in nearby Greenville and then moved to Spartanburg, where as a child he would sing and dance in the streets for tips. At age ten, he began learning open-tuning guitar from a local musician named Joe Wicks. In 1916 Anderson met a blind singer named Simeon "Simmie" Dooley, who became young Pink's mentor, broadening his range and repertoire. Anderson recalled practicing in the woods with Dooley, who sang the songs again and again until Anderson learned the chords. Dooley would cut a switch and use it to hit Anderson's hands if he made a mistake. On one occasion he recalled having to perform at a country club party after an extended rehearsal, with hands so swollen from Dooley's switch that he could hardly play.

It was as a teenager--some sources say 1914, and others say 1917--that Anderson first went on the road as a traveling musician with the Indian Remedy Company. Such 'medicine shows' were still common at the time, especially in the rural south, with the proprietors hawking a variety of 'miracle cures', elixirs, and patent medicines--concoctions of herbs, spices, and often alcohol or opium. One of the largest and best-known of these companies was the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company, and the Indian Remedy Company probably took a similar name in order to trade on the Kickapoo company's reputation.

The medicine shows often included singers and entertainers whose performances would gather a crowd for the sales pitch. Anderson's employer was a fellow calling himself "Doctor" W. R. Kerr, though few medicine show salesmen had any sort of medical background. At first, Anderson mainly danced and told jokes, and sang a few traditional folk songs. As his guitar abilities improved, he added more of this to his medicine show performances. Simmie Dooley also worked for the medicine show on occasion, but Anderson claimed that the shows didn't like to hire blind performers because of the extra attention they required.

The medicine show business was not a full-time occupation, to say the least, and Anderson and Dooley performed at parties in the Spartanburg area on and off through the years. On April 14, 1928, the pair recorded four songs at a mobile recording unit that was set up in Atlanta, Georgia. Columbia Records issued two of the cuts ("Papa's About to Get Mad" and "Gonna Tip Out Tonight") on a 78-rpm disc under the name "Pink Anderson and Simmie Dooley" in 1928. The other two songs ("Every Day in the Week Blues" and "C.C. and O. Blues") were released later that same year. The first record sold well enough to warrant a second pressing, and Columbia offered to record Anderson again, this time without Dooley. Out of loyalty to his mentor, Anderson declined.
Anderson traveled with the Indian Remedy Company until Dr. Kerr's retirement in 1945, and then worked for Big Chief Thundercloud's medicine show. On May 29, 1950, Paul Clayton recorded Anderson playing some of his medicine show material at the Virginia State Fair in Charlottesville. (Some sources suggest Anderson didn't find out that his performance was recorded until after the fact.) Seven of these songs saw release on a 1961 Riverside LP entitled American Street Songs (re-issued in 1987 as Gospel, Blues and Street Blues: Rev. Gary Davis and Pink Anderson, and eventually re-released on CD). Anderson's songs demonstrate his broad repertoire, born of necessity on the medicine show circuit, where you had to be able to draw a crowd in any location. The tracks range from minstrel show and vaudeville songs ("Greasy Greens", "I've Got Mine") and ballads ("John Henry", "The Ship Titanic", "Wreck of the Old 97") to traditional blues ("Every Day in the Week") and even country ("He's in the Jailhouse Now", by Jimmie Rodgers), for a total of nearly 26 minutes. The album's flip side contains music by Reverend Gary Davis, a guitarist/singer of both blues and traditional gospel who also hailed from Laurens County, South Carolina.

Though none of the material is original, Anderson's own touches are heard throughout, with new verses added and borrowed from other sources. In the 1987 release's liner notes, Daniel G. Hoffman wrote this: "As a result of 40 years of street singing Pink Anderson's voice is strong and rasping, and anyone within several blocks would surely hear and be drawn to it. Once having gained attention, he would sing a varied program of old ballads, blues, and minstrel vaudeville and popular songs calculated to evoke memories, share experiences, and enable his listeners to laugh at themselves and the world. His is a folk voice, and his version of traditional material have all been tempered and changed by time and personal experience. He is also a highly sophisticated entertainer, for street crowds are in many ways the most critical of audiences, with no inhibitions about letting a performer know if they dislike or are indifferent to him."

In 1957, heart trouble forced Anderson to retire from the touring with the medicine shows entirely. He continued to play in the Spartanburg area with a trio composed of himself, Charley "Chilly Willy" Williams on washboard, and Keg Shorty Bell on harmonica. After Simmie Dooley's death in 1961, Anderson made a series of recordings in Spartanburg for blues historian Samuel Charters. These were released by the Prestige/Bluesville label in the early 1960s, and all three have been re-issued on CD.

The first of these was entitled Carolina Bluesman, Volume 1 (1961), and showcased Pink Anderson as a blues musician for the first time on record. Much of the material is immediately familiar. "Baby Please Don't Go", for example, was originally recorded in 1935 by Big Joe Williams, and was later covered in 1965 by Van Morrison and Them (and subsequently by ACDC, Aerosmith, and others). The differences between Anderson's approach to the blues and the more widely popular Mississippi Delta blues are clear when you compare Muddy Waters' version of the same song, recorded just a year earlier. Anderson's version is stripped down to the barest essentials--melodic guitar lines, sparse rhythm strumming in the background, and a gently plaintive vocal delivery. As the liner notes put it, "A singer from the flat glare of the sun on the Mississippi Delta seems to shout his anger and his pain, while a singer from the Carolinas seems to sing with a melancholy shrug...".
But Anderson was apparently familiar with the Delta blues style as well. "Baby I'm Going Away", for example, borrows an often-recycled blues melody, and takes a verse from Muddy Waters' "Rolling Stone" (1950). "Mama Where Did You Stay Last Night" and "Thousand Woman Blues" both use another popular blues melody, variously recorded as "Key to the Highway" and "Crow Jane".

Much of Anderson's blues material focuses on the tried-and-true blues themes of sexual conquest, infidelity, and lost love ("My Baby Left Me This Morning", "Thousand Woman Blues", "Every Day in the Week"). "Try Some of That" is purportedly about a woman who sells cookies (mentioned briefly at the beginning and end), but the lyric is really just an extended double entendre. One can't help but think that this track included on this 'blues' album by mistake, because while their are a few blues touches in the guitar work, the basic song structure is more akin to minstrel music. In fact, you get the feeling that Anderson might well have used some of these lyrics in his medicine show performances, with verses like:


It's good for mis'ry in your back

Good for corns and bunions


You can even hear the chorus being used as a sales pitch for one of Dr. Kerr's patent medicines:

The second Prestige/Bluesville album, Volume 2: Medicine Show Man (1962), has Anderson performing traditional songs from his medicine show days. Several of these ("I Got Mine", "Greasy Greens", "In the Jailhouse Now") had been recorded 11 years earlier by Paul Clayton at the Virginia State Fair. These later versions are a little more polished, with some of the gravel and harshness gone from Anderson's voice, perhaps due to the more-relaxed studio setting. (Of note, the All Music Guide claims that this album was recorded in New York, though I didn't find any mention of this elsewhere.) Anderson's voice comes across as exquisitely expressive and warm, with a slightly nasal quality and slurred articulation not unlike that of Leon Redbone.

You ought to try some of that
Yes, you ought to try some of that
First thing in the morning
You ought to try some of that

There are several songs about gambling and crime ("Travelin' Man", "In the Jailhouse Now", "Chicken"), and "South Forest Boogie" (a reference to the street Anderson lived on, also mentioned in "Ain't Nobody Home But Me") shows how the blues bled over into the non-blues numbers in Anderson's vast repertoire. Finally, "I Got a Woman 'Way Cross Town" is a very slow and loose version of the Ray Charles tune, and there are moments where Anderson seems to get a little lost, as though he's not entirely familiar with it. While the other songs give the distinct impression that Anderson has been playing this material for ages, and the inclusion of this slightly-disappointing cut makes me wonder if on some level Anderson (or perhaps Samuel Charters) was hoping to cash in on the popularity of Ray Charles' hit by including this cover.
The third album in the Prestige/Bluesville series was 1963's The Blues of Pink Anderson: Ballad And Folksinger, Volume 3. Several more songs originally recorded in 1950 were re-recorded here ("The Titanic", "John Henry", and "The Wreck of the Old 97"), while "The Kaiser" is another example of the historical folk ballad. "In the Evening" and "Betty and Dupree" would have fit equally well on the earlier compilation of blues material, and the instrumental opening of the latter suggests that Anderson was a formidable guitarist in his heyday. It is a shame that so much of his career went undocumented and unrecorded.

Songs such as "Boweevil", "Sugar Babe", and "I Will Fly Away" reveal a healthy cross-pollination between musical styles--folk, blues, and spirituals, respectively. Pink Anderson comes across as representative of American music as a whole, with a variety of disparate forms and influences coming together to create something completely unique.
In 1962, another compilation of these same Samuel Charters recordings was released by Folkways Records, under the title Pink Anderson: Carolina Medicine Show Hokum & Blues. Ten of the tracks were recycled from the other releases, and the sleeve bears the statement "Recorded live by Samuel Charters in Spartanburg, 1961-62", calling into question the claim of a New York recording session. An eleventh track, "The Boys of Your Uncle Sam", does not appear elsewhere, and a twelfth track "See What You Done Done" is by Charles "Baby" Tate, a Spartanburg guitarist who played with Anderson from time to time in the 1950s and '60s.

Anderson also appeared in Samuel Charters' documentary film The Blues (referred to in some sources as The Bluesmen, and variously said to have been made in 1963, 1967, or 1973), and another recording from this film, "Old Cotton Fields of Home", was released on a soundtrack album on the Folkways label.

These early-'60s recordings led to some higher-profile shows, but a stroke in 1964 spelled the end of Pink Anderson's performing career. Musician Paul Geremia opened for Anderson at some of these later shows, and painted a very sad picture of Anderson's last years. "He was living in very poor conditions in a little house that cost him $50 a month." This amounted to more than half his retirement income, and Anderson resorted to rather desperate measures to make ends meet. "He was running card games at his house, and selling booze to people, moonshine, or whatever he could get. It's too bad. The guy was a real important person, culturally speaking, and he was virtually ignored. Even his neighbors had little inkling that he was a musician."

Anderson died on October 12, 1974, and was buried at Lincoln Memorial Gardens in Spartanburg. His son, Alvin "Little Pink" Anderson, had traveled the medicine show circuit with his father, and is now a blues musician himself, having learned guitar from both his father and Simmie Dooley. (As the story goes, Dooley tried to use a switch on Little Pink's hands the way he had on the elder Anderson, but Pink wouldn't stand for it.) Little Pink has spent years raising money to help preserve his father's heritage and save his house (250 South Forest St., Spartanburg, SC), and even performed at a tribute to Pink Anderson that was part of the 2000 Chicago Blues Festival.

In addition to the above releases, several of Pink Anderson's 1961 recordings have been re-issued over the years as parts of blues compilations, as have his 1929 recordings with Simmie Dooley. This discography lists most (though not quite all) of Anderson's recordings. The University of North Carolina also has a nice site on a variety of Piedmont blues musicians, including Pink Anderson, Floyd Council, Blind Boy Fuller, Baby Tate, and many more.
 
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Blind Boy Fuller

Truckin' My Blues Away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJYvAVhSIMg

Floyd Council

Runaway Man Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9SivL7ebg4

Pink Anderson

I Got A Woman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM1_6CFt5Mg

Gilmour, Wright and Mason do a rendition of Arnold Layne for the Syd Barrett tribute concert (5-10-07, VIDEO, though extremely rough and amateurish, but somewhat historic for a few reasons). This may have been the last time Wright played live before he passed away (9-15-08)? Waters played separately at the same show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk-1CNVpV68

A hybrid lecture/concert on Barrett by Joe Boyd (produced Pink Floyd's first single/record Arnold Layne, before they signed with EMI, who than worked with Norman Smith on their first two albums, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn* and A Saucerful Of Secrets, due to the label's strictly in-house policy - Smith had previously worked with the Beatles at Abbey Road, though of course George Martin was THEIR producer) and Robyn Hitchcock (one of the leading and most prominent British Syd Barrett "disciples"), held in Detroit on 3-18-11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMl3aOqeouU

Chapter 24 by Pink Floyd, from the debut PATGOD, this Barrett-penned song was inspired by and references the I Ching (uncertain, but possibly the Wilhelm translation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU_aCH41-0U

I Ching hexagram the above song was based on (signifying "Returning")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_24

* The title Piper At The Gates Of Dawn in turn comes from a chapter in the children's classic Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Graham (even those that have never read it or seen the animated adaptation may know of it indirectly if they've ever been to Disneyland and went on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride).

 
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Amused to Death said:
Bob Magaw said:
Interstellar Zappadrive, Belgium 10-25-69 (Pink Floyd featuring Frank Zappa).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikSc4dpAkIY
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I had a link to this all set to post a few days ago but something happened to my browser and I lost the whole thing. :doh: Didn't feel like re-creating it at the time.

Zappa was the road manager for Captain Beefheart who was playing at this festival. The Mothers didn't play, but Zappa was supposed to act as one of the MCs for the event. He jammed with a number of the bands (it was a 3 day festival). Here's some background as told to Matt Groening (long time friend of Frank and Gail):

Simpsons creator Matt Groening asked Zappa about the festival in a 1992 interview, but he doesn’t mention Pink Floyd:

Frank Zappa: I was supposed to be MC for the first big rock festival in France, at a time when the French government was very right-wing, and they didn’t want to have large-scale rock and roll in the country. and so at the last minute, this festival was moved from France to Belgium, right across the border, into a turnip field. they constructed a tent, which was held up by these enormous girders. they had 15,000 people in a big circus tent. this was in November, I think. the weather was really not very nice. it’s cold, and it’s damp, and it was in the middle of a turnip field. I mean mondo turnips. and all the acts, and all the people who wished to see these acts, were urged to find this location in the turnip field, and show up for this festival. and they’d hired me to be the MC and also to bring over Captain Beefheart. it was his first appearance over there. and it was a nightmare, because nobody could speak English, and I couldn’t speak fFench, or anything else for that matter. so my function was really rather limited. I felt a little bit like Linda McCartney. I’d stand there and go wave, wave, wave. I sat in with a few of the groups during the three days of the festival. but it was so miserable because all these European hippies had brought their sleeping bags, and they had the bags laid out on the ground in this tent, and they basically froze and slept through the entire festival, which went on 24 hours a day, around the clock. One of the highlights of the event was the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which went on at 5:00 a.m. to an audience of slumbering euro-hippies.

Asked about jamming with Zappa, Nick Mason has this to say in 1973:

Frank Zappa is really one of those rare musicians that can play with us. The little he did in Amougies was terribly correct. But he’s the exception. Our music and the way we behave on stage, makes it very hard to improvise with us.”

And from the same link:

The really frustrating thing about all of this is that the visual documentation (as well as superior sound recordings) of this collaboration MUST exist (or at least did at one time). Pink Floyd forbade Jerome Laperrous to use his footage of their performance from the Actuel Festival for his Music Power documentary of the event, but that still hasn’t stopped it from escaping to YouTube (see below), so where is the Zappa footage???

As the audio recording didn’t really show up and circulate until 2006, there is still hope. Another of the groups who Zappa sat in with at the festival were British psych rockers Blossom Toes, who released a CD in 2009, Love Bomb: Live 1967-69, that included Zappa’s participation in their Amougies set.
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Didn't realize it at the time, but the day of the festival (10-25-69) was the same date Ummagumma was released.

Pink Floyd needed to come up with a name for the next album. Amazing Pudding was a working title for what we now know as the Atom Heart Mother Suite, as noted above. English radio host and on air concert maven John Peel asked them what to call the number before a performance broadcast, and when they said they didn't have a title yet, he suggested they flip through the paper, and they could randomly find one that way. Waters based Atom Heart Mother on the below headline, Nuclear drive for woman's heart*. The album (their fifth?) was unusual in several respects. It involved a (then) unusual collaboration with an outsider, Ron Geesin, was the first to receive a quad mix, the first in which album cover designers Hipgnosis didn't put the band name on the cover, or have photos of the members anywhere, and also the first to chart #1 in the UK.

The late writer Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) suggested the album title Division Bell, based on a lyric from a song on the album.

The title Dark Side Of The Moon was nearly changed to Eclipse, as an obscure band Medicine Head had already employed it, but since it was a commercial failure, they went ahead and used it anyways.

* http://donkyflip.com/ahm/index.html

 
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Best album ever made - by any band - The Final Cut.

I actually had a shrink tell me once to stop listening to it LOL.

 
Guessing that is pretty atypical, but Floyd was protean, with many sounds for many tastes.

The irony must not have escaped their attention that songs like Money and Have A Cigar, ostensibly about the evils of the trappings of wealth and fame from the music business... made them even richer and more famous. :)

 
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Saint Ouen 12-1-72 (AUDIO 100+ minutes), French RTL radio, a rare non-BBC broadcast, and possibly the last one before Venice '89 (closed circuit TV?). The finale is maybe the best live rendition of Childhood's End from Obscured By Clouds I've heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf60WV2JF-Q

The '89 Venice broadcast noted directly above (VIDEO, albeit lo rez, nearly 90 minutes). From the Another Lapse tour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYZb-QZVTVg

 
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The Twilight World Of Syd Barrett (about half hour AUDIO), BBC bio, includes an interview segment with his sister I've never heard before, as well as reminiscences from the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eQ-Mog0PUY

Circa Syd-era, "embryonic" music videos.

Arnold Lane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTFRq1hjtM

See Emily Play

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F94vHO7okZQ

Scarecrow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yBvhIC8d5U

Barrett interview circa '67 (AUDIO). Sounds somewhat coherent (a relative term), not like the possibly apocraphyl story in which he poured a mixture of Mandrax/Brylcreme over his head, which once the stage lights melted the compound, left a ghastly melting face visage. :) The interviewer is brutally amateurish, boorish and incompetent, but a rare opportunity to hear the Crazy Diamond, when he still had a voice, before abandoning music (in two parts).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xRaVTKDipA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV4_YNKFoOM

It has been said by contemporaries that the studio medium-length versions of songs like Astonomy Domine and especially Interstellar Overdrive were dim, pale compromises of the power of their legendary long form live counterparts. EMIs former Beatles engineer Norman Smith was the producer on their stunning debut Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and the transitional A Saucerful Of Secrets, and was a big proponent of three minute, radio-friendly pop songs (which Barrett happened to have a gift for... at least before his disintegration). Perhaps the below, extremely rare circa Barret-era renditions from 1967 can convey some approximation of their impact across the decades. Unlike later, post-Barrett/Waters epochs where there are countless recordings, the vast majority of this material is shrouded and lost in the mists of time (or confined to the memories of those lucky few that witnessed the brief flowering of Barrett's seminal British psychedelia first hand). I think only three shows from '67 are widely distributed, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Rotterdam (with only the middle having a complete, extant version?).

Interstellar Overdrive, Stockholm, nearly 10 minutes AUDIO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5fZTtBbcLI

IO, Rotterdam, about 15 minutes AUDIO (may be the last surviving live material of Barrett with Floyd?).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9AtDlWC2w0

* "Pink" in the movie version of the Wall was a composite character written by Waters. The shaved eyebrown scene, for example, was Syd, but the scene where Bob Geldof destroys his room in the presence of a groupie was taken from an actual incident in which friend of the band Roy Harper flipped out before a concert (I think prompted by the theft of his stage clothes).

 
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A classic, career-spanning, myth-making article on Syd Barrett, before, during and after Pink Floyd, including his abortive solo career and retirement, by Nick Kent from NME ('74).

http://www.sydbarrett.net/subpages/articles/new_musical_express_april_13.htm

A post-mortem, summing up and optimistic projection regarding Barrett's musical legacy from Kent ('06).

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/jul/12/popandrock.sydbarrett3

Mark Paytress article on Barrett for Record Collector Magazine ('88?).

http://www.pink-floyd.org/barrett/thing.txt

Wide ranging interview by Mark Blake, around the time of publication of possibly the definitive biography of the band.

http://www.pulse-and-spirit.com/interviews/mark-blake-interview-uber-pigs-might-fly/

Pink Floyd - Between Syd And The Dark Side, critical appraisal doc (1 hour VIDEO), covering the albums between Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and DSOM, such as A Saucerful Of Secrets, More, Umma Gumma and Atom Heart Mother, especially the breakthrough towards their more mature sound, represented by Meddle (particularly the song Echoes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr_JESET6e0

 
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I forgot that the McCartney Cavern Club concert in '99 noted upthread (supporting the Run Devil Run album, his first since wife Linda passed) was not the first or only time he and Gilmour worked together. In addition to a few other occasions, Gilmour was on the McCartney/Wings Rockestra project in '78, also including members of Led Zeppelin and The Who (Keith Moon was slated to play, but died about a month before, so band replacement Kenny Jones subbed for him).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VxF7L3VVqs

Interstellar Overdrive (alternate version). This was reportedly a composite of Love's cover of Burt Bacharach's Little Red Book and the theme from the British TV series Steptoe And Son (anybody who has seen the classic, A Hard Days Night by the Beatles, will probably recognize Wilfred Brambell). Co-manager Peter Jenner couldn't remember the former song but attempted to hum the riff to Syd, so it became a bit garbled in the translation. I can almost hear the resemblance more in the latter tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VSEeoThME0

Little Red Book by Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftO9ClIhFAo

Theme From Steptoe And Son

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR4K5KtaNl8

* Syd Barrett's songs at times had a whimsical, eminently English, almost Lewis Carroll-like nursery rhyme quality to them, but he reportedly had some wide and serious influences, and was said to have been profoundly impacted by attending or listening to a chemically-enhanced version of Handel's Messiah. Other influences at the time, on extended improvisational jams such as Interstellar Overdrive, were The Beatles Revolver (as it was on just about everybody, but especially at the epicenter of British Psychedelia), as well as late-era, full blown avant garde Coltrane, such as Om.

 
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The so called extraction tapes (work in progress, near completion studio material) for WYWH and Animals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlsiEwy_uFY

Which One's Pink? BBC doc in seven parts ('07), may be missing the conclusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_508DR0EXU4

An indication of the kind of gravitational force or psychic undertow Barrett exerted, in addition to dominating the writing on first singles Arnold Layne and See Emily Play and first album Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, and being the lead guitarist and singer, he also figured prominently in the conception and lyrics, even when he was no longer in the band, on their three most successful albums, DSOM, WYWH and The Wall.

Barrett made the Piper reference the central beam of his writing on the debut (and his only with Floyd, in large part) album. It may have been as apt a metaphor as any for his presence as the leading light of the British psychedelic underground in '67, subbing shrieking feedback solos and echo effects electronic boxes for pan pipes.

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn chapter from Kenneth Graham's classic of children's literature (episode 11 of a '69 TV series). Excerpt - "...the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il9myEwrwFs&list=PLa1kAND45VhU0QkYrj-D3DfA7lFA-k0Od&index=11

 
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been listening to Atom Heart Mother a lot lately, just kills me. these guys were so far ahead of their time

 
Leroy Hoard said:
zamboni said:
Peanuts at Pompeii
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lol
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Snoopy's bass starts BUMPIN about 7:35, Charlie Brown brings out his BIG guitar tone near the 8:00 mark and Schroeder must have a synthesizer in his toy piano, as he coaxes some dying chipmunk sounds out of it around 12:00.

Actually, this would explain a lot. Maybe Charlie was an acid casualty like Syd, thus the burn out tendencies - and chronically, habitually falling for the same tired, old trick of Lucy yanking the football away from him at the last instant before the kick.

 
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tommyboy said:
been listening to Atom Heart Mother a lot lately, just kills me. these guys were so far ahead of their time
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Too Early For A Gig, 11-22-70, Montreux, Switzerland, one of several shows recorded by Pink Floyd at the casino before it burned down (immortalized by the Deep Purple song Smoke on the Water). I think the famous bootleg Smoking Blues was from the previous day? This contains the stripped down version of AHM (sans orchestra and choir).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc3Y-gGuNmc

CD1 - 71:44

1. Astronomy Domine (11:32)

2. Fat Old Sun (14:43)

3. Cymbaline (14:32)

4. Atom Heart Mother (17:52)

5. Embryo (13:05)

CD2 - 67:28

1. Green Is The Colour (6:09)

2. Careful With That Axe, Eugene (12:28)

3. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (15:08)

4. A Saucerful Of Secrets (18:09)

5. Interstellar Overdrive (15:34)

From Smoking Blues

AHM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0IDyUh1wLI

Fat Old Sun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6aD0CX9Yqk

Slow Blues (in part where the title of the bootleg came from)

Blueshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vat8QACW6po&list=PLlkwqWVCtN5K_kqcUK7UYhoRV7ZEN4OLd&index=8

San Diego 10-17-71, one of my favorite Pink Floyd bootlegs from this era, with Smoking Blues (appears to be missing only the first song, Careful With That Axe Eugene), has various titles, including New Mown Grass, Embryo, Wind and Seabirds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJfexnFbWGc

1. Fat Old Sun (00:00)

2. Atom Heart Mother (15:06)

3. The Embryo (30:27)

4. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (42:01)

5. Cymbaline (54:30)

6. Blues (1:05:55)

Careful With That Axe Eugene (official video), recorded in Brighton, originally released on the live portion of Ummagumma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72I7TwsvBE

Live At Pompeii version video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV3wYPXFiBY

Electric Factory, Philadelphia 9-26-70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JoSFcYzDn0&list=PLE97BC0AEE6B01A91

* Taylor Parkes from The Quietus on Pink Floyd live from this era (I don't agree with everything in the article, but found the below passage a revelation and invaluable as a bootleg guide).

http://thequietus.com/articles/01084-careful-with-that-axe-pink-floyd-reappraised

Excerpt - "But as it turns out, on stage between '68 and '72 - right up to Dark Side, when the spontaneity was sucked from their act - they were something else. Pink Floyd in concert were almost unrecognisable from Pink Floyd on record: massive, crude and hypnotic, all power and effect. The live disc of Ummagumma hints at this, as does Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii, the atmospheric (and in the case of the in-studio interviews which punctuate the tracks, unwittingly hilarious) film from 1971, in which the Floyd freak out inside a ruined amphitheatre, and roam the foothills of Vesuvius with beards and satchels, like hippie hitchhikers wandered off course. But to experience the full weight of mid-period Floyd – and to dismantle preconceptions of the band as stuck-up, showboating dinosaurs (or at least, replace these with other objections) – you have to seek out those superior live shows, now available free of charge via the internet. Once a moneymaking scheme for unscrupulous non-music-fans, the ancient recordings are now passed around like joints, with strict orders not to make a profit, dusted and remastered by the Floyd "fan community" (which does contain – surprise! - its share of audiophile geeks). Listening to New Mown Grass, from San Diego in 1971, or Smoking Blues, from the 1970 Montreux Festival, Electric Factory from Philadelphia in the same year, or the roaring performance at the Paris Theatre for John Peel's radio show in 1971, a different picture forms: Pink Floyd were for a time an astonishing, wildly exploratory rock band, ringing with forgotten promise."
 
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David Gilmour's fourth studio album, Rattle That Lock, street date 9-18.*

Short, limited tour in the US, Spring '16.

Hollywood Bowl two dates (first two on the US leg?) already sold out, tickets still avail for the later Forum show.

* Looks like the deluxe edition has some additional material with the late former keyboardist, Richard Wright.

 
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Bob Magaw said:
David Gilmour's fourth studio album, Rattle That Lock, street date 9-18.*

Short, limited tour in the US, Spring '16.

Hollywood Bowl two dates (first two on the US leg?) already sold out, tickets still avail for the later Forum show.

* Looks like the deluxe edition has some additional material with the late former keyboardist, Richard Wright.
Click to expand...
Section H row 1 Xs 2. That was impulsive, but yeah!

 
The new album is really good. It's a grower, so if you doesn't grab you on the first listen, keep listening. Well worth buying. :yes:

 
Thanks. :thumbup:

Endless River was kind of like that for me. In that case, I liked it immediately, but more on the pretty good part of the spectrum. After a few listens, it grew on me, I thought it was great and appreciate it a lot more now.

In that case, I got the DVD version at Amoeba by accident, before realizing the different formats it was available in. I'm glad I went back and exchanged it for the Blu-ray version, which I'll get in this case with RTL, too, probably this week. I'll note my impressions once I've heard it.

 
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Pink Floyd fans need to not miss the boat on this record; it's pretty freaking great. Gilmour can still kill us with so few notes, and the songwriting here is really strong. Very good melodies all over the place. :thumbup: :thumbup:

 
Listened to it through once so far, again liked it immediately, and expect as with Endless River, appreciating it even more with multiple listens.

Without question, Gilmour's still got it. He seemed like an old soul even when he was younger, and always played with a lot of taste, class, grace and restraint (not necessarily the fastest guitarist, but always the *RIGHT* note). Some guitarists need time and experience for their playing to catch up to that sensibility, but he was already there from the beginning.

Without that sensibility, playing can suffer if/when chops decline with age, but Gilmour's inherently economical phrasing lends itself to a continued ability to express himself with an instrumental/stylistic range and fullness matching his emotional depth and richness.

* The jazzy Yellow Dress song was cited in one review as the most disposable and out of place track on the album, and I see what they meant. It did add another mood to the palette of the whole. On another note, I tend to like instrumental music a lot, and when it comes to Gilmour's singing, naturally favor Pink Floyd, because of Water's brilliant lyrics in the classic era. That said, he still has a great voice, too. For me, the lyrics weren't an obstacle to enjoying his guitar specifically or even the songs and album in general. I'd echo Ghost Rider's highly recommended (if you like him already, you should like this, if not, not sure anything here would cause somebody to flip their opinion).

 
Yep, unless you're a whore for Roger Waters in the sense of thinking that no one from Floyd can do anything worth a damn without him, you should dig this record if you're already a Pink Floyd fan. Gilmour's guitar playing is as awesome as ever, and his simple, yet highly effective, vocal style has aged extremely well since he never overdoes it. You'd never think he's 69 by listening to this.

 
Yeah, nobody would ever mistake the vocals from Wish You Were Here for something by Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, AC/DC or Iron Maiden (not knocking them, it is just a completely, fundamentally different style at a root level). It must be hard to hold those metal high notes when you are 70-80? There has to be a good mockumentary in that premise. :)

 
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As with DSOM, WYWH and Endless River, Rattle That Lock comes in a version with Blu-ray audio (including 96/24 hi-res and 5.1 surround mixes). The latter two come with additional video of multiple studio jams and even a brief interview featuring the late Richard Wright (Endless River conceptually was an explicit tribute to the brilliant keyboardist and visionary, integral architect of the classic era sound). This is a great way to keep the memory of Wright and his profound contribution to the band alive* (similarly to how Waters did with Barrett lyrically in the former two works, and Gilmour did before and since behind the scenes, both knew the doomed genius Barrett as teenagers long before they were in a band together).

* Like the Gilmour live video documents Remember That Night and Live In Gdansk.

The title was thematically inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost (the Blu-ray version comes with one chapter in book form).

 
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EP of Pink Floyd's first recordings in '65 was released last year with former guitarist Rado (Bob) Klose, possibly to head off at the pass UK half century copyright expiration laws (as the Beatles did a few years ago)?

http://www.hennemusic.com/2015/12/pink-floyd-release-ep-of-first.html

David Gilmour just completed his first solo tour of South America, kicks off the North American portion in exactly three weeks with a pair of shows at the legendary Hollywood Bowl. In honor of what could be (probably is?) his last American Tour - he turns 69 on Sunday, March 6.

On An Island Tour 2006 (background), keyboardist (piano/organ/synths)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_an_Island_Tour

Live In Gdansk (VIDEO 2 hours) Richard Wright's last live performances before passing.



 
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May have already said up thread, but IMO that Echoes performance at Gdansk is magical, especially the back and forth guitar/keyboard interplay between Gilmour and Wright.

I'd say that rendition is right up there with Pompeii.

 
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Agreed, maybe even more active keyboards, guitar every bit as good. Without a doubt, two great renditions.

 
As noted, Endless River drew from Division Bell sessions. Listened to it for the first time in a long while recently, and realized I had forgotten how good it was.



 
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2 hours ago, Bob Magaw said:

As noted, Endless River drew from Division Bell sessions. Listened to it for the first time in a long while recently, and realized I had forgotten how good it was.

Click to expand...
This my fav Floyd record

 
Wish You Were Here my favorite for their post-DSOM breakout material, earlier stuff, like Atom Heart Mother, Meddle and Obscured By Clouds a lot. Even developed a much greater appreciation for Barrett-prime Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.

 
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Already noted in the Bowie thread, but he sang the final two songs during Gilmour's Royal Albert Hall show during the 2006 On An Island Tour, captured on the Blu-ray/DVD, Remember That Night.

Arnold Layne



 
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