Speaking of Pink Floyd...

[ForeverAutumn]

25 years ago today, The Wall was released. Happy Anniversary!

So, today is Pink Floyd day on our local classic rock station (although, I don't know how anyone can tell it from any other day...seems all they play is Floyd and Zeppelin with the occasional Hendrix tune thrown in for variety).

Anyway, I was out running some errands and they were playing all of side three. I suspect that I missed one and two and that four will follow later this afternoon. They were also inviting people to phone in and talk about their memories of hearing The Wall for the first time.

So, let's reminisce. I'll start. I remember hearing Another Brick in the Wall Part II on the radio. Like most teens at that time, the anti-school theme quickly became an anthem. But I was only 13, and was a typical teeny-bopper. Pink Floyd was a little heavy for me at the time. It wasn't until I was about 16, when I discovered drugs and the movie came out, that I really started to get into Pink Floyd. I remember sitting in a friend's basement, more than a little high, and listening to the album in full for the first time. I had never heard anything like it and was totally blown away by it. As much as I say that The Wall is my least favourite PF album, it did change the way I looked at music in a big way. I would have to credit The Wall with leading me down the path of prog.

[BarryL]

25 years ago today, The Wall was released. Happy Anniversary!

They were also inviting people to phone in and talk about their memories of hearing The Wall for the first time.

So, let's reminisce. I discovered drugs. I remember sitting in a friend's basement, more than a little high, and I was totally blown.

I was doing a course called Ideology and Morality that dealt with the issues and political ideologies that led up to, and through, the second world war, i.e., naziism, fascism, communism (all variants of socialism), etc. I remember reading Albert Speer's Inside The Third Reich, as well as books by Sartre, Wiesel, Bloch, Collingwood, Orwell, and about a dozen more. And there, around Christmas, came The Wall. Wow. Here was a piece of modern music that captured all of this stuff in an abstract way and was really deep, coming on the heels of all of this reading. From the first time I heard it, I have always considered The Wall as unique in that it is the only concept rock album that stands alone as a great work of Western literature.

As tired and sappy as a lot of The Wall has become after 25 years, it still stands alone in my mind as the pinacle of what artistic rock could be, and while a few have attempted to follow in The Wall's path, I can't think of any that have succeeded to the extent that The Wall did as a total package (music, lyrics, production, visuals).

A recent literate attempt, but no where near as successful as The Wall is the latest album Be from Pain of Salvation. Dream Theater is another that appears to have tried to follow. Unfortunately, most veer off into rediculous metaphysical bull**** about reincarnation or rebirth, so it's hard to take them seriously in the category of literature that pertains to, and says something profound about the human condition.

I am proud to say that I did my Pink Floyd drugs free.

[Dusty Chalk]

I remember being extremely disappointed. Much more song-oriented than they're previous two endeavours, which I had not yet realized were my favourite albums of all time. That's pretty much when I turned to Tangerine Dream as a possible alternative, to satisfy my space music itch.

My synopsis at the time to others was (because I was famously a huge Pink Floyd fan, and a lot of people were asking me what I thought of it): it's not their best album, but if you forget it's Pink Floyd -- I.E. take away the expectations of what they're capable of -- then it's better than anything else that's currently on the radio.

I do remember being blown away by the ending -- it's still a very emotional record.

[nobody]

Anybody else think their early sdtuff with Syd Barrett totally blows?

I had a friend who thought this stuff was the greatest and I could barely stand to hear 2 minutes of it. What's the deal? Does he just get props 'cause he was a nut or what?

[mad rhetorik]

Anybody else think their early stuff with Syd Barrett totally blows?

I had a friend who thought this stuff was the greatest and I could barely stand to hear 2 minutes of it. What's the deal? Does he just get props 'cause he was a nut or what?

I don't know, I really like some of it. Really hippy-trippy and bizzare, like The Beatles distorted though a funhouse mirror. Only Zappa and Beefheart were making anything that weird in rock music back in '67. Syd's guitar playing was really different, especially for the time. I like the bow usage and deliberate use of jazzy dissonance to induce a spaced-out feel (like on "Interstellar Overdrive" which practically gave birth to the term "space-rock"). The guy became an acid casualty before he could really make something of himself, which is too bad, but what's there I dig. It took the band a while to find their own voice after that, and IMO they finally got there with Meddle. The in-between records are decent but rather spotty and at times even more fucked up than the Barrett stuff.

A lot of '70s 'Floyd fans and classic-rock jocks don't know what to make of the Syd era. To a lot of people it's all tuneless hippie shit, while Syd fans see it as the "one true 'Floyd." I like both eras, and generally prefer the '70s stuff (Animals and The Wall are my faves, and Barry L.'s comments are spot-on) but for an occasional fun excursion I throw on Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and give it a couple spins.

And yes, I listen to all my 'Floyd in an unaltered state of consciousness, thank you. ; P

[Troy]

Anybody else think their early sdtuff with Syd Barrett totally blows?

I had a friend who thought this stuff was the greatest and I could barely stand to hear 2 minutes of it. What's the deal? Does he just get props 'cause he was a nut or what?

There's a few great songs ("See Emily Play" is absolutely brilliant, especially the bridge) but a lot of it is pretty much unlistenable. I think there is SO much unrealized potential with Barrett. It was like he was just getting started and pffft, all gone.

As far as the Wall goes, I remember it's release 25 years ago only vaguely. It's an album that I never really connected with. Never been a fan of the "rock opera" as a genre. Typically they are too long, too self serving.

There's a handfull of great tracks in the set and would have made a stunning single LP. Waters giant ego overwhelmed anyone in his orbit who thought the record was too long and too padded. I find the last track to be a bore. Thematically it's self-important and embarassingly simple and juvenile and I don't dig the instrumentation atall . . . but that's just me.

[Dusty Chalk]

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

How can you say that's unlistenable? Now, I'm not saying that they didn't evolve into a totally different band (by the time of Atom Heart Mother/Meddle/DSotM/WYWH/Animals), but the Barrett era was fun. He had a delightfully elastic sense of meter.

[Troy]

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

How can you say that's unlistenable? Now, I'm not saying that they didn't evolve into a totally different band (by the time of Atom Heart Mother/Meddle/DSotM/WYWH/Animals), but the Barrett era was fun. He had a delightfully elastic sense of meter.

Oh hey, I said I thought "A lot of it was unlistenable". Not ALL of it. Bike is a lot of fun. So is Arnold Layne. It's moments like that which make me think "What did we miss?"

[Finch Platte]

...check out the bike jerseys being released at www.primalwear.com

Cool, eh?

fp

[J*E*Cole]

for me, I tend to like their newest stuff more than their earlier. With Pink Floyd you could basically arrange their albums chronologically from newest to oldest and that would be my list from best to worst. What's funny to me is that around "Wish You Were Here" or"The Dark Side of the Moon" they seemed to transform themselves from spacey to pure rock or I'll say what we now call classic rock. However, I have always felt them to be most progressive, hence my liking their newer over their older. But I feel the time with Barrett was mostly responsible for their least listenable stuff for me, I can hardly stand it, but with "Division Bell" and "Momentary Lapse of Reason" I can't keep it outta play. I also think Gilmour's solo stuff is more PF like than Water's, however both are really good. But Water's is alot more "out there" like "The Wall". I've seen Pink Floyd with Gilmour in '93 and Waters in '99, both were great and sounded like PF should sound, but to me PF is David Gilmour without Waters like in "Division Bell" which is the best album in the whole %&$#*&^ world. Oh yeah, IMO...

Thanks!

[Dusty Chalk]

In the early 80's (before Final Cut came out), a friend of mine actually recommended that I listen to the following albums in reverse chronological order (as I will list them), in one sitting: The Wall, Animals, Wish You Were Here, The Dark Side of the Moon, Meddle.

That's pretty much when I fell in love with them. Can you imagine listening to all that, and ending on "Echoes"? Of course, it didn't hurt that it was 2 or 3 in the morning by the time I was done.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

Oh hey, I said I thought "A lot of it was unlistenable". Not ALL of it. Bike is a lot of fun. So is Arnold Layne. It's moments like that which make me think "What did we miss?"

I think Relics is a worthwhile purchase; it hits the high points of Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd, and the early post-Barrett songs.

[Stone]

Anybody else think their early sdtuff with Syd Barrett totally blows?

I had a friend who thought this stuff was the greatest and I could barely stand to hear 2 minutes of it. What's the deal? Does he just get props 'cause he was a nut or what?

I'm not a huge fan of it, but it's the only Pink Floyd I care to listen to.

[dbi]

Well, I'm a little (?) older than many of you and so I was a fully grown up adult when The Wall hit the stores and I remember buying it after work the day of release and that night copying it to cassette and then the next day at work during lunch a bunch of us gathered around my car and listened to it. Or at least some of it. Guess that was probably the last time I remember something that anticipated in the music world for so many like-minded people. Pink Floyd was so huge. I have to admit though that The Wall was a pretty big disappointment for me at the time...and still. Like Troy said in another post (and much more diplomatically too), much of the second disc (or record) just seemed to be lame filler to me and the lyrics were mostly that same lonely boy's high school journal type stuff that Waters often lapses into. But some of the music was incredibly good and still stands as their best. Should've been a single disc with me and Troy doing the editing

[MasterCylinder]

"Anybody else think their early stuff with Syd Barrett totally blows ?"









Well.........................yes, I absolutely agree.


Sincerely,
David Gilmour

[nobody]

Well, I'm a little (?) older than many of you

Are you old enough to appreciate Willie Nelson's joke in Half Baked, which I just saw a portion of for the first time a couple nights ago...


Q (to a younger guy): Do you remember how much condoms cost back in the day?





A: Me neither...we didn't use 'em.

[rad]

I was 16 when THE WALL came out. Perfect age for authoritarian rebellion and psycho-madness. All my friends and I learned and loved the wall to death.
Then I went back to discover the rest of the PF catalogue. Although I thought the Syd stuff was pretty weird, I probably appreciate more today than the Water-less neo-floyd.

THE WALL will always be the high point of Floyd for me.

[audiobill]

Hey, FA.

I was in my senior year of high school when "The Wall" came out. It completely absorbed us, all.

I have a very fond memory of writing an OAC (for our American and int'l brethren: OAC is a thirteenth year of high school that we had to complete, before entry to university) Chemistry exam. The teacher was a real jerk. In fact, "dark sarcasm" was his forte, as was poor teaching.

Since, this was the year of "The Wall", a group of us decided ahead of time that we would try to leave once the exam was completed (about fifteen minutes) before the end of the offical end-time. As we got up to go, he began yelling at us to "sit down, NOW!!".

So..... we all sat down and began, on cue, to hum "We don't need no education...". It drove the poor guy nuts. He called for the vice-pricipal and so on. Of course, when the powers-at-be arrived, the exam time was over........ and we all resumed humming our chorus in the hallways, on our way to the lockers.

A small slice of teenage rebellion, laced with Floyd.
Bill

[ForeverAutumn]

Great story Bill!

[Mark4583]

Caught the back end of a conversation on the Radio the other day, they was saying that the kids that performed in the Wall are sueing for Royalties!
anyone else hear any of this?
Also , any one know if there is a new PF cuts comming out any time soon?

[3-LockBox]

I was around 13 when The Wall came out. I knew a few teachers that hated it. That made all the more delectible. But much to my chagrin, my brother only about half liked it, and he was a huge fan. (he was 9 years older than me, so maybe the rebellious message of the title track seemed a bit lame) It wasn't until a few years later though that I actually heard the entire album in one sitting. I remember looking at it as being so 'advant garde' at the time. i think I wore out the tape copy I had and bought it on CD as soon as I could find it. (remember chomping at the bit for those early retro releases of classic albums to come out on CD, only to buy them twice over in the next 15 years in the same format?)

But now, if you put it under a microscope, it does seem to fall apart. And it certainly paved the way for more of Waters' pitty party, self-indulgent, western culture bashing throughout the rest of his career. He is still, however, Pink in my eyes.

[Dusty Chalk]

Caught the back end of a conversation on the Radio the other day, they was saying that the kids that performed in the Wall are sueing for Royalties!
anyone else hear any of this?

Yup, it's true. Pretty much. I got nothing to add -- that's pretty much the entire story in one sentence right there.

Also , any one know if there is a new PF cuts comming out any time soon?

I wish.

[topspeed]

I rank The Wall right there with Wish You Were Here, which is to say very high indeed. I thought this was a great album and can't even tell you how many times I've listened to it (of course, considering my state of mind most of the time, I likely forgot at least half of them). My roomates and I were heavily into Floyd during the mid '80 and I even remember seeing them play at The Coliseum, complete with the flying pig and burning bed soaring from the far end of the stadium and crashing into the stage. Cool stuff. In college, I actually did a paper for Cinema 101 that compared The Wall with...get this...Singing in the Rain. Hey, they're both musicals, right? That was a fun paper to write and I actually got an "A" on it. Thank God for spell check tho because I wasn't close to sober.

[BarryL]

Great story Bill!

...at least if it all happened at once we'd have it over with. For all time.

[ForeverAutumn]

...at least if it all happened at once we'd have it over with. For all time.

True, but then we'd all just have to spend the rest of eternity sitting around twiddling our thumbs with boredom because nothing else would ever happen.