187 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
187 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
Milton Beral
|
|
|
|
PINK FLOYD
|
|
|
|
In my opinion Pink Floyd is the best band musically and theatrically ever to
|
|
bless a stage. Their unparalleled musical talents have led them on their
|
|
seventeen year tour of rock. Their names and music will be seen and heard for
|
|
many, many years to come.
|
|
|
|
The band originally formed in England has remained consistent except for the
|
|
replacement of Roger "Syd" Barrett with Roger Waters,and Rick Wright, who
|
|
dropped out in 1983 right before they recorded The Final Cut. Pink Floyd's
|
|
musical career spanned from early in 1966 until their last album, The Final
|
|
Cut, in 1983. For the bulk of their career Pink Floyd consisted of Roger
|
|
Waters on bass, Rick Wright on keyboards, Nick Mason on drums, and David
|
|
Gilmore on guitar. Today Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and David Gilmore are all
|
|
pursuing solo careers.
|
|
|
|
Roger Waters was born on Sept. 6, 1944. Nick Mason was born on Jan. 27,
|
|
1945. David Gilmore was born on Mar. 6, 1944. Roger "Syd" Barrett was born
|
|
on Jan. 6, 1946. Rick Wright was born on July 28, 1945.
|
|
|
|
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett was born in Cambridge, England. There he attended
|
|
Cambridge High School for Boys which Waters and Gilmore was going to also.
|
|
When he moved to London, he attended Camberwell School of Art. His main focus
|
|
of study was painting, but he learned how to play a guitar there as well. He
|
|
played with such bands as Geoff Mott and the Mottos, The Hollering Blues, and
|
|
as a folk duo, with David Gilmore, who taught him Stones licks at lunch.
|
|
|
|
George Roger Waters studied Architecture at Regent Street Polytechnic in
|
|
London. There he met Nicholas Berkeley Mason and Richard William Wright. The
|
|
three formed a band called Sigma 6, their manager was Ken Chapman, but he never
|
|
got them signed. They also played as The T-Set, The Abdabs, and as The
|
|
Screaming Abdabs.
|
|
|
|
Juliette Gale, one of The Screaming Abdabs singers married Rick Wright.
|
|
This broke up the band. Waters, Wright, and Mason along with jazz guitarist
|
|
Bob Close and Roger Barrett formed a new band in 1966. The band was named
|
|
after one of Barrett's records, by Georgia bluesman Pink Anderson and Floyd
|
|
Council. The band was named The Pink Floyd. Musical differences of opinion
|
|
led to the absence of Bob Close. The Pink Floyd began with Waters, Wright,
|
|
Mason, and Barrett.
|
|
|
|
The Pink Floyd quickly became the flagship of the London underground. They
|
|
learned how to manipulate electronic feedback in between Chuck Berry songs.
|
|
Their manager, Peter Jenner, saw them in a club. He got them gigs at the
|
|
London Free School's Sound/Light Workshop, here they played under an array of
|
|
special effects and lighting. This is most likely where they got their
|
|
interest in special effects.
|
|
|
|
The Pink Floyd was working at a Thriving London club called the UFO club,
|
|
here is where they first met Joe Boyd, the owner of the club, who later went on
|
|
to produce their first single, Arnold Layne. Joe was best known for his work
|
|
at Warner Brothers on movie soundtracks (i.e. Clockwork Orange) and his work
|
|
on the Jimi Hendrix movie.
|
|
|
|
Their first big break was a single called See Emily Play. This reached
|
|
number 5 on the U.K. charts and lead to their signing with EMI. On Aug.
|
|
5,1967 they released their first album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.
|
|
Barrett wrote 10 of the 11 songs and drew the back sleeve. Barrett got the
|
|
title from a chapter in "Wind in the Willows" In October the band had their
|
|
first U.S. tour. Barrett took lots of LSD on the tour and slowly became an
|
|
acid casualty. Although he used the drug while writing, it eventually robbed
|
|
him of all creativity. Barrett asked his old chum David Gilmore to play guitar
|
|
with them, which he did on Feb 18, 1968. Barrett and Gilmore played together
|
|
for seven weeks then then inevitable came and Barrett left the band.
|
|
|
|
On June 29, 1967 they played a concert with Jethro Tull and released an
|
|
album on the same date. The album, A Saucerful of Secrets had the single, Set
|
|
The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, which led to their much publicized space
|
|
rock/synthesizer sound. On their next tour they started establishing a
|
|
reputation as a very theatrical band with a full light show. they also came up
|
|
with many unique devices. They most important contribution to todays music is
|
|
they development of quadraphonic sound, or 360 degree sound. they also
|
|
developed a device called the Azimuth, which would rotate the sound around the
|
|
listener in a very psychodelic manner. Floyd also developed many new studio
|
|
techniques and tools which eventually led to in my opinion, the perfect album,
|
|
The Dark Side Of The Moon.
|
|
|
|
Floyd released their next album, More in 68. Ummagumma was the next Floyd
|
|
album released in 1969, it was a two album set. Each member of the band had
|
|
one side of the record to write and experiment with. The fifth Pink Floyd
|
|
release entitled Atom Heart Mother included such sounds as male and female
|
|
chorus, a horn section and fireworks. The album, Atom Heart Mother included
|
|
Ron Geesin who's electronic music changed the Floyd sound forever.
|
|
|
|
On May 15 1970 they did an "out-do-all-others" concert with fireworks and a
|
|
fifty foot long octopus, which rose out of the lake. In fact the music was so
|
|
loud it killed the fish in the lake. Obviously the fish didn't realize that
|
|
they were listening to the best group of all time.
|
|
|
|
On November 13, 1970 Floyd released Meddle a collection of jazz/blues
|
|
rhythms unlike much of their previous material. Two years later in 1972 they
|
|
released their next album, Obscured by the Clouds.
|
|
|
|
During this time the band was busy recording what was to be a rock classic,
|
|
Dark Side Of The Moon. Pink Floyd spent nine months in 1972 making this album,
|
|
they released it on march 1973 at a special presentation at the London
|
|
planetarium. The album defined the band's views of alienation in our modern
|
|
society. Dark Side Of The Moon went on to become the longest charted rock LP
|
|
ever on billboard's charts. Pink Floyd produced the album themselves, the
|
|
album was years ahead of it's time in production techniques, stereo separation,
|
|
and special effects. This was considered THE album, and still today is
|
|
considered the definitive Pink Floyd. Floyd finally got their long awaited
|
|
U.S. F.M. airplay. The album rocketed to number one on both U.S. and U.K.
|
|
charts almost overnight.
|
|
|
|
The band would now have a difficult time trying to match or top their
|
|
performance on Dark Side Of The Moon. Later that year they toured the U.S. in
|
|
what is considered one of the biggest stage shows of all time with crashing
|
|
aircraft, dry ice, an inflatable man with glowing green eyes, and a gong which
|
|
burst into flames.
|
|
|
|
In 1975 the band had many problems on their U.K. tour which led to the
|
|
announcement that they would no longer perform in the U.K.
|
|
|
|
On September 1975 they released their follow-up album to Dark Side of The
|
|
Moon. The album was called Wish You Were Here. The album was dedicated to
|
|
Barrett.
|
|
|
|
In 1979 they lapsed out of musical silence with one of the best albums of
|
|
their career, a double album set entitled, The Wall. The Wall is a
|
|
semi-autobiographical account of Roger Waters life. The album was followed up
|
|
by the critically acclaimed film of the same name a year later. The film
|
|
stared the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldorf as "Pink Floyd", the
|
|
story's main character alias Roger Waters. The wall is a psychological
|
|
euphemism for the emotions Waters felt. According to Waters it symbolizes
|
|
compulsory socialization, the masks men assume, the barriers of communication
|
|
and the limits of being alone. The Operetta, The Wall, leads us through the
|
|
non linear journey through Water's mind. The movie was Directed by Alan
|
|
Parker, who has also dome such works as Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express, Fame,
|
|
and Shoot The Moon. Also included in the idealistic, symbolistic film are
|
|
short but powerful bursts of animation as done by British artist Gerald Scarfe.
|
|
Waters was criticized about the film saying it lacked warmth, and sketches a
|
|
world where individualism is non-existent. I disagree, I thought it was the
|
|
beast film I have ever seen.
|
|
|
|
The year following the release of the movie, the band toured again in the
|
|
U.S. making use of their theatrical background, they built up a wall in
|
|
between the stage and audience then in massive grand finale the destroyed it
|
|
with guitars and explosives. To date The Wall has sold 12 million copies.
|
|
|
|
The Band, minus Rick Wright whose synthetic synthesizer textures gave them a
|
|
unique and elite sound, recorded on last album in 1983. The Final Cut, Pink
|
|
Floyd's last album was, according to Waters, dedicated to his father who died
|
|
on a battlefield. He refers to this many times, an example is in the song The
|
|
Gunners Dream, in which he sings "going round and round is my brain/his dream
|
|
driving me insane" In the album he said we're victims of world leaders in The
|
|
Fletcher Memorial Home. Waters makes a strong statement about nuclear war in
|
|
his last song ever recorded with Pink Floyd, Two Suns In The Desert.
|
|
|
|
Pink Floyd has been on the cutting edge of rock for their seventeen year
|
|
career by not moving too deeply into the realms of intellectual expression as
|
|
many of the other "artfull rock" bands of the 60's and 70's have done (i.e.
|
|
David Bowie). Pink Floyd's gently contoured melodies and sweet harmonies,
|
|
still make them one of the best groups today. They used synthesizers,
|
|
cathedral singers, colorful chord progressions, composed guitar parts, with
|
|
heavy drums and hard edged vocals to convey their messages. Pink Floyd was one
|
|
of the few bands with enough guts to deviate from the traditional popular
|
|
music. No doubt, we will never ever see a group of musicians like Pink Floyd.
|
|
|
|
|
|
BIBLIOGRAPHY
|
|
San Francisco, Nov. 82 p54
|
|
Los Angeles, Oct. 82 p247
|
|
Nation, Sept. 11, 82 p219
|
|
California Magazine, Sept. 82 p141
|
|
Los Angeles, Sept. 82 p264
|
|
Variety, Sept. 82 p80
|
|
Dow Jones News and Report, Jan. 84
|
|
High Fidelity, Aug. 81 p74
|
|
Library Journal, Feb. 15, 81 p425
|
|
New Republic, July 19, 80 p23
|
|
Seventeen, Nov. 82 p92
|
|
Rolling Stone, April 3, 80 p76
|
|
Boy's Life, April 80 p19
|
|
People, March 17, 80 p18
|
|
People, Feb. 11, 80 p14
|
|
Surfer, Feb. 85 p28
|
|
Stereo Review, Nov. 83 p102
|
|
Seventeen, Aug. 83 p261
|
|
High Fidelity, July 83 p91
|
|
Guitar Player, July 83 p138
|
|
Rolling Stone, April 14, 83 p65
|
|
Christianity Today, Jan. 7 83 p56
|
|
|