I've been pondering writing a post about how much I love Pink Floyd for a while now. What's kept me from doing it is that I realize that such a post would really be a masturbatory exercise; of little interest to anyone else.

So I decided to try to come up with something at least marginally interesting. Rather than a long, rambling, needless post about how super cool Pink Floyd is, I'll post something segmented and fairly brief. I'll try to keep the personal meanderings short and few, and try to pepper this post with enough trivia, general interest, and "things that make you go hmmm" about the Floyd to hold your interest. Deal? Deal.

• Remember When You Were Young? You Shined Like The Sun...
  
  Of course, I'm going to begin with a personal story. When I was in high school I discovered pot at some point in tenth grade. You might think that my interest in Pink Floyd came right along with the marijuana, but you'd be wrong. By the middle of my senior year I was smoking so much pot and neglecting my studies to the point that it became obvious that I might not graduate.
  
  In an effort to get my act together that surprised even me, I stopped smoking pot and changed the crowd I hung out with. One of the new guys I started hanging out with was a very studious guy who was also a big music fan. His name was Mike. I noticed one day that he'd written the words "Pink Floyd" on one of his notebooks, so I said "Yeah, they're that 'brick in the wall' band, right?" Mike said "Oh, they're so much more than that." The next day he brought me cassette copies of two Pink Floyd albums, Ummagumma and The Wall. I've been desperately hooked on Floyd ever since. So you might say that my Floyd addiction replaced, rather than enhanced, my drug addiction.



• We're Gonna Find Out Where You Fans Really Stand...
  
  MCF had Pink Floyd on the brain today, too. Did you know that Andrew Lloyd-Webber apparently more or less cribbed the tune of "Phantom of the Opera" from the Floyd's "Echoes"? It was news to me, I'd never heard mention of it until MCF mentioned it. Of course I've managed to avoid most of Lloyd-Webber's work like the plague, so I really didn't have any idea, although Roger Waters has accused Lloyd-Webber of plagiarism.



• We Don't Need No Education...
  
  There are really four distinct period's of Pink Floyd's career, and the Wikipedia entry on the band really gets the details right.
  
  The first period of Pink Floyd history might be called the Syd Barrett years, as Barrett was the band's primary song writer, vocalist and de facto leader. Barrett, however, was heavily into hallucinogenic drugs and his experimentation eventually got out of control, rendering him unable to function for all intents and purposes. Guitarist David Gilmour (a man with godlike talent, if you ask me) joined the band to augment their sound as Barrett's contributions diminished, and shortly after Gilmour joined Barrett left the band in 1968.
  
  The next phase of Pink Floyd's career was a collaborative period with no clear leader taking the helm. Early efforts from this phase were spotty and sometimes crude, with the band's fifth album, Meddle, the first to really show their potential without Barrett. The collaborative period culminated with Pink Floyd's two best albums, the masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and it's follow-up, the equally brilliant Wish You Were Here (1975). Those are, in my opinion, two of the very best albums to be produced in the rock and roll era, and which one I think is the better always depends on which one I've heard most recently. At the moment I'd say "Dark Side...", but that's probably because I listened to it with headphones yesterday. Man, what a wonderful, wonderful piece of music.
  
  At some point after Wish You Were Here, the band's lyricist and bass player Roger Waters began to assert dominance over the rest of the band, and he encountered little resistance. Under Waters' direction Pink Floyd produced Animals (1977, a seminal hard-rock effort) and the legendary theatrical concept album The Wall (1979).
  
  After The Final Cut (1983), burnout got the better of Waters and he left the band exhausted and bitter. It seemed that Pink Floyd was over, but the remaining members decided to continue under the direction of guitarist David Gilmour. Waters was unhappy with that decision, and a long and bitter suit and public feud followed... a feud which wasn't really resolved until 2005 (more on that later). The Gilmour-lead period marks the fourth and final phase of Pink Floyd, and it produced two good studio albums (A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, from '87, is a fine effort. The Division Bell, released in '94, is even better.) Also released during this period were two live albums, one of which is only OK and one of which (P*U*L*S*E, 1995) is simply gorgeous.



• Haven’t you heard? It’s a battle of words...
  
  After Waters left the band, the remaining members' decision to carry on without him proved somewhat controversial. Many people felt that the name Pink Floyd should be retired since Waters was gone, and chief among that contingent was Waters himself. Waters sued the remaining members of Pink Floyd, and the suit was settled out of court in meticulous, ridiculous fashion.
  
  Under the terms of the agreement worked out between Waters and Pink Floyd, Waters retained the rights to almost all of The Wall and Pink Floyd retained the rights to continue being Pink Floyd. Other details of the agreement lead to some funny arrangements. For instance, one of Pink Floyd's most famous touring props was a huge, inflatable pig which was usually filled with helium and floated above the stage and/or audience during concerts. Waters' claimed ownership of the pig in his settlement with Pink Floyd, insisting that the idea for the pig had been his, and that the pig was, in fact, a sow named "Algie." As owner of the Pink Floyd pig, Waters insisted that the band owed him a royalty if they were going to continue using the iconic image. To get around this issue, Pink Floyd had a new inflatable pig manufactured, this one with pronounced testicles. Since this new pig clearly wasn't the sow Algie, no royalty was owed to Waters.
  
  His bandmates aren't the only people Waters has feuded with over the years. When director Alan Parker turned The Wall into a movie, Waters was involved in the creative process. However, Waters is reported to have interfered with Parker to the point that Parker was ready to abandon the film on numerous occasions. Parker is is also said to be thoroughly unhappy with the completed film and has referred to it as "the most expensive student film ever made." As a whole, the movie is a somewhat confusing experience, although not without it's own visceral power. It basically serves as a music video for the album as a whole, with very little spoken dialogue, animated and surreal sequences, and an indistinct ending. It's not an awful film, but Pink Floyd's legacy wouldn't be harmed a bit if it didn't exist.
  
  
  
• The evidence before the court is incontrovertible...
  
  It's commonplace on the internet to see David Gilmour refered to as "Sir David Gilmour," but it technically isn't correct. That's kind of a bummer to people, including me, who thought that Gilmour had been knighted by the queen of England when he received the title of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2003. Gilmour was given the honorific title in recognition of his philanthropic charity (he has personally given more than six million dollars to causes that benefit the homeless). Nonetheless, the title of CBE officially falls just short of knighthood, and while it is proper to refer to Gilmour as "David Gilmour, CBE," he is not "Sir David Gilmour" since he has not officially been knighted.
  
  Big deal, right? Being knighted these days doesn't really mean diddly squat anymore, since everyone from Bono to Paul McCartney to Mick Jagger has been knighted. And, besides, the list of people who've spurned the title is far cooler, including David Bowie, John Cleese and Kenneth Branagh. So why am I so bummed about it?
  
  Well, because until a few minutes ago when I decided to look for a link, I thought that Gilmour had been knighted. I thought he was "Sir David," and I assumed that he's been busy since 2003, riding around the English countryside on horseback, wearing a suit of armor and rescuing damsels from Spaniards. That turns out to not be the case. And that kinda sucks.



• The Time Is Gone, The Song Is Over...
  
  Pink Floyd's reunion of all four members of the classic line-up (at London's Live 8 concert on July 2, 2005) is probably the last time we'll see them all on stage together. And this is probably a good thing. Full-fledged reunion tours and albums are almost always pointless, disappointing affairs, and it's better to let the legacy of Pink Floyd rest, untainted by attempts to drag it on beyond it's natural life.
  
  The reunion came about because Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof appealed to Roger Waters and the remaining members of Pink Floyd and found them all generally amiable regarding the idea of reuniting for a brief performance. (It may have helped that Geldof had an existing connection to the band; he'd played the lead in Alan Parker's movie based on The Wall.) Pink Floyd's classic lineup hadn't played together since 1981, and Gilmour and Waters had famously (and publicly) feuded for years, but Gilmour saw the reunion show as an opportunity to close the book on Pink Floyd on a positive note. Waters was receptive, too, and the performance became a reality.
  

  

  
  Since then, the four Floydians are said to have mended their relationships. They are all reported to be on generally good terms with one and other.
  
  Since that concert, Gilmour has released his third solo album, and his touring and recording band includes Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright.
  
  Roger Waters has enjoyed a prolific solo career, focused on the kind of theatrical and conceptual work that Pink Floyd turned out during his turn as the band's leader. Of his solo work, the album Amused To Death is certainly the best; in fact, it's as good as or better than his last efforts as a member of the Floyd. In recent years Rogers' has embraced his history as a member of Pink Floyd more enthusiastically than ever, and plays a great deal of material from the Pink Floyd canon during his concerts. Roger Waters is on tour in North America right now, in fact.
  
  Drummer Nick Mason published a book about his experiences in Pink Floyd in 2004. Mason's reflections are particularly relevant since he is the only member of the band to have been present during every phase of the band's history (Gilmour joined after the release of the band's first album, Waters famously departed officially in '85, and Richard Wright was fired for a few years in the early 80's and doesn't appear on the album The Final Cut from 1983.) Mason has expressed hope that the classic lineup of Pink Floyd might again reunite for a charity performance.
  
  Syd Barrett died last year. A tribute concert was organized, and it featured a solo performance by Roger Waters and a separate performance by Pink Floyd in the form of Gilmour, Wright and Mason. It's speculated that Waters and Pink Floyd performed separately so that the focus of the event would be on Barrett and not on them.

There are a number of good sources for Pink Floyd information, downloads, pictures, etc, on the internet. They include:

The Official Pink Floyd Website.

A Fleeting Glimpse.

Floydian Slip.

Brain Damage.

And ten SouthCon bonus points will be awarded to anyone who can name each of the Pink Floyd songs that feature lyrics from which I drew headers for this post.

Labels: Entertainment, Personal