David's been busy

Apparently, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame has been keeping busy. Here he is performing with Roger Waters at an event for charity.

Hoping Foundation benefit performance from Hoping Foundation on Vimeo.

While the performance isn't great it's just nice to see these two being civil to one another, let alone playing music together.

Mr. Gilmour has also recently snuck out a collaboration with Orb. Hopefully it won't be too hard to track down the two disc version which has a special surround mix for headphones. Where are those Stax headphones when you need them?

Last, but certainly not least he served as Executive Producer on the new Syd Barrett compilation, not so cleverly titled, "An Introduction to Syd Barrett." Which will mix Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and solo material, some of it remixed. Sadly, "Vegetable Man" nor "Scream Thy Last Scream" will be included, another missed opportunity. Why not put out these songs officially and give the fans the best quality possible and make a couple of quid in the process, instead of forcing us to continue to listen to sub-standard bootlegs? It would be a win-win for all involved. The big draw of the package isn't even on the disc it's a free bonus download of "Rhamadan,"a 20 minute previously unreleased instrumental. Since it's a download the sound quality won't be what it should. As obsessive as David is about sound this is a very odd choice. A bonus disc on the first pressing would have been a better way to get it out there, maybe even including "Vegetable Man" and "Scream Thy Last Scream". Now that would have been a great.

"By the way, which one's Pink?"

Today the death of one of the most important musicians of the 20th century was announced. You may never have heard of him, Syd Barrett. Mr. Barrett was a founding member of Pink Floyd and responsible for writing all of their early singles and most of their first album, “The Piper At the Gates of Dawn.” “Piper” is one of the most if not THE most original debut albums. Not even The Floyd have done anything like it since, even though their second album “A Saucer Full of Secrets” was an attempt to copy that magic. Shortly after the release of their first album Syd’s behavior became increasingly erratic. At first this behavior was written off as being humorous rebellion against the establishment. No one suspected the truth until it was too late. Syd’s family history and his use of LSD proved to be a volatile mixture. Most agree that Syd was susceptible to becoming scizophrenic, the Acid guaranteed his massive break with reality.

After Pink Floyd Syd released some solo albums that contain flashes of brilliance, but it is well hidden under layers of chaos. Early Pink Floyd fans that loved them before they had a record deal believed that the band died with Syd’s departure. That of course is an opinion, but there is little doubt that without Syd Barrett there COULD NOT be a Pink Floyd.

Mr. Barrrett was such a larger than life figure his influence on the band would be felt long after the band decided NOT to pick him up for a gig and let their then rhythm guitarist, David Gilmour take center stage. Syd is the lunitic on the grass in “Dark Side of the Moon.” Syd is the Crazy Diamond and in fact the entire inspiration for the Pink Floyd masterpiece “Wish You Were Here.” Syd is at least half of the Pink character that is the protagonist/anti-hero of “The Wall” album.

Today, WXRT Chicago’s most progressive radio station played “See Emily Play” in tribute to the lost genius. It was great to hear that on the radio, too bad it had to be under such unfortunate circumstances.

"Shine on You Crazy Diamond!"

Pigs flew for a short time

Originally Written: Saturday, July 02, 2005

I barely got home in time to see the Pink Floyd portion of Live8. They played brilliantly. They chose songs that Pink Floyd/Roger Waters had both performed on their recent tours. The nice thing is that they didn't make the same mistake that both camps have mad recently, namely over arranging the songs by adding a bunch of backing musicians that aren't necessary. For the most part it was the band and another guitar player. A saxophone player for one song and a backing singer for one song. I watched most of it on MTV. The fuckers talked over the beginning of Breathe and cut to commercial halfway through Comfortably Numb. Fortunately I caught the end of Comfortably Numb on aolmusic.com. So what did they play? Glad you asked.

1. "Breathe"
2. "Money"
3. "Wish You Were Here"
4. "Comfortably Numb"

All in all a very strong performance. It's amazing how much different they sound with Roger Waters back on bass, "Money" was so much better for his presense. They touchingly dedicated "Wish You Were Here" to founding member Syd Barrett. It was extremely emotional to hear David and Roger singing "Comfortably Numb" together for the first time in roughly 25 years.

Too bad Syd Barrett wasn't well enough to be on stage with the band that he helped put on the map. Syd has been suffering with schizophrenia for many, many years. The hallucinogenic drugs that were so much a part of the swinging London of the late 1960's snuffed out the flame of his genius probably for good. There is always the hope that he will wake up from his bad dream like Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys. This is the only picture that I have ever seen with all five members of Pink Floyd together. Syd and David were only in the band together for a couple shows. Syd is the haunting figure in the upper right.