Pink Floyd Listening Club #SSP

Mono version of the whole record was released a few years ago - not on Spotify frustratingly.

I think I have it stored with all my CDs, going to stick with the stereo version for the moment.

So Pink Floyd were a big deal for me growing up. Think they’re probably the only band from my Dad’s record collection that I really got into or at least stuck with. Absolutely loved Dark Side, WYWH and The Wall (live) as a teenager. I wasn’t really an outsider at school or anything, I had pals and we were all into alternative music, Nirvana, RATM that sort of stuff, but none of them liked Pink Floyd. Think I was the only kid in school who liked them. Even had a patch on my backpack and would occasionally get recognition from Teachers who obviously loved them in their teens… does that make me a narc?

My only exposure to the early stuff was on a greatest hits CD and to be honest I thought it sounded fucking crap compared to Time or Shine On, so I’ve never really gone in to properly listen to anything pre Obscured By Clouds. So this is my first proper listen to Piper at The Gates of Dawn.

First impression - this sounds a lot better than I expected it to. Like sound quality, the recording is great, the musicianship is great. Ok they’re fannying about with Stereo and it sounds daft but everyone did that back then didn’t they? This might be an odd comment but all the noise at the start of Astronomy Domine made me think “Ok, so this is At The Drive-In

I think it’s mentioned by others above but I find Syd Barrett’s nursery rhyme lyrics laughably bad. I don’t know if it’s because it’s been parodied by the likes of The Mighty Boosh, Austin Powers, Spinal Tap etc, it’s just very, very crap. Think there’s a lot of pub rock bands who have played in and around Central Scotland over the last 20 years who think this kind of thing is amazing and I hate them all.

I would listen to this again. Sounds great on headphones.

I think Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds is probably the pinnacle of “almost wrecking a great sign by fucking around with the panning”. It was a new trick at the time I guess so it took a while for everyone to learn how to use it properly.

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Yeah, I find it really bizarre in a way because these were all clever folks. Both the musicians and the recording engineers/producers. I think they understood the science behind it and the idea of creating a more binaural experience and the positive effects that has on the brain. Seems dead odd for them to then go “Let’s just put everything on the left, except the drum kit”

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The Gnome is fucking S H I T E

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Flaming has a similar effect on me. It would probably be a better record of you subbed those two out for the singles.

Edit - actually it’s Matilda Mother that rubs me up the wrong way. Flaming is alright.

The amount of heavy lifting Richard Wright does on this album is incredible. They wouldn’t have been half the band without him.

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Bumped for the weekend - will do Saucerful of Secrets tomorrow…

So… A Saucerful of Secrets then. At this point I realise that I may have to SSP the thread and introduce a trigger warning for mental health related issues, as it is impossible to write about this period in the band’s history (or several others really) without some detail on the story of Syd Barrett.

I’m on a phone at the moment waiting for two particularly stubborn children to go-the-fuck-to-sleep and will try and write something worthwhile once I’m freed from sentry duty.

(…how do I edit the thread title? Have started so few in the past that I’m not 100% on how they work…)

Scroll back to the top of the thread and it should let you edit the title? If you can’t I can do it.

Looking forward to Saucerful Of Secrets, have very fond memories of this album.

Not been able to listen/post this week due to various life things. Hopefully will be able to get more involved soon.

Definitely one of my lesser known ones. Very good on the whole but See Saw seemed like a duffer. Set the controls is proper classic stuff though. Last track is brilliant too.

No edit button that I can see. Very possible I am just being dense. Could I ask you to add an #SSP to the thread title please?

A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)

Saucerful of Secrets was sad Barrett’s second and last record with Pink Floyd. He contributed one song (the phenomenal Jugband Blues) and played guitar on a couple of other tracks. Between the success of Piper At the Gates and the subsequent tour, his behaviour reportedly became more “erratic” - he would spend entire shows standing stock-still and playing one chord and failed to show for several gigs. When interviewed he would either respond to questions with a blank stare, or give curt answers whereas previously he had been witty and effusive. His increasingly challenging behaviour led to David Gilmour, a friend of the band being drafted in to cover as a second guitarist for gigs. Eventually his unreliability led to him being sacked from the group.

Wikipedia has the following:
"During Pink Floyd’s UK tour in November 1967, David O’List substituted for Barrett on several occasions when he was unable to perform or failed to appear. Around Christmas, Pink Floyd asked Barrett’s schoolfriend David Gilmour to join as a second guitarist to cover for Barrett. For a handful of shows, Gilmour played and sang while Barrett wandered around on stage, occasionally joining the performance. The other band members grew tired of Barrett’s antics and, on 26 January 1968, when Waters was driving on the way to a show at, they elected not to pick Barrett up. One person in the car said, “Shall we pick Syd up?” and another said, “Let’s not bother.”

Feeling guilty, the members of Pink Floyd were unable to bring themselves to definitively tell Barrett that he was no longer in the band. According to Wright, who lived with Barrett at the time, he told Barrett he was going out to buy cigarettes when leaving to play a show. He would return hours later to find Barrett in the same position, sometimes with a cigarette burned completely down between his fingers. Emerging from catatonia and unaware that a long period of time had elapsed, Barrett would ask, “Have you got the cigarettes?”. "

By modern standards, it is safe to say that they could have handled the situation better. The impression I get (and it is very possible that I am being charitable) is that Barrett’s symptoms were largely ascribed to excessive drug use rather than a possible mental illness. A less charitable interpretation would be that the band knew exactly what was happening and left him to fend for himself to further their career.

The record that emerged from this difficult period is a stylistic grab-bag of everything that passed for psychedelia at the time, from wide-eyed mysticism (Let There Be More Light) to wistful nostalgia (Remember a Day, Seesaw), poetry-inflected sound-scaping (Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun), neon quirk (Corporal Clegg) and full throttle experimentation (the title track). The final track, Jugband Blues, can’t help but feel like a farewell from a fading Barrett, both in it’s morose tone and it’s lyrical content.

On paper it sounds like it shouldn’t work, but remains fondly regarded by critics (and named by Nick Mason as his favourite Floyd album) and found a receptive audience, peaking at number 9 in the UK music chart.

SCORE:

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BEST TRACK:

  • Let There Be More Light
  • Remember A Day
  • Set The Controls for the Heart Of The Sun
  • Corporal Clegg
  • A Saucerful Of Secrets
  • See-Saw
  • Jugband Blues

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I don’t have much time now to write any more… but I will say the I fucking love this record. Impassioned screed later in the week…

Done! I see it next to the thread title like this, think it might be to do with my permissions.

Annotation 2021-10-03 214831

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Need to catch up with this thread, I reckon!

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