Zappa.com

I just got that strange message that Bat has mentioned about my post going to hell which is a bummer cos I'd written a longish one and lost it all. Anyway.


What I find interesting about this forum is the diversity of opinion. Without it, civilization would grind to a halt. So yes, we all have our own opinion, thank heavens. I don't think The Final Cut is Pink Floyd's best but I like it a lot and took the trouble to buy the version with the extra track when it came out. Also I don't think the Syd Barrett period sucked, but it's my least favourite Pink Floyd. A lot of that Syd Barrett stuff is just a bit too twee for me.

I have all the main Pink Floyd albums, not including compilations, from Umma Gumma onwards. On Umma Gumma, I like the live stuff but I particularly like the studio album and at the same time I like Dark Side Of The Moon just as much, whatever that says about my intelligence.

I have Music From The Body, Amused to Death and Ca Ira by Roger Waters on CD and I need to get a hold of The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking on CD which I've only got on vinyl and Radio KAOS which I've only got on cassette. Yes he can be a bit depressing, but the majority of the human race probably suffer from some level of depression (if they're at all conscious that is) but they can't all write lyrics like Roger Waters. The whole Wish You Were Here album is a testament to that.

None the less, David Gilmour is as much a part of the overall Pink Floyd thing as Roger Waters. Yes I prefer Pink Floyd with Roger Waters but I like parts of the post Roger Waters albums.

Look at Zappa fans, some have a certain focus, they mainly like one of either rock oriented music, comedy music, big band jazz or classical, or they focus on a particular period like the original mothers. I generally prefer his later period because he was more developed as a composer and better production technology was available although there are some early gems like The Theme From Uncle Meat which we can now hear played by Ensemble Modern and many others. But, I like pretty much all of it. That same perspective of mine finds a whole lot of reasons for liking Pink Floyd, King Crimson, John Mclaughlin and so on.

Anyway, what was the thread about? I don't think Pink Floyd and in particular David Gilmour and Roger Waters have ever sold out. Do they need to? Are they without talent? Of course not.

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

No, goes without saying that's why I said, when Gilmour was drafted in together they produced that amazing sound.


Yes, I knew there were always problems towards the end with writing credits, mainly due to the fact that Waters felt Gilmour had not contributed greatly enough to be named. This was resolved though.


Yeah, I have that DVD myself (amongst many other Floyd DVD's) but Gilmour says one thing and Waters says another, at the end of the day, who do you believe...are you sitting on Waters side of the fence or Gilmours? None of us know for sure, we only have what they say to go on.

T
Waters agreed to credit Gilmour, but at the time Gilmour did have a bit of a fight on his hands to get his parts credited as Waters felt he had not contributed. Tempers were frayed between Floyd at that point, and their split not long after that is testament to this.


Gilmour is credited with Bass, Guitar, synthesizer, vocals and talkbox on that album...we knew this.


Yep, well aware of all this too. Actually credited as co-producer of The Wall, along with Waters, Bob Ezrin and James Guthrie. Michael Kamen, who imo was amazing at what he did, is credited with Orchestra Arrangement.


Despite this fact, he still knew what sound he wanted Floyd to have, and undeniably has learned from the experience he gained from working with some amazing production teams.


True, Gilmour did play some bass on early stuff, but by no means because Waters can't play. My arse he cannot play bass to save his life. Have you seen him play live, in front of you? I was right at the front of a concert I went to in Dublin, and he can play very fucking well, thanks.
Waters was credited with playing some Electric guitar on The Wall, does that mean Gilmour can't play? (which is something we all know he can do and does very well).


I didn't realise you were the authority on all Pink Floyd related snippets of info. You aint the only fan, and do me a favour, next time you respond to a post Ive made, don't be so fucking shitty about it, I was polite with you, kindly offer me the same courtesy.

As for Floyd selling out, and Waters being an "egomaniac" as far as I'm concerned, I consider them to be one of the least self obsessed bands around. Anyone remember Gilmour giving away his 3.4 million mansion to a Homeless charity based in London? Said house has since been renovated into separate flats for the homeless and victims of domestic violence. Waters ploughed £8 million into The Berlin Wall Project, gaining not one penny from it himself, doing it purely to raise money for The Memorial Fund For Disaster Relief. He has never gained anything from that at all to this day. When the concert was set up, he stated that he wanted all royalties from tickets and sales of The Berlin Wall Album, to go straight to the fund in perpetuity.

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"Listen to that noise! It's like Barry White eating wasps."

While it indeed might be that Floyd didn’t sell out per se, I’d say that Floyd pretty much were musically conformist, bar the sixties avant garde explorations. Despite their obvious fondness for sonic experimentation, they’d use the sound effects primarily to make their songs more illustrious. They were wanting to make their songs sound appealing. When Roger Waters pretty much played his DSOTM demos to his significant other in 1972, she pretty much thought Waters had struck the chord. And striking the chord with millions it was in 1973! So when DSOTM hit big, they were pretty much seated in the mainstream comfortably, and they stuck with the niche that brought them in lots of money. Which also means they never really were as sonically adventurous as back in 1967-71 again. Although i agree there are worse and more flagrant sins in terms of attempting to appeal to mass tastes, they pretty much had discovered a surefire recipe for success, which basically nullified the need to experiment further musically. Even though you might say that PF still had some more defiant elements opposed to commercial radio pap, i’d also say that compared to „Ummagumma“’s all-over-the-place avantgardisms, the latter era Floyd is more niche-oriented.

Floyd are also a very different beast compared to Zappa. He might have recorded stuff like „Overnite Sensation“, but he didn’t think that this appealing combination of salacious grooves, hard-ish guitars and comedic lyrics was something to favor over anything else. It simply helped him to finance his more experimental projects, so that he could always return to avant-garde explorations when he wanted (and which he did). And Hot Rats, which was one of his better selling instrumental albums, well there's a huge difference between Floyd making DSOTM and then The Wall in pretty much the similar way and making comparably enough money with it; and FZ recording Waka and Wazoo which did nothing but expand considerably on the basic ideas on Hot Rats, and these two albums being his worst selling disks up to 1973 date.

P.S: is there really any true and believable validation to the claim that Gilmour might’ve co-authored some of the songs normally attributed to Waters? What Gilmour might have said in the interview would be un-believable indeed. After all, anti-Waters biases don’t interest me in order to determine how the things really were.

I think we mostly agree, Aybe. The early exploratory period epitomized by Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother produced in my view definitely the most interesting music they ever did. However, I think it's difficult to pin down exactly how "conformist" they were after DSOTM, and what their intentions and motivations (i.e. money vs art) were. I've read a few books on the band, and from what I can gather, the group as a whole didn't really care too much about maintaining their success - but they were extremely proud and protective of their work (thus the Gilmour vs Waters battle later on, which was more about pride than money IMO). After they hit it big with the fluke success of DSOTM, I think their new fans tended to follow them down whatever path they chose. Note the difference in sound between the next 4 albums - dreamy jamming to tense guitar rock to surreal rock opera to stark political lamentation - homogeneity this is not! I like to compare them to Led Zeppelin in this sense - so popular that they were guaranteed high sales no matter what they did. But that doesn't mean that what they did was watered down (no pun intended).

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Let's hear it again for the London Philharmonic Orchestra!

I really don't think of the mid-late 70s Floyd as sticking to a basic commercially succesful formula at all. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to tell that DSOTM and The Wall were even recorded by the same group of people, save for some really recognizable traits like Waters vocals and Gilmour's guitar playing.

Personally, I think the studio disc from Ummagumma is a piece of garbage, save for a few salvageable moments. And this comes from someone (do I need to stress this?) who generally digs weird and experimental music. It's just not very good or interesting to my ears. The live disc is cool, though.

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"When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone in the air. You can never capture it again." -- Eric Dolphy

Any opinions on "Meddle"?

I always liked this release.

Yep, I have an opinion. Meddle used to be my favorite PF by far, in fact one of my favorite albums period. "Echoes" was my favorite song in the world. Still love it, but over time I've come to prefer Atom Heart Mother (esp the title suite).

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Let's hear it again for the London Philharmonic Orchestra!

Meddle?

Very good record. One of the best post-Barrett LPs.

Yeah, i don't think solo compositions were a very good idea. Gilmour and Waters solo stuff is the best. But Nick Mason couldn't do anything else than drumming and editing some tapes, so granted, his stuff is basically electronic drum solo. And Wright's classical meanderings: who's he kidding? Not everyone gets to be Zappa and pull off classical music convincingly!

Personally, I like the Waters and Wright stuff on Ummagumma the best. Gilmour's piece "The Narrow Way" works too, but only by a very narrow (ha!) margin (sounds like he's afraid of his own voice!), and Mason's stuff can go take a jump. But Wright's classical thing I think is really neat! Especially the acoustic piano stuff after the opening fanfare. "Grandchester Meadows" is prime Waters balladry, with some real neat sound effects.

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Let's hear it again for the London Philharmonic Orchestra!

HEy aspy, no I didn't go. It was a tough decision which I still regret. I've always wanted to see Waters live, but honestly I would have been dissapointed had he not played any of his solo stuff. Not that I dislike Floyd of course, but it just would have felt weird. I really regret it now mind you, but I did what I did. And I actually do like post Waters Floyd. Momentary has a few good moments, and I like Division straight through pretty much.

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For my clinically insane music
http://routenote.com/album/FOWL
http://www.myspace.com/fowlmusic
http://www.last.fm/music/fowl
http://www.deezer.com/en/#music/fowl
Your mental health requires buying my cd

DSOTM a sell-out? No way!
Pre-Meddle/DSOTM-Floyd was, to me, a band in progress. Barrett-era Floyd was a different band altogether to these ears and after that they did all this psych/experimental stuff and movie soundtracks, with wildly varying results. Meddle was the first album on which they had a distinct 'sound' and imo DSOTM was the right album released at the right time. It was the period of partner-switching and post-hippie ideals and DSOTM was the perfect soundtrack to that. In fact, I think Meddle-to-Animals-Floyd was their best period BY FAR. Those 6 years I view as Floyd in their prime. After that it got a tad much with this Waters-thing going out of hand (although I DO like The Final Cut), leading up to the inevitable split, which resulted in introspective and musically solid albums for Waters and horrible, lifeless wallpaper for Floyd.

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When I saw him in 2002, he played a lot of Floyd and an equal amount of his own stuff, from Pros and Cons and Amused. More recently on this tour, he also played a similar set, but included more of DSOTM as the tour was billed as "The Dark Side Of The Moon Tour".
I only asked if it was the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, where your Brother and his friends went to see Waters last month, as it has been noted (specifically in a concert review peice for the Toronto Sun) that he performed a lot of his own solo material at that very concert. Which is why I was surprised when you said...


Part of the review states...

This ties in with what he did at Hyde Park in July 2006, the set list was the same. As far as Im aware at Canada, he played "Perfect Sense" (Amused To Death), "Every Strangers Eyes" (from Pros and Cons), "Leaving Beirut".... Dont forget as well, as he is responsible for the majority of the Floyd lyrics anyway, he has every right to perfrom the classics too. Plus, fans of Waters/Floyd are gonna want to hear that classic stuff, and it's up to Waters to cram it all into one half of the concert. Doesn't mean he's a sell out. He's still creating and composing in his own right, I think it would be different if he wasn't releasing any new material, and churning out the same old Floyd tunes tour after tour.

You also said....


He didn't lip synch when I saw him in 2002, and his voice was on top form. Nor did he do so at Live 8, or Hyde Park in July 2006. His voice sounded fine to me.
In the reviews following that concert in Toronto, it has been said that there was no way he was lip synching...in fact, there's nothing but praise for the perfromance really...heres two reviews I found..

"It has been mentioned before that the band sounds tighter and tighter with every show. I would call it a monolith. They really have the quality of a symphonic orchestra and choir now. Roger's in great singing form! Broad's drumming was impeccable (I wish I had a better view of him on stage from where I was sitting -- row 26, low floor). Guitarists were amazing! Different from DG, but none the less...
I really enjoyed some rare video footage from PF earlier days. Especially with Syd.
The arrangement on Set the Controls... was outstanding. More rock than the earlier more psychedelic one (as in Live at Pompeii for example).
To the regular set of the show highlights mentioned by others I would like to add Fletcher Memorial with a very interesting and well-directed video showing some post-mortem asylum for political leaders of XX century. "

"The concert was just amazing last night! I tried to find those spots with the lip-synching, and I don’t think roger really did any."

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"Listen to that noise! It's like Barry White eating wasps."

If you get the chance again, really, go see him. You will not be dissapointed at all, if you're a true Waters fan. I stood open mouthed for practically the whole duration. The one I saw was "In The Flesh" in 2002, and you can actually get it on DVD (if you havent got it already). Have a look if you havent seen it, and that imo proves to anyone, what a capable and talented musician he is. There's a lot of Solo stuff on it as well.

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"Listen to that noise! It's like Barry White eating wasps."

I'm trying to actually stop saying 'In My Opinion' so often. I'm saying it, so isn't it obvious that it's my opinion? But yes, I didn't mean to insinuate that there was some sort of immortal proof of that..

Fair point.

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"Listen to that noise! It's like Barry White eating wasps."

'meddle' is still my favorite floyd album. and I like 'obscured by clouds' a lot too. but, my pink floyd period ended around there.
I think 'wish you were here' is pretty good too, but that's about it.

but, do I think they sold out? nope.

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

Eh Aspy, does it say somewhere on the RW In The Flesh 2002 tour DVD where it was filmed? I saw that tour and they had a bunch of booms w/ cameras on it. I swear I heard him mention that it was being filmed for the DVD. I was at the Portland Oregon show.

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You were there. Filmed in Portland.

Ummagumma


Dark Side of the Moon


Wish You Were Here


A Momentary Lapse of Reason

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Lesser-evilism is war.

Thanks for the virulent support of Waters. I will check him out next time ( if there is one). I wasn't at the show so I guess I can't say anything about what went on at it, just thought I'd relay their impressions. Glad to hear that he was actually playing solo material.

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For my clinically insane music
http://routenote.com/album/FOWL
http://www.myspace.com/fowlmusic
http://www.last.fm/music/fowl
http://www.deezer.com/en/#music/fowl
Your mental health requires buying my cd

How so?



Give me a break. Waters didn't say he wrote the main riff to Wish You Were Here.




Would've, could've, should've. The fact is, is that Gilmour was not properly credited.




No, I'm specifically talking about the track Sheep where he wasn't credited, not about any other track on Animals.




The day that Roger Waters becomes an even remotely good bass player is the day that pigs can fly. You have to be fucking joking me?!



Good god, man. That's probably the weakest rhetorical analogy to try and prove a point in the history of rhetorical analogies trying to prove a point...




Just reporting the facts.




Where in my previous post in this thread was I "shitty about it" when I responded to your post?




Well, finally some truth.

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"...I'm absolutely a Libertarian on MANY issues..." ~ Frank Zappa, Rochester, NY, March 11, 1988

Not ONE sentence you've constructed above has any basis in reality whatsoever.

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"...I'm absolutely a Libertarian on MANY issues..." ~ Frank Zappa, Rochester, NY, March 11, 1988

100% agreed.

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"...I'm absolutely a Libertarian on MANY issues..." ~ Frank Zappa, Rochester, NY, March 11, 1988

and EVERYTHING you say has?