in 1972
at a somewhat late stage of the game
i bought my first pink floyd record
it was their latest “obscured by clouds”
i bought it cos i liked the title so much
i had somehow avoided the floyd up until then
it wasnt hard pre dark side of the moon
the floyd werent on any charts
they werent very visible at all
anyway in some void between marc bolan and david bowie
i bought all the moody blues records
and i was always looking for a new band to get “into”
i had been “into”
chicago
joe cockers mad dogs n englishmen
king crimson
rod stewart n (small) faces
the stones
simon n garfucknuckle
hawkwind
and i guess i finally got around to the floyd
one sunny afternoon i took a bus into civic
and i bloody well bought obscured by clouds
i had read some reviews of it which intrigued me
no one quite knew what to make of the floyd in those days
before dark side of the moon
but anyway my dad had a stereo in the garage
up the back of the 2 car garage was a bar and a stereo
other kids were amazed at all the booze there
no one in my family drank…not my dad or mum or me
so it all just sat there
like a medium well stocked nightclub
there was all these weird liquors n oh god
almost any weird drink you could think of…
why did my dad have all that…?
he just decided he wanted a bar in the garage so he went for it
anyway i sat there in the sunshining in
through the back window
and i chucked the floyd on
and pretty much fell in love
with this easy to like record
it was quite….ordinary…in a way
it was soundtrack to a film “la vallee”
an ok film
(i saw it at the cinema in canberra)
i liked the lush instrumentation n whispery singers
at this stage rog waters hadnt overpowered the others
and the record was kinda breezy
some of it was downright rocknroll
some of it was lush n exquisite
i remember lying there listening to it
and thinking great!
i’m gonna buy all their records now
i started next with umma gumma
a half live half solo studio record
the live stuff was amazing
i imagined whole space journeys in my head
the lyrics intrigued me
set the controls for the heart of the sun…yeah!
i loved it!
the studio stuff i rarely played
i only liked waters grantchester meadows really
the others were too oblique or something
next i got the soundtrack to the film “more”
containing one of my fave floyd pieces ever “cirrus minor”
which starts out pastoral and then reaches out into glittering space
i loved “more’ and i loved all the weird quirky instrumentals n stuff
after that i got meddle
wow
dont the fucking floyd look totally cool in the middle spread
rog in his black t shirt eternally
rick wright looks tanned n handsome
gilmour looks cool n even nick mason too
fuck i loved meddle
i loved the songs on side one
i loved the piece that took up side 2 “echoes”
i loved the way the 3 singers melded their voices together
in that whispery way
what a great mysterious record it was to me
ditto atom heart mother
the same kind of thing
very lush very english
i was definitely “into” the floyd
then came saucerful of secrets which was a bit superfluous
except for the truly groovy “let there be more light”
i got piper at the gates of dawn eventually
but having got into the floyd backwards
i was never that enamoured with it
i didnt really like syd barret all that much (heresy!)
tho i liked him better on the madcap laughs
which i listened to a lot
when marty was in all about eve
dave gilmour did a guitar solo on a song
gilmour said he had seen the churches first show in london
and was immediately struck by the resemblance
between syd and your humble scribe
(wow!)
anyway i got all the odds n ends
including relics which had some great stuff not on anything else
and rogs music from the body
(which had another song called “breathe” on it)
and a floyd bootleg called omayyad
which had “the embryo” on it
as well as a rick wright organ piece called “oenone”
(which i wrongly thought was the name of a gas!?)
(and which i later nicked for myself!)
i had zabriskie point where the floyd changed an old song
into another new one {careful with that axe eugene}…
then it happened
dark side of the moon i mean
i drove 500 miles to melbourne n i bought it on import
the other records i bought on import in melbourne
at archie n jugheads import record shop were
in deep by argent
lord of the rings by bo hansson
badger by badger
flash and the second flash album by flash (pete banks ex yes)
colosseums daughter of time
and a few others i can no longer remember (thats sad)
i got home
and well i liked it
i loved it
this was before all the hype had hit
it was just another floyd record to me
but then that thing happened
it became this n that
and everyone was talking about the floyd
after that i dunno why
i started to lose interest
rog took over too much n i missed the others balance
wish you were here was good tho
but i was no longer “into” em
animals i bought but i never enjoyed
it was kinda bitter or something
i liked the old floyd
the whispery stuff
now there was too much rog completely
then the wall
i like one track comfortably numb
i hate all that we dont need no education tripe
i hated the movie
final cut was bleak
too much
i switched off
gilmours first solo album superb
rogs were hopeless rubbish
i liked bits of ricks wet dream …(mr humphries indeed)
all the rest no longer interested me
all the rog-less floyd had no raison d’etre
rog without the floyd was awful
so when people say to me
do you like pink floyd
i never know what to answer…
uh yes
uh kinda
not really
it depends
i like the middle period
post syd pre dark side
yeah