David Gilmour's First Year with Pink Floyd 1968

The 1968 "Early Years" box set clearly shows a band that is lost and confused. I used to think ASOS was their worst album but I've come to appreciate it mainly for the title track and the Rick Wright/Barrett songs. With respect to the Townshend quote, anyone who has ever taken acid knows that he would have had to have walked for at least 6 hours to come down off it plus Syd isn't revered as a guitarist for the same reasons that say, Clapton was. However, there is no reason to say that Clapton is necessarily more qualified to provide a better guitar experience just because he has more chops than Barrett who could be using more emotion, effects and creativity for what comes out of his guitar. Barrett was all about pure freedom and artistic expression . It's really a shame that more of his live performances were not captured.

 

To return to the topic, the first year with Gilmour was nowhere as good as the first year with Barrett!

 

As I recall, he mentioned slide technique in particular. What's funny, though, is that Syd used it in an utterly different context than a blues guitarist would. So in that sense, he taught that back to Dave Bet Joker's Wild's guitarist never imagined he'd be applying his tool box to something like Saucerful of Secrets ; )

 

And not only psychedelic music, but flat out metal.

 

The U.S. zine founded in 1983 in California by an 21-yrs old editor* devoted to the obscure U.S. garage psych from 1960s, English freakbeat, the 70s punk and so on? Oh please enlighten me!

*Mike Stax' own band The Loons:



You like it? really?

 

I would like to be enlightened even if Sventonio can't be. Please post it.

 

Yes. What do you know about Ugly Things magazine anyway? That is sort of low quality trolling when my classmates used to tease me when i listened Beatles or Who instead of Prodigy.
You clearly run out of arguments already. I already tired of enlighten you in many cases. I didn't teach you on subject of prog, then you, please, don't teach me about subject you have zero knowledge about

 

"...and what exactly is a dream?...and what exactly is a joke?"

 

Sorry man I didn't know that I was arguing with a connoisseur of "freakbeat"!
But for the end of our little discussion, I'd like to post my own description of "genre-in-retrospective" called freakbeat, fully respecting the fact that the term was coined in 1980 i.e. during mod revival in England: it's all kind of the 60s English underground psych music that stop to be interesting immediately when a punker gotta grow sometime and hence stop to swallow LSD everyday

p.s. Oh and if you just said that Barrett's The Pink Floyd weren't freakbeat due to lack of cohesive rhythm on Piper LP, it would make much more sense than everything what you have been posting on this thread

 

They never played New York in 1967. Gigs were cancelled.

 

You are correct sir ! .... I forgot about the work-visa snafu ...

<Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd News>

 

July 24, 1968 .... 50 years ago today ...... on tour in America ....
a late addition to a "British Invasion" show at Philly's JFK stadium, Pink Floyd gets rained on and out, and The Troggs and The Who are cancelled altogether .... (so what did they all go and do afterwards ?)

a Who fan who was there remembers ...
THE COLONEL REMEMBERS: Pictures Of <strike>Lily</strike> Philly

 

It sounds like John Peel was tripping that afternoon in Hyde Park. The way that review was written, it sure sounds like it.

Does a decent recording exist/circulate of the Pink Floyd performance that day? I'd like to hear it!

 

I enjoy his wah wah playing on "Corporal Clegg" - raw, nothing fancy or technical, and that's what I like about it...and to get back to what was being said before wuite freakbeat to me.
Of course, he didn't sound like the latter David Gilmour.

 

The band itself was very tight, to me all of them play a key role but I really don't see why the appeal for Syd Barrett even today remains so high. The music just sounded all over the place. Astronomy Domine is an excellent opener but the album as a whole really is not a very enjoyable listen. A Saucer Full of Secretes is more enjoyable for me and that is when Gilmour arrived. You start to see the band blossom as musicians. Once we get into the Meddle days it was full on. I don't think Barrett would have led the band there so in hindsight I think Barrett having his issues pushed Waters to put them on the right path.

 

I don’t think anyone is comparing them as guitarist but Syd as the leader, singer and main songwriter had a profound impact of on music with limited releases.

 

I would argue that they pushed them in a different direction—one equally valid.

 

Well as I said, Floyd with Waters and Gilmour was much more enjoyable all around listen for me.

 

IMHO Barrett is akin to Brian Jones. Great musical minds that founded their sound, but they get more credit than maybe they deserve for where the band ended up. Floyd just like the Stones ended up in such a different place than where they were intended to go, and I'm thankful for where that. I understand that their starting point is important, but in a lot of ways both bands evolved and morphed into something totally different once their founders were gone. And in Syd's case it was essentially 1 1/2 albums. I think Barrett is deified in part because he wasn't in the band for very long. I wonder what his legacy might've been had he stayed in the band for 20 years and they cranked out terrible album after terrible album. Would they have been a flash in the pan along with some of the other bands of that era that had one great album then flamed out? We'll never know.

 

Not true. They played the Cheetah Club in Los Angeles and NY. The NY show was reviewed in Variety and Record World. Its actually all in the link you posted.

 

Yes. It's one of the important elements. Gilmour's unique guitar playing was also a major factor

 

Has it now been released separately then? What's the dvd called? I may have to buy this!

 

Or ineptitude, depending on how you look at it! I tend to agree with Gilmour that Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother were a low point of thrashing around to find direction. The live record is very good though.

 

The volume books are available individually since 2017. For Pink Floyd '68, check out The Early Years 1968: Germin/ation.