David Gilmour's First Year with Pink Floyd 1968

Jailhouse Rock??

 

There's not a good definition of freakbeat simply due to fact that is not a real genre, as I said already above. I just find this in an essey that somebody put as a reference in Wiki article about freakbeat:

A nice sentence indeed, but not a definition of a genre.

However, while reading historical articles about that Swinging London's underground psych scene i.e. freakbeat, I think that Syd Barrett's The Pink Floyd qualify.

 

Yes. Though he did claim in an early 70s interview that he taught Syd a few of his guitar tricks when they were Cambridge chums.

Here I Go, really?

 

Yeah, the key is that Gilmour WAS the guitarist that followed Barrett. Anyone else, it's a different band and we'll never know. Gilmour was confident enough, cool enough, and interested enough to keep his ego in check to see where he fit in this new and strange musical environment before gradually inserting his musical voice more and more. Both quartets (with Syd and with Dave) had a pretty perfect alchemy. Anyone changes, that balance changes and the music changes...or implodes. Thankfully for all of us, Dave didn't upset the balance but honored it.

 

You make a great point: Dave had to be pretty cool to just step in there like he did, basically just being Syd's stand in for the first few months, and then watching as the band he'd joined went from pop to freeform experimental noise. I'm sure that at some points, he was thinking, "What the heck am I doing here?" But he hung in there and gradually made his transformative mark.

 

Absolutely. I love both the Piper era recordings and the recordings that followed with David Gilmour up to and including Obscured by Clouds. Blundering around I believe Mr Gilmour has stated of this period. He is probably right but I love those recordings - live and studio. Then comes Dark Side and the (Floyd) world changes forever. My fav album by the band is WYWH.
I think it is a shame Syd did not get his solo work going sooner and that it all quickly fell apart but unfortunately he was not a well man and back then I do not think there was the support that exists today (and that is not meant as a criticism of Mr Gilmour ).

 

I always think of "Jailhouse Rock" as the first sort of rock record with those great drums in my collection. Trying to define rock and it's many sub genres is very hard.

 

Jonh Peel about Pink Floyd concert in London's Hyde Park in June 29th, 1968; actually it was their first bigger concert without Syd Barrett:

"
John Peel

I always claim that the best outdoor event I've ever been to was the Pink Floyd concert in Hyde Park, when I hired a boat and rowed out and I lay in the bottom of the boat , in the middle of the Serpentine and just listened to the band play . I think their music then suited the open air perfectly . It was - it sounds ludicrous now, its the kind of thing that you can get away with saying at the time and which is now, in these harsher times , sounds a bit silly-but I mean it was like a religious experience , it was that marvellous. They played A Saucerful Of Secrets and things. They just seemed to fill the whole sky and everything . And to coincide perfectly with the lapping of the water and the trees and everything . It just seemed to be the perfect event . I think it was the nicest concert I've ever been to. "






This legendary journalist priced the Floyd's perfomance as great as well, he wrote that the band is on the right path after a year of wandering and he didn't even mention the absence of Syd Barrett and that is the fact which tells me enough.

 

But without Syd, you have no Floyd, so...yeah. There's that.

 

Yup really. He did it on a radio session that I have a recording of. When he finished playing it he laughed and said "Jolly, isn't it!"

 

I was choosing my words with some care there . DG has always been a great champion of SBs writing, creativity and melodic/lyrical sense. I think he has always been quite clear, though, that he (DG) is the better guitarist - and he's right

 

I think he was making a joke....

 

In my opinion, both Pink Floyd and The Soft Machine emerged out of the psychedelic scene on their debut albums before gradually morphing into what could broadly be described as progressive (though not the kind of symphonic prog practiced by the likes of ELP). The Soft Machine eventually went for a more jazz-fusion oriented sound, while Pink Floyd might be more accurately described as space rock with occasional prog flourishes. These labels aren't cut and dried, of course, and many bands of the era dabbled in a little bit of this and that before changing direction, so these kinds of arguments about nebulous genre terminology become a bit pointless after a while.

 

Here's contemporary review of A Saucerful Of Secrets LP from New Musical Express, 10 August 68



Not everyone was raved like Peel

 

Barrett had guts and creativity that few in the rock world, let alone Pink Floyd, can be compared to. The courage to be weird is what kept them afloat until they figured out how to write music on their own. Gilmour is obviously the more virtuoso guitar player but that's not very rare in the music biz. However, there are very few in the Barrett realm who had the vision, courage and creative gift to have doe what Barrett did. No comparison is correct but Id reverse the way you look at it.

 

Dave Gilmour is an excellent rock guitarist and a decent blues player who played "that" beloved B.B. King lick just right.
Syd Barrett was a total 'one-off'...a natural guitar expressionist who blazed a unique trail during his brief career.
I admire them both...and they were pretty good mates, considering their respective career trajectories.

 

For those who can't appreciate the Barrett era I think it is likely hard for many to imagine just how far ahead they were at that point in time compared to rest of music world. I mean just listen to what they were doing in 1966 and compare it to anything else and you get an idea of how far out on a plank Syd really was. The few live recordings from that era (when Syd was in his prime) provide what is perhaps the most psychedelic music ever done, and for me, very few other things have come close to.

 

Hmmm, back on point: 1968 was a pretty lean year for Gilmour's contribution to Pink Floyd's music. Saucer has some nice guitar parts -like the outro to Let There Be More Light, but nothing that is really outstanding for me. In fact, I think I like Syd's slide guitar work on Remember a Day better than any of Dave's contribution to this album. All this would change in '69 where Dave starts to make his mark on Floyd's sound as well as starting to compose his own music.

 

hmmmmm........i wonder.

 

Here's something for you either. Considering how dismissive & contradict Pete always was in his interviews over the years

 

Barrett did a more authentic-sounding 'Bo Diddley' riff than Townsend. Professional jealousy!

 

I think it mattering much more what he thoughts about Floyd in 67-68 rather his ramblings today.

 

Back in the transitional year 1967-68, bands like Pink Floyd were an actual competitive 'threat' to Townsend, Keith Richards and others who bad-mouthed them.

 

John Peel was a radio presenter, journalist, promoter, record producer and DJ. John Peel was one of the first broadcaster to play Psychedelic and Progressive rock on British radio. John Peel's Radio One provided the first national coverage to many bands that would later achieve a big fame; I hope you heard for Peel sessions. You can bet that he deserved his legendary status.

 

Townshend