Pink Floyd

Album by Album

Martin Popoff

• Publisher: Voyageur Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780760360620
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Rock Music

This stunning look back at Pink Floyd's discography comprises a series of in-depth, frank, and entertaining conversations about all of the band's studio albums, including their soundtrack efforts and the instrumental/ambient The Endless River. Inside, prolific rock journalist Martin Popoff moderates discussions on each album with rock journalists and musicians who offer insights, opinions, and anecdotes about every release. Together, the conversations comprise a unique historical overview of the band, covering everything from early albums with the iconic Syd Barrett to the songwriting tandem of Roger Waters and David Gilmour; the impeccable talents of drummer Nick Mason and multi-instrumentalist Richard Wright; those mega tours undertaken in support of the LPs; the monster success of breakthrough LP Dark Side of the Moon; interpersonal conflict; the band following Waters' 1985 departure; and much more. Popoff also includes sidebars that provide complete track listings, album personnel, and studios and dates. Every page is illustrated with thoughtfully curated performance and offstage photography, as well as rare memorabilia.

CHAPTER 1

THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

WITH DENNIS DUNAWAY AND PAUL KEHAYAS

SIDE 1
1. Astronomy Domine (Barrett)	4:08
2. Lucifer Sam (Barrett)	3:05
3. Matilda Mother (Barrett)	3:05
4. Flaming (Barrett)	2:44
5. Pow R. Toc H. (Barrett, Waters, Wright, Mason)	4:23
6. Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk (Waters)	3:04

SIDE 2
1. Interstellar Overdrive (Barrett, Waters, Wright, Mason)	9:38
2. The Gnome (Barrett)	2:02
3. Chapter (Barrett)	24 3:39
4. The Scarecrow (Barrett)	2:07
5. Bike (Barrett)	3:20

ISSUE VARIANCE NOTES: The US version consists of Side 1: “See Emily Play,” “Pow R. Toc H.” (as “Pow R. Toch”), “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” (as “Take Up My Stethoscope and Walk”), “Lucifer Sam,” “Matilda Mother”; Side 2: “The Scarecrow,” “The Gnome,” “Chapter 24,” “Interstellar Overdrive.” “See Emily Play” was new to the US edition while “Astronomy Domine,” “Flaming,” and “Bike” were omitted.

Recorded at EMI Recording Studios, St. John’s Wood, London

PERSONNEL: Syd Barrett—lead guitar, vocals; Roger Waters—bass guitar, vocals; Rick Wright—organ, piano; Nicky Mason—drums

Produced by Norman Smith

Released August 5, 1967 (UK); October 21, 1967 (US)

Wielded like a rainbow-refracting sword not a year into psychedelic rock’s very existence, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn seemed to destine Pink Floyd for notoriety—which they instantly received, the press labeling them incendiary pied pipers making music for LSD takers. Psychedelia might have gotten off the ground stateside, with a trajectory that might include (using the Beatles as its base) Bob Dylan, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, Jefferson Airplane, the 13th Floor Elevators, and the Grateful Dead, but Pink Floyd served as the first complete package about London town, soon and forever to be psych’s second office, after San Francisco.

A suitably psychedelic portrait of Pink Floyd from 1967. Clockwise from top left: Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Rick Wright, and Roger Waters.

The three architecture students (Roger, Rick, and Nick) and one art student (Syd) had been making music together as school chums since 1962, signing a deal with EMI on February 1, 1967, and one month later issuing their contentious “Arnold Layne” single. The band’s £5,000 record deal, although spread over five years and without free studio time, allowed them complete control over their output, which, to the label’s dismay, got stranger as time went on, culminating in 1969’s Ummagumma and letting up only slightly with the release of Atom Heart Mother the following year.

The collection of songs issued in August 1967, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, represented an intensifying UK response to the birth of psych on the American West Coast. The proceedings were led for the first and last time by Syd Barrett, sole penner of eight of the original UK issue’s eleven tracks, and in on the full-band credit for two more (both instrumentals), with only “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” credited to Roger Waters alone. Additionally, Syd played all the guitar on the album and took the lion’s share of the lead vocals, his accent lending it some distinction.

Label from the UK mono pressing of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

In the spirit of what the Beatles had already been pioneering, especially with Revolver, Pink Floyd recorded Piper with Beatles engineer Norman Smith at EMI Studios (later to become Abbey Road). As well, George Harrison’s friend Vic Singh emphasized the new sartorial style of psych by finding crazy, colorful clothes for the band and then shooting the guys in triple vision with a prism lens to evoke an acid trip.

The cover art and the new Wind in the Willows–derived title (changed at the last minute from Projection) represented powerful messaging parallel to the band’s already notorious reputation for trip-friendly live shows. The visuals helped focus the message, setting the Floyd up for success as the new hippies upturning the apple cart and freeing minds with their new full-length record, a field recording of the proceedings in Syd’s head as the more responsible trio behind their acid-addled leader looked on in growing dismay.

An Italian pressing of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn from 1971, with Gilmour—not actually a member of the band at the time the album was made—erroneously pictured on the cover.

The warning signs of Syd’s descent into madness are all over the record. Against the idyllic and paisley “Flaming,” “The Gnome,” “Bike,” and “Chapter 24,” there are “Matilda Mother,” “Lucifer Sam,” “Interstellar Overdrive,” and the harrowing “Astronomy Domine,” a virtual sound-painting of brain drain. All told, one might conjecture that Pink Floyd’s was the type of psych that was going to cause King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, and heavy metal, rather than that of Yes, Genesis, and the peaceful easy sounds of the country-rock Avocado Mafia taking over the Troubadour in L.A. Indeed, this darkness brought in by Syd on this record would linger and then metasta...