Pink Floyd

Atom Heart Mother has aged a lot better than that review, by whoever-that-guy-is. Not quite sure what to say about someone who thinks Ummagumma "had all their best elements."
 
Happy Birthday David Gilmour!

In a bit of thread drift, I love how some current bands are doing live covers of Pink Floyd these days.
The last two summers at the North West String Summit, Yonder Mountain played a full album. Animals in 2016, and Meddle last summer. Bluegrass Floyd!
 
originally posted by Marc D:
Happy Birthday David Gilmour!

In a bit of thread drift, I love how some current bands are doing live covers of Pink Floyd these days.
The last two summers at the North West String Summit, Yonder Mountain played a full album. Animals in 2016, and Meddle last summer. Bluegrass Floyd!
Click to expand...

That sounds fantastic. I'd love to hear a bluegrass "One of These Days"

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Marc D:
Happy Birthday David Gilmour!

In a bit of thread drift, I love how some current bands are doing live covers of Pink Floyd these days.
The last two summers at the North West String Summit, Yonder Mountain played a full album. Animals in 2016, and Meddle last summer. Bluegrass Floyd!
Click to expand...

That sounds fantastic. I'd love to hear a bluegrass "One of These Days"

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

It's not Pink Floyd, but check out the Hillbender's version of "Tommy".
 
Mark, there are a bunch of videos of this on you tube. I can’t link easily as I’m on a phone.
It’s hardly strictly bluegrass, as the band gets an assist from Asher Fulero sitting in on keys and synth, but I like how they work in the banjo, mandolin and fiddle. Obviously some of the songs fit better into the traditional frame but others are going to be a fusion.
 
Apologies for my late appearance in this thread.

All in all I concur with Comrade Levenberg's analysis of AHM.

I'm partial to the Montreux recording and the low-fi KQED Studios recording and its trippy, chillout video.

I've also dug the full brass-and-choir Hyde Park performance in spite of its low quality due to the fascinating, almost voyeuristic video footage.

This modern rendition is also a bit of fun the way it apes Live At Pompeii. But I prefer the energy of the bootlegs.
 
I also like this, which came out around the same time as Atom Heart Mother and also featured its collaborator, Ron Geesin.
 
So, spurred on by this discussion, I queued up AHM for the first time in probably 20 years and gave it another listen. Yes, it has its charms but I still feel that it's a transitional work as the band try to find their voice, so to speak, with no Syd Barrett. Comparing it to Meddle, which came out of the next year, I find it lacking in cohesion. In the end, it feels a bit like an afterthought in the band's development. I'll also note that both Waters and Gilmour have been quite dismissive of AHM in interviews, the former calling it "crap."

Mark Lipton
 
I don't really see it as transitional. The band basically had 3 periods - Syd, the post-Syd early years, and Dark Side through to the Final Cut. I don't see the middle period as transitional because there's no gradual evolution from the early years to Dark Side - Dark Side arrives as a totally new species, fully formed as if from out of nowhere (the only real evolution is the evolution of Dark Side itself in the live performances over 1972 before the instrumental tracks took their final form). So within that early middle period, there is some early experimentation that doesn't really go anywhere (like Ummagumma), some noodling around that isn't all that ambitious, and some real high points where they set out to do something huge and pulled it off. Echoes and AHM are in that last bucket. But even those high points don't sound to me like the missing link in the fossil record to Dark Side. They are so different.
 
Sorry, let me explain what I meant as transitional. First of all, I would identify 5 distinct phases if Pink Floyd’s evolution: Syd Barrett era, Meddle era, Dark Side era, Roger Waters era and post-Waters era. I see Ummagumna, More and AHM as being transitional works en route from Syd Barrett to Meddle. I get glimpses of Meddle in AHM and to a lesser extent in Ummagumma, but still in embryonic development. The interesting thing to me is that these changes came so hard on the heels of one another: ‘68 -Syd’s out, ‘71 - Meddle released, ‘73 - Dark Side, ‘77 - Animals, ‘82 - Waters departs. In that period from ‘70 to ‘73, they went from AHM to Meddle to Dark Side — remarkable.

Mark Lipton
 
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