Thoughts on "The Piper at the gates of dawn"

the rest i can take or leave.

It's great!!!!! Seriously, what's not to love about this record? "Lucifer Sam" is brilliant, "Pow R Toc H" is completely freaky. "Take Up Thy Stethescope & Walk" is great. It's fabulous.

Great album though. "Bike" is totally sublime, and "Interstellar Overdrive" is just magnificent and triumphant (in my ears at least).

However, if you are among those who find the word "twee" a negative one, then don't bother. :-)

Well that's the impression I get from what I've heard: Piper is a masterpiece, Meddle is awesome, Dark Side is very good, Animals is good, The Wall sucks.

It's too deranged to be twee.

But that's the point!

You've got to be kidding, this and "Sister Ray" are about the only time a rock band took on the avant-garde head-on and won!!!!!!

reports suggest this song was the core of their live show, my guess is the reason why the studio version doesn't work is because it isn't long enough. it takes time to get there.

chris cutler ranks barrett as one of hendrix's only contemporaries as an experimental guitar player on the basis of the early live shows, and regrets the total lack of any released live documents...

enter Roger Waters, plodding through it on his bass, the only headless instrument in the mix and far too loud, with the most dull untersallar set the controls for the fog on the moors imaginationless dirge -- presumably providing what film makers call 'continuity'

Oh jeeze louise, it's WAY better than that.

I've just realized that, although I own 8(!?!) Floyd albums (on vinyl!), the only ones I ever listen to are: Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Meddle, Ummagumma.

Wondered if the Floyd title was coincidence and of course found out that it wasn't. Another similar chapter can be found towards the end of C.S. Lewis's Perelandra. I'd like to see someone put together a collection of those snippets of transcendence that show up in mainstream literature. It'd be a fun read.

Is Syd still alive?

it doesn't correspond to the original mono vinyl mix

It's a new mono mix???

I borrowed this album from my guitar teacher once; I really need to listen to it again. Syd rules.

xpost-- so I was told by someone who seemed obsessed enough by such matters.

Even if the lyrics suck

Dark doom
Gruel ghoul
Greasy spoon
Used spoon
June bloom

These lyrics do not suck!

I can't believe someone bothered to create a new mono mix. WTF is the point?

If someone reissues "Louie Louie" on COMPACT DISC, I would like it to be a new mono mix plz.

"40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION" = fuck off. Rock and roll is garbage music.

Tim I know this is mindblowing to you but there are people who think mono had lots of advantages

Van Gogh, Evander Holyfield...

"stethoscope" is one of the best songs on it, morans.

John, I know this is mindblowing to you, but you missed my point. I would actually like to hear the original mono mix. Someone doing a new mono mix (if that's what actually happened here, though it seems incredibly bizarre) is absurd.

I would actually like to hear the original mono mix.

But not by purchasing precious expensive bourgeois BOX SET.

what does mono sound like in 5.1

With the 3CD Village Green thing, I found I liked the mono better than the stereo on that too. Not on principle or anything. It just sounds better.

I've got a rip of the U.S. Tower Records mono version of "Flaming" that was on a 45. It's neat, but I do like the stereo mix of that one better.

wasn't there a mono reissue a while back? 1990s? i've got a burn of it and it's pretty killer.

So I've had this hour long interview/chat between Rick Wright and latter Floyd hired gun Guy Pratt (who's also Wright's son-in-law apparently) sitting in my iTunes folder and shuffle play finally got around to it. The whole hour is the two of them listening to Piper... with Wright talking about what he can remember of the recording - filling Abbey Road with miked-up windup toys for the end of "Bike," encouraging Syd to "get weirder" on "Astronomy Domine," Paul McCartney sticking his head in the studio occasionally, filling in a weird jazz chord to get from one place to another, and expressing relief when Waters got around to writing songs better than "Take Up Thy Stethoscope..." All great stuff.

Apparently the proper way to say "Pow R. Toc H." is "Power Tock Aich"

not power toke?

not power toke?

That's what I always thought, but maybe they were just being polite forty years down the line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toc_H

Asked my Dad about it once, he pronounced it "Tock Aitch". It was a National Service thing, apparently.

"As dim as a Toc H bulb" being particularly relevant here I think.

I liked Guy Pratt's book a lot.

It's excellent.

oops wrong book.

http://bullmurph.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/cub.jpg

GIS for "that cat's something I can't explain."

btw: is that the best refrain in any rock song?
also I hope I used the word "refrain" correctly

A+ picture there

be a hip cat, be a ship's cat, somewhere, anywhere!

that's from Zooborns- the only website worth going to on a daily basis.

power tokage

btw: is that the best refrain in any rock song?
also I hope I used the word "refrain" correctly

― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Monday, December 13, 2010 7:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yes and maybe

What about "you're the kind of girl who fits in with my world, i'll give you anything, everything if you want things"? That's pretty hard to top too.

it always pisses me off that that track on the 1st black angels is called "sniper at the gates of heaven", cuz you know what they meant, and they should have just gone ahead and said it

http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858542413/

Pow R. Toc H. Lyrics

Whoo, Whoo!
Doy Doy!

Still my favorite Pink Floyd, and one of the best British psych records of all time. Definitely in the top 3. I really like that there was a time in pop history where someone could get on TV singing "Apples and Oranges". I know that's not on the album, but all those singles are just as incredible.

Where's that interview? I want to hear it!

I love Chapter 24 so much. Change return success.
Best song inspired by the I Ching ever?

Whoo, Whoo!
Doy Doy!

Bollocks knows it's...

Doi doing!

― Tom D., Thursday, 14 June 2007 08:55 (4 years ago) Bookmark

... supposed to say 'Bollocks, everyone knows it's...' but that'll do

Bollocks knows best.

I found a DVD online of a 'mime-fest' they did just after Syd was left, for Belgium(?) TV.

They shared the 'I'll do Syd' vocal 'performances' between them..

Actually, rediscovered "Paintbox" as a thing of beauty.

Just recently, got a very cheap "By the Way" box set (actually a not-boot copy, hray!), so I'll (probably very slowly) be going through this until I lose the will to live (which will probably be around 'Meddle' or somesuch)

To me, there seemed to be three early phases:

1) The Syd "Happy" years (2 singles, first album)

2) The Dark "Syd" years (3 tracks off Saucer, singles, some unreleased tracks)

3) The "Rick writes" years (a b-side, some tracks off Saucer, some singles)

The rest I don't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yBvhIC8d5U

The butchering of British albums for US release in the '60s never ceases to amaze me. Look what they did to poor "Piper" back in the day:

A pity they removed "Bike", but having "Interstellar Overdrive" at the end seems like a good idea. Easier to skip it then ;)

why i oughta *shakes fist*

Doi doing!

Kinda sad that the rest of Pink Floyd's career relied so heavily on exploiting Syd.

Classic!

Doy doy!

i don’t know what psychedelia even is. the sound of this album is like antique etched glassware, it’s so stiff and so fragile it would shatter like peanut brittle if you breathed on it funny.
Bike is the best Pink Floyd song. i’m also pretty sure Syd Barrett is the best lyricist of all time. the thing about all the “crazy Syd” mythos that especially annoys me is he wrote about his schizophrenia-like condition soooo well, it’s all right there in plain sight, there’s no need for other people to tell that story for him. the Scarecrow is i guess the beginning of that. not sure if this is Syd’s best album, or PF’s but i’ve owned 3 copies and listened to it more times than any other album by anyone

Bike sounds exactly the same backwards btw