PINK FLOYD

yeah, as a big fan of both I'd alway loved the idea of a healthy two-way communication, and thought at times, gee what would Pink Floyd make of Can's Bel Air, but I really think it was a one way thing. Can in the beginning I always thought of as Pink Floyd plus Velvets plus.... but through the late 60s/early 70s I've always assumed they didn't really listen to much of anything. I think they were somehow still considered a big "pop" "rock" act and maybe considered major rock bands as their peers, even if sonically they were outliers. Certainly during the wondering post syd/pre dark side era at the behast of Antonioni or Schroeder they were willing to draw from the Who or the Byrds or whatever, but I can't imagine they were sitting around listening to Amon Duul or Faust. Influence-wise, in addition to the Beatles and the other monsters or rock, they still hung out with Robert Wyatt and maybe had some exposure/influence to the artier sides of things that way?

Gilmour only became friends with Phil Manzanera years later because they were neighbors or something right? The idea of Floyd listening to Roxy Music in the 70s is charming but I don't know how likely.

also, genuinely curious non-rhetorical q: how influential were the krautrockers on the floyds, if at all?
kinda feel like it might be the other way around?

no doubt. Though, and sorry to say this here, but Can > post Syd Floyd.

no argument from me, even though PINK FLOYD RULES

hey just want to thank everyone in this thread for all their hard work, this is a good reminder of why we do what we do and why Pink Floyd rules

https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2020/05/12/pink-floyds-dark-side-of-the-moon-is-now-the-first-album-to-spend-950-weeks-on-the-billboard-200/amp/?amp_js_v=a3&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=15897662370834&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fhughmcintyre%2F2020%2F05%2F12%2Fpink-floyds-dark-side-of-the-moon-is-now-the-first-album-to-spend-950-weeks-on-the-billboard-200%2F

i was genuinely ignorant, as i'm still under 40, so my earliest floyd memory is seeing a huge display at sam goody for the division bell when it was newly released.

but yeah: i can see the beatles influence, obviously. esp on stuff like atom heart mother.

i'm genuinely unsure where i'd fall in the "can v. floyd" debate, tbh. they were both so solid from 1971 and going forward many years. two different things tho, really. when i was thinking of kraut folks, i was thinking of things like tangerine dream, kraftwerk, and harmonia.

something that always bugs me out is the dave / kate bush connection.

I think by the time those bands were making (electronic) waves Floyd was already coming back from space

I'd definitely think that by time TD were doing stuff like Stratosfear they were listening to Floyd, but not the other way around. As for Kraftwerk, Harmonia, Neu, etc, it just seems like totally different spheres.

Kate Bush/Gilly connection always made a lot of sense to me, she's kinda prog at heart I think

I was surprised to see David Gilmour be such a big part of Richard Thompson's 70th birthday concert. It made me wonder how long their mutual esteem goes back -- was Pink Floyd listening to Fairport Convention?

interesting question about floyd's influences - i never much thought about it honestly! and since they don't do many interviews there's not a lot on the record there. when waters did talk about other bands it was usually to shit-talk them - witness his doing an interview in '74 and spending most of it shit-talking peter gabriel's genesis. i guess with gilmour you can tell from all the tribute concerts he plays at - peter green's fleetwood mac, he played with the pretty things, so that's very much his millieu, anything to come out of late '60s britain. waters wasn't ever really much of a musician and oddly enough i think ron geesin is probably one of his biggest influences besides john lennon. nick mason out of all of them seems to be most aligned with robert wyatt and that jazz/canterbury thing, but since he doesn't write it's not a huge deal... his drumming style is pretty indebted to chico hamilton. no clue what wright's influences were. would sort of like to know. he had all those interesting chord progressions... those had to have been inspired by _something_, right?

hahahahah.... wikipedia says wright's biggest influence in the early '70s was peter gabriel's genesis! aside from that it looks like just miles and trane, your standard jazz stuff.

i'm genuinely unsure where i'd fall in the "can v. floyd" debate, tbh. they were both so solid from 1971 and going forward many years. two different things tho, really. when i was thinking of kraut folks, i was thinking of things like tangerine dream, kraftwerk, and harmonia.

I doubt many people apart from Steven Stapleton and Eno even heard Harmonia in the UK in the 70s. In spite of the music they made the guys in Floyd seemed kind of conservative, musically, Nick Mason aside.

Any influence definitely much more in the direction of (early) Floyd -> the German groups. If nothing else they were simply there first. The first TD single is pretty Floydian IIRC.

Dunno about Harmonia but Dave Brock (and Peel?) were boosting Neu! in the UK obvs.

Neu! were on United Artists, so their records were readily available in the UK. You could only get something like Harmonia on import.

Most of the groups in Berlin seemed to have had a go at mimicking the title track of "Saucerful of Secrets".

even by the standards of the german groups this thing seems particularly floyd-inspired

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvP7PKrCMKw

Inflooenz.com has the answer you're looking for, supposedly:

https://inflooenz.com/?artist=Pink+Floyd

I only recently became aware of what was probably a sizable influence the Steve Miller Band had on Pink Floyd...a favor they repaid by asking him to open for them at some point.

now that I can see, weirdly

still confused about why no opening acts are listed in the PF gigographies I looked at

Steve Miller Band in 1968: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqgsE0l_Uhg&list=PL6F11751C56BA9F76&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJfAmDi6kkc

Sorry about that first link. It's the song "In My First Future". Sounds like a Meddle outtake.

Apparently I saw them (Floyd not SMB) twice on the Momentary Lapse Of Reason tour. August 5th or 6th 1988 at Wembley Stadium, which is a perfectly fine memory, stood right down the front. But I also have a ticket stub for one of the Docklands Arena dates the following July. Not sure I'd have remembered that otherwise. No support acts AFAIR.

Whereas I distinctly remember the opening act for Bowie at Wembley the year before. Fucking Big Country. Not that Bowie was much better on that tour. Yes I know BC are inexplicably loved around here.

Quick google of bands that have opened for Pink Floyd:

The Who AND The Move (1966!) https://preview.redd.it/v8sl5jyqbix31.jpg?width=376&auto=webp&s=8309323a86aedddebe2511f3d01674aa75125551
Fairport Convention (1967)
Soft Machine (1967 & 1973)
Fleetwood Mac (1968)
Grateful Dead (1968, both bands jamming together for the encores)
Henry Cow (1968! their first live performance, 1969, 1972)
Holy Modal Rounders (1968, with Sam Shephard! on drums)
Smile (1968, pre-Queen Brian May/Roger Taylor band)
Principal Edwards Magic Theatre (1968, funded by John Peel, produced by Nick Mason)
Jethro Tull and Roy Harper (1968)
Savoy Brown (1969)
Allman Brothers (1970)
Nico & John Cale (1971)
America (1972)
Steve Miller Band (1975)

also:
Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera
The Strawbs
Jan Dukes de Gray
Jim Metzner
The Collectors
The Incredible Fish
Sopwith Camel
The Committee
Stoney & The Jagged Edge
Betty Moon
Stockyard In Philly
Leonard Cheshire
The Initial Shock
Speed, Glue, and Shinky

damn some insane killer bills

lol

I am pretty impressed by Speed Glue And Shinki (correct spelling iirc?)

ooh the Collectors. About to put them on a weird mix I'm making.

Nico and John Cale in 71. I can only wonder what any of those conversations entailed.

iirc that was cale's first solo gig! a tape of his set survives. whoever taped it didn't tape floyd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwGpwQXQ590

Somehow I knew Tyler would know where to find a copy.

Is this the gig where he played with Mike Heron? Or Mike Heron played with him?

yes, I think Heron is playing on a few songs here!

1971 Rolling Stone interview with Cale (& Nico) discussing the above show (barely any Pink Floyd content):

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/sep/25/john-cale-nico-interview

and yes Heron plays with him.

Pretty good evening's entertainment all round!

Mind you, it might have been a good idea for Mike Heron to learn the songs first.

Yeah sounds like they maybe had a 15-minute rehearsal beforehand. Pretty cool though! Interesting that Cale already had a few Paris 1919 tunes at this point.

Roger stirs things up even more

An announcement from me. And when I mention the @pinkfloyd website, I also mean the Facebook page and all the rest. pic.twitter.com/x9T8CIAAMp

— Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) May 19, 2020

I got two friends who are all about Pink Floyd ruling, and I can’t seem to get them to listen to Can. What would you think would be the best connection point to get them into them. Future Days perhaps?

Roger otm throughout that message.

honestly fuck David Gilmour and his cosy family singalongs

I got two friends who are all about Pink Floyd ruling, and I can’t seem to get them to listen to Can. What would you think would be the best connection point to get them into them. Future Days perhaps?

If you think that's their best music. I don't think Can and Pink Floyd are all that similar, and they grow further apart as they go on.

Pink Floyd rules but I have never gotten hooked by the Can. I like "Vitamin C" a lot but otherwise I have found their music too slippery for me, more watery whereas the Floyd is more airy. I still give the Can a lotta time to try to get it to click given how many people here & in my life elsewhere rate them so highly.

Yeah I don't see much similarity between PF and Can for the most part. Not that you can't like both, but the Can that is most like Floyd probably isn't the most essential Can or like the best Floyd. Maybe stuff like All Gates Open, Animal Waves, Come Sta La Luna could vaguely be cross over points (?) but better to take the bands on their own terms.

Floyd for Can heads = A Saucerful Of Secrets, One Of These Days, Echoes, Sheep.

It's not that I think Pink Floyd and Can sound alike, its just something about a certain type of epic late 60s into the 70s thing, where there's equal parts song and expansion, noise and groove, it's like, maybe the things I think that make them different are worth comparing at times as they show the flaws of the other? I dunno.

Groove is not a property I associate with Pink Floyd tbh.

you gotta get down with it

prob easier to convert deadheads