Pink Floyd

I think it needs to be brought into light before we gon any farther my friends that one thing will probably be made painfully aware as you continue to read this post. That one thing being is that I am piss drunk. In fact, if it wasn't for spell check, this entire post would read something like this ......"XRYFVYDXU:KDIUCXU>CXCAS^ER(". But I keep looking up & seeing all these little red lines under what are suppose to be words & it is forcing me to be coherent so I guess it is a good thing. Anyway.....on with the show.

Where should I start. Might as well be at the beginning huh........now let's see........... ah,yes. 1986. 14 years old. Stoned. Steve Halabica playing "The Wall - The Movie" while my tiny little brain case was oozing gray matter at an exceptionally unhealthy rate.



I was so toasted that I remember sleeping on the floor of his parent's living room w/ a blanket I found in a corner. When I woke up & was covered in flea bites. My arms, chest & back looked like one giant, itchy bite. Came to find out a tad bit too late that the blanket in which I had chosen to aid in my sleeping comfort was, in fact, the dog's blanket & only caused me an itchiness that which I hope will never be duplicated. His girlfriend Andrea (bless her) covered me in an entire bottle of Calamine Lotion once an hour on the hour for most of the day until more goodies could be procured to help me forget I was in misery.

So why then, with such a miserable memory linked to this band & their music, are they one of my favorite groups? Is it their musicianship? Is it the psychedelic casuality that is the late Roger Keith Barrett? (Syd.) Is it the bitter demise of the band after The Final Cut? (Things got real ugly.) I really couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is that the sounds this band makes are unrivaled in any genre.

Have you ever sat down & listened to the Mono mix of Interstellar Overdrive? There is no panning involved at the end & some of the effects are simply mixed better in Mono. (The Stereo version always irked me.) Absolutely divine!

Pink Floyd - Interstellar Overdrive (MONO).mp3

Or Point Me At The Sky? (My favorite single.) Wondrous!

Pink Floyd - Point Me At The Sky (MONO).mp3

Or even the unreleased single Scream Thy Last Scream? (What was Syd thinking?)

Pink Floyd - Scream Thy Last Scream (MONO).mp3

Yes. There are songs I don't care for. Whole LP's in fact I could do w/out. Take for instance Animals. I understand the concept behind the storyline. 1984. George Orwell. (Bbbbbbbbbooooooooorrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Or The Final Cut. (Too politically & personally based for my tastes.) Ummagumma anyone? (LP 1 is a little too artsy fartsy.....) Then there are LP's that I could not live w/out. Piper At The Gates of Dawn. A Saucerful Of Secrets. More. Meddle. (Thankfully this part of the list goes on & on.....)

Then there are the bootlegs. & loads of them there are......... a literal ton of discs to collect if one has the patience, money & motivation. I have some but not all. I really do try to only collect the recordings made by fans that are at least listenable. Let's face it, there are some horrible sounding recordings out there. Some that have the the mic way too far from the amps.......... or too close....... or just mixed horribly.....or suffer from age artifacts.....or azimuth is off on the transfer....... or recorded on previously recorded tapes........... the reasons go on & on & on as to why a bootleg could sound bad. Thankfully there are gems out there that are worth the listen.

A great website to get an idea on how the sound quality is on any live CD recording is The Pink Floyd Database. They have artwork, track listing, sound rating & a review. (Most of them are on the mark but a few I disagree w/..........) What I dig the most is they have a variety of artwork for each release of a single show. (I.E. if xx-xx-xxxx is released 5 times w/ different artwork by 5 different bootleggers they they generally will have all 5 sets of artwork up) This eliminates which version of which show you may have w/ great ease. If you are looking up LP's though you may want to go to The Pink Floyd Vinyl Bootleg Guide. Once again, they have a sound quality rating, track listing & a very small review. The artwork is not as abundant on different LP's as it is on different CD issues as there are many more CD issues then there are on LP's.

W/ the overall decline of label oriented music sales it is getting relatively easy once again to find numerous shows for sale at used CD stores. If digging through shelves & shelves of Dave Matthews & Phish boots to find what you want is not your cup of tea then may I suggest going to a record convention. There are usually tables & tables & booths upon booths of Beatles, Stones & Floyd recordings. (As well as others mind you. It's just that classic rock still rules the bootleg market.) There are other means of procuring unreleased recordings..... ones that cost very little or no money at all. (Except your initial investment. I.E. Internet connection.)

If you google Pink Floyd trade groups you will get to a site called FloydArtifacts. There are others but this is the one I would use. (This is the only one I regularly used.) They generally will trade you CD-R copies of shows they want for shows you want. This is referred to as a "one for one" trade. (one disc for one disc.) If you are just starting out & have nothing to trade for then may I suggest inquiring about a "B & P" trade or a "two for one" A "B & P" trade is for "Blanks & Postage". This is where yo send the trader blanks for your shows to be burned on & return postage for them to sent the copies back. You may also want to send two or three more in case there is a burn error & a "coaster" is produced. Unspoken etiquette is to send an equal amount of blanks for them to keep for their time but is not necessary. (Say you want four shows. Then send eight blanks. Four for the shows & four for the trader. [Plus two or three for "coasters.] A "Two for one" show is just what it says. Two blank CD-R's for one show. If a show is two CD-R's then any amount stated above is hereby doubled. (One's are now two's. two's are now four's. four's are now eight's & so on.....)

Then there is Bit Torrent. They claim "BitTorrent is the global standard for accessing rich media over the Internet." I will admit, from what I have heard, this is the most popular of them all but there are other programs you could use though such as Azureus, µTorrent & BitComet. (Here is a list of others.) These programs will let you connect to other computers to download files directly from them. Just install the program & then go find what you want. Let's say you want a Pink Floyd show. Google "Pink Floyd torrents" & find a site hosting the "torrent" file. The site you choose (let's say "The Pirates Bay" as an example) will have a search bar on top of the page. Type in who you are looking for. In this instance we are going to look for Pink Floyd. Here are the results of that search. Click on whatever looks interesting to you. Now look for something that says "Download this torrent." Click on "download file" & "save to desktop" (Or a folder of your liking.) You could open the file directly but should the program fail in any way (computer shuts down, missing files etc. etc.) then you would need to retrieve a copy of that file again. If you "Save to desktop" then you have a back up copy already. Now open the program you just installed, drop & drag the file you just downloaded into it & lo & behold you are now a "Leecher". As a "Leecher" you are sucking files from other computers that are doling out the files. Once the download completes the program will roll you over automatically to be a "Seeder". "Seeders" are computers who dole out the files to leechers. It is customary to upload as much as much as you download. This is known as your "Share Ratio". Most sites will block or ban you if you do not maintain at least a .5 (50%) share ratio. Dime-A-Dozen is a good example of this but membership is hard to acquire as it is very popular. The site is updated every 10 minutes so keep trying.....they offer a lot of things you just can't find anywhere else . Demonoid is another good site but the registrations are closed. Unless you know someone who can send you an invitation code you are S.O.L.

Now for the releases. As stated before...... there are good ones & there are bad ones. If this is your first time & you want to get some good shows just remember there is always The Pink Floyd Database. If you don't want to go to another site & do some research then may I suggest looking for shows issued on these lables.

MoLM (Man of Leisure Music.)

FRP (Free Range Pigs.)

Harvested (Self explanatory.)

Those stated above are fan issued & never for sale releases of recordings that are 99% the best sound quality available. (Once in awhile there comes an upgrade.... but that is to be expected.)

A good example of this is "For Reasons I Don't Understand". This was put out by Free Range Pigs (CDR 022/023) in 2002.



Pink Floyd - Cymbaline - Emerson Gymnasium. Case Western. Cleveland, OH. 11-6-71.mp3

The original tape was supplied by someone who only wanted to be referred to a "Jonz". (Psstttt.....it's Jim Jones from Pere Ubu......) Recorded at Case Western University 11-6-71. This is one of the better recordings of live Floyd I have yet to hear. A little bassy in parts but everything is pretty damn clear & you can tell what is going on. Later on it was discovered that the copy of the tape issued had NR (Noise Reduction) applied to it cutting off the sound in the 165000 Hz -22050 Hz ranges. This eliminated tape hiss but removed some ambient sounds of the recording as well. A Master Clone of the tape was later discovered & a "Version 2" was issued. This time the discs were "warts & all" & sounds great. (Even w/ the hiss.....as there is very little of it to begin w/.........) Other Free Range Pigs releases include......

Broadcasting From Europa 1



Pink Floyd - Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun- Broadcasting From Europa 1 6-12-71.mp3

& Complete Concertgebouw 1969.



Pink Floyd - Work - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam 9-17-1969.mp3

The above mentioned show has the added bonus of having an unreleased track in ANY form. No single. No LP. No nothing! This song was written & used solely for the purpose of this concept performance. For more inf on that please see this page. (For once Wiki got something right.) There are several performances & there are several recordings of those performances out there but this one sounds the best & is the most complete as it was tapes off of a re-broadcast made by VPRO. (Wiki seems to be on a roll..........)

Think I'll post one unrelated track to F.R.P. This Is from 10/28/1971. It was recorded in Ann Arbor, Michigan at Hill Auditorium.



Pink Floyd - Careful With That Ax Eugene - Ann Arbor, MI. Hill Auditorium. 10-28-71.mp3

I love the water dripping effect.............. & w/ that I am off to ponder what, after all this time, still attracts me so to this band, these musicians & to the music they create............