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............

The 13th Floor Elevators - Psychedelic Mixes.

First.......... a little (personal) background on this LP before I get into the meat of this post. Then you will possibly be able to understand my obsessive/compulsive about this release a little bit better...........

There are 3 significant points in my life that intersect w/ this release.

The first one being that I was a loner growing up. I had great difficulty relating to other kids & therefore was quiet & withdrawn. This seemed to attract more people then pushed away though as now that I look back I realize that even though I wanted nothing more then to be left alone I never was. There was constant family conflict......... nothing I could rectify as a youth so I took the only option I had available. For months at a time I would not go home. Unusually (from what I understand) I would still go to school (enough to pass) & I even participated in after school activities such as soccer & worked in a haunted house for a season. Anyway I had a very close friend at that time named Ray. Ray would hide me in his attic until his mom left for work (night shift nurse). Then he would wake me (every single time) by playing Fire Engine at top volume. No matter how fucked up I was when I fell asleep we'd get up & pump more into our bloodstreams & head out for a spell. Waking up to Fire Engine every day for months on end is the first part of this puzzle.........

Fire Engine.mp3

The second is after I was sent away to a reform school in Ohio I got a job at The Record Exchange. I was there for the next 15 years. When I first started there were 2 managers who would just constantly fill my head w/ knowledge. One was Vicki who gave me an appreciation for jazz & classical even some world music. Then there was Terry. Terry was eccentric. Terry was odd. Terry was Terry. We had both found out that we grew up in the same area of Ohio under the same circumstances & this created a very strong bond for me. After work Terry would take me down to the basement where we kept the overstock LP's (new & used) & just pull 10 LP's out at a tme & tell me to go listen to them. They were always good. From Caravan to The Dead Boys to The Blue Orchids. He would also make me cassettes. (It was one of his cassettes that played a part in point 3.) One cassette in particular had The 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of.... on one side & on the other was The first LP by The Silver Apples. This was the first time I had heard the LP all the way through & not just one song. This is the second piece...........

You're Gonna Miss Me.mp3

The third piece is when in college I had a roommate named Dave. Dave was a drunk. I remember carrying him over my shoulder 3 flights up just to have him puke beer down my back. Anyway........... first week of school. No one is talking, just co-existing. Barely a hello let alone any conversation. I was reading Camus The Stranger on the bottom bunk. Dave got down from the top bunk & put a CD in. It Was Spacemen 3 The Perfect Prescription. He tracks up Rollercoaster & presses play. Then gets back up to his bunk. Halfway in I realize I am singing along but don't know why. Dave climbs back down & catches me singing to it. "Oh.....you like Spacemen 3?" "No......actually it's a 13th Floor Elevators song.........." Out comes the cassette & we compare the 2 groups the rest of the night.

Rollercoaster.mp3

As you can read all 3 moments stand out strongly in my mind. All 3 moments deal w/ one record. The 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators.

So over the years I have collected Their LP's & CD's. Read books about them & found cool stuff in their solo records, their influences & their contemporaries. But only until recently did I come to find that there were different mixes of this LP. Now I knew there were Mono mixes & Stereo mixes as the Stereo mix was the common one out on CD & there was bootleg Mono mixes floating around on LP. What I mean by different mixes in this instance is this recording has separate mixes for LP, 8-Track & CD. Yes, 8-Track!!!! Now this led me into a whole new category of OCDness. I had to hear all 3 mixes.

Thankfully there is a Google trade group called Texas Psyche (see also Texas Psyche Ranch for their online pressence) that had the resources & time to compile the LP & 8-Track mixes onto CD-R's & make available for trade. From what I understand they were allowed to issue such recordings under the promise that if you received a disc that you send $3.00 per disc to Sumner Erickson for The Roger Kynard Erickson Trust to help w/ Roky's medical expenses. This was back in the late 90's. That right has since been revoked due to a program called Bit Torrent which makes it possible to download a copy & it not be traceable as to who owes how much. (Not that anyone ever sent money anyway........ but this was the reason given as to why there are no more trades on these discs.) Now you have to find them on torrent sites such as Demonoid which actually makes it a lot easier to get copies of them as it seems like they are posted constantly.

Here is the front & back covers for the CD-R releases for the LP & 8-Track release. They made them 2 on 1's. The Psychedelic Sounds of... & Live (which isn't actually live but a collection of single releases w/ the live chatter from a Beach Boys LP lifted off & laid over the fade in's & out's) on one disc.

LP-front


LP-back


8-Track-front


8-Track back


& here is Easter Everywhere & Bull of the Woods.

LP-front


LP-back


8-Track-front


8-Track back


& now the final part of all this. I have selected She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own) to post all 3 mixes of as an example of what I mean. I think it is a good choice as it has background vocals & subtle instrumentation. Listen for the balance of instruments (what's higher & lower in the mix) & how the background vocals stand out or retreat back depending on the mix.

LP-She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own).mp3
8-Track-She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own).mp3
CD- She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own).mp3

Correction. It appears that you still can get the CD-R's through trades w/ Texas Psyche..........
but it also appears that they are not too active anymore as a group per see. To me, it looks like they just issue fan club discs now & post on Bit Torrent sites themselves........... much like the Syd Barrett "Have You Got It Yet" series.............. but that's for another post..........

Real Life Permanent Dreams

In the grand tradition of Nuggets..........



& Nuggets II..........



(You gotta love Rhino Records.)

we now have Real Life Permanent Dreams. While the Nuggets box sets are an extension of the original 2 LP set issued in the 70's & compiled by Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group's guitarist) Real Life Permanent Dreams is a continuation on that the theme. Collecting rare & hard to find singles & obscure LP tracks Castle has really put together one hell of a package. They did a beautiful job on The Kinks reissues & this set ranks right up w/ those as far as sound quality goes. The package is spectacularly adorned & the information on the groups abound. While some stalwarts of the scene do make an appearance in this set the tracks chosen are not the regular affair. You won't find the hits......... but what you will find is something that will make you look past the hits & rediscover the artist or group in question. (I.E. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown is present. They used Fire [Unreleased Alternate Version] & after listening to it I found myself dragging out every C.W.o.A.B. disc I could find & scaring the kids w/ "Fire Poem"...........)



Rhino Records set the bar real high w/ Nuggets but Castle & R.L.P.D. comes damn close to meeting the standard. Not bad for a label that started out merely compiling cheap best of packages. They use to employ a company called Shoot That Tiger to do all the artwork & it always looked cheesy.

Here is an example



but since being taken over by Sanctuary (in turn being taken over by Universal) it looks like they are going to be a force to reckon w/ in at least the re-issue department.







(Sorry...........no pics of the booklet............)

Icarus - Yellow Balloon.mp3
Timon - The Bitter Thoughts of Little Jane.mp3
The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown - Fire (alt.version).mp3
Marc Bolan (with John's Children) - The Lilac Hand Of Menthol Dan.mp3