As part of our 20th Aniversary celebrations we are proud to share with you an exclusive wallpaper for your PC / Mac / Android Devices.
Step 1: Click on the image you wish to download
Step 2: PC users: Right click on the image and choose “save image as” or “set as desktop background“
iPad/iPhone/Android users: Tap and hold the image for 2-seconds and choose “save image“
Earlier this year we posted a review entitled Reinventing Pink Floyd: From Syd Barrett To The Dark Side Of The Moon Book Review By AFG Correspondent Julie Skaggs, Following on from the review Julie has very admirably managed to secure an exclusive interview with the author of this fabulous book Mr Bill Kopp
Our sincere thanks go out to Julie Skaggs for conducting the interview.
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I thoroughly enjoyed Bill Kopp’s new book Reinventing Pink Floyd and was grateful to get a chance to speak to him fan-to-fan on behalf of AFG regarding the process of writing it and the journey he undertook via a close examination of the music of Floyd’s transitional period. As he notes in our exchange, Bill conducts over a hundred interviews a year for various music publications as well as his website Musoscribe and possesses a thoroughly professional and insightful view of rock music and the people who create it. And also my thanks to Bill for his closing comment to me that this was the most enjoyable interview he had experienced overall in the publicity cycle for the book.
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I thought it would be best to begin by discussing how you became a Pink Floyd fan, which I’m assuming coincided with the initial popularity of Dark Side. That’s the impression I got from your introduction.
Yeah, that’s about the size of it. The music was everywhere when I was a kid, I was intrigued by the album covers and then hearing the music. When I was a kid and first started buying albums, I used to have a rule: I had to like at least three songs on a record before I would buy it. And Dark Side of the Moon, certainly, there were three or four that I had heard on the radio and thought, “Wow, this is really good, I’d like to hear the rest of it.” So yeah, I fell in love with their music early on.
How would you characterize the perspective of your particular book? And I ask this because it seems to be about more than just an examination of the transitional period from a primarily musical viewpoint. I know that’s how you express it, that you’re providing something that really hasn’t been done in-depth previously, but it seems like it’s about more than just that.
I think for a lot of people – not to over-generalize – but to people who discovered the band around the time of The Wall, or even, say, Animals, or even Wish You Were Here, I think to a lot of those listeners they might have rightly developed the perspective that The Wall was largely Roger Waters’ vehicle, and in a lot of ways it really really was. And then if you go way way way back to the very beginning, back to ‘67 with the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, a strong case could be made that at that point it was Syd Barrett’s band: he was the face of the band, he was almost the sole songwriter, he was the guiding force of the band. To me, the period in between – from ‘68 until through Dark Side of the Moon – to my way of thinking it was more of a collaborative band. Maybe not four exact equals in terms of their influence and standing within the group but they seemed to have more of a collaborative band approach to things, and for me there’s a real appeal in that. Not to take a single thing away from the work they did post-Dark Side of the Moon but to me it’s inconceivable that any of that could have come about had they not had the foundation of those formative years in which they were really working together.
Ross Greenwood had the pleasure of speaking to Roger ahead of the Australian leg of his world tour, asking why they started the band.
Ross also spoke to Roger about new music streaming services and his new album Is This The Life We Really Want.
The original lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett burst onto the London rock scene in the mid 1960s as a mysterious, charismatic and eccentric figure.
Widely celebrated as a visionary and influential songwriter who laid the groundwork for the psychedelic rock sound, as a guitarist, Barrett remains somewhat underappreciated. While he was never a virtuoso in the mold of Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton, he was a versatile and innovative player who accomplished pioneering work using dissonance, distortion and feedback.
The electric guitar Barrett was most closely associated with was known as the “Mirror Disc Telecaster,” which is a misnomer, because for starters, it wasn’t a Telecaster. It was in fact a 1962 Esquire, and while the metal discs attached to it were reflective, they weren’t mirrors.
Barrett acquired the Esquire, which was originally white, in late 1965. Sometime in 1966 he had it shrink-wrapped in silver plastic film. The discs he attached to it were thin, polished silver metal plates that were in vogue in hippy London at the time; adorning everything from doors and walls, to jeans, dresses and floppy hats.
The Esquire’s cosmetic modifications made the it an important element of Pink Floyd’s otherworldly stage show, the discs reflecting the bubbling, psychedelic lights and projections back at the audience.
Apart from the visual enhancements, the only other mod to Barrett’s Esquire was a raised pickup, which fattened up the guitar’s tone. An early pioneer of creativity over technique, Barrett’s guitar work on Pink Floyd’s early singles and debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, was fairly basic, something the simplicity of the Esquire lent itself to nicely.
While some regard it as a poor man’s Tele, the Esquire actually has its own unique wiring. The lack of a neck pickup reduces magnetic pull on the strings. This gives the Esquire better harmonic overtones and helps create a more percussive attack, elements that can be heard in Barrett’s guitar work with Pink Floyd, which swings between between jangly and melodic to edgy, aggressive and near proto-punk.
Towards the end of 1967, Barrett acquired a white Telecaster (probably from the early ‘60s). Although he kept hold of his Esquire through the end of the sessions for the Floyd’s second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, he stopped using it live and typically played the white Tele at gigs.
Although, by that time, spurred on by rampant LSD use and the pressures of coping with pop stardom, Barrett’s psychological troubles had accelerated and his appearances with the band were becoming increasingly infrequent.
Somewhere in the middle of 1968, Barrett traded his beloved ’62 Esquire for a black Telecaster Custom. This would prove the last electric guitar he would ever own. He used it during his remaining time with Pink Floyd, on his two solo albums–1969’s The Madcap Laughs and 1970’s Barrett–and up until he withdrew from music and moved back to his mother’s house in Cambridge in the late 1970s.
So what became of the silver, reflective Esquire? Like Barrett himself, the guitar basically went missing. After it was traded in for the black Telecaster, it was basically lost to history, becoming yet another element of the mystery of how such a charismatic and visionary talent as Syd Barrett could’ve gone off the rails just at a time when he was poised to conquer the world.
Recently Posted On David Gilmour’s Official Facebook Page
“Just been told that Live At Pompeii has been voted Best Multimedia Package of 2017 by the readers of Prog Magazine.
Thank you to everyone who voted.
– David”
Hot off the press since his one off show in Switzerland last October as part of the International Comedy Club, Guy is back with a one off performance in Gloucestershire this March.
Guy Pratt has been a crucial member of the rhythm section of megastars such as Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, Robert Palmer, Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Jimmy Page, David Coverdale, Womack & Womack, and The Smiths.
And when he’s not been parading his talents live on the stages of every stadium, concert hall and festival around the world, he has been a favourite studio bassist and accompanying singer for the biggest recording artists including Switzerland’s Florian Ast, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Iggy Pop,The Pretenders, Echo and The Bunnymen and McFly.
His one man show is all about life at the pointy end of the music business; Guy regales audiences with stories from behind the scenes. His self-deprecating wit is irresistible and his rip-roaring anecdotes are brilliant and outrageous.
This is an evening which is both funny and frank with enough insider’s references to satisfy even aficionados – and he’ll be bringing his beloved vintage Fender bass to demonstrate his craft.
The show is taking place on the 9th March 2018, 8pm at the The Marshall Rooms, 27 Nelson Street, GL5 2HH Stroud, Gloucestershire
Tickets are now on sale now for the event, Which is priced at the very reasonable rate of £10 plus £1 booking fee.
You can purchase your tickets online for this performance by clicking here.
As part of our sites 20th aniversary we have decided to bring back one of the original games featured on our site when it was launched in 1998,
Back in the nineties the game was hugely popular and was a main attraction for alot of our visitors. Now in 2018 we thought it would be appropriate to bring it back in its original form.
(We have adapted it slightly to make it work on our new system, At the time of writing i can confirm it is compatible with IOS and Android Devices)
From all of us at A Fleeting Glimpse we want to send Nick Mason our very best wishes and hope he has a great day celebrating his 74th Birthday.
11:00am Friday 26th January, BBC Radio 4 is setting out on an exploration of the creative mind.
Gerald Scarfe‘s drawings have intrigued and alarmed for more than fifty years but where do his ideas come from? Professor Vincent Walsh of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience has a theory he wants to pursue. Vincent is an expert in the workings of the visual brain; he thinks that two specific areas may be talking to each other in an unexpected way, resulting in recognisable faces being mixed up with recognisable objects, hence Mrs Thatcher as an axe, a handbag, and even a shark.
Now, cartoonist and neuroscientist are going to meet.
“I for one would be fascinated to know what’s going on in my brain – please pursue this,” says Gerald Scarfe.