Hi im Ummagumma23 and im a floyd fan
I have created the following low quality articles;
- Games For May
- Plethodon vandykei
- Mallorcan midwife toad
- 1967 Singles Sampler
- The 1994 West Coast Trip
- Radio K.A.O.S (tour)
Ive currently made about 1500 edits on wikipedia. I have adopted The Piper At The Gates of Dawn album article.
Although Pink Floyds music is often associated with psychedelia, space and progressive rock, the bands roots musically are with the blues and jazz. Originally Pink Floyd performed cover versions of blues staples by lead belly and blind lemon jefferson, with an early 1965 demo containing the Slim Harpo cover "Im a King Bee". Since the band were increasingly under pressure to play longer sets, these blues numbers were expanded with often long improvisational moments filling in the gaps between verses. This experimental and highly improvisational approach likely influenced one of the bands earliest live staples "Interstellar Overdrive" and was certainly what attracted Peter Jenner to the band in 1966. The early 1965 demo also contained a number written by the bands frontman Syd Barrett. "Lucy Leave" a Rollingstones-type song, immediatly presents us with Syds English approach to song writing, but lacks Barretts later psychedelic style. Syd began writing songs at a fast pace throughout 1966 as the band began to emerge as one of the leading forces withing the underground scene. Soon enough the blues covers began to disappear as Syds increasingly original style of songwriting began to dominate the bands repatoire.
In January 1967, the band recorded "Interstellar Overdrive" for Peter Whiteheads documentary film. At 16 minutes long, the track was clearly quite radical and showed the band were capable of experimenting with sounds. However, their first single "Arnold Layne" released in March, showcased a more conventional approach to songcraft, a fact which was not lost on the bands audience at UFO. The pop stylistics continued on the bands second more commercially successful single "See Emily Play", a perfect psychedelic pop tune for the summer of love. The bands first album however was entirely more radical, and contained a mixture of space rock interspersed with a darker psychedelia. The bands blues and jazz influences can only midly be felt, with Rick Wrights rather incongruent piano solo during "Pow. R. Toc. H." the only link to the bands roots. The record is dominated by Syds slide guitar work and the organ of Rick Wright, placing it firmly within the sixties. To this effect "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" could be viewed as dated work, but in fact offers in retrospect an insight into an era most of us only dream about. The album although released during the fabled summer of love, is more dark than light. The opening track "Astronomy Domine" the strongest on the album, immediatly propels you into space where you remain for the next 40 or so minutes.