Pink Floyd. A Sucerful of Outtakes.

The Syd Barrett estate is putting together a visual history of Syd’s artwork as well as a treasure trove of unpublished photos from his youth and early years in Pink Floyd. The vast majority of these images have never been seen before. If enough people are interested, it will all be published as a large format, cloth-bound, slip-cased, limited edition collector’s book. Right now, though, not enough people have signed up to make it worthwhile for the book to be published. If you think you might like a copy, head over to the Barrett Book website and register your email address. You are not ordering or promising to buy a copy by registering, you’re just letting them know you might want to.

To put you in the mood, here’s a collection of early Floyd recordings, including the extended version of Interstellar Overdrive and Syd’s last songs as part of the band, Vegetable Man and Scream Thy Last Scream.

1. Lucy Leave
2. I’m a Kingbee
3. Interstellar Overdrive
4. Astronomy Domine
5. Experiment
6. Flaming
7. The Gnome
8. Matilda Mother
9. The Scarecrow
10. Vegetable Man
11. Pow R Toc H
12. Scream Thy Last Scream
13. Jugband Blues
14. Silas Lane

Tracks 1 and 2—First Pink Floyd studio session
Track 3—Studio session, 10/31/66
Track 4—Live in London, 5/12/67
Tracks 5 and 14—Studio outtakes, 1967
Tracks 6 through 9—BBC session, 9/30/67
Tracks 10 through 13—BBC session, 12/19/67

Promo video about the book


A video for one of my all-time favorite Syd songs, Bike, that the band shot for Belgian TV


A Saucerful of Outtakes

Pink Floyd. Akademiska Foreningens Stora Sal. Lund, Sweden. 03/20/1970.

Pink Floyd is one of those bands that occupies such a huge portion of my listening history and love of music that I'm at a loss for where to even begin describing them in any coherent way. They were the very atmosphere of my teenage years. Anyway, pretty much everybody formed their opinion of them ages ago. Of course, if your only knowledge of them is from classic rock radio*, you might find that this sounds like a completely different band.

As bootlegs go, this is a great show with fantastic sound. They're still in that early middle period; just emerging from the Piper and Saucerful days, excitedly exploring who they were and what they could possibly be. The early material, though not quite as tight as the live versions on Umma Gumma, show them reaching for something more, trying to pull them apart a little and incorporate some of their newfound tension and drama. Cymbaline sounds sufficiently ethereal without them dicking around with that disembodied footsteps effect, and Saucerful always sounds better when Dave does the choral part at the end. On everything, you really get a sense of them interacting as a band; the intertwined musical call and response to the various directions, sounds and melodies each member creates. I love this period of pure musicality, before they got locked into playing sets that just required duplicating their previous concept album (not that some of those aren't worthwhile, too).

*An open rant to classic rock and oldies stations: Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick people! You have over fifty fucking years of music to pick from. Play Fearless instead of Another Brick in the Wall, or No Quarter instead of Stairway to Heaven, or any of the dozens of awesome Kinks songs that aren't Lola. And just because something was a top ten hit during the 50's or 60's doesn't mean it was rock and roll. I think I may have heard Buddy Holly once on an oldies station, but fucking Sugar Shack got played all the god damn time. There's no excuse for that.

Disc 1:

1. Astronomy Dominé
2. tuning
3. Careful with that Axe, Eugene
4. tuning
5. Cymbaline
6. tuning
7. A Saucerful of Secrets


Disc 2:

1. The Embryo
2. tuning
3. Interstellar Overdrive
4. tuning
5. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
6. tuning
7. The Amazing Pudding (Atom Heart Mother)


Lund CD 1
Lund CD 2