There is no DSOTM - as a matter of fact it's all dark

these are words that can be heard as the music ends and heartbeats fade at the end of Dark Side of the Moon. Legend has it that this is the security guard at the studio who has a few comment on the name of the album

thanks ejaz, for your comments on Pink Floyd (PF) record that I mentioned, i have seen Zulfiqar’s PF page and it truly is impressive, when talent meets inspiration, what you get is magic

i am one of the wierdest PF fans you will know

every time someone mentions PF, it feeling like being in suspended animation in a time warp, 

flash back to '84, the beginning of this love affair with PF attributed to an off-the-cuff remark by an unassuming chainsmoking old lahori salesman who worked at the Clifton offbeat shop in those days, he gave the band a resounding two thumbs up

pocket money was scarce and reserved for top-10 charts something I am not terribly proud of, now. But those days,  I was not ready to fork out my money on a band recommended by the old man at offbeat

love rekindled with a video in ‘87, that had a character resembling an american indian tribal chief standing at the edge of cliff posing to jump, the next shot shows an eagle soaring in the sky

this was ‘learning to fly’ video from the album ‘momentary lapse of reason’ (MLOR ‘86)

more than the video, i was mesmerized by the vocals, “can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky, tongue tied and twisted, just an earth bound, misfit, I”, the guitar riffs had the sort of passion that I had never heard before, the track gave me the chills, I came back to it again and again, something that I later learned one must not do with PF

a little bit of research revealed that what I had purchased was an album released by PF sans roger waters, the creative brain behind the band from 1969 to their ugly breakup following the completion of THE WALL

roger waters and david dilmour had had a falling out and the court decided in favor of david Gilmour the right to the band’s name. So MLOR was the first PF album without roger waters and the album received mixed reviews and contempt by some PF fans

I felt bad as I had not heeded the advice of the old sales man at offbeat, I hated the fact that I did not know the band when they were together. Now my first ever PF album was something that was ranked as at best an average effort. There is in lay the opportunity – if MLOR was a mediocre album then there as a treasure trove waiting to explored – fortunately an FM channel played ‘dark side of the moon’ (DSOTM) in its entirety of a CD (remember that it was '87 so the clarity was crystal clear)

It was a revelation, PF at its best but more importantly it exposed me to my first concept album

This brings me to THE WALL another concept album but there was so much media hype about THE WALL , that I found movie taxing on my nerves

I could not relate to roger water story of repressed childhood, an absent father (who died in WWII), popularity of a budding rocker that brought him fame but also isolation and in the end “the wall” of isolation.

I can relate to themes of madness in the earlier PF but megalomania of a rock star in THE WALL is not a theme I particularly enjoyed.  

after Syd Barett's departure from the band (in 69-70), the creative domain fell upon the shoulders of roger water. This was fine through the 70's but come early 80's, roger waters gave us the THE WALL which was autobiographical and deeply personal. The album may have broken the final straw as far as the band was concerned

roger waters wanted to play himself in the movie but Alan Parker, who refused refused and agreed with the studio that Bob Geldoff was a better choice.

So what you have is two types of PF fans. One is the type that is only aware of specific aspects of PF. You mention to them THE WALL and they will say that they loved “we don’t need no education” or “money “ from DSOTM, these fans only have a caricature of the band in their head

The other group in which I hope I can include myself have been listening to PF as a concept band and will listen to the albums in their entirety.  So even if when i said that I found the WALL (the movie) taxing on my nerves, there are moments on the album that are haunting and beautiful, “good bye blue sky” and the starting part where you “as go skating on the thin ice of your lives” 

The beauty about PF is that reinvents itself.

with every album there is a high associated that becomes personal and the word “favorite” does not do justice to this experience.

There are so many phases to their development as a band that it is difficult to say which PF is one talking about

The band that an underground phenomenon in the 60’s when Syd Barett was the body and soul of PINK FLOYD.  In this phase, syd was the creative genius and the friends, roger waters and the two other guys were never at the forefront.  The band that released PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN and SAUCER FULL OF SECRETS is all Syd Barett. Pure underground psychedelic rock.

This “original” PF died in the late 60’s after barett was thrown out when he failed to show up at concert gigs, his experimentation with drugs led to a nervous breakdown soon after

Then there is a rebirth of sorts when roger waters brought in david gilmour as replacement, ironically syd and david knew each other before syd knew roger and formed the band in the first place

this irony is mentioned in their later albums that is that the band threw out the leader of the band

and that syd wandering about in the abbey road studios and staring at david gilmour during the recording of WISH YOU WERE HERE. (WYWH)  (The YOU I suspect is the band reference to syd)

The story goes that by this time syd had gained so much weight that the band was recording WYWH they failed to recognize the “old man” that was hanging about the studio

I respect every thing that they created and cannot pick one segment from their body of work that would be called a favorite because all it is so original

May be will write more when I muster up the courage, my mind is so tuned to PF that its been playing St Tropez from Meddle 

as I was typing all this I think of playing it, but as soon as I turned on the deck, the amp got a electric surge after a long spell of loadshedding so off to the repairman I go after I blog this part