Remembering Pink Floyd: The Best $5 I Ever Spent
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Earlier this week Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, 65, sadly passed away following a battle with cancer. I love Pink Floyd. To me Dark Side Of The Moon is not only one of the greatest albums ever made, it is the first album EVER that I remember spinning non-stop, continuously, all the way through, from start to finish as a very hyper-active kid. It mellowed me out better than a dose of Ritalin or hit from the peace pipe. Eventually the Pink Floyd CD collection grew. I remember buying Works for $5. I only bought it because it was so cheap, figuring it was one of those "weird" Pink Floyd albums, like Ummagumma. Shit! That album, a sort of weird compilation, ended up being the best $5 I ever spent! The intergalactic space odyssey that is "One Of These Days" into the old school "Arnold Layne," one of the band's earliest tracks, and the chiller "Fearless," all quickly became my mix-tape staples.
It was pointed out to me by my ex/it's complicated/sorta dating again boyfriend Matt, a bigger Pink Floyd fan than myself, that Floyd always revisited their music or experimented on it. We were driving down La Brea listening to Obscured by Clouds' "Childhood's End" (released 1972). It was a classic situation of how Pink Floyd improved on their sound. The same ticking and beat came back to haunt on their next album, which happened to be '73's Dark Side of The Moon. Listen to Childhood's End" and then "Time" to see if you hear any similarities:
"Childhood's End," Obscured By Clouds
"Time," Dark Side Of The Moon
When Pink Floyd reunited for the Live Aid concert in London a few years back I went bat crazy for a ticket. It was one of those internet-based lotteries you had to sign-up with a UK address. I was living in West Village, NYC at the time and used a pals London address. In the final round of 1000 tickets released for the event bat crazy paid off and I got one. But, "Oh happy day!" exclamations were squashed by the fact the whole shindig was going down in a week AND it'd cost $2000 for a last minute flight across the pond, not to mention another $2000 I'd probably had to dish on room, transport…and so forth. At the time I didn't think $3000+ to see Pink Floyd live was worth it. It will now always be one of the biggest regrets (and you should never have any) in my life, as Wright's passing means another Pink Floyd reunion has gone to shit.
So in loving memory of Rick Wright I encourage every Mogger to post their favorite Pink Floyd memory , tidbit or trivia.
Comments (12)
Pink Floyd at Veterans Stadium possibly 1994 (whenever Division Bell came out). My friend was gonna take care of tickets for us, since he had his dad's credit card. We went to the show and their were tickets available - cash only! We were stuck outside, so close but so far away.
Numerous stoned trips to see Laser Floyd at The Franklin Institute was always a great way to spend a Friday night. Great sound system.
I'll probably have the lyrics to The Wall forever etched in my brain, as I played it everyday for probably 2 years straight starting at 14.
the best floyd to me was always the vintage floyd umma gooma, piper at the gates of dawn, a saucerful of secrets, meddle all THAT stuff....after animals the band in essence was worthless...i saw the wall at nassau coliseum and it did nothing for me..,.yet animals at msg was an incredible show....
Did you sell your ticket on eBay? Bet it was worth a lot :)
Shine on, you crazy Charley :)
i gave it away. hopefully karma will come back round
I for some reason chose not to see them when they came around here for The Division Bell. I figured there's be another chance, and of course there never was.
I've been a Floyd fan since high school, going on 20 years, and at one time could have really been the picture of "Floydian Freak" I was so into them. I like just about everything, but my favorite has always been Atom Heart Mother. That is one under appreciated masterpiece. And in fact my fave PF song of all is "Summer '68," penned by Mr. Richard Wright himself. He will definitely be missed.
Dark Side of the Moon was the first thing I bought when I decided to try and get into music. needless to say, I haven't been the same since.
Finding an English copy of Saucerful Of Secrets in the used bin at Arons around about 1970.
Seeing them on tour a few months later at Santa Monica Civic. Wright was panning his keyboards through speakers up the sides and back of the hall, so that the sound swirled completely around us. That and Waters singing Set The Controls... really stand out in an amazing night.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! Seems there's a lot of us that PF affected early on...and we weren't necessarily born in time to witness their largest successes--that says a lot!
I posted my personal tribute to PF and Wright here: http://mog.com/incurablyerin/blog/195456
Before you run over to iTunes to buy some PF, read my post comparing the costs for Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall at both iTunes and Amazon.
konk- i keep going back to your post here. this scoop on amazon having the classics for way cheap is awesome. the way to go. thanks again!
No prob, Charley. Glad to help a Mogger out!
I've been listening to the Floyd since I was 13.I'll admit that my getting into them was somewhat illicit as I spent most of my teen years on psychedelics such as LSD,psylocibin,mescaline and STP My first memory was listening to the live half of Ummagumma,it was almost orgasmic and I was hooked.I took a pass on seeing them in 1987 and 1994 because I wasn't impressed with thier sound at that time.A friend wanted me to go with him to see Roger Waters in '87 but I hated his album at the time,Radio Chaos.Apparently he called Gilmour a "fucking asshole",so it was a surprise to see all 4 together again at Live8.I was hoping for an eventual tour and maybe even an album but when Rick died,so did the Floyd.I have an extensive collection of concerts from 1969-1977.It's through those recordings that I have a piece of them frozen in time.RIP Richard Wright and Syd Barrett.