March, 2012 | Pink Floyd Videos

Posted: 03/02 @ 04:03 amPinky and the Floyd takes on The Wall

If the performances of the entire “Dark Side of the Moon,” last year’s sold-out show at the Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture, and increasing popularity around the Northwest weren’t enough, Bozeman’s 10-piece Pink Floyd tribute band, Pinky and the Floyd, is tackling a new challenge for their growing repertoire: “The Wall.”

Thursday, March 8, the first of back-to-back performances at the Emerson’s Crawford Theater will feature Pink Floyd’s rock opera in its entirety, with sets, a choir, actors and live visual mixing on stage.

“I’m pumped,” said bassist Sean Lehmann. “It’s a performance like we’ve never done before.”

Then Friday, March 9, Pinky will again take on “Dark Side of the Moon.”

To complete “The Wall,” Pinky and the Floyd learned more than a dozen new tunes to fill in the gaps. Favorites such as “Another Brick in the Wall” and “Comfortably Numb” had long been a part of their repertoire which now includes more than five hours of Pink Floyd music.

Four years ago, when the band was formed, the group would all bring their own experiences of the music to the table, all playing as much as possible. Now, however, when they learn songs, they actually sit down with the sheet music and go through each note. This allows the band to know what should be included in the performance of each song, as well as what to leave out.

“There are a lot more moments where there will only be two or three people on stage,” said rhythm guitar player and vocalist Dustin Tucker. “There’s beauty in the simplicity.”

In this way, “The Wall” is different than much of what Pinky and the Floyd has focused on in the past.

“We’re not just hitting them with rock star moves,” Joe Kirchner said. “There are really soft, poignant moments.”

Pinky will again be joined by the Bozeman High School Concert Choir, but this time they’ll have to have parental permission to perform. Jake Fleming, who plays guitar and saxophone and is also a music teacher, went over the lyrics with representatives from the schools, saying he wanted to be “upfront and honest” about the content of the material.

“This is not rated G,” he said. “We’re dealing with real themes here.”

In the story of “The Wall” Pink Floyd, based on Roger Waters, distances himself from the world and the pain and suffering in it, building a mental wall brick by brick with each blow life deals him – the death of his father during World War II, the cruelty of his school teachers, and even his overprotective mother.

As Floyd grows older and becomes a rock star, he deals with other issues related to his fame, his failing marriage and the drugs he takes to release his mind from it all.

“It’s totalitarian, all sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll,” Jake Fleming said.

Though “The Wall” is dealing with adult themes, it is a classic piece of rock history, and should be dealt with the same way as other classic works that have very adult and sometimes shocking situations, like “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” or “any opera,” Jake Fleming explained.

Much of the school’s music curriculum is taught from historical perspectives, whether it be the history of religious music or the history of rock ‘n’ roll, according to Renee Westlake, music supervisor for the Bozeman Public Schools.Westlakesaid she often hears from parents about themes portrayed in music.

“We take a lot of risk in education,” she said.

The songs where Pinky and the Floyd are joined by the choir are all lyrically appropriate for their age group, Westlake said. Other songs, however, have mild profanity coupled with political statements and sexual references. Plus, alcohol will be served at the event.

“It’s not a school event, but it’s a great historical experience for the kids,” Westlake said. “I’m glad our kids are being given the opportunity.”

The high school students have been rehearsing diligently and are excited for the performance.

“I just keep thinking about what it would have been to have a choir experience like this in high school,” singer Jeni Fleming said.

The students learn real-life experience that is extremely valuable if they want to pursue music, Jeni Fleming said. They see the practice and the tech rehearsals and the 90 percent of the job that is very unglamorous.

“Then, they also get to experience why we do this, because those moments on stage are so satisfying,” she said.

For more information, visit www.pinkyandthefloyd.com.

Rachel Hergett may be reached at rhergett@dailychronicle.com or 582-2603.

Pinky and the Floyd performs “Happiest Days of Our Lives” into “Another Brick in the Wall” at the Emerson Theater on March 10, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v3J-ZjToB8feature=related

Pinky and the Floyd

EmersonCenterfor Arts Culture’s Crawford Theater

March 8, 7:30 p.m. – “The Wall” and more

March 9, 7:30 p.m. – “Darkside of the Moon” and more

Tickets are $20 for one night or $30 for both nights and are available at Cactus Records inBozeman.

Food and drinks will be available in Emerson Ballroom at 6:30 p.m. each night, sponsored by the Emerson Grill. All proceeds go to Hand Me Down Some Silver.

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Posted: 03/02 @ 04:03 amMUSIC: Welcome to the machine: Floyd tribute show Saturday

Photo by Photographer: Ron Macaluso

Contributed photo/Ron Macaluso
Pink Floyd Tribute band Set the Controls will perform for a second time at San Angelo’s Bill Aylor Sr. Memorial RiverStage on Saturday.

Photo by Photographer: Ron Macaluso

Pink Floyd Tribute band Set the Controls will perform for a second time at San Angelo’s Bill Aylor Sr. Memorial RiverStage on Saturday.
Contributed photo/Ron Macaluso

Photo by Photographer: Ron Macaluso

Contributed photo/Ron Macaluso
Pink Floyd Tribute band Set the Controls will perform for a second time at San Angelo’s Bill Aylor Sr. Memorial RiverStage on Saturday.

What: Set The Controls — Re-creating the Music of Pink Floyd

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Bill Aylor Sr. Memorial RiverStage, 16 E. Avenue A

Cost: $12 in advance, $15 at the gate, $10 for active duty military at the Goodfellow Air Force Base outlet. Advance tickets are available at the McNease Convention Center box office, 500 Rio Concho Drive, Blair’s Western Wear, 4230 Sherwood Way, Goodfellow Air Force Base and the San Angelo Stock Show Rodeo office, 200 W. 43rd St.

Information: americanpinkfloyd.com

SAN ANGELO, Texas —
I wasn’t born a Pink Floyd fan, but I became one as soon as I could. As a child of the ’70s I grew up listening to my parents’ music — Earth, Wind and Fire, Boz Scaggs, The Eagles, The Beatles, The Commodores, a little Merle Haggard, Elvis Presley and even Barry Manilow (sorry, Dad). Pink Floyd’s music wasn’t introduced to me until my sophomore year at Central High School, when my friend Karen Norman Fussell popped a cassette tape into her Dodge Omni’s stereo and let the magic flow. I was immediately hooked.

Naturally, when I received a text last summer from my friend and former co-worker Blair Breitreiter Smart (also known in my household as “Da Blair”), saying she and a group of fellow musicians were bringing an American Pink Floyd tribute band to San Angelo, I was thrilled. Thrilled to see Blair and thrilled to see her musical talents and meet her bandmates.

Along with my excitement, however, came the apprehension that comes with bringing any new act to San Angelo, a town where Texas country and Tejano concerts tend rule the box office.

Would San Angeloans appreciate the band’s sound? Would they come to the show?

I’ve heard a friend of mine, a former program director for local radio, tell the city’s civic events manager, Anthony Wilson, that “San Angelo is a walk-up town” on many occasions. Would they “walk up” to the gates for Floyd tribute band Set The Controls?

The show was scheduled for a Saturday, and I met the band at the Bill Aylor Sr. Memorial River Stage early that afternoon. As Blair introduced me to the “boys,” I knew I was going to have a great evening.

Here’s the band in a nutshell — frontman Todd Weidner, a tall drink of water with flowing locks of hair and a smile that could melt butter; guitarist Patrick Himes with a beard so epic a pirate would be envious; guitarist and keys Denny Presley in a hat and glasses, looking scholarly; Jordan Hampton, bassist, with a pensive, quiet charm; drummer Scott Sofier, who seemed more comfortable behind his drum set than anywhere else; and of course, Blair Smart on the sax, keyboards, vocals and whatever else she could play for the night. (By the way, they all are involved in other bands and music projects besides Set The Controls.)

When these six took the stage it quickly became clear they had mastered the music of Pink Floyd, paying homage to David Gilmour, Roger “Syd” Barrett, Roger Waters and company.

My apprehension dissipated as I watched from backstage while the crowd began to build. Looking out into the audience, I saw young and old from every walk of life enjoying the show, some dancing to the beat, some singing along. A crowd formed across the Concho River, and families gathered to enjoy the tunes. The “walk up town” myth turned out to be true as more fans of Pink Floyd crowded the RiverStage.

Smart promises a collection of new songs this time, along with the music we all heard at the last show in July. She and fellow members of Set The Controls are ready to come back to her hometown and rock the RiverStage.

Oh, and just in case you can’t make the Saturday show, the band and friends will perform at The Wall, 1421 W. Beauregard Ave., tonight. See you at the show!

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Posted: 03/02 @ 04:03 amPink Floyd: Immersion, Experience and Discovery reissues

Reviews CDs

Published: 2012/03/02

by Rob O’ Connor

Pink Floyd: Immersion, Experience and Discovery reissues

EMI

For all of the accolades throughout the years concerning the greatness of The Dark Side of The Moon —and it is a striking, singular achievement—it’s important to note the lesser-known works in the Pink Floyd catalog. But before I can do that, I have to deal with this, this, this… thing —this truly hilarious and mystical Immersion box that includes six CD/DVD/Blu-Ray configurations of the legendary DSOTM album with trippy concert films along with marbles, coasters, brilliantly odd photographs and what appears to be a scarf. Upon opening the Wish You Were Here box, I’m confronted with more of the same: marbles, coasters and the scarf.

It’s so perfectly Pink Floyd of them. As a fan, I wouldn’t want it any other way. In an age where the average album is now just a click away, it’s refreshing to see a band that still believes in artifacts that don’t have any real utility. These special editions include many fine abstract shots executed by the Hipgnosis team and band photos taken by photographer Jill Furmanovsky, but who—pray tell—will dare rip up their booklets to hang them on the wall? No, I’m keeping these boxes somewhere the cat can’t get them.

Listening is an entirely different trip. Grab your headphones for the stereo mix, fire up the 5.1 Surround System for the 2003 SAC D mix, delve into the world of the original quad mix and do yourself a favor: Listen in front of differentspeakers. Never have the vocals for “Wish You Were Here” sounded so naked or the sound effects to “On The Run” been so detailed. (The mixes are available on DVD and Blu-Ray.) Floyd albums were designed for days like these when the instrumental parts could be spread out over the widest spectrum imaginable. For a band that put the leisure into rock and roll, these recordings slow boil and reveal themselves over decades.

Now, those without a rich aunt to support them may have to settle for the Experience sets where you’ll do without the various mixes, but receive a decent live recording of DSOTM from Wembley in 1974. For WYWH, it’s the Wembley ‘74 performances of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and then “Raving Drooling” and “You’ve Got To Be Crazy,” which became “Sheep” and “Dogs,” respectively, on Animals. Add alternative versions of “Have A Cigar,” with bizarre harmony vocals, and “Wish You Were Here,” with Stèphane Grappelli on violin and David Gilmour sounding quite lonely in the right channel for the opening verse.

The Discovery editions of the albums feature just the albums with lyric and photo booklets. The good news is that when Pink Floyd remaster their albums, they don’t get involved in the silly ‘loudness wars’ and drive and compress the sound to illogical heights. No, the albums are kept true to their original vision with all their space retained. On the downside, while “See Emily Play” made it to A Foot in the Door: The Best of Pink Floyd, other singles and outtakes—“Arnold Layne,” “Paint Box,” “Julia Dream,” “Biding My Time,” “Embryo”— are still orphaned to previous collections. But have I mentioned how everyone should rediscover the 23-minute epic, “Atom Heart Mother Suite”? Or how The Final Cut, while now considered by many to be a Roger Waters solo album with Gilmour going along for the ride, is a carefully calibrated study in monotones whose flatness reveals great depth. “Southampton Dock,” anyone?

Pink Floyd had a definitive sound, yet they never repeated themselves. Staring at film footage of them working through “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” from Brighton, 1972, one sees the signs of glorious derangement as the web of sound entangles all four members. There are those who prefer the Syd Barrett era. Personally, I’d give the edge to Gilmour and the albums Atom Heart Mother, Meddle through Animals. Gilmour’s musicality works like waves in the ocean. Yet, he needed Waters to steady him, for The Division Bell simply lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. This is why bands exist and why no matter how Amused To Death I might be by the idea of their solo works, nothing ever matches what they achieved together.

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Posted: 03/02 @ 04:03 amPink Floyd: The Wall (Immersion Edition)

A Grand Edition to Prop Up its Mortal Remains

It would require much hubris of me to suggest that I have any more to say about this album than has already been said. I was born 12 years after the release of the record, and I’m writing about it 33 years after its release. Scholars with many more credentials than I have analyzed pink Floyd’s discography. The hooks of tracks like “Another Brick in the Wall” and “Hey You” are known better by people who lived through this album. As devoted of a progressive rock fan I am, I am in a position that critics much greater than I once occupied. To say the least, making a comment about this record made me pause.

Yet as I looked through the extensive box set that EMI crafted, I realized that there really was only one thing I could say about the album. Once I had looked through the photography that gives a beautiful snapshot of the extravagant live shows for the album, listened to the demo tracks that thoroughly show the nascent stages of what would become the album, and once again read the album’s lyrics, one sentence summed it all up:

The Wall is a masterpiece.

It’s an underwhelming statement, I know. The statement is especially underwhelming given all of the stops EMI pulled out in the production of the Immersion edition of this legendary concept record. But that was all that needed to be said, and the simplicity of that statement by no means undercuts the complexity of The Wall. After 33 years, the record’s criticism of institutional corruption, its depiction of angst and loneliness, and most of all the music remain as powerful testaments to the legacy of Pink Floyd. While The Wall may not be the band’s finest moment (I would argue that title belongs to their 1975 release Wish You Were Here), it is still a great moment, and further evidence of the band’s consistency in their 1970’s LPs. My primary focus here will be on the bonus material found in the Immersion box set, as much of what I have to say about The Wall has already been said. Before I do that, however, I’ll speak a little to the album itself.

The word “remaster” can be misleading; some albums that are “remastered” may not have needed the remastering job in the first place. Some classic rock LP’s I’ve heard actually sound better in their dated form, much in the same way that some older films don’t look good on Blu-Ray because of how the pristine quality reveals all the flaws of the older film. The 2011 remaster of The Wall avoids this entirely, managing to keep the original quality of the recording alive while also incorporating crisp new audio quality. The difference isn’t something that will blow you out of your seat in comparison to the original; in a lot of places it’s subtle, but still noticeable. I own a good copy of The Wall on vinyl, and in comparison, this remaster is a clear improvement.

The easiest area to see the improvement is in the quality of the guitar tracks. The riff on album opener “In the Flesh?” introduces the album powerfully, and on this remastered version it sounds (what I imagine is like) the first time. The guitar tracks sound great on this remaster, but often each song will have a track that stands out. Immediately following the killer guitar on “In the Flesh?” is the crystal clear drum production of “The Thin Ice”. My favorite track of the remaster is “Young Lust”, which sounds the most invigorated of all of the songs. The mix retains a strong continuity in quality, which is impressive given the amount of material that constitutes this double album. I could go on and on about how brilliant each track is, but that would take us away from the real draw of this box set, which is the bonus material. If you’re reading this review, you’ve likely heard “Another Brick in the Wall” (in its various iterations), “Comfortably Numb” and “Hey You”, though you haven’t heard them like they’re done on this album.

The additional CDs that come with this box set include the two-disc live album Is There Anybody Out There? (initially released in 2000), two discs of demos, and a bonus DVD featuring a documentary about the live shows and some music videos. The live album is great, but by including this alongside the visual and art materials, it makes you realize how much you needed to be there to truly experience The Wall. Part of what makes this Immersion edition so great is how it shows that The Wall is much more than a mere concept album: it’s an extravagant stage production, a philosophical critique/satire, and a collection of art pieces. Paradoxically, this also makes listening to the live recording a yearning experience. As I watched the documentary “Behind the Wall”, I was frustrated watching concert footage that showed the audience members sitting. I thought to myself, How the hell could you sit through a show like that?!

The demos are where the immersion really kicks in. Many might not listen to all of the demo tracks; most are pretty short and at times uninteresting. But the benefit of the inclusion of these tracks is that it shows the length to which the band took to record the album. Being a guitar player, I noticed the various tones the band experimented with prior to the final album’s recording; David Gilmour’s demos are particularly interesting in seeing the development of the tracks.

Behind the Wall is the strongest feature of the supplemental DVD, which is by far one of the best parts of the box set. The film is a thorough document of the goings-on of the live shows, which, mildly put, was extensive. The premise of the stage performances of The Wall involved slowly building a brick wall in between the performers and the audience. That wasn’t the only deception, however; when the show opened, the band members weren’t even on stage. Instead, musicians in lifelike masks performed, with the band members coming in later. (Which naturally prompts the immortal prog query, “…is this where we came in?”) The documentary doesn’t stop at chronicling The Wall; it spans as early as Piper at the Gates of Dawn and goes beyond The Wall as a record to Alan Parker’s legendary film based on the album.

And finally, to the art materials. There are some curious collectibles: a scarf knitted to look like the titular wall, coasters, and marbles being the oddest of the lot. (Silly as it is, the scarf is quite comfortable.) The really relevant material comes in the oversized album booklet, featuring photos of the album art as well as the live concerts. A faux backstage pass and concert ticket are also included, which serves not only as a relic of a past, but also as a reminder that what you’re about to listen to isn’t merely an album. Listening to the album while looking through the art materials is the best way to capture what The Wall truly is: a concept album of the highest order, one that is a clear progenitor for future concept albums. The ghost of The Wall echoes in the artwork Hugh Syme did for Dream Theater’s Octavarium, and the unique live shows are a clear influence on progressive outfits like Tool, whose penchant for highly artistic, strangely distant live shows is evident in the work of Pink Floyd.

While I’ve addressed all of the best parts about this box set, in truth the past many paragraphs are but the skeleton for what could be a much longer exposition. This is an incredibly thorough re-release, and there’s a lot to take in from the moment the cover is lifted off the box. EMI could have made this a gimmicky, overpriced package, but they didn’t. Sure, the scarf and marbles may be a bit much, but what is included is absolutely worth the box set’s high price tag. This is extravagant precisely because The Wall is such an extravagant album. The album runs almost an hour and a half. It spawned a whole film and multiple theatrical live shows. Like most concept albums, it isn’t one most people casually listen to. As its title implies, the Immersion edition truly takes us into The Wall, reminding us why over 30 years later it has attained the legendary status it has. It’s by no means a perfect album, but one cannot talk about progressive rock concept records without mentioning The Wall. The album that Pink Floyd made in 1979 marked a milestone in progressive rock, and this box set captures everything perfect and imperfect about the album. When long after its release we’re all still singing along to the multiple singles that came from the album, it’s clear that this is a unique recording amongst concept albums. The Wall exemplifies both the album as an art form while also having some brilliant individual moments.

Had this box set fallen prey to the follies of re-releases, it could have been a forgettable brick in the wall of the band’s career. It isn’t. It is The Wall.

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Posted: 03/02 @ 04:03 amMUSIC: Welcome to the machine: Floyd tribute show Saturday – Standard

Photo by Photographer: Ron Macaluso

Contributed photo/Ron Macaluso
Pink Floyd Tribute band Set the Controls will perform for a second time at San Angelo’s Bill Aylor Sr. Memorial RiverStage on Saturday.

Photo by Photographer: Ron Macaluso

Pink Floyd Tribute band Set the Controls will perform for a second time at San Angelo’s Bill Aylor Sr. Memorial RiverStage on Saturday.
Contributed photo/Ron Macaluso