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Last weekend, we, The
Anchor, the satirical
division of the Holy
Church of Iggy the Inuit, felt the peculiar need for an apology. It
is a feeling we seldom have, being a general pain in the arse and having
carefully cultivated the pompous pernickety air our spiritual job has
brought upon us. You may remember that we were not entirely favourable
of the anniversary release of the Division Bell album. In the article Grab
that cash we described it, and we quote:
What seemed to be the hype of the year was nothing but a cheap stunt to
sell some recycled material at exorbitant prices. That the memory of
Rick Wright and the legacy of Storm Thorgerson were thrown in to make a
cynical million bucks more makes this release even more nauseating.
We duly admit this was not nice at all and due to the recent
developments in the Pink
Floyd camp, more about that to follow later, we profoundly
apologise. This doesn't mean that we are suddenly of the opinion that
the Division
BellAnniversary
Edition is worth the bulldog's bollocks, even if it may contain a
hidden Publius
Enigma hint. It still is utterly overpriced and utterly redundant,
but of course what the honourable reader does with his money is his own
business and not ours.
Europe Endless
On Saturday, the 5th of July 2014 at 3:13 PM (UTC), a mysterious tweet
was send into the multiverse by Polly
Samson, a tweet that created a heavy storm in the mostly silent
waters of modern Floydiana:
The world first took its time to digests its scrambled eggs, bacon,
sausages, tomatoes, toast, coffee and marmalade (at least in the proper
time-zone) but about 45 minutes later the news had been retweeted a few
thousand times and had been copied on Facebook walls, forums and blogs
all over the planet.
Singer Durga
McBroom, confirmed the news less than an hour later and added that a
recent picture of her with David
Gilmour hadn't been taken during a solo album session, as she had
stated before, but that she had been asked to do vocals on a new Pink
Floyd album.
Remember this photo? It wasn't what you THOUGHT it was.
A third confirmation came from Pink Floyd engineer Andrew
Jackson, so the rumour that Polly Samson's Twitter account had been
hacked and that this was nothing but a hoax was becoming less and less
believable. There was going to be a new Pink Floyd album, after twenty
years of silence.
This was not going to be just another Pink Floyd album. The starting
point were the Division Bell ambient demos that had been nick-named The
Big Spliff in the good old Floydian tradition to give recording sessions
silly names. Work on the mixes started over a year ago and probably,
although this is nothing but an assumption, it was foreseen as a short
and sweet bonus disk for a Division Bell Immersion set. While working on
the music however, David Gilmour and Nick Mason must have felt something
of the excitement from two decades before, they must have felt the muse,
the inspiration and the spirit of their friend and colleague (and in the
case of bass player ad interim Guy
Pratt, father in law) Rick Wright and decided to enhance the jams
into a proper record, asking Phil
Manzanera and Martin
‘Youth’ Glover to sit behind the mixing console.
Called The Endless River, after a line from the Division Bell’s
magnum opus High Hopes (in itself cryptically referring to See
Emily Play), the album will be mainly ambient and instrumental,
although at least one track will be sung by David Gilmour with lyrics by
Polly Samson.
Recycling Facts
Reactions from that strange horde, also known as the Pink Floyd fandom,
ranged from scepticism to enthusiasm. Some critics found it strange that
Pink Floyd would be recycling old material, perhaps unaware of the fact
that this is something the band has been doing for ages. The whale song
section from Echoes
was borrowed from their concert staple Embryo,
Us
and Them was originally called The Violent Sequence and a Zabriskie
Point soundtrack leftover, and the magnificent Comfortably
Numb was something David Gilmour had been messing with for his
eponymous solo album.
Half of the Animals
(1977) album consists of songs the Floyd played live in 1974 but none of
those fitted the Wish
You Were Here (1975) concept. Animals was and still is a landmark
album, something that can’t be said of The
Final Cut (1983), practically a Roger Waters solo album, featuring
some The
Wall (1979) rejects (and unfortunately it shows).
Let’s not be cynical for once and forget that a separate release of The
Endless River will shelve a few million copies more than a Division Bell
bonus disc. Even if the record will mostly have ambient atmospheric
pieces and may fail the default description of a typical Pink Floyd
album we will consider it as Richard Wright’s musical testament and an
honest tribute from the rest of the band.
Now, and here is a confession this old bartender has to make, when we
read Polly Samson's tweet, we were literally shaking all over our body
as excited as a puppy who has just been thrown a bone. We started
browsing the well-known Floydian fan-sites for more and the first
website who added the news to its page was Col
Turner's A
Fleeting Glimpse.
Segmental Pig File
Col Turner is not your average Pink Floyd fan-site webmaster, he has
dedicated his life to the Floyd and if you ask us, we think he is pretty
daft for doing so. Nevertheless, we appreciate his masochist streak and
if we want to know the latest news of the Dark Side universe Fleeting
Glimpse (and Brain
Damage) are the first ones we open.
When we say that Colin Turner is not an average fan, we mean he is not
an average fan. Turner eats, feels, dreams and breaths Pink Floyd
(frankly we are a bit curious what he does in the bedroom) and as such
he already knew for a while that a new album was in the make. However,
instead of putting that news on his wall, like we would have done in a
nanosecond, he promised the Pink Floyd management to shut his mouth and
wait until an official announcement of the band was made.
Now, we ask you, dear reader, can you get any closer to an official band
announcement than the wife of the band leader, who happens to be the
main lyricist as well, tweeting the news into the world?
Well, opinions seems to differ apparently.
The Bleeding Hearts and the Artists
An artist is, by definition, a creative person, a sensitive person,
someone with a frail mind. He writes these songs that appeal to people
all over the world, people who recognise themselves in these songs, who
recognise the feelings, the emotions, the love, the sadness, the anger,
the Angst.
We, the fans, may think these songs have been written for us and
sometimes we are so touched by the beauty and sincerity of it all that
we will ask the artist to play the latest album in our backyard, for a
beer and a whopper on the grill. That is why an agent, or some
management, comes in... While the artist may not have the guts to
disappoint the fan, his agent's preferable syllables are invariably
'no', 'fuck off' and, if this is your lucky day, 'how much'.
There has always been a huge gap between Pink Floyd, the band, and Pink
Floyd, the company, and it is pretty impossible to determine how the one
has influenced the other. Although some of its members openly preached a
socialist philosophy their business manners have always been exactly the
opposite, at least after the Peter
Jenner days. Steve
O'Rourke was not only a quasi-mythical agent who uplifted the band
from the gutter towards the moon, but he was a bully as well, bombastic
in his manners, a Floydian pit-bull and above all... über-greedy.
Rumour goes O'Rourke started his career as a dog food sales rep, so
determined to succeed that he ate the stuff in front of his prospects to
prove it was quality meat.
Giving none away
The band who criticised capitalism on Money,
paid Clare
Torry£30 for her input on The
Great Gig In The Sky, less than a third of what a Dark
Side of the Moon Immersion set costs. In a nineties interview for
the Dutch Penthouse
a bitter Alan
Parsons recalled how the four gentlemen in the band never told him
that he had the right to earn some ‘points’ on his engineering /
producing work for Dark Side of the Moon. That situation was settled
later when Parsons was asked to remaster the album for an anniversary
release. Clare Torry had to seriously threaten with legal action before
the band agreed to share a small slice of the pie.
Roy
Harper sung the lyrics on Have
A Cigar, another one of these sarcastic songs describing the shady
corners of music business. It was made clear to him that he wouldn't
receive any copyright so Roy asked for some football tickets instead.
Although the band were multi-millionaires by now a season's ticket was
too much to ask and he never received it. The kids, singing ‘we don’t
get no education’, were only given a copy of The Wall album after a
newspaper turned it into a scandal.
Turn, Turn, Turn
Colin Turner published the news about the new Pink Floyd album on A
Fleeting Glimpse, after it had been tweeted by Polly Samson. Then
he messaged the Pink Floyd management that the floodgates had been
opened. While hundreds of others were already retweeting and commenting
on social media a Pink Floyd goblin found it necessary to threaten Colin
with legal action and made him remove the post.
This made Colin so bitter that he deleted the entire news page, and at a
certain point he was so disillusioned he wanted to close down AFG
completely.
I was (...) asked to remove the story as it had not been cleared by
official channels. This I did and I am now awaiting approval to publish
full details about the album, despite it now being widely spread across
the Internet. I intend to honour the commitment I made and the site will
remain down until such a time as I receive official approval to publish.
Louis Matos (and with him many other AFG readers) reacted in shock:
That high service to the fans and to the Pink Floyd brand (...) was
respected by Steve (O'Rourke), is respected by Mark (Fenwick) and should
be respected by whomever now attends to David's business. I find it
insulting - as a professional of the music business - that a loyal
dedicated fan had to be "disciplined" for reproducing a Tweet by Polly
by anyone other than Polly or David (and they could have done it, mind
you). Even - and especially - anyone on the business side of it.
Remember "Welcome to the Machine"? Well, it was about that kind of
abuse. (Taken from: The
Endless River)
To add insult to injury, at the moment when one of Pink Floyd's little
hitlers found it necessary to threaten to close down A Fleeting Glimpse,
the official Warner Music Why
Pink Floyd website had already inserted the announcement on its news
stream. Double standards, anyone?
Now here is where this article is going to get nasty, so if you are
easily offended, please go and visit the Boohbah
page instead.
Slithered Nerves
David Gilmour's (and also Syd Barrett's) management happens to be in the
hands of One
Fifteen who have the following Hunter
S. Thompson quote on their site:
The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic
hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
There's also a negative side.
If our information is correct Paul Loasby probably was the toerag
(note) who intimidated the Fleeting Glimpse
webmaster. According to a Cambridge mafia insider, who we will not name,
Paul Loasby is the opposite of a villain and an amicable man:
I have met him and spoken to him many times. He seems very pleasant and
was always totally respectful of Syd... and others...
But apparently that is only when he doesn't see a pot of gold at the end
of the rainbow, which he will receive anyway, regardless of him throwing
a tantrum about a leaked tweet or not.
What had to be, for the fans, one of the most joyous days in Pink Floyd
history, a new album, a much awaited tribute to Richard Wright, an
indirect nod to Syd Barrett (mind you, not that we think One Fifteen
knows anything about Syd Barrett), the Pink Floyd agent managed to turn
it into something of a misplaced nightmare.
Mister Loasby, you are a party pooper and you should be ashamed
of yourself.
Game of Thrones
But in a way: hats off to Paul Loasby. In four minutes he managed to
kick Steve O'Rourke from his throne as the eternal Pink Floyd baddy,
simply by putting the knife in the back of someone who does a lot of
Pink Floyd promotion, for free. If you are somewhat familiar with the
Floydian canon – this is something dogs do for a living. Welcome to the
machine, indeed.
We want to end this article with a friendly suggestion for Col Turner,
who was at the centre of this crisette.
There is a Dutch saying,
dating from the Middle Ages: "Tis quaet met heeren criecken eten'."
"It's difficult to eat cherries with noblemen", meaning that if you want
to schmooze with the higher crowd you will be treated as their servant
whether you like it or not.
Better be independent, better be vigilant, better be critical than to
bark only when the puppet master allows it, this is The Anchor's motto
and it will always be. While A Fleeting Glimpse may generally be the
first and the best in giving Pink Floyd news, it slightly troubles us
that they have completely forgotten to mention the Last
Minute Put Together Boogie Band release, with Syd Barrett's last
performance.
Sitting to close to the throne, too busy eating cherries over a lavish
Division Bell box set, no doubt.
Epilogue / Update
On the quadrophonicquad
forum Pink Floyd engineer Andy Jackson wrote on the 14th of July (2014):
No, still can't talk about Endless River, the 'leak' was damage
limitation as a UK newspaper had got hold of the story.
So if we read this well, a newspaper - rumoured to be The Sun - heard
about the new Pink Floyd album on the fifth of July and was going to
publish the news, perhaps even in next day's Sunday paper. Polly Samson
was then asked to tweet the news to the world before the newspaper would
publish it. It all makes perfect sense.
But what we still don't understand is why Paul Loasby had to threaten A
Fleeting Glimpse then. Why Pink Floyd? Why?
Can't you see It all makes perfect sense Expressed in dollars and
cents, Pounds, shillings and pence Can't you see It all makes
perfect sense (Roger Waters, Perfect Sense, Amused to Death, 1992)
The Floydian empire strikes back (Update: 2014 09 14.)
For the past few months early Pink Floyd songs have been disappearing
from YouTube: Scream Thy Last Scream, Vegetable Man, Astronomy Domine,
Lucy Leave, King Bee. Even the Men
On The Border live cover of Scream
Thy Last Scream has been silenced and has now got the text:
This video previously contained a copyrighted audio track. Due to a
claim by a copyright holder, the audio track has been muted.
Obviously this is a blatant lie and could be considered illegal, as the
copyright holder of the audio track is Men On The Border itself and not
Pink Floyd, nor EMI, Warner Music Group or one of its little helpers.
Harvested,
a volunteer-driven organisation that archived, restored and weeded (for
free) Pink Floyd live audio and video recordings
has been taken down after a friendly reminder from Mr. Loasby. All its
torrents have been deleted from Yeeshkul
who suddenly went chicken shit and have forbidden the further use of the
'Harvested' word to all its members. Also the Pink Floyd Multicam
website has been closed down.
The argument (from Pink Floyd) that ruthless entrepreneurs take the
freely distributed material from Harvested (like The
Man and The Journey), press it on a CD or DVD and sell it to the
public doesn't make sense. Warner should go after the companies who sell
these bootlegs and not after the people who give it away for free and
thus spoil the 'market' for the bootleggers (although we do understand
this is something of an illegal situation). By closing down Harvested
(and in a near future, perhaps Yeeshkul?) fans will again be obliged to
buy these recordings from shady companies if they want them, instead of
downloading them for free.
As usual the big three fansites (A
Fleeting Glimpse, Brain
Damage, NPF)
haven't mentioned this news at all, afraid to no longer receive the
crumbles falling off the Pink Floyd table and to be left in the cold
when 'The Endless River' will come out. Col Turner, who went apeshit
over Paul Loasby threatening him (read the article above) has removed
all trace of the incident and, as such, it never happened. (It is still
in the forum,
but you have to dig deep to find it.)
Acoustic
Sounds, who will press the vinyl version of 'The Endless River'
(they also did the recent 'Division Bell' release), received the
lacquers cut straight from Doug Sax and crew at The Mastering Lab (Los
Angeles) and posted some pictures on their Facebook page this week.
Guess what, these (innocent) pictures have now been deleted and we can
only guess who is behind that.
Who would have thought that ultimately Pink Floyd would turn into the
neo-fascist impersonation of their Wall album?
(The above article is entirely based upon facts, some situations may
have been enlarged for satirical purposes.)
Note: Toe Rag is also character in Douglas
Adams' novel The
Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. He is an untrustworthy goblin,
secretary of the mighty god Thor, abusing the trust and power the Nordic
god gave him. Back to article.
The Anchor is the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit's satirical
division, intended for people with a good heart, but a rather bad
character. More info: The
Anchor. Read our legal stuff: Legal
Stuff.
It is now about a month ago that the 1972 Last
Minute Put Together Boogie Band gig was released by Easy
Action records. LMPTBB was a power rock'n blues trio with the
practically unknown, but excellent, American singer Bruce Paine
on vocals and guitar, Twink on drums and Jack Monck on
bass, replacing Honk who left the band after a Polydor record deal was
cancelled.
The Six Hour Technicolour Dream concert may well have been their
last, and on top of that it had two surprise guests: Fred Frith
(from Henry Cow fame) who probably plays on all tracks, and a local boy
who had once been a rather influential musician, Syd Barrett.
Not only is Syd Barrett dead, he also is neglected, except for the few
who have reappropriated the term Sydiot and gather at the Birdie
Hop group. From the three important Pink Floyd fan-based websites
only one
has published the news about the LMPTBB record. The others don't know,
or don't care, and are still hop-frogging around the Pink Floyd table,
mouths open, hoping for some Division Bell crumbles to fall off. The
official Syd Barrett website,
although run by the people who allowed the LMPTBB record in the first
place, still remains a place that only comes in handy if you want to buy
some (we admit, pretty) t-shirts.
So the Holy
Church of Iggy the Inuit is about the only Floydian (and Barrettian)
place where you can read about this release. Either we are pioneers, or
raving lunatics, so we guess it's up for you to decide. In our fourth
article of the LMPTBB series we interview Carlton Sandercock of
Easy Action records, who have released this fine record.
An innerview with Carlton Sandercock (Easy Action)
BH: How would you describe Easy Action? We see a few (live)
releases on your catalogue that are pretty rare and that could be
considered non-official.
CS: Easy Action started out 10 years ago as, predominantly, an
archive rock label, specialising in rare and unreleased recordings. We
had the support of Iggy
Pop, Lou
Reed, The
Yardbirds, the estates of Marc
Bolan, Steve
Marriott & the surviving members of the MC5,
initially to create box sets for fans that had been audio restored and
lavishly packaged and annotated by good writers and journalists with as
much factual information as is possible.
In that 10 years Easy Action has blossomed and grown in all directions,
we have 10 labels doing material from singer-songwriter Linda
Lewis to punk-metal behemoths Amebix,
but all done with class and passion.
We are also working with new artists, we oversee the estate of the late Nikki
Sudden and his brother Epic
Soundtracks, we manage the affairs of The Damned / Lords of the New
Church songwriter guitarist Brian
James.
We have worked with one studio all the time in London ‘PSB
Music’ who restore and re-master all our releases. Plus we have some
very talented graphic designers on board. Basically a happy creative
family.
BH: In 2005, the Six Hour Technicolour Dream reel was
rediscovered while browsing through the tape archives at Spaceward
Studios. Initially, they were going to issue the concert themselves on
Gott discs, and they even got the approval of Pink Floyd and the Syd
Barrett family. Do you know why they decided to sell it to Easy Action?
CS: To be honest I don't know why they decided to sell the tapes,
as you know they didn't manage to succeed at the auction. My business
partner Steve Pittis is a huge fan of Pink Floyd, the Fairies and
Hawkwind and contacted the seller directly and offered him some cash.
Although we didn't originally think there were more than a couple of
songs by Hawkwind on the reel. Our initial thoughts were to release the
Pink Fairies set as we know them and recoup the cost of buying the
tapes. We weren't sure if we would be allowed to issue the Boogie band
stuff .
BH: Hawkwind's Six Hour Technicolour Dream gig was already
released in August 2011 as Leave
No Star Unturned (first announced as: The Self Police Parade),
licensed from EMI records. However, the band in its 2011 incarnation was
opposed to EMI being involved, and told the fans more than once that
they considered this a bootleg. Although historically of great
importance, legally these old tapes seem really to be a pain in the ass,
aren't they?
CS: Ha ha, yeah. I contacted Mrs. Brock initially, who informed
me that the recording date of 1972 was EMI territory and they couldn't
give us a licence . So I went to EMI and asked them for a licence and
they gave us a contract, we paid them what we were asked for and went
ahead and put it out.
The band, I appreciate, try and control all their releases and I guess
didn't think we would have any luck whatsoever at EMI... They were
wrong. This is the only time I think in our 10 years where we have
licensed from a major label over the artist. We had absolutely no ‘legal
troubles‘ whatsoever. It's not a bootleg as it has been released
properly and above-board. Royalties have been paid to the contractee.
BH: Were the Hawkwind (legal) troubles the main reason why we had
to wait until 2014 for the Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band to
appear? If we are correct, the record was announced a few times over the
years and then delayed again...
CS: As I said we had no ‘legal troubles’ at all and I wanted to
put the Pink Fairies set out next but life gets in the way and we had
more work to deal with tons of other releases.. Also I initially wasn't
sure who else was in the band besides Twink and Jack.
BH: Is it true that Twink (Mohammed Abdullah John Alder) gave the
release a renewed push, somewhere in 2012 or early 2013?
CS: Yes, absolutely true. Twink has been a major driving force in
getting me to put it on the schedule... However we simply didn't have
any thing to use for artwork... There is absolutely nothing from that
time / gig at all. Until we were introduced to Warren
Dosanjh by Slim at Shindig
magazine. Warren had the original poster (possibly the only one
in existence) and lots of encouragement to boot, so NOW we had the
basics of a foundation to try and put something together .
BH: Did you encounter initial resistance to release this
material? Did you find the Floyd to be approving of more Syd material
being released or did they initially try to block it?
CS: None whatsoever, we have been dealing with the company that
looks after Syd's affairs ‘One
Fifteen’ and have a contract for his performance and they are
helping us with marketing it. To be honest Syd is guest for three songs,
this is NOT Interstellar Overdrive live!! This is a boogie band so it's
really not going to worry Pink Floyd. Dave Gilmour's a nice bloke and is
rightly protective of Syd's legacy, but because we have handled it in
the correct manner and not adorned the album with stickers saying SYD in
big letters or anything crass like that it's ok... It is what it is, an
extraordinary document.
BH: We understand that the Pink Fairies gig is still in the
vaults. Will that gig ever be released as well?
CS: Bloody hope so, although we are hoping to add to that show
and try and do a bigger, better Pink Fairies package... That reminds me,
I must give Sandy (Duncan Sanderson) a call to get the ball
rolling.
BH: The story of the Six Hours Technicolour Dream reel is
spectacular, to say the least. One copy was found in 1985 and
immediately confiscated, in Chuck Norris style, by an EMI suit. A second
copy was unearthed in 2005 and ended up at Easy Action. But at one point
FraKcman (aka Mark Graham from Spaceward Studios) contradicted his own
story by saying that the first tape contained a Stars gig and the second
a LMPTBB gig. Did Easy Action find out, during the negotiations with EMI
and the bands, if both reels are identical, or not?
CS: Mmm, the men in black... sounds great doesn't it? I was told
an original copy was indeed made of the boogie band years ago, but
before the audio restoration that we did. It was very rough indeed and
was ignored... I'm not sure it was Stars. I think it was an unrestored
version of this show. Just my opinion though.
BH: How are sales figures so far? Is there any interest from the
fans? Are they better or worse than the Hawkwind gig?
CS: Well, it hasn't flown out the door at all. We thought
pre-orders would be huge and that it would then die down to a trickle
once it's been copied and shared free of charge online... I'd say cult
interest only and not as big as the Hawkwind album... As I said before
it is not Syd performing any of his songs... It IS perhaps the
last ever recorded performance of Syd Barrett... maybe Floyd fans don't
see it as important.
BH: Did you, in your struggle to release this gig, hear about
other tapes that still exist, for instance Stars, or early demos from
Barrett with Cantabrigian bands?
CS: Ha ha ha. I fuckin' wish! Not a bleedin' sausage and yes, I
did ask... I do think, seeing as we have released this show legally with
the Barrett estate fully on board and we haven't tried to sell this as a
Syd album or anything tacky like that, should anything crop up, I think
we would get a call...
BH: We, Birdie Hoppers, hope it for you, Carlton, many thanks for
this interview.
The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band Six Hour Technicolour Dream
gig, on January the 27th 1972, was not, as you probably know, Syd's last
gig, nor was it his last recording. Actually, Syd never joined LMPTBB
but gigged with them twice as a surprise guest. How the tape survived
into the twenty-first century and was finally published by Easy
Action records is a story you can read here: The
Last Minute Put Together Reel Story.
Apparently the vibes were so good that two out of three LMPTBB members
started dreaming of a post-Floyd Barrett band, not very much to the
amusement of singer Bruce Paine if we may believe Joly MacFie
(Twink's business partner in the Cambridge music club Juniper Blossom
and Stars roadie annex sound-man):
I was sharing a house with Twink and Paine. Paine was a somewhat vain
and career oriented American who went on to join Steamhammer. He wasn't
compatible with Syd. When Twink showed more interest in Syd, Bruce got
pissed off and moved out and that was the end of the band. (Taken from
So what's with 1972 Stars reel? @ SBRS (forum no longer active.))
Stars
was formed shortly later and would gig about five times, dates and
venues can be found at the Pink
Floyd Archives:
Date
Venue
City
Band
1972 01 26
King's College Cellars
Cambridge
LMPTBB
1972 01 27
The Corn Exchange
Cambridge
LMPTBB
1972 02 05
The Dandelion Coffee Bar
Cambridge
Stars
1972 02 12
Petty Cury, Market Square
Cambridge
Stars
1972 02 12
The Dandelion Coffee Bar
Cambridge
Stars
1972 02 24
The Corn Exchange
Cambridge
Stars
1972 02 26
The Corn Exchange
Cambridge
Stars
Pink Floyd biographer Mark
Blake tried to find out more about the mythical Stars tapes, that
have been rumoured to exist, and posted his finding on the Late
Night and Syd Barrett Research Society forums (here edited a bit):
Rehearsal tapes - Twink has mentioned on more than one occasion that Syd
recorded the early practices. It goes without saying that these tapes
must be long lost. Dandelion Cafe - lots of people (Twink, Jack and
possibly Joly [MacFie]) remember Victor Kraft sitting there with his
Nagra tape machine at the Dandelion, and possibly the Corn Exchange as
well. Market Square - recorded, supposedly, by a friend of someone
who mentioned it on the Laughing Madcaps list. The tape, supposedly, is
at the taper's parents' house in Oxford. [Note from FA: this is probably
the tape mentioned at Fortean Zoology. All efforts to make the blogger
move his lazy ass have been effortless: Beatles:
Off topic but not really.] Final Corn Exchange show (with Nektar)
- according to Joly MacFie, his co-roadie Nigel Smith had a friend
called Chris who taped this show.
Although some YouTube videos claim to contain Stars tapes these are
believed to be either fakes
or mislabelled Barrett solo concerts, so it is still waiting for the
real deal, if they not have been buried in the vaults of Pink Floyd Ltd.
But the good news is that the Six Hour Technicolour Dream tape has been
released by Easy Action, that Syd Barrett stars (sorry, we couldn't
resist the joke) on three of its tracks and although the sound quality
is only slightly more than average, the fun is dripping out of our
stereo boxes. Mythical drummer Twink, who is currently recording a
follow-up of his legendary Think Pink album (1968), lend us some of his
time to tell us the following...
An innerview with Mohammed Abdullah John Alder, better known as Twink
BH: Of course we all know this record is interesting for Syd
Barrett's performance, but the real discovery on the Last Minute Put
Together Boogie Band is that amazing singer, Bruce Paine. How did you
and John Lodge (Honk) meet up with him and how did the band come
into place?
MAJA: I first met Bruce Paine in the autumn of 1971 at Steve
Brink's boutique "What's In A Name" in Union Rd just before he rented a
room in Steve's cottage which was situated next to the shop. We talked
very briefly about putting a band together because at that time I was
just helping Hawkwind out from time to time. Once Bruce had moved
into the cottage the band came together quite quickly. I recruited John
"Honk" Lodge as our bass player who was living in London but that didn't
seem to get in the way of the band project. Other members included Dane
Stevens (The Fairies & The Cops And Robbers) on vocals & Adam Wildi on
congas but both only lasted one show. We called the band The Last Minute
Put Together Boogie Band.
BH: Who came up with the idea of naming it the Last Minute Put
Together Boogie Band? Is there any explanation for the band's name?
MAJA: Bruce came up with the name and I think it was simply that
the band came together quite quickly once show offers began to come in.
BH: After a record deal with Polydor had failed, Honk left the
band and was replaced by Jack Monck.
MAJA: Yes, "Honk" left immediately the Polydor deal fell through.
I think he was disheartened because Polydor's A&R department made it
clear that after the demos we did for them, we were in. The whole thing
fell down at the contract stage because the contracts manager there was
having a bad day. He refused to raise the contracts and kept playing Led
Zeppelin at full volume which drove us out of his office. He apologised
to me about a month later just after he had been fired from his job. But
the damage was done and there would be no record deal for The Last
Minute Put Together Boogie Band.
BH: Did you meet Syd in Cambridge before the Eddie Guitar Burns
gig? Did you know that Syd was going to jam with LMPTBB on the 26th of
January 1972 or were you as surprised as the audience?
MAJA: I was surprised and happy to see Syd arrive at the Eddie
"Guitar" Burns gig with Jenny and carrying his guitar case. He arrived
while we were sound checking, came to the back of the stage area, took
his guitar out of its case and started to tune up. We had been friends
since 1967 but we had lost touch in '68. It was wonderful to see him
again. The following day Syd came to The Six Hour Technicolour Dream
where The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band was supporting Hawkwind &
The Pink Fairies. Again I was surprised to see him there with his guitar
case. Syd was keen to play so we invited him to join us on stage along
with Fred Frith from the band Henry Cow who was guesting with us
that night.
BH: It must not be easy trying to remember a gig from 40 years
ago, but there are two different testimonies about the Kings Cellar's
concert. One witness says that LMPTBB played twice on that concert.
According to him, the opening support gig had Syd, Monck and you. After
the Eddie Guitar Burns gig, LMPTBB returned, this time with Bruce Paine.
According to Terrapin magazine Syd jammed with LMPTBB after the Eddie
Guitar Burns show. Not that it really matters, this only shows how
anoraky we are.
MAJA: The Terrapin report is correct however it is possible the
Syd, Jack & I tuned up together but that was not part of the show.
BH: Now to the Six Hour Technicolour Dream concert of the
following day. How did Fred Frith come on board? Did he know Syd Barrett
was going to be there as well? What was his reaction? What was your
opinion after the gig had ended?
MAJA: We had a lot of contact with Fred Frith & Henry Cow who
frequently played at The 10p Boogie Club which was run by Joly MacFie &
myself at Fisher Hall in Cambridge having taken over the venue from
Jenny Spires & Jack Monck and renamed it Juniper Blossom.
The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band often played there and so did
Henry Cow. Fred Frith guested with The Last Minute Boogie Band there
too. Fred guesting with us at The Six Hour Technicolour was more formal
and when it was decided that Syd would guest too he was welcomed by all
concerned with open arms. Our performance was well received and with
Syd's enthusiastic participation at both the Eddie "Guitar" Burn gig &
The Six Hour Technicolour Dream our creative wheels began to turn
resulting in the formation of STARS with Syd Barrett, Jack Monck &
myself a few days later.
BH: Was this the LMPTBB's last gig? Did anyone say, this is it,
last gig, finished?
MAJA: The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band continued after
Jack & I left for STARS with replacement musicians.
BH: Did you, at one point or another, think of asking Syd to join
LMPTBB?
MAJA: It was Jack & Jenny that thought about forming a band with
Syd.
BH: If our information is correct you have been pulling some
strings to make this release possible.
MAJA: The only things that needed sorting out were group members
and song details as well as contract details to include both Bruce Paine
& Roger Barrett's Estates. Then there was restoring, mastering and the
cover to achieve as well. Everyone was very helpful.
BH: As you probably know, Pink Floyd (or EMI) have another copy
of the LMPTBB tape, however at one point there were rumours this tape
actually contains a Stars concert rather. know what they really have?
MAJA: I have no idea what EMI have. It's possible they have a
STARS tape.
BH: Any chance that the LMPTBB Polydor tapes will ever see the
light of day? Does anyone know where these demos are?
MAJA: It is possible The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band
demos will be released as they are probably sitting in Polydor's
archives. I think Honk may well have a copy tape.
BH: In retrospect, what was the band you were happiest with? If
you could go back to these days what would you have changed to make it
better?
MAJA: Playing with The Pretty Things made me happy and I wouldn't
want to change a thing.
BH: Many thanks, Mohammed, and good luck with Think Pink 2!
End of part four of our LMPTBB
series. If you don't stop us, there will probably be a part five. You
have been warned.
Many thanks to Mohammed Abdullah John Alder, Rich Hall, Peter Jansens.
Inspired by questions from: Mike Baess, Rick Barnes, Andre Borgdorff,
Anita Buckett, Rich Hall, Jane Harris, Alexander P.H., Peter Felix
Jansens, Raymond John Nebbitt, Lisa Newman, Göran Nystrom, Anni Paisley,
Cheesecake Joe Perry, Paul Piper, Michael Ramshaw, James Vandervest.