I’ve gone all Gilmour…

From God to Gilmour. There’s a transition! Anyway.

Being a budding young… ok, rookie guitar player, I am of course forming opinions about players and sounds that I like – absorbing my influences as it were. One of the current ‘most admired’ players is David Gilmour – I wouldn’t be alone in voting his solo in Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ as one of the greatest of all time. I was watching his latest DVD release Remember That Night, the live gig he played at the Royal Albert Hall last year, marvelling at the things he can do with his hands… I think his music, and that of Pink Floyd can have a real emotive quality; a feel that isnt too far removed from the kind of space and emotion I could happily see in a (long) worship service.

Anyway, what inspired me to blog these thoughts was a great website I’ve stumbled upon: It has all the guitar goodies you could ever hope to read about: Gilmourish! Amazing site. It has loads of info about all DG’s gear, style etc. And even a really good page on setting up your own guitar rig. Pretty cool.

There’s a virtual avalanche of sites out there for my main guitar hero, The Edge, but none so far have been quite so, I dont know, nicely designed…

Inside Out

I’ve been looking into a little history.

People are always talking about the history of London; of Europe; and you might automatically think of grand old buildings, churches, or bells called Ben. The history I’ve been caught-up in over the past few weeks is somewhat more rock’n’roll, and the only bells involved are of the division variety…

I’ve been reading a book on Pink Floyd written by founding member and drummer Nick Mason, called ‘Inside Out’. The book covers their complete history, and Nick Mason could be considered the only band member to play in the band through its entire lifetime (which, if you’re still counting, is close to 40 years!). It was an enjoyable read, and it satisfied the curiosity about the band which has been loitering about for a few years now…

There are a few reasons for my keeping-up with the Floyds’s:

First of all, somewhat obviously, I enjoy their music. I came into Pink Floyd awareness through the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987) – the first album of what could be labelled ‘the David Gilmour period’, which followed the exit of founding member, bassist, and main songwriter Roger Waters in the early-mid eighties. Roger Waters last big PF release was the The Wall (1982), which had a massive hit with the song ‘Another Brick in the Wall Pt II’. (If you’re getting in to your late 30’s (ish) this may well cue memories of sitting in the back of boring school or university classes with ‘we don’t need no education’ running through your head!) I say ‘big’ as those in-the-know will remind me that he followed-up The Wall with The Final Cut, but that didn’t have anywhere near the success of The Wall. Anyway, after getting my PF beginnings as a fourth former at Pompallier College in Whangarei, (on a borrowed cassette, ahh the 80’s!) I wasn’t totally sold on Pink Floyd until I bought the Pulse (1994, Live at Earls Court, London) on VHS. Now Pulse is one of the greatest concert videos of all time – and it earns that grand simile by the light show alone. Phenomenal. And the good news is that is expected out on DVD sometime this year (although, it has been pushed back many times).

There’s also a family connection in there, in that my brother likes them too. It’s one of the few bands we both like (though he has reportedly enjoyed more U2 of late!) and somehow that resounds with me. It’s good to have something in common with one’s kin (apart from the obvious!). My brother being about 7 years older, he’s more interested in the ‘earlier stuff’ – I remember him saying he really liked Animals, and I’m sure he owns a copy of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ – one of the biggest selling albums of all time (in the American Billboard Top 200 Album chart for 724 weeks, yes, that’s seven hundred and twenty four weeks!!, that’s over 14 years!!).

On the cover of Animals (left) is the ‘brilliantly-London’ Battersea Power Station, which I used to commute past daily on my way to work in 2001-2, while living in London on my last trip here. So there’s another connection. And speaking of covers, the photo shown at the top (the image for the cover of the 1993 Album The Division Bell) is real, not computer generated as one might expect these days – they actually built the heads and lugged them out into the middle of a muddy field in the cold to take the shot. Cool eh?

And it’s not all history - David Gilmour is releasing an album On an Island next week, that is, it’s called ‘On an Island’; he’s not singing about sunning himself on a South Pacific atoll! He does mention the fact that technically he lives on an island (here in the UK) in this article which was quite cool to read following the book. He’s also playing 3 gigs at the Royal Albert Hall, which I was very disappointed to not get tickets for! I found out just days too late – considering it’s the first remotely Pink Floydian gig for 12 years, and 4 years since his last solo live outing (and 20 years since his last solo record!), the tickets were in demand, somewhat!

And on a final note, it’s also very cool as a musician to be living just up the road from the legendary Olympic Studios, at which Pink Floyd and Gilmour tracks have been recorded. The list of clients at the studios is massive, a selection being names like The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, through to Massive Attack and, well, Madonna and Kylie!). Barnes rocks (literally)!