David Gilmour - HRV CDR025 - Kabuki Fever

Kabuki Theater, San Francisco, California  / 26 June 1984
Label: Harvested HRV CDR025
Audio Source: FM broadcast
Lineage: Original Harvested shn-files --> FLAC 8 --> MWP
(see protocol file for conversion details)

Artwork: included

Gallery Link
http://www.mindwarppavilion.org/cpg/displayimage.php?pos=-5145
http://www.mindwarppavilion.org/cpg/displayimage.php?pos=-5150

Number of Discs: 2
Total running time: Disc 1 72m 37s / Disc 2 72m 31s



Notes:

(original) WEED ANNOUNCEMENT

Hello All,

Get ready to rock with Dave and his solo band.

Kabuki Fever, HRV-CDR-025, is now available for download from Scott's server.
He'll be posting the details momentarily.

Thanks to Ron's continuous quest for the best. We have another fine recording to add to the Harvested catalog.

Here we have David Gilmour caught during a stop in San Francisco on his About Face tour. Live at the Kabuki Theater 26 June 1984.

And it doesn't end there. As bonus tracks, we have some additional David Gilmour goodies. First is 'Deep In the Blues', performed at the Les Paul Tribute in Brooklyn, New York on 18 August 1988. Following this gig is 'Ah Robertson, It's You', performed on Saturday Night Live 12 December 1988.

But wait, there's more...

We also have those elusive Joker's Wild tracks on here. That's right, Joker's Wild. This was one of the bands David belonged to before joining Pink Floyd in 1968. These are the only recordings I know of pre-Pink Floyd David Gilmour. In 1965, Joker's Wild put down 5 tracks on a single-sided mini LP.

Now, how's the sound quality you ask? Well, except for a little hiss here and there, the Kabuki performance is excellent, as are the first two bonus tracks.
And the Joker's Wild stuff? Well I've compared them to the versions distributed on the Rarities Tree, and there is no comparison. This is a magnitude of order improvement. A few subtle reminders that the tracks were sourced from a needle tracking a groove, but otherwise, very clean sounding.

Just sit back and enjoy...

HRV-CDR-025 Kabuki Theater

Disc 1:
Until We Sleep 7:20
All Lovers are Deranged 6:01
Love on the Air 6:00
Mihalis 9:53
Cruise 8:40
Short and Sweet 8:29
Money 13:40
Out of the Blue 4:28
You Know I'm Right 8:04
-----
72:39

Disc 2:
Run Like Hell 7:39
Blue Light 12:33
Murder 9:31
Near the End 12:38
Comfortably Numb 9:18
Deep in the Blues 4:57
Ah Robertson, It's You 4:42
Why Do Fools Fall in Love? 1:53
Walk Like a Man 2:12
Don't Ask Me 2:55
Big Girls Don't Cry 2:16
Beautiful Delilah 1:54
-----
72:33


As always, posting your own reviews is highly encouraged.

'Til next time,
Ed.



Kabuki Fever

Just a note to say how much I liked the latest Harvested release. I have A New Game on original silver pressed CD and I have to say that I do prefer the Harvested release. I like the sound better. I also like the chatter between the songs. Who is it that is speaking besides DG?

As someone else pointed out I am amazed that the Dave doesn't sing BS in Money. On New Game, I always thought it was edited out, as if it was taken from the radio or something. Very strange indeed. I am also curious about the exact date - maybe we'll figure it out someday.

Also, one of the dates of the extras is wrong - can someone tell me which one it is and what the correct date is.

Thanks to the Harvested team for making this available. Another fine addition to the collection. Looking forward to future releases (Project B!!).

BTW - been listening to Ummagumma, OBC and More. If you haven't listened to them in a while, do it. Great, great stuff.

Later all,

Jim



Re: Kabuki Fever

Thanks for your kind words, Jim. Glad you're enjoying
our latest effort.

The other guys that speaks in between songs is Mick Ralphs, Dave's other guitarist. Also, the date for the SNL show was fixed (changed to 1987...not 88) and the Kabuki Thtr show's date is correct, as far as I'm concerned.

Ron



Kabuki Fever review

Hello my Floydian friends!

Ed asked:
>Now, does anybody have any comments or thoughts on Kabuki Fever?

So here I go...

I compared the Kabuki show with the "New Game" RoIO, which is said to come from Berkeley 29Jun84, and the show is exactly the same! To my surprise, the sound quality on "New Game" is much better than on "Kabuki Fever". This is not a matter of taste: the sound on "New Game" is really superb, with almost no hiss AND clear and deep sound. The problem with "New Game" is the fact that the songs fade in and out, so the announcements and tuning between tracks are absent. Thanks to "Kabuki Fever", we now have the complete recording including the chat and tunings between the songs. But it would have been better if the songs themselves had been directly taken from "New Game" RoIO.

The fillers on CD2 are really excellent! The Les Paul tribute track is far better than the source I had. And the Jokers Wild songs are very clean. I compared them to the versions of "A Tree Full Of Secrets", and I found out that the vinyl crackles (very well cleaned on "Kabuki Fever" BTW) are exactly at the same moments, so I'm sure that the original vinyl source is the same. On "A Tree Full Of Secrets", no de-noising was used, this is why all the crackles can be heard. On "Kabuki Fever", the songs are clean and clear at the same time. Excellent job!

Cheers!

Marc-Olivier



Re: Kabuki Fever review

Well, as far as M-O's opinion goes, I have a great deal of respect for the man so this is by no means a slam or a flame.

I own the "New Game" CD and decided NOT to use it as a source. I like the Harvested sources to come from low gen analogue masters whenever possible. I listened to the "NG" CD and found that it had less hiss, but only because it had been "tampered with". Noise Reduction was used to get it to sound like the way it does.

While it is not a matter of opinion whether or not Kabuki Fever has more hiss (it does), it IS a matter of opinion of one's preference. I prefer the sound Kabuki Fever over New Game.

Marc-O, your opinions (and everyone elses) are very welcome and appreciated. I just wish that more folks (or ANYONE else for that matter), would write more about these releases and give me some feedback.

In any case, I hope you all enjoy this latest release. I'm sure Project B will be will leave you all with something to write about ; )

Ron



RE: [harvested-weeds] Re: Kabuki Fever review

Well, I'll do my best to fulfill your request for more reviews and thoughts about this show in particular :-)

I have to admit right out that I am not overly familiar with David Gilmour's solo career. Yes, maybe heresy, and certainly not trying to start a Dave vs. Rog debate, but I've always listened to Roger Waters' solo material more. So this set was a revelation for me in terms of seeing Gilmour outside of PF.

I'm not a massive stickler for sound quality. Yes, it is important, but for me an inspired performance is more important than sound quality. The example I've always used is the Starclub Phyco one...it sounds horrid, but I love that disc, because there's so little concert Syd Barrett era material out there. Being that Kabuki Fever is really the first 'full' David Gilmour show I have acquired, I find it to be a great introduction to the other side of Gilmour's playing and writing.

I know, not a great, all-singing, all-dancing review, but this is definitely a show I am glad has been given a Harvested treatment, and it has made me want to explore DG solo more...which I think is all that really matters!

Bring on Project Birmingham!!!

Bill K.



Kabuki Fever

Thanks to Marc-Olivier Becks and Bill K. for their recent postings. With 280+ persons on this board, maybe we can get a little discussion going.

While I was deglitching Kabuki Fever, I did some comparisons with New Game. SQ aside (Ron has his reasons for not doing NR), I realized at that time, that they were the same show. I thought about bringing up this topic in my weed announcement, but decided against it. I'm glad someone out there is paying attention.

KF claims to be from San Francisco (26Jun84) and NG claims to be from Berkeley (29Jun84). Which one is right?

At the end of the regular set (before the encore), we hear "Thank you San Francisco, we love you!" This would lend support to the 26Jun date. But since Berkeley is only a stones throw away from San Francisco (across the bay next to Oakland), I'm not sure if that statement can be a 100% guarantee.

Ed.



Re: [harvested-weeds] Kabuki Fever

Having been to a ton of concerts in the Bay Area I have noticed one thing whether the concert was in Concord, Berkeley or even Oakland, when the band either said hello San Francisco or good-bye, the crowd would correct them for example, Men At Work @ Berkeley were corrected until the lead singer finally got the name of the city they were in, Lynyrd Skynyrd @ Oakland 1978 New Years Eve, same thing. And then sometimes, if the crowd was really stoned, they didn't really care where they were. Unfortunately I was not at this concert in Berkeley or the Kabuki Theater in Japan town of San Francisco so I couldn't say but maybe a quick search in the right place or maybe ask bear.

just me



Kabuki Fever

Some years ago when I first picked up DG's solo albums, I was hoping for Comfortably Numb style guitar solos throughout. Somewhat disappointed then, it took a while for the albums to grow on me, which they did. Kabuki Fever though has the songs from these solo albums, but with the jams as I had first hoped. Tracks like Near The End, here over 12 minutes as compared to the studio of 5ish mins which fades out when it gets interesting - also drum/bongo solo in Blue Light, and so on... Money too, which I often skip in the live shows (due to over exposure - how nice he didn't feel he had to play it at Meltdown), has a very nice guitar/piano extended section.

Sound quality is very good, though the hiss is certainly evident, particularly at the quiet beginning to the tracks, though becomes less noticeable once they are into the tunes.

Also the hissing seems to be stronger in places than others. The transition is clearly evident between the end of Money and beginning of Out Of The Blue, where the hiss suddenly 'cuts in'.

Also, I assume it isn't my copy as I have it from SHN, but at around 8.13 on Comfortably Numb the hiss level suddenly drops and the 'sound' appears 'different'.

The bonus tracks are great, and the sound quality of these is excellent. Great to hear the first two for the first time. I would love to see a RoIO collection of these one off DG performances (stick in the two recent live duets with Jools too : )

The Jokers Wild tracks have been 'de-crackled' and have a less tinny sound than on the rarities, though I don't have a very musical ear to pick out more subtlities after just a brief comparison.

Regarding the artwork, I like the inside part devoted to Jokers Wild, nicely done. The photo sees DG at the front of the group, though I didn't think he was the band 'leader' - and are the two extras just that, extras? The photo at the bottom brings a smile as the 3 members of the audience in the shot dont seem to be terribly interested in the band on the stage : )

The tray photo, I assume has been digitally altered. What's going on here?

This is DG as I like to hear him, preferred loud over speakers rather than headphones, great RoIO!

Rob.



Kabuki Fever

Hi
...request a shn copy Of Kabuki Fever from me if you wish one.

I was interested in hearing the longish Near the End, that is, how it compared to the official version. Now I never had much of a connection to the official version, never paid close attention to the music nor scrutinized the lyrics but that changed when I heard the Harvested release Who Was Trained Not To Spit On The Fan? It seems to me that there might be a slight musical connection between the official Near The End, and the film version of Mother, and a motif on Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, with a small moment on Who Was Trained...

Also, it seems that the work on Marooned benefitted from the Kabuki Fever version of Near The End

..so, again, I do have copies ready to send

Gregory



Kabuki Fever review

First, I have to say that I'm not a great fan of "About Face" LP. I like "Gilmour" LP better, but Wright's LP, "Wet Dream", from the same year is - IMO - more interesting. Anyway, Kabuki Fever is a set that it is nice to listen to, and here's why :

YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT : I've completely rediscovered this song on Kabuki Fever. On the studio version, there was an horn and strings accompaniment, and a short solo in the end; whereas on the live version from Kabuki Fever, the string section has been replaced by a synthesizer with the typical sound from the 80's a-la "Jump" by Van Halen. And what I really like is the very long solo (which is great) on the live version. In fact, what is REALLY GOOD on Kabuki Fever and what I REALLY appreciate is that those songs, performed live, are often improved by an extended guitar solo and or some new arrangements so that you could like on Kabuki Fever some songs that you didn't like or even remarked on About Face. Generally the songs from "About Face" are better in this live performance than on the studio LP (except for "Murder" because of this awesome fretless bass on the studio version).

Another example is NEAR THE END : the LP studio version is great (kind of acoustic with a nice solo in the end, but unfortunately too short). On the live version, the solo is VERY long and Gilmour does one of his finest solo.

BLUE LIGHT (or how borrowing Run Like Hell and his trademark echo-riff) : with have here a 12 mn long version with a riff that is reminiscent of the one one Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax" (which was released later, I believe). (the "Relax"'s riff is not on the studio version of "Blue Light"). By the way, on the studio version, the recycled riffs from Run Like Hell are even more obvious.

MONEY : strange version. I don't like particularly this version, except for the piano section during the middle jam section which is a great bluesy piano jam. Gilmour censored himself by omitting the "bullshit" word from the lyrics. First I supposed that this censure came from the broadcast, but since Ron wrote me that Kabuki Fever came from a soundboard source, and not from the broadcast, I don't know what to think... If someone has any clue about this, I really would like to know why Gilmour felt in front of this audience that he had to remove "bullshit" from "Money". Did this happen before ? I've never heard on a Pink Floyd RoIO a version of "Money" without the "bullshit" word. Even when Gilmour used to forget the lyrics during the '72 tour (Hollywood Bowl 22.9.72 for instance), he didn't forget this word ;- )

RUN LIKE HELL : what I like here, is the aggressive and rage vocals. It works really good, unlike the '87 and '94 Pink Floyd performance of this song (just IMHO).

MIHALIS : My favorite track on "Gilmour" LP is the beautiful song "So Far Away". Too bad that Gilmour didn't perform this song in live. Hopefully, Gilmour plays the instrumental "Mihalis" which is one of my favorite track from his first LP. After the song, we hear "Mihalis, that's Greek for Michael", which is the nickname of Gilmour's boat.


About the sound quality of the Kabuki show, I don't have the RoIO "New Game". OK there is some hiss, but the sound quality is good. I would rate it EX+

The 2 bonus tracks are brilliant. The sound quality is IMO better than the Kabuki show (less hiss and clearer, rated from SUP- to EX+). Those 2 instrumental tracks features great solos (especially the bluesy solo on "Deep In The Blues").

What to say about the songs from Jokers Wild's mini-LP ? IT'S FUNNY TO HEAR THAT (great SQ for a rare mini-LP from the 60's). If you want to know more about those great lyrics, just look at the titles, it speaks for itself : "walk like a man", "big girls don't cry"... Mind you, those "deep" lyrics are not so far from the one that wrote the Beatles in the early days (From Me To You, There's A Place, etc...); but yet in 1965, the Beatles, especially Lennon, already wrote some "deeper" lyrics : In My Life, Nowhere Man, Girl...

The sound, style and lyrics of these Jokers Wild's songs made me rather thought of Frank Zappa & The Mother Of Invention's first LP ("Freak Out!", released in 1965) but without the sense of humour and self-derision from Zappa.



The band:

David Gilmour
Gregg Dechart
Mickey Feat
Jody Linscott
Mick Ralphs
Raff Ravenscroft
Chris Slade

http://www.pf-db.com/index.php?concert_id=203&bootleg_id=243




Info: This is the twentyfifth Harvested release.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Floyd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Floyd_discography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Floyd_live_performances

http://www.davidgilmour.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_gilmour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_Face_%28album%29

http://www.harvested.org/




Tracklisting:

Disc 1:

01 - Until We Sleep 7:20
02 - All Lovers are Deranged 6:01
03 - Love on the Air 6:00
04 - Mihalis 9:53
05 - Cruise 8:40
06 - Short and Sweet 8:29
07 - Money 13:40
08 - Out of the Blue 4:28
09 - You Know I'm Right 8:04

Disc 2:

01 - Run Like Hell 7:39
02 - Blue Light 12:33
03 - Murder 9:31
04 - Near the End 12:38
05 - Comfortably Numb 9:18
06 - Deep in the Blues 4:57 #
07 - Ah Robertson, It's You 4:42 +
08 - Why Do Fools Fall in Love? 1:53 *
09 - Walk Like a Man 2:12 *
10 - Don't Ask Me 2:55 *
11 - Big Girls Don't Cry 2:16 *
12 - Beautiful Delilah 1:54 *


# Les Paul Tribute form BAM Majestic Theater, Brooklyn, NY. Aug 18, 1988
+ Saturday Night Live, New York City, Dec 12, 1987
* Jokers Wild - Regent Sound Recordings
Originally released as a 12-inch mini-LP, recorded in 1965


Torrent History:
Originally seeded to Mind-Warp PaVilion by schnittstelle on November 20, 2007.
WackoBros&Sista thank the Harvested boys for their releases.



FLAC fingerprints:
(use these to check file integrity, and also if you are unsure whether you already have the same files or not - the prints remain the same even if file names and tags are edited, so if you have the same files, the fingerprints will match)

Disc 1:
101 Until We Sleep.flac:301a40dbda8c9206a00e077f340e0315
102 All Lovers Are Deranged.flac:7fdb5b40718a7e9a8966d213846e755d
103 Love On The Air.flac:266e9e426e5701697c8810d101b04286
104 Mihalis.flac:423782a968ac4e5ec1c7ef2febaec619
105 Cruise.flac:036fe161bc3931314498a8316afa7346
106 Short And Sweet.flac:002a22431d7761138ef2d242ba49b5a7
107 Money.flac:5c2a2fb41a005f6f04a9a4e09cc12454
108 Out Of The Blue.flac:7cb437c13464e81084acd2e6936b099e
109 You Know I'm Right.flac:a5acfc58a1a31709a5f479ab4937725e


Disc 2:
201 Run Like Hell.flac:512aa7ffdd0e988797fb80abde50e348
202 Blue Light.flac:fa9c52644c9e178a12bbe73c0fc9b4bd
203 Murder.flac:6dd7684e832c7353e24b6b8e15736da6
204 Near The End.flac:8accb294f69e66d35359c0781136d323
205 Comfortably Numb.flac:c8fded279cb9d2daac93eea8062fa4f9
206 Deep In The Blues.flac:8f9bebb9a0a5f8a0ad92577b952255e2
207 Ah Robertson It's You.flac:d523a6422ccbf2be57b6cc548026c56d
208 Why Do Fools Fall In Love.flac:1870957f663c3b6a7d0c025d8db0cfd1
209 Walk Like A Man.flac:185df88a5b772692af2e341d39419207
210 Dont Ask Me.flac:0e6992ec9269e5c24580cb4a81da7528
211 Big Girls Dont Cry.flac:4738230d0efc855cb512477a3c261e11
212 Beautiful Delilah.flac:c7a5a0b62502b15d58ecbc3c83a5911f

Cover

The inner sleeve of the LP is unusual: wider than it is tall, it does not fit into the outer sleeve if turned 90 degrees. In one corner are printed the words "Fleudian slip".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_Face_%28album%29

 ...Gilmour solo work is new for me.
Years ago I copy on cassette both CDs but listened just a pair of times.

btw: here are the LINKS: http://www.mindwarppavilion.org/smf/index.php?topic=3507.msg54955#msg54955

I already put the links I found in the first 9 HRV threads, soon I will put the rest of them. 

David Gilmour - About Face

Who better to wield a poker at Pink Floyd's pretensions than the band's own guitarist? For his second solo album, David Gilmour brings on the massed hacks of the National Philharmonic Orchestra for one of those sprawling Floydian instrumental buildups that threatens never to go anywhere – and then cuts it off before it does. He calls it "Let's Get Metaphysical" – the perfect dig. Elsewhere, unfortunately, Gilmour lacks such acute focus. He comes up with one terrific cut – "Until We Sleep," which barrels along on a killer synthesizer riff and boasts vocal harmonies straight out of the Notorious Byrd Brothers songbook – and, with Pete Townshend helping out on lyrics, two very Townshendesque romantic ditties, "Love on the Air" and the yowling "All Lovers Are Deranged." But the postfolkish "Murder" veers dangerously close to Gordon Lightfoot territory, and the remaining five tracks lack musical muscle – although "Out of the Blue" and "Cruise" are certainly heartfelt laments about Europe in the shadow of Ronald Reagan's rockets, and "Near the End" is a wry and equally heartfelt lament about aging ("Thinking that we're getting older and wiser/When we're just getting old"). Not bad at all, but–except for Floyd cultists–not essential either. (Rolling Stone 417)

KURT LODER

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/davidgilmour/albums/album/96485/review/5946874/about_face

He has also recorded two solo albums which both hit the U.S. Top 40 and went Gold, his 1978 self-titled debut and 1984's About Face. Gilmour has stated in interviews that some of the songs on About Face were ones he'd hoped to contribute to Pink Floyd's 1983 album The Final Cut, but Roger Waters staunchly refused. This signalled the beginning of the end for the Waters-led Pink Floyd.
Gilmour's third released solo album was On an Island in 2006, which went to #1 in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

(Part 2)

Interviewed
David Gilmour- DG

GS: There are lots of multi-tracked guitars on Pink Floyd albums. How do you make up for that in concert?

DG: I usually have a second guitar player along, like Snowy White, Tim Renwick, or on my '84 solo tour, Mick Ralphs. I also work out the parts that I think are important to have in the songs, and try to get one of us to be able to do any bit that is vital at any moment. So we sort of make up a composite part for each track. Sometimes you miss things and sometimes you can have the synth play a guitar part that was on the record.

GS: As far as your tone, you use a lot of squeals, but it seems that in other places, you're right on the edge of feedback.

DG: Well, I like to be there. If I want to get feedback, I just go into the studio and stay close to the amp. I control it with great difficulty. I like it to be at the point where it's all running away from you and you're only just about in control. In fact, I sometimes like it when I'm not sure whether I'm in control, or the guitar and amplifier are.

GS: Which pickup do you prefer to get feedback?

DG: I use the treble [bridge] pickup virtually all the time.

GS: Do you write on acoustic or electric?

DG: I work songs out on anything that comes to mind: piano, organ, synthesizer, acoustic or electric guitar. When you pick up an acoustic, for example, certain ideas tend to come-you tend to move into certain areas musically. And they're very different from the ones you come up with when you pick up an electric.
GS: You're known as a Strat player, but sometimes we've seen you holding a Telecaster.

DG: Actually, it's a converted Esquire. I started out on a Telecaster before I joined Pink Floyd, and it was the first really good guitar I had. I've used Telecasters ever since, though I play Strats a bit more and that's what I'm generally known for.

GS: Have you ever considered using, say, a Les Paul or ES-335 in addition to the Fenders?

DG: I can't really get on with them that well. I don't really feel comfortable with them-I don't know why. I've just always been with Fenders and haven't managed to make the change. I've got a hybrid guitar that's like a Strat with a tremolo and a humbucker. In fact, I find that I play guitars without tremolos less and less.

GS: Do you find that trems tend to make you use less left-hand finger vibrato?

DG: I use both fairly indiscriminately. I mean, I can be in the middle of a solo and do one note's vibrato with my finger, and then the next one with the tremolo bar. It's a different sort of sound. I don't plan to use both; I just do it without thinking. As far as the actual spring setup of my trems, sometimes I have three, sometimes four. Then I just adjust the tremolo up until it feels right with my gauge of strings and everything else. I don't find that I have too much trouble with it going out of tune either. There are a lot of little things to make it go better, but it's never been too severe a problem for me.

GS: Years ago, you occasionally used a slide in your right hand while fretting notes and chords.

DG: It was not really playing slide; it was more like making spaceship noises. But I usually hold the slide in my left hand. I really don't use bottleneck slides, either. If I'm going to play in that style, I'll use some sort of lap-steel guitar. For that style, I'll either use a pick or just use my fingers and no pick.

GS: Do you ever cut guitar parts direct into the board?

DG: Not very often, but it has happened once in a while. The solo in "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" was done straight into the board. After it was recorded, the signal was then put through an amplifier to add that kind of amp tone.

GS: Do you mostly cut tracks with your amp in a large room to get your famed tone and ambiance?

DG: I've found that if you use a big amp, it only works in big rooms. And little amps work in little rooms. Most of the tones that sound like that come from fairly large amplifiers in fairly large rooms. But I've got tiny Fender amps that sound positively enormous if you get them in the right place. It's quite amazing.

http://www.pinkfloyd-co.com/band/interviews/djg/djg96.html

(PART 2)

CK: Following the success of "Wish You Were Here", Pink Floyd released "Animals" in early 1977. One of the songs featured on "Animals" had been a leftover from the "Wish You Were Here" sessions. Originally, 'Dogs' was titled 'Raving and Drooling.' [sic]

DG: On "Wish You Were Here" we spent a lot of time in the rehearsal situation just working things out, you know, writing as we went along. 'Raving and Drooling,' [sic] or 'Dogs' as it was later known was just a simple little chord sequence that I had written and that everyone seemed to like. I liked it because all the chords were very unusual chords and you could play almost any note over the top of them. Like for guitar solos they were great because you could play nearly any note. So you can zoom around anywhere and not worry about what frets you hit or anything because almost anything you do hit if you do it deliberately enough will sound alright.

[Dogs]

CK: 'Dogs,' part one, from "Animals". Just as Pink Floyd are masters of the audio illusion, Hipgnosis, the people who create their album artwork, are equally adept at the optical illusions. For example, David Gilmour explains how the pig photo was created.

DG: The pig that you see up there, is not there, in that actual picture. They got this *fantastic* shot of Battersea power station, but we didn't have the pig up there. Then we put the pig up there, and we shot the pig up there, and we took the pig out of one picture of Battersea power station and we put it onto another picture. So, it is right because it is in that position and the lighting is right on that and everything so removing it from one picture and putting it on another was okay, but to try and fake it really would not have been okay. It's just all the pictures when we did have the pig, the power station didn't look nearly as nice as it did in this picture we had got the day before before we had the pig there.

CK: In 1980 Pink Floyd released "The Wall", an ambitious 2-record set that included the band's first number one single in America, 'Another Brick in the Wall.' Critics had often derided Roger Waters for his bleak, depressing lyrics, and it's interesting to note here that there was little enthusiasm when Roger Waters played his demos of "The Wall" for producer Bob Ezrin and the rest of the band.

DG: He gave us all a cassette of the whole thing, and I couldn't listen to it. It was too depressing, and too boring in lots of places. But I liked the basic idea. We eventually agreed to do it, but we had to chuck out a lot of stuff, rewrite a lot of things and put a lot of new bits in, throw a lot of old bits out. And when we actually were making it, and Roger was under pressure, and we had said "That wasn't good enough," or "this should be....." ...I mean Bob Ezrin was very good at helping get a linear storyline, making it more clear and direct, you know. Being something for Roger to bounce with a little bit. Roger actually wrote some of the best ones after that point. When we were actually doing it, when he was under pressure and being pushed to do things, he did some of the best things, I think.

[Happiest Days of our Lives/Another Brick In The Wall, Part II]

CK: Except for those very early days with Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd has been essentially Roger Waters' vehicle. He writes and sings most of the songs with occasional help from David Gilmour. 'Comfortably Numb,' from "The Wall", uses a chord sequence David had written during his sessions for his first solo album in 1978.

DG: I actually wrote the chord sequence for it while I was in Super Bear doing my first solo album, right at the end. I didn't intend, I mean, I never was going to actually record it then for that solo thing. It was one of the things I'd just put down one day and stored away with my other demos.

[Comfortably Numb]

CK: 'Comfortably Numb,' one of the three songs David Gilmour collaborated with Roger Waters on for "The Wall". To translate "The Wall" from record to the concert stage was an enormous task, especially considering the elaborate set the band devised. Four hundred and twenty cardboard building blocks were constructed to form a wall 31 feet high and 160 feet long. Because of the sets, equipment, and the number of people required to produce the show, the "Wall" tour of America was probably the shortest in history - seven nights in two cities, New York and Los Angeles. David admits, there can be problems staging a show like "The Wall".

DG: There are problems in doing a show of that sort, like, you have to say to yourself "we are doing theatre here," and theatre comes first. After you've done it 20 or 30 times, playing the music can get a bit boring, because there's no room for flexibility. Everything is timed, tapes have to be run, everything is like precision, like a theatrical production. And so there's no room, really, for any straying from the program that you're stuck to. So, you know you can't extend something because you feel like making it a bit longer and jamming or something, or doing anything like that. Some of the normal freedoms, the liberties you can take with your stuff, in normal stage performance, are much more restricted in that particular instance.

CK: The latest addition to the Pink Floyd discography was 1983's album "The Final Cut." Worth mentioning here is the absence on the album of keyboardist Rick Wright, who had left the band during the "Wall" sessions. Expect a solo record from him later this year. David Gilmour says the album title is a term used in the film making business.

DG: When you're editing a movie it's called "cutting," you go in the cutting room, and you cut the film, you know. You make a rough cut, that's where you've stuck all the scenes together, and have vaguely got it in the right order, that's called a "rough cut," and when you've perfected it and have got everything just right, that's called the "final cut."

CK: If you'd like to get in touch with David, here's an address: David Gilmour/43 Portland Road/London, England/W11 41J.

CK: By the time David Gilmour recorded his first solo album in 1978, he had been in Pink Floyd for ten years. With the help of old friends Rick Wills of Foreigner on bass, and Willie Wilson of the Southerland Brothers band on drums, David Gilmour's self-titled first album is a real showcase for his playing and songwriting. When you mention hot guitar players, the names most mentioned are Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie van Halen. Yet there are few players whose style is as expressive as David Gilmour's. We asked David to talk about his guitar playing.

DG: I've never had fast fingers, they're really pretty slow compared to most, and the coordination between left and right hand and stuff is not great. If I start trying to do too fast then this one gets - the right one gets out of sync with the left hand, so I have to rely on other things. I rely on effects, fuzzboxes, anything that I can lay my hands on. Then I just try and make nice, sort of, melodies with it, like try to make it sing, I try to imagine that the guitar's kind of singing, you know?

[There's No Way Out Of Here]
[Short and Sweet]

CK: On occasion David has lent his talents to outside projects. He played pedal steel guitar and produced two albums for a British band called 'Unicorn' in the mid 70's. In 1977, David financed Kate Bush's demo tape that led to her signing with EMI and a hit single, 'Withering Heights.'

DG: She was introduced to me by a friend, who said "I've got this young 14 year-old girl, who's incredibly talented," he said "I think I should - you know, you should do something for her." And I listened to her and I agreed, so I did.

CK: David also played guitar on two tracks from Atomic Rooster's album, "Headline News". But most of his recent attention has been on his new solo album, "About Face".

CK: Dave spent the latter part of 1983 in France working on this album, and by the time the musicians he hired arrived for the recording, most of the recording was already arranged on demo cassettes for them to hear. One of the songs, called "You Know I'm Right," wasn't as structured as the others, and David welcomed the fresh ideas the other players brought to the session.

DG: 'You Know I'm Right,' that was the last track we did, it's the only one that - the only one of all the tracks that I didn't have a sort of quite reasonably recorded demo with lynn drums and the works on. It was terrific fun, 'cause it's the only - in a way it was a good thing because they all got into the feel of it and gave more of themselves to it because they hadn't got something of mine to listen to which can stop them from putting themselves into it. Because once they've heard the way I do it then they know the sort of thing I'm thinking about and they tend to restrict themselves to my ideas. And that track has got a great feel to it I think because of that, because I didn't have a demo for it.

[You Know I'm Right]

CK: 'You Know I'm Right,' David Gilmour from his new solo album "About Face". With Pink Floyd inactive for the moment, David has plans to tour with his own band this year, although he says he'll use a different lineup of musicians than those on his album.

DG: The musicians on the tour are not the ones on the record. I've got a drummer called Chris Slade, who's played with Tom Jones, Gary Neuman, I think he was in Uriah Heep in one of their incarnations, and Manfred Man. I've got a bass player named Mickey Fiat, who's done practically everything in the world. Mick Ralphs is coming with me, he's a friend of mine, we live close by and I see him a lot, and I was telling him I was coming out on the road and he said, "ooooh, I'd love to go, can I come?" so I said "sure."

http://www.pinkfloyd-co.com/band/interviews/djg/djgAF.html

  too much information, this will kill my last brain cells...brain damage 

btw, I have some light about David and Rog fight, but checking the links I'm gathering, I find that the struggle among Rick and Rog was hard and rude (Wright's influence was completely minimised in The Wall, and he was fired from the band during recording, just been signed as aplayer for that short tour)...anyone has some "tasty" details about that...