This exhibition could not have happened without the support and collaboration of David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason, who provided items from their personal archives and allowed the Cite de la Musique to use them to tell their story. Interstellar retraces the epic journey of a group whose early experiments helped to define psychedelia and progressive rock and whose concept projects from the 1970’s established the album as an art form.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the release of The Dark Side Of The Moon, this exhibition celebrates a band that has never gone out of fashion and whose approaches to sound, light, imagery and staging have influenced almost everybody at some time or another.

Loan items for this exhibition have kindly been received from: DAVID GILMOUR, ROGER WATERS, NICK MASON, RICHARD WRIGHT, STEVE O’ROURKE, EMKA LIMITED, MARK FENWICK, MFM LIMITED, MARK FISHER, PETER JENNER, JONATHAN PARK, GERALD SCARFE, PHIL TAYLOR, STORM THORGERSON, PETER WYNNE WILSON

You enter via a dark corridor, a kind of time tunnel punctured with tiny windows, which takes you back into the unique sound world of Pink Floyd. Phosphorescent dates glow as gongs, cash registers and clocks recall the signature sound effects of their classic albums. This leads to the opening room of the exhibition, an evocation of the early days when four students of architecture and art met up in London, called themselves “Pink Floyd” and by 1968 had become the house band of the British underground scene. Chiefly this room celebrates the mercurial genius of the group’s original leader, guitarist and songwriter Syd Barrett; but it also contains mementos of their pioneering light shows, psychedelic imagery and some of the instruments used on their first two albums, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and A Saucerful Of Secrets. It charts the progression from the whimsical style of Barrett’s early compositions to the darker toned material which started to filter through after his replacement by David Gilmour, when bassist Roger Waters assumed responsibility for most of the songwriting.

The next three areas document the band’s experimental phase, the period in the late 1960’s when they released Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother and soundtracks to the arthouse movies More, Zabriskie Point and The Valley (which appeared as Obscured By Clouds). Here you can view some of the instruments photographed on the cover of Ummagumma, the ‘Friesian’ cow which fronts Atom Heart Mother as well as some of the kitchen utensils featured on that album’s closing track Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast. There are also some contemporary posters advertising the films.

From here you enter an ‘echo chamber’, full of layered electronic textures and booming gongs, a sound reference to the long instrumental track Echoes from the band’s 1971 album Meddle. This in turn leads to a space devoted to the pivotal moment in Pink Floyd’s career, and the most influential concept album of all time, The Dark Side Of The Moon. While the music plays intermittently in the background, you can inspect Nick Mason’s Hokusai-style wave-painted drums, the Hammond organ used by Richard Wright when they played Pompeii and the VCS3 which contributed so many of the haunting soundwashes found on Dark Side. What follows is a contemplative area devoted more to the band’s distinctive imagery than to the music. It marks their mature phase in the mid 70’s, when they made Wish You Were Here - an album full of elegiac moods, infused with sadness at the loss of Syd – and Animals, a bitterly satirical attack on human frailty and folly. This offers another chance to reflect on the infamous inflatable pig which first appeared above Battersea power station on the album’s release in 1977, then broke free of its moorings and drifted off to France...

Next you pass through a one way mirror and emerge on the other side into The Wall, Pink Floyd’s most ambitious concept, a large scale dramatic exploration of the theme of alienation. Here you will find instruments, stage designs, uniforms and masks from the show alongside the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe’s animated projections. The Final Cut marks Roger Waters’ last word before he left the band in 1985 and the end room is devoted to the two albums the band went on to make as a trio, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and The Division Bell. Formed like an amphitheatre or a teepee, the centrepiece here is a model of the stage designed by Mark Fisher for the Division Bell tour, Pink Floyd’s last live performance to date.

As you leave the Cite de la Musique you glimpse in passing The Wall in all its inflatable glory, blue pyramids from The Dark Side Of The Moon and the giant heads of The Division Bell.

9/14/03

6/29/03

The Dark Side of the Moon documentary on DVD!

Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon Classic Album is the creative story behind the masterpiece:
The Dark Side Of The Moon. The Dark Side Of The Moon transformed Pink Floyd from art house favorites to global, stadium superstars.

Prior to 1973, Pink Floyd maintained a relentless gigging schedule and by the time they came to record The Dark Side Of The Moon had already created many of the basic tracks. The Dark Side Of The Moon would be the first Pink Floyd (post Syd Barrett) album where Roger Waters would supply all the lyrics around a concept: The Circle of Life. With the timeless qualities of its production and musicality, allied to the hypnotic evocation of its central themes - alienation, paranoia, madness, war and death, The Dark Side Of The Moon would become the album that would dominate the 70’s and 80’s (with a record number of 741 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200). This program takes an in depth look at the making of the 1973 album. All four members of the band are featured in exclusive interviews.

Roger, David and Richard play songs and demonstrate themes from the album. Alan Parsons (the original engineer) takes you through the multi track tapes giving a unique insight into the musical fabric of the record and the program is illustrated throughout with archive footage.

The Dark Side Of The Moon with its combination of great songs, inventive effects and one of the best known sleeves ever, tapped into the world’s collective subconscious and became a landmark in Rock history and a truly Classic Album.

David Gilmour of Pink Floyd has today given support to a project to develop a new kind of mixed community for homeless people and key workers. The Crisis urban village is set to house 400 residents and is underway thanks to a £3.6 million donation by Gilmour.

The community will be made up of self-contained flats, 50 per cent of which will house people who have been homeless, many of whom have been trapped in unstable accommodation like hostels or B&Bs for years. On-site support services such as employment training, benefits advice and addiction counselling will help these residents cope with more independent living and prepare them for jobs and training. This support network will enable residents to get the help they need but allow them to live their own lifestyle.

The other fifty per cent of the accommodation will be set aside for key workers like nurses, teachers and hospital porters to meet the urgent need for affordable housing. They too will benefit from living in a high quality environment with on-site services. Companies will be approached to run businesses inside the building such as cafes or leisure services which will be open to the public.

The urban village will be a new way to provide a route out of homelessness and nothing on its scale has been attempted in this country before.

David Gilmour was inspired to make his donation after learning about the way a similar community has been developed in New York.

“Homeless people end up living on the fringes of our society and it’s time we found a way to bring them back into its heart. I’ve seen what has been achieved in New York and am passionately behind this project which is about providing not just a roof but a new way of life where all the residents can thrive and make their contribution,” said Gilmour.

David Gilmour has been a warm supporter of Crisis for a number of years and to pay tribute to the help he has given, Crisis has named him as a Vice-President of the national homelessness charity.

“David Gilmour’s generosity has provided a real launch pad for this project and we are immensely grateful for the belief he’s shown. We’re now looking for others to get involved in creating this community whether their input is to find us a site or run a franchised business. Together we can show a new approach to both homelessness and city living,” said Shaks Ghosh, Crisis Chief Executive.

Crisis is working with health charity The King’s Fund to develop the community. The hunt is on for a suitable site, focusing primarily on London, which has the worst homelessness problem and the acutest need for affordable housing for key workers.

Rock musicians exploring classical instrumentation is nothing new. Deep Purple did it. Ditto for Metallica, ELP, and new-wavers ABC. Hell, ELO made it part of their sound. The musical success of these collaborations is a purely subjective judgment, but one thing is for sure -- when the words "classical" and "rock" appear in the same sence, the term bombastic is usually not far behind. Thankfully,tastefully executed classical rock does exist, as the music on legendary Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour's new DVD, David GilmourIn Concert [Capitol] demonstrates.

Filmed at London's Royal Festival Hall during the 2001 Meltdown Festival, the 130-minute DVD shows a gloriously successful pairing of classical music's highbrow aesthetic and rock's organic power. Piano, double bass, cello, percussion, and, occasionally, a second guitar and a gospel choir are used to present music as diverse as Pink Floyd classics and a Bizet aria with an understated elegance.

In addition, the classical elements are not employed to impart an air of puffed-up sophistication, but rather to bring out the inherent beauty of songs such as "Comfortably Numb".

In Concert isn't all about rock music with classical overtones, however. Gilmour also performs several tunes with just an acoustic guitar, and in these solo settings, he demonstrates why he deserves to be included with Clapton, Beck, and Page among British guitar royalty. David Gilmour In Concert is a wonderful document of a rock legend pushing himself and his music in new directions.

How did you go about choosing the material for the shows?

I went through the entire Pink Floyd catalog, and I picked the tunes I liked. Then, after I figured out which ones would work with the instrumentation I had in mind, I spent about three months fiddling around in my home studio mocking up the arrangements.

How did you decide on the instrumentation?

The lineup came to me in a flash of inspiration. After I thought of it, however, I wasn't sure how to go about making it work -- that was tricky.

What was so tricky?

Well, I discovered that the instruments I chose for most of the songs -- like "Comfortably Numb," for instance -- are used to a fuller treatment than I was anticipating. Taking that tune and making it work with guitar, piano, cello, and plucked double bass was quite a challenge.

How did you decide on which guitar to cast for a particular song?

I stuck largely to what was on the original recordings. However, on "Comfortably Numb" I had to change from acoustic to electric for the solo, so I threw in a few extra bars for the band to vamp along to while I did my quick-change act. I also switched to a high-strung Ovation acoustic towards the end of the song.

What was the most challenging tune in the set?

"Je Crois Entendre Encore," from Bizet's opera The Pearl Fishers. That one was seriously frightening. It was very tough to sing, and difficult for me to imagine that I wasn't kidding myself in even attempting it. Luckily, when I got the choir in my home studio, they instilled a lot of confidence in me because they immediately sounded so great. Still, both my wife and I broke into cold sweats just before the concert.

Had you ever played Pink Floyd tunes in a solo-acoustic setting before?

Never, and it was very interesting to see which ones worked. Attempting "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" with just acoustic guitar and vocal was a bit of a challenge, and it required a big delay loop for me to manage it. I created a pad underneath, and I swelled it up and down with a volume pedal. That way I had a big, ringing guitar orchestra underneath me.

What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome for the shows?

Perhaps the biggest challenge was trying to imagine what the sound out front was like. The stage volume was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Every time there was a little error it seemed like it was enormous.

If you were to study your style from the beginning of Pink Floyd to now, would there be one constant that always shows up in your playing?

I don't know if you can tie it down to one thing. My style is my style, and it was created out of an amalgamation of the folk and blues I started with -- as well as my early years in Pink Floyd when I was attempting to be a psychedelic-type guitar player. That being said, I think I always come back to certain elements of blues phraseology. The blues run pretty deep in my playing.

What do you mean by "attempting" to play psychedelic?

Well, when I joined Pink Floyd I was trying to play some of Syd Barrett's parts, yet adapt them to my own style and taste. The framework I was working in was already set, and it included a style of guitar playing that was already a part of it. It took a while for me to allow myself to stray from what I thought I should be doing.

Was there a lot of post-production work on In Concert?

Not a whole lot. My throat was a bit sore, and there were a couple of cracked notes. And not in a nice Rod Stewart way -- more like a horrible, rendering noise. So I threw in a couple of words from other rehearsals or soundchecks. That's the wonderful thing about Pro Tools. We recorded the shows on tape, but, for the repairs, we jumped over to Pro Tools, and then we went back to tape for the mixes. I think if you start off with tape and mix to tape, it adds a certain warmth that gets lost in digital.

Do you ever find yourself working with Pro Tools and thinking, "Man, I wish we had this when we made Dark Side of the Moon?"

Well, the ability you now have with technology is just unbelievable. In the early Pink Floyd days, we had bits of tape and razor blades, and a lot of sticky tape to put it all back together. At some points, we were editing multitrack tapes -- taking actual tracks out of the tape and gluing others back in.

Where does your penchant for steel guitar come from?

I've always had a jack-of-all-trades mentality. I like to be able to pick up different instruments and be competent on them. It would be nice to be good at everything, but, well, you know [laughs]. I've always loved steel guitar. I bought my first steel -- a pedal steel with no pedals -- at a junk shop in Seattle in 1968. I had to get the pedals made when I got back to England. That was the same instrument I used on "Breathe" from Dark Side of the Moon.

Everyone points to songs like "Comfortably Numb" and "Money" as being among your best guitar performances. Is there a performance you really like that people don't talk about?

There's a solo on "Dogs" [Animals] that I thought was pretty good and unusual. It hasn't entered the pantheon of the ones people seem to like because it's a slightly different style for me, I suppose. I tracked it with an old Tele, and I was really thrilled with it. Also, "Echoes" [Meddle] has a guitar buildup that I love -- it's a creation of dozens of different parts. That sort of textural thing often thrills me more than a particular solo I may have played.

When you hear that stuff does it still resonate with you?

It does. I get a charge out of thinking, "How the hell did I actually do that?" You get this out-of-body experience. You're not quite sure if it was you who did it.

Are you still collecting guitars?

Not really. One of these days, I'm going to start selling a few of them. I don't know how I managed to start collecting -- it was one of those things that just happened. It seems every nice new guitar that you get your hands on comes with a new song attached to it.

Which of your guitars has the most songs attached to it?

I guess it would be my Martin D-35. I used it on Wish You Were Here, and I've been using ever since. In fact, it's in my sitting room right now.

Do you think you'll continue in this rock chamber orchestra type of vein?

Although I think I'll make a solo record next year, I don't want to state that I'm going to use the exact lineup from David Gilmour in Concert. I like to be free to do what I want.

Phil Taylor has handled David Gilmour's armada of guitars, amps, and other gear for 28 years. Here he details the gear used by the legendary guitarist while recording David Gilmour in Concert.

"David's main acoustic is a Taylor 712C outfitted with a Fishman piezo system and an internally-mounted Sony ECM-66 microphone," says Taylor. "The piezo's signal is split and routed directly to the board and to a Pete Cornish pedalboard feeding a '50s Fender tweed Deluxe. The custom-made Cornish pedalboard is tube-buffered, and it houses an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, a Chandler Tube Driver, two custom Pete Cornish overdrives, an MXR Dyna Comp, a custom-made graphic EQ, and a Boss CE-2 chorus, compressor, and DD-2 delay -- which has been modified with a tone control that darkens the sound of the repeats.

"For 'Comfortably Numb,' David used the same guitar he used on the original recording -- an Ovation strung with all unwound strings. His nylon string guitar was made by Jose Vilaplana, his electric is a late '50s Gretsch Duo-Jet, and his lap steel is a Gibson EH 150. David uses an AER acoustic amp and a Fender Passport P.A. to monitor his acoustic sound on stage, but the Passport only amplifies the signal from a Roland SDE-3000 delay used for looping on 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond.'

"For the bonus performances on the DVD, David's acoustic was a prototype Martin D-28 with a cutaway. The electronics are the same as those in his other acoustics, except for a custom Seymour Duncan soundhole pickup run through the Cornish pedalboard for electric guitar tones. He also used a different amp for those shows -- a '58 Fender tweed Twin.

'David Gilmour in Concert' comprises 16 songs performed by Gilmour, his semi-acoustic band rich in talent and the exquisite gospel choir led by Sam Brown. The set is tantalising in its sheer diversity - from Pink Floyd classics such as Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb and High Hopes, to Syd Barrett's Terrapin and Dominoes as well as a performance of Je Crois Entendre Encore from Bizet's opera The Pearl Fishers which one critic described as an "unlikely triumph..." and a new song Smile.

Gilmour explains where the idea for this concert came from: "Robert Wyatt was the Meltdown Festival's curator for 2001. He rang and invited me to play and my immediate answer was "yes". While Robert was still on the phone, an idea came to me, God knows where from. I thought: just a double-bass, a cello and a small gospel choir. I put down the phone and started to panic..."

That initial panic led to Gilmour being credited in the Daily Telegraph, with inventing a "whole new genre....a sound that is warm, richly textured and genuinely different...ensemble music of the highest order." The Meltdown performance went so well, David Gilmour decided to come back to the Royal Festival Hall a few months later to perform the show three more times. As he explains, "It seemed rather daft putting that amount of effort into it for only one night. So I thought maybe I'd do it again for fun. Just for me really."

The DVD will also feature more than thirty minutes of Special Features. These include home video footage of David Gilmour rehearsing at home with the choir, six guitar solos in "close-up" so that guitar enthusiasts can watch him play his solos in detail and there are three bonus songs recorded at other times.