Something out of the ordinary, delayed-broadcast earlier today from a concert given on January 12th featuring the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France playing music of Edgar Varese and Pink Floyd.

Deserts by Edgar Varese and Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd. I told you it was unusual.

The Orchestra is led by Pierre-Andre Valade in the Varese and Jean-Jacques Justafre in the Pink Floyd.

I've split the concert up between three players with the second (or middle) player featuring an interview with Ron Geesin who provided the original orchestra scoring for the album as well as the 2008 revision and is featured on Piano during this concert.

Needless to say, the audience is enthusiastic and even the folks at Radio France Musique are having a good time.

Here's the rundown for the program:

mercredi 7 mars 2012
Théâtre du Châtelet : Passons le bac avec les Pink Floyd

(1st Player) Edgar Varèse

Déserts* pour orchestre et bandes magnétiques

14h36

(2nd Player) Interview de Ron Geesin par Didier Varrod

14h51

(3rd player)Pink Floyd
Atom Heart Mother**, Version révisée par Ron Geesin (2008)

Ron Geesin, Composition et piano
Jean-Claude Auclin, Violoncelle
Serge Munuera, Orgue Hammond
Amaury Filliard, Guitare électrique
Philippe Chayeb, Guitare basse électrique
Claude Salmieri, Batterie
Ensemble vocal Les Métaboles

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Pierre-André Valade, Direction*
Jean-Jacques Justafré, Direction**

Didier Varrod, Présentation

Concert donné le 12 Janvier 2012 en partenariat avec le Ministère de l’Education Nationale.

I think this is one of those concerts you'll want to play loud. Just sayin'.

Anti-Road Rage nonetheless.

Enjoy.

Early(ish) Pink Floyd. This, from a session recorded around March of 1968 and issued as a single.

It Would Be So Nice is probably one of the more obscure singles in the Pink Floyd opus, having not done all that well, not issued in the States and relegated to a "Best Of" album, first released by EMI in Holland in 1970 before it was eventually included in later reissue packages of early Pink Floyd material.

This is one of the first sessions done without their guiding light, Syd Barrett. And even though it still has traces of the Barrett style, you can hear the beginnings of what would become the Pink Floyd of later years.

An interesting and somewhat overlooked Pink Floyd single from their transition phase.

Mid-period Pink Floyd tonight. Point Me At The Sky was issued in December 1968. It was the first single by Pink Floyd failing to chart and the first Floyd single not to be released in the U.S.. Ironically, the B-Side which was Careful With That Axe, Eugene would go on to be a classic. But this was a transition period for the band. The loss of Syd Barrett put the responsibility of the bulk of song writing to Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour and this was one of their first collaborative efforts. It would take a few years before Dark Side Of The Moon would come out.

Point Me At The Sky was left off all their compilation albums, and subsequently became an insanely rare single, until the 1992 compilation Shine On was released where this track was featured on a bonus CD on early singles.

Tonight it's the original 45, so you might hear a few ticks and pops here and there.

It's still vintage Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd, during their transition phase of 1970. I'm not sure if I ran this concert last year, but it's a good one and it features Pink Floyd during that seminal period of time when they were exploring new areas and evolving from their legendary Syd Barrett period towards what would eventually be their iconic Dark Side Of The Moon period. This is a half hour excerpt of a longer concert, with many thanks to BBC 6 Music for making these classic concerts available online. I would urge you to go over to their site and check them out - they are a treasure trove of material a lot of people on this side of the Atlantic probably haven't heard before.

But in the meantime, enjoy this one for your Saturday night.

I remember when a friend came back from London in 1967 with a copy of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Pink Floyd's first album, tucked under her arm. It said everything I wanted music to say and then some. So when Saucerful Of Secrets came out in 1968, I couldn't wait to get it.

And that's when the disappointment sat in. But not for long. Pink Floyd had lost its founding member and guiding force Syd Barrett to increasing instability and mental illness. And because of that, Saucerful wasn't the same Pink Floyd I had expected. But in a way it was different - they had somehow grown. Although much of the album did have Syd in it, he was relegated to only one song and his contributions on the other three songs were somewhat negligible.

But Saucerful Of Secrets was a turning point for the band and it laid the groundwork for who they were to become a short time later.

So tonight's track is the opening of the album. Let There Be More Light was a harbinger of things to come for the band. It would be a new and different trail. But it would have lasting impressions.

It wasn't the old Pink Floyd - it was a new and different one - and they both could be appreciated.

(Soft Machine 1967 - high priests of Psychedelia)

Tonight it's what is considered to be the first psychedelic-era single to be released in England. Recorded in January and issued by Polydor in February of 1967, Love Makes Sweet Music by The Soft Machine pre-dates Pink Floyd's legendary See Emily Play by a month.

Not that it really makes much difference in the bigger picture. It's not a case of who got there first, but who got there at all. Popular music was going through massive changes at the time and there was a lot of resistance to anything as patently bizarre to the average listener as this was. Soft Machine were the tip of the iceberg that transformed the musical landscape in a period of months, almost weeks. Think of it - Soft Machine, quickly followed by Pink Floyd, quickly followed by Jimi Hendrix, and Traffic; all of them literally exploding on to the music scene. It made for some very interesting changes of mind. And frankly, it was one amazing amount of fun.

Before Soft Machine settled into becoming one of the premier Progressive bands in the later 1960s, they were one of the more experimental units to arrive on the scene. This first single, the only one they released for Polydor before linking up with Chas Chandler to produce their landmark first and second albums, was a combination of high energy pop with a flipside (Feelin', Reelin', Squeelin') that was pure psychedelia.

And from that point, there was no going back.

(Pink Floyd 1970 - A period of transition)

A few years before Dark Side Of The Moon became the classic it has, Pink Floyd were in the process of drifting. Syd Barrett, the guiding light and voice of the band had been out of the picture for two years and the remaining members were in search of their own. They were trying various things out, but to not much success. At the time of this live performance at the BBC's Paris Theatre in London, they had released Atom Heart Mother to decidedly tepid reviews. Their previous album Ummagumma was something of a failure and even the band on occasion have disowned it. But throughout all that, Pink Floyd had a large and loyal following and no one, least of all their fans, were ready to write them off. And it's good they didn't, because Dark Side Of The Moon was just around the corner.

This set consists of two tracks from Atom Heart Mother, Fat Old Sun and If as well as One Of These Days.

Pink Floyd at the crossroads.

Baby needs shoes!

(photo: Dezo Hoffmann)

(Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett - Extraordinary madness loomed)

I have never been able to figure out why this track hasn't been officially issued on any of the compilations featuring early Pink Floyd. Vegetable Man has evolved into Holy Grail status over the past forty or so years. First rumored to have been destroyed during one of Syd's meltdowns, then destroyed by EMI, with the only evidence surviving a 45 acetate of what was to be the b-side of their fourth single. Countless bootlegs surfaced over the years featuring this and the A side "Scream Thy Last Scream", all in various stages of lousy sound. Just recently this version surfaced, presumably the closest to a surviving master so far. It's in stereo but the opening notes have some tape drop-out (as do almost all the other versions I've heard). Still, it's the best sounding of what's available of a legendary unreleased song.

Perhaps this is the only known surviving version of what has been a much fabled withdrawn track by Pink Floyd during the last months of Syd Barrett's involvement. Who knows? Perhaps someone at EMI will make a great discovery.

Perhaps. Or perhaps not.

Check out the Syd Barrett Archive. It's a good one.

(Spring - 1971 had a lot of promise)

It's like beating a dead horse to say there were an awful lot of bands in the 1970's who barely got past their first albums before going separate ways. Sometimes it was just a case of getting lost in the shuffle. From around 1969 on, a lot of major labels were starting up subsidiaries whose sole purpose was to cater to the eclectic market, growing in size as the result of free form FM radio. Philips started Vertigo, Polydor had Dandelion, EMI had Harvest (with Pink Floyd being an anomaly). And RCA had Neon.

I could never figure out what Neon's story was, since they had a rather large roster of acts, none of whom made much dent, but most of whom were really quite good. RCA in the U.S. were almost totally clueless as to what to do with them, and in large part tossed the albums out on the market with little or no publicity, with the hopes some strange phenomenon would occur - which invariably never did.

Spring was one of those acts that deserved so much more recognition than the none they got. Heavy on Mellotrons and with some excellent production, they recorded one album and were in the process of doing a second when the plug was pulled.

Their first album quickly went out of print (less than six months, as was the norm) and languished pretty much unnoticed until an Italian label Akarma reissued them on CD a few years ago. I'm not sure the Akarma reissue is still print, but I would highly recommend seeking it out, if this track, Inside Out appeals.

Which I have the sneaking suspicion it might.

(Pink Floyd in 1967 - The world was never ready for Syd)

Pink Floyd is one of those bands that have spanned the decades, picking up new fans along the way. I think each generation that has sprung up since 1967 can lay claim to having at least one Pink Floyd song or album embedded in their psyche, defining them to a specific place and time.

For me, it will always be Pink Floyd during the Syd Barrett period. No question Syd was the driving force behind the experimenting that became who they are today. I often wonder just what kind of band Pink Floyd would have been had there not been a Syd Barrett - maybe it wouldn't have happened at all and maybe it would have been someone else.

No matter - for the brief period of time Syd was with the band they made some amazing music and it set them up for the events that were to come later.

Apples and Oranges comes from their third single, released in 1967. After achieving somewhat notorious notoriety with their first two singles (Arnold Layne being a song about a cross-dresser and See Emily Play about masturbation), Apples and Oranges seemed pretty tame by comparison. But it was loaded with Syd's skewed and engaging view of the world.

A view that many shared and openly felt at home with. Syd just freed everything up.