RoIO Review

A Journey Through Time and Space

by Gerhard den Hollander and Sean Zloch

Sean: One of the great treasures in anyone's Floyd RoIO collection has to be studio outtakes. They are so rare, as compared with The Beatles, The Who, or Bob Dylan. Thankfully, over the last few years, these gems have finally been turning up; look at last year's "release" of the work in progress of The Wall.

Featured here is A Journey Through Time and Space, the first disc of which contains outtakes from the soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. Rhino Records did a fantastic job of releasing some of this material on their expanded 1997 Zabriskie Point Soundtrack release, giving a lion's share of the disc space to the Floyd and the Grateful Dead. But that was just the beginning, as here we get even more Floydian goodies! Unfortunately more doesn't always equal good, and most of the tracks really aren't that interesting. I can see why Rhino left them off their release.

First off is a meandering, six-minute version of "Rain in the Country," a catchy tune that doesn't really go anywhere, but takes a long time to get there nonetheless. I like listening to works in progress, but unfortunately this track does nothing for me.

Gerhard: That's as it may be, but I'm still glad that I have heard this version.

Sean: "The Violent Sequence," the prototype for "Us and Them," is one of the few gems on the set. Most versions I have heard of this song have come from rather poor audience recordings. This is a nice pristine studio track and gives us a nice glimpse into how much the band really collaborated on The Dark Side of the Moon, as all we have here is Rick and his piano. This is really a beautiful, quiet piece of music. I also like the ironic title.

Gerhard: Actually, the title isn't ironic. The song was meant to accompany a section of the movie which was rather violent--police beating up hippies or something like that.

Sean: I meant ironic in the context that you have this really beautiful, tranquil music under that title.

"The Red Queen Theme" is a catchy little tune that ends before it ever really begins, which is a shame as it is really enjoyable. The piano-heavy melody sounds like it would be at home on More, as it sort of reminds me of "Green is the Colour" or "Cymbaline." There is a more complete version of this song later.

Gerhard: Which is fortunate, because it's a nice tune.

Sean: "Fingal's Cave" starts off sounding more like vintage Floyd, with some great atmospherics provided by Rick's keyboards and David's guitar (reminiscent of "A Saucerful of Secrets"). After a minute, the comparison ends as the track is ruined by the sounds of a couple "doin' it," and we are treated to such subtle dialogue as "I'm coming!" and "Penetration!." Sigh...when good bands make bad music. Thank God, CD players are programmable!

Gerhard: Upon reading the stories by the band about their adventures recording the soundtrack for this movie, I get the feeling that they were occasionally rather drunk when working on the music. This track might be the proof of that theory, as the track is something that might sound like a good idea when drunk, but certainly not while sober.

Sean: Could be! Next up is "Theme #2" which is short little acoustic ditty with harpsichord. Very un-Floyd like. This track has the same problem as "Rain in the Country"; a nice pleasant tune that goes nowhere. I understand this is intended as soundtrack music, but the music on More or Obscured By Clouds is vastly superior from a musical standpoint.

The next track is labeled as "Rain in the Country," but it is in fact "Crumbling Land" with a rocking intro which somewhat reminds me of "The Nile Song" which then segues in the softer "Crumbling Land." Unfortunately this track is incomplete, and the song fades out after around a minute and a half.

"Love Scene #1" has Rick Wright fulfilling his lifelong dream of being a lounge jazz pianist, while "Love Scene #2" sounds more like a lullaby, and a very uninteresting one at that.

Gerhard: And it's sooo incredibly boring ...

Sean: But other than that it's okay. I do enjoy "Blues Scene" quite a bit as I've always felt that the Floyd are as good a blues band as anyone. Of course it helps when you have someone as talented as Dave Gilmour on guitar. The man is fantastic, making this track a highlight for me.

We have another track called "Fingal's Cave" which sounds nothing like it's predecessor (most likely mislabeled). The track features some cool guitar work from Dave, but otherwise it is nothing spectacular. Rick drones on and on until the track abruptly cuts off and gives way to "Love Scene #3" which is the same as the previous track, only much shorter. One unfortunate problem with RoIOs is that you do get a lot of misinformation and mislabeled recordings. I also gotta admit that I'm not too knowledgeable about these sessions to be of any help. Ger?

Gerhard: Neither am I really, most of the stories brought out by the band are either about Antonioni's comments on their songs ("Eets too sad"), or about the time they spent in the bar.

As for this RoIO, it looks like someone managed to get his hands on a set of tapes that featured a lot of the stuff they did in the studio, and that never got further developed (because eet was too sad or whatever) or was never meant to be released ("Penetration!").

The six different versions of "Love Scene" are probably partly in this category as well. They just started of with a bunch of different ideas, and then let Antonioni decide which he wanted to use for his movie.

Sean: This disk certainly illustrates Dave's comment about Antonioni wanting a band that sounded like The Grateful Dead. There is a strong country/folk vibe on a lot of these tracks.

"Love Scene #4" sounds also sounds like the last couple of tracks, only a bit more developed and seemingly involving the rest of the band. Is that Roger beating his gong? He should save it for Fingal's
Cave! :)

Seriously, the biggest problem that I have with the Zabriskie Point outtakes is that once the novelty of hearing "new" Floyd wears off, all that is left is a disk that you really won't play all that often. As I have said before, the music here doesn't even remotely compare with either More or Obscured By Clouds.

Gerhard: I think that's partially because it was never finished, whereas the tracks on Obscured by Clouds and More are more finished on the LP than in the movie.

Sean: That's a good point. When the soundtrack was officially released, there were only three Floyd tracks on it. The rest probably were left in their incomplete state.

Gerhard: The Floyd's involvement with the soundtrack LP was limited to non-existent. If I remember the story correctly, they got paid a certain amount of money to record the music, and after that they lost the rights to it, so Antonioni could do with it whatever he wanted, which was not much, as it turned out.

Sean: Returning back to the disk, "Red Queen" is one of the few "songs" on this set and it's not a bad track either. As I said before, it sounds like it would fit right in on More. Dave seems like he is having fun recording this one, as he improvises some vocals at the end as well as playing his guitar after everyone has stopped.

Gerhard: This is far and away my favorite track (it's also on the Rhino compilation), and the inclusion of this track alone makes it worth trading for a copy of this set.

The second version of "Crumbling Land" is more like the released version, only it seems a bit more up-tempo to me. I've always liked this song. It's a good song; it's just not a good Pink Floyd song. The Floyd was making music better than this at the time, but that doesn't make this track any less enjoyable. I do like the goofy ending on the track.

"Unknown Song," a more developed "Rain in the Country," closes disk one. At least the RoIO has that trademark Floydian symmetry going! Nice steel pedal guitar from Dave, but otherwise it's just another song that builds up to go nowhere.

Gerhard: Of course, the real value of this RoIO is that it provides us with a lot of never-before heard before Floyd material, and that alone makes it required listening for any serious Floyd fan.

Sean: And I think you said it right when you made that comment about "Red Queen" making the set worth trading for. Thanks to CD-R technology, RoIO collecting is pretty much risk free. Back in the day (oh no!) when you had to actually buy a RoIO, a 2 CD set would put you back $60. I personally would have been sorely disappointed if I spent $60 on this. Now thanks to the miracle of CD burners, you can have this set for sixty cents.

But wait, RoIO fans; the fun is not over yet! We still have disc two, "Spontaneous Underground," to go though. Most of the second disc is compiled from various live performances. Disk two kicks off with a studio version of "Interstellar Overdrive," from the sound track to San Francisco. While this is certainly presented in much better sound quality than what was available prior to this RoIO's release, there have been even better sounding versions released since then (the monstrous Rarities set springs to mind). Still, it is an great version of "Interstellar Overdrive."

Gerhard: It's even better when seen with the San Francisco movie accompanying it. The frantic pace at which the movie takes you through a day in the life of San Francisco (and the Guggenheim museum in NY) fits very well with this version of "Interstellar Overdrive."

Who knows, maybe someday this movie will see it's way into trader circles as well.

Sean: That would be nice.

The next three tracks come from the soundtrack to the Amougies Music Power documentary. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" ranks as one of my all time favorite Floyd tracks. The sound is bit muffled, but still excellent for a recording from 1969. While this doesn't rank as one of my all time favorite performances of "Set the Controls," the performance is still excellent with a fantastic freak-out section in the middle. Gotta love distortion! :)

Gerhard: True, this isn't my all-time favorite performance of "Set The Controls" (that's the version on the Yeeshkul RoIO--see the back issues of Spare Bricks for a review of that one), but it's hard to find a version of this song that's bad... and this one certainly is not.

Sean: "Green is the Colour" is unfortunately plagued by so many sound problems that it is rendered virtually un-listenable. Thanks to the volume fading in and out, track is much too hard to listen to. There are much better recordings of this song available, both in SQ and performance. Thankfully
"Careful With That Axe, Eugene" doesn't suffer from the same problems. Unfortunately, this track suffers from a far worse problem: mediocre performance. There is this great build-up, right to where Roger is about to scream, and then... nothing happens! The band just keeps on playing nonchalantly. Anti-climatic to say the least.

"Theme from More" is good. Not exactly one of my favorites, and I personally wish there were less of this track and not "more." But, as I always say, that Gilmour lad sure plays a mean guitar! I wish the sound were a bit cleaner though.

Gerhard: "The Main Theme" is one of those songs that's rarely played by the band, and most performances were done in the days when audience recordings had to be made on big reel-to-reel tape recorders, so most versions sound rather crappy. Having said that, I can live with this tune as it is. It's a nice ditty.

Sean: "Obscured By Clouds/When You're In" are a nice inclusion as they are relatively rare (they were only played on the 1973 tour and appear on few RoIOs). This is one of the better performances of "Obscured By Clouds/When You're In," taken from an audience recording in Chicago. The audience does seem rather listless during the intro to Obscured by Clouds--maybe the Floyd dropped it from their set to make room for something more recognizable. The arrangement of "When You're In" is much funkier than the studio version, with some excellent instrumental jamming from the band. I have to say that this track is another reason to have this RoIO in your collection, right Ger? The complete show is available on the Illusions of Childhood's End RoIO.

Gerhard: Right. Though not available on many RoIOs, most of the '73 shows are reasonably easy to get from fellow traders. This version is not spectacular, but it does rock, and the more grungy sound for these 2 tracks make them a nice addition to an otherwise already nice set.

Sean: I like "Childhood's End," which is my opinion is a highly underrated song in the Floyd catalog. The pitch is off slightly, but after listening to RoIOs for a while, you do learn to transcend some of the flaws and live in the performance. This is another song that was unfortunately dropped from the set list right away. This track is proof that Roger really had the potential to be a great bass player. I particularly enjoy the bluesy section in the middle. The drop-out in the middle is a minor inconvenience. As I said, you learn to live with the little flaws.

Gerhard: "Childhood's End" is really, really nice, though the fact that it's such a rare song probably has something to do with it. And of course, it's the last time (at least until the 1987 tour) that a song written entirely by David Gilmour was part of the Floyd's set list.

Sean: Last is an alternate mix of "Brain Damage/Eclipse" from 1974. It's similar to the version heard in "Pompeii," with extra the guitar work from Dave between lines. Rick's keyboards are mixed out of the track, which shows how much Rick contributed to the band in general, and to The Dark Side of the Moon specifically. It just sounds so incomplete. I would certainly have to recommend From The Other Side if you enjoy tracks like this.

Gerhard: Or try to get the Rarities CD set, which has those songs as well as some other rare and not-so-rare versions of those tracks.

So what's the verdict on this one then? Given the rarity of pretty much anything on CD1, I think it's essential listening for all serious Floyd collectors. But if you've just started your collection, I would suggest getting some complete live performances first. There are plenty of good ones around.

Sean: I have to agree that there are other RoIOs which are much more essential than this one. While there are a few tracks that I enjoy this RoIO won1t see much play. I am quite content with the Zabriskie Point material that has been officially released.

Sean Zloch and Gerhard den Hollander are staff writers for Spare Bricks.

Best Gig Ever

The Man in a Division Bell T-shirt

by Rowan D'Albert • photos by Charlotte Pringle

So there we were. Me, Steve, Alex and Chris. All Floyd fans. All excited. All standing in the warm evening sunshine of Twickenham station, ready to head off to Waterloo to see Dave Gilmour and special guests Sparklehorse. So, we didn't know where the Royal Festival Hall was, but we assumed that enthusiasm would get us through.

Also standing on the platform was a man in a Division Bell T-shirt. Suspected that he may well be going in the same direction as us, we decided to follow him when we arrived.

So we hopped onto the train, one carriage down from the man in the Division Bell T-shirt (hereby referred to as TMITDBTS). Alex, in a throe of bravery, walked into the carriage, asked the man if he was going to the Gilmour gig, and returned proclaiming that TMITDBTS would allow us to follow him to the Royal Festival Hall. So far so good.

Giving a fond thought of an inflatable pig as we passed Battersea Power Station, the four of us rolled into Waterloo in high spirits. Quickly locating TMITDBTS, we walked with him along the road past some attractive fountains, up some stairs, past Nelson Mandela's head in bronze and into the Festival Hall, bedecked by posters of Robert Wyatt's face.

Conversation with TMITDBTS revealed that he hadn't heard of Sparklehorse either.

...and Sparklehorse

We arrived at the packed bar, eager for monster guitar solos, but equally eager for liquid refreshment. Taking a seat next to a table reserved for Robert Wyatt, we sent Alex off to the bar to get our drinks. When he returned with bottled water proclaiming that the bar was totally packed, we set off up the stairs to take our seats.

Three floors and one toilet stop later, we were there. A beautiful setup before us, not quite P.U.L.S.E, but still quite a sight. Bedecked in blue and red lights, the myriad of instruments stretched out. We were sitting close to the back at the left of the stalls, but had a fair enough view. We were too tired to head down and take a closer look at the setup, so stayed seated.

About the show

David Gilmour Robert Wyatt's Meltdown Concert Royal Festival Hall, London Friday, June 22, 2001

And so on came the compare.

"We are very fortunate tonight to present... David Gilmour."

A cheer.

"AND SPARKLEHORSE!" yelled a drunk voice from our left.

A titter.

So on came Sparklehorse. And I enjoyed them; I liked what they were playing. It was incredibly mellow and beautiful and I felt relaxed listening to it. However, as I agreed with Alex afterwards, their music was slightly better suited to grassy meadows and chilling than it was for when you're waiting to see Dave Gilmour, arguably one of the greatest living guitarists. As Steve joked, they were just a cover for the staff trying to get Dave Gilmour through the doors.

But enjoyable enough, and although the banter from the two people behind us was particularly condemning I liked them. They didn't prance around the stage acting like some big rock band; they knew we weren't here to see them, and they were modest in their playing. "I dunno why Dave Gilmour asked us to play for him, he must be nuts" the lead singer said. Followed later with, "Thank you for being so kind"

To much applause, they left the stage, and so began the countdown to Davie.

An Old Friend Sydney

On he came. A balding, big man. To much applause. Very very much.

He picked up a guitar and started to tune. Or was he playing? Slowly, he began to pick out melodies, sometimes incredibly quickly. It was during one of these quick melodies that it occurred to me that he was the best guitarist I'd ever seen live. It built on slowly added to by rising chords in the background. Someone to our right had seen it and gave a drunken roar. Alex saw it, and leaned over.

"Shine on" he said. Oh baby.

There was applause rising as a few more people saw it.

Then there were those beautiful four notes that lead the intro into the main theme. And a cheer rose.

After the fantastic acoustic rendition of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One)" and the applause, Dave said, "That was a song about an old friend, Sydney, who really did have a light in his eyes. And this is one by him."

He then proceeded to play a song I hadn't heard, but one that was clearly by Barrett. Playful and beautiful.

And so the evening progressed.

There was a much-welcomed rendition of "Coming Back to Life." A long intro built up with fantastic backing vocals. There was a new number ("Bootleggers, start your machines now.") "Smile," something noticeably new, which almost would have been at home on The Division Bell. Classic numbers such as "Wish You Were Here," "Fat Old Sun," "High Hopes," "A Great Day For Freedom," a cover from an opera and a great rendition of "Comfortably Numb" with Robert Wyatt on vocals for the verse. Gilmour's trademark solos here were not quite as extravagant and self indulgent as I'd expected (hoped!) they would be, but it was really something hearing them live.

I can't now remember the full playlist, but I recall that the final song played after the encores was from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. An odd choice, but suitable for the occasion. It reminded me of "If"... from Atom Heart Mother...

"Good night," he said, to much applause. Much, much applause.

So we strolled back among the crowds to the train. We all had the after gig feeling, where you're tired and elated, and standing on the train all the way to Clapham Junction before I could get a seat wasn't all that thrilling.

Still, it was a fantastic evening. Possibly the best gig ever, with possibly the best guitarist ever. What more could you want?

Well... a Pink Floyd reunion, but still.

Drunk roars and responses:

1) "PLAY THE NEW FLOYD ALBUM" -- "Ah, who gives a fuck?"

2) "COULD YOU PLAY SOMETHING FROM ANIMALS NOW, PLEASE?" -- "We'd be here till after turf-out time if I did that."

3) "BRING ON ROGER WATERS" -- "Well, if you want him, you can have him."

Rowan D'Albert is a guest contributor to Spare Bricks.