The Smiley Smile Message Board

I often hear a lot of praise for their first album, but really, after that, I don't usually hear opinions about the early singles or any album after Piper up until Atom Heart Mother...


Any opinions on those albums/early singles?

I'd love to read about it.

Piper is one of my all time faves.

Saucer is great, but it noodles around quite a bit. Syd's Jugband Blues is the highlight.

In between that and AHM it's mostly just soundscapey experiments with the odd gem here and there (Green is the Colour/The Nile Song/Furry Animals).

Jugband Blues is great, reminds me of something Brian would do in the late 60s but in a Smiley way. Maybe a little Wake the World in there with the horns (studio tuba/concert instruments as well).

I've been playing Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast a lot to relax. Summer 68 and Fat Old Sun are favorites of mine as well. I feel like I read somewhere that one of the members said a lot of that late 60s/early 1970 experiment with sounds is a bunch of rubbish...Maybe Gilmour said it? More is played occasionally....the songs you mentioned and the Crying Song are favs of mine.

More is one of my favourite early Floyd albums; there are some great tracks and the rest are pleasant and undemanding when you're just pottering around the house.

Obscured by Clouds has its hits  - the opening sequence of songs - and misses - 'Wots uh the Deal' - but again even the low points are undemanding.  I cite this trait as a positive because Floyd at full-force, as I'm sure you know, can be very heavy and intense.  Piper and Saucerful come to mind as albums that have deep psychic penetration and can wear you out.

I love Ummagumma despite seldom listening to it.  The album art, the concept, and the execution are all terrific and oh so cool.

I love all Pink Floyd up to and including Dark Side Of The Moon, after that, there's still some great stuff, but some of their edge and hunger had turned into bloated excess.

Anyone interested in early Pink Floyd needs to hear some of the unreleased stuff they did during towards the end of Syd Barrett's tenure in the band. They may not be officially available, but "Scream Thy Last Scream", "In The Beechwoods", "No Title", and particularly "Vegetable Man" (Syd's best song IMHO) deserve to be heard.

I have never heard of "In The Beechwoods".. I am intrigued. Time to go a-hunting. :D

Agreed. Actually, I prefer Final Cut to the Wall. Not a real big fan of the Gilmour solo as Pink Floyd period though.

Interesting part about the Live 8 reunion performance...it was a much more stripped down, less sidemen Floyd.

Yeah the Live 8 gave me all sorts of warm fuzzies. It felt and sounded like the real deal.

Listening to "In The beechwoods" as a type this. Not terribly impressed with the sound quality. It also sounds like more like The Pink Floyd Sound than Pink Floyd, if you know what I mean. When was is recorded?

It was recorded in October 1967, during the early sessions for A Saucerful Of Secrets, and according to Nick Mason was written shortly after "See Emily Play". It's Nick you can hear talking on the recording, which comes from a 1969 interview where he played the song, along with 2 different versions of "Vegetable Man".

It's a great song nonetheless.

"In The Beachwoods" sounds like they were still working out the song. Kind of like some early "Vegetable Man" jams they did. It's interesting, to me, that the band refuses to release "Vegetable Man" & "Scream Thy Last Scream". My feeling is that if they released, more people would see what Syd was up to at the time - "Vegetable Man", "Scream Thy Last Scream", "Apples & Oranges", "Jugband Blues" - & start to feel like the argument that Syd wasn't contributed good songs anymore wasn't true. The truth is that Syd's material wasn't commercial enough. After jettisoning Syd, the Floyd released some embarrassingly trite singles like "Julia Dream", thinking they were Beatles-like pop stars. It's a period the band, I feel, is ashamed of, and they want to keep under wraps. If people knew that they refused to release good Syd material because it wasn't going to be the next hit single they so desperately wanted, how would that affect their "underground" image?

More was the soundtrack during my first date with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds... I will Never forget how awesome Cirrus Minor sounded... (sighs), oh the good old days...

AHM, live Ummagumma, Syd's tunes, all amazing...very sad what happened to him. Anyone like his solo records? I prefer Barrett and the Opel compilation...

The Madcap Laughs is still one of my all-time favorite records. The Syd/Early Floyd compilation that just came out is really tops as well.

This doesn't jibe with the facts, though. Pink Floyd would have liked nothing more than to have Syd writing and performing at the level he was only months earlier. However, he became a liability when he became incapable/refused to do the live shows. Given that Syd was not really a member of the band by the time A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS was being finished, it would have been disingenuous to include too many of his songs. The commercial choice would have been to put as much of his material out as possible to capitalize on PIPER. As for the singles, the band was obviously flailing around to find an identity without Syd, something that took a good two or three years to happen (longer if you consider DARK SIDE to be the arrival point). The fact that the band abandoned the more commercial-sounding pop after dipping their toe in the water and became even more experimental is very telling, as is the fact that both Waters and Gilmour continued working with Syd on his solo releases. I don't see how keeping the later Syd material under wraps is, in any way, demonstrative of the band pushing for more commercial success; it simply didn't represent who the band was at that time. If anything, I think they found the title of the song "Vegetable Man" distasteful (given Syd's behavior) more than the lack of quality.

I agree with ROGER. It has always been my impression that those songs were never released because of the percieved distaste at capitalizing on the mental illness of a friend...

Not that it stopped him from being the abstract concept behind nearly every album from Dark Side to The Wall (to one degree or another). But hey, people are complex. :)

At Syd's earliest solo session in May 1968, the original plan seems to be to finish off some of the tracks Syd was working on during his final months in Pink Floyd. This could explain why these tracks were never use for A Saucerful Of Secrets, that and the fact it would have been a bit strange to have an album made up largely of songs written and played on by someone who was no longer and member of the band.

Later on in 1974, mixes were made of "Vegetable Man" and "Scream Thy Last Scream" for inclusion on a third Syd Barrett album, along with some of the leftovers from his solo albums (which ended up on Opel, 14 years later), and some new material recorded in 1974. However, the new sessions did not, to put it mildly, go well (Syd would never attempt to record again), and it was decided there wasn't enough useable material for a full album. John Leckie, who engineered the 1974 session, has said that Pink Floyd were ok with Syd using those songs

The only time the band actually vetoed the tracks from coming out was when the Opel album was being put together in 1987/1988. Possibly because of all the legal problems Pink Floyd were having at the time. However, in recent times, David Gilmour has said he has no problem with those songs coming out, but as he had no involvement with those songs, he has no say in what happens to them.

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I've really been into the early single stuff lately: Arnold Layne, See Emily Play, Paint Box, It Would be So Nice, Apples and Oranges, Biding My Time, Interstellar Overdrive, Bike, etc....just incredible material that could have prolly made a wholenother Syd-Album....and yes, I'm aware some songs were on albums or could have been later recorded for another Syd album.

Speaking of early Pink Floyd, there is something I've always wondered. Is "Candy And A Currant Bun" the first example of a high profile "Rock&Roll" band saying the word "f*ck" in a song?

Where do they say it??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaPT6l7dTZ8

Anybody know what Brian thinks of Pink Floyd or Barrett?
I know David Gilmour inducted Brian in the Music hall of fame and I've seen a picture of Brian holding Spector's christmas album with dark side of the moon beside him, but has he ever said anything about them? Did Barrett ever comment on Brian?

It was from a Mojo interview IIRC, where Brian chose Dark Side of the Moon as one of his favourite albums.

There an interview that Jenny Fabien did with Syd in the late 60's (around the time of The Madcap Laughs), where she describes Syd playing Beach Boys records over and over on his turntable. So it's fair to say Syd was something of a fan in the 60's at least. However for the most part, Syd's musical taste tended towards Jazz, Blues, and Classical for pretty much all his life. His sister has said that in his later years, he would enjoy listening to artist like Miles Davis while he painted.

Wow thats very interesting, I though Brian must of liked dark side of the moon,
very cool, thank you