BBC Sounds Of The 70s: The Dark Side of the Moon 50th Anniversary

Gestern lief auf BBC Johnny Walker’s Sendung Sound Of The 70s, die ganz im Zeichen von 50 Jahre Dark Side Of The Moon stand. Aus Mangel an neuen, aktuellen Interviews, griff Walker auf sein Archiv zurück.

Johnny Walker Archive Interviews: Nick Mason & David Gilmour about The Dark Side Of The Moon

NICK MASON: The opening “Speak to me” was something I put together has something as an overview, could only be done after the album was finished, cause I took sections throughout the album and made that intro section, with a backward piano. I think it was a backward piano chord for the first 60 seconds or something.

JOHNNY WALKER: It’s a sort of menu, a taste of what’s to come. Roger Waters once described your writing credit on that as a gift to you! Wasn’t he being a bit harsh there?

NICK MASON: Roger is well-known for is harshness … I think (laughs). I think at the end of the day … I suppose I don’t feel guilty about having it.

JOHNNY WALKER: I think he later retracted it. But I mean, how did you get on in those days, the dark side of the moon days?

NICK MASON: I think we got on pretty well. For a bunch of middle-class boys, who certainly know quite a lot about the getting under each other’s skin if wanted to. The problem with being in a band is you tend up to know each other really, really well. So if you are in a bad mood, you know exactly how to make everybody else upset.

Eine zutreffende Beschreibung, dass Mason mit dem Intro Speak To Me, eine Art Menükarte des Albums kreierte. Dass Waters ihm den Credit strittig machte, es als ein Geschenk abtat, einmal mehr bezeichnend.

DAVID GILMOUR: This is what we had been sort of moving towards since Syd left, really. We felt that the three-minute pop single, while being something possible to aspire to, wasn’t really our for tray. None of us of seemed to be that good at, or all that keen on, writing that sort of thing. We had pretensions of being a more serious musical outfit than that, I suppose you could say.

JOHNNY WALKER: Interesting choice of words (laughs). Did you ever get pretentious, going over the top?

DAVID GILMOUR: I think pretension is a very important ingredient in live. Sort of stepping near the boundaries of pretensions, is something that one should a lot of and stepping over that boundaries is something you should get aware of, I guess. But never really know till you get there.

JOHNNY WALKER: How would you ever know if you stepped over the boundaries?

DAVID GILMOUR: Someone would tell you eventually (laughs). And constantly have.

BRAIN DAMAGE

JOHNNY WALKER: The degree of interest in Pink Floyd music, it still sounds absolutely fine. You must feel very proud, that’s quite something to do, to create music that is timeless.

DAVID GILMOUR: Yeah, it is indeed. It is something which we are very proud of. It’s funny that you could do that for all those years and along comes the 80ies, and you get tempted in sorts of stupid ditties that everyone got into in the 80ies.

Interview mit dem Autor Mark Blake

writer Mark Blake.

Mit dem Autor Mark Blake sprach Walker über dessen Buch Us & Them, das die Karriere von Hipgnosis, Storm Thorgerson & Aubrey Powell, die Erschaffer vieler legendärer Albencover, intensivst ausleuchte.

Sounds Of the 70s: Johnnie marks the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s landmark album The Dark Side of the Moon.