Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

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Why Pink Floyd? The Wall

Posted by Musicofourheart on September 30, 2011
Posted in: Architecture, Art Rock, Motion Picture Soundtrack, Movie, Music, Music Video, Psychedelic. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 1 comment
Cover of "The Wall"

Cover of The Wall

Why Pink Floyd? week culminates with my thoughts and observations about The Wall.

The Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’s Why Pink Floyd? Week ends tonight in spectacular fashion with Pearl Jam doing “Mother” from The Wall.

I find The Wall to be the creative apex of Pink Floyd’s collective musical genius. It also happens to be the split in the nuclei for Pink Floyd. The Wall is very much Roger Water’s baby, as it is his story.

The stress and strain on the band members during The Wall’s recording sessions are well documented. I won’t take the time here to get into the dynamics that took place. When The Wall collapses into rubble and the dust clears we witness a very different Pink Floyd standing in our midst.

I have always felt it was unfortunate that Richard Wright was forced to resign from the group by Roger Waters. I love his signature keyboard sound. He created a rich fullness with his textures of layered sound. In my estimation he took the Hammond B3 organ to amazing new heights. Of all the members of Pink Floyd I witnessed at The Dark Side of the Moon concert in 1973, Richard Wright organ playing etched himself the firmest in the my memories.

Much has been written and analyzed about The Wall. Certainly The Wall has taken on a life of it’s own over time. I am constantly intrigued by the dimensional variations The Wall has given us over the decades since it went on stream in 1979.

First as a limited series of live concerts in 1980 that created a major stir because a cardboard wall was constructed in front of the band, walling them in and then, being torn down at the end.

Next The Wall was turned into a film directed by Alan Parker and was released in 1982. The Wall broke new barriers with multimedia, as recorded film footage with actors was interspersed with wild animations from Gerald Scarfe (which we first saw on the double album cover art and as part of the live show). I a liken Scarfe’s graphic art to Ralph Steadman’s manic art.

The Wall was later performed and filmed in Berlin as a celebration for the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Roger Waters engaged producer Tony Hollingsworth to create The Wall – Live in Berlin, at a location once occupied by part of the Berlin Wall. It featured such guest stars as Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of The Band, The Hooters, Van Morrison,Sinéad O’Connor, Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, Scorpions, Joni Mitchell, Paul Carrack, Thomas Dolby and Bryan Adams, along with actors Albert Finney, Jerry Hall,Tim Curry and Ute Lemper. This concert features my favorite collaborative edition of “Comfortably Numb” sung with a fierce passion by Van Morrison.

File:RWTheWall90.jpg

Roger Waters has been touring steadily with The Wall Live since 2010 . He brings The Wall Live to North America Stadiums (including Yankee Stadium) in the second quarter of 2012.

Roger Waters: The Wall Live

An effort was made to produce and bring The Wall to Broadway. The closest that came to realization was a two week off-Broadway production in Boston, Massachusetts in 1996.

The Why Pink Floyd? Immersion Box Set will become available on February 28, 2012. This will complete the Why Pink Floyd? product distribution campaign.

The Wall - Immersion Box Set

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Why Pink Floyd? Wish You Were Here

Posted by Musicofourheart on September 29, 2011
Posted in: Art Rock, Music, Progressive Rock, Psychedelic. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 4 comments
Cover of "Wish You Were Here"

Cover of Wish You Were Here

Why Pink Floyd? week continues on Thursday with a look see at Pink Floyd’s follow up recording to Dark Side of the Moon. Wish You Were Here was released on September 12, 1975 (36 years ago). Richard Wright and David Gilmour have each declared Wish You Were Here their favorite Pink Floyd album.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon honors Why Pink Floyd? week with country star Dierks Bentley playing the title track to Wish You Were Here.

I first heard Wish You Were Here at the WNEW-FM Christmas Concert at the Westchester Theater (The concert starred Renaissance, Janis Ian and The Stanky Brown Group). It was played extensively in between stage changes for Renaissance who was the headlining act. I was surprised to hear the enthusiastic crowd response to the music as it wafted through the concert hall. I developed an immediate connection with “Welcome To The Machine” which to me has always signified our society’s interdependence upon technology. I am a 30+ year technology professional and “Welcome To The Machine” speaks to the engineer/designer I’ve become.

Wish You Were Here - Experience Version

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Why Pink Floyd? Up through Dark Side of the Moon

Posted by Musicofourheart on September 28, 2011
Posted in: Music. Tagged: , , , , . 3 comments

Why Pink Floyd? week continues as well on the Music Of Our Heart Blog. Today’s post focuses on several aspects of Pink Floyd that help answer Why Pink Floyd? for me.

Why Pink Floyd week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon features MGMT performing “Lucifer Sam” off The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

1) My first lengthy encounter with the music of Pink Floyd was in the 1970  film Zabriskie Point by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. Pink Floyd’s music was the most memorable feature of this surrealistic movie. I made a special point of seeing this film based upon an article I read about Antonioni and Pink Floyd in Rolling Stone magazine. I came away from this movie with the visual nature of Pink Floyd firmly planted in my psyche.

File:1ZabriskiePoint.jpg

2) My next intervention with Pink Floyd was the album Meddle which I was introduced to again as a music backdrop at a fellow college student’s place. “Echoes” was the selection on Meddle that intrigues me with its evolving dynamics to this day.

3) My next visual experience was the 1972 film, Pink Floyd: Live at  Pompeii. This was a surround sound concert of Pink Floyd filmed without an audience on the floor of an amphitheatre in Pompeii. There were many interesting and novel cinematic techniques. You were taken to the heart of the sun by the director, film crew and Pink Floyd. I saw this in the movie house where the large screen amplified the sound and video experience.

Dark Side of the Moon

I was fortunate to see Pink Floyd with my fiance’ Rosemary in April 1973 at the Palace Theater in Waterbury. I purchased the $6.00 tickets to this concert at Rubber Match Waterbed in New Haven, a Ticketmaster ticket outlet (remember those…). The concert was oversold and we ended sitting on the stairs in balcony that night. I am very proud to say I  saw Pink Floyd perform Dark Side of the Moon on March 18th, 1973 the day after it hit the U.S. charts. As everyone knows Dark Side of the Moon spent 741 weeks (15 years) on the charts from 1973 to 1988. This ranks as one of my top three concerts of all time out of more than 400+ concerts I have attended in 42 years!

I purchased a copy the first week it was released in March of 1973 at Cutlers in New Haven. I actually got in trouble with the WNHU-FM station manager because I played it from beginning to end one day during our July 1973 début week. I had violated the playlist policy that was in force at the station at the time. (3 songs from the A list, 2 songs from the B list every hour…) Having seen Pink Floyd perform Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety four months earlier I just had to repeat that experience for my listening audience.

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Why Pink Floyd? Product Day in North America

Posted by Musicofourheart on September 27, 2011
Posted in: Art Rock, Graphics Design, Music. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 3 comments

What an exciting week  for Pink Floyd fans and music collectors. The Why Pink Floyd?  EMI/Capitol sales and distribution campaign commences today for North America. All the studio albums are newly remastered including unreleased music from the archives & collectors’ box sets.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is celebrating Why Pink Floyd? all week. Tonight’s show features Roger Waters and The Foo Fighters as his backing band performing, “in the Flesh” from The Wall.

The first phase of  newly remastered Pink Floyd recordings includes:

  1. 14 Remastered ‘Discovery Edition’ Studio Albums on CD and digital download.
  2. A Discovery Box Set featuring all 14 remastered studio albums.
  3. The Dark Side Of The Moon – Immersion, Experience, Discovery & Vinyl Editions.
Tomorrow I will share my reflections about how I got into Pink Floyd in 1970,  the films Zabriskie Point and Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii (1972), Meddle (1972) and Dark Side of the Moon.

Why Pink Floyd? Week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Posted by Musicofourheart on September 26, 2011
Posted in: Music. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 3 comments
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Image via Wikipedia

Every night this week the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show will be celebrating the Why Pink Floyd? campaign of 2011 remasters and collectors’ editions.

Expect to see The Shins and  Nick Mason tonight.

Tuesday night musical guests will be Foo Fighters and Roger Waters.

Wednesday evening features MGMT.

Thursday’s show stars Dierks Bentley.

Friday will showcase Pearl Jam.

Today the pig was floated above Battersea Power Station in L0ndon much to the delight of commuters and fans all over the planet.

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A Renewed Paul Simon

Posted by Musicofourheart on March 21, 2011
Posted in: Singer, Songwriter, World Music. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 1 comment

Paul Simon has been showing up ever stronger on my music radar screen lately. I was enthralled to learn that he was doing a small venue tour this spring. I snapped up tickets for us to see him at Foxwoods Casino MGM Grand Theatre on May 29.

Paul Simon is readying for his new album release, So Beautiful or So What, it’s scheduled to drop on April 12th. His tour commences April 15th in Seattle, Washington. Paul Simon is scheduled to appear two nights in a row on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, April 6th and April 7th.  Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones leveraged Jimmy Fallon’s show for their respective boxed set recordings.

Paul Simon is an artist on Hear Music, the joint music venture between Starbucks and Concord Music Group.

Produced by Phil Ramone and Paul Simon, with liner notes written by Elvis Costello, So Beautiful or So What is one of the most highly anticipated albums of the year. Rolling Stone magazine recently declared it, “His best since Graceland,” and National Public Radio affirmed, “…his new music balances great poetry and pop. Paul Simon is a national treasure.” In their current issue, Filter Magazine calls the new album, “…a new masterpiece from the Picasso of music.” (This paragraph is courtesy of the Paul Simon Website).

Two tracks are available for listening from So Beautiful or So What. “Getting Ready for Christmas Day” and “The Afterlife”. They offer strong hints at what the rest of this indie record has in store for us. Paul Simon self-financed the recording sessions. I am openly receptive to his meticulous songwriting talent. I can’t wait to embrace the new sounds and experiences that await our senses.

Paul Simon’s solo recordings are the highlight of my music collection. Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin Simon & Graceland embody some of the finest songs and melodies known to modern music. Something tells me So Beautiful or So What compliments and embellishes his work to a new nth degree.