Interview with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd:
This week is an exciting one for me because two of my favorite bands, PINK FLOYD and NIRVANA are releasing expanded remastered versions of their albums. For Nirvana, this is a celebration of the 20th Anniversary of their album NEVERMIND (an album that helped define my wanting to play music in the first place). For Floyd, this is the first of a major release called the "Immersion" of Floyd starting with an expanded DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. I don't even need to explain what that album is and how popular it is do I? Its all been said before.
As a hardcore music fan, this is an exciting time. I love remastered and expanded albums and its really cool to see all of this stuff come to light. In a time where I have to suffer through empty top 40 hit bands whose majority of songs are engineered by other songwriters for a person with tits and barely any clothes on to sell records, sometimes I can get a good thing or two. I love to see evolution of things I like in music and these sets are perfect. I've already checked them both out and they are well worth the money. I would love to get the DARK SIDE set very soon but other things must come first. But today I got the added excitement to know that Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) is returning to the states with his LIVE WALL tour next year. Some of you recall I saw the show last year. And I will gladly go again! And the expanded WISH YOU WERE HERE and THE WALL "immersion" sets are coming out in the coming months, so that is exciting as well. On the Nirvana side, I picked up the live blu ray of LIVE AT THE PARAMOUNT 1991. The only Nirvana concert shot on 16mm film and remastered to high-def. I can't wait till I get a spare moment to crack it open and enjoy it.
All in all, its a great time to be a music fan of my generation. You get some of the 70's and some of the 90's stuff for us old hardcore folks. I just don't think the modern generations will have that zeal or passion for their music 20 years from now. And its a connection you make with like minded people who really delve deep and get it. For example, this dude comes into my dayjob at the strip club and is browsing movies. We casually start talking music and he finds out how hardcore on Floyd I am and we just start discussing the same things. He buys some movies and leaves and I am glad I had a nice conversation. The next day, he shows up with 5 burned CDs of some tracks I mentioned I hadn't heard from Syd Barrett (first songwriter for Floyd) and some Rory Gallagher, who he had mentioned to me but I said I hadn't heard any of. He made me essentially some nice mixtapes of 5 Cds worth of tracks. I was blown away. He took the time to go do that and he's maybe in his late 50s or so, doesn't know me at all other than I am just a dude working a register in a porn shop. But because we connected about talking about music, he went to the trouble and took time to do that for me. I was in awe.
Its that kind of thing that gets me excited about music. This connection you make with the band, the music and the hardcore like-minded fans who possess it for their own. I've said time and time again, that all art (in any form) is an exchange of intelligence and ideas from the artist to the observer. But what makes music even better is that it continues from the observer to another observer, and makes it even greater. Just amazing. and its rare now. I'm growing older and finding myself at an age where my favorite bands are either broke up or dead. There's not much new stepping up to take the place of these giants in my life. Sure I'll like a track or a band here and there, but it doesn't hold a candle to the music Gods in my life. Its those like minded people I really connect with. In a better world, I woulda spent more time on my own music and really gave it a serious go. Maybe someday I still might. Cause I just fucking enjoy the fuck out of it. And that sometimes is enough to get me by.
Shine On, T
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