1969 - The Man and the Journey

[jtull]

The great unrecorded concept album. One of my favourite musical suites.

[Fingals Cave]

Someone’s done a reconstruction of the "Massed Gadgets" as if it had been released instead of Ummagumma.

http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.co. ... menes.html

There are plenty of notes and comments on the blog. I think he's done a great job!

[jtull]

It is a quite well done.

[space triangle]

Absolutely essential recording, and one of my favourite musical suits. Lots of the musical ideas, full of interesting bits and pieces.

[scarecrow]

Yeah, I think quite a few great moments.

I also find this an interesting document of the journey of the band... if DSOTM-Floyd sounds like a completely different band to Piper-Floyd, this is perhaps the halfway point between the two?

I think my favourite is 'Sleep'... interesting that the intro of this, and all of 'Daybreak II' is surely an early incarnation of the first section of 'Time'? Also the idea of 'Breathe'

I also think of late-60s post-Barrett Floyd as an era when perhaps the band found themselves having to disassociate from being considered a heavy druggy thing, or some sort of way out philosophical/ cult thing. I can't really substantiate this but wonder if Daybreak/ Grantchester Meadows was a deliberate attempt to explain where they're coming from? It's kind of opposite to the whimsical/ sonic exploratorations/ occult-referencing (perhaps) of Barrett's material... a nostalgic recollection of Cambridge summers which also alludes to a fenland spookiness (hence the title Ummagumma also).

As a whole, it's very much the birth of Waters' 'everyman' sort of songwriting/ conceptualising, which peaked on Dark Side, and this could well be an early template for that record.

Also somewhat similar to Moody Blues 'Days of Future Passed' in terms of themes/ structure?

[space triangle]

I can't really substantiate this but wonder if Daybreak/ Grantchester Meadows was a deliberate attempt to explain where they're coming from? It's kind of opposite to the whimsical/ sonic exploratorations/ occult-referencing (perhaps) of Barrett's material... a nostalgic recollection of Cambridge summers which also alludes to a fenland spookiness (hence the title Ummagumma also).

It could be that Daybreak/Grantchester Meadows was a deliberate attempt to explain where they're coming from. Or, it could be as simple as Rick Wright pointed in an interview from the 1996:' We could never write like Syd, we never had the imagination to come out with the kind of lyrics he did'.

[scarecrow]

Yes, true. I suppose I'm just interested in the mythology and trajectory of the band... in some ways Floyd '68-'72 is a sort of meandering period; Peter Jenner said something along the lines of there being nothing to suggest that Waters would become this great songwriter, especially given how basic his musical skills were, so it's an interesting document of the seeds of that. Plus maybe a more nuanced chemistry between the players, improvisation that didn't just rest on a 'freak out' kind of thing.

[ZiggyZipgun]

I found an answer to the question of why this was never released as an album, and in a very strange place:

On May 1, 1982, Gilmour and Mason took part in a Radio Europe interview with a bunch of people, while listeners called in to win free passes to The Wall premiere at Cannes film festival. Who took part? Well, Barbet Schroeder - the director of More and La Vallee, the lead actor and actress from La Vallee, several disc jockeys, and Étienne Roda-Gil - the songwriter/screenwriter who would soon write Ça Ira and ask Roger to set it to music.

The conversation is all over the place, with one of the DJs repeatedly pointing out how "cute" Dave and Nick are, while some of them speak in English and some in French, while Dave and Nick try to do both.

MDJ: Now we have some real treasures...recordings of Pink Floyd. Now we’re going to listen to something which is unreleased. It is an unreleased song from a concert in January of 1970, in Paris at the Theater of Champs de Elysees.
...
MDJ: So, Etienne Rodajil, were you at the show at Champs de Elysees?

Etienne Rodajil: No, I wasn’t. I couldn’t get any tickets, but I was listening to Europe 1 and I heard the broadcast.

MDJ: Maxie, were you at the show?

MX: No, I couldn’t get any tickets either.

MDJ: Mark Garcia, were you at the show?

MG: Yes. I hitchhiked across France to see the show and now it’s so funny to realize that the Pink Floyd used to play in this tiny auditorium, knowing how big they are now. But knowing where they played really tells us about who they were at the time - that they were just a small band that was very special!

MDJ: So Vivian, were you at the show?

FDJ: No. At the time I hadn’t realized how cute David Gilmour was, so I didn’t go to the show.

MDJ: Well I was coming back from India with my wife and I still had a lot of necklaces around my neck, and I wasn’t in a very good state. Now we have the title - I don’t understand what it means - "Massed Gadgets of Auximenes" or something like that...

David Gilmour: The first part was called The Man, and the second part was called The Journey. I don’t really remember those songs very well, because it was a mix of different songs from different albums, and also improvisations.

MDJ: Why didn’t you ever release this show on album?

David Gilmour: We couldn’t because a lot of those songs were already under contract on different albums.

MDJ: It is a very long song, 12 minutes, with not much going on. I will ask Nick Mason one question - do you remember hammering nails at the show?

Nick (In English): I’m sorry?

Dave (In English): Do you remember beating around with hammers on the stage... back in the good old days?

Nick (In English): Yes!! (Laughter)

MDJ: 23rd January, 1970 - Champs de Elysees... unreleased Pink Floyd. ("Work" is played... the sound continues behind the following conversation)

David Gilmour: You asked me earlier why it wasn’t on an album...

MDJ: (interrupting) Well I was coming back from India at the time and this is great! This is great music, this is very Asian...reminds me of Asia a lot. Little bells...this is great music. You have gongs...

FDJ: Well you can listen to that tape at home, can’t you?

MDJ: Oh sure, I do it all the time. So Nick, as a drummer, do you miss when you were hammering boards on stage?

Nick (In English): What did we do? We built a table, didn’t we?

Dave (In English): Yeah. We built a table and had tea on it!

MDJ: Yes, you built a table and you had tea on it and it was very British of you.

Nick (In English): And we had a radio. And we turned the radio on and left it on.

MDJ: Well, it’s a very long piece. We can’t listen to all that on the radio...it would be just unbearable.

Nick (In English): We’d find RTL (Radio Luxembourg; a competitor - LN) or something good.

MDJ: I won’t translate that part... David, you don’t have this recording do you?

David Gilmour: No, I’ve never listened to it.

MDJ: Well do you want it? Do you want this copy?

David Gilmour: Sure, I’d like to have it. ("Work" fades out)

https://www.brain-damage.co.uk/pink-flo ... ope-2.html

[rockfenris2005]

MDJ: Why didn’t you ever release this show on album?

David Gilmour: We couldn’t because a lot of those songs were already under contract on different albums.

Wow. I'd always wondered what the reason was exactly. Thank you!

[ZiggyZipgun]

Interesting to note that Tommy was released a month after The Man and The Journey tour began, while they were still working on Ummagumma, and unlike Dark Side, none of it was performed live beforehand.

Not really sure I get that. The Narrow Way (pt. 3 on Ummagumma) was clearly part of the Journey narrative, and so is Behold the Temple of Light, which is shortly quoted before on Ummagumma. Grantchester Meadows on the other hand feels like it's a bit shoehorned into the Journey.

I think the actual concept of The Man and the Journey is that none of it was specifically written for it - it was simply a different way to present their songs in a live format.

"We'd decided to make the damn album, and each of us do a piece of music on our own. It was just desperation really, trying to think of something to do, to write by myself. I'd never written anything before. I just went into the studio and started waffling about, tacking bits and pieces together — just bullshitted my way through. I got desperate at one point, rang Roger up and said 'Please help me write the lyrics,' but he said, 'No, do 'em yourself.' I haven't heard it in years, I've no idea what it's like. I was not ready for it, frankly. I didn't know what to do. So I had to [write my own lyrics], but I mean it's nothing, really. I don't see it as having any real value. I've never listened to it for donkey's years, mind you, so I don't know." - Gilmour

[twcc]

It's been mentioned before, but there is a good 'reinterpretation' of The Man and the Journey by RPWL ... CD and DVD (Region 0) available.

[theaussiefloydian]

Not really sure I get that. The Narrow Way (pt. 3 on Ummagumma) was clearly part of the Journey narrative, and so is Behold the Temple of Light, which is shortly quoted before on Ummagumma. Grantchester Meadows on the other hand feels like it's a bit shoehorned into the Journey.

I don't mean to be a stickler here, but Grantchester Meadows was played on "The Man" section of the concert, wasn't it?

[DarkSideFreak]

Not really sure I get that. The Narrow Way (pt. 3 on Ummagumma) was clearly part of the Journey narrative, and so is Behold the Temple of Light, which is shortly quoted before on Ummagumma. Grantchester Meadows on the other hand feels like it's a bit shoehorned into the Journey.

I don't mean to be a stickler here, but Grantchester Meadows was played on "The Man" section of the concert, wasn't it?

Ugh, I don't even remember making that post or what point I was trying to make. You're right; I was either thinking of "Green is the Colour" or writing "Journey" when I meant "The Man".