Before They Were Floyd article

[Keith Jordan]

Can anyone find any factual errors with the text below or can think of any revisions? It is for the NPF Magazine which I will publish tomorrow night so will have time to work on it in the morning in work!!!

Before They Were Floyd
By Keith Jordan


Being in the right place at the right time and meeting the right people seems key to success in the music industry. A love of the new music pouring in from the USA in the form of Rhythm and Blues numbers which allowed young teenagers to rebel against their parents Jazz and classical collection, would have inspired young men the country over to pick up a guitar and form a band.

The death of Roger Barrett?s father and the flying of the nest of his siblings meant that Barrett?s liberal mother allowed up to 30 young people at a time to invade a room in her house to jam and listen to the new music. Barrett was very much a shining beacon on the Cambridge music scene. I

Barrett played in his first band Geoff Mott & The Mottoes in Cambridge during the spring of 1962. He then moved on to Those Without from June ? September 1963. Meanwhile, David Gilmour played several times in Cambridge in 1962 and 1963 in his first band, The Ramblers, although only playing a couple of shows with them. He went on to play more shows with his second band Chris Ian & The Newcomers and later just The Newcomers when Chris Ian departed. David would then go on to play semi-professionally with Jokers Wild and play quite a few dates around Cambridge as a local hero having taken to the guitar!

The London Scene was also the place where several bands were formed by other members of what would later become Pink Floyd. Nick Mason, Richard Wright and Roger Waters were all based in London and, from Autumn 1963, were playing in various bands. Sigma 6 was up first as a jamming group. This band was put together by Clive Metcalf whilst Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright were attending Regent Street Polytechnic. It would then morph into The Abdabs and, occasionally, even The Screaming Abdabs!

It was in Autumn 1964 that Syd Barrett had left Cambridge and had joined his future Pink Floyd band mates to play in the band The Spectrum Five. It would soon become Leonard?s Lodgers as Leonard, landlord to some of the Floyd at the time, had a PA system so was most welcome in the band!

In January 1965, the collection of people currently rehearsing as Leonard?s Lodgers would become one solid unit with varying names such as The Pink Floyd Blues Sound, The Pink Floyd Sound, The Tea Set and, eventually, just The Pink Floyd! It was as this group, after Chris Dennis (vocalist) left Barrett, Waters, Mason, Klose and Wright to their own devices that they recorded their first demo as The Pink Floyd in the Regent Street Polytechnic during some studio downtime. These tracks were the cover of a Slim Harpo R&B standard ?I?m A King Bee?, and three Barrett original compositions ?Double O Bo?, ?Butterfly (AKA ?Flutter By Butterfly?)? and ?Lucy Leave?.

Bob Klose, who was playing guitar, left the band in the summer of 1965 as his parents were moaning at him due to his lack of commitment to his studies. When term break came, Barrett started his first serious relationship with Lindsay Corner and had his first acid trip in Cambridge with friend Dave Gale. It was liquid LSD 20 dropped haphazardly onto sugar cubes so they too rather large doses! Barrett had hold of a orange, a plum and a matchbox. The fruit represented Venus and Jupiter apparently!

With the only accomplished musician Bob Klose gone, the rest of the band simply couldn?t compete with all the other bands playing R&B tracks so had to change direction slightly! Extended jams around basic chord structures were one option.

So the Floyd and Syd?s downfall had begun.



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[Coma Divine]

Good!

It was liquid LSD 20 dropped haphazardly onto sugar cubes so they too rather large doses! Barrett had hold of a orange, a plum and a matchbox. The fruit represented Venus and Jupiter apparently!

There seems to be a word missing from the bold, above.
Also, an unwanted "I" at the end of the second paragraph.

[Keith Jordan]

Hehe I shall correct those on my working copy. Thanks.


Any factual errors or additional things to say?

[Massed Gadgets]

Also, should that not be LSD-25? Or you could just simply say "LSD".

[Keith Jordan]

I will just use LSD as you suggest!

[J Ed]

good luck with that kieth
see you in 12 hours once youve done unlocking the Doors of Perception and tasted colours and exchanged email addresses with god
just remember: dont step out onto any Manhattan avenue traffic islands

[Keith Jordan]

Heheh I didnt even realise what I had written there!!

[J Ed]

thats cuz youre tootally trippin
you better stay away from that keyboard til the world resumes its normal shape

[The Ballad Of Pink Floyd]

now this is exactley what I said in my article, isn't it?

[Keith Jordan]

now this is exactley what I said in my article, isn't it?

Unless you re-wrote the history of the band, then probably, yes?

[The Ballad Of Pink Floyd]

now I don't think you eaven read it didn't you?

[Keith Jordan]

now I don't think you eaven read it didn't you?

I did read it, yes.

[The Ballad Of Pink Floyd]

so is it any wrong info, becouse you said I re-wrote it?

[Keith Jordan]

You said my article was the same as yours. We wrote about the same period of the band so we would have wrote similar things.

[davidsss]

These tracks were the cover of a Slim Harpo R&B standard ?I?m A King Bee?, and three Barrett original compositions ?Double O Bo?, ?Butterfly (AKA ?Flutter By Butterfly?)? and ?Lucy Leave?.

Double O Bo and Butterfly? Never heard of them before, are they available anywhere?

Suppose you learn something new every day hey?

DS