# Pink Floyd, Before and After Syd **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 7, 2009, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619 "2009-08-07T11:54:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/81 "2009-08-08T20:01:55Z")
> [@TheFatKid](#): > > Ok, thank you. > > My recollection was that the money disappeared somehow, and I think I was indeed conflating this situation with what happend to the Grateful Dead. Sure, **NineToTheSky** & **1920s Style “Death Ray”** point out the true situation. Norton Warburg didn’t arrive on the scene until 1976, 3 years after the release of DSotM. The company advised the band to place a percentage of their earnings into various venture capital enterprises, in order to avoid paying a punitive 83% tax. With the exception of one property deal in Knightsbridge, these enterprises failed dismally. It was estimated the Floyd lost circa £3.3 million as a result of Norton Warburg management skimming. As has been said, they got their due rewards but subsequently lost them. Then, they needed to do _The Wall_ for the cash. It’s just the timing of your version that is amiss. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/82 "2009-08-08T22:18:18Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Oh, I can admire it a bit while not wanting to listen to it. I did my time as a self-indulgent depressive right around the time it was released, so the themes don’t age well with me now. I can relate to your POV, but some of those songs on that recording are so compelling to me. “Run Like Hell”, “Young Lust”, “In The Flesh”, “Thin Ice” and “Mother” being chief among them to me. ---
**Author:** ![TheFatKid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@TheFatKid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFatKid)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/83 "2009-08-08T23:56:11Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > It’s just the timing of your version that is amiss. No, that was the timing I recalled. ---
**Author:** ![TheFatKid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@TheFatKid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFatKid)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/84 "2009-08-08T23:57:32Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I can relate to your POV, but some of those songs on that recording are so compelling to me. “Run Like Hell”, “Young Lust”, “In The Flesh”, “Thin Ice” and “Mother” being chief among them to me. Yeah, I listened to it so much when I was young that I didn’t play it at all for maybe 15 years. When I came back to it, there was a lot to like. Imho, the best bits have the most influence from Gilmour. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/85 "2009-08-09T02:13:06Z")
I had already heard and liked quite a lot of Floyd in 1984 when I was 13, but Piper at the gates of Dawn was the first album (as opposed to compilation, such as Beatles’ 20 Greatest Hits) that I became completely obsessed with. I still love all of it. At the time I could not hear Bike too many times. I still think Flaming is incredibly moving. I can see his merits but I’m not a great Waters fan. My favourite other Floyd stuff is Echoes and the whole of Atom Heart Mother. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who actually likes Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast. Since someone raised the topic upthread I like 60s American garage punk and other stuff like that. For me pop music has to have some sort of sexy or weird edge to it (which can be expressed in many different ways), and I think initially Syd Barrett had that. I feel a lot of the best post Barrett Floyd stuff (esp 2nd side AHM) evokes a few beautiful guys and girls lying in a grassy meadow with some guitars on a warm sunny day, miles from anyone else, lazily smoking weed and watching the clouds drift by. I was very pleased to discover recently that Barrett and Gilmour basically spent 1966 doing this in France. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/86 "2009-08-09T16:42:03Z")
> [@G. Odoreida](#): > > I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who actually likes Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast. Me, me, me! I do. Lovely tunes, and I do like the sound effects: “Toast; I like toast”, snap, crackle, pop, etc. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/87 "2009-08-09T16:45:01Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > To hijack a little, anyone familiar with [Tomorrow](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_(band))? Highly reminiscent of Syd-era Floyd, and heavily psychedelic, especially [My White Bicycle](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62yWU4ryrgI). And with the added trivia bonus of featuring a pre-Yes Steve Howe. Yes, I was, and am, very fond of them, too. Despite the term ‘psychedelic’ being bandied about with wild abandon in 1967, I don’t think that too many groups actually deserved the description. Syd’s Pink Floyd and Tomorrow were two that definitely did. ---
**Author:** ![TheFatKid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@TheFatKid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFatKid)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/88 "2009-08-09T17:20:15Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > Me, me, me! I do. Lovely tunes, and I do like the sound effects: “Toast; I like toast”, snap, crackle, pop, etc. Count me in, too. But I find the studio record from Ummagumma unlistenable. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/89 "2009-08-09T18:15:52Z")
> [@TheFatKid](#): > > Count me in, too. But I find the studio record from Ummagumma unlistenable. Yes, I do, too - apart from Grantchester Meadows and The Narrow Way. I have fond memories of Grantchester Meadows because I knew Francis Crick’s (the DNA man) daughter. They lived there, and as **G. Odoreida** said ‘I feel a lot of the best post Barrett Floyd stuff (esp 2nd side AHM) evokes a few beautiful guys and girls lying in a grassy meadow with some guitars on a warm sunny day, miles from anyone else, lazily smoking weed and watching the clouds drift by.’ (Minus the weed smoking. And I don’t know about me being beautiful, but she was.) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/90 "2009-08-10T00:07:19Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > Yes, I do, too - apart from Grantchester Meadows and The Narrow Way. I think that The Narrow Way is the only song on that album to mesh well stylistically with their Epic Era stuff. If it were produced differently it could have been another classic like Echoes (which should really be regarded as straddling the line between the Post-Barrett era and Epic Era.) ETA: and it \*\*\*\*in rocks, of course. Even though the only tracks with a version unavailable elsewhere that I like off Ummagumma are Narrow Way, Granchester Meadows, and SSoSFAGTiaCaGWAP occasionally, it was still well worth the purchase price. ---
**Author:** ![Lobot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@Lobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobot)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619/91 "2009-08-10T00:57:42Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > If it were produced differently it could have been another classic like Echoes (which should really be regarded as straddling the line between the Post-Barrett era and Epic Era.) IMHO, with “Echoes”, you can hear the seeds of “Breathe” and “Time” in particular. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-before-and-after-syd/505619.md?page=4)