by Gary Jansz - Curator: The Sound, It Resounds
I was 12 years-old
growing up in the suburbs and living on a musical diet of my older
brother's musical hand-me downs (Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, the odd
Rolling Stones and Beatles greatest hits albums). Conversely, my best
friend Donny had a hippy brother named Robbie who's room was festooned
with black light posters, sundry drug paraphernalia and the raddest
stereo setup and accompanying record collection known to mankind—or at
least to me.
I remember Donny and me sneaking into Robbie the hippy's room and flipping through records with exotic band names, album titles and artwork that blew the lid off of any parochial Elton John or Fleetwood Mac album. Amongst the ornate album covers were records by Cream, Hendrix, Yes, King Crimson and more. But nestled innocently near the bric-a-brac of dirty jeans and sundry hippy detritus was an album with no title and no band name. As a precocious and inquisitive 12 year-old trespasser I naturally felt I had to find out what this album was. Picking it up and studying it like a mystified caveman discovering the wheel, I saw that it was an album called Meddle by some dude curiously named Pink Floyd. As it turns out, it wasn't some dude, but a band, who by the looks of the group pic inside the wonderful gatefold sleeve, appeared to be a hippy band of revolutionaries who would likely kick the shit out of anyone who listened to Elton John, Fleetwood Mac or a Rolling Stones greatest hits album...ummm that would be me then.
Donny said, “Oh that's a good one, it's all bouncy and has this monster's voice in the middle that's really funny” (referring to lead track 'One of These Days' and its bubbling bass line). Donny slipped the record out of the sleeve and placed it very carefully on the turntable, dropped the needle on and then we waited...and waited. Ahhh OK, there's the "bouncy bits" he was referring to, so far so good. But all of a sudden it's got all these backward loops that sound like flashes of light stabbing someone in the dark followed by what sounds like Godzilla, with a chorus of muted chainsaws, banging on Mothra's door issuing the most menacing fucking thing I'd ever heard, short of my father yelling at me to clean up my room. The voice went: “One of these days I'm going to cut you into a million pieces.” The song abruptly explodes into what can best be described as: the soundtrack to someone running for their lives. I was stunned, I was excited and I was scared shit-less.
Knowing that we probably shouldn't risk sneaking into Robbie the hippy's room again, I realized that I had to have this record for myself; this way I would be free to scare the shit out of myself at my own leisure, without fear of illegal trespassing. Like all suburbs, we had our requisite shopping mall: an oppressive, nondescript, building that had all the charm of a windowless prison. The one redeeming oasis in this concrete gulag was an actual, bona fide mom and pop record store called “Steve's Music.” It was here that I found a lovely shrink wrapped pristine copy of Pink Floyd Meddle for $4.99. Being 12 years-old without any disposable income I racked my brain trying to figure out how I could raise the money to buy it. It dawned on me that a good old fashioned lemonade stand outside my house would probably be just the ticket. Fact—lemonade stands were invented solely as an ingratiating Dickensian-like “alms-for-the-poor” ploy to separate gullible adults from their money.
It was a bright summer morning, perfect day to fleece....I mean offer the local Townie's some fine lemon-y liquid refreshments after a hard morning of grass cutting and car polishing. I recall I got off to a decent start but then lost steam around lunch time, ceding territory to the competitive lunchtime crowd at every mom's kitchen on the block. Enter the catalyst to this story. We had a relative staying with us from Toronto, a young lady who's name completely escapes me. I guess she took pity on my pre-pubescent Willy Loman-like situation and decided to make the following prescient offer: “If you raise half the money for your album, I will put up the other half.” Whoa – so we're wheelin' and dealin' here huh? Do I kibitz, try to low ball her, turn on the charm and dimples to get her to foot the bill for the whole thing? Nah – a benefactress in hand, is worth two in the bush, or whatever ornithological idiomatic reference applies here. So by mid-afternoon, with the lemonade supply depleted and the onset of sunstroke making me hallucinate, I decided to tally up my proceeds: $2.25...just short of the half-way point when factoring in taxes. Shit!
Well at the risk of sounding anti-climactic, I ended up getting Meddle at Steve’s Music as planned, thanks to the accommodating largess of the Toronto benefactress. I sometimes think about the purchase of Meddle and the stealth planning, cunning salesmanship and sweating in the sun, every time I hear some asshole bragging about how he just bit-torrented the entire Flaming Lips catalogue. Don’t get me wrong, I download music occasionally as well but I would like to think that I’ve developed a more personal relationship with the music I've consumed over the last 30 odd years of buying vinyl, cassettes, and CD’s, than say, developing a relationship with digitally encrypted binary code. I’m not trying to make a self-righteous argument or statement about downloading vs. buying CD’s here. It’s more about pervasive ease and laziness vs. the thrill of the hunt, owning the artifact and the collective nature of sharing music with friends and peers.
I remember Donny and me sneaking into Robbie the hippy's room and flipping through records with exotic band names, album titles and artwork that blew the lid off of any parochial Elton John or Fleetwood Mac album. Amongst the ornate album covers were records by Cream, Hendrix, Yes, King Crimson and more. But nestled innocently near the bric-a-brac of dirty jeans and sundry hippy detritus was an album with no title and no band name. As a precocious and inquisitive 12 year-old trespasser I naturally felt I had to find out what this album was. Picking it up and studying it like a mystified caveman discovering the wheel, I saw that it was an album called Meddle by some dude curiously named Pink Floyd. As it turns out, it wasn't some dude, but a band, who by the looks of the group pic inside the wonderful gatefold sleeve, appeared to be a hippy band of revolutionaries who would likely kick the shit out of anyone who listened to Elton John, Fleetwood Mac or a Rolling Stones greatest hits album...ummm that would be me then.
Donny said, “Oh that's a good one, it's all bouncy and has this monster's voice in the middle that's really funny” (referring to lead track 'One of These Days' and its bubbling bass line). Donny slipped the record out of the sleeve and placed it very carefully on the turntable, dropped the needle on and then we waited...and waited. Ahhh OK, there's the "bouncy bits" he was referring to, so far so good. But all of a sudden it's got all these backward loops that sound like flashes of light stabbing someone in the dark followed by what sounds like Godzilla, with a chorus of muted chainsaws, banging on Mothra's door issuing the most menacing fucking thing I'd ever heard, short of my father yelling at me to clean up my room. The voice went: “One of these days I'm going to cut you into a million pieces.” The song abruptly explodes into what can best be described as: the soundtrack to someone running for their lives. I was stunned, I was excited and I was scared shit-less.
Knowing that we probably shouldn't risk sneaking into Robbie the hippy's room again, I realized that I had to have this record for myself; this way I would be free to scare the shit out of myself at my own leisure, without fear of illegal trespassing. Like all suburbs, we had our requisite shopping mall: an oppressive, nondescript, building that had all the charm of a windowless prison. The one redeeming oasis in this concrete gulag was an actual, bona fide mom and pop record store called “Steve's Music.” It was here that I found a lovely shrink wrapped pristine copy of Pink Floyd Meddle for $4.99. Being 12 years-old without any disposable income I racked my brain trying to figure out how I could raise the money to buy it. It dawned on me that a good old fashioned lemonade stand outside my house would probably be just the ticket. Fact—lemonade stands were invented solely as an ingratiating Dickensian-like “alms-for-the-poor” ploy to separate gullible adults from their money.
It was a bright summer morning, perfect day to fleece....I mean offer the local Townie's some fine lemon-y liquid refreshments after a hard morning of grass cutting and car polishing. I recall I got off to a decent start but then lost steam around lunch time, ceding territory to the competitive lunchtime crowd at every mom's kitchen on the block. Enter the catalyst to this story. We had a relative staying with us from Toronto, a young lady who's name completely escapes me. I guess she took pity on my pre-pubescent Willy Loman-like situation and decided to make the following prescient offer: “If you raise half the money for your album, I will put up the other half.” Whoa – so we're wheelin' and dealin' here huh? Do I kibitz, try to low ball her, turn on the charm and dimples to get her to foot the bill for the whole thing? Nah – a benefactress in hand, is worth two in the bush, or whatever ornithological idiomatic reference applies here. So by mid-afternoon, with the lemonade supply depleted and the onset of sunstroke making me hallucinate, I decided to tally up my proceeds: $2.25...just short of the half-way point when factoring in taxes. Shit!
Well at the risk of sounding anti-climactic, I ended up getting Meddle at Steve’s Music as planned, thanks to the accommodating largess of the Toronto benefactress. I sometimes think about the purchase of Meddle and the stealth planning, cunning salesmanship and sweating in the sun, every time I hear some asshole bragging about how he just bit-torrented the entire Flaming Lips catalogue. Don’t get me wrong, I download music occasionally as well but I would like to think that I’ve developed a more personal relationship with the music I've consumed over the last 30 odd years of buying vinyl, cassettes, and CD’s, than say, developing a relationship with digitally encrypted binary code. I’m not trying to make a self-righteous argument or statement about downloading vs. buying CD’s here. It’s more about pervasive ease and laziness vs. the thrill of the hunt, owning the artifact and the collective nature of sharing music with friends and peers.
I remember being in high school and we
would all congregate at my friend’s place listening to records on a
Friday night, sitting around in a circle together in some kind of
quasi-monastic listening ceremony. One of the more odd and memorable
listening sessions was listening to side 1 of Brian Eno’s Discreet Music (30 minutes of near silence - and
the musical equivalent of listening to wind blowing through a lone tree
in the desert - yeah we were kinda freaks). After side 1 finished we
passed around the album, fascinated by Eno’s cool diagram of the tape
loop process he employed on the record, studying the back sleeve of the
album jacket. Then we’d share our opinions and discuss what we thought
of side 1, while smoking cigarettes, cross-legged on the floor, drinking
really bad wine. These were easily some of the most memorable times of
my teen years spent with some of my favorite people in the world,
listening, sharing and enjoying music.
So tell me Steve Jobs: Is there an app
for that?
Gary Jansz - July 2010
"They say the hill's too steep to climb..." I love that song!
I first heard "One of These Days" on a compilation album that I burrowed (and taped)from the town library - Pink Floyd Works - and I pretended it did not scare me at all. I was about 11 or 12 years old. This compilation album really got me wondering what what going on with this band. There were songs like "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and "Several Species of Small Furry ...... Grooving with a Pict". (I already had the Wall, the Dark Side, and Wish You Were Here).
I bought Meddle shortly afterwards and Fearless became my favourite Floyd song.
Pink Floyd was my band for years. Funny though, I was introduced to Floyd by my older brother (no Elton John from him, no way!). Thanks for the flashback, all the best to you Gary.
Posted by: Paul Michaud | 01/26/2011 at 07:53 PM
Hey, guess what first album I bought at Steves? Elton John's Greatest (the first one). On Boxing Day, no less... But Meddle, yes, I must listen again. I do remember a lot of Floyd being scary as shit.... I don't remember any Donny or Robbie, but remember the Court of the Crimson King and all of those Yes-songs... Who could forget Tales from Topographic Oceans??? Thanks for the trip down memory lane...
Posted by: Rich-L | 07/10/2010 at 11:53 PM
I too love this album. Although a far cry from the psychedelic deliciousness of Echoes and the scary bits of "One of these Days" Fearless is my one of my all-time favourite Pink Floyd songs. Besides the appealing main riff, the lyrics are simple but express a great idea (you think it can't be done but "I'll climb that hill in my own way".)
As for listening sessions...When I pulled my records out of 13 years of storage, a friend and I put a bunch of them on his turntable and we lied on the floor listening and rediscovering my teenage favourites which were more of the new wave variety but it was an excellent listening session. The music still sounded great and nothing beats the sound of the needle on the record.
Posted by: Diane M | 07/10/2010 at 05:35 PM
I still think that "One of these Days" is one of the heaviest and scariest songs ever written. It freaked me out the first time i heard it and still gives me chills when I listen to it when headphones now.
Posted by: Warren Wilansky | 07/04/2010 at 09:51 PM