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411 lines
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Interview with David Gilmour from "The Source"
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DG: ...If you think you've done something that you could improve by
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changing it around I have absolutely no objection to getting the
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razor blade out and moving things...
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...What I need a producer for is someone to be tough and honest
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with me and tell me what he does and doesn't like so I have
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another good opinion...
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...A lot of those standard things like the birds and things are
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all in the EMI sound effects library and they've got a cupboard
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with thousands of tapes in it and we would just go down and raid
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it...
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CK: Hi, I'm Charlie Kendal. When I mention Pink Floyd, what do you
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think of? A pink pig floating in the smog over a colossal power
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station? A white brick wall? Or a prism refracting light? Or
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maybe you see two men in grey suits shaking hands...one of whom
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is in flames. The point is that when people think of Pink Floyd,
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they conjure images and feelings, not names, faces, and
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personalities. Because, as popular and enduring Pink Floyd is,
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how many of us could name each member of the group? During the
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next two hours, we'll focus on Pink Floyd's guitarist, David
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Gilmour. We'll discuss his new solo album _About Face_ and his
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sixteen years with Pink Floyd.
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[Run Like Hell]
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CK: Run Like Hell, from Pink Floyd's classic _The Wall_. More from
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the wall later. Recently we talked to David Gilmour about not
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only the Floyd, but also his solo lp _About Face_. We asked
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David how he went about choosing the musicians for his second
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solo lp.
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DG: Doing this album I wanted to make a really good record. I didn't
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want to do it very very quickly, and I wanted to get the best
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musicians in the world that I could get hold of to play with me,
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so I thought I'd just make a little list of all my favourite
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musicians, you know, best drummer, best bass player, best
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keyboard player, and I'll work through the list to see who I can
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get. Jeff Peccarro was top of my drummers list, pino palladino
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was top of my bass players list, and Ian Quely, or the Rev, as
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he's known, he actually came and did the bulk of the hammond and
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piano playing, and he was terrific. Steve Winwood was top of my
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keyboard playing list but he couldn't do most of the album, but
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I got him to do a bit. He played hammond organ on "Blue Light."
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I had a bit more time and was feeling a bit freer about things on
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this album...just more "accidents" tend to occur. I mean the
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"Blue Light" track for example actually consists of two different
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songs. We wound up cutting bits out of each like making a jigsaw
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puzzle up and used bits of the backing track of one and then bits
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of the other and then swapping back and forth.
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CK: "Blue Light," from David Gilmour's new solo album, _About Face._
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The earliest days of Pink Floyd do *not* include David Gilmour,
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except that David did go to High School in Cambridge with Roger
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Waters and Floyd's acknowledged founder Syd Barrett. Waters,
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Rick Wright, and Nick Mason had been playing together in a band
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called at various times Sigma 6, the T-set, the Abdabs, and
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finally, the Pink Floyd Sound when Syd Barrett joined in late
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1965.
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DG: They were called "Pink Floyd Sound" originally, and we played
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gigs together, my band in Cambridge and them when we actually
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went up to London and played things with..on their sort of patch,
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schools....I mean we were friends, I used to see them all the
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time, they just used to do Bo Diddley numbers and things.
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CK: It was Barrett's distinctive guitar style, and way-out lyrics,
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that helped establish Pink Floyd as *the band* of London's
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growing underground scene, via regular gigs at the Marquee club,
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and the UFO club, in 1966. In 1967, Pink Floyd signed to EMI
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records, and scored immediately with hit singles like Arnold
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Layne, and See Emily Play. Even then Pink Floyd was challenging
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the accepted boundries of concert performance by introducing
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their own quadraphonic sound system and a choreographed light
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show. Following the release of their debut album, _The Piper at
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the Gates of Dawn_, Syd Barrett's behavior grew less inspired and
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more erratic.
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DG: I don't know at quite at what point Syd started to go very
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strange, but I know I came back from France and I called Syd up
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while I was there and he said why don't I come down they were
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doing a recording session and he told me the studio. And I went
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down to the studio and he didn't even recognize me, and that was
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when--the day they were making See Emily Play.
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CK: In February 1968 David Gilmour was asked to join Pink Floyd.
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Seven weeks later, Syd Barrett was phased out completely.
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DG: The band itself had various plans--the first plan was that I
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would join and make it a five piece so it would make it easier
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so that Syd could still be strange but the band would still
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function. And then the next idea was that Syd would stay home
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and do writing and be the Brian Wilson elusive character that
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didn't actually perform with us and the third plan was the he
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wouldn't do nothing at all. And it quickly changed 'round, and
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it was just....it was *obviously* impossible to carry on that way
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so we basically ditched Syd.
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[Free Four]
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CK: "Free Four," from Pink Floyd's _Obscured by Clouds_. Their next
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album would take 9 months to record, and today, is still on the
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charts.
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CK: If the Beatle's _Sgt. Pepper_ revolutionized the concept of rock
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albums in 1967, then Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_ fine
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tuned that concept into genuine audio art six years later.
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Recorded at EMI's fabled Abbey Road studios, where the Beatles
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recorded all their albums, Pink Floyd produced the _Dark Side of
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the Moon_ themselves, over a period of nine months. When it was
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released in March 1973, _Dark Side_ represented a culmination of
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the band's studio experiments, and Roger Waters' insights that
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had only been brushed upon in their earlier recordings. The fact
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that _Dark Side of the Moon_ was Pink Floyd's first number one
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album in America is easily eclipsed by the fact that today the
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album is still on Billboard's top 200 album charts. It is the
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most consistent selling catalog lp in pop music history--over 500
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weeks. Part of Dark Side's timeless appeal has got to be Pink
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Floyd's skillful use of sound effects, which they had been using
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in concerts for years.
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DG: Yes we did all sorts of strange things you know for live concerts
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as well, we used to make up tapes for the audience to come in by.
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Just tapes of bird noises in quad--quadraphonic sound, you know,
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with birds singing, and pheasants taking off in the distance, and
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swans taking off from water, a tractor driving down one side of
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the room, and an airplane going over the top, and all these
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things carrying on, all just from just different sound effects
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records, you just stick them in and you--you create a type of
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mood. You know, any time you're short of inspiration you jsut
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say "Oh, let's go and raid the sound effects cupboard and see if
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we can find something interesting" and we just stick it on....
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[Money]
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DG: We had people come in the studios and sit down. We'd made lots
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of cards up with a question on and we set them up with a
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microphone and everything and had the tape recorder on and they
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had to sit there and they had to answer the questions. Some
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people were great, that's how we got all the voices and all the
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little lines that you hear on _Dark Side of the Moon_ all over
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the place, that's how we got them.
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CK: In the late 60's and early 70's, Alan Parsons was a staff
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engineer at Abbey Road studios. Part of his job was to record
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sound effects for EMI's vast sound effects library.
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DG: He had just been sent out to do a recoring in a clock shop for
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the sound effects library and he had just recently before we did
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that album gone out with a whole set of equipment and had
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recorded all these clocks in a clock shop. And we were doing
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the song time, and he said "Listen, I just did all these things,
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I did all these clocks," and so we wheeled out his tape and
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listened to it and said "Great! Stick it on!"
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[Time]
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CK: "Time," and "Money." A couple of tracks form Pink Floyd's
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classic _The Dark Side of the Moon._ Following a lengthy U.S.
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tour, a six month break, and a tour of the U.K., Pink Floyd
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returned to the studio in early 1975 to record their next album.
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The pressure was on to try to rival their masterpiece.
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DG: You know it's only self-imposed, you know, it just becomes a bit
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difficult when you've done a record that's done as well as _Dark
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Side of the Moon_. And the point of going back into the studio
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and saying, "God, we've got do do it all again," you know, "make
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a better one." It's quite difficult.
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CK: In 1975, Pink Floyd signed with Columbia records in America, and
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released _Wish You Were Here_. Expanding on three themes
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explored in _Dark Side of the Moon_, lonliness, alienation, and
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madness, _Wish You Were Here_ was unofficially dedicated to Syd
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Barrett. To get a better idea how a Pink Floyd album evolves
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from mere thought to finished product, we asked David Gilmour how
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they create that special atmosphere that is part of every Pink
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Floyd record.
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DG: We just have a sound in mind, we want to create something, and
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we try to create it. It's very simple, it's quite easy to make
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an audio illusion, you know, to create one, like you know, a door
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opening and people being behind that door. It's a very easy
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thing to do. You just have a sound of this thing, the buzzing
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"mmmmmmmmmmm" of the door opening well you've got to get some
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sort of humming noise and then you just fade up a fader with
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talking and laughing and clinking of glasses noises. And as you
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get "mmmm" you just push up this fader at the same time and it
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sounds just like the door's opening and you can suddenly hear all
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these people on the other side of it.
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[Have a Cigar]
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DG: We actually recorded a car radio, with a microphone out there,
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and, um, just spun through a few stations, and, um, got all these
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sounds and then we went and made the sound of our track match up
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with those. We sort of made horrible EQ things on the desk to
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try and make it sound as nasty as what was coming off the radio.
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So the next turn went straight to our own artificial one that
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we'd just created. It's dirt easy, I mean that stuff is *not*
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difficult, you've only got to have a little bit of imagination
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and want to do it and then you work out how to do it.
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[Wish You Were Here]
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CK: Following the success of _Wish You Were Here_, Pink Floyd
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released _Animals_ in early 1977. One of the songs featured on
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_Animals_ had been a leftover from the _Wish You Were Here_
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sessions. Originally, "Dogs" was titled "Raving and Drooling."
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[sic]
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DG: On _Wish You Were Here_ we spent a lot of time in the rehearsal
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situation just working things out, you know, writing as we went
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along. "Raving and Drooling," [sic] or "Dogs" as it was later
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known was just a simple little chord sequence that I had written
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and that everyone seemed to like. I liked it because all the
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chords were very unusual chords and you could play almost any
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note over the top of them. Like for guitar solos they were great
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because you could play nearly any note. So you can zoom around
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anywhere and not worry about what frets you hit or anything
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because almost anything you do hit if you do it deliberately
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enough will sound alright.
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[Dogs]
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CK: "Dogs," part one, from _Animals_. Just as Pink Floyd are masters
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of the audio illusion, Hipgnosis, the people who create their
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album artwork, are equally adept at the optical illusions. For
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example, David Gilmour explains how the pig photo was created.
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DG: The pig that you see up there, is not there, in that actual
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picture. They got this *fantastic* shot of Battersea power
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station, but we didn't have the pig up there. Then we put the
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pig up there, and we shot the pig up there, and we took the pig
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out of one picture of Battersea power station and we put it onto
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another picture. So, it is right because it is in that position
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and the lighting is right on that and everything so removing it
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from one picture and putting it on another was okay, but to try
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and fake it really would not have been okay. It's just all the
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pictures when we did have the pig, the power station didn't look
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nearly as nice as it did in this picture we had got the day
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before before we had the pig there.
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CK: In 1980 Pink Floyd released _The Wall_, an ambitions 2-record
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set that included the band's first number one single in America,
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"Another Brick in the Wall." Critics had often derided Roger
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Waters for his bleak, depressing lyrics, and it's interesting to
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note here that there was little enthusiasm when Roger Waters
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played his demos of _The Wall_ for producer Bob Ezrin and the
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rest of the band.
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DG: He gave us all a cassette of the whole thing, and I couldn't
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listen to it. It was too depressing, and too boring in lots of
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places. But I liked the basic idea. We eventually agreed to do
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it, but we had to chuck out a lot of stuff, rewrite a lot of
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things and put a lot of new bits in, throw a lot of old bits out.
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And when we actually were making it, and Roger was under
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pressure, and we had said "That wasn't good enough," or "this
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should be....." ...I mean Bob Ezrin was very good at helping get
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a linear storyline, making it more clear and direct, you know.
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Being something for Roger to bounce with a little bit. Roger
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actually wrote some of the best ones after that point. When we
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were actually doing it, when he was under pressure and being
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pushed to do things, he did some of the best things, I think.
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[Happiest Days of our Lives/Another Brick In The Wall, Part II]
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CK: Except for those very early days with Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd
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has been essentially Roger Waters' vehicle. He writes and sings
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most of the songs with occasional help from David Gilmour.
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"Comfortably Numb," from _The Wall_, uses a chord sequence David
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had written during his sessions for his first solo album in 1978.
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DG: I actually wrote the chord sequence for it while I was in Super
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Bear doing my first solo album, right at the end. I didn't
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intend, I mean, I never was going to actually record it then for
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that solo thing. It was one of the things I'd just put down one
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day and stored away with my other demos.
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[Comfortably Numb]
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CK: "Comfortably Numb," one of the three songs David Gilmour
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collaborated with Roger Waters on for _The Wall_. To translate
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_The Wall_ from record to the concert stage was an enormous task,
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especially considering the elaborate set the band devised. Four
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hundered and twenty cardboard building blocks were constructed to
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form a wall 31 feet high and 160 feet long. Because of the sets,
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equipment, and the number of people required to produce the show,
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the _Wall_ tour of America was probably the shortest in history-
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-seven nights in two cities, New York and Los Angeles. David
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admits, there can be problems staging a show like _The Wall_.
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DG: There are problems in doing a show of that sort, like, you have
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to say to yourself "we are doing theatre here," and theatre comes
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first. After you've done it 20 or 30 times, playing the music
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can get a bit boring, because there's no room for flexibility.
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Everything is timed, tapes have to be run, everything is like
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precision, like a theatrical production. And so there's no room,
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really, for any straying from the program that you're stuck to.
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So, you know you can't extend something because you feel like
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making it a bit longer and jamming or something, or doing
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anything like that. Some of the normal freedoms, the liberties
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you can take with your stuff, in normal stage performance, are
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much more restricted in that particular instance.
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CK: The latest addition to the Pink Floyd discogaphry was 1983's
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album _The Final Cut._ Worth mentioning here is the absence on
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the album of keyboardist Rick Wright, who had left the band
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during the _Wall_ sessions. Expect a solo record from him later
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this year. David Gilmour says the album title is a term used in
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the film making business.
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DG: When you're editing a movie it's called "cutting," you go in
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the cutting room, and you cut the film, you know. You make a
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rough cut, that's where you've stuck all the scenes together, and
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have vaguely got it in the right order, that's called a "rough
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cut," and when you've perfected it and have got everything just
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right, that's called the "final cut."
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CK: If you'd like to get in touch with David, here's an address:
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David Gilmour/43 Portland Road/London, England/W11 41J.
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CK: By the time David Gilmour recorded his first solo album in 1978,
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he had been in Pink Floyd for ten years. With the help of old
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friends Rick Wills of Foreigner on bass, and Willie Wilson of the
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Southerland Brothers band on drumms, David Gilmour's self-titled
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first album is a real showcase for his playing and songwriting.
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When you mention hot guitar players, the names most mentioned are
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Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie van
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Halen. Yet there are few players whose style is as expressive as
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David Gilmour's. We asked David to talk about his guitar
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playing.
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DG: I've never had fast fingers, they're really pretty slow compared
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to most, and the coordination between left and right hand and
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stuff is not great. If I start trying to do too fast then this
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one gets--the right one gets out of sync with the left hand, so
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I have to rely on other things. I rely on effects, fuzzboxes,
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anything that I can lay my hands on. Then I just try and make
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nice, sort of, melodies with it, like try to make it sing, I try
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to imagine that the guitar's kind of singing, you know?
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[There's No Way Out Of Here]
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[Short and Sweet]
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CK: On occasion David has lent his talents to outside projects. He
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played pedal steel guitar and produced two albums for a British
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band called "Unicorn" in the mid 70's. In 1977, David financed
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Kate Bush's demo tape that led to her signing with EMI and a hit
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single, "Withering Heights."
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DG: She was introduced to me by a friend, who said "I've got this
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young 14 year-old girl, who's incredibly talented," he said "I
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think I should--you know, you should do something for her." And
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I listened to her and I agreed, so I did.
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CK: David also played guitar on two tracks from Atomic Rooster's
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album, _Headline News_. But most of his recent attention has
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been on his new solo album, _About Face_.
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CK: Dave spent the latter part of 1983 in France working on this
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album, and by the time the musicians he hired arrived for the
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recording, most of the recording was already arranged on demo
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cassettes for them to hear. One of the songs, called "You Know
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I'm Right," wasn't as structured as the others, and David
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welcomed the fresh ideas the other players brought to the
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session.
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DG: "You Know I'm Right," that was the last track we did, it's the
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only one that--the only one of all the tracks that I didn't have
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a sort of quite reasonably recorded demo with lynn drums and the
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works on. It was terrific fun, 'cause it's the only--in a way it
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was a good thing because they all got into the feel of it and
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gave more of themselves to it because they hadn't got something
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of mine to listen to which can stop them from putting themselves
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into it. Because once they've heard the way I do it then they
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know the sort of thing I'm thinking about and they tend to
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restrict themselves to my ideas. And that track has got a great
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feel to it I think because of that, because I didn't have a demo
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for it.
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[You Know I'm Right]
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CK: "You Know I'm Right," David Gilmour from his new solo album
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_About Face_. With Pink Floyd inactive for the moment, David
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has plans to tour with his own band this year, although he says
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he'll use a different lineup of musicians than those on his
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album.
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DG: The musicians on the tour are not the ones on the record. I've
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got a drummer called Chris Slade, who's played with Tom Jones,
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Gary Neuman, I think he was in Uriah Heep in one of their
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incarnations, and Manfred Man. I've got a bass player named
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Mickey Fiat, who's done practically everything in the world.
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Mick Ralphs is coming with me, he's a friend of mine, we live
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close by and I see him a lot, and I was telling him I was coming
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out on the road and he said, "ooooh, I'd love to go, can I come?"
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so I said "sure."
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[Until We Sleep]
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###
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