The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

In late 1966, London - ordained "swinging" by Time magazine - was undergoing a massive culture change. At the very heart of London's "underground" lay Barry Miles and Indica Books, the subject of the Beatles' "Paperback Writer". Along with John Hopkins, American Jim Haynes and others, Miles also launched the International Times, London's first newspaper dedicated to this new counter-culture. And it's roughly here that Peter Jenner and Andrew King, acting as the band's management, introduced the Pink Floyd Sound to that scene. The happenings of 1967 were genuinely novel, and the music would become much more than just the soundtrack. Built in large part upon their residencies at the Marquee and UFO clubs, Pink Floyd was the archetype of this new British psychedelic rock. Their live set, complete with light show, progressed from deconstructed R&B to extended instrumental freak-outs. The group composition "Interstellar Overdrive" documents the innovation of live Floyd; compared to anything from the era it's completely uncanny, just check out Peter Whitehead's film "Tonite Let's All Make Love In London" (its title taken from an Allen Ginsberg text). However, the album, The Piper at The Gates of Dawn, is pure Syd Barrett, as first previewed in singles "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play". His "Matilda Mother", taken in part from a children's book, best highlights he and his Cambridge bandmate's middle class aesthetic; highly literate and intelligent, the musical transcription is wonderfully inspired, and like "Bike", especially English. The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studio simultaneous to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, with their ex- engineer Norman Smith in the producer's chair. There's no cliché in calling the album a classic; creatively, it simply had no peer. It was also unique in that it offered no singles - they were separate from the album - in a tradition most progressive bands would follow. Produced by Joe Boyd, "Arnold Layne" rose to No. 20 in March despite being banned by "Wonderful" Radio London, while both "See Emily Play" and the album reached No. 6 in the summer. Unfortunately this would remain Barrett's only recorded testament with Pink Floyd. His psychological decline (precipitating an aborted US tour) led to his eventual eviction from the band and prompted his status as the preeminent poster child of the acid casualty.