Interstellar Overdrive
 

Somewhat on the Atari's Picks theme, this is a complilation of The Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive."





It includes studio outtake versions, program announcer's commentary, a band interview, and several live performances. Frank Zappa guests on guitar on one.
On both the commentary and the interview tracks, live versions of "Interstellar Overdrive" fade in and out throughout.

I sure hope some people will want to download it and listen to it. Please feel free to leave any comments or just discuss the song, or early Pink Floyd in general.

All files are tagged, and an info file and covers are included.
I went ahead and included a picture with Dave Gilmour since some of the performances are from '69.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vzumjn
128 MB .rar vbr .wmas

"...music as experience, not as melody..."
- excerpt from 1967 "Underground" broadcast

Of course, Pink Floyd were originally a cover band of R&B, roots rock, and blues songs, so they were grounded before they flew.

I think many of you will like the announcer's commentary from the BBC "Underground" show (aired 2/07/67) and the interview which both can also be found on the Syd Barrett: Dark Globe 1965-1975 compilation bootleg.

That's a wack statement.

Atom Heart Mother is one of my least favorites;
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Meddle are my favorites.

My favorite Zappa are Hot Rats, Apostrophe, Over-Nite Sensation, Waka/Jawaka, Shut Up 'N' Play Yer Guitar, Guitar, Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch, and for complete nuttiness, Thing-Fish.

awesome atari, thanks!! their finest moment in any of their sets.

I remember the first time I ever watched Live at Pompeii. Some friends and I were taking it in and one proferred during "One Of These Days" that Nick Mason was such an incredible drummer. Another seconded this notion. I was silent, since I knew there are so many other drummers that are much better really and I had just noticed some of what you referred to, Blatherskite.
Still, by no stretch of the imagination is "Nick Mason is the worst drummer in the entire history of rock." C'mon man, there's a difference between making a point, and just being plain goofy. Your statement is goofy.
"One of These Days still sounded good though. Pink Floyd stretched-out quite a bit live and they were also probably a bit nervous in front of the movie cameras. I guess my favorite part from Live at Pompeii is in the studio where we catch some of "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun."

 

Richard Wright (bottom right), convinced there is
something terribly wrong with (top left) Nick Mason's
ears, extends his hand upwards to investigate.

thanks atari... and on the nick mason thing, get it together, meg white is the worst drummer ever in rock

Oops, I fucked-up major. track 06 is actually "Astronomy Domine" from Chesterfield 3/27/67.

It doesn't make too much difference though, because "Interstellar Overdrive" from that date is sixteen and a half minutes long and wouldn't have fit anyway.
I suppose I could split it and cut it short though and redo this.
I probably should, but...

I seem to always do this (drugs), so sorry all (hopefully, no one has burned just yet), but a new link will be ready in about an hour with a cut version of "Interstellar Overdrive" from St. James Hall as track 06 to solve the problem.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/79g8tp old link
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vzumjn new link added to first post

Thanks for that version. I have the 12/19/67 Top Gear (no "Interstellar Overdrive" on it though), but not this '68 one.

If you haven't burned yet, I would swap my track 6 (St James Hall) for this one that hipster_bebop_junkie has posted.

Ringo Starr

Thought it was a chain of hair salons.

Given the even more preposterous turn that the posts have now taken, I would now like to address the inane yet persisent myth that Ringo Starr isn't a good drummer.

Lennon said of Starr:
“Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we even met. He was a professional drummer who sang and performed and had Ringo Starr-time and he was in one of the top groups in Britain but especially in Liverpool before we even had a drummer ... Ringo's a damn good drummer.[20]”
Drummer Steve Smith said:
“Before Ringo, drum stars were measured by their soloing ability and virtuosity. Ringo's popularity brought forth a new paradigm in how the public saw drummers. We started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect. One of Ringo's great qualities was that he composed unique, stylistic drum parts for the Beatles songs. His parts are so signature to the songs that you can listen to a Ringo drum part without the rest of the music, and still identify the song.[21]”
Many drummers list Starr as an influence, including Max Weinberg of the E Street Band, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters/Nirvana, Danny Carey of Tool, Liberty DeVitto of Billy Joel's band, Phil Collins, Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater and others.[22] According to Collins, "Starr is vastly underrated. The drum fills on the song "A Day in the Life" are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, "I want it like that." They wouldn't know what to do."[citation needed]
In his extensive survey of the Beatles' recording sessions, Mark Lewisohn confirmed that Starr was both proficient and remarkably reliable and consistent. According to Lewisohn, there were fewer than a dozen occasions in the Beatles' eight-year recording career where session 'breakdowns' were caused by Starr making a mistake, while the vast majority of takes were stopped due to mistakes by the other three members.[22]
Starr is also considered to have advanced various modern drumming techniques (for playing and recording) such as the matched grip, placing the drums on high risers for visibility as part of the band, tuning the drums lower, and using muffling devices on tonal rings, along with his general contributions to the Beatles as a whole.[21] Specific drum parts executed by Starr in notably signature fashion include the fill that brings the drums and bass guitar into "Hey Jude", the steady rock and roll beats in "Please Please Me" and other early Beatles recordings, the drum kit pattern through the bridge of "Hello, Goodbye", and the driving bass drum notes found in "Lady Madonna", underlying the more intricate, double-tracked snare drum.[citation needed] His use of a "sizzle" cymbal (a cymbal incorporated with rivets that vibrate) would bring a much fuller sound than standard "ride" cymbals.
Two song performances where Starr is most reknowned as a drummer are "Rain" (his personal favorite) and "She Said, She Said". His synching with McCartney's bass on the final coda of Rain is considered one of his most memorable moments. On She Said, She Said, his bombastic fills along with his smooth changing of tempos from 4/4 to 2/4 have been highly praised.
Lennon, McCartney and Harrison have all said that Starr was the best rock and roll drummer in the world; although, when once asked in an interview "Is Ringo Starr the best drummer in the world?", Lennon quipped, "He's not even the best drummer in the band!"[citation needed] This was in reference to "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence", the first two tracks on White Album (1968), in which McCartney handled the drumming; Starr had walked out earlier and did not return for two weeks until the other three Beatles urged him to come back. He spent the fortnight with actor Peter Sellers on his yacht in Piraeus. Lennon sent telegrams to Starr, and Harrison set up flowers all over the studio for Starr's return saying 'welcome home'.[23]
McCartney sent Starr a postcard on January 31, 1969 (the day after the band's performance on the roof of Apple Studios) stating: "You are the greatest drummer in the world. Really." This postcard is included in Starr's book 'Postcards From The Boys'.[24]
McCartney also played the drums on "The Ballad of John and Yoko", recorded 14 April1969) since only Lennon and McCartney were immediately available to record the song.[25]Some have stated that while McCartney was able fill in for Starr, he didn't possess the smoothness and dexterity Starr had. Starr commented that he was lucky in being 'surrounded by three frustrated drummers' who could only drum in one style.[26]

Paul McCartney
"Paul has been recently quoted as saying that Ringo Starr is still his favorite drummer, much to the amazement of the drumming community and the world at large. McCartney's worked with Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro- he can have the pick of anyone, just about, but he still loves Ringo." --- Deborah Parisi, writing for Rhythm magazine(1990)

Ringo Starr
"F irst and foremost I am a drummer. After that, I'm other things. ...But I didn't play drums to make money. I played drums because I loved them. ...My soul is that of a drummer....It came to where I had to make a decision -- I was going to be a drummer. Everything else goes now. I play drums. It was a conscious moment in my life when I said the rest of things were getting in the way. I didn't do it to be come rich and famous, I did it because it was the love of my life." -- quoted in The Big Beat by Max Weinberg(1984)

Paul McCartney
"Paul has been recently quoted as saying that Ringo Starr is still his favorite drummer, much to the amazement of the drumming community and the world at large. McCartney's worked with Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro- he can have the pick of anyone, just about, but he still loves Ringo." --- Deborah Parisi, writing for Rhythm magazine(1990)

Ringo Starr
"F irst and foremost I am a drummer. After that, I'm other things. ...But I didn't play drums to make money. I played drums because I loved them. ...My soul is that of a drummer....It came to where I had to make a decision -- I was going to be a drummer. Everything else goes now. I play drums. It was a conscious moment in my life when I said the rest of things were getting in the way. I didn't do it to be come rich and famous, I did it because it was the love of my life." -- quoted in The Big Beat by Max Weinberg(1984)


John Lennon
"Ringo's a damn good drummer. He was always a good drummer. He's not technically good, but I think Ringo's drumming is underrated the same way Paul's base-playing is underrated. Paul and Ringo stand up anywhere with any of the rock musicians." -- from a Playboy magazine interview (1980)

John doesn't mean Ringo is not technically good compared to say, Ginger Baker, either. What he means is Ringo is not technical next to say, Gene Krupa.

Max Weinberg -- "D. J. Fontana had introduced me to the power of the big beat. Ringo convinced me just how powerful that rhythm could be. Ringo's beat was heard around the world and he drew the spotlight toward rock and roll drummer. From ;his matched grip style to his pioneering use of staggered tom tom fills, his influence in rock drumming was as important and wide spread as Gene Krupa's had been in jazz." (The Big Beat, 1984)

Phil Collins, drummer for Genesis -- "I think he's vastly underrated. The drum fills on A Day In The Life are very complex things. You could take a great drummer today and say, 'I want it like that.' They wouldn't know what to do." (interview for The Making of Sgt. Pepper, 1992)

D. J. Fontana -- "I was playing maracas or something behind him, just listening to him. I swear he never varied the tempo. He played that back beat and never got off it. Man, you couldn't have moved him with a crane. It was amazing. He played a hell of a back beat, Man, and that's where it's at." (interview for The Big Beat by Max Weinberg)


Mike Finkelstein -- "If you have ever been in a band where you had to recreate Beatle songs, you would have realized that Ringo Starr was no slouch. Those drum parts were very tricky and subtle. He did have a special ability to create interesting rhythmic structures within the music. This gave the Beatles a unique sound without loosing that distinctive drive in rock and roll. ... Ringo moved smoothly from verse to chorus without loosing the groove by subtly changing a texture in the rhythm. Ringo is an important drummer to study well." (Teach Yourself Rock Drumming, 1979)

Bob Cianci -- "He must have done something right. People today still look for people who play like Ringo. If you don't believe me, just check the musical ads. On top of all this, he certainly inspired countless millions of teenagers worldwide to learn drums. There's no doubt it, Ringo's a very important rock drummer. ... What Ringo does on the most basic of terms is make the music feel good. He refers to his playing as being fraught with silly fills due to his self-admitted lack of technique, but he says it proudly. ... Sometimes chops do not a real drummer make." (Great Rock Drummers of the 60s, 1989)


Kenny Arnoff -- "I consider him one of the greatest innovators of rock drumming and believe that he has been one of the greatest influences on rock drumming today... Ringo has influenced drummers more than they will ever realize or admit. Ringo laid down the fundamental rock beat that drummers are playing today and they probably don't even realize it. (Modern Drummer,Oct. 1987) . . Ringo always approached the song more like a songwriter than a drummer. He always served the music." (Modern Drummer, Dec. 1987)

Editor of Modern Drummer magazine, presenting the Editor's Achievement Award to Ringo -- "What is beyond question is Ringo's impact on an entire generation of drummers who first became drummers as a direct result of seeing and hearing him play in the early days of The Beatles. Literally hundreds of thousands of players -- including some of the greatest drummers playing today -- cite Ringo as their first motivating influence."

Peter Blake -- "Ringo is one of the most important drummers of the 20th century. While he hasn't got any technique to speak of, he realizes how important It is for a song to feel good. His feel is absolutely tremendous. He got some great sounds on the Beatles records. It wasn't all production and microphones, a lot of it was down to the way he tuned them. ... He has tremendous basic ability. Obviously there were people playing in a straight-forward manner before him, but he had a definite feel and he changed pop drumming around. He changed the sound from hat of the high-pitched jazz drummers. I think he's tremendous." (Speaking Words of Wisdom)

Mark Lewisohn -- "It is true that on only a handful of occasions during all of the several hundred session tapes and thousands of recording hours can Ringo be heard to have made a mistake or wavered in his beat. His work was remarkably consistent and excellent, from 1962 right through 1970." ( The Beatles Recording Sessions, 1988)
George Martin -- "Ringo has a tremendous feel for a song and he always helped us hit the right tempo the first time. He was rock solid. This made the recording of all the Beatle songs so much easier." (interviewed in 1988 for The Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn)

Martin Torgoff -- "If I could think of a single passage in which Ringo's quintessential style as a drummer is most identifiable, it could well be something as, say, the drumming behind George's guitar solo in Paul's "Let It Be" after the organ trails off. There, in simple 4-4 time, Ringo comes in with a trademark thump of his base drum, clear tattering snare, and his insistent smashing of the high hat, unvarying, unyielding, yet distinctively Ringo, and you can't help but smile not for its banality but because it is so perfectly adequate and because one can readily envision Ringo behind his kit as he plays, his beringed fingers clutching his sticks, swaying beatifically from side to side as he gets on with his work, blinking those astonishingly saturnine blue eyes." (The Compleat Beatles, 1985)

Don Was -- "Ringo's drums are one of the greatest things you can have on a record."

Lenny Kaye -- "He was always meant to be utilitarian, a drummer to provide feisty beat. He did this directly with wit imagination and the famous Ringo personality. And his Spartan Ludwig kit showed his ability to cut economically to the heart of the rhythm." (interview for The Compleat Beatles, 1985)

You're quite the disageeable fellow, now aren't you? By the way, your statement is completely cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

I prefer the song interstellar hardrive by man or astroman?

Wrong - all of them.

As a 'skiffle' drummer he was barely adequate, and he was incapable of anything more complex.

many thanks

I'd bother reading atari's posts if they were shorter. In the MEANtime......

both Nick Mason and Ringo's styles work well for their respective bands. i've had this argument many times with guitarists (usually the Steve Vai type ones) who value technical performance over and above style and actually working for the song.

Very cool compilation.....thanks!!!



No to defend my boy, Nick Mason!!! I think the first half of the first song (Astronomy Domine) on the first Pink Floyd album is more than enough to prove wrong that he is a bad drummer.....let alone the worst drummer ever! Sure, he doesn't have anything on Keith Moon, John Bonham, Ginger Baker etc., but his classic tom fills (dat, boom, dat, boom, boom-boom, boom-boom....you know the ones!) are great. He is much more concerned with playing trance like (and at times borderline tribal....like on Set The Controls For the Heart of the Sun) rhythmns on the skins than filling up space with a bunch of cymbals....which I love. Much of the time Nick is just keeping the light "dream like" pulse of their songs....it's not like Pink Floyd (as a whole) really rock. He did his job! His fills which might come off as "repetitive" (like on the first track of Atom Heart) work well with creating the overall ambiance/pulse of the song.....plus said fills are actually not bad at all. Finally, their music is a bit different to most "rock bands" that would warrant a more blatantly awesome drummer.


It's funny how Blatherskite mentioned how Live at Pompeii as a reference to Nick's crappy playing......I was going to suggest watching it to check out his awesomeness:D. Maybe give it another try.....I might be a bit partial though as a drummer and by how much his playing has influenced me over the years. Also, Atom Heart is prob. the worst album to look at Nick's drumming on....it's mostly just weird sound collages or slow quite dreamy songs where an abundance of drums would really fuck up the song. Quite a few Floyd songs don't have much drums on it or the rythmns are very quiet/dream like, but that's because they are what fit the song. I don't think that should take away from his drumming on other songs (with more obvious skillfull playing)which are actually really great. It's not like he just played the same 1-2-1-2-1-2 Chuck Berry beat (which rules and is the foundation of not only rock drumming, but the pulse of rock music really) on those Floyd songs.



.....which leads us nicely to RINGO!!! Again, sure he didn't really do anything to really blow anybody away, but how he played fit The Beatles music perfectly. Having a Keith Moon type (or any like drummer that displays more "technical/difficult" skills) drummer in The Beatles just wouldn't work......especially post-Help era Beatles. I mean, would we say that Charlie Watts was a bad drummer? Hell no!!! We also need to remember that drummers like Ringo and Charlie Watts were some of the o.g.'s of what we consider to be modern rock drumming. Their styles (which were quite a bit more heavier and "erratic" on the floor toms and cymbals than the drumming on "Chuck Berry era rock n' roll") were really expanded by the next influx of drummers/bands.....the music got heavier and the drums got more complex.


That said, I'm pretty sure that John said, "Pete Best was a better drummer, but Ringo was a better Beatle."

Thanks. Anyone interested in a "Stairway to Heaven" compilation?

I do believe he's not playing drums on Mother, from the Wall, as well because of the rythm.

On the other hand I agree that his more "tribal" beats are a better indication of his abilities - like some of the stuff on the More soundtrack such as Up the Khyber, among others. But again, it's all in 4/4

great. i love piper, fantastic album and in fact the only flod album i own or care to own. interstellar is a fantastic journey!!! nice one atari!

absolutely amazing expamsion of an already expanded tune... this vies for the best atari comp so far.... the goo picks included!!!!!! excellent work again, cant believe so few are grabbing this.....

A "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" compilation would be much appreciated, if you're looking for requests.

man im awaiting ataris ultimate beatles compilation!!!!!

http://www.uncut.co.uk/news/syd_barrett/news/9748
A rare Pink Floyd promo video for "Jughead Blues" is to be screened on TV for the first time, as part of a new BBC documentary series "The Seven Ages Of Rock."

The promo video was made by the Central Office of Information (COI) primarily for North American, Canadian and Australian television and is made up of small shorts including talking computors and see-through teapots.

"Jughead Blues" was the final video that Syd Barrett was included in before he was replaced by Roger Waters.

The new series will also feature a multitude of rare and never-seen-before film footage, including the first known broadcast of an alternate promo for the Floyd single "Arnold Layne" as well as home-made film footage of the band in 1967.

Previously unknown to Pink Floyd collectors, there is also a clip of the first film in colour of the band with David Gilmour.

The Floyd material will be part of episode two, a special on art rock - entitled "Between Rock And An Art Place."

Other rarities that "The Seven Ages Of Rock" have unearthed include a first broadcast of the Velvet Underground performing at the Annual Dinner of the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry on January 13, 1966.

There will also be swathes of never-seen-before clips of David Bowie, including his show at the Rainbow Theatre on August 19 1972 and a perfomance of "Space Oddity" at the Ivor Novello Awards in May 1970. Both are being broadcast for the first time.

You can watch "The Seven Ages Of Rock" from Saturday May 19 on BBC2 at 9pm.

Cool. You guys are getting a good doc series...I wonder if I'll be able to download or watch it somewhere or if it will run on bbc america later.
(i'm sure they meant dave gilmour and not waters).

....

...

There was an interesting article about his life in Cambridge post-Pink Floyd on the uncut magazine, last year. Atari, you must get the book 'Songs They Never Play On The Radio' about Nico. It's a must-read book.