![]() (middle) David playing a sunburst Stratocaster (’59 body/’63 neck) at the Free Concert in Hyde Park, UK July 18. This was the first time that he used the Black Strat. (left) David pictured at the Bath Festival June 28 1970. It’s also likely that David used in-house amps that were available at Abbey Road. For the remaining recording sessions David used the 1959 sunburst Strat and the Black Strat he had bough at Manny’s in late May on their way home from the States. On the early sessions David used the white Strat but it got stolen in May during the band’s US tour. Note: Atom Heart Mother was recorded between March and August 1970. – Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast recording session. – with 4×12? Fane Crescendo speakers with metal dust caps. – with Mullard 4圎元4s power tubes and 4圎CC83s pre-amp tubes. – 1969 all stock with a black alder body, white pickguard and a maple neck with a large headstock. – 1959 sunburst body with stock Fender pickups and white pickguard and a 1963 rosewood neck. – 1966-67 all stock with a white ash body, white pickguard and a rosewood 4-bolt neck with a large headstock. This was also used on live shows throughout the spring. (right) David playing a Gibson J-45 acoustic steel string. Behind David is the Hiwatt with a Binson II on top and to his right the WEM Starfinder speaker cabinet. This was bought at Manny’s NY only days prior to the show but was lost during the robbery of the band’s equipment in May. (left) David’s playing his first black Stratocaster, a 1969 model with a rosewood neck. The appearance is a great showcase of their equipment at the time. Pink Floyd recorded a studio performance in San Fransisco, USA on Apfor KQED TV. ![]() Note: Throught the tours of 1970, David is seen experimenting with different fuzz pedals – blue and red NKT275 germanium Fuzz Faces and what looks like a Marshall/Solasound SupaFuzz. ![]() Pink Floyd tours extensively throughout the year and into early 1971 releasing Atom Heart Mother in October and performs at many festivals including the Bath festival in June where David also uses the Black Strat for the first time.Įffects recording sessions and live performances It’s also around this time that David starts to collect guitars but perhaps more importantly – during the band’s visit to the States in May, he buys the now legendary Black Strat. From having more or less copied Syd’s tones and technique David explores his blues roots and contributes in shaping Pink Floyd’s signature blues oriented classic progressive rock sound. Oddly, Pink Floyd never made a full psych-folk album in the vein of “If” and Gilmour’s “Fat Old Sun,” which becomes even more of a shame when they end Atom Heart Mother with “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast,” a cut-and-paste assemblage of sounds that never coalesces into much of anything.Atom Heart Mother marks the end of the Barrett era. In particular, Waters’ “If” stands among his best compositions, and with his low vocals and Richard Wright’s breezy piano, the song actually brings to mind Nick Drake’s first two records (trivia: Drake’s producer, Joe Boyd, also helmed Pink Floyd’s first single, “Arnold Layne,” in 1967). The results are somewhat better, though, and almost uniformly folksy. The second half borrows the least productive idea from Ummagumma and divides songwriting duties among the band. In this case, they cast an orchestra and a choir as the leads, and the horn fanfare and choral harmonies hint at the even more ambitious arrangements throughout that decade. But “Atom Heart Mother”-all six movements-at the very least shows the band developing and entertaining new ideas, consciously moving away from the space rock label they’d been saddled with. Yes, the album stretches its six-part title track across an entire LP side, and yes, that suite meanders wildly and seemingly without purpose, as though they’re making it up as they go along but getting distracted almost constantly. They’re not exactly wrong, but they’re not exactly right either. Roger Waters and David Gilmour have spent 40 years playing this 1970 album down, labeling it pompous, overblown, embarrassing-a low point in the band’s creative history.
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