by Nick Mason
After his work on the tour, we brought Brian Humphries in as engineer. It was still highly unusual for anyone to import a non-EMI engineer in to Abbey Road, and Brian encountered a few teething problems as he familiarised himself with the set-up, once accidentally and irreversibly flooding the backing track with echo, a track Roger and I had spent many hours perfecting.
There were a few niggling differences between us, none significant in their own right, but enough to make life in the studio a lot less constructive than it had always been before. Punctuality became an issue. If two of us were on time and the others were late, we were quite capable of working ourselves up into a righteous fury. The following day the roles could easily be reversed. None of us was free of blame.
The success of the previous album had also brought its own dark side. We were all a little more conscious of how much had been contributed by each member of the band, and the credit (and share of the benefits) being doled out. There was more money involved now. Our publishing had been reorganised under the guidance of Peter Barnes with the setting up of Pink Floyd Music Publishing in 1973. For a group to own its own publishing company was still unusual – even the Beatles only owned part of Northern Songs – as was the ability to collect direct from overseas partners. This decision was justified when it was found that EMI had forgotten to collect a six-figure sum in overseas income over the previous three years.
The royalties from the record sales of The Dark Side Of The Moon were starting to flow through, although it was a gradual process. Lindy and I upgraded our house, moving from Camden to Highgate, but the fact we still had a relative lack of worldly goods was proved by the fact we managed the move with the help of a transit van and one of the road crew – no fleet of pantechnicons required. As the four of us acquired larger properties, we were able to draw on the skills of a group of creative designers, carpenters and artisans who not only worked on the house improvements, but also became involved in working on our shows. I was also finally able to indulge my passion for motor racing and started up a car restoration business with the Aston Martin specialist Derrick Edwards.
Despite any problems, we did now have the beginnings of a piece, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, devised in rehearsal in 1974, and developed during both rehearsals and shows that year. Roger had added lyrics to a poignant and mournful guitar theme of David’s and the song had been a staple part of the autumn tour of the UK, opening the first half with two other songs of Roger’s, ‘Raving And Drooling’ and ‘Gotta Be Crazy’, which we decided not to work on, but set to one side for the time being – Roger already had come up with the overall idea of ‘absence’ for the album, and it was clear that those two songs had no place within the concept.
The intro to ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, the opening track of the new album, contained the only remnant from the ‘Household Objects’ sessions: we had used an old party trick of filling wine glasses with varying levels of water and then running a finger round the rim to create a singing tone. These tones were then put on to sixteen-track tape and mixed down in chord clusters so that each fader controlled an individual chord. In fact, although we didn’t use it, the glass harmonica, an instrument using a keyboard to control spinning glass plates, had been invented to achieve the same effect.
We took a break from the studio work on these new pieces to undertake a tour of the States in April 1975. Some lessons had been learnt – our stage show benefited from a much higher professional input. Previously our special effects had been a dangerous mixture of imagination and passing acquaintance with the pyrotechnic arts. During one earlier gig at the Cobo Hall in Detroit, an over-enthusiastic application of flash powder coupled with a stage weight containing an air bubble in the casting nearly ended our careers in one bang. At the salient point in ‘Careful With That Axe’, instead of the boom and flash we expected there was an explosion of monumental proportions which blew out the cones of virtually every speaker we had, leaving the remainder of the show sounding rather thin. Alarmingly, pieces of shrapnel flew overhead hitting at least one member of the audience who fortunately refused to be hospitalised, and took a T-shirt in lieu of damages. Our road manager Chris Adamson remembers that the blast sent Roger’s bass speakers ten rows into the empty seats behind the stage, and the road crew spent the following day rewiring all the cabinets before the next show.
On another occasion, at a gig at the Boston Gardens, squads of fire marshals were positioned around the venue to prevent us letting off unauthorised pyrotechnics. Show time arrived with no pyro in sight. In fact, it had all been secreted in boxes ready for individual members of the road crew to abandon their innocent demeanour and make a strategic dash to detonate a particular charge. The marshals began to rumble this tactic, but the crew were one step ahead. As one sprinting roadie was rugger-tackled by a hefty marshal, another explosion revealed that this had been a diversionary ruse. It was only our manager’s Irish name and connections in Boston that stopped us all being locked up.
However, for the 1975 American tour we had fortunately acquired the services of Derek Meddings, the doyen of special effects, who was responsible for some of the best ever explosions in the James Bond movies. It was invaluable having access to Derek’s know-how. His Bond connection gave us so much more clout with the fire marshals: they realised we knew what we were doing. His involvement also underlined the increasing sophistication and professionalism of the road crew.
In May and June we returned to the studios to push on with Wish You Were Here. We heard that the veteran jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli and the classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin were recording downstairs in Abbey Road and someone offered to make the introduction. It seemed an obvious idea to ask them to play. We thought they might have something to add to the title track, which – being essentially acoustic – seemed the most suitable vehicle. Both were pleased to be asked, and Stephane volunteered to take up the challenge. Yehudi preferred to stand listening to Stephane’s sinuous jazz violin. It was just an experiment, and instead of running anything off onto two-track to keep, we simply recorded over the multi-track when we needed it for something else, once we had decided the addition of the violin didn’t work.
A more enduring guest appearance was by Roy Harper. Roy was a blend of poet and troubadour in the tradition of great English eccentrics. He was part of Peter Jenner and Andrew King’s Blackhill stable and a fellow EMI artist, and he was recording his album, HQ, at Abbey Road. We were having problems deciding how to sing ‘Have A Cigar’. Roger was not happy with his vocal delivery. Rick and I thought David should sing the track, but he too was not sure he could do it justice. Roy had popped in to the control room – we would occasionally drop in to each other’s sessions – and volunteered to sing the part. At the time, this seemed a good solution, although I think Roger in particular later regretted not doing the vocal, especially as he was increasingly feeling that it was important that he should sing the songs he had written.
It was during these sessions at Abbey Road, on 5th June, that we had one totally unexpected visitor. I strolled into the control room from the studio, and noticed a large fat bloke with a shaven head, wearing a decrepit old tan mac. He was carrying a plastic shopping bag and had a fairly benign, but vacant, expression on his face. His appearance would not have generally gained him admittance beyond studio reception, so I assumed that he must have been a friend of one of the engineers. Eventually David asked me if I knew who he was. Even then I couldn’t place him, and had to be told. It was Syd. More than twenty years later I can still remember that rush of confusion.
I was horrified by the physical change. I still had a vision of the character I had last seen seven years earlier, six stone lighter, with dark curly hair and an ebullient personality. My memory was less of the wasted Syd who’d left the band in 1968, but much more of the character we knew when he came down to London from Cambridge, who played that distinctive Fender Esquire with its reflecting discs, had a wardrobe full of Thea Porter shirts and was
accompanied by his beautiful blonde girlfriend.
Now he didn’t seem like a man who appeared to have any particular friends at all. His conversation was desultory and not entirely sensible, though to be fair I don’t think any of us was particularly articulate. Why he was there I’ve no idea. He wasn’t invited and I hadn’t seen him since he’d left the band in 1968, although in 1970 Roger, Rick and David had worked on Syd’s two solo albums, Roger and David on The Madcap Laughs and David and Rick on Barrett. Syd was still living in London – he took a suite at the Hilton Hotel at one stage – and had obviously heard we would be at work in Abbey Road. His arrival suddenly and unexpectedly brought back a whole part of the life of the band. Guilt was one feeling. We had all played some part in bringing Syd to his present state, either through denial, a lack of responsibility, insensitivity or downright selfishness.
To have met Syd in the street would have been disconcerting, but coming across him without warning in the studio environment was particularly alarming. The fact that it wasn’t just any studio but Studio 3 at Abbey Road, the site of most of his greatest work, and at one time his territory as much as anyone else’s, added to the poignancy. It is very easy to try and draw parallels with any Peter Pan returning to find the house still there and the people changed. Did he expect to find us as we had been seven years earlier, ready to start work with him again?
We tried to continue the recording session, playing back the piece we were working on (legend has it that this was ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ – the track most influenced by Syd’s presence, or absence – although I’m not sure it actually was), but all of us were a little disturbed by his arrival. Syd listened to the playback, and was asked to comment. I don’t remember him voicing any particular opinion, but when it was suggested that we run the track again Syd asked what the point would be since we had only just heard it…
Phil Taylor was there on the day Syd visited. He found himself in the canteen at Abbey Road, sitting at a table with David and Syd. David asked Syd what he was up to. ‘Well,’ said Syd. ‘I’ve got a colour telly, and a fridge. I’ve got some pork chops in the fridge, but the chops keep going off, so I have to keep buying more.’ Later Phil, driving away from the studios, saw Syd looking for a lift, but wasn’t sure he could handle the conversation and ducked down as he went past.
Apart from the weirdness of his arrival at that stage and in that environment, we should credit his presence as a catalyst to the piece. The lyrics were already written, but Syd’s visit underscored the melancholy of them, and maybe influenced the final version of the song. I still find the most affecting moment on the whole record is where the last notes fade out and Rick introduces a wistful rubato line, on high notes, from ‘See Emily Play’.
After the success of Dark Side, we were able to pursue some more elaborate ideas with Storm and Hipgnosis. Storm presented four or five ideas tying into themes contained within the album – including the man swimming through sand, the frozen dive, the burning businessman and the flying veil – and rather than have to plump for one we decided to retain them all.
When the recording was complete, we turned our attention to the live shows. Deciding that we would bring in a director to shoot more specific footage for the back projections, we signed up the Hungarian director Peter Medak, whose previous films had included A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg and The Ruling Class, and he reshot ‘Money’ and ‘On The Run’. Using a professional film director reflected our desire to move up another gear, and we used the same logic in asking Gerald Scarfe to create the animation.
We had first met Gerry through his brother-in-law Peter Asher, who we had known since the Sixties, when he was part of the duo called Peter and Gordon which had a hit in America with ‘Lady Godiva’ and ‘World Without Love’. Peter was always helpful when we asked his advice, even if we didn’t follow it; after his own performing career ended he became a very successful manager looking after James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt.
I had seen a wonderful hand-coloured piece of animation that Gerry Scarfe had done called ‘Long Drawn-Out Trip’ for a BBC programme, and when we were looking for new ideas for film he immediately sprang to mind. As Gerry is a very civilised man with clear opinions on politics and life, and the kind of black sense of humour that fitted in with ours, we soon established a good working relationship. He created images and film sequences amongst which were a human figure being eroded by the wind, and a surreal armadillo-like monster, both of which accompanied ‘Welcome To The Machine’. As with Derek Meddings, Gerry’s involvement was proof that commercial success had given us the chance to work with the best people in their fields.
During June 1975 we had returned to America on tour. We were trying to incorporate more and more complex effects. Of these, the inflatable pyramid was perhaps our most spectacular disaster. Roger, drawing on the architectural education the British taxpayer had kindly funded, had conceived a pyramid-shaped stage with an inflatable roof, thus solving all the design problems of the size of stage we required as well as providing protection from the weather at the same time. We applauded his vision, and thought it would look marvellous. The icing on the cake was, that as a climax to the show, the pyramid would gracefully ascend into the heavens on the end of a rope cable, delighting the assembled multitude below. Roger’s design demanded pillars at each of the four corners reaching over forty feet high, a base size of some six hundred square feet (the size of a decent house), an overall height of eighty feet and a volume of helium sufficient for a Zeppelin. The slightest breath of wind would set the entire structure shuddering and wobbling in a manner not dissimilar to the way London’s Millennium Bridge flexed when it was first opened.
The first show was in Atlanta, where the strength of the wind was outside our safety parameters and sufficient for the whole thing to fail. We tried hard to remedy the problem by sending the whole rig for repair and redesign during a series of indoor shows, but, bugged by poor weather, the difficulties of transporting the helium, and further high winds, when we got to Pittsburgh two weeks later, we eventually – like Captain Hornblower faced with an out-of-control mainsail – instructed someone to cut the thing free.
The device ascended to a few hundred feet before inverting, allowing the balloon in its peak to emerge like a teardrop through the base. ‘My God, it’s giving birth,’ one chemically affected American shouted as it emerged. Now of course the fabric had insufficient lift – so as the teardrop headed for the stratosphere the world’s biggest wet blanket settled ungracefully into the car park to be ripped to shreds by some scavenging souvenir hunters. At the end of this show, we were able to walk to the front of the stage, drop down to the ground and stroll without any hassle to our nearby hotel. This brought home the fact that our pyramid was more recognisable than we were – which was just how we liked it.
One small, but telling, clue that these tours were getting bigger and bigger was the size of the crew breakfast. I happened to be in one of the crew’s rooms when breakfast arrived. The fact that it was after a show at two in the morning was one oddity, but it was the scale of the meal that impressed me. The breakfast was clearly designed to avoid eating again within the next twenty-four hours. Steak, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, waffles, muffins and pancakes were accompanied by a platter of fresh fruit, cereal, French toast and syrups. Juice, coffee and a selection of liqueurs finished off the repast.
Our own appetite for stage effects was equally excessive, and continued through to Canada where, following our final North American show, some over-zealous crew member, encouraged by Alan Frey, our long-serving American agent, decided the easiest way to dispose of the remaining explosive was to attach it to the stadium’s illuminated scoreboard and fire it off. The explosion was devastating. The board erupted in smoke, flame and scores of a thousand goals a side. Not only did we have to pay for a replacement scoreboard but also a great deal of glass for the neighbouring houses. Fortunately we made our excuses and left before the locals tracked us down.
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We then rushed back to England on a completely crazed timetable for a technically challenged show at Knebworth. Time was too short or we were too frazzled. Part of the problem was that the generators were unstabilised. During the afternoon it became clear that all Rick’s electric keyboards needed retuning. However, we managed to miss the significance of this and as darkness fell and our stage lights were operated, Rick’s keyboards were changing pitch in unison with the sound. It sounded awful. It transpired that every time the master volume was turned up, the keyboards went out of tune. Below the stage, Phil Taylor, Robbie Williams and the technician from the generator company, in a scene reminiscent of Das Boot, strove to churn round the generator handle in an attempt to control the damage. Phil recalls that their efforts were ‘manful, but hopeless’ as the keyboards continued to see-saw between sharp and flat.
Rick walked off in despair at one point, and somehow or another we staggered through the show using only one piano and one less sensitive keyboard, and a more modest light show. Yet although we were painfully aware of the technical problems below and on stage, we managed to distract the audience with a great effect, when – instead of using model planes as we had done on other shows – we managed to co-ordinate a fly-past by two original Spitfires low over the crowd as the show opened.
PERHAPS INFLUENCED by the stately grandeur of Knebworth, this was the period we embarked on a little light empire building. We bought a building at 35 Britannia Row, just off the Essex Road in Islington. Britannia Row was a three-storey block of church halls which we in due course set about converting into a recording studio and storage facilities for our ever-expanding quantity of stage equipment. We were not dissatisfied with Abbey Road, but we were spending so much time in the studios that it seemed worthwhile creating an environment we could customise for our needs. It was also the mood of the times for bands to build their own recording studios: Pete Townshend had Eel Pie Studios and the Kinks owned Konk Studios.