Inside Out : A Personal History of Pink Floyd

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3641739.html

As my regular reader knows, celebrity autobiography is one of the sub-genres I dip into relatively frequently, mostly Doctor Who personalities but not only them. I had read Peter Townshend’s book in 2018, so was looking forward to this as I am more familiar with Pink Floyd than with The Who.

It's a pretty comprehensive account by Pink Floyd's drummer, the only member to have stayed with the band in all its iterations, coming across as honest and fair-minded. The saddest story is of course the decline of Syd Barrett, the band's original genius, culminating with him turning up, unrecognised at first, to the recording of Wish You Were Here, a song which was actually about him. But I also had not show more heard that Stéphane Grappelli also happened to be in the studio at the time, and recorded a violin track, which in the end was not used. You can hear it here from 3:12. I think it would actually have been an improvement, but of course reasonable people can disagree about that. I guess we are so familiar with the released version that the variation sounds innovative, and I can understand that at the time the band wanted it to sound like Pink Floyd rather than Grappelli's backing group.

The well-recorded tensions between Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and the rest, are laid out with sympathy for both sides (though naturally more for the side Mason himself happened to be on). The account of the creative process for the band's best-known music is detailed without being tedious. I see some reviewers complaining that Mason names many members of the support team for the band, and has a bit to say about each of them, but I actually found that a positive - the success of the band is due to more than just the people who write and play the music, and it is nice that Mason acknowledges this.

It would have been interesting to read a bit more about how the band and its members handled the transition from poverty and squabbling over the van, to being suddenly very rich. Mason talks a fair bit about the technicalities of money management, and also reflects several times that Pink Floyd collectively were firmly left of centre politically; but I miss a connecting thread.

However, it's laugh-out-loud funny in quite a number of places, often but not always self-deprecating. One gets the sense that Mason has been telling a lot of these stories for years, and honed them well. Originally published in 2004, it was updated in 2011, including an account of the 2005 Live 8 performance, and again for the 2017 exhibition. I really enjoyed it. show less

Nick Mason knows how to play drums, and play the fool. In his book, a micro-focused journal of life with the Pink Floyd, and what led up to its formation, and life after, Mason shows he is an astute storyteller also. And a funny man. With amazing clarity, the details of the rock life jump from the pages with delight.

Maybe you have to be a Pink Floyd fan to be entranced by the writing of Syd Barrett, and the tragedy of his leaving. The absurd life of an inflatable as a show performer to your liking? How about liquid light shows, those psychedelic backdrops behind the rock gods? Scrounging for transportation to the next gig? Fearing for your life? It's all here. But it's not the typical sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. In fact, there's very show more little of that.

Probably the most fascinating aspect of the life of the Floyd, is that the band usually had no idea about what they were doing outside of their own instruments. The drama, the laughs, the spoils, and the heartache are all within. And presented so well. If one could, read it all, straight through without stopping. You would doubt that the book is spread over 50 or so years. The prose doesn't change. Pink Floyd does though, and so do the times.

Music and people never stay the same. Could Pink Floyd have stayed going on? Would we have bought all their new MP3s? Read the clues in the book, from the one man that seems to have remembered it all. show less

Smart. Very straight forward. Most rock ‘n’ roll books revolve around the “sex & drugs” and not the music portion. But this one does to some extent. There is no dirty laundry in this book almost seeming as this is avoiding a lawsuit. Nick was an early influence for me on my drumming. The book is well-written, with a nice dry English humor.

I have been a Pink Floyd fan as long as I can remember, but I knew next to nothing about them. That rather fits the bill for many of the artists I enjoy, as I love classic rock but was born in 1980. Nick Mason has a dry, literate wit which I enjoyed as narration. I also found it rather odd though, when personal details of the members' lives such as children or wives were omitted. The book focuses solely on the band, and perhaps that is the way it was meant to be. Overall, I highly recommend this book if you are a Pink Floyd fan.

"Dark Side of the Moon" was, at one time, owned by one in seven households making it perhaps one of the biggest selling entertainment enigmas of all time (outside of Bowie). Most casual listeners probably assumed this inscrutability was all a shtick, if a very cultivated one, nevertheless for the dedicated fan, many questions lingered over the years. I'd always thought, or maybe had a premonition, that Nick Mason would eventually provide the answers. Some of them come as a surprise. They didn't really consider rock music seriously as a career until they were almost at the cusp of success (they were already well on their way to success, Roger and Nick already on track to become young architects, Syd an accomplished writer, visual artist show more and, no, his mental illness was not solely due to acid). Devoted followers of their albums prior to "Darkside" wondering if the exploratory and egalitarian nature of those years weren't those of a band still in its formative stages would be proven right. The fact that they were still considering an avant-garde direction after "Darkside" does come as a surprise. I'd always thought it was a sardonic joke (from what I read here, not really in their character). Another surprise is that they acknowledged and were aware of the punk-rock movement. Astoundingly Captain Sensible wanted Syd to produce the first Damned album over Nick! show less

Nick Mason proves to be the perfect genial host for this tour through the history of the various incarnations of Pink Floyd. As the title says it's a history of the band as an entity rather than a tell-all about the personalities behind it. At times this approach can be a little frustrating as some incidents and confrontations are mentioned almost in passing leaving a desire to know a little more about why things happened the way they did. But that is balanced by Mason's self-deprecating dry wit making this one of the more entertaining entries in the rock-biography genre.

This review is of the 2017 edition of the book. Getting a question some people may have out of the way first, if you already have the earlier edition, it's probably not worth upgrading to this edition unless you can find it very cheap, as the changes seem to be only an expansion of the final chapter and the timeline to cover events since the first edition. If you're a fan of the band, or are just interested in its history, and don't have the earlier edition then this is a worthwhile addition to your collection.

The book is divided into thirteen sections, each covering a period of the band's history. After the first two sections (detailing the band's initial formation and becoming more than just a hobby), the remaining sections mostly show more correspond with one or two of their major studio albums (most of the doubling of albums being in the transitional period after Piper at the Gates of Dawn and before Dark Side of the Moon). These divisions do feel like natural changes in the band's development, rather than arbitrary chapter breaks at each new album.

Nick Mason was probably the only person who could have written this successfully. Part of this is simply because he's been the only constant member of the band (although only Syd Barrett wasn't present for more than one or two albums). Another part of it is that, apart from the split with Syd (an event he is not sparing in criticism of how they handled it), he wasn't as central to the conflicts in the band, allowing him a more balanced position on these matters. Roger Waters, Dave Gilmour, and (except for the new material) Rick Wright did have input on the material, and several other involved people are quoted, further helping to balance the viewpoint.

The tone of the book is generally light, especially about some of the band's excesses musically and in stage design, making for an easy read. The spelling and terminology are distinctly British, which shouldn't be a problem for most people but might be an issue for some. show less