Two Geeks Three Cats

My opinions of the album-long cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon by the Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs (with special guests Henry Rollins and Peaches) continue below, song by song:

"Money" - The classic-rock-standard intro of cash register whirrs and chings of change in 7/8 time has been replaced here by an electronic buzz like my old modem used to make. Are the Lips making a subtle comment here about how credit cards and numbers in computer systems have replaced cash and coin? I hope so. The song itself is slower and more electronic than the original, and Wayne Coyne sings in a slightly sleazy digitized Zappa-esque whisper (is that a Vocoder?) that could not be more unlike David Gilmour's slick fat-cat croon. There's a also a fuzzy, distorted but appealing homage to Gilmour's guitar solo, but no saxophone.

"Us and Them" - Musically, this is another trip into vaguely Yoshimi territory, and that's not a bad thing. Coyne's nearly unprocessed vocals make this sound almost like it could be a demo version recorded by the Floyd in 1972. The notes of the sax solo in the original are appropriated, chopped up and rearranged into a really nice guitar solo here. There's nothing wrong with the track, but I miss the wall of sound from the original. Unfortunately, Rollins cheapens the proceedings again with voiceover deliveries that sound like he's reading straight from a page he hasn't seen before. Really, guys, couldn't you have given Henry the script ahead of time?

"Any Colour You Like" - Oh. My. God. The original was funky, but not like this. Kudos to the Lips for finding a common thread between Roger Waters' bass groove from this song and the breakdown in "Echoes" (from Floyd's 1971 Meddle) and presenting us with something that sounds like the best of both. I didn't know Michael Ivins could play like this.

"Brain Damage" - I need to give props to Lips multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd here, because I haven't yet. I can only imagine he is the reason this song sounds as cool as it does. The minimalist guitar work of the original is replaced here by organs and theremins in near-harmony, with a couple of fuzzy guitars - one sounding remarkably like it's played by long-departed Lips guitarist Ronald Jones - weaving in and out throughout. Rollins finally earns his keep as the cackling lunatic. I'm not sure if Coyne is on lead vocals here, because it doesn't sound like him. I'd like to find out.

"Eclipse" - I don't dislike this, but it fails to provide the epic climax to the piece that the original did. It's not bad, starting off with rocking guitars, making me expect a final track with a kick, a final burst of glory, an anthem for the ages like "The W.A.N.D." from At War With the Mystics. Instead, it left me a little cold.

The heartbeat comes in again at the end, making me think of Tull once more, before Rollins gives a self-aware, 10th-grade-Shakespeare recitation of the iconic final line: "There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark."

God damn you, Henry.

I've just finished listening to the album-long cover version of Pink Floyd's 1973 space-rock masterpiece The Dark Side of the Moon as reimagined by the Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs. It came out on December 22, but I have just gotten around to downloading it. I blame iTunes.

The Dark Side of the Moon was the first Pink Floyd album I heard - I imagine it was the first for many - when I was a wee lad of 12 years old, and it established the Floyd as my favorite band of all time soon after. So when I heard that the Flaming Lips, one of my favorite bands active today, was tackling this, I was understandably excited. When I learned that they would be doing it with the help of Stardeath and White Dwarfs, an Oklahoma City band fronted by Lips leader Wayne Coyne's nephew Dennis - whom I saw open for the Lips on New Year's Eve 2008, and was pretty impressed - I was even more excited. I later learned that warrior-poet Henry Rollins and a Canadian singer named Peaches (who I wasn't familiar with) had contributed to the project as well. I was pumped. This had all the makings to be even better than my most recent favorite album-long cover, Japancakes' 2007 instrumental post-rock cover of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.

Having heard it now, finally, I can say that in general, I like it. No doubt there will be some diehard Floydoids out there who disagree. There will be complaints of the Lips trying to take away Floyd's masterpiece, and how they are not up to the challenge. They will say and post things like "How dare they!?" and call Coyne & Co. arrogant, and look down their noses at those of us who would even think of listening to such blasphemy.

I say rubbish. Whether you like it or not, you have to respect the effort here - not to mention the massive balls - to recreate one of the most influential, best loved and best selling albums of all time in your own image. And that is what is done here. The Flaming Lips have taken apart this album, song by song, and redesigned it into a Flaming Lips album, one that their fans would appreciate; and that is no crime. Because above all, it is clear that the Lips recognize the place Pink Floyd has in their own psychedelic, space-age, art-rock musical ancestry. The cover project is obviously a labor of, and done with, love.

Here's a breakdown of my opinions, song by song:

"Speak to Me" - At 50 seconds long, it's less than a minute shorter than the original version, but it feels much shorter. Henry Rollins' opening spoken word delivery sounds way too California-dude for the psychedelic sonic assault to follow. And the heartbeat reminds me far more of the heartbeat at the beginning and end of Jethro Tull's A Passion Play than the one on The Dark Side of the Moon.

"Breathe" - We have liftoff. The Lips have transformed the flowing, sleepy ethereality of the iconic overture track into a driving tribal freak-out worthy of their latest album, Embryonic, or the second disc of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. It is obvious now that they are going to do something to make this classic album their own, and I'm loving it. The Lips have actually managed to make this song sound like a call to action ("Don't be afraid to care!") instead of a nap in a lawn chair on a lazy afternoon.

"On the Run" - They've tempered the oscillating synthesizers of the original, evoking the same atmosphere in a way that is more musical, but not necessarily easier to listen to. I've got mixed feelings about this one, but will need to listen to it some more. They've also revised the airport voiceovers (barely audible in the Floyd original) with references to the Lips' hometown of OKC. Cool.

"Time" - The song starts off with sampled respiratory sound effects keeping time. I'm not crazy about it. Once the music starts, though, it's beautiful. Wayne Coyne delivers David Gilmour's vocals in a strained, mournful falsetto even higher than I've ever heard him sing before. Peaches completes the duet by coming in on the verses sung by the late Rick Wright in the original, with heartfelt indie-waif honesty. The thinness of both vocal parts fits the lyrical theme of fleeting hours, short lives, and impermanence very well. I only wish they would have kept a guitar solo between verses 2 and 3 like the original did - it's one of my favorite guitar solos in Floyd history.

"Breathe (Reprise)" - Brings us right back to the opening theme of the album. Again, even though it's only about 10 seconds shorter than the Floyd version (clocking in at about a minute), this one seems much shorter.

"The Great Gig in the Sky" - From the beginning, it's easy to feel good about this, another Lips reinvention of a classic tune. The familiar piano and slide guitar of the original has become a sweet, dreamy lullaby that would fit in well on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I don't even mind Rollins' flat delivery of some voiceover lines from the original. Once Peaches steps in to provide the wailing wordless vocals, though, it's clear that she is no Clare Torry. She does her best, but at times she's clearly in pain. The sudden change of the tune into some kind of crazed booty-funk, however, is brilliant.

Finally, because so many classic Pink Floyd songs have at least a part 1 and part 2 (and also this post would be intimidatingly long otherwise), I've held off on finishing my comments here. My opinions on "side 2" will be up tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Zero.

That's how many cats were consulted in the writing of this blog post.

To be clear, we do have three cats. And yes, we spoil and adore them. And yes, they do get a notable mention in the title of this blog.

But this is not a cat blog. It is, or will be, a blog dedicated to the unashamed geekish pursuits of the two owners of the aforementioned cats.

Don't expect to find pet-parent tips here, like how to toilet train your kitty, or great ways to save on cat hygiene products. Don't expect detailed narratives about the hairball we found on the carpet in front of the bedroom door this past Sunday morning. Don't expect to find poems dedicated to our cats, and don't expect to find pictures of our cats at the bottom of every post.

Okay, there may be cat pictures. But none of the other stuff.

Okay, there probably will be cat pictures, and possibly even a haiku about a cat now and then. But no other forms of poetry, and nothing else pertaining to the cats. Promise.

And any discussions of hairballs will be kept to a minimum and purely in a geekish context, such as: did you know that a hairball is one example of a type of mass known as a bezoar, which was believed by medieval alchemists to be a cure against any kind of poison?

Look it up here if you don't believe me. Yeecchhh.