Inspiration, Move Me Brightly...: Cold Floyd

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Cold Floyd

Missoula, Montana. Bitterroot Mountains · Short Hike --- 1 hour 26 minutes
· Temperature: 10ºF (-12ºC)
· Trail Time in November: 8 hours 24 minutes

____(starting Oct. 1)
· Weight Loss Goal -- 24 pounds (11 kg)
__________· So Far -- 7 lb.

There's no way this month I can match my trail time from October. That's just the darn problem with living here, well, at least it's sort of a problem for me.

I want to hike. 10 degrees is just at the beginning of being on the bad side for hiking. Although today it was a pleasant 10 degrees, yes, pleasant -- overcast, lightly snowing, no wind to speak of. That's pretty nice. But still cold. It's easy to bundle up, no worries there. Carrying a balaclava in case my face is gonna freeze and fall off, not so swell.

Now, if I decide to shift my life a few miles east and south of here, say, to New England, I'd be able to hike nearly all throughout the winter without the threat of freezing my nads off. I'm stubborn, though. I want to be as far away from that piece of crap America as possible. I love this country but I don't want to see starbucks and walmarts every 100 feet. I don't want to see the goddamn suburban sprawl raping every stand of woodlands and every acre of farmland so developers can put up cookie cutter sprawdivisions that make me want to puke and then burn them all down.

Fairbanks ain't paradise but there's no town further from the Lower 48 that one can drive to on paved road.

Anyway... short hike about 12 hours ago. Nice, snowy afternoon. And some music that made me want to dose.

Weird, wild stuff...

Pink Floyd

The Piper At
The Gates Of Dawn

1967

[2007 Remastered
mono and stereo versions]

Astronomy Domine
Lucifer Sam
Matilda Mother
Pow R. Toc H.
Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
Interstellar Overdrive
The Gnome
Chapter 24
The Scarecrow
Bike

How can anybody legitimately use words to describe this music? It's been over a decade since I last heard this stuff and back then it was a favorite for... uhh, well, for when tripping on acid to be perfectly blunt. Without a doubt Syd Barrett was at many points during conception and production of this album also under the influence. Back there in a University of Utah dorm suite and later in rented houses off-campus, this was a popular bunch of songs to play, oh, an hour or so after munching on a few tabs of LSD. Settle in for the night and just trip away to psychedelic Floyd, amongst other stuff. I tell ya, tripping wasn't a time for Jimmy Buffett, Springsteen or The Cure. Music like that woulda made no sense on acid. This debut album from Floyd almost doesn't make any sense sober... ahhh, but when tripping that's a whole 'nother story!

Fast forward to November of 2007 -- when listening without chemical aid, some of this does makes sense. Interstellar Overdrive, in particular, makes perfect sense to me. It's a total combination of a Grateful Dead jam that's left the bounds of whatever song it's following, like a post-Estimated jam before Drums. That sound combined with Space is what the 9 and a half minute Interstellar Overdrive is. Just amazing.

Other tunes on here are quite literally insane. Pow R Toc H, The Gnome, and Bike especially just make me scratch my head and not because of dandruff or fleas... I got rid of those. The Scarecrow and Take Up Stethoscope also qualify for pretty weird.

The recent remastering, especially on the stereo version, is freakin' sweet. I'm almost never struck by improved sound but here it's fairly significant. Unless the Soviet underground kidnaps me to do LSD testing on me, those days are way behind me... so I'll never experience this again like have in the past. That doesn't mean I'm not going to explore this album some more in the future. Weird wild stuff but that's part of what makes it so interesting and worth listening to!