PiNK FLOYD-Piper At The Gates MONO orig EX

	£		287
	$		380

The PiNK FLOYD-The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

original 1967 blue/black Columbia MONO LP SX6157 

MATRIX No.s: XAX 3419-2 / XAX 3420-1 
LAMINATED GATEFOLD SLEEVE

COVER IN EXCELLENT CONDITION.
RECORD IN EXCELLENT- CONDITION (plays EX)

On offer here is a highly collectable MONO copy of The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Original copies of this record are now extremely hard to find, especially MONO copies. There are very fine wispy surface marks in evidence, and one tiny approx. half cm scratch towards the end of Interstellar Overdrive, but because of the nature of the track, (ie feedback etc) it is barely audible. Generally very quiet run-in/linking grooves. A few "pops" audible in linking groove before "Scarecrow". Otherwise, the record plays extremely well. Absolutely no jumps/sticks make this a very respectable copy, playing with great clarity and power, in EX- condition. The labels are stunning, with no writing anywhere and absolutely minimal spindle wear/marks. The sleeve is in EXCELLENT condition, highly glossy, no tears/splits, superb edges, light wrinkles near spine, and a tiny, barely visible light stain to the rear, to the left of the track listing only. A very nice sleeve.

EXTREMELY HARD TO FIND IN COLLECTABLE CONDITION!

Pink Floyd is the premier space rock band. Since the mid-'60s, their music has relentlessly tinkered with electronics and all manner of special effects to push pop formats to their outer limits. At the same time they have wrestled with lyrical themes and concepts of such massive scale that their music has taken on almost classical, operatic quality, in both sound and words. Their latter-day staleness cannot disguise the fact that, for the first decade or so of their existence, they were one of the most innovative groups around, in concert and (especially) in the studio.

While Pink Floyd are mostly known for their grandiose concept albums of the 1970s, they started as a very different sort of psychedelic band. Soon after they first began playing together in the mid-'60s, they fell firmly under the leadership of lead guitarist Syd Barrett, the gifted genius who would write and sing most of their early material. The Cambridge native shared the stage with Roger Waters (bass), Rick Wright (keyboards), and Nick Mason (drums). The name Pink Floyd, seemingly so far-out, was actually derived from the first names of two ancient bluesmen (Pink Anderson and Floyd Council). And at first, Pink Floyd were much more conventional than the act into which they would evolve, concentrating on the rock and R&B material that were so common to the repertoires of mid-'60s British bands.

Pink Floyd quickly began to experiment, however, stretching out songs with wild instrumental freak-out passages incorporating feedback, electronic screeches, and unusual, eerie sounds created by loud amplification, reverb, and such tricks as sliding ball bearings up and down guitar strings. In 1966, they began to pick up a following in the London underground; onstage, they began to incorporate light shows to add to the psychedelic effect. Most importantly, Syd Barrett began to compose pop-psychedelic gems that combined unusual psychedelic arrangements (particularly in the haunting guitar and celestial organ licks) with catchy melodies and incisive lyrics that viewed the world with a sense of poetic, child-like wonder.

The group landed a recording contract with EMI in early 1967 and made the Top 20 with a brilliant debut single, "Arnold Layne," a sympathetic, comic vignette about a transvestite. The follow-up, the kaleidoscopic "See Emily Play," made the Top Ten. The debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, also released in 1967, may have been the greatest British psychedelic album other than Sgt. Pepper's. Dominated almost wholly by Barrett's songs, the album was a charming funhouse of driving, mysterious rockers ("Lucifer Sam"), odd character sketches ("The Gnome"), childhood flashbacks ("Bike," "Matilda Mother"), and freakier pieces with lengthy instrumental passages ("Astronomy Domine," "Interstellar Overdrive," "Pow R Toc H") that mapped out their fascination with space travel. The record was not only like no other at the time; it was like no other that Pink Floyd would make, colored as it was by a vision that was far more humorous, pop-friendly, and light-hearted than those of their subsequent epics.

The reason Pink Floyd never made a similar album was that Piper was the only one to be recorded under Barrett's leadership. Around mid-1967, the prodigy began showing increasingly alarming signs of mental instability. Syd would go catatonic onstage, playing music that had little to do with the material, or not playing at all. An American tour had to be cut short when he was barely able to function at all, let alone play the pop star game. Dependent upon Barrett for most of their vision and material, the rest of the group were nevertheless finding him impossible to work with, live or in the studio.

GOOD LUCK!

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LABELS SUPERB, ABSOLUTELY MINIMAL SPINDLE WEAR

LIGHT DISCOLORATION TO LEFT OF TRACK LISTING HARDLY DETRACTS FROM OVERALL CONDITION.