Tag Archive for "about face" tag

Planet Rock is currently asking listeners to vote for the Greatest Solo Album.

Only those who were in established bands before they went solo count, so your Bob Dylans and David Bowies aren’t welcome on this occasion.

Ray Davies of Kinks fame has put out two corkers in recent years; I particularly enjoyed Other People’s Lives from 2006.

Don Henley can do no wrong in my book. Pete Townshend’s another prolific talent.

Two more that stand out are James Dean Bradfield’s The Great Western and Richard Ashcroft’s Alone with Everybody.

We all know that John Lennon’s Imagine will probably win, but Paul McCartney’s Electric Arguments has some great tunes (which you can listen to here). We shouldn’t forget Run Devil Run either, where David joined his Beatle chum to play some good, old-fashioned Rock and Roll.

If you’d like to vote, you have until this Friday to do so. Voters will be entered into a prize draw to win a DAB radio.

The Top 10 will be revealed on Saturday 26 September and repeated on Thursday 1 October. As always, everyone can listen to Planet Rock online.

I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that you all vote for On an Island, About Face and/or David Gilmour, but I would like to know which others you’re most fond of.

It’s the 25th anniversary of David’s second solo album, ‘About Face’ – released on this day in 1984 by Harvest and Columbia – so I’d like to know… whatever you feel like saying about it, really.

Some interesting facts about those that helped contribute to it would be nice.

Highlights for me: that unmistakeable guitar tone on ‘Murder’, the delicate pace and effective delivery of those touching ‘Near the End’ lyrics, and the late Michael Kamen working his magic yet again with the National Philharmonic, on ‘Let’s Get Metaphysical’.

It’s also the last day of bidding for the signed Strat. Current price: $2,600. You’ll need $3,100 to top that and have approximately eight-and-a-half hours to do so.

A very Happy Birthday to Susan and Thomas, as well.

Some extra ‘randomness’ (just in case the word ‘nonsense’ offends anyone, perish the thought) to get us started this week.

With the impressive artwork which graced record sleeves, particularly in the Seventies, hopefully relatively fresh in the memory from the last-but-one poll, I’d like to know which you think are the most iconic album covers (from any artist, from any decade – but no more than ten, please).

I’d also like to know which is your favourite from David’s three studio releases: ‘David Gilmour’, ‘About Face’ and ‘On an Island’.

And, because they deserve a list of their own, which are your favourites from Pink Floyd?

Remember, it’s just the cover art, not the music.

Readers of The Blog – and I hope you’re leaving a dramatic pause before you speak its name, now that it’s capitalised, by the way – know all-too-well just how positively nutty some of you are when it comes to all things Floydian.

So, as a tribute to your nuttiness, I thought it would raise a titter or two, maybe even three or four, to share regular examples of your most cherished ‘On An Island’ experiences.

It could be a photo of your good self getting ready for one of the concerts or cinema events, resplendent in your favourite DG T-shirt, proudly clutching some sort of prized paraphernalia while your friends stand around making oh-so amusing hand gestures behind you. Alas, we all get dragged into a corny group shot every once in a while, whether we like it or not.

Did you get a tattoo in memory of the album? Were you lucky enough to meet any of the band members? If so, were you able to coax them into showing off their pearly whites?

What of the fan get-togethers? There have been a few of those.

Have you photographed your pet in the DG beanie hat (own up) or treated your car to an Island-inspired make-over? Blue is a great colour, you know…

Come to think of it, have you tried posing behind the ‘About Face’ LP, Sleeveface-style? If so, I do expect to see evidence, but that has to be worthy of a post of its own. If not, give it a go and be ready for the call; there are a lot of rainy days coming up, apparently.

I’ll feature my favourite whenever the urge overwhelms me.

You need to get it online using an image hosting site (Google “free image hosting” for about 11,496,273 suggestions) and point me towards it, so be sure to provide its URL with your comment.

That’s the URL for the photo, by the way, not an entire gallery of shots. Help me out here.

No e-mails, no attachments, and no more than one per person, please. There’ll be other chances to submit more.

No links will be published, by the way. You’ll just have to wait to see if your shot randomly appears as a featured photo over the coming weeks.

There will be a new post on Monday, but no comments will be published until Tuesday, so don’t you go worrying about sackings or resignations, missing manhole covers or spontaneous vacations.

Oh, and don’t bother sending any examples of your concert photography. Some fans annoyed the band with their flashing cameras quite enough during the tour, so please spare us. We’ve also had that discussion before, so let’s leave it in the archives where it belongs; you’ve got them, we know you’ve got them, but we really don’t want to see them.

Above all, please be sure to get the permission of whoever is in the photo with you before sharing it, just in case they don’t wish to see their gurning features on David’s blog.

Have a good weekend, all, and thank you very much for the birthday greetings. (If you want to leave a belated message for David, please leave it here.)

Classic 21’s programme about the making of David’s 1984 album, ‘About Face’, was broadcast on Wednesday.

Thanks to the kindness of fans, we have it here for you all to read – in English.

It’s included with the comments below in several parts to help give an indication of the preferred length of your own posts.

Some posts are getting very lengthy and, therefore, are considered especially off-putting to many. So please be reminded, however you may feel about it, that this is the most that readers will expect from your comments.

The fact is, if you want people to read your thoughts, please don’t expect them to read for more than a minute.

If you can’t possibly keep it short and sweet, it would be appreciated by all if you could break long passages of text into several shorter posts to keep the blog as free-flowing as possible.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Our kind thanks to Michèle for alerting us to the programme, to Ronny for translating it, and to LG for transcribing it.

You can still listen to the programme in its original French here.

Please note that this programme was made up of old quotes from David and contained no new interviews.

Belgian radio station, Classic 21, will be broadcasting an hour-long show on the making of David’s second solo album, ‘About Face’ tomorrow from 3PM (CET).

As well as telling the story of how the album was made, they will also be playing tracks from it.

You can listen live online, and brush up on your French, here.

Just click >24k or >128k (top right of page) to listen.

If you can’t listen live, later you will be able to listen to it as a podcast.

Click here, then click >>plus (bottom left of page) to open a new window. You’ll be able to listen to other programmes in the series.

This includes the Pink Floyd albums ‘The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’ and ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’.

Our thanks to Michèle for letting us know about this programme.

We’re very happy to say that the ‘David Gilmour’ and ‘About Face’ re-masters are finally out in the US tomorrow. Digitally re-mastered by Doug Sax and James Guthrie, they sound great and we hope you’ll enjoy them. Do let us know what you think of them.

What was the best thing about the tour? is this week’s not-at-all-limited poll, which follows on from last week’s Best and Worst blog entry. As hard as it is, try and pick just three tour highlights from our list of ten, if you can.

Thanks for voting so positively last time. 77% of you say you would return to our new chatroom for more, so thank you very much.

The next chat is tomorrow at 4PM (UK time), so feel free to drop in.

Please remember the rules, though. No talking about bootlegs, fansites or tribute bands and no linking to sites which contain copyrighted material (therefore, just about every single fansite and that very popular one where you can watch videos of all sorts of things).

We don’t want to hear about any of these, and some of you have already been warned. Please don’t make me ban you.

Oh, and just so you know, you’ll also be timed-out now if you remain inactive for 15 minutes, as opposed to 30 minutes. This is to prevent lurkers.

As you may have already seen over on the Latest News page, or from the posts of several fans who wrote in the previous entry to share the good news, David’s classic ‘Comfortably Numb’ solo has been voted the best guitar solo of all-time by listeners of UK radio station, Planet Rock.

It was up against some impressive competition, beating solos by the likes of Slash, Eddie Van Halen and Jimmy Page.

Congratulations to David on achieving yet another Number One.

Let us know whether or not you agree with the decision over on our latest poll. As always, feel free to share your thoughts here.

There was another great response to last week’s poll: Which is your favourite track from 1984’s ‘About Face’?

‘Murder’ polled 30% of the vote. Runners up were ‘Near The End’ (17%) and ‘Out Of The Blue’ (10%) with ‘Let’s Get Metaphysical’ and ‘Love On The Air’ each polling 8%.

I’d also love to hear from the lucky few who were at Abbey Road yesterday. I hope you had a great time.

As re-masters of David’s first two solo albums have been out for a week now – in Europe, at least – I thought we’d have a Favourite Solo Lyric and Why entry today (as a belated birthday-cum-get well treat for Erin).

Only lyrics from David’s first two solo albums, please. We did this for ‘On An Island’ lyrics as recently as 19 May, so let’s not have the repetition.

Can we also cut back on the really, really, really long posts? We’ve set in place a character limit now that the concert reviews are (almost) all in. It shouldn’t have much of an impact, but please keep it in mind when writing at length.

Of course, you are always more than welcome to post more than once, so please don’t feel gagged in any way. This is simply to make it easier for people to skim through the posts, because the longer ones do tend to be overlooked.

Thank you for your co-operation.

We’ve got a new poll today, so do let us know which is your favourite track from David’s second solo album, 1984’s ‘About Face’.

‘There’s No Way Out Of Here’ romped to victory in last week’s poll with 44% of the vote, proving itself your undisputed favourite from David’s eponymous 1978 debut.

‘I Can’t Breathe Anymore’ came second with 10% and instrumentals ‘Mihalis’ and ‘Raise My Rent’ polled 9% each. There was also a late surge of votes for ‘So Far Away’, which also polled 9%.

Thanks for taking part, and thanks to Erin for today’s blog suggestion.

David’s first two solo albums, 1978’s ‘David Gilmour’ and 1984’s ‘About Face’, are re-released this week. Digitally re-mastered by Doug Sax and James Guthrie, the sound promises to be the best possible.

Across Europe, both albums are out today and they’ll be available across North America, Australia and New Zealand tomorrow.

Which is your favourite of the two? Which tracks particularly stand out? How do these albums compare with ‘On An Island’ (which is considered by David to be superior to anything he’s done)?

We have a new poll for you and it’s about your favourite track from ‘David Gilmour’. Do cast your vote and let us know what you think. We’ll do the same for ‘About Face’ next week.

Not surprisingly, ‘Echoes’ ran away with the last poll. 52% of you voted it the best surprise of the tour. ‘Arnold Layne’ and ‘Wot’s… Uh The Deal’ polled 12% and 11% respectively.

Thanks to all who voted.

Last week was a miserable one and, for obvious reasons, nothing seemed to matter very much.

We’re going to move on now, but first, in case you’ve missed anything, here’s a brief round-up of what I would have reported in more detail last week were it not for the tragic news about Syd.

There’s now a seating plan for the Venice concert. Please see the Live Dates page for the plan in PDF format.

You’ll also see ticket details for the GdaÅ„sk concert on the Live Dates page. That’s going to be an amazing show.  David will have a 38-piece orchestra behind him, conducted by Zbigniew Preisner.

As we were discussing the ‘P.U.L.S.E’ DVD (yes, we’re spelling it this way from now on), we’ve added a poll for you to cast your vote and let us know how you rate it. There’ll be a new poll added on a regular basis. Please see the Stuff & Nonsense page for that.

David’s first two solo albums have been delayed. They’re now out on 14 and 15 August in Europe and North America respectively. Please note that the various fansites are incorrect in stating that there will be extra tracks. There is no bonus material included with these albums.

Lastly, a few words in response to certain comments received last week.

Above all, our deep thanks once again for the great many kind, thoughtful and incredibly moving messages that were left. They were vastly appreciated and responsible for plenty of tears.

But frankly I have been sickened by the number of people who have used this forum – and, more importantly, Syd’s name – to insensitively and shamelessly push their own agenda, be it advertising their tribute act, plugging their website or banging on about a Pink Floyd reunion.

I don’t care if it was for the sake of a charitable cause. It was the wrong time and the wrong place and I strongly object to a space set up in Syd’s memory, purely for people who cared about him to pay their respects (not people merely seizing an opportunity to tell David what he ought to be doing to save the world), being targeted and bombarded with demands.

You are, of course, free to tell us how you will honour Syd’s memory if you want to. But don’t tell us what you think David, or the other members of Pink Floyd, should be doing. That is for them to decide, not fans who so desperately want to see a reunion, they don’t care how it comes about.

For God’s sake, have and show some respect. We have lost the man who gave the world the band you claim to love so much. Is a concert of any importance?

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but there’s a time and a place to express it. To start spewing out the usual tired demands last week was wholly inappropriate and, on behalf of anyone with a heart and more than half a brain, I say shame on you for not realising it.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: SOME GLASGOW TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE

We’ve just been informed that there are some tickets left for the Glasgow show. If you received an e-mail offering you the chance to purchase advance tickets, and if you haven’t yet responded to it, then be quick. As you know, we operate on a first come, first served basis. Your tickets will be offered to someone else if you don’t snap them up quickly.

This is what happened with the third London show, where fans who thought they’d missed out were surprised with the offer of tickets.

So, if you’re one of the lucky ones to have been offered a pair of priority tickets to Clyde Auditorium, then get a move on before you miss out.

It’s been three weeks since the ‘Five favourites’ blog was added, and we have been overwhelmed, flattered and, yes, often pretty flummoxed by the response. After tallying up your suggestions – which took forever, I must say – the 20 most popular tracks as chosen by you are currently, in numerical order (add your own drum roll here):

001. Comfortably Numb
002. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5)
003. Echoes
004. Dogs
005. High Hopes
006. Marooned
007. Fat Old Sun
008. On The Turning Away
009. Murder *
009. There’s No Way Out Of Here *
011. Wish You Were Here
012. Sorrow
013. Childhood’s End
014. Cymbaline *
014. Fearless *
016. Coming Back To Life
017. Near The End
018. Time
019. The Narrow Way *
019. Wot’s… Uh The Deal *

* Equal number of votes polled. Alphabetical order, not preference, dictates a song’s order in the chart.

So, what do you think of that, then? ‘Fat Old Sun’ is an interesting choice because, had David not performed it in 2001/2, then I wonder just how many of you would have thought to mention it in 2005/6. I’m sure that many of the real aficionados would have done so, but perhaps not in such high numbers to have given it such a high position in the chart.

The success of David’s recent semi-acoustic shows has undoubtedly played a big part in fan selection. This has been the case with Richard Thompson’s ‘Dimming of the Day’, Bizet’s ‘Je Crois Entendre Encore’ and Syd Barrett’s ‘Terrapin’ – all of which have been suggested by you in considerable numbers. (They actually received more mentions than some so-called Floyd favourites.)

Which also, of course, gives hope to some of the less well-known songs that many people perhaps wouldn’t even think of including in such a list, possibly expecting them to be swamped by repeat calls for The Hits. If David decides to give one of those tracks a dusting down, then who is to say that fans won’t think of that when next asked to list their favourites?

With the range of talented musicians who could possibly be touring with David, anything’s possible. (We will reveal in due course who these musicians will be, but think of those you know to have contributed to ‘On An Island’, as some of them may also be joining David on tour.)

Who knows what rare gems David might chose to unearth? Who expected Syd Barrett’s ‘Dominoes’ or ‘Hushabye Mountain’ from the cult children’s film, ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’? Both of these were mentioned, which is a credit to David’s versatility and imagination, not to mention your passion for good music played well and deep respect for David’s bravery and judgement.

In spite of being best known, naturally, for his part in Pink Floyd, the general consensus is that fans would like to hear David’s solo material – both the new material that we await with baited breath and that from his previous solo albums, 1978’s ‘David Gilmour’ and 1984’s ‘About Face’. For David’s songs to feature so highly in a list of what is, in essence, a ‘Top Pink Floyd Songs… Ever!’ list, is very pleasing indeed.

There is, undoubtedly, an impressive back catalogue at David’s disposal should he wish to consider it. You have suggested a staggering 107 songs in total, and that doesn’t include any cover versions or album medleys, music from soundtracks (such as ‘La Carrera Panamericana’), instrumental pieces that David has performed live (such as ‘Song For My Sara’, which he performed on Saturday Night Live back in 1987) or unreleased recordings (such as ‘Rain in the Country’, one of the widely-bootlegged ‘Zabriskie Point’ rejects). That only includes recognised tracks from solo, and Pink Floyd, albums.

Of course, let’s not forget that – most importantly of all – by the time David kicks off his tour in Dortmund, an album of new tracks will be yearning to be performed live.

David is especially pleased to read of your tremendous excitement at the prospect of hearing his new material in concert, and that many of you anticipate ‘On An Island’ far more than hearing new renditions of Pink Floyd’s most well-known classics. This is very important. As David has explained several times, his stripped-down shows have given him the freedom to be himself and to try new things that interest him. Indeed, they lessen the burden of expectation that he has as part of a hugely successful rock band, and this allows him greater scope to experiment.

But, before you jump the gun, that doesn’t necessarily mean that David won’t play some Floyd tunes. You’re going to have to wait until the time is right before we let you know what’s on the agenda, I’m afraid.

Let us know if you’d like a full run-down of all the songs you have suggested. We could compile the data into all sorts of fascinating, geeky lists, if you care for that sort of thing.

Please note that if you posted your favourites in a blog other than ‘Five favourites’, they didn’t count here. We have moved many comments to the correct blogs, but with so many needing to be moved, it hasn’t been possible to move them all yet. Please try to make sure that your comments go where you want them so that people can respond to them, etc. Thank you.

Thanks again for all your suggestions, and our congratulations to all who got tickets for Manchester and Glasgow.

One of Polly’s photographs will be here tomorrow, honest. We know you’ve missed them.

No prizes for noticing that today’s snap is another of Nick Mason’s… and a fine one it is, too.