h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's about time we got an entry for Pink Floyd!

Just a note. AFAIK, there are no Syd Barrett voices in Dark Side of the Moon. Most of the crazy-sounding comments came from a roadie by the name of "Roger The Hat". All the voices were recorded in the studio just before taping of the album, so Syd was not around at that time. (The next time the Floyd saw Syd was in 1977 at the Wish You Were Here release party.)

Heh. Small correction to your correction Syd in fact did appear in the studios when Pink Floyd were recording Wish You Were Here, in 1975. Not in 1977. Nitpicky, I know.

Oh right, Animals was 1977, WYWH was 1975.

It was right at the end of recording sesions, they were having a party and completing the mixing I think.

Just a note from me (the author)-The part about the voices I did not put in, but was apparently culled from other information that some editor added. You're right, the voices are not Syd's, but they are not mainly from "Roger the Hat" either. They are short sections from interviews done on the streets outside the studio. People were stopped and asked their opinions on life, death, violence, and other topics. The famous line about the dark side of the moon being fictional is said by the studio doorman. Also, Syd Barret showed up at the recording of the "Wish You Were Here" album just as the band was reviewing the tapes of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" before final production-a short, overwieght, balding man showed up in the production booth while they were listening to the tapes. No one realized it was Syd until much later. That's it for now!
-Dan
--"So, so you think you can tell..."

Not to be pedantic, but:
1) I believe both Pink Anderson and Floyd Council were blues musicians, not pop ones.
2) The lawsuits in the 80s involved _Roger_ trying to stop Dave (and the "new" floyd) playing floyd songs
under the pink floyd name, not the other way around.
3) As was mentioned in this thread, the recordings on dark side were of Roger the Hat and random people
interviewed by the band and its crew -- apparently Paul & Linda McCartney were also amongst those
interviewed, but their responses were unused.

While this article is pretty good for an overview, there's tons of interesting stories and info about the Floyd
that it doesn't even begin to cover...if you're curious for anything else, go to ftp.halcyon.com and look at
the Floyd FAQ. I haven't looked at it in a couple of years, but I'm pretty sure it should still be there.

Heh. I have to agree with JeffreyBar there, with his corrections. With Pink Floyd, I think you'll find that there is a wealth of information out there, much of it being definitive -- some difinitively accurate, and some difinitively inaccurate. Just to confuse things more, there's some amount of information out there about this band that is also just plain unknown. They're not a band that lives much in the limelight, so there's that problem. Couple that with the fact that they've also forgotten or simply re-told stories themselves that were inaccurate or inconsistent and you've got a recipe for confusion and argument, both of which frequently surround the band.

Given that, I thought the original author of this article was wise to avoid most of the more ... ahem ... ambiguous or indeterminate issues surrounding Pink Floyd's past. Good article, is what I'm trying to say. Everything written about the band seems to have at least one, two, or even five mistakes for us Floydologists to get our panties in a twist about. For what it's worth, I think the better places for detailed knowledge of the group are the Echoes FAQ (which used to be an expanded version of the FAQ that JeffreyBar mentioned resided on Halcyon long ago, but has since been ... minimalized, for many reasons) and several books that are in print about the band. My own personal recommendations for good information are as follows:

Internet:
Echoes Mailing List - http://www.echoes.org for more info - the FAQ is at: http://www.floydian-window.com/Pink_Floyd/FAQ/Echoes/html/index.html
Pink Floyd Encyclopedia - http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PFArchives/ This is also the web-home for the best book for just pure information, called "The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia" by Vernon Fitch. If it ever had anything to do with Pink Floyd, it's in here.

Books:
"The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia" by Vernon Fitch (see above - factual information in an encyclopedia format, rarely inaccurate, if ever - new editions coming out, I think somewhat regularly)
"Pink Floyd - A Visual Documentary" by Miles with Andy Mabbett (lots of great photos, concert info, some history - a few inaccuracies)
"Saucerful of Secrets - The Pink Floyd Odyssey" by Nicholas Schaffner (a good history of the band, but also has some inaccuracies, some of which have led to rumors of band members possibly filing lawsuits against the author - but it's still a decent book, I think)

SELF CORRECTION:

In my previous post, I stated that information on the Pink Floyd fans' email group, Echoes, can be found at www.echoes.org ... this is WRONG. Heh. It's really here: www.meddle.org.