Off the road, we were increasingly conscious that life existed outside the band. All of us were working with other musicians
either as performers or producers. Amongst the mass of demo tapes musicians sent, David had received one from a schoolgirl
whose songwriting and voice stood out above the rest. He encouraged her career over a period of time, and was rewarded by
seeing her achieve great success with her first single ‘Wuthering Heights’ and album
The Kick Inside:
it was Kate Bush.
I collaborated on an album with Robert Wyatt of the Soft Machine. Our long relationship with the Soft Machine dated back to
the underground days of the Roundhouse and UFO, and the US tour in the late Sixties, when I remember their vocalist Kevin
Ayers, in a hotel room at the Chelsea in New York, dangling upside
down off the side of the bed as part of the digestion process demanded by whichever macrobiotic diet he was then following.
In May 1973 I had received a postcard from Robert suggesting I might like to produce his solo record. The day the card arrived
I heard that he had fallen from a window, and been paralysed from the waist down. A one-off benefit for Robert was organised
in November that year at the Rainbow Theatre: Soft Machine opened the show, and then we played, performing a cut-down version
of the Earls Court gigs, including the plane descending over the audience…but this was not a testimonial for a wrecked career.
Within six months of his accident Robert was ready to start work again – although unable to use a full drum kit, he could
still handle vocals, keyboards and percussion. Recording for his solo album,
Rock Bottom,
took place during the winter of 1973 at The Manor, Virgin’s house studio near Oxford, a studio which had been set up specifically
for rock music, providing accommodation, a relaxed atmosphere, and total freedom to record away from the constraints of scheduled
sessions. Bootleg, a huge and immovable Great Dane, was also in attendance. Exposure to Robert’s fertile stream of ideas was
the most rewarding musical experience I had enjoyed outside the band.
It also allowed me to return to
Top Of The Pops –
for a rinse, trim and blow-dry – since we produced a single as well as the album and, slightly to our surprise, it entered
the charts. This was a rather offbeat version of the Monkees’ ‘I’m A Believer’, which featured a fabulously avant-garde violin
solo by Fred Frith of Henry Cow. Although the appearance was slightly soured by the BBC’s reluctance to show Robert in his
wheelchair, the director was eventually shamed into giving way, and a good time was had by all. Since not all the original
musicians were available, and it was of course mimed, we had to bring in some extra help. This
included Andy Summers on guitar, who was at a bit of a loose end since the Police had yet to be invented.
Pink Floyd continued to spend most of the rest of 1974 delaying the evil moment of making a record. In the same way that we
had released
Relics
when
Meddle
was taking its time to emerge, we once again succumbed to the blandishments of the record company and released a compilation
album.
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
and
A Saucerful Of Secrets
were sandwiched together as a double album called
A Nice Pair,
in a cover that contained a selection of visual jokes and puns (Storm’s idea of an out-of-focus pair of spectacles remains
a personal favourite).
We also embarked on a short tour of France in the summer of 1974, a tour which contained an element of penance for some previous
greed. Two years earlier we had committed to an advertising photo for the French soft drinks company Gini. This had been shot
in Morocco for use in France only, and we thought the experience had been conveniently left behind – apart from the occasional
twinge of guilt about falling for such easy money. At this time touring for most bands was still seen primarily as a way of
promoting records to boost album sales, with the odd chance to get some income from the larger venues. Promotion was usually
limited by the promoter’s budget to a rash of flyposting and a few radio plugs from the band.
However, we had forgotten that inserted in the contract with Gini was a clause which ensured that, instead of being left to
our relatively low-key promotional devices, we would on this occasion be accompanied by a circus of Gini-promoting extras,
mainly consisting of an ad agency’s view of ‘trend setters’; for this read Page Three models and Easy Rider bikers. Like an
unfortunate cat with a can tied to its tail, we were followed everywhere we went in France by a frightful gaggle of groovy
people in dark glasses and leather jackets, sporting gigantic Gini bitter lemon signs. Steve
spent a lot of time negotiating the exact distance we could keep them apart from us, but even so our hard-earned credibility
with our French fans was left in tatters whenever we came to town.
The general feeling was that our crew had the most fun. They had no qualms about enjoying the company of our co-travellers,
and in fact were deeply grateful to the band for giving them access to the bevy of models who accompanied us on tour, and
with whom they could while away the duller hours of a roadie’s life.
Roger and I tried to erase this particular memory during September and October by working on a set of films for a tour we
were due to start later in the autumn. For the early
Dark Side
shows we had used clips from the surfing documentary
Crystal Voyager
and Ian Eames’s animation for ‘Time’, but now we wanted to have a complete sequence of films to project throughout the show.
The films, a mix of library footage and specially shot sequences to accompany the songs, were in place for the beginning of
a major British tour – our first in two years – which opened in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, at the beginning of November.
Phil Taylor, who had worked for a number of other bands, came in to work on the 1974 tour, and he now describes it as ‘shambolic’.
He had arrived during rehearsals for the tour, which were taking place at the Unit Studios in King’s Cross – next to the Wimpey
bar – where we were working on some new songs including ‘Shine On’ and ‘Raving And Drooling’. The definition of a ‘rehearsal
studio’ is actually a large room with nothing in it, in which you can make a lot of noise.
This was a gloomy period for the band – although the audiences were hopefully unaware of this. The weather didn’t help: a
wintry rain and low clouds accompanied us from Edinburgh to Cardiff. Although, for the first time, we had the funds available
to develop our stage show in the way we wanted,
there was a good deal of dissatisfaction with what we were doing, or perhaps how we were going about it. We now came to realise
that what we had thought was a good idea – never touring for more than one month – had a downside. In a three-week tour, the
first week or so of a tour would effectively be a mobile production rehearsal; by the second week the performances would start
to gain some cohesion; and by the final week we would be thinking less about the music and more about going home.
Our dissatisfaction was exacerbated by personnel problems. Peter Watts had left us after seven years as chief roadie. He had
become increasingly – and then totally – unreliable. However, since the four of us in the band were not completely in tune
with each other, and we had no clear chain of command, our handling of the situation was inept. Peter was fired – at least
once – by one band member in the morning, only for another of us to reinstate him the same afternoon. What I didn’t realise
for some time was that Peter had developed a serious drug habit. I clearly had a rather naive view of the crew’s appetites.
Many years later I discovered that one long-serving crew member had initially joined, not out of devotion to the music, but
to pay off a drug debt he owed another member of the crew. When the situation with Peter became impossible, we tried to behave
with more understanding than we had been able to with Syd, and arranged for Peter to undergo treatment at a clinic, which,
though not totally ineffectual, did little to solve the core problem – sadly, Peter died of an overdose in 1976.
When Peter left, the lighting director Arthur Max had been promoted to crew chief, but the highly strung temperament and ego
that made Arthur such a talented lighting designer made him impossible as a team leader. However, there was no obvious alternative
candidate from the remainder of the crew, a disparate bunch of technical boffins and equipment humpers. Arthur’s
personality added an extra twist to the general air of tension and chaos. Phil Taylor encountered Arthur Max at his most dogmatic.
Arthur was in charge of all technical aspects including the sound, which he knew little about. Phil asked Arthur, ‘What should
I do?’ to which Arthur simply shouted, ‘Don’t ask me about it, just do it!’ On one occasion Arthur wanted to film the show,
and so he flooded the stage in bright white light, which rather starkly eradicated any of the light show.
We had also taken on a studio engineer at short notice who had no experience of working in a live concert environment, and
whose job was made more difficult by a number of factors, some technical, some of his own making. The halls we were now playing
after the success of
Dark Side
were a step up from the university circuit, and often tended to be large echoing civic halls with difficult acoustics and
nowhere convenient to put the mixer board. The very elaborate Bereza mixing desk that we had ordered (customised for our performance
needs) arrived late, had severe teething problems, and was like no desk this particular engineer had encountered before.
He also made the mistake of failing to establish a congenial rapport with the rest of the crew: one night they rigged up an
array of fireworks beneath the new, miracle, mixing desk. When the luckless engineer switched the desk on, the explosives
ignited, leaving him considerably shaken, since he thought he had blown the brand-new equipment to smithereens…Now marked
down as a natural victim, his days on the road were numbered. After three shows we felt obliged to replace this luckless sound
engineer with Brian Humphries, the engineer we’d first encountered at Pye Studios when we were recording the score for Barbet
Schroeder’s film
More.
Brian had been recording the show for a radio broadcast and when he finished his work, we hoicked him out of the BBC van
and placed him behind the desk. He was familiar
with both band and crew, and his experience in the studio, and on the road with Traffic, at last gave us confidence that the
sound quality would be acceptable. However, showing a new sense of caution, we did ask Chris Thomas to sit with Brian and
evaluate him. Brian either showed he could handle the pressure, or failed to notice Chris was there.
As a band we were also demonstrating a distinct lack of commitment to the necessary input required. We seemed to be more interested
in booking squash courts, for example, than perfecting the set. As a result our shows were a wildly erratic mix of the good
and bad (and occasionally ugly) both technically and musically. The exception to this state of affairs was provided by the
two backing singers, Carlena Williams and Venetta Fields, who always performed wonderfully, looked great and went to sleep
whenever the band started arguing or sulking.
After the way the Earls Court performances in May 1973 had gelled so perfectly, the problems we had experienced on the tour
added to our frustration, and to the sense that we were all pulling in slightly different directions. Inevitably we were castigated
by some of the music press, notably receiving a mugging from Nick Kent of the
New Musical Express,
who, also being a particularly fervent Syd Barrett devotee, was unrestrained in his attack. The trouble was that we recognised
that some of his criticisms were valid, and in fact his comments may have had some influence on drawing us back together.
I think it might be true to say that we were close to calling it a day. Steve O’Rourke always maintained that each member
of the band came to him separately at some point to vent his irritation, going as far as threatening to leave. Roger certainly
could see there were easier ways of achieving his ends and David was thinking of alternatives. Even Rick, who was better known
for thinking about thinking, was reaching the end of his tether… I thought I’d hang
on, wash up the teacups and liberate the typewriter on my way out.
Eventually we managed to pull ourselves into some semblance of order. Brian Humphries was confirmed as the live sound mixer
during our four shows at the Empire Pool, Wembley, in mid-November. Andy Bereza got the new wonder desk he had invented to
work. Arthur Max was reallocated to his natural habitat behind the lighting desk and the PA team of Robbie Williams and Mick
Kluczynski were promoted to tour managers. Meanwhile the band had enough of a discussion to make some positive decisions and
address the problems of playing together. But we were all grateful when Christmas arrived, and the tour ended in Bristol.
As a final coda I had rather imperiously arrived at the hotel in yet another second-hand bargain – this time a Ferrari 265
GTB4. I spent most of the next morning changing the spark plugs in order to get the Ferrari to start, followed by yet another
journey from hell, with memories of the Bentley, as the brakes failed to do more than offer the gentlest hint of retardation
even when pressed hard enough to engender leg cramps.
We did get back to work in the studios in January 1975. It was far from easy. The increased isolation of multi-track recording
created a marked shift in the atmosphere as the whole process grew increasingly drawn out and demanding. From my point of
view, the drum parts had become more structured and had to be learnt more carefully. In the early days I had been able to
stay closer to arrangements that had been developed for live shows. The separation of each drum onto a different track meant
it took even longer to get a result. This was part and parcel of general improvements in studio technology, but it did nothing
to help the sense that we were not a band playing together.