So, if you are into music at all, there are some recordings we all seemed to have. You might not remember how they appeared, you just know you had them, in a variety of formats. Growing up in the suburbs in the late 70s, regular forays to the Twin Fair record racks, Cavages, and even the old Record Theater (remember the apples?) were part of the fabric.
It seems like some recordings just popped up with my crowd: Hotel California, Led Zeppelin ll and IV, One for the Road, Who’s Next, Rumours, among others all seemed to set the foundation for everybody’s record collection. And then there was Dark Side of the Moon. I wasn’t really into Pink Floyd too much as a teenager. They were always pretty omnipresent on rock radio. It took me a while to acquire the taste. I dutifully got my copies of Dark Side and the Wall, and eventually Animals and Wish You Were Here, but they didn’t seem to go into heavy rotation in terms of stuff I listened to alot. But they did seemingly get repurchased.
In 1987, I acquired my first cd player and responded to this acquisition by running out to get a copy of Sgt. Pepper‘s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Dark side of the Moon. As my stereo equipment improved over the years, I can occasionally hear something, but I’ve never been one to purchase remasterings, new editions, what have you unless there was something especially compelling.
Until last night, I opened up the Itunes store to see the house that Jobs built trumpeting the Pink Floyd immersion series. These are expansively detail repackages of all the best known Floyd material with a lot of surplus extras.
It is the extras that intrigue me. I didn’t go for buying yet another copy of Dark Side, but hearing the guys who made the record perform it in a 1974 was too intriguing to pass up.
Fun to hear such familiar songs performed mostly live while the band was still together and before “Money” “Time” and the rest became such staples, and before the band imploded.
It’s the little things like that make you reach “Behind the Music” and realize that there is some good stuff there. I’m glad Itunes didn’t go all “album only” for once to make it easier to hear some true oddities.
Mike's Pub 
One thought on “Great Gig in the Sky”