Yes it's kind of an understandably under-rated album. I mean how can you rate a song like this? What it is is what it is, and that album was quite interesting and mind expanding. In some ways I wish they would have gone back to those days when they were experimental.
It is very weird! I found a 2 vinyl record album in a box of random records and i believe the first part of it is a live session and the second part is a studio assortment of mixing and looping and phasing and all kinds of randomness it sounds really awesome on my quadraphonic Sansui QR 4500
I used this song for my final project in a High School class in 1975. The class was called 'Future Shock' and we were to find examples of how 'the times they were a-changing' so to speak. I not only played the whole song for my presentation, I stood and spoke the final piece along with the recording. Got a 'A' for my efforts! And over 40 years later, I can still repeat the whole thing!
"It's not actually anything, it's a bit of concrete poetry. Those were sounds that I made, the voice and the hand slapping were all human generated - no musical instruments." - Roger Waters, University of Regina Carillon Interview, October 1970
Look a little closer at the Albums cover. And you will notice that in each of the pictures each of the band members moves to the next position. Each picture is different. Love you're reactions keep up the really great work
This might sound weird, but I think of Ummagumma as being like Kiss' "Dynasty" album. The band didn't work on the album together, and it doesn't quite have the cohesion that it might have had if they had worked together.
I understood that cover design as indicating that each of the band members would take a turn at the front of the band with their own compositions...which was really appropriate for Pink Floyd at the time, and very "democratic" for them as a group. Most pop bands have one "frontman" who is always the lead singer. The idea of having a rotation of frontmen, and every band member being able to fill that role was part of PF's commitment to do something out of the ordinary. Ummagumma was definitely not an ordinary album.
When I first heard this, I never would have guessed that more than 50 years later I'd be watching a composer listening to it for the first time. Awesome! In my opinion this is their most experimental album.
"Did Roger actually go into a cave with some recording equipment?" This is ALL vocal noises made by Roger, though the "percussion" at the beginning might be Roger slapping his jaw.
Couldn't wait to see your reaction to this. I was exposed to this in a college class. We were studying musique concrete and our professor said he was going to play something by Pink Floyd. The Wall was big at the time and the class was excited to hear we were getting to listen to Pink Floyd. Then we heard this. 😄 I still remember our professor's face as he laughed at our reactions.
Ummagumma was the first full album I'd ever heard by Pink Floyd. I will never forget hearing Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the 1st time with the headphones on. My eyes were closed an I was grooving, then when Roger came in with that ear-splitting scream I instantly sat up in my recliner chair and looked around to see what was coming at me!
I had a similar reaction first time I hear that track. I was a young teen in the early 70s listening with headphones late one night and nearly asleep when the scream came. I bolted up so quickly I broke the headphone jack. Immediately fixed and listened again!
We were playing that track in the 6th form common room with the window open on a bright summer day and, just as Roger screamed, the headmaster walked past. 🤣🤣
@@donnalazar4469 i saw a Pink Floyd cover band named after the show "Several Species " open up with it Baltimore MD and then play the entire atom heart mother album from beginning to end including Alan's psychedelic breakfast as an encore a sex outside in Baltimore💙😇💙
Seeing Doug react the way he did with humor actually reminded me of when I was kid. My older brothers would put this on and we'd act it out. Just running around the house acting like Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict. Had completely forgotten about that! So thank you! Love this! Love the Reaction!
There is a hidden message in the song at about 4:32. If played at half speed, Waters can be heard to say, "That was pretty avant-garde, wasn't it?" Also, at the very end of the rant, Waters is heard to say, "Thank you."
Yes, that was considered a kind of 'Easter egg' at the time. It was still rather squeaky at 16rpm (for those whose turntables offered that setting), and I reckon Roger must have taped it at about 1/3 playback speed. It was a completely insane track from top to tail, and you had to have spliffed your way into hullabalootions to even halfway understand it.
There's a lot more hidden than people realise. Most (if not all) of the squeaks are actually speeded up recordings of either the band or studio engineers having random conversations. I discovered this while playing around with some studio equipment of my own. Some are played backwards, sometimes the samples are just parts of words or words sliced together. None of the conversations are interesting in themself and seldom last long enough to know what the topic is about. But every one of the samples I analysed consisted of various human voices talking. It takes a special kind of genius to take recording offcuts and not only make it sound like several species of small furry animals are chatting, but then also make a coherent song from it all. I wish more people knew the true genius of this song.
@@JasonSmith-jr7jh i love Zappa! I live in Annapolis Maryland & saw him 11 times! Straight outta Baltimore MD! My 1st album was Freak Out in 1966 at age 9! Thanks for sharing! 💙😇💙
"Lime and limpid green, a second scene A fight between the blue you once knew" Must have been almost 50 years ago, my best friend gave me a little birthday money and a good advise. I bought Ummagumma, merely because of the beautifull sleeve with the impressive instruments lay-out on the back, but the music totally blew me off my feet. Sat down in my Amsterdam teenage room, lights out, incense burning, smoking some Dutch weed (yes at home!). "Over the mountain watching the watcher Breaking the darkness waking the grapevine" Been a Floydian since! "See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees" Spinning Ummagumma right now, enjoying a good peated whiskey. The music didn't lose a bit of it's expressiveness! "That was pretty avant-garde, wasn't it?"
This is what they did. Sound experiments. They did this live, too. Big psychedelic art music shows back in London in the mid late 60s. "Aye an' a bit of mackerel, settler rack and down Ran it down by the home, and I flew Well, it slapped me and I flopped it down in the shade And I cried, cried, cried The tear had fallen down he had taken, never back to raise And then cried Mary, and took out wi' your Claymore Right outta a' pocket, I ran down, down by the mountain side Battlin' the fiery horde that was falling around the feet "Never!, " he cried, "Never shall ye get me alive Ye rotten hound of the burnie crew!" Well I snatched fer the blade and a Claymore cut and thrust And I fell down before him round his feet Aye, a roar he cried fray the bottom of 'is heart That I would nay fall but as dead Dead as I can by why' feet, d'ya ken? And the wind cried Mary" Pink Floyd was an experimental band to begin with.
The pict / Scottish voice is Ron Geesin who did the orchestral arrangement on Atom Heart Mother and collaborated with Roger Waters on the Music for the Body soundtrack. Ron Geesin is Scottish, helpfully, as am I. Great reaction. Slainte Doug!
Couldn't click on this fast enough! Been listening to this album since the early/mid '70s. Other great tracks from this album are: "Astronomy Domine", "Careful With That Axe, Eugene", "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", "A Saucerful Of Secrets" and "Granchester Meadows".
Careful with that axe Eugene, best scream on a track in my opinion, Ummagumma was the second album I ever bought, the first was Dark side, it took me weeks of saving my pocket money (allowance) to be able to buy them. The version listened to is obviously digitally re-mastered, again in my opinion, it lacks some of the ambience of the cackles and pops of a well played vinyl disc with a well used needle on a less than stellar "sound system".
@@mikewood8988 Ummagumma came 3rd for me after Moon (mid '74, I was 13) and Relics (it was cheap = affordable), so I *had* at least been primed as to vaguely what to expect. It remains my favourite Floyd album.
Ummagumma (Cambridge slang for sex) was the first album of Pink Floyd I bought. It was quite a revelation, especially the live versions of 'Astronomy Domine' and 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun'. Truly pieces to be heard through headphones and to be swept up in the mesmerising sounds (with or without something to assist the experience). As to 'Several Species...' I didn't find out it was Roger fooling around with a fake Scottish accent until much later, yet it was different and interesting. The previous track to this Doug, 'Grantchester Meadows', has both David Gilmour and Roger Waters on Acoustic Guitars playing a pastoral song with real bird sounds and also a fly buzzing. I suggest you play this before 'Several Species...' as it leads perfectly into it and that fly does get a bit annoying until.....you'll just have to play it!
Yeah I thought it was funny that they named it slang for sex, & when I mentioned this in front of my neighbor who knew Gilmour & Wright well in the 70s, he laughed and said “not quite sex. …they were so frustrated making UG they basically named it F*CK!” lol
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! My brother and I had this album when we got into prog-rock in the mid-'70's. We had a stereo in our bedroom and ran an extra set of wires to speakers in the living room as well. One time, while our mom was sitting out in the living room we put this song on the living room speakers at a very low volume to freak her out. Mission success.
That is the track I heard on a local radio while touring in Scotland when I was 15 years old (1969). I was near the knob to change channel as I first did not understand what it was, but I had to listen to the end, fascinated. I became a fan of Pick Floyd as I listened to the Album. Never in Switzerland (my home) had I heard any track of more than 4 minutes.
I first heard this in the 70's tripping my brains out (which, I believe, is how it was intended to be listened to) in the dark in the middle of the night. Ummagumma is a trippy album for sure. Brings back fond memories.
Welcome to Pink Floyd's second era, which goes approximately from Saucerful of Secrets and More through I would say Ummagumma. Tons of experimentation and noise and freaky and creepy in equal measure. It wasn't really until Atom Heart Mother and especially Meddle where the band's classic sound was fully formed, and of course they would go on to refine it throughout their classic era. A more musical example of this era that I'd love to see you check out is 'Careful with that Axe, Eugene'. The Live at Pompeii version is probably the best in my opinion. It's a one-chord psychedelic freakout that used to scare the bejeezus out of me when I was a young man. Roger's vocalizations should be watched to fully appreciate.
Look closer at the Album cover. Each member is rotated in the image above and to the right of the chair. In the main frame, David Gilmour is in the chair and Roger Waters behind him, Nick Mason looking at the sky with hands on hips and Rick Wright with feet in the air. The next has Waters in the chair, Mason behind him, Wright looking at the sky, and Gilmour with feet in the air... etc.
Frank Zappa also did musique concrete. "Waffenspiel" is at least one example (the final track off civilization phase iii). Also, the album cover depicts each band member in a different position, but the same positions in each photo (if that makes sense). They were very experimental. Glad you're having fun, Doug! We sure are.
Ya. The first half dozen or more original Mothers discs were all razor cut and pasted tape musique concrete - GREAT fun - Lumpy Gravy being the most varied, and Zappa’s favorite.
Looking forward to watching this one!😄 Whoever suggested this to Doug, I thank you!😀 'Is that a beaver playing the drums?' - I don't know, Doug, but from now on, I'm going to imagine that it is! 😆
This selection brings back so many memories! My parents were “worried “ about me as I continually listened to Ummagumma, in the living room, on the family stereo. Such a great track, and album….. careful with that axe!
You listen to this piece and you knew that Pink Floyd KNEW their audience. After all, how many in those days were listening to bits like this without a bit of some trendy, chemical amusement ??? Plus, it also shows how much the engineer was ingesting during mixdown. Flaming bowls of hash, anyone ???? I can hear the record company execs saying "We Don't Hear A Single With This One"........
When I was in college at the Univ of Florida a roommate brought Ummaguma home. For weeks after it became a tradition to gather at around 9:00PM every night, pass a joint around and play Several Species.... Over and over. That was my first exposure to Floyd. I have been a huge fan ever since.
That was my first listening experience Several Species & I am immediately TAKEN and deeply inspired by the mix. I'll be listening to it on loop throughout today at the same time as this Stockhausen for a dichotomy of furry animals and furry electronics: th-cam.com/video/vdIe2CrorMM/w-d-xo.html A very happy one year of reactions Doug!!
Floyd was certainly experimental, especially in the early years. But the go-to guy for musique concrète in the 70s was certainly Zappa who was heavily influenced by Edgard Varese, Boulez and Ferrari as well. As a matter of fact, for the first seven years of his career (beginning at 14), Zappa was strictly a composer. Some music that would hit the spot in the above mentioned, and more, is "Didja Get Any Onya?" "Toads of the Short Forrest" "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask" and "Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula"
On the Pulse tour in the early 90’s,they had this song track playing in the beginning with it starting off quiet and then getting louder as the stage slowly lit up and dry ice filled the stadium ( Washington DC) and then the band exploded on stage with Astronomy Domine. Gave me goosebumps .
You finally found this one! I love this song. PF played around with sounds and experimented in those days. In this one throat effects and sounds were used. I suppose they were building a library sounds and effects. If you listen to later albums carefully you can hear some of these sounds being reused especially in Echoes. Another one from PF in those days is called "Bike" especially the last half. That is also funny. Another very different piece is ELPs Toccata in Brain Salad Surgery but that is real music but so different.
Hi Doug, Ummagumma was actually a double album. One was Live the other in the studio. The studio disc has 4 compositions,one by each member of the group. I would recommend also listening to the Live disc ' Careful with that Axe, Eugene' is the standout track. The other 3 tracks are good too. Ummagumma is their best record, i think, very creative and you never tire of listrning to it
I was absolutely blown away by the abstractly formless section in the middle of Set The Controls. I have never heard anything like it before or since. Closest is Klaus Schulze and some Tangerine Dream (Rubycon and Phaedra, mainly), but I would be very interested to hear of any more practitioners of that sort of soundscape. Some of Fripp's stuff comes close, but there's really very little out there that does not fall back at some stage on either conventional rhythm and diatonic intervals.
I totally agree. ummagumma on itself has always given me the feeling of being born 20 years too late. I see the studio album as a sort of Dadaist tribute to the substance known as LSD. the live album however brings together what must roughly be Pink Floyd's 4 best tracks ever, and however Barrett sadly enough isn't on stage, he was a big part of the composition, but what pulls the level of the record up, straight into my top 3 favourite albums of all time is the chemistry between the musicians... impressive stuff.
@@yawninghyaena I was lucky enough to see them Live in an outdoor setting in the early 70's here in Sydney Australia !They were to set up a kind of shell covering bit it was too windy. It didnt matter, like listening to the Live album + Echoes, Atom Heart Mother, etc,etc🙂
@@kil44ua43 No not tripping . I just like creative music. Apart from Meddle and Atom Heart Mother al l the other albums are boring & predictable. Well thats my opinion anyway. 😎
I LOLed pretty loud when I saw this announcement. Very much looking forward to Doug's take on one my favorite tracks ever. Rich the Ancient Metal Beast
I believe the pict was actually a scotsman - Ron Geesin - the collaborator on Atom Heart Mother and Roger Water's first solo album, 'music for the body' - a soundtrack, and one of his best.
This was the first Pink Floyd song I ever heard. It was 1971 I was wearing headphones listening to FM radio back when they played full albums. I was blown away and had to look up who the hell did this. Been a fan ever since.
It's definitely meant to be humorous. They're grooving. Nobody's mad. They're in rhythm...grooving. And they love it when this guy comes out and tells of his adventures. "Nasal Retentive Calliope Music" and "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny" off of Zappa's "We're Only in it For the Money" are earlier examples of musique concrete. And one of the earliest examples of 'scratching' with an LP.
I don't think Roger would be mad at you for finding it funny. He actually laughs a bit about himself writing stuff like this back in the days. Personally I really like this piece and the whole album, although many people dislike it, but I think it's just so unique and when I'm in the right mood I can actually enjoy listening to it.
My favourite piece of music as a very small kid used to be an excerpt from "Le marteau sans maître" (Pierre Boulez). My parents had it on a 45; this and some Spike Jones 45s were all I used to listen to if I had the choice. I was really sad nothing like it ever played on the radio. When Ummagumma came out, I played this song over and over.
@@kevinbossick8374 I hated Grand Vizier - it was such a dire percussive piece and I adored Nick Mason as a kid (the only Englishman to have a genuine Mexican mustache no less!). Then middle aged sentimentality took over and now I just go 'ahhhh, it was so nice to be young and not give a crap!!!!"
PF were like blessed by cosmos up until the Wall... Just best band ever in Space Time... Ummagumma's "Careful with that axe Eugene" is another MUST experience. BTW: The "Mise en abyme" of pictures is special: they all shift positions on each level of the recursive pictures... It's genius... PF albums covers are part of the "lore"...
It is a really good piece of musique concrete, I find. The sense of rhythm and the choice of sounds is incredible. The birds, at the beginning, (and I think all of the "animals", actually) are really sped-up human cries. And the Pict dialect, a pastiche, of course, is a really interesting type of recitative-type lyrics. Listening to this piece while walking in a forest at night is transcendant, even without psychotropic additives. Ummagumma is their experimental album, doubled with a live set. In the studio album each band member has one half-side to do whatever they want, performing everything alone (with one or two exception). This Waters piece is the most radical experiment!!! But the other stuff is also very nice! This is not a popular view, I believe, either by the band itself or by most of the fans of the band!!
I never listened to Pink Floyd until 'The Wall' came out, which I heard part of on my friend's car radio. I was in my late teens at that time. About two weeks later, a local radio station did a special on Pink Floyd, in which they played a bunch of stuff from their earlier albums, including this track. When I heard this, I was galvanized. I went out the next day, bought seven Pink Floyd albums, and never looked back. Fan for life.
Earlier in the song I used the term "galvanistic," and galvanism is the concept, uh, the obsolete scientific theory that there is a kind of electricity flowing through our bloodstreams, and that was our life force. I used the term because I came across it in, uh, Mary Shelley's, uh, "Frankenstein", and that book is sort of an exploration of the theme of creating a character, of making up a person. So I used the term "galvanistic" to allude to that book as a sort of a symbol of how I, like, created you as a character. I'm pretending that I know a lot more about you than I actually do, and also to refer to the fact that I've fall-fallen in love with the characters you've created in, uh, your body of work. This is the part of the song where I start to regret writing it
@@FirstnameLastname-nd9wx Song? Frankenstein? Characters? "Body of work"?? Uhhh, sorry dude (or dudess) but I really have no clue what you might be talking about, other than the definition of 'galvanized', which can also mean "to arouse to awareness or action; to spur". That was the context in which I was using the word. Anyway, glad to hear that you're taking time to read one of the Classics.
@@HareDeLune nah I just saw u used the word galvanised and it reminded me of the monologue from the 2011 version of nervous young inhumans by car seat headrest lol that's what my comment was
The first time I heard this song was on my dad's record player when I was a kid. There were notes hand-written in the liner as to which tracks were best to trip acid to. I still have that album.
You're reaction is perfect and priceless. It's the same reaction we all have the first time we heard this. I was rolling on the floor laughing. This was about 40 years ago. You have to admit, it is perfectly titled. You heard exactly what the title tells you you'd hear. Music Concret? (sp?) We called it acid back in the day.
First time I heard this was my Jr. year in high school... 1983... with friends... and we were pretty baked at the time... looking at each other like what the... Then we all proceeded to laugh our asses off. Looking forward to Doug's reaction... Hope it is 420 for you Doug on this weird Wednesday... Short song... Maybe add Bike too... Off their first album too... Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Here in Western Australia we have a brewery called "Little Creatures" which I always call "Small furry animals" because i am convinced that this track is what the founders had in mind when they named it.
I think a Pict was an ancient indigenous UK species that put tattoos on every square inch of their skin. Some Latin root that the word picture came from. It's been a long time since I looked it up at a library in the 80s.
Picts were an ancient semi-Gaelic peoples - basically "Viking" settlers in Scotland. Unlike the Scottish Gaels who descended from the Irish Gaels, the Picts were descendents of Scandinavians. They lived in isolation on North and North-Eastern coastal Scotland and had very little contact with the Scottish. There's no evidence that they were covered in tattoos - they likely practiced the same tattoo traditions of other Scandinavian "Viking" cultures - whom they traded with often. The Picts disappeared/died out and/or fled Scotland around when Rome was attempting to conquer it - Hadrian's wall era.
Also Keep in mind that Roman accounts of foreign cultures were OFTEN filled with presumptions, ethnocentric misunderstandings and total misinformation. Julius Cesar wrote at length about the Celts and Druids of Ireland, but he never did more than observe them from afar while at sea. The whole fallacy that the ancient Irish practiced human sacrifice (which was NEVER the case in ANY ancient Irish culture!) was based on him observing the Druidic ritual of burning a Wicker Man (dried vines and grasses woven together into a large man-shaped effigy) to gain blessings for harvest season. You CANNOT trust any Roman account of any culture they didnt spend years or decades studying. Basically, if Rome didnt conquer them or partially conquer them, any observations are BS.
'Picti' is a Latin word that the Romans used to describe a group of people that they encountered living in what is now Scotland, around 2,000 years ago. The word translates loosely as 'painted', or 'tattooed'. The Roman emperor at the time, Hadrian, had an 80 mile long wall built from one side of the island to the other, to keep the Picts from coming further South. That's because the Picts knew the land well and practiced Guerrilla warfare, which means they were handing the Romans their backsides.
in 1970 when I was a freshman in college and during a break in classes, a buddy of mine and I would go to his garage apartment get high, listen to this album and look at one another in amazement. This episode brought back a lot of fond memories of an earlier time. Great choice, Council of Dougs!
Thanks for that! Indeed an interesting choice for your anniversary video. When I used to have the Ummagumma LP, that was always one of my favourite tracks. It was so good to experience it again with you. 😍😎🤩
I loved this song. I had a turntable with speeds 16, 32, 45 and 76. I used to play this at 16 and 32 to listen to the tweets, squeaks, squarks and all noises, which are made up from the group singing, talking and making noises. If you can do this Doug, then try it. There is so much going on in the background and is very enlightening. I love the studio side and the live side ain't bad either.
Steve Reich also pioneered manipulating tapes as part of his compositions. The studio disc on Ummagumma may be Pink Floyd's weakest, but as an experiment it works. The live disc is very good.
Agree, but I don't think that is the weakest. Is a common saying, but I think it has the first successful attempt to put a kind of form on an album and has a lot of interesting thematic or mood nuances: epicness, dramatism-existentialism, melancholy, humor, kind of transcendentalism, etc. It's a very clever album, avant-garde but accessible and brilliantly produced with influences from romanticism, modernism, and experimental music
Besides Floyd there is a german genius legend Helge Schneider and Pioneer for a hole new genre, he plays even more instruments then Prince and is a well accepted amazing Jazz pianist mixed with comedian stuff: I highly recommend The Comedy Price acts from Helge Schneider: 1. Die "Trompeten von Mexico" 2. The "Yes No Song" also early stuff from Helge Schneider and the firefuckers "Hey Jo"
I knew this was going to be great. I first heard this back in the 80s. Hearing it for the first time with no prior knowledge as to what you are about to hear is the right way to do it. The weed helps too. This album was a double album. The first album was live and the second was divided up so each member had a certain number of songs that were solely composed by that member alone. Also, if you look at the album cover, the pictures within the pictures are all different.
This was the very first Pink Floyd song that I heard - I was a HS sophomore, and a friend had me listen through headphones (that was also a first) - I was mesmerized with this (and also the 2nd song I heard from him was "Got This Thing One The Move" by Grand Funk). The musique concrete was also something that I learned about in first year college as a music major, our assignments were to create songs using sounds and not instruments. After I bought the 8 track tape of this (for my vehicle), my friend and I would orient people to their first taste of 'bud' and then play this song. We would do various hand motions at appropriate times to additionally freak them out. Anyway, the other 3 sections of the studio album feature the other PF members, all worth a listen, very creative and inventive for the time.
That was fantastic. This album, but particularly this song was a guaranteed play at the big acid parties we used to have back in the 80's. Such a uniquely brilliant composition and experimentation with sound.
I would to hear your reaction to Ummagumma’s live version of “A Saucerful Of Secrets”. An instrumental that goes through stages to a phenomenal finale. Totally worth the listen. You won’t believe that it’s all performed live by just four guys.
My love for weird sounds and experiments was just beginning in 9th grade. So, I found an early love for Revolution #9, (which didn't really quite have the humor I was seeking), and early King Crimson, and 'Ummagumma', which had secret messages for me. No, I never really quite grew out of it.
The Picts were long gone by the Middle Ages Doug. The original inhabitants of Scotland were around (roughly) from 300 to 900 A.D. and are mentioned by Roman chroniclers and given the name 'Caledonians' (the painted ones) which is why Scotland is sometimes referred to as Caledonia. Yep, and 'Braveheart' was wrong too. Roger Waters provides the voice of the Pict.
It's so funny seeing someone react to this song. I used to work in a Pizza Hut in the mid 90's that for some reason had this album in their jukebox. I used to love playing this track randomly in the middle of a busy Friday or Saturday night. The looks on people's faces were priceless.
I know Pink Floyd hates them, but Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother are my two favourite Pink Floyd albums. So weird and experimental and unique. There's nothing else like it.
Happy anniversary: loved myself in pain seeing your face music 😂 That was a fun funny one 😁😁, ironising peoples Babylon gibberish talk and dialect bizarres by music concrete ... The Ending is also a transition to the more harmonic narrow way, which is an example how Floyd often plays with different emotional phases or polarity states to transform then in the next step They did several funny ones in the early days: "corporal clegg" (video with the bizarre military dinner high recommended) The hilarious "bike" (Syd Barett) 'the Gnome" Hobbit Style "The sarcastic" "Gigolo Aunt" (Syd Barrett) The trippy you-will-not-the-same-after- taking-that-shit "astronomy Domine" (Ummagumma version) Weird as hell and transformative "a saucercul of secrets" (Ummagumma) Btw a serious one overwhelming beauty from Roger Waters / Pink Floyd is "the final cut" (The final cut) A funny nit funny Waters solo with Jeff Beck: "Amused to death"
Ummagumma definitely warrants the bigger pipe! It’s so uniquely profound and so different? I can’t explain but you should definitely listen to it in it’s entirety sometime. It’s strange but cohesive yet it’s like two different albums combined. It’s worth the listen. Love your reactions, hoping for more Pink Floyd in the future! 🤩☮️ Its always a trip!!
The ambient cave sound is likely courtesy of the Binson Echorec, a favorite devise of the early Floyd band. Early Floyd often employed bizarre vocalizations (especially on Piper at the Gates of Dawn).
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 85 | คู่เอก "ยอดเหล็กเพชร vs ผึ้งหลวง"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qq_19bnnxEo/mqdefault.jpg)
No psychedelic drugs were harmed in the recording of this piece.
No but many volunteered.
I Bet!
But several species of small furry animals definitely got totally mindfucked and grooved with that groovy Pict
Not harmed; just abused
But several psychedelic breakfasts were enjoyed by all.
BTW, "Grantchester Meadows" is one of the most beautiful Pink Floyd compositions.
Yes it's kind of an understandably under-rated album. I mean how can you rate a song like this? What it is is what it is, and that album was quite interesting and mind expanding. In some ways I wish they would have gone back to those days when they were experimental.
Agree the aroma of summer in Cambridge but be 'careful with that Axe Eugene'
SO MUCH THIS
The song would be more beautiful if there weren't flies buzzing around my ears the whole time.
true
You should honestly do the WHOLE Ummagumma album! It's a goldmine of weirdness!!
and a GREAT live version of Astronomy Domine!
Goldmine of GREATNESS more like!
@@jimbailey1122 And also it has the best version of A Saucerful of Secrets
It is very weird! I found a 2 vinyl record album in a box of random records and i believe the first part of it is a live session and the second part is a studio assortment of mixing and looping and phasing and all kinds of randomness it sounds really awesome on my quadraphonic Sansui QR 4500
I used this song for my final project in a High School class in 1975. The class was called 'Future Shock' and we were to find examples of how 'the times they were a-changing' so to speak. I not only played the whole song for my presentation, I stood and spoke the final piece along with the recording. Got a 'A' for my efforts! And over 40 years later, I can still repeat the whole thing!
Fucking legend
beast mode party trick right there !!!
I am not on your Patreon but I must say that I am in love with your top-tier patrons. This was perfect.
@@cinejourneys Would you please consider a visit to my ch here? Not-$$$
"It's not actually anything, it's a bit of concrete poetry. Those were sounds that I made, the voice and the hand slapping were all human generated - no musical instruments."
- Roger Waters, University of Regina Carillon Interview, October 1970
Look a little closer at the Albums cover. And you will notice that in each of the pictures each of the band members moves to the next position. Each picture is different. Love you're reactions keep up the really great work
This might sound weird, but I think of Ummagumma as being like Kiss' "Dynasty" album. The band didn't work on the album together, and it doesn't quite have the cohesion that it might have had if they had worked together.
I understood that cover design as indicating that each of the band members would take a turn at the front of the band with their own compositions...which was really appropriate for Pink Floyd at the time, and very "democratic" for them as a group. Most pop bands have one "frontman" who is always the lead singer. The idea of having a rotation of frontmen, and every band member being able to fill that role was part of PF's commitment to do something out of the ordinary. Ummagumma was definitely not an ordinary album.
The other album where the band members have their own side is ELP’s Works. Doug would like it as it includes Emerson’s First Piano Concerto
When I first heard this, I never would have guessed that more than 50 years later I'd be watching a composer listening to it for the first time. Awesome! In my opinion this is their most experimental album.
Honestly, i think Doug would actually LOVE the Sysyphus suite and The Narrow Way from this album
Absolutely. Ummagumma is a very underrated album.
Awwwwwww heayal's yeah! 🤘
Yes, he’ll need to do the rest of the album.
Sysyphus, Hell yeah, please!!!
by the way... who remembers "Our Song" from the soundtrack of The Body documentary? 😂
Roger Waters / Ron Geesin
"Our herbal friend"
"Middle-aged guy smokes weed on the internet"
Doug continues to rule.
i think the music is the Best pink Floyd is the best they made White Album Fan !
Ohhh boy this is going to be a fun one. Kudos to whoever requested this! Doug's face in the thumbnail says it all.
That was my first thought, as well. That is certainly the perfect reaction face for this song.
"Did Roger actually go into a cave with some recording equipment?"
This is ALL vocal noises made by Roger, though the "percussion" at the beginning might be Roger slapping his jaw.
@Mas Dito I love marmalade...
@Mas Dito Also another masterpiece of psychodelic prog rock....
@@JasonSmith-jr7jh My mind's a blank.
Couldn't wait to see your reaction to this. I was exposed to this in a college class. We were studying musique concrete and our professor said he was going to play something by Pink Floyd. The Wall was big at the time and the class was excited to hear we were getting to listen to Pink Floyd. Then we heard this. 😄 I still remember our professor's face as he laughed at our reactions.
Ummagumma was the first full album I'd ever heard by Pink Floyd. I will never forget hearing Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the 1st time with the headphones on. My eyes were closed an I was grooving, then when Roger came in with that ear-splitting scream I instantly sat up in my recliner chair and looked around to see what was coming at me!
I had a similar reaction first time I hear that track. I was a young teen in the early 70s listening with headphones late one night and nearly asleep when the scream came. I bolted up so quickly I broke the headphone jack. Immediately fixed and listened again!
And he didn't stop with the primal screams until the late 1980s.
Most blood-curdling scream in Rock.
Always made me think of Lizzie Borden....
We were playing that track in the 6th form common room with the window open on a bright summer day and, just as Roger screamed, the headmaster walked past. 🤣🤣
Important note: this record is one of the first true stereo recordings, so it was also experimented with
The audience was experiented with!!!
Now THIS is the reaction we've always wanted...can't wait!
53 years later, Pink Floyd's music is STILL opening eyes and minds.
Unsurprisingly, Roger hasn’t played this on any recent tours.
It's a studio mix thing. Why would he do it on tour? Just my opinion.
@@donnalazar4469 i saw a Pink Floyd cover band named after the show "Several Species " open up with it Baltimore MD and then play the entire atom heart mother album from beginning to end including Alan's psychedelic breakfast as an encore a sex outside in Baltimore💙😇💙
😉
😉
Roger did the Pict rant bit few times in concert in 1970, there are bootlegs of it.
Seeing Doug react the way he did with humor actually reminded me of when I was kid. My older brothers would put this on and we'd act it out. Just running around the house acting like Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict. Had completely forgotten about that! So thank you! Love this! Love the Reaction!
There is a hidden message in the song at about 4:32. If played at half speed, Waters can be heard to say, "That was pretty avant-garde, wasn't it?" Also, at the very end of the rant, Waters is heard to say, "Thank you."
Yes, that was considered a kind of 'Easter egg' at the time. It was still rather squeaky at 16rpm (for those whose turntables offered that setting), and I reckon Roger must have taped it at about 1/3 playback speed.
It was a completely insane track from top to tail, and you had to have spliffed your way into hullabalootions to even halfway understand it.
".…..& the wind cried Mary!" ❄️🤣👌❄️🌍❄️
There's a lot more hidden than people realise. Most (if not all) of the squeaks are actually speeded up recordings of either the band or studio engineers having random conversations. I discovered this while playing around with some studio equipment of my own. Some are played backwards, sometimes the samples are just parts of words or words sliced together. None of the conversations are interesting in themself and seldom last long enough to know what the topic is about. But every one of the samples I analysed consisted of various human voices talking.
It takes a special kind of genius to take recording offcuts and not only make it sound like several species of small furry animals are chatting, but then also make a coherent song from it all. I wish more people knew the true genius of this song.
@@johnstallings4049 Thank You. So many people miss that, along with the barely audible "Thank You" after it.
@@JasonSmith-jr7jh i love Zappa! I live in Annapolis Maryland & saw him 11 times! Straight outta Baltimore MD! My 1st album was Freak Out in 1966 at age 9! Thanks for sharing! 💙😇💙
"Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew"
Must have been almost 50 years ago, my best friend gave me a little birthday money and a good advise.
I bought Ummagumma, merely because of the beautifull sleeve with the impressive instruments lay-out on the back, but the music totally blew me off my feet.
Sat down in my Amsterdam teenage room, lights out, incense burning, smoking some Dutch weed (yes at home!).
"Over the mountain watching the watcher
Breaking the darkness waking the grapevine"
Been a Floydian since!
"See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water
And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees"
Spinning Ummagumma right now, enjoying a good peated whiskey. The music didn't lose a bit of it's expressiveness!
"That was pretty avant-garde, wasn't it?"
This is what they did. Sound experiments. They did this live, too. Big psychedelic art music shows back in London in the mid late 60s.
"Aye an' a bit of mackerel, settler rack and down
Ran it down by the home, and I flew
Well, it slapped me and I flopped it down in the shade
And I cried, cried, cried
The tear had fallen down he had taken, never back to raise
And then cried Mary, and took out wi' your Claymore
Right outta a' pocket, I ran down, down by the mountain side
Battlin' the fiery horde that was falling around the feet
"Never!, " he cried, "Never shall ye get me alive
Ye rotten hound of the burnie crew!"
Well I snatched fer the blade and a Claymore cut and thrust
And I fell down before him round his feet
Aye, a roar he cried fray the bottom of 'is heart
That I would nay fall but as dead
Dead as I can by why' feet, d'ya ken?
And the wind cried Mary"
Pink Floyd was an experimental band to begin with.
it wasnt THEY... it was roger and only roger
@@daveelson213 hello kind sir, education not needed. I wasn't talking about the recording. Cheers!
@@dvincentblack okilly dokilly neighbourino
@@dvincentblack They also did "Seamus" live. Now that would be another good "Daily Dog" for weird Wednesday.
@@ForbiddTV Meddle Rules! I love that album. One of These Days...
The pict / Scottish voice is Ron Geesin who did the orchestral arrangement on Atom Heart Mother and collaborated with Roger Waters on the Music for the Body soundtrack. Ron Geesin is Scottish, helpfully, as am I. Great reaction. Slainte Doug!
Couldn't click on this fast enough! Been listening to this album since the early/mid '70s. Other great tracks from this album are: "Astronomy Domine", "Careful With That Axe, Eugene", "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", "A Saucerful Of Secrets" and "Granchester Meadows".
Careful with that axe Eugene, best scream on a track in my opinion, Ummagumma was the second album I ever bought, the first was Dark side, it took me weeks of saving my pocket money (allowance) to be able to buy them.
The version listened to is obviously digitally re-mastered, again in my opinion, it lacks some of the ambience of the cackles and pops of a well played vinyl disc with a well used needle on a less than stellar "sound system".
@@mikewood8988 Ummagumma came 3rd for me after Moon (mid '74, I was 13) and Relics (it was cheap = affordable), so I *had* at least been primed as to vaguely what to expect. It remains my favourite Floyd album.
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun has long been a favorite Floyd piece of mine.
Heart of the Sun Pompei!
Ummagumma (Cambridge slang for sex) was the first album of Pink Floyd I bought. It was quite a revelation, especially the live versions of 'Astronomy Domine' and 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun'. Truly pieces to be heard through headphones and to be swept up in the mesmerising sounds (with or without something to assist the experience). As to 'Several Species...' I didn't find out it was Roger fooling around with a fake Scottish accent until much later, yet it was different and interesting. The previous track to this Doug, 'Grantchester Meadows', has both David Gilmour and Roger Waters on Acoustic Guitars playing a pastoral song with real bird sounds and also a fly buzzing. I suggest you play this before 'Several Species...' as it leads perfectly into it and that fly does get a bit annoying until.....you'll just have to play it!
Yeah I thought it was funny that they named it slang for sex, & when I mentioned this in front of my neighbor who knew Gilmour & Wright well in the 70s, he laughed and said “not quite sex. …they were so frustrated making UG they basically named it F*CK!” lol
For me it is one of the most weird crazy bizarre and genius things you will ever hear, absolute genius!
You bring me much joy, Doug
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! My brother and I had this album when we got into prog-rock in the mid-'70's. We had a stereo in our bedroom and ran an extra set of wires to speakers in the living room as well. One time, while our mom was sitting out in the living room we put this song on the living room speakers at a very low volume to freak her out. Mission success.
That is the track I heard on a local radio while touring in Scotland when I was 15 years old (1969).
I was near the knob to change channel as I first did not understand what it was, but I had to listen to the end, fascinated.
I became a fan of Pick Floyd as I listened to the Album.
Never in Switzerland (my home) had I heard any track of more than 4 minutes.
I first heard this in the 70's tripping my brains out (which, I believe, is how it was intended to be listened to) in the dark in the middle of the night. Ummagumma is a trippy album for sure. Brings back fond memories.
Yeah man first time I tripped camping I listen to this album for 10 hours straight.
Bingo!
Welcome to Pink Floyd's second era, which goes approximately from Saucerful of Secrets and More through I would say Ummagumma. Tons of experimentation and noise and freaky and creepy in equal measure. It wasn't really until Atom Heart Mother and especially Meddle where the band's classic sound was fully formed, and of course they would go on to refine it throughout their classic era. A more musical example of this era that I'd love to see you check out is 'Careful with that Axe, Eugene'. The Live at Pompeii version is probably the best in my opinion. It's a one-chord psychedelic freakout that used to scare the bejeezus out of me when I was a young man. Roger's vocalizations should be watched to fully appreciate.
Loved this album from release. Used to sing my kids, nieces and nephews to sleep in rocking chair with Grantchester Meadows.
Brilliant track!
Is that where the bee appears?
@@Ifyoudonttakeitucantfakeit yes but I think it a fly
@@Ifyoudonttakeitucantfakeit Yes.
@@coriandre7 it’s a fly because you hear someone trying to swat it with what sounds like a rolled up newspaper.
Look closer at the Album cover. Each member is rotated in the image above and to the right of the chair. In the main frame, David Gilmour is in the chair and Roger Waters behind him, Nick Mason looking at the sky with hands on hips and Rick Wright with feet in the air. The next has Waters in the chair, Mason behind him, Wright looking at the sky, and Gilmour with feet in the air... etc.
Frank Zappa also did musique concrete. "Waffenspiel" is at least one example (the final track off civilization phase iii). Also, the album cover depicts each band member in a different position, but the same positions in each photo (if that makes sense). They were very experimental. Glad you're having fun, Doug! We sure are.
Zappa was a genius in the studio. He practically lived there.
@@christopherheckman7957 Edgard Varese was a huge influence on Zappa.
Retentive Nasal Calliope Music, or maybe even the white chord that comprises Weasels Ripped My Flesh's title track
Good observation on the pictures with in a picture; it's amazing how many people have missed that.
Ya. The first half dozen or more original Mothers discs were all razor cut and pasted tape musique concrete - GREAT fun - Lumpy Gravy being the most varied, and Zappa’s favorite.
My Junior High Music Teacher played this for our class back in 1972...I haven't been the same since...I thank her so much
Looking forward to watching this one!😄
Whoever suggested this to Doug, I thank you!😀
'Is that a beaver playing the drums?' - I don't know, Doug, but from now on, I'm going to imagine that it is! 😆
When he said that I thought of “Emit Otters Jug Band”
@@Art_Vark_and_Rock that’s a great reminder! Love that movie
His commentary on this made me LOL for real.
This selection brings back so many memories! My parents were “worried “ about me as I continually listened to Ummagumma, in the living room, on the family stereo. Such a great track, and album….. careful with that axe!
my 'rents thought I'd lost it, as my hair was also getting longer
Mine were especially concerned by "you are the angel of death, and I am the dead man's son". My Dad was indeed not dead.
You listen to this piece and you knew that Pink Floyd KNEW their audience.
After all, how many in those days were listening to bits like this without a bit of some trendy, chemical amusement ???
Plus, it also shows how much the engineer was ingesting during mixdown.
Flaming bowls of hash, anyone ????
I can hear the record company execs saying "We Don't Hear A Single With This One"........
Grandchester meadows and narrow way pt 3 could have been absolute bangers as singles. Record labels are dumb.
I about fell of my chair laughing reading your last line there.
When I was in college at the Univ of Florida a roommate brought Ummaguma home. For weeks after it became a tradition to gather at around 9:00PM every night, pass a joint around and play Several Species.... Over and over. That was my first exposure to Floyd. I have been a huge fan ever since.
Doug, several of the composers you mentioned were an influence on Frank Zappa. Particularly Varese and Boulez.
Doug missed out the founder of the concrete movement Pierre Schaefer.
First time I smoked herb was the first time I heard Floyd, and this was the album. ALL of it is excellent.
That was my first listening experience Several Species & I am immediately TAKEN and deeply inspired by the mix. I'll be listening to it on loop throughout today at the same time as this Stockhausen for a dichotomy of furry animals and furry electronics: th-cam.com/video/vdIe2CrorMM/w-d-xo.html
A very happy one year of reactions Doug!!
I once went to Glasgow and had to ask directions. I'm now pretty sure he sang this to me, so I went and asked somewhere else.
You need to hear the entire album. I used to play it every Halloween. Always been one of my favorites.
Doug, the album cover is a modified example of the Droste Effect. The band members rotate positions within each duplicated photo.
Floyd was certainly experimental, especially in the early years. But the go-to guy for musique concrète in the 70s was certainly Zappa who was heavily influenced by Edgard Varese, Boulez and Ferrari as well. As a matter of fact, for the first seven years of his career (beginning at 14), Zappa was strictly a composer. Some music that would hit the spot in the above mentioned, and more, is "Didja Get Any Onya?" "Toads of the Short Forrest" "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask" and "Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula"
Dwarf Nebula is a classic.
"Return of the Son of the Monster Magnet" is a real hoot too.
On the Pulse tour in the early 90’s,they had this song track playing in the beginning with it starting off quiet and then getting louder as the stage slowly lit up and dry ice filled the stadium ( Washington DC) and then the band exploded on stage with Astronomy Domine. Gave me goosebumps .
It was awesome!!! My friends had no idea WTF was happening.
No it wasn't. There is no way David Gilmour would play a Roger Waters track
. It was a tape of various sound effects run through the quad system.
This was my first Pink Floyd as a teenager. Loved the album because of this track.
You finally found this one! I love this song. PF played around with sounds and experimented in those days. In this one throat effects and sounds were used. I suppose they were building a library sounds and effects. If you listen to later albums carefully you can hear some of these sounds being reused especially in Echoes. Another one from PF in those days is called "Bike" especially the last half. That is also funny. Another very different piece is ELPs Toccata in Brain Salad Surgery but that is real music but so different.
Hi Doug, Ummagumma was actually a double album. One was Live the other in the studio.
The studio disc has 4 compositions,one by each member of the group. I would recommend also listening to the Live disc ' Careful with that Axe, Eugene' is the standout track. The other 3 tracks are good too. Ummagumma is their best record, i think, very creative and you never tire of listrning to it
I was absolutely blown away by the abstractly formless section in the middle of Set The Controls. I have never heard anything like it before or since. Closest is Klaus Schulze and some Tangerine Dream (Rubycon and Phaedra, mainly), but I would be very interested to hear of any more practitioners of that sort of soundscape. Some of Fripp's stuff comes close, but there's really very little out there that does not fall back at some stage on either conventional rhythm and diatonic intervals.
I totally agree. ummagumma on itself has always given me the feeling of being born 20 years too late. I see the studio album as a sort of Dadaist tribute to the substance known as LSD. the live album however brings together what must roughly be Pink Floyd's 4 best tracks ever, and however Barrett sadly enough isn't on stage, he was a big part of the composition, but what pulls the level of the record up, straight into my top 3 favourite albums of all time is the chemistry between the musicians... impressive stuff.
@@yawninghyaena I was lucky enough to see them Live in an outdoor setting in the early 70's here in Sydney Australia !They were to set up a kind of shell covering bit it was too windy. It didnt matter, like listening to the Live album + Echoes, Atom Heart Mother, etc,etc🙂
Bro you tripping if you think ummagumma is better than wish you were here animals or dark side of the moon 💀
@@kil44ua43 No not tripping . I just like creative music. Apart from Meddle and Atom Heart Mother al l the other albums are boring & predictable. Well thats my opinion anyway. 😎
YES!!! Oh Doug, you have NO IDEA how long Ive been waiting for you to do this song - and Umagumma in general!!! Thank you thank you Im so excited
Oh BTW, Waters is speaking an approximation of Pictish - similar to mid-scotch Gaelic
I LOLed pretty loud when I saw this announcement. Very much looking forward to Doug's take on one my favorite tracks ever.
Rich the Ancient Metal Beast
I believe the pict was actually a scotsman - Ron Geesin - the collaborator on Atom Heart Mother and Roger Water's first solo album, 'music for the body' - a soundtrack, and one of his best.
This was the first Pink Floyd song I ever heard. It was 1971 I was wearing headphones listening to FM radio back when they played full albums. I was blown away and had to look up who the hell did this. Been a fan ever since.
It's definitely meant to be humorous. They're grooving. Nobody's mad. They're in rhythm...grooving. And they love it when this guy comes out and tells of his adventures.
"Nasal Retentive Calliope Music" and "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny" off of Zappa's "We're Only in it For the Money" are earlier examples of musique concrete. And one of the earliest examples of 'scratching' with an LP.
I don't think Roger would be mad at you for finding it funny. He actually laughs a bit about himself writing stuff like this back in the days. Personally I really like this piece and the whole album, although many people dislike it, but I think it's just so unique and when I'm in the right mood I can actually enjoy listening to it.
Ummagumma has always been one of my favorite Pink Floyd albums.
I love this album, it's underrated because it was too "intellectual" to be mainstream, it's "hardcore", but it's good. Even genius...
My favourite piece of music as a very small kid used to be an excerpt from "Le marteau sans maître" (Pierre Boulez). My parents had it on a 45; this and some Spike Jones 45s were all I used to listen to if I had the choice. I was really sad nothing like it ever played on the radio. When Ummagumma came out, I played this song over and over.
Somehow, it seems more like a small hearkening back to their earlier Syd psychedelia dadaist stuff, such as Scream Thy Last Scream.
@@kevinbossick8374 I hated Grand Vizier - it was such a dire percussive piece and I adored Nick Mason as a kid (the only Englishman to have a genuine Mexican mustache no less!).
Then middle aged sentimentality took over and now I just go 'ahhhh, it was so nice to be young and not give a crap!!!!"
Never was there a more appropriate thumbnail.
PF were like blessed by cosmos up until the Wall... Just best band ever in Space Time...
Ummagumma's "Careful with that axe Eugene" is another MUST experience.
BTW: The "Mise en abyme" of pictures is special: they all shift positions on each level of the recursive pictures... It's genius... PF albums covers are part of the "lore"...
It is a really good piece of musique concrete, I find. The sense of rhythm and the choice of sounds is incredible. The birds, at the beginning, (and I think all of the "animals", actually) are really sped-up human cries. And the Pict dialect, a pastiche, of course, is a really interesting type of recitative-type lyrics. Listening to this piece while walking in a forest at night is transcendant, even without psychotropic additives. Ummagumma is their experimental album, doubled with a live set. In the studio album each band member has one half-side to do whatever they want, performing everything alone (with one or two exception). This Waters piece is the most radical experiment!!! But the other stuff is also very nice! This is not a popular view, I believe, either by the band itself or by most of the fans of the band!!
Doug's expression in the thumbnail is accurate.
I never listened to Pink Floyd until 'The Wall' came out, which I heard part of on my friend's car radio.
I was in my late teens at that time.
About two weeks later, a local radio station did a special on Pink Floyd, in which they played a bunch of stuff from their earlier albums, including this track.
When I heard this, I was galvanized. I went out the next day, bought seven Pink Floyd albums, and never looked back.
Fan for life.
Earlier in the song I used the term "galvanistic," and galvanism is the concept, uh, the obsolete scientific theory that there is a kind of electricity flowing through our bloodstreams, and that was our life force. I used the term because I came across it in, uh, Mary Shelley's, uh, "Frankenstein", and that book is sort of an exploration of the theme of creating a character, of making up a person. So I used the term "galvanistic" to allude to that book as a sort of a symbol of how I, like, created you as a character. I'm pretending that I know a lot more about you than I actually do, and also to refer to the fact that I've fall-fallen in love with the characters you've created in, uh, your body of work. This is the part of the song where I start to regret writing it
@@FirstnameLastname-nd9wx
Song?
Frankenstein?
Characters?
"Body of work"??
Uhhh, sorry dude (or dudess) but I really have no clue what you might be talking about, other than the definition of 'galvanized', which can also mean "to arouse to awareness or action; to spur".
That was the context in which I was using the word.
Anyway, glad to hear that you're taking time to read one of the Classics.
@@HareDeLune nah I just saw u used the word galvanised and it reminded me of the monologue from the 2011 version of nervous young inhumans by car seat headrest lol that's what my comment was
@@FirstnameLastname-nd9wx
Oh, thanks!
Sorry, never heard of 'em. Sounds interesting, though. : )
The first time I heard this song was on my dad's record player when I was a kid. There were notes hand-written in the liner as to which tracks were best to trip acid to. I still have that album.
You're reaction is perfect and priceless. It's the same reaction we all have the first time we heard this. I was rolling on the floor laughing. This was about 40 years ago. You have to admit, it is perfectly titled. You heard exactly what the title tells you you'd hear. Music Concret? (sp?) We called it acid back in the day.
First time I heard this was my Jr. year in high school... 1983... with friends... and we were pretty baked at the time... looking at each other like what the... Then we all proceeded to laugh our asses off. Looking forward to Doug's reaction... Hope it is 420 for you Doug on this weird Wednesday... Short song... Maybe add Bike too... Off their first album too... Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Bike is such a fun song. It never got the air time it deserved.
Careful with that axe Eugene is one of my favourite early Floyd.
Been there. Done that.
BIKE!!
Here in Western Australia we have a brewery called "Little Creatures" which I always call "Small furry animals" because i am convinced that this track is what the founders had in mind when they named it.
I think a Pict was an ancient indigenous UK species that put tattoos on every square inch of their skin. Some Latin root that the word picture came from. It's been a long time since I looked it up at a library in the 80s.
Yes they were. U have it right
Picts were the Scots North of the Clyde as named by the Romans in the third century
Picts were an ancient semi-Gaelic peoples - basically "Viking" settlers in Scotland. Unlike the Scottish Gaels who descended from the Irish Gaels, the Picts were descendents of Scandinavians. They lived in isolation on North and North-Eastern coastal Scotland and had very little contact with the Scottish. There's no evidence that they were covered in tattoos - they likely practiced the same tattoo traditions of other Scandinavian "Viking" cultures - whom they traded with often. The Picts disappeared/died out and/or fled Scotland around when Rome was attempting to conquer it - Hadrian's wall era.
Also Keep in mind that Roman accounts of foreign cultures were OFTEN filled with presumptions, ethnocentric misunderstandings and total misinformation. Julius Cesar wrote at length about the Celts and Druids of Ireland, but he never did more than observe them from afar while at sea. The whole fallacy that the ancient Irish practiced human sacrifice (which was NEVER the case in ANY ancient Irish culture!) was based on him observing the Druidic ritual of burning a Wicker Man (dried vines and grasses woven together into a large man-shaped effigy) to gain blessings for harvest season. You CANNOT trust any Roman account of any culture they didnt spend years or decades studying. Basically, if Rome didnt conquer them or partially conquer them, any observations are BS.
'Picti' is a Latin word that the Romans used to describe a group of people that they encountered living in what is now Scotland, around 2,000 years ago.
The word translates loosely as 'painted', or 'tattooed'.
The Roman emperor at the time, Hadrian, had an 80 mile long wall built from one side of the island to the other, to keep the Picts from coming further South.
That's because the Picts knew the land well and practiced Guerrilla warfare, which means they were handing the Romans their backsides.
Even in 1969 this was hillerious
Specific members on Doug’s Discord specifically told Doug not to read in or do a spot check for this one. Looks like he took the Patron’s advice.
I'm just sitting here watching and can't wait for Doug's impression when the Scottish rant starts.
in 1970 when I was a freshman in college and during a break in classes, a buddy of mine and I would go to his garage apartment get high, listen to this album and look at one another in amazement. This episode brought back a lot of fond memories of an earlier time. Great choice, Council of Dougs!
I'm so delighted that you did this. That piece has been a treat for me since the album came out.
Pink Floyds Ummagumma was always a Strange Album to me. Until I smoked the Bong! And it was still Strange but better! lol
Keep playing it.
It's very good while sipping mushroom tea in my experience. ✌🤯
Thanks for that! Indeed an interesting choice for your anniversary video. When I used to have the Ummagumma LP, that was always one of my favourite tracks. It was so good to experience it again with you. 😍😎🤩
Yeah, I expect this song is weirder than anyone would expect it to be - even for Pink Floyd!
I couldn't click play on this video fast enough when I saw the title Doug - excellent!
Pink Floyd showed me that Signs of Life equals coming back to life.
Thank you for hitting one of my absolute favorite Floyd songs. And you were correct partaking before the reaction.
I loved this song. I had a turntable with speeds 16, 32, 45 and 76. I used to play this at 16 and 32 to listen to the tweets, squeaks, squarks and all noises, which are made up from the group singing, talking and making noises. If you can do this Doug, then try it. There is so much going on in the background and is very enlightening.
I love the studio side and the live side ain't bad either.
What a fun review!!! Thanks for taking a chance on this one. This kind of song reminds me of Revolution 9 by The Beatles.
Steve Reich also pioneered manipulating tapes as part of his compositions. The studio disc on Ummagumma may be Pink Floyd's weakest, but as an experiment it works. The live disc is very good.
Agree, but I don't think that is the weakest. Is a common saying, but I think it has the first successful attempt to put a kind of form on an album and has a lot of interesting thematic or mood nuances: epicness, dramatism-existentialism, melancholy, humor, kind of transcendentalism, etc. It's a very clever album, avant-garde but accessible and brilliantly produced with influences from romanticism, modernism, and experimental music
Besides Floyd there is a german genius legend Helge Schneider and Pioneer for a hole new genre, he plays even more instruments then Prince and is a well accepted amazing Jazz pianist mixed with comedian stuff: I highly recommend
The Comedy Price acts from Helge Schneider:
1. Die "Trompeten von Mexico"
2. The "Yes No Song"
also early stuff from Helge Schneider and the firefuckers
"Hey Jo"
I knew this was going to be great. I first heard this back in the 80s. Hearing it for the first time with no prior knowledge as to what you are about to hear is the right way to do it. The weed helps too. This album was a double album. The first album was live and the second was divided up so each member had a certain number of songs that were solely composed by that member alone. Also, if you look at the album cover, the pictures within the pictures are all different.
The first time I heard this track on my new album, I was blown away. You should have hit that pipe one more time.
This was the very first Pink Floyd song that I heard - I was a HS sophomore, and a friend had me listen through headphones (that was also a first) - I was mesmerized with this (and also the 2nd song I heard from him was "Got This Thing One The Move" by Grand Funk). The musique concrete was also something that I learned about in first year college as a music major, our assignments were to create songs using sounds and not instruments. After I bought the 8 track tape of this (for my vehicle), my friend and I would orient people to their first taste of 'bud' and then play this song. We would do various hand motions at appropriate times to additionally freak them out. Anyway, the other 3 sections of the studio album feature the other PF members, all worth a listen, very creative and inventive for the time.
That was fantastic. This album, but particularly this song was a guaranteed play at the big acid parties we used to have back in the 80's. Such a uniquely brilliant composition and experimentation with sound.
Another example of Musique Concrete on a rock album would be "Dogfight Giggle" by Todd Rundgren, from his album "A Wizard A True Star".
Oh, come on now... we all know the close intimacy sounds... just... like... THIS!
I would to hear your reaction to Ummagumma’s live version of “A Saucerful Of Secrets”. An instrumental that goes through stages to a phenomenal finale. Totally worth the listen.
You won’t believe that it’s all performed live by just four guys.
Watching you doing this song blind was the best! I'm glad they set you up properly for it.
My love for weird sounds and experiments was just beginning in 9th grade. So, I found an early love for Revolution #9, (which didn't really quite have the humor I was seeking), and early King Crimson, and 'Ummagumma', which had secret messages for me. No, I never really quite grew out of it.
I first heard this when I was about 12. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard.
The Picts were long gone by the Middle Ages Doug. The original inhabitants of Scotland were around (roughly) from 300 to 900 A.D. and are mentioned by Roman chroniclers and given the name 'Caledonians' (the painted ones) which is why Scotland is sometimes referred to as Caledonia. Yep, and 'Braveheart' was wrong too. Roger Waters provides the voice of the Pict.
nope...."Picti" means "painted people" and was initially attributed to the northern tribes by the roman campaigners of Agricola and Severus
It's so funny seeing someone react to this song. I used to work in a Pizza Hut in the mid 90's that for some reason had this album in their jukebox. I used to love playing this track randomly in the middle of a busy Friday or Saturday night. The looks on people's faces were priceless.
I know Pink Floyd hates them, but Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother are my two favourite Pink Floyd albums. So weird and experimental and unique. There's nothing else like it.
Happy anniversary: loved myself in pain seeing your face music 😂
That was a fun funny one 😁😁, ironising peoples Babylon gibberish talk and dialect bizarres by music concrete
... The Ending is also a transition to the more harmonic narrow way, which is an example how Floyd often plays with different emotional phases or polarity states to transform then in the next step
They did several funny ones in the early days:
"corporal clegg" (video with the bizarre military dinner high recommended)
The hilarious "bike" (Syd Barett)
'the Gnome" Hobbit Style
"The sarcastic" "Gigolo Aunt" (Syd Barrett)
The trippy you-will-not-the-same-after- taking-that-shit
"astronomy Domine" (Ummagumma version)
Weird as hell and transformative "a saucercul of secrets" (Ummagumma)
Btw a serious one overwhelming beauty from Roger Waters / Pink Floyd is "the final cut" (The final cut)
A funny nit funny Waters solo with Jeff Beck: "Amused to death"
Award for best line in a reaction video goes to………The Daily Doug for “Am I getting plunked?”
Ummagumma definitely warrants the bigger pipe! It’s so uniquely profound and so different? I can’t explain but you should definitely listen to it in it’s entirety sometime. It’s strange but cohesive yet it’s like two different albums combined. It’s worth the listen. Love your reactions, hoping for more Pink Floyd in the future! 🤩☮️ Its always a trip!!
Doug: "Meanwhile, the squirrel agrees with me!" ... and I burst out in laughter. Thanks, you made my day!
Nothing gives me flashbacks like this album....one of the most pure psychedelic albums ever made.
This one will require a good pick in terms of drinkeys and smokeys..hahahah
Couple of bong puffs with a Scotch chaser ought to do the trick.
The ambient cave sound is likely courtesy of the Binson Echorec, a favorite devise of the early Floyd band. Early Floyd often employed bizarre vocalizations (especially on Piper at the Gates of Dawn).