WordPress Suckage

Well, it looks like WordPress has (perhaps not surprisingly) sucked a bone in their upgrades and lost most of my category information and even a couple of my posts. I’m going to go over the whole blog and stitch everything together again over the holidays, remove unnecessary pages, and add a couple of new ones.  Stay tuned as I jolt some energy into this sucker for the new year.

The Great Gig in the Sky

I’m going to break from this blog’s consumption focus for today in order to honour one of the greatest heroes of rock music, Richard Wright, founding member and keyboardist of prog-psych pioneers Pink Floyd.

Wright was the gentle spirit of Pink Floyd, and a kind of melodic balance between the volatile Roger Waters and David Gilmour. His atmospheric keyboard work, exemplified by “Echoes” from Meddle (1971), “The Great Gig in the Sky” and “Us and Them” from The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” from Wish You Were Here (1975), and “Marooned” from The Division Bell, all tracks he wrote or co-wrote, often played the part of the battlefield on which Waters and Gilmour waged war—a sort of background feature, but integral to the whole experience. Wright also lent his voice to a number of tracks—his singing is a big part of what makes Obscured by Clouds (1972) one of my favourite Pink Floyd albums—including lead vocal duties on the underrated but superb “Summer ‘68″ from Atom Heart Mother (1970) and “Wearing the Inside Out” from The Division Bell. (Both of these quirky tracks also featuring interesting parts for horns—check them out!) Wright’s style is also a big part of what makes the Waters-free Pink Floyd albums actually sound like Pink Floyd; without him, it is likely that A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell would simply have been spiritual follow-ups to David Gilmour’s About Face (1984).

Wright died yesterday, 15 September 2008, after a short battle with cancer. Thanks Rick, for all of the wonderful music and for all of the good that your music did in my life.

“I am not frightened of dying.
Any time will do, I dont mind.
Why should I be frightened of dying?
There’s no reason for it; you’ve got to go sometime.”
— “The Great Gig in the Sky”

Fresh Start

Those of you who know the story of Mengde’s new book will know that it was really just an old book. That’s probably what this blog will end up being—the same old blog with some pretty polish. But that’s OK, since there was nothing wrong with the old one!