Austrian Pink Floyd Fanclub

ECHOES

The complete History of PINK FLOYD

03.03.2007: Omnibus Press beginnt in den nächsten Wochen mit der Auslieferung von: Echoes - The Complete History Of Pink Floyd. Glenn Povey ehemaliger Herausgeber des Floyd Fanzines Brain Damage, Konzertveranstalter (Aussie Floyd, Porcupine Tree) und Autor stellt im März sein neues Buch vor: Echoes The Complete History Of Pink Floyd. Ich traf Glenn letztes Jahr in der Royal Albert Hall bei Gilmours Konzert am 30.05.2006. Er erzählte mir damals von seinem neuen Buch-Projekt. Wenn es nur annähernd so gut wird wie sein 1998 erschienenes Erstlingswerk In The Flesh, dass er gemeinsam mit Ian Russell schrieb dann darf man sich bereits die Hände reiben. Dutzende bisher unbekannte Fotos sollen sich in dem Buch befinden. Anfang März soll Echoes veröffentlicht werden. Amazon.de nimmt man bereits Vorbestellungen entgegen: Echoes. Ich hatte jetzt die Gelegenheit mit Glenn ein Interview zu führen bei dem er über sein Buch und seine Pink Floyd Leidenschaft erzählt.

PULSE&SPIRIT: First of all I wanted to ask you a bit about your Pink Floyd background. When did you start to get interested in Pink Floyds Music? What was the reason – the initial point?

Glenn Povey: My interest in the band came about with the release of “The Wall” in 1979. I remember seeing the video to ‘Another Brick’ on ‘Top of The Pops’ and thinking it was really unusual. Looking back at that video now, it is easy to see how it didn’t really make much sense out of the context of the feature film. It sounds slightly contrived but I had similar sentiments about my schooling and lyrically it struck a chord. With the release of “A Collection of Dance Songs” my interest increased as I started to explore Pink Floyd’s back catalogue. Mind you there was some pretty stiff competition from David Bowie at the time!

Then the obvious Floyd Fan Questions: What’s your Favourite Pink Floyd Album(s)? And can we get a few words why they are?

Glenn Povey: This really depends on the mood. “Animals” is a great album to listen to in the car – especially if you’ve had a bad day at work! “Dark Side of The Moon” always seems to win at the end of the day as it is both lyrically and musically the most complete Floyd album. Pink Floyd albums are very inconsistent, so it’s unlikely I would listen to any of their albums all of the way through. I think I speak for most people when I say how grateful I am for the invention of the iPod as it enables you to shuffle through some of the album tracks that are really not so good.

What’s your favourite Pink Floyd Period?

Glenn Povey: I would tend to lean towards the late 1960’s – early 1970’s. Like most fans, I only have bootlegs rather than first hand memories to lean on, but at that time they were a band in transition: still very experimental musically and not so rigid in their production. And they were still playing around with the arrangements to older tracks like ‘Saucerful of Secrets’ and ‘Astronomy Domine’. “Live At Pompeii” is an absolute masterpiece and is criminal not to have been released on audio CD.

When did you first saw Floyd live? Which Show is your personal Favourite?

Glenn Povey: My first Floyd show was at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago in September 1987 and I still regard that as a personal highlight. They were still in the very early stages of the tour and obviously still working out how they, as musicians, were interacting and how the show was all fitting together. It sounded fresh and exciting. By the time the band reached London in August 1988 it all sounded rather dull and tired and the supporting musicians were all acting like circus clowns. I’m pleased the situation was rectified to some degree in 1994 – it was visually and aurally spectacular – but completely baffling as to why they chose to perform complete rubbish like ‘Take It Back’ in favour of ‘Welcome to The Machine’.

Waters or Gilmour or both?

Glenn Povey: I try not to take such a black and white view. However, it is obvious that a great many fans have strong feelings on the matter. My own opinion is that Waters can come up with some fantastic lyrics and can put on a great stage show, whilst Gilmour has an amazing voice and has a great guitar sound. I enjoyed Gilmour’s recent shows in London, and it was worth the price of admission just to hear ‘Echoes’ alone! Otherwise his shows were incredibly self-indulgent and considering the vast catalogue of excellent material to draw from – including his first solo album - it was just unbelievable that he chose to make the audience suffer a range of tracks from “The Division Bell”, which he already made us sit through at the Royal Festival Hall; not to mention an entire rendition of “On An Island”.

Waters on the other hand seems to know what the fans want to hear (although it was a slightly odd choice to perform ‘What God Wants’ and ‘Perfect Sense’ at Glastonbury festival). Hyde Park last year was a great show and he has a good sense of theatre, but on the down side has shown in some cases to be a poor judge of supporting musicians.

I guess the debate could run forever – I’m just happy there have been recent tours by both.

You met David Gilmour in Chicago 1987 as I know for an interview! Can you tell as a few words about it? Did you manage to see Echoes?

Glenn Povey: That was a bit weird! In my wildest dreams I couldn’t have imagined meeting David Gilmour. It was also the first time I’d ever travelled to the States, and the first time I was about to see Pink Floyd perform, so in any event it was quite an intense experience. I remember turning up to the venue at about mid-day and walking right inside the arena – there was no security at all. I found a seat and just watched the crew set the show up for about an hour. After a while I went outside and managed to find the tour manager who in turn spoke to Steve O’Rourke who gave me a hospitality pass and told me to come back before the show. David Gilmour was very pleasant and open – I guess he was being interviewed by just about everyone at that time in order to get publicity - but I was just freaked out by the whole thing. I hadn’t even seen the show and the album “Momentary Lapse” had only been out a few days so I had no idea what to ask him. My mind just went blank! I guess I managed to figure out some relevant questions. Afterwards it was all written down from memory – Steve O’Rourke wouldn’t let me use a tape recorder! It was also a great show, largely because they performed ‘Echoes’. I was lucky to see that, they dropped it after that show.

You made yourself a well known name in the Floyd fan base with your fanzine “Brain Damage”. In 1997 you wrote together with Ian Russell your first book entitled “In The Flesh”. How long did you research and work on the book before it got released?

Glenn Povey: “Brain Damage” was a great starting point for the book and it provided an opportunity to collate a lot of the material from my own archives and contributors to the fanzine. When I was working with Ian to complete the book I guess it took about three to complete the research. We spent a lot of time in libraries poring over microfilm and looking in newspapers for concert dates. I spent almost every spare moment I had writing it all up, and composing the narrative, which was very hard work. I then spent an awful lot of time with an editor who chopped my manuscript from its Biblical length down to something more reader friendly. The funny thing is he turned out to be married to Sheilagh Noble, brother of Keith, both of whom played some small part in the early days of the band, which was some coincidence. We also spent a lot of time with the designers, making adjustments and selecting images. Bloomsbury were the first publisher I approached for the book and they agreed to do it straight away without hesitation. I was amazed.

Was it a success in terms of selling issues?

Glenn Povey: I’d like to think it was. It’s hard to say and daft as it sounds, Bloomsbury has never revealed any sales figures to either of us. My only worry at the time was the sudden realisation that they had an inexperienced sales and marketing team and that music books were not really their forte. Nowadays they don’t publish music titles at all - it’s all Harry Potter for them now.

You are also known as a concert promoter. How did this came about? And with which bands did you work together? Are you still in this business?

Glenn Povey: When I was publishing “Brain Damage” I was approached by the Australian Pink Floyd Show who were interested in coming to the UK. I saw an opportunity to bring them over and this evolved into a presentation at the Fan Convention I organised at Wembley in 1993. When the band decided to stay in the UK I started booking concerts for them and it took off very quickly and I had to learn a great deal about the music industry in a very short space of time. I eventually packed in my job to concentrate on it all and also started to work with Porcupine Tree who were beginning to make an impression and who were managed by a friend of mine. Although I stopped working with the Australian Pink Floyd in early 1995 I carried on working with Porcupine Tree right up until the end of 2003 as their agent, UK concert promoter, and for a period of time as their tour manager. When Porcupine Tree moved to Snapper Music I was able to pick up tours with some of the other bands on the label including Gong, Ozric Tentacles and The Pretty Things. I even did their show at the Royal Festival Hall when they played “SF Sorrow” with David Gilmour! I also became involved with Hawkwind, Caravan and Hugh Cornwell and had a go at promoting festivals – one of which was headlined by Robert Plant and Roy Harper. In 2002 I started working with some of the reformed 1960’s Los Angeles bands like Electric Prunes and The Seeds and through those successes had the good fortune to work on Love with Arthur Lee. However, working so closely with someone as maniac as Arthur Lee dented my enthusiasm to continue, and after he passed away I decided to divert my energies to begin working seriously on “Echoes”. I’ve a few other titles in the pipeline, so for the time being I may well be publishing some more music books.

Ten years after “In The Flesh” there’s a new Book titled “Echoes – the complete History of Pink Floyd” waiting for its release. Can you give us some facts: How many Pictures, Pages … When did you start to work on “Echoes”?

Glenn Povey: Any book of this nature is never going to be entirely complete in the real sense of the word. The beauty of any book in this type of format is that there will always be something new to add, especially in regard to unearthing old tour dates. When “In The Flesh” was first published I received a huge amount of mail from people who had seen the band, or thought they had seen the band, at other locations not documented. Some also had photos and memorabilia, which I kept on a database for future reference. I may not have used them all, but it was useful information to help research some additional details and help complete the picture. The book stretches to 368 pages and although I’ve not counted there are approximately 150 photos in the book of which I’d say at least two-thirds are previously unpublished.

What’s new in “Echoes” compared to “In The Flesh”?

Glenn Povey: The most obvious thing is the size and weight of the book. It’s a real coffee-table job, which is something I wanted to achieve. Every page is in full colour with photos and reproductions of memorabilia on almost every page. I was able to get some incredible photos of the band from 1964 and 1965 which I was really pleased with. This book is much more illustrative than “In The Flesh” and is very visually appealing, easy on the eye and delves into the band’s history in much greater depth.

I can imagine creating the Book Cover could have been quite a hard decision to make.

Glenn Povey: The cover was quite tricky. The designer, Laurence Bradbury, came up with the basic idea of a split image and came up with various different proofs before we finally agreed on the basic choice of colour scheme. I just happened to have a suitable 'live' cover shot that fitted perfectly into that. The only part it that I had planned from the start was to use a farewell shot from the Live 8 concert on the rear cover. It closes it all off very nicely. What Laurence achieved in terms of overall design and typography works really well and I'm really happy with it. It does represent the fact that Pink Floyd are a very colourful band, and the group shot along the top captures their sense of humour as well. I only recently realised, which was completely accidental, that the cover incorporates a photograph of every period of the band's line up.

Did you research any new Floyd Concert dates? New Pictures?

Glenn Povey: I’m pleased to say that there are lots of new dates in this book. I made a point of almost re-researching the whole book from scratch to ensure no stone was left unturned which revealed more information than previously known. I was unhappy with some of the chronology of the pre-Floyd early years in “In The Flesh” so this was really worked on quite hard and is presented accurately and in much more detail. I also went back to the US twice to complete some research and among other things was able to fill in some previously undocumented details on the band’s 1967 and 1968 tours, which had always been a grey area. I also had some great material supplied to me by ORTF, the French national TV broadcast corporation, who were incredibly helpful. I was also very fortunate to be able to view the BBC recording archives, which I wasn’t even aware existed! This, above all else, was something of a revelation as it revealed many more sessions and broadcast details than had been previously been documented anywhere. Apart from anything else there’s also been a great deal of the band’s history that has come to light over the years since “In The Flesh” was published, including all of the details surrounding Richard Wright’s departure from the band in 1979. Looking back, “In The Flesh” was produced in a pre-Internet and Ebay age and this has also connected many fans and revealed some pretty obscure memorabilia. A lot of previously unpublished photos have also surfaced in recent years, so I believe “Echoes” to be very unique as both an enjoyable biographical account as much as it is a reference book.

Are there any legal issues which you have to be aware of before releasing something related to Pink Floyd?

Glenn Povey: The only thing you need to keep an eye on in publishing is not to print anything defamatory about anyone or include any misrepresentations that could be deemed as libellous. Most books are read by libel lawyers, who at great expense will gladly read your book and highlight any grey areas for you. In both cases there was nothing they felt was inappropriate. Had I printed something that suggested Nick Mason was a drug abusing wild man of rock, and I couldn’t support that claim, I’m sure he’d be seeing me in court. You also have to look out for the use of images and lyrics without permission from the copyright holder; otherwise there’s not much that can stop you writing about anyone or anything. Certain band’s might be sensitive to some content – I don’t think Pink Floyd’s management were too impressed by Andreas Kraska’s bootleg book when that first came out, but nowadays and in view of the fact Pink Floyd have actually used reproductions of bootleg albums in their own product (ie “Live At Pompeii”), I would find it very hard to believe they could justify a repeat of that kind of action.

Were you in contact with Pink Floyd’s management before releasing ‘Echoes’? Did you send an issue to any of the band members?

Glenn Povey: Not on this occasion. I did have copy manuscripts of “In The Flesh” sent to each member of the band prior to its printing, and some minor comments were made by Gilmour and Waters; but this was mostly in relation to certain facts that were not widely known, which in Waters’ case was fair enough and much appreciated. Gilmour took a slightly dim view of the book but that was due to Bloomsbury being a bit naïve in regard to involving and pressurising band members for their input.
The important thing I have always felt was not to give any single member of the band the opportunity to use the book as a means of voicing their own opinions. However, since the bulk of both books are concerned with the documentation of dates and places, it was obvious just by looking at Nick Mason’s book, “Inside Out”, there’s was going to be very little of they could contribute anyway.

In The Flesh was also available in French and Italian languages. Will “Echoes” be available as well in different languages some time in the future?

Glenn Povey: And there was also a US edition. I am hopeful there will be foreign language editions of this book, although I wouldn’t envy the job of translating it! I do have someone working on this right now and early indications are good for some foreign editions, which I will keep you posted on.

Would you say after all these years that you still are a huge fan of the band?

Glenn Povey: Oh, absolutely. They’ve played such a huge part of my life in so many ways it would be impossible for me not to be. I do have extremely lengthy breaks of not giving their music any thought, as I’m also interested in many other bands, but I do find myself coming back to their music time and again.

If there’s one thing that you would wish yourself from Pink Floyd – what would it be?

Glenn Povey: Like most fans the obvious thing would be to wish for a full-scale re-union tour, but that’s never going to happen. Perhaps it would be to wish for Gilmour to have the courage to say outright that it’s all over. At least it would put Mason and Wright out of their misery!

Ende.