An analysis of virtual reality before such a term even existed, Amused to Death (1992) took its cue from the first Iraq war, returning Waters to one of his central themes. Banished from what he saw as his own band, Waters retreated, only to emerge five years later with a solo album, which at least partly came close to his former glories. He dragged his former bandmates though the courts, and lost. Waters’ reputation as rock’s foremost curmudgeon and contrarian stems from these years. Interestingly enough, that very same year his former cohorts Gilmour and Mason returned under the aegis of Pink Floyd, sparking the third version of the band, and releasing the platinum-seller A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987), out-performing their former leader both in the charts and concert attendance numbers, which must have enraged Waters even further. That strangely insular and static record was followed by Radio K.A.O.S (1987), which took the isolation even further through the character of a wheelchair bound radio ham named Billy. car) we heard at the end of ‘Two Suns in the Sunset’. Sounding like an afterthought of The Final Cut, the record recycled some lines and melodies and even sound effects of that record, sounding like it came from the same insular and air conditioned nightmare (i.e. Soon Mason found his role had diminished, and after the sombre swansong of The Final Cut (1983), Waters replaced Gilmour with Eric Clapton for his first official solo effort, The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking (1984). Wright was an integral part of the band’s wordless communication, in many senses the glue which tied guitarist David Gilmour’s recognizable licks and drummer Nick Mason’s workmanlike drumming to Waters’ morose bleating and confrontational bass playing. Wright’s dismissal removed an integral brick from the wall, removed a corner stone from the very musical backbone of the band. But he takes the harshness and perfectionism that he applies to himself and applies it to other people, which is sometimes not the right thing to do”, reminisces producer Bob Ezrin in Mark Blake’s Pink Floyd book “Pigs Might Fly” (p.264) Roger is a tough guy, and he’s tougher on himself than anyone. “It was this horrible, passive-aggressive, English-style conflict, where so much was just unsaid. He also felt that Wright was underperforming both as a writer and a musician, and not contributing to the band. Wright calls Waters a hypocrite, as it took him only a year and a half to buy his own country seat near Horsham in Sussex (with his new wife Lady Carolyn Christie, the niece of the 3rd Marquess of Zetland, former Mrs Rock Scully – whom Waters blamed for this extravagance). A staunch socialist, Waters did not take kindly to Wright’s purchase of a luxurious country house with the money he made off Dark Side of The Moon. During the recording of the album, Waters bullied Pink Floyd’s dreamer and gentle spirit, keyboardist Richard Wright, out of the band. Thinly disguised as the story of the character of Pink, the album details – among other themes – Waters’ disenchantment with the music business and what his beloved band had become: a money making machine grossing millions of dollars a night. In many ways, his solo career can be seen to start with Pink Floyd’s magnum opus, The Wall (1980). Waters alienated critics and fans, clashed with band members, and eventually punched out the very man staring back from the mirror, resulting in a silence which has held it’s breath up until now. It blew Pink Floyd out of the rock clubs and polytechnics and into arenas and stadiums, and also set in motion the mechanisms within the band that would lead to their ultimate demise. The album that the single had heralded, The Dark Side of the Moon (1972), came to embody all that was admirable about the excess of 70’s rock – but also all that was despicable and alienated the very same thing. It was not drugs that fried Roger Waters, but the very stuff he sang about on his band’s biggest hit ‘Money’. In some ways, his retreat from the public eye seemed to mirror his former bandmate Syd Barrett’s slow descent into oblivion, but where Barrett was a casualty of the 1960’s, Waters was wounded by the very decade he epitomised – the 1970’s. For a good thirty five years, Roger Waters seemed the man least likely to.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |