The Flaming Cow

2

THE LITHE MEN COME

Pink Floyd and Ron Geesin had performed at several of the same venues, notably at the same event on the 29 April 1967, the Alexandra Palace 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, and on separate occasions at Middle Earth (London), Mothers (Birmingham) and some universities, but had never met. You can already tell that our fields of interest differed, and I can tell you that our aims differed too. Of course there was the common ground of war-babies out to upset and explore, a bit like blackbirds scratching for apples in the snow and fighting half the time, and particularly to explore new media and methods through tape recorders and electronics. Another 'small world' event was that I had already encountered the man who was to become a large cog in the Pink Floyd machine, manager Steve O'Rourke, when I was still in the Original Downtown Syncopators and he was working for the Bryan Morrison Agency.

Ron at the score; engineer Peter Bown at the controls.

Pink Floyd and I were both in early but full flight in 1968. Leafing through my little diary for that year, I find that I recorded various waifs, strays and oddities from the contemporary folk and jazz scenes; performed live about 110 times, including in Stockholm; lectured at Portsmouth College of Art several times; was sound recordist for BBC's Chronicle series twice in the Orkneys; was sound recordist for an interview with Louis Armstrong at the Hammersmith Odeon; disturbed BBC Radio's Country Meets Folk twice; traumatised John Peel on Nightride twice; composed and made the music for several TV commercials, including the first Kodak 'Blinking Eye', and for several short films; and edited backing tapes for Larry Adler's one-man show. Yes, I even got to meet my former mouth organist idol, whose halo was soon swatted when he fell asleep on our rush matting floor while I sought to impress him with tape-editing wizardry.

Alternative career? No!

Brightening the dull but mild morning of 14 October 1968, Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason paradiddled his lithe form down our steps at about 10 a.m. The meeting had been arranged by an acquaintance of his, Sam Jonas Cutler, who must have seen a few of my more local live eruptions and thought there was some common ground. Either that or it was, 'Come and see a real nutter!' and probably both. I have absolutely no recollection of whether Cutler came too, and no specific spotlit image of the meeting other than of a very nice chap with an enquiring demeanour moving lightly round the room with, 'What's this? What's that?' The proof that we did get on was that Frankie and I were invited to a party at his wife's parents' house near Godalming, Surrey, the very day after he and Lindy Rutter got married. After that, we met either singly or as two couples about ten times throughout 1969. Lindy was particularly interested in modern dance and at least one of those meetings was to go to a performance; a diary entry for 13 April 1969 states: 'Nicky and Lindy for tea and tickets'. He was Nicky to us, as he was to friends and family only - he says, but I notice he was 'Nicki' in at least one newspaper article. So he was experimenting a little with his name image.

Still able to speak.

I was meeting with Pete Townshend of The Who quite a lot at that time too. He had become very attracted to the Indian mystic Meyer Baba, was planning a 'Happy Birthday Meyer Baba' album and asked me to compose something. Lindy Mason played the flute as one of her several accomplishments, so I wrote a piece for her to be accompanied on the electric organ. As has been my way, when I write music I tend to extricate patterns I see in my head and not particularly to consider the technical limitations of player and instrument other than the range. So it turned out too difficult for Lindy, but it was for her anyway. I had seen a photograph of Meyer Baba smiling, and he had a great (large) nose, so I called the piece With A Smile Up His Nose, They Entered, imagining Lindy and myself in a kind of courtly dance in slow motion with clasped and raised hands entering the giant cave of his nose.

At more than one of the Mason's dinner parties in 1969, we met Roger and Judy Waters too. For a short period during 1969 and 1970, we were a formidable six-some. Looking back fondly, I think it was because all the girls' names had that 'i' ending, and I think Roger's lovely lady actually wrote 'Judi'. More seriously, and something I do not remember discussing at all, was that Nick, Roger and I had all been involved in architecture: they studied it properly and I had seven weeks of it in Glasgow before being whisked away in the lucky escape. I have always said since, though, that structure and pattern are essential ingredients in good music, probably in all good art.

Roger Waters was already showing a tendency at these dinner parties towards political worries and opinions - and I was showing a tendency to suggest that artists should never get involved in politics, whether as material for providing sideline comments or as direct action. Through the years I have noticed that there are indeed these two main persuasions of artists. Anyway, there was plenty of friendly baiting and bantering back in 1969. One thing that really held this social group together was that the girls were all directly involved in creative art: Lindy was musician and dancer, Judi was potter and visual artist, and Frankie was textile designer and visual artist.

Nick was then a keen sailor in the competitive small yacht world. He would get down to his parents' place at Dell Quay on the South Coast when he could. His yacht was moored there and he tried me out as 'crew' a few times, usually to practise the subsidiary art of shouting. His fierce competitiveness showed through, fairly ruffling my collar. This backs up what I ask about anyone who appears to be calmly floating through life, 'And where's the other side?' There is always one. Once he shouted us into capsizing, and my favourite watch never told any more time - a small price to pay for an exhilarating afternoon in the English Channel with an amusing parallel diddler.

So it was inevitable that I would meet all the members of Pink Floyd. Rick Wright was next. He and Juliet lived at Leinster Gardens, London W2, which was but a ten-minute walk from Elgin Crescent. Rick appeared a shy and gentle man, and most of him was, but I did witness that other side much later backstage when he was very rude to a fan. We had a common interest in American jazz, he contributing the contemporary and I the classic period history, what I prefer to call the essential prototypes: Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins and Billie Holiday. The newest member of the group, guitarist Dave Gilmour, as he was called then, was more wary, whether because I appeared too extrovert or was obvious friends with Nick and Roger when he had not long joined the organisation, or, squinting out from my over-sensitive blancmange, that I was some imagined musical competitor. Much later, around the time of the 2008 revival of Atom Heart Mother, he remarked that he could not get on with, or wasn't too sure of, my Scottish sense of humour! I don't think it's Scottish: it's Dadaistic and absurd, delivered in a Scottish accent. Actually, we have met again more recently with mutual good feelings. Such is the nebulous knitting of life's strands.

David Gilmour muses.

Back to those days of energetic drive to adventure, express, get on, win through and impress, it was Roger who attracted me most. This was reciprocated and we became particularly close friends - for a short time. It was his singing with an American accent that finished me off! No, it was a bit more complex, your Honour. Let us start by looking at some common but undulating ground. My mother was half-Scottish; his mother had Scottish ancestry. His father was from an honest working-class background and so was my father - as I found out much later by genealogical delving - though he would not recognise it. We both had affairs with architecture, played fretted string instruments and had visually creative wives.

Golf provided another bond. I was brought up with the hickory shaft in my hands, so had a little advantage. He picked me up in his Mini Cooper and we shot off to one of several courses further west of London. Neither of us was very good at that time - lack of regular practice - but we had great times playing that daftest of all games, a microcosm of life's irregularities, crazily careering up opposite sides of fairway and rough, knowing only that we would eventually meet on the green with exaggerated tales of misfortune and injustice.

Above all that, possibly because of all that, when we weren't laughing at life's absurdities, we were outspoken about its injustices. The big difference was that he tended towards social and political comment and I tended towards pure creative endeavour and the posturing and guises assumed in its pursuit. Therein lies the reason why we later blew apart. I cite my great guru deceased, Lin Yutang, who said that all politicians were drawn from the ranks of the mediocracy, from which I derived a couple of aphorisms: 'I'll let them get on with politics if they'll let me get on with creativity', 'assess the limitations and compose accordingly', and 'it's best to work round the buggers.'

Roger...