The Piper

It all started in 1965 in London when Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Rick Wright, Clive Metcalf, Keith Noble and Juliette Gale formed a group called Sigma 6 (later T-Set, Meggadeaths, Abdabs). They played old Rhythm & Blues songs but broke up and reformed around Waters, Mason and Wright. The two new members were Bob Close who stayed in the group for a very short time and Syd Barrett who, as Roger said, was very freaky and had taken acid.

The first gig they had was in late 1965 when they played in the Countdown Club, London, earning 15 pounds for almost five hours of playing. They were already using the name Pink Floyd which came from Syd who mixed up names of two bluesmans - Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Because of Syd's addiction to sex, drugs and rock&roll it was necessary for the Floyds to change into an "underground" group. They started playing at the "Spontaneous Underground" which was held every Sunday afternoon doing very extraordinary and strange versions of Chuck Berry's songs.

Miles: "The Floyd were the loudest band anyone had ever heard at that time. They were also the weirdest. And they were without doubt the hippiest. They were the underground band."

In 1966 a lot of things changed. Syd wrote a few songs and the band dropped old R&B songs from their repertoire. They became more and more psychedelic especially when someone brought a slide projector to the concert and amazed everyone by projecting slides onto the group in time with their music. No-one had done it before - at least not in Britain. After a few such gigs they met Peter Jenner who became their manager and introduced them to the underground scene in UFO club. They played there together with Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Brown, The Soft Machine and others, exposing their weird sound effects and experiments during which Nick's drums often played a melodic as well as a rhythmic role while the others all made funny noises. Roger: "There was so much dope and acid around in those days that I don't think anyone can remember anything about anything".

These circumstances were very important for the birth of songs like Interstellar Overdrive, The Gnome, Bike and Astronomy Domine during which Syd used to perform some of his most crazed and inspired guitar work. On 11th March 1967 their first single Arnold Layne was released. As Arnold Layne was about a clothes fetishist who stole pieces of clothes off washing lines radio stations banned the record for being "too smutty". Despite this Arnold Layne entered the Record Mirror chart at number 20 and many people think this is the finest record Pink Floyd ever made. The B-side of a single was originally called Let's Roll Another One but was later renamed to Candy And A Currant Bun. Waters: "We had to change all the lyrics in the song because it was about rolling joints."

In april Floyds went in the studio again and completed five tracks for their first album.

Games for May concert on 12th May was another very important gig for the group. Syd wrote the song Games for May especially for this occasion and they worked out a fantastic stereophonic sound system (called Azimuth Co-ordinator) where sound travelled round the hall, giving the audience an effect of being surrounded by the music. Roger: "Azimuth Co-ordinator is just a name we invented for the quadrophonic pan pot that we use. When we started using such pan pots there weren't any, nobody had made them."

On 23rd May See Emily Play was recorded. It was actually the Games for May song which was renamed for the single (there was Scarecrow on the B-side). It was released on 16th June and reached number 5 in the Melody Maker chart. This meant that they had to appear on the "Top of the Pops" TV show but Syd started to behave very strange: during filming of their appearance on the TV he just stood there with his mirror-disc Telecaster and mumbled strange words. This incident was very disappointing for the band but with such kind of behaviour Syd probably rescued them from being involved with the apparatus of the entertainment industry.

On 5th August the first Pink Floyd album was released:

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

SONG	WRITTEN BY	VOCALS	TIME	RATING
Astronomy Domine	Barrett	Barrett	4:08
Lucifer Sam	Barrett	Barrett	3:03
Matilda Mother	Barrett	Wright, Barrett	3:05
Flaming	Barrett	Barrett	2:42
Pow R. Toc H.	Barrett, Waters, Wright, Mason	---	4:22
Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk	Waters	Waters	3:03
Interstellar Overdrive	Barrett. Waters, Wright, Mason	---	9:41
The Gnome	Barrett	Barrett	2:11
Chapter 24	Barrett	Barrett	3:38
The Scarecrow	Barrett	Barrett	2:07
Bike	Barrett	Barrett	3:22

The name of the album was taken from a chapter in Kenneth Graham's novel "Wind In The Willows" which was Syd's favourite book. Syd also designed back cover. In the UK album chart Piper reached number 6, staying in the Top 20 for 7 weeks.
Paul McCartney: "The album was a knockout."