Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Pink Floyd - 1970-03-00 - 370 Roman Yards


Here

2 comments:

Dr. Forrester said...

PINK FLOYD 370 ROMAN YARDS - The Lost ZP Album

This is the soundtrack album for Zabriskie Point that never was, one performed entirely by Pink Floyd, now released by MQR.
This album is the natural product of years and years of passionate research applied to the Zabriskie Point topic by WRomanus.
Over the years many theories have been presented, and we all know a good researcher has to prove his theories whenever possible. In recent years his dedication has yielded the deserved prizes.

"I had the luck to get from Glenn Povey what I call simply The Document, part of the ZP recording sheets of EMI studios. I was also able to make contact with Don Hall, the Music Adviser of the movie. I'm honoured to say that this contact became a real friendship.
With my great satisfaction almost all my theories, even the most incredible, were confirmed."

This Album is part of the Complete Zabriskie Point Collection and The Box called A Total Zabriskie Point of View.
We share it in advance to highlight this very important find of Pink Floyd's career.

1. Heart Beat, Pig Meat - 3:10
2. Country Song - 4:40
3. Fingal's Cave - 1:54
4. Crumbling Land - 5:55
5. Alan's Blues - 5:44
6. Oenone - 6:51
7. Rain in the Country - 6:53
8. Come in Number 51, Your Time Is Up - 5:02

Note it makes in Total 40:09 (inclosed some blank seconds in between the songs).
The Original Soundtrack by MGM is 36:29 + 2:52 Rolling Stones = 39:21 minutes (no considering Roy Orbison at all)

Dr. Forrester said...

The History
In the summer of 1969 Michelangelo Antonioni completed the filming of his visionary and prophetic view of America and our society.
All that was left was to complete the movie with a good Soundtrack.
Antonioni was interested in everything that was new and trendy among young people.
Don Hall was on the air during his nocturnal DJ program on KPCC FM Pasadena when he was contacted personally by Antonioni at the end of the summer of 1969.
Antonioni really liked Don and invited him to have some screenings of the movie.
After that Don provided a list of songs he felt would work, most coming from his program.
Antonioni asked MGM to hire Don as Music Advisor for the soundtrack and came back to Rome (Don still has a letter from Antonioni, sent from Rome with the list of the songs he'd like to be in the movie, all songs for the radio-desert sequences).
Still they had to find how to score all the main sequences: Beginning, Violent, Take Off, Love and Explosions sequences (and eventually more).
Antonioni wanted original music for those sequences. Many artists and bands were contacted to write original music for the movie, but none of them was asked to write the whole soundtrack of the movie.
In October '69 Don was in Rome with Antonioni trying to find a way to score the whole movie in time for Christmas.
Near the end of the month it happened that Clare Peploe (cowriter of the movie and Antonioni's girlfriend at the time) brought to Rome a brand new copy of the new Pink Floyd album, Ummagumma, from London.
Antonioni, Don Hall and Clare listened to the new album with a small stereo at Antonioni's house in Rome.
Antonioni REALLY liked Ummagumma and listened several times to the whole album. He liked Careful With That Axe, Eugene very much and told Don that he'd like a new version for the final sequence of Zabriskie Point.
They decided to try and hire Pink Floyd to record all the original music they needed for the movie. MGM contacted Pink Floyd.
After that Steve O'Rourke came to Rome alone during the first days of November '69 tocheck and organize it all.
All was done in few days, and Pink Floyd came he 15th of November with Pete Watts and Alan Stiles, cancelling some shows planned for their present tour. Antonioni and Don showed the movie to them several times with some scenes already scored, highlighting those without.
At that point Steve and Roger Waters had a talk and asked Antonioni to try to score the whole movie. He, been enthusiastic about Ummagumma, agreed.
Pink Floyd produced a large quantity of music, especially for the Love Scene but Antonioni was not satisfied and the sessions ran longer than planned.
In the end Pink Floyd went back to London with some songs to finish.
Out of all the entire production of songs, including themes and variations,
Antonioni ended up using only three songs.
He kept on searching for "something better" till the last days before the premiere of the movie. In London Pink Floyd completed their final versions of these eight songs with the intent of them being their eventual Album for the Zabriskie Point Soundtrack.

THE RECORD.
What we at MQR present here is the closest thing possible to the album that would have been released by Pink Floyd in 1970 if they had been sole musicians on the soundtrack of the film. The mixes on this record are either the mixes made by Pink Floyd for release, or as close as we could make using the material available.
We have restored and enhanced everything using the best technology and skills available to us.
The quality of these tracks varies due to the sources used, but we have done our best to make it all sound as good as possible.