1861

Status Notices / Re: Scheduled maintenance, 2014-12-13

« on: December 13, 2014, 08:07:42 AM »

And we're done. We didn't convert the wiki off SQLite, simply because we need a bit more planning in order to do it properly and we didn't want to do a hacky job that would come back to bite us later. The forum database has been tuned up, though.

Thanks for flying Flat Earth Society!

1862

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Pink Floyd discography listen-through

« on: December 13, 2014, 07:55:07 AM »

The Division Bell
Studio CD


Recorded: January - December 1993
Released: 28 March 1994

Band lineup

David Gilmour (guitar)
Nick Mason (drums)
Richard Wright (keyboards)

Tim Renwick (guitar)
Jon Carin (keyboards)
Dick Parry (saxophone)
Guy Pratt (bass)
Gary Wallis (percussion)
Bob Ezrin (keyboards, percussion)

Sam Brown (vocals)
Durga McBroom (vocals)
Carol Kenyon (vocals)
Jackie Sheridan (vocals)
Rebecca Leigh-White (vocals)

With Stephen Hawking's artificial voice on "Keep Talking".

Track listing

1. Cluster One (Gilmour, Wright) (5:58)
2. What Do You Want From Me? (Gilmour, Wright, Polly Samson) (4:21)
3. Poles Apart (Gilmour, Samson, Nick Laird-Clowes) (7:04)
4. Marooned (Gilmour, Wright) (5:29)
5. A Great Day for Freedom (Gilmour, Samson) (4:17)
6. Wearing the Inside Out (Wright, Anthony Moore) (6:49)
7. Take It Back (Gilmour, Samson, Laird-Clowes, Bob Ezrin) (6:12)
8. Coming Back to Life (Gilmour) (6:19)
9. Keep Talking (Gilmour, Wright, Samson) (6:11)
10. Lost for Words (Gilmour, Samson) (5:14)
11. High Hopes (Gilmour, Samson) (8:31)

Review

Just when you thought Pink Floyd couldn't get any worse, David Gilmour marries a woman who is an even worse lyricist than himself. Polly Samson's incredible talent with words really makes the instrumental tracks on this album stand out from the rest. Couple that with the fact that much of the music is little other than rehashes on established material, and there really isn't much of value on this record.

That's not to say that it doesn't have its enjoyable moments; they're just incredibly rare, and usually moments that seem like they've been cut straight out of other Floyd albums. Cluster One is a pleasant listen, but like Signs of Life before it, it feels like a slight rearrangement of the intro to Shine On You Crazy Diamond, featuring minimal piano and guitar parts over a synth drone. What Do You Want From Me? is pretty much just Have a Cigar, but with Roger's lyrics replaced by Polly's.

Poles Apart and Marooned offer a brief respite from the brutal onslaught. Poles Apart is a cute little ballad with some of the less objectionable lyrics on this album, speaking out to both Syd and Roger as former bandmates. Marooned is another Gilmour/Wright instrumental; the last to be released during Wright's lifetime. I'd have to say that Marooned is the high point of the album for me; it doesn't come across as a rewrite of an old song like the opening piece, and consists of a pretty good lap steel solo from David over a series of chords that is unmistakeably of Rick's creation, displaying the same talent for writing good backing music as he displayed on The Great Gig in the Sky and the final part of Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

A Great Day for Freedom is a song about Gilmour's feelings regarding the fall of the Berlin Wall and the perceived liberation of eastern Europe. The title is somewhat ironic, as the song ends with the lyrics "I turned and I looked at you / and all but the bitter residue slipped away". To be honest, this song isn't as bad as I remember it; it's not great, but the lyrics don't make me want to cringe, and it ends with a decent guitar solo from David.

Wearing the Inside Out is Rick's song of the album, composed and sung by Rick, with lyrics by Anthony Moore. While it doesn't compare to Rick's early pieces -- See-Saw, Summer '68, Stay, and even It Would Be So Nice -- it's nice to have a break from the monotony of David's music and Polly's lyrics. The lyrics are darker than the rest of the album, and while they are somewhat vague, they seem to refer to Rick's extended absence from the band ("I murmured a vow / of silence and now / I don't even hear when I think aloud") and return to songwriting ("I'm with you now / Can speak your name / Now we can hear ourselves again").

All too soon, the album thrusts another Gilmour/Samson number upon us once more. Take It Back is difficult to review, because just listening to it makes me want to distract myself with something else. It sounds like an awkward cross between classic Floyd, '90s pop music, and the worst lyrics ever committed to paper.

Coming Back to Life is the only track on the album credited only to David Gilmour. On any other Pink Floyd album, this would be cause for a quick snooze, but in this case it means relief from Polly Samson's lyrics for a while. The music isn't all that interesting, though, and I quickly found myself losing attentiveness. Keep Talking isn't much better, Stephen Hawking's voice being the most interesting part of the song. While David Gilmour's second guitar solo accompanies a return of the pig-like guitar tone from Animals, this only furthers the impression that this album is riding on Pink Floyd's earlier successes.

The album ends as unimpressively as it began. Lost for Words is entirely unmemorable; generic pop musically, and on par with most of its companions on this album lyrically. High Hopes is to The Division Bell as Sorrow is to A Momentary Lapse of Reason; a pompous finale that comes across as a failed attempt to end the album in some deep and meaningful way. Its one saving grace is a pretty good lap steel solo from David at the end.

If you need any proof that Roger was an indispensable part of post-Syd Floyd, this is it; just as The Final Cut is proof that David and Rick were indispensable parts of the same band. This album has its moments, but they are moments that lend themselves well to augmentation from Roger's inclination to write compelling lyrics and to produce solid concept albums. This band has all the disadvantages of the post-Syd Floyd, trying to find its own footing; but none of the advantages of being young and open to new direction. This is a band making a sort of music they aren't good at making, and as the last album released while all of its members were still living, this was their final chance to shine. And they didn't.

1863

Announcements / Possible weird behaviour in Who's Online

« on: December 13, 2014, 05:46:24 AM »

I've made a couple of fixes (one undoing some of the other; my first fix was somewhat overzealous) to Who's Online behaviour:

https://github.com/TheFlatEarthSociety/forum.tfes.org/commit/0edba326c6638ae6de3f23046955377b3e94d353
https://github.com/TheFlatEarthSociety/forum.tfes.org/commit/26cea71234d9b3d9b2bc42093f72735fda760099

The purpose of these fixes is to get rid of error spam in the database log, so that we can more effectively tune up PostgreSQL, and also to help us notice real problems. That said, it's possible I've missed something important; the SMF code for updating the online log is very weird and complex.

The second fix linked above fixes an issue where the same user could appear multiple times in Who's Online, caused by the first fix. If you notice any other odd behaviour, please let me know.

1864

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: The UK is a silly place.

« on: December 13, 2014, 04:08:09 AM »

Since "silly" is a relative term

I don't know about that:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/silly

showing a lack of thought or judgment; not serious and not showing much intelligence

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/silly

: having or showing a lack of thought, understanding, or good judgment : foolish or stupid
: not practical or sensible
: not serious, meaningful, or important

Yeah, I'd say it's pretty silly.

I don't see anything relative in there. Subjective, certainly; but with well-defined parameters for what is foolish, stupid, practical, sensible, serious, meaningful and important, these definitions are absolute.

Can we please stop derailing the thread now? Despite Rushy's attempt to troll his own thread, the link in the OP is a valid point of discussion.

1865

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Pink Floyd discography listen-through

« on: December 12, 2014, 02:02:24 PM »

Delicate Sound of Thunder
Concert film (directed by Wayne Isham)

Recorded: 19-23 August 1988, Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York
Released: 13 June 1989

Band lineup

David Gilmour (guitar)
Nick Mason (drums)
Richard Wright (keyboards)

Tim Renwick (guitar)
Jon Carin (keyboards)
Scott Page (saxophone)
Guy Pratt (bass)
Gary Wallis (percussion)

Margaret Taylor (vocals)
Rachel Fury (vocals)
Durga McBroom (vocals)

Songs included (in order of appearance)

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (part I) (Wright, Waters, Gilmour)
Signs of Life (Gilmour, Bob Ezrin)
Learning to Fly (Gilmour, Ezrin, Anthony Moore, Jon Carin)
Sorrow (Gilmour)
The Dogs of War (Gilmour, Moore)
On the Turning Away (Gilmour, Moore)
One of These Days (Waters, Gilmour, Wright, Mason)
  * Includes a fragment of Speak to Me (Mason)
Time (Waters, Gilmour, Wright, Mason)
On the Run (Waters, Gilmour)
The Great Gig in the Sky (Wright, Clare Torry)
Wish You Were Here (Waters, Gilmour)
Us and Them (Waters, Wright)
Money (Waters)
Comfortably Numb (Waters, Gilmour)
One Slip (Gilmour, Phil Manzanera)
Run Like Hell (Waters, Gilmour)
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts II, IV, V) (Waters, Gilmour, Wright)

Review

Of all the films Pink Floyd have been involved in the making of, this is their first true concert film. London '66-'67 and Live at Pompeii both depicted Pink Floyd performing, but that wasn't the sole focus of either of those films; rather, both were art films that were augmented by the presence of Pink Floyd's music. Delicate Sound of Thunder was filmed on Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, and therefore prominently features music from that album; and, of course, there is no Roger.

Meanwhile, the band has been augmented with a replacement bassist; a saxophonist; additional guitar and keyboard players; a percussionist who seems to carry most of the rhythmic burden while Nick plods away in common time; and, of course, three female vocalists who also dance around and generally look pretty when they're not singing. I guess that's the kind of band you can afford when you've had one of the most popular albums ever made in stores for the past decade and a half.

The first third of the show is where I really appreciated that eye candy. Aside from the first part of Shine On, which is really just keyboard and guitar solos over a drone, the first 40 minutes or so is taken up by Momentary Lapse material. Some of it (read: Signs of Life) is interesting as ever, made moreso by the accompaniment of a film track which is fairly cleverly synchronised to the music. The pieces with climactic guitar solos, Sorrow and On the Turning Away, seem to gain a bit of life here as compared to their studio recordings. The real let-down is, once again, The Dogs of War -- quite honestly, I'm amazed this band could sing those lyrics with a straight face.

All of a sudden, the show takes a turn for the better, as Guy hits the opening bass note to One of These Days. And away we go; David's lap steel seeming to soar as high as the inflatable pig being released above the band. Time is a pleasure to hear again, especially Rick's vocal parts; the only solo lead vocal Rick gets in this video, and his first since he sung this tune on The Dark Side of the Moon.

On the Run livens things up with an amusing video depicting a guy looking suspiciously like Roger lying in a hospital bed. As the tune goes on, the bed accelerates out of the hospital and along a runway, with its occupant looking continually more disturbed with the fact that his bed is rising into the sky. As the video builds to a climax, the explosion at the end of On the Run is matched by a live explosion on stage. An interesting take on a classic instrumental.

As the on-stage explosion dies down, Rick plays the opening chords to The Great Gig in the Sky, and then it's our lovely ladies' turn to shine. Each of Rachel, Durga and Margaret (in that order) takes a turn at the wordless lead vocal part in this beautiful tune; while none of them can match the majesty of Clare Torry's original performance, they do prove to be a force to be reckoned with.

Up next is Wish You Were Here, which seems to take on new meaning in the wake of Roger's departure. Originally, this song was an ode from Roger and David to Syd; now, David sings alone, a band leader by circumstance. Us and Them is nice to hear, but nothing special; but Money is the real treat of the Dark Side material. The midsection, originally a typical bluesy Gilmour solo, has been extended into a jam rarely seen in such late Floyd.

First, Gilmour's solo leads us into a reggae run-through of the blues progression, with the entire band jamming together. Then the band drops out and Guy delivers a groovy bass solo, followed up with a keyboard solo from Rick. We even get a chorus of "ooh"s from the dancing girls, which quite frankly, I could do without. This jam builds up to the inevitable conclusion to David's guitar solo and return to the vocals (which have also been ruined by interjections from the ladies in this arrangement).

Comfortably Numb is interesting here, mainly for the poor man's replacement for Roger's vocal part which got tacked on. The doctor is played here by a dissonant harmony consisting of Rick, Guy and Jon, which can't live up to Roger's performance on The Wall, but it stands surprisingly well on its own. The guitar solo makes up for that loss; David seems much more inspired here than he did on the original.

Then David seems to feel the audience could use a quick nap before the concert ends, so he throws in another Momentary Lapse song. My favourite part of One Slip is when Jon pulls a face, looking downright revolted at the fact that he's expected to sing these lyrics. Then we get a Run Like Hell, with Guy filling in vocal duties for Roger, and the show is over. The remaining parts of Shine On, which were cut out at the beginning, play over the closing credits for the film; David doesn't do too bad of a job on the vocal part, which was originally sung by Roger, and the rest is essentially played as on the album.

This concert could have been much more interesting had it been recorded in 1974, when Pink Floyd were in their prime, touring The Dark Side of the Moon and playing early versions of what would become Dogs and Sheep. But alas, nobody thought to haul out the cameras until 1988, so we get the next best thing. This performance varies between pretty good and mind-numbingly dull, and typically those two correspond to the "classic" Floyd material and the new songs. I wouldn't recommend this if decent concert footage existed of Floyd as they were a decade prior, but given the lack of alternatives, this is the best document of live Floyd you'll get.

1866

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: TPB is down.

« on: December 10, 2014, 12:48:17 PM »

Just use BTDigg. It lacks the nice feature of being able to read and leave comments on torrents, but it finds them just the same.

1867

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: No big bang

« on: December 09, 2014, 10:20:29 AM »

Of course the Big Bang, as it is currently explained by science teachers, probably didn't happen. Modern physicists readily admit that we don't have enough information about the early Universe to accurately model what went on. The Big Bang is a convenient model that fits our current data and is easy to teach; much like Newtonian gravitation, which has been known to be false for a century but is still taught in schools because it is useful.

Scientists have used the dogma of the speed of light being a constant for so long now, I suspect its ruining future discovery. In 1976 they fixed the metre to the speed of light ... and since then the speed of light has become fixed ... because the bloody metre changes instead. It has stopped our ability to measure light's speed. And of course we have m/s. And time isn't fixed either. That changes with relativity and gravity and all kinds of things.

It hasn't "stopped" our ability to measure anything. Regardless of what labels we slap on the numbers that come out of our instruments, we'll still get the same numbers. Only our interpretation varies, and it's no more difficult to notice that the metre has shrunk than it is to notice that light has slowed down because they are different interpretations of the same data. Do you have a reputable source which claims that either has actually happened?

First, I think the speed of light is slowing down, because time is speeding up

How can time be "speeding up"? Speed is a function of distance over time, or in the more colloquial sense (as "rate"), of some variable over time. Naturally, time over time is always precisely 1. What is time "speeding up" relative to?

Also, you claim that light is slowing down, but one of your sources claims that it is speeding up. Which is it, Thork?

1868

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Pink Floyd discography listen-through

« on: December 07, 2014, 09:59:21 AM »

A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Studio album


Recorded: October 1986 - May 1987
Released: 7 September 1987

Band lineup

David Gilmour (guitar)
Nick Mason (drums)
Richard Wright* (keyboards)

Tony Levin (bass)
Also featuring numerous other session musicians.

* Wright had returned to the band in all but name for legal reasons; he had entered a contractual agreement a number of years prior which prevented him from rejoining Pink Floyd.

All tracks authored by David Gilmour, except where noted.

Side A

1. Signs of Life (Gilmour, Bob Ezrin) (4:24)
2. Learning to Fly (Gilmour, Ezrin, Anthony Moore, Jon Carin) (4:53)
3. The Dogs of War (Gilmour, Moore) (6:05)
4. One Slip (Gilmour, Phil Manzanera) (5:10)
5. On the Turning Away (Gilmour, Moore) (5:42)

Side B

1. Yet Another Movie / Round and Around (Gilmour, Patrick Leonard) (7:28)
2. A New Machine (part I) (1:46)
3. Terminal Frost (6:17)
4. A New Machine (part II) (:38)
5. Sorrow (8:46)

Review

From the ashes of Roger's attempt to kill the Pink Floyd name and continue in the vein of The Final Cut as a solo artist, David began work on the first ever Floyd album not to have any material written by Roger. In some respects, this may be considered a David Gilmour solo album in the same way that The Final Cut may be considered a Roger Waters solo album. However, with everyone in the band on speaking terms again, the return of Rick to the group, and the intention for the trio to tour with the support of some of the session musicians who worked on the album, this feels more like Pink Floyd than anything else since Wish You Were Here.

The lyrics are where this material really suffers. While the music is far more interesting than anything on The Wall or The Final Cut, the clarity of focus is lost somewhat, as a band which had learned to rely on Roger to write their words scrambled to come up with something of their own to say. There is some redemption in that the first lyrical piece, Learning to Fly, seems to lampshade this fact; it seems to be David's way of expressing his feelings of trying to get an all-but-defeated group of musicians off the ground again.

Aside from Learning to Fly, side A consists of an instrumental opener which, while very enjoyable, feels like a rehash of the opening to Shine On You Crazy Diamond, with ambient synths backing a slow, bluesy guitar solo. The remaining three tracks continue the theme of combining abysmal lyrics with decent tunes. The Dogs of War is a particularly bad example, where David seems to be trying to prove that Pink Floyd doesn't need Roger to write compelling songs about tragedies of war, and ends up demonstrating the opposite. As is typical of this album, the song is saved from being a complete disaster by a pretty awesome sax solo in the middle.

Side A ends with a fade-out on one of Gilmour's better guitar solos since Animals, ten years ago, and then we get to turn the record over. Unlike side A, side B is almost entirely credited to David as author, but is rescued from being a second lyrical abomination by the extended instrumental (and my personal favourite track on the album), Terminal Frost. This track is a piece with the two parts of A New Machine, which is almost entirely driven by David's lead vocal, although they've done some interesting thing with synths to make his voice sound robotic. Surprisingly, though, A New Machine's lyrics don't make me want to cringe. These three tracks are definitely the highlight of the album for me.

That leaves the songs that bookend side B, both of which follow the overall pattern of "good music, terrible lyrics". This wouldn't be such a bad thing if Sorrow didn't come across as a failed attempt at a lyrically-driven tour de force for Pink Floyd's return. Personally, I find this finale to be a waste of perfectly good magnetic tape, with the closing solo coming across as pointless meandering, the likes of which we haven't heard since Comfortably Numb. A disappointing end to what could have been a half-decent album.

Overall, I find this album to be fairly inconsistent. When it's good (Signs of Life and especially Terminal Frost), it's really good, and you can start to believe that Pink Floyd doesn't need Roger to carry on. But when it's bad (The Dogs of War and Sorrow), it's like listening to a whole album full of Fat Old Sun and Childhood's End. Pink Floyd without Roger just doesn't work any better than Pink Floyd with only Roger; this band shone in the early '70s because the band members work well together, but they aren't nearly as good apart. Roger put it best when he wrote The Wall: "Together we stand, divided we fall".

1869

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Pink Floyd discography listen-through

« on: December 07, 2014, 07:14:29 AM »

Works
Compilation album


Recorded: 1967 - 1973
Released: 18 June 1983

Band lineup

Syd Barrett (guitar on "Arnold Layne", "See Emily Play" and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun")
Roger Waters (bass)
David Gilmour (guitar, except "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play")
Richard Wright (keyboards)
Nick Mason (drums)

All tracks authored by Roger Waters, except where noted.

Side A

1. One of These Days (Waters, Gilmour, Wright, Mason) (5:50)
  * Originally released on Meddle.
  * Includes part of "Speak to Me", from The Dark Side of the Moon.
2. Arnold Layne (Barrett) (2:52)
  * Originally released as a single.
3. Fearless (Waters, Gilmour) (6:08)
  * Originally released on Meddle.
  * Includes "You'll Never Walk Alone" (Rodgers, Hammerstein).
4. Brain Damage (3:50)
  * Originally released on The Dark Side of the Moon.
5. Eclipse (1:45)
  * Originally released on The Dark Side of the Moon.

Side B

1. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (5:23)
  * Originally released on A Saucerful of Secrets.
2. See Emily Play (Barrett) (2:54)
  * Originally released as a single.
3. Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict (4:47)
  * Originally released on Ummagumma.
4. Free Four (4:07)
  * Originally released on Obscured by Clouds.
5. Embryo (4:39)
  * Previously unreleased (recorded in 1968).

Review

Despite numerous remixes and crossfades to try to make this assortment of early Floyd tracks flow together nicely, it still comes across as simply a collection of old songs. On the other hand, hearing early Floyd again is like a breath of fresh air after Animals, The Wall and The Final Cut. I most definitely enjoyed this.

With the exception of Arnold Layne, Side A consists entirely of material from Meddle and The Dark Side of the Moon, making this a brief catalogue of early progressive Floyd. Side B proceeds to showcase Floyd's earlier psychedelic side, again with one exception (Free Four). The tracks in both cases are generally close to being the cream of the crop; I personally don't have a taste for Set the Controls or Free Four, but it's still a worthy sampler for anyone who doesn't feel like listening through all of Pink Floyd's early albums.

The reason I included this compilation is that the final track isn't included on any other Pink Floyd album. Embryo is a song from 1968, written by Roger during their "we lost Syd, now what?" phase, and is very mellow even by '68 Floyd standards. It would have fit in quite well on More, with the same ambient organ, piano and acoustic guitar backing which makes that album such a relaxing listen. The lyrics, sung by David, tell the story of an embryo floating around in a womb in the first person. Overall, one of the better songs that should have been in More -- it would have been better than A Spanish Piece, at any rate.

It's difficult to sum up, because Floyd's style changed so much between the late '60s and early '70s, making this album seem like two completely disjoined halves. These songs aren't all the picks I would have made, but they're also nowhere close to being the worst possible choices. I guess you should listen to this if either you like early Floyd and want to hear Embryo, or you're curious about early Floyd and want a quick run-through without having to listen to each album in turn. It's far from essential, but it's also not bad, and definitely an improvement on Relics.

1870

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Pink Floyd discography listen-through

« on: December 06, 2014, 02:30:34 PM »

The Final Cut
Film (directed by Willie Christie)

Released: 1983

Band lineup

Roger Waters (bass, guitar)
David Gilmour (guitar)
Nick Mason (drums)

Michael Kamen (piano, harmonium)
Andy Bown (organ)
Ray Cooper (percussion)

Also featuring the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Michael Kamen.

All tracks authored by Roger Waters.

Songs included (in order of appearance)

The Gunner's Dream
The Final Cut
Not Now John
The Fletcher Memorial Home

Review

So, this is basically a few songs from the album set to footage of people doing things vaguely related to the music. The protagonist (I think; it's hard to tell who's playing what role) is played by the same actor who portrays the school teacher in The Wall, who seems to be the father of someone who died in a war (who is meant to be the gunner in The Gunner's Dream, I think). There seems to be some sort of storyline where he gets his revenge against the people responsible for the war in The Fletcher Memorial Home, though I'm not sure what the rest of the film has to do with that.

Highlights include Roger getting shot during The Final Cut (at the line that was originally "I'll tell you what's behind the wall", which got cut short by a gunshot when it was taken out of The Wall for use in The Final Cut) and Margaret Thatcher getting shot during The Fletcher Memorial Home (who wouldn't want to see that?). The Not Now John section also made me laugh, as the female backing vocals were fairly poorly lip-synced by a group of women in stereotypical Japanese dress.

There's also an attractive young woman who goes around stroking people's faces and various objects, although I really don't have any idea what she's supposed to represent.

Once again, this is better than The Wall by virtue of being shorter, and by that token it's also better than the album it's based on, but I wouldn't say it's particularly good. Watch at your own risk.

1871

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: December 06, 2014, 01:23:14 PM »

Just watched Iron Man as part of a deal where Snupes would listen to Atom Heart Mother and Meddle. It was the worst pile of crap I've endured in years. The plot was boring, the gags were predictable, the one-liners weren't funny, the physics was unrealistic and the villains were walking cliches.

That leaves the remaining feature of the film, which is heavy things moving around at high speeds, shooting fire and causing explosions. Maybe I'd have liked it more if I was 14 and got off on seeing people get killed in repetitive and uncreative ways, but that just doesn't do it for me at 25.

0/10, would buy it if the frisbees were all sold out.

1872

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Pink Floyd discography listen-through

« on: December 06, 2014, 10:16:21 AM »

The Final Cut
Studio album


Recorded: July - December 1982
Released: 21 March 1983

Band lineup

Roger Waters (bass, guitar)
David Gilmour (guitar)
Nick Mason (drums, except "Two Suns in the Sunset")

Michael Kamen (piano, harmonium)
Andy Bown (organ)
Raphael Ravenscroft (saxophone)
Ray Cooper (percussion)
Andy Newmark (drums on "Two Suns in the Sunset")

Also featuring the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Michael Kamen.

All tracks authored by Roger Waters.

Side A

1. The Post War Dream (3:02)
2. Your Possible Pasts (4:22)
3. One of the Few (1:23)
4. The Hero's Return (2:56)
5. The Gunner's Dream (5:07)
6. Paranoid Eyes (3:40)

Side B

1. Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert (1:19)
2. The Fletcher Memorial Home (4:11)
3. Southampton Dock (2:13)
4. The Final Cut (4:46)
5. Not Now John (5:01)
6. Two Suns in the Sunset (5:14)

Review

Except for a few brief guitar solos from David, this album is really more like a Roger Waters solo album than a Pink Floyd album. This impression is furthered by the fact that Roger and David weren't on speaking terms with each other during its recording, working separately in the studio; combined with the fact that this would be the last new material Roger would write under the Pink Floyd name.

Consisting mainly of discarded material from The Wall, the main redeeming feature of The Final Cut is that it's half as long as its older brother. Michael Kamen's piano playing helps to save the album from sounding completely like rehashed filler, making The Gunner's Dream the highlight of side 1. Then on the other hand, we have songs like The Hero's Return and The Final Cut, which seem to be little other than excerpts from the already-milked-to-death life story of Pink. Finally, there's The Fletcher Memorial Home, which (coupled with Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert, which serves as an intro) is just five and a half minutes of Roger whining on about various national leaders waging war against each other. The title is taken from his father's middle name, Fletcher, who was killed in such a war -- clever, you see?

Not Now John is the only song where David gets a vocal part; musically, it sounds like a rehash of Another Brick in the Wall with more sound effects. The lyrics in the second verse deal with the banality of Hollywood filmmaking ("who cares what it's about as long as the kids go?"), which is apt, because that seems to have been exactly Roger's approach to the making of the film adaptation of The Wall.

Two Suns in the Sunset is a song about a nuclear holocaust; the second Sun being a nuclear explosive "in the east, even though the day is done". This song is the nail in the coffin for Waters-led Floyd; with Rick having left the band entirely, Andy Newmark taking over drumming from Nick Mason for this track, and soloing duties taken by Raphael Ravenscroft on saxophone, this is as unFloydy as Floyd gets. Gone are the psychedelic jams; gone are the fanciful lyrics about bikes, breakfasts and bright ambassadors of morning; gone is the collaboration that made this band tick in their heyday. Pink Floyd has come full circle, and we're back to the solo band member doodling away that we heard on Ummagumma. And frankly, Roger's work on Ummagumma is more interesting than this.

I like this album more than The Wall, but only because it's shorter. Do yourself a favour and skip them both.

1873

Announcements / PLEASE READ: An important appeal from FES admin Parsifal

« on: December 06, 2014, 06:12:57 AM »

This week marks the one-year anniversary of this forum. I just wanted to make an announcement as a sort of milestone, and also to say that I'm very proud of what we've been able to accomplish. I don't know about you guys, but this is the best online community I've ever been a part of, and I appreciate all of you who have helped to make that a reality, whether you've contributed to the website design, involved yourself in community discussions, or just been part of making this a great place by posting here.

That being said, some amount of what I had originally wanted to accomplish for this website has not transpired. Some of it turned out to be ideological dreaming, or simply overkill for a website this small, but others I still intend to work on. In the coming months, I'm hoping to make this place more robust than ever. Some changes that are in the works, or being considered, roughly in decreasing order of priority:

• Migrating FES services off my personal VPS and onto something pizaaplanet can better help to maintain in case of unexpected outages. Making this happen is a goal before I go exploring New Zealand in January, as I won't be around much in that time.
• Setting up a monitoring server. This is something I keep talking about and not doing, and I'm hoping to change that. I want to be alerted if the website goes down, rather than happen to notice a few hours after the fact.
• Tuning up the various bits of the site to make sure they continue to perform well as we continue to grow. We're making a start on that next week.
• Testing our modifications to SMF on the recently released 2.1 beta version. This may not happen until February or so, but if anyone with epic design skillz wants to step up to port our theme to 2.1, please let me know.

And of course, the reunification conversation is still proceeding. We'll hopefully have something to bring to the community soon.

Finally, I'd like to remind and encourage everyone to create threads in S&C if you encounter bugs, or anything that frustrates you about this forum. I'd like to do what I can to make this the best community on the Internet for all of you, as it already is for me, but I can't fix problems I don't know about. Help me to help you.

Your friendly local sysadmin,
Parsifal.

1874

Status Notices / Scheduled maintenance, 2014-12-13

« on: December 06, 2014, 05:57:58 AM »

The forum, wiki and IRC will be going offline for about five minutes on 2014-12-13, between 08:00 and 08:15 UTC.

For convenience, this means:

EST (USA east coast):
2014-12-13, 03:00-03:15

UTC (UK):
2014-12-13, 08:00-08:15

AEDT (Australia east coast):
2014-12-13, 19:00-19:15


The intent is to install security updates on the server which hosts the forum, wiki and IRC. These will be non-disruptive to functionality, as the server is running a stable OS release that gets critical fixes only.

Additionally, the opportunity will be taken to perform some tuning on the forum database server, which has been running on default settings since this website was set up; and to migrate the wiki off SQLite, which it was originally configured with. We now have enough real data and traffic that it is worth looking at what tuning is required to make the website run smoothly.

1875

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: December 05, 2014, 06:18:03 AM »

What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.

Finally finished the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series (except The Plan, but I'm going to leave that for a while because the ending of the main series was just so awesome). If you're planning to read this post any further, you should expect spoilers.

Galactica is difficult to compare with other sci-fi I'm familiar with, because it's just so... different. I like that its relationship with modern civilisation is kept a secret until the very last episode, because it makes that aspect of the show all the more poignant when it finally arrives. Overall, it was much darker than any other sci-fi I've seen, tending to focus on the negative traits of humanity much moreso than the feel-good Star Trek franchise and friends.

I also really enjoyed the lack of a clear distinction between good and evil. In Trek, you're (nearly) always supposed to think the humans are good and the Klingons/Romulans/Dominion/Kazon are evil, although (to its credit) Trek sometimes does subvert that theme. But Galactica regularly portrays people who are regarded as heroes committing unspeakable acts of cruelty, balanced out with enough acts of kindness to avoid tipping the good/evil balance the other way. By the second season, I had already lost the sense of who was right and who was wrong, and had learned to expect that any of the characters could turn against their own people, given the opportunity.

That's not to say that I like it better than Trek. I find the Star Trek universe makes a very good example of what we should strive for, but the Battlestar Galactica universe is a much better commentary on the darker side of human nature. It manages to deliver a striking commentary on modern society and religion without coming across as cheesy; no easy feat, given the number of cliches bouncing around in sci-fi in this area.

I'm tempted to watch it all again at some point, just because of the density of content. There are a lot of little things that are easy to miss; for example, the music is very intricate and detailed (and even has its own Wikipedia article), which tended to register subconsciously moreso than consciously on my first watch. Another running theme that I found quite striking once I noticed it was the tendency of people in positions of power to have discussions that impact the entire fleet (especially those forced to work overtime refining fuel, for instance) while indulging in heavy drinking in their comfortable offices. That's generally something most sci-fi goes to great lengths to avoid depicting, and I appreciate the fact that Galactica makes a point of showing it on a regular basis, while never quite drawing attention to it.

That was a bigger wall of text than I intended, but I really did like it a lot. It's a show that boldly goes where no sci-fi has gone before, and thus feels much less like a Star Trek rehash than a new breed of sci-fi. 10/10 would watch again.

1876

Technology & Information / Re: wikipedia will take money from your dead relatives

« on: December 04, 2014, 09:47:08 PM »

I'd say to companies, you can have exclusive control of your own page for 0.1 cents per page view.

Are you drunk again?

1877

Technology & Information / Re: lol linux

« on: December 02, 2014, 06:33:54 PM »

If your target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init, that's pretty bad. I can't even imagine what you've done to get the system into that state. If you really haven't done anything, I'd suspect hard drive failure.

You can probably fix it if it's not that, but I don't know why you'd bother with Ubuntu. Much better to just install something else.

1878

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Pink Floyd discography listen-through

« on: November 29, 2014, 04:14:35 PM »

Pink Floyd - The Wall
Film (directed by Alan Parker)

Released: 14 July 1982

Band lineup

Roger Waters (bass)
David Gilmour (guitar)
Nick Mason (drums)
Richard Wright* (keyboards)

* Richard Wright was not a member of Pink Floyd at the time of the film's release, but as most of the material here is taken from the album recordings, his keyboard playing appears throughout the film.

All tracks authored by Roger Waters, except where noted.
All lyrics written by Roger Waters, except "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot".

Songs included (in order of appearance)

The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot (performed by Vera Lynn) (Michael Carr, Tommie Connor, Jimmy Leach)
When the Tigers Broke Free
The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot (reprise) (Michael Carr, Tommie Connor, Jimmy Leach)
In the Flesh?
The Thin Ice
Another Brick in the Wall (part I)
When the Tigers Broke Free (reprise)
Goodbye Blue Sky
The Happiest Days of Our Lives (incl. quote from Money)
Another Brick in the Wall (part II)
Mother
What Shall We Do Now?
Young Lust (Gilmour, Waters)
One of My Turns
Don't Leave Me Now
Another Brick in the Wall (part III)
Goodbye Cruel World
Is There Anybody Out There?
Nobody Home
Vera
Bring the Boys Back Home
Comfortably Numb (Waters, Gilmour)
In the Flesh
Run Like Hell (Waters, Gilmour)
Waiting for the Worms
Stop (incl. quotes from Your Possible Pasts and 5:11 AM (The Moment of Clarity))
The Trial (Waters, Bob Ezrin)
Outside the Wall

Review

Yes, the saga continues. Fortunately, the film version isn't nearly as painful to sit through as the studio or live albums, mainly thanks to some interesting animation by Gerald Scarfe, as well as other visual cues to pick up the bits of the story left out by the music.

The track listing is somewhat different from the album; while What Shall We Do Now? was included here, as well as a new song, When the Tigers Broke Free, the film excludes Hey You and The Show Must Go On. The transition between what were the first and second halves of the album thus feels rather abrupt; rather than Hey You effectively serving as an interlude between the pre-wall and post-wall parts of the story, the completion of the wall immediately leads into Is There Anybody Out There?, greatly altering the dynamic of the narrative.

Other changes include a resequencing of songs in the first third of the story, and references to some of Roger's other lyrical works. The teacher in The Happiest Days of Our Lives snatches a book of poems from younk Pink and reads aloud to the class in an attempt at humiliation, with the lyrics being an excerpt from Money. Later, in Stop, an adult Pink is reading out more of his own poetry, which includes two of Roger's unreleased (at the time) songs; Your Possible Pasts (from The Final Cut) and 5:11 AM (The Moment of Clarity) (from The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, Roger's first solo album).

Thanks to the visual component, the film manages to convey the story of Pink much better than audio alone. Rather than the linear storyline implied by the album, Pink often switches between an adult, an adolescent and a child, even being a child meeting himself as an adult at one point. Clarification is provided as to the main setting by way of the opening scene, in which Pink is sitting in his room with his eyebrows shaved off, unresponsive to anything going on around him. This is later the setting for Comfortably Numb, in which Pink's manager attempts to rouse him prior to a show.

There is generally more emphasis on war in the film version than either of the albums, beginning with With the Tigers Broke Free, which is used to accompany the scene of Pink's father dying in battle. This persists throughout the film, with televisions appearing in strange places, usually showing some sort of war-themed programme, and Pink as a child walks through the aftermath of a battle between Nobody Home and Vera. This is a nice change of pace, as the film maintains some consistent focus, as opposed to the album which seems to jump between themes a lot.

Gerald Scarfe's animations come to a climactic finale in The Trial, with established caricatures of Pink's teacher, wife and mother testifying against him while he is propped up against a cartoon wall, leading up to the dramatic ending in which the wall is violently torn down. I find this to be quite reminiscent of the violent closing scene of Zabriskie Point, 12 years earlier. Finally, Outside the Wall plays over the closing credits, and it's finally over.

I won't go so far as to say this is particularly great, but of the three versions of The Wall I've endured in the past week, this is definitely the only one I would rate as being decent. The story certainly gains something from having visual aids, and the visuals also help to prop up the music in parts where it drags on; Comfortably Numb is a particularly good example of this. I'd say this is certainly worth watching, although I'm not sure I'd want to watch it again in a hurry.

1879

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Pink Floyd discography listen-through

« on: November 29, 2014, 10:27:34 AM »

Is There Anybody Out There?
The Wall Live 1980-81
Live double CD


Recorded: 7-9 August 1980, 13-17 June 1981, Earls Court Exhibition Centre, London
Released: 23 March 2000

Band lineup

Roger Waters (bass)
David Gilmour (guitar)
Richard Wright (keyboards)
Nick Mason (drums)

Surrogate band (1980)

Andy Bown (bass)
Snowy White (guitar)
Peter Wood (keyboards)
Willie Wilson (drums)

Surrogate band (1981)

Andy Bown (bass)
Andy Roberts (guitar)
Peter Wood (keyboards)
Willie Wilson (drums)

All tracks authored by Roger Waters, except where noted.
All lyrics written by Roger Waters.

CD 1

1. MC: Atmos (1:13)
2. In the Flesh? (3:00)
3. The Thin Ice (2:49)
4. Another Brick in the Wall (part I) (4:13)
5. The Happiest Days of Our Lives (1:40)
6. Another Brick in the Wall (part II) (6:19)
7. Mother (7:54)
8. Goodbye Blue Sky (3:15)
9. Empty Spaces (2:14)
10. What Shall We Do Now? (1:40)
11. Young Lust (Gilmour, Waters) (5:17)
12. One of My Turns (3:41)
13. Don't Leave Me Now (4:08)
14. Another Brick in the Wall (part III) (1:15)
15. The Last Few Bricks (Waters, Gilmour) (3:26)
16. Goodbye Cruel World (1:41)

CD 2

1. Hey You (4:55)
2. Is There Anybody Out There? (3:09)
3. Nobody Home (3:15)
4. Vera (1:27)
5. Bring the Boys Back Home (1:20)
6. Comfortably Numb (Waters, Gilmour) (7:26)
7. The Show Must Go On (2:35)
8. MC: Atmos (:37)
9. In the Flesh (4:23)
10. Run Like Hell (Waters, Gilmour) (7:05)
11. Waiting for the Worms (4:14)
12. Stop (:30)
13. The Trial (Waters, Bob Ezrin) (6:01)
14. Outside the Wall (4:27)

Review

For the most part, the performances here are very similar to their studio counterparts. Even many of the guitar solos are played exactly as they appeared on the album, although some of them (Another Brick in the Wall part II and Young Lust, for example) are then supplemented with longer improvisations. However, the additional material helps to make the whole seem slightly more well-rounded, and as such, I found this to be a more pleasant listen than the studio album, though still very lacking.

The performance opens with Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" playing in the background, the song which is referenced later in the show by "Vera". Shortly thereafter, a drab announcement follows, asking people not to set off fireworks or to use any recording equipment during the show. During the announcement, there is sound of guitars and organs in the background gradually rising in intensity, although the announcer claims that "the band is not quite ready yet". This is one of the more interesting moments, as at this early stage, you can still delude yourself into thinking the band is building up to something worthwhile.

The announcement is then abruptly drowned out by the opening chords of In the Flesh, and from here the performance is the one we know and, er, know from the studio album. Noteworthy deviations are the inclusion of What Shall We Do Now? and an extra verse in The Show Must Go On, which were edited out from the studio release, and a new piece titled "The Last Few Bricks", an instrumental medley containing sections from various other songs in the show. This piece was inserted to give the roadies time to finish constructing a wall on stage during the first half, before the last brick was inserted during "Goodbye Cruel World".

For my money's worth, the extended improvisations in the established songs mostly don't serve any real purpose; they feel like they're there just to pad out the performance, and the solos are short and go nowhere. The extra verse in The Show Must Go On is about as dull as the rest of that song, but What Shall We Do Now? is one of my favourites on this release, and I wish it hadn't been cut from the original.

The Last Few Bricks is the real gem here, though. Much like the Tommy Overture, by taking fragments of various different compositions from a mundane rock opera and condensing them into just a few minutes, it manages to evade the pervasive feeling of dragging on too long that the rest of this concert exhibits. Sadly, this track occupies just three minutes of a nearly two-hour release, and soon enough we're dragged back into Roger's self-indulgent whining.

Another noteworthy moment comes with Roger yelling aggressively at the audience to have a good time at the start of Run Like Hell, and dedicating that song to "all the weak people in the audience". For all his faults, Roger certainly can pull off the role of a menacing antagonist very well, so this brightens up the last few tracks slightly.

Overall, this is a slightly better release than The Wall proper, so if you haven't heard either and are determined to listen, I would recommend getting this rather than the studio release. This recording is also of historical interest, as it is a document of the last time this band lineup would play together for 24 years. However, like its studio predecessor, it fails to work particularly well as a coherent whole, and is sadly lacking in terms of musical creativity.

1880

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Star Wars: Episode VII (cast list released!)

« on: November 29, 2014, 08:12:33 AM »

Hey guys, I have an idea. Why not wait until the film comes out and go see it and then criticise the movie they're actually making instead of the one you think they're making based on a 2-minute trailer?