who were the american Pink Floyd?

but they had the sense to quit while they were ahead.

mercury rev seem intent on carrying on their career trajectory.

Voila, the American Pink Floyd.

Started out weird as fuck, getting progressively more "normal".
Enjoyed greatly by stoners.
Sonic flourishes aplenty.

i still say that roger waters was a poor man's frank zappa, if that fits in at all with what this thread is asking.

The Double Nickels on the Dime concept as partially inspired by Ummagumma.

and the Minutemen were.

concept *was

xpost

No. FZ made over sixty albums. Now go sit in the corner for an hour, you.

If you're going to compare FZ to RW, it's like comparing a jack rabbit to a cactus.

More Floyd Eaglisms -- . . . rhythm sections that probably won't be backing James Brown in our lifetimes

Haha. Are the rhythm sections for these bands bad, or just stiff?

In what way was "Double Nickels" inspired by Ummagumma? Oh, wait, I get it - the "solo" car jams.

This is a tough question since there are so few American proggers who had anywhere near the impact of the UK models. Contemporaneous career-trajectorywise, Steve Miller Band or Jefferson Airplane/Starship, maybe?

Musically, Steve Miller makes some sense. Pink Floyd (Meddle to Obscured By Clouds era) were fairly influenced by the early acid rock SMB, especially spacey stuff like "Dear Mary."

Uhhhhhhhhh, you are claiming that Steve Miller influenced Pink Floyd?

Ween, ffs. Go listen to the last three songs on Quebec and tell me otherwise.

The Eagles don't sound a fucking thing like Pink Floyd! Eagles = Steely Dan/James Taylor LA country-influenced rock. Floyd = brain on drugs.

Uhhhhhhhhh, you are claiming that Steve Miller influenced Pink Floyd?

Affirmative. Much of Sailor, released in 1969, looks to what Floyd would do on Meddle, Obscure, etc -- that stoner space pop sound. I've read that they were indeed into the original SMB, but I can't cite anything right now. Give me a little time. Maybe i can come up with something.

Early SMB was a bad ass band.

Of course, I'm not saying they ripped them off or anything, just inspiration, influence, etc.

Right, I wasn't disputing it I'd just never heard it said before!

i love sailor. steve miller put out, like, four albums in a two year span (68/70) and i dig it all. i would totally buy that boxed set if it was crammed with live/rarity crap. maybe there is one. what do i know.

Agreed, Scott. Early live recordings are totally needed.

Right, I wasn't disputing it I'd just never heard it said before!

I just wanted you to know I wasn't totally insane!

yeah the Eagles, in terms of the relative worthlessness of the product versus the solemnity with which it was received. the Floyd, workaday dudes in outer space that's really their respective retreats in England, Eagles cosmic tellers of stories of mores and madness in bad old L.A.

really, though, Love was probably the closest American came to the Floyd--essential '60s stuff, songwriter awry, band soldiers on in classic-rock fashion and bores everyone stiff, except Arthur Lee in some ways lacked the common touch of the clods in post-Barrett Floyd (yeah I like some of it, some of it's irresistable Bad Art in the rock manner, stoner classix in interstellar space, but Spirit was also good and look where they are these days).

More Floyd Eaglisms-
a)Lugubrious gtr/synth lugubriousness ("I Can't Tell You Why"), rhythm sections that probably won't be backing James Brown in our lifetimes, multiple lead singers adding to air of 'ominous amorphous corporate entity" instead of singer+serfs [cowskulls = pigs, walls etc)
b) a touching belief that the joys and tribulations of celebrity rockstars have something to interest us all, and that saying something is a 'soundtrack' ('Wall'='Desperado') automatically makes it a movie
c) both enjoy letting people believe they're heavily into psychedelics when in reality they just drink alot like every other slob
― dave q, Wednesday, December 25, 2002 1:42 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"[cowskulls = pigs, walls etc)"

hahaha!

I think you could make a case for the Byrds.

Floyd was one of the hippest underground bands in London around '66/'67 at the peak of the whole UFO scene. The Byrds were the hippest band in L.A. (or the U.S. for that matter) around '65/'66 at the peak of the Sunset Strip scene.

The Floyd had a guy named Roger who called himself Syd, and a guy named George who called himself Roger. Byrds had a guy named Jim who called himself Roger. Both Rogers (Waters & McGuinn) carried on and on with their bands through lineup changes. They both seem kind of unlikeable too.

Barrett and Crosby were both bigtime heads, who left their bands early on due to tensions and personality conflicts, and eventually put out solo records in the early '70s.

Floyd ultimately got more boring, less experimental, but far more commercial during the '70s and became canonized as "classic rock." The Byrds kind of moved in a similar mellowed out, smoothed off, musical direction in their later years but without the commercial success. CSNY on the other hand was an offshoot from that whole scene that became the big mellow '70s canonized version of what the Byrds started, in the same way that DSOTM evolved out of PATGOD.

The Eagles came later and completely commercialized the whole L.A. folk/country/rock scene to a level of success that the Floyd never really reached. The Eagles are more of a parallel to Genesis or Led Zeppelin or somebody like that.

And Pink Floyd basically helped start the whole progressive rock scene in the same way that the Byrds were the seminal band in the country rock scene. Progressive rock was the English response to the changes of the '60s while country rock was the American reaction. Both tried to look backwards to find something more traditional, "serious" or "real" than the pop music that the people involved grew up on. But both bands were for the most part better than any of the stuff that developed after them.

60s Pink Floyd has parallels with (don't laugh) the Velvet Underground....

Both played aggressively psychedelic, noncommercial music.

They were both firmly rooted in the "underground" scenes of their respective nation's biggest city.

Both had elaborate lighting and sound systems.

Both had multiple singers, lengthy jams and debut records from 1967.

In one of those Warhol/Morrissey movies, I forget which one, there are some junkies sitting around and you can see Piper at the Gates of Dawn sitting next to their turntable. haha

It's a shame they never did like a VU - Live at Chichen Itza or something.

Anthony Braxton

Mothers of Invention ya?

Helmet

jefferson airplane/starship seem the best example. like pink floyd, they seemed to exemplify and even symbolize the wilder aspects of the psychedelic era and successfully straddled the line between commercial pop and countercultural head music. both followed their early success and critical acclaim with periods of outre experimentalism, and both reformatted themselves after the departure of founding songwriters to make a second run at the pop charts before acrimoniously collapsing in the mid-80s.

Kansas

Kansas weren't very psychedelic at all tho, progressive sure but....ehh, kinda incongruous

Arguably, by the time they became mega sellers, Pink Floyd weren't very psychedelic either.

That said, the closest a North American act has ever come to actually sounding like Pink Floyd is probably Astra. However, picking an act who debuted in 2009 and have yet to release more than one album may feel a bit out of place, I guess.