Pink Floyd - Omnibus 'So What If It's Just Green Cheese', 3rd gen (Marbal-Neonknight) (24-96)
 
Album info
 
Recording Date  : 20-07-1969
     
Length  : 12:48
Format  : FLAC
Track List
 
01 Moonhead 06:24
02 Moonhead - Escapist restoration 06:24

Notes
From the info file:

Pink Floyd 1969-07-20 Omnibus 'So What If It's Just Green Cheese', Marbal 3rd gen [24-96]

Pink Floyd
Omnibus: So What If It's Just Green Cheese?
Studio 5, BBC TV Centre, White City, London, England
20 July 1969

Lineage for the neonknight version: Maxell Epitaxial XLII 90 (1985) > *Technics RS-B965-M > Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 > Reaper v4.61 > FLAC (24bit/96kHz)

xACT used to create FFP
*The Technics RS-B965-M is a modified deck - for details see the Tapeheads.net forum

01 Moonhead
02 Moonhead - Escapist restoration

Running time for both versions: 6 minutes 23 seconds

Marbal received his cassette from Rolf Ossenberg and it was recorded with Dolby B on. I left it off for the transfer and dropped the weaker right channel.

The tape runs fast and the speed adjustment had to be done in two parts because the speed changes slightly after the break: first part -7.18% and second part -6.25%.

Included in the folder are a single channel, speed corrected transfer and Escapist's restoration. For the re-vamp escapist shaved off the hiss, removed the hum and some buzzing and made some minor EQ tweaks. The buzz removal was quite a challenge as he didn't want to interfere with the music too much.

The Harvested version, let's call it recorder 1, has better top end than Marbal's tape but is less complete. You may also have recorder 2 that times in at 8m59s and has the most spoken content. It has a different tonal quality to R1. Judging by the absence of Nick's cymbals and other differences, Marbal's tape is Recorder 3. There is also a recorder 4 that times in at just over 7m before any speed correction and sounds worse than the other recordings.

I researched the programme about 10 years ago and got fairly close to somebody whom I believe has a film version. Hopefully the BBC will receive a donation of the footage for the 50th anniversary in 2019.

Subtitled 'An entertainment for moon-night'. The Radio Times described the Floyd's improvised contribution as 'a new number'.

The programme also featured Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Michael Hordern and Dudley Moore along with Tamas Vasary playing Debussy. It was broadcast between 10-11pm.

Here is a copy and paste from an interview given by David Gilmour to The Guardian on 2 July 2009 in case it is removed at some future date (see https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/jul/02/apollo-11-pink-floyd-session)

'We [Pink Floyd] were in a BBC TV studio jamming to the landing. It was a live broadcast, and there was a panel of scientists on one side of the studio, with us on the other. I was 23.

'The programming was a little looser in those days, and if a producer of a late-night programme felt like it, they would do something a bit off the wall. Funnily enough I've never really heard it since, but it is on YouTube. They were broadcasting the moon landing and they thought that to provide a bit of a break they would show us jamming. It was only about five minutes long. The song was called Moonhead - it's a nice, atmospheric, spacey, 12-bar blues.

'I also remember at the time being in my flat in London, gazing up at the moon, and thinking, 'There are actually people standing up there right now.' It brought it home to me powerfully, that you could be looking up at the moon and there would be people standing on it.

'At the time, Pink Floyd had been doing rather well. For a while, the band had been somewhat erratic and its reputation was sinking. I joined in 1968, 18 months before the moon landing. By then we were beginning to climb back up again.

'It was fantastic to be thinking that we were in there making up a piece of music, while the astronauts were standing on the moon. It doesn't seem conceivable that that would happen on the BBC nowadays.

'It didn't have a significant impact on our later work. I think at the time Roger [Waters], our lyricist, was looking more into going inwards, going into the inner space of the human mind and condition. And I think that was sort of the end of our exploration into outer space.

'We didn't make any songs out of the jam session. We did, on occasions, do music live that would be a jam session of some sort; that would have some structure which we would organise ourselves. And I've heard documentaries where I recognise my music. It's very odd to be watching a documentary and to hear something that you know is yourself, but you have no recognition of when you did it or how. I've never forgotten Moonhead, though.

'After all, it's not hard to remember exactly where I was.'

Neonknight tape transfer / Escapist restoration / Marbal cassette May 2016