Pink Floyd - Cosmos Topper - Interview (MQR-010) (16-44)
 
Album info
 
Recording Date  : 16-10-1971
     
Length  : 37:04
Format  : FLAC
Track List
 
01 Introduction, Commercial 02:31
02 American Tour, Technicals, Playing In Big Halls 03:58
03 Solo Works 02:40
04 Meddle Songs, Interstellar Overdrive, Pf Shows 05:36
05 Equipment, Other Bands 05:21
06 Commercial 05:09
07 Evening Show, Next Works, Touring Europe 04:35
08 Rapping About Rock Radio 03:26
09 Zabriskie Point, The Christmas Song, Movies 03:48

Notes
Recorded at the KPPC-FM, Pasadena CA, USA. Great interview!


From the info file:

Pink Floyd - Cosmos Topper - MQR 010

The Show - Disc One and Two - Civic Auditorium - Santa Monica, CA, USA
The Interview - Disc Three - KPPC FM, Pasadena, CA, USA
Both October 16th 1971

Show Source: Audience
Taper: Al
Recording equipment and Mastertape: Unknown
Transfer: 1st gen TDK SA-90 > Sony TC-WE475 > SB X-FI Platinum > Sony Sound Forge 8.0 @ 24/96 > TLH

Restored and Enhanced by MQR to Sound Quality EX-
MQR is: creamcheese, WRomanus, }{eywood

Disc One 73:56
01. CAREFUL WITH THAT AXE, EUGENE 12:27
02. Tune Up 01:05
03. FAT OLD SUN 15:55
04. SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN 13:31
05. Tune Up 01:46
06. ATOM HEART MOTHER 16:26
07. THE EMBRYO 12:44

Disc Two 68:37
01. Tune Up 02:17
02. CYMBALINE 11:47
03. Tune Up 03:24
04. BLUES 05:33
05. ECHOES 27:45
06. Tune Up 00:51
07. A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS 16:59

Disc Three 37:04
01. Introduction, Commercial (Vagabond Theatre and Civic Aud.) 02:31
02. American Tour, Technicals, Playing in Big Halls 03:58
03. Solo Works, Ummagumma, Fearless (Summer '68..snip) 02:40
04. Meddle songs, Interstellar Overdrive, PF shows 05:36
05. Equipments, Other bands (Fat Old Sun ..snip) 05:21
06. Commercial (200 Motels - Mothers of Invention) 05:09
07. Evening show, Next works, Touring Europe 04:35
08. Rapping about Rock Radio 03:26
09. Zabriskie Point, The Christmas Song, movies (Saint Tropez ..snip) 03:48


Cosmos Topper is the tribute MQR makes to Ted Alvy and Pink Floyd music.

Los Angeles native Ted Alvy first heard rock and roll aged 9 on KFWB, where B. Mitchel Reed (BMR) became his favorite deejay. Teenage Ted met BMR at the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and became his producer at KFWB featuring album cuts and forever joining the conspiracy to improve music on the airwaves. He hosted Sunday Night Folk Festival on Stereo KVFM-FM, but was fired for playing folk-rock and sets of anti-war songs. He accompanied BMR to help pioneer Underground Radio at KPPC-FM Pasadena as Producer and substitute deejay.
Ted compiled the Record Library that was used to convert KMET-FM to Underground Rock in June 1968 where he secretly programmed the 24/7 automation system. He was an underground record store buyer at Les Carter's Music Revolution while attending UCLA Film School, then returning to KPPC-FM to join creative PD Les Carter. Ted Alvy became deejay Cosmos Topper and created cosmic KPPC station IDs and alternative commercial spots until the entire airstaff was fired October 24th 1971, few days after the Interview and the PF show. He was an admirator of early Pink Floyd, Interstellar Overdrive over all. He continued at KMET-FM with his mentor B. Mitchel Reed until June 1976.
He interviewed countless rock legends in the years.

Ted Alvy died in March 2012.

We never met anyone with his depth of knowledge of rock and roll. He was known as a passionate believer in the good side of man, and for sharing his love of music. Few people were as more of a devoted friend than Ted. He will be missed.

Soon after the sad news MQR was asked if we were interested to remaster and yet uncirculated 1st gen of the 1971 Pink Floyd's show in Santa Monica. Of course we were...
WRomanus had a big help for his researches in the years from Ted and he was going to restore his interview to Rick and Nick to tribute him so it came natural to think to a little box with the Interview and the Show held the same day.

The Show
It was delivered by the generous donator to creamcheese in 4 24/96 files, one cassette side in each file, via bittorrent, with the following message attached.
In 1971, this recording was made by a fellow named Al, who was 15 or 16 at the time.
Al attended this show with his older brother.
When this recording first surfaced in 1985, Al was very generous in sharing it and seemed humbled that anyone would want to hear his recording.
He was not a trader or a collector of live shows so it was only luck that brought this recording into the light of day.
He described himself as 'a big fan' of early Pink Floyd and an admirer of Rogers solo work.
Al said he had all the early Floyd albums and loved the Ummagumma LP but he had lost interest in their work after DSOTM.
Surely, Al would be happy to know that you enjoy this remaster of his recording.

First the original source was speed corrected and then dehummed and denoised by creamcheese with his well-known methods.
At this point the 3 pieces of Echoes were spliced together by WRomanus who then continued work by applying his equally well-known and famous long manual cleaning.
With these cleaned files creamcheese spliced (where possible due to repeated portions) the tracks together.
WRomanus started a search about the set list and with the help of many passionate fans we rebuilt what is possibly the right order of songs.

The beginning of StCfTHotS was patched with some Gong Swell from MQR 004 (Since We Were Teenagers - Santa Monica Civic Auditorium 1970-05-01).
There was a crossfade made at the beginning of Cymbaline to give that part a better flow.
The Beginning of Cymbaline itself was restored by building a loop from what was there.
This might sound a little repetitive, but we didn't want to splice in another portion from different show. A little portion of _walking steps_ was rebuilt.
The applause at the end of Cymbaline was crossfaded with the following clapping, again just to give the show a better flow at this point.
It is not 100 % sure if this portion now is at the right point in the show and obviously there's audio missing. Maybe this mystery will get solved when one day the master shows up.
The final stage of remastering was to EQ the whole thing, add some artificial HF content and get the stereo panorama a little 'richer'. Bass was enhanced to get it all a little punchier at the bottom.

The Interview - Ted Alvy aka Cosmos Topper with Rick Wright Nick Mason.
It was already shared by WRomanus as he got directly from Ted on CD.
For this commemorative release the Interview was totally reviewed.
Creamcheese denoised and declipped it and restored the dynamics (when possible)
WRomanus cleaned and divided in nine parts to make it more accessible.

So here is a good upgrade since it has an excellent better sound quality and it's complete with the 'nice to listen' commercials.

You can hear Nick and Rick talking about their concerts, about Interstellar Overdrive (not good enough for Ummagumma), about the making of Ummagumma and Meddle, about future works and the next British Tour which means that short british Tour of early 1972 which ended at the Rainbow in Feb. 72 was already planned before this American tour. According to NM it was going to 'be the best one for a long time'. And indeed they had all new equipment for it. Lights, Mixing-Desk, the VCS3 was first used onstage. We can only guess if at that point of 1971 they already had drafts and plans for the next tour's material to be played. What we know is that 'Breathe' was sort of premiered one month later during a jam session they played during the last public performance of 'The Embryo'.

The interview is completed by a Transcript by radiowaves and a kind of our interview with Ted (see also TED ALVY aka COSMOS TOPPER Brief self-Biography)
He made it really interesting with his answers about his interview to Nick and Rick, about those times, KPPC and his life, Don Hall and more.

MQR Thanks:

Ted Alvy aka Cosmos Topper
Al and the donator
radiowaves

MQR - Oct. 16th 2012
Artwork by WRomanus