Classic Rock – Dark Side of the Moon! – and Cheap Sparkling Wine
And it is no wonder, because Dark Side of the Moon was then and still is today, music from another dimension.
Songs like Speak to Me, Time, Us and Them, Eclipse, and Brain Damage sound as innovative as they did hearing them for the first time in Marian’s dorm room.
Researching this piece, I stumbled upon some astounding trivia that will warm the hearts of aging classic rock fans. In 2012, Dark Side of the Moon peaked at #1 on both The Billboard 200 and The Pop Catalog. Furthermore, this year on the Top Digital Albums chart it has reached as high as #10.
Considering Dark Side of the Moon was released in March of 1973, I was thrilled to discover that new generations of young ears are appreciating this inspired masterpiece of musical genius.
So now we have arrived at the part of this series when I whine about how “I can not believe it has been 39 years since I first heard,” in this case, Dark Side of the Moon and “Whoa is me, I am so old.”
No, no, not this week!
Instead, I will celebrate the 39th anniversary of meeting Marian and Marty who today are like a sister and brother — by popping the cork off Chandon Brut Classic, a California sparkling wine.
Chandon, I just read on the label, was founded ironically in California in 1973 by Moet & Chandon — those ancient uppity French folks who deliver magnums of Dom Perignon to the VIP suites of Hollywood moguls.
Priced at around $12.00 a bottle, Chandon is the poor American version — but at one-tenth the price of its prestigious French sister, Chandon handles any celebratory occasion quite well.
And speaking of Hollywood moguls, that “interesting guy” Marty, actually became one! After college he “went Hollywood” and now boasts a long list of well-known movie production credits.
In fact, very soon Marty and I will visit because he is scheduled to be “on location” in my city, producing the third installment of a major blockbuster movie everyone is familiar with.
Then there is Marian, who, ironically, ended up living happily ever after in “small town Ohio” after marrying a very successful Ohio lawyer. Marian just retired after a long accomplished career as a civilian executive with the Air Force and we plan to see them over the holidays. Of course, I will make a point to bring along some Chandon and Pink Floyd.
Marty, Marian and I all have fading memories of our college years but that Dark Side of the Moon gathering and the album itself, will always shine bright in our heart, mind and soul.
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More music options at PJ Lifestyle:
For even greater mind-blowingness try synching the album with The Wizard of Oz. Start the music at the third lion’s roar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Side_of_the_Rainbow
In 1973 an ounce of weed was only 15 dollars and a pound only 150.
Thank you for that important historical consumer data. However, I was advised “not to go there” while writing this piece.
Why? Smoking weed is far less harmful than alcohol. I couldn’t lay out all the acts of violence I’ve seen caused by alcohol. I’ve never seen a single one from weed. Seems we’ve learned nothing since 1973. I’m still waiting for the HeroinPundit and cocaineblogging. The fact is that alcohol is an insanely destructive drug and we get around it by simply never calling it a drug, like some Orwellian misfits. That essential difference between thought and semantics drove the cultural revolution as much as any other single theme.
Ok but the old wisdom on Pink Floyd was that this was one great band that you did not need to be stoned to really enjoy. You could trip just off the music.
Back then I got ahold of a 24″ flat K. Zildjian Turkish made ride cymbal , when they still were made there, specifically to try to copy the amazing sounds Nick Mason was getting from his kit. I do not have it now but is is one of the things I wish I still had. I could almost give that deep yet flat definition he achieved on that ride cymbal. Then again I did not have Alan Parsons in my garage.
They were always a studio band. The concerts had great pyrotechnics and show and the band just played like they were in the studio. Saw them when they did the Animals tour.
Hahah. We used to talk about those cymbals back then too. After we’d roll up about a half-ounce of weed into one monstrous joint just for laughs and smoke it. It was as big as a cigar – take maybe 20 Zig-Zags. Hahahahahahahah. The weird thing about the album is that the one song I hated was the biggest hit – “Money.” It’s completely out of place on the album and a jarring, jangly piece of crap. As for listening to music straight – I didn’t really know any one who did that. I couldn’t even watch Jacques Cousteau straight. I got high even to read or take a swim in the pool. Nothing like hanging completely upside down underwater with a snorkel mask and enjoying the moment.
Hey Fail, not only that, but in 1973 I saw Frank Zappa for $3 and Jethro Tull for $4. Truly, a different time.
If you’ve never seen it get your hands on the DVD “Live at Pompeii”. Dig around in the menus for the original version, I don’t like all the CGI crap they added to it later.
I was in England, summer 1973.
I still remember the windows of the store, they had hundreds of copies of the LP, with its amazing cover.
I still have it, somewhere. But I bought a Super Audio CD of it, a few months ago, and the sound is beyond believable.
(Rare Sherab Zangpo post not ending “let’s pray”)
Not good
Let’s pray.
Thanks for the memory, Myra. For me, it was also 1973, a hot, rainy July night and I was in high school. My 3 best friends and I drove from the farm into Chapel Hill (when it was so counter-cultural you could get a contact high just walking down Franklin Street) and bought Dark Side of the Moon and On the Road to Freedom (Alvin Lee getting religious, with fantastic slide guitar provide by George Harrison). Went back to my house and played them all evening. Great friends and great memories – thanks!
YOU ARE EXACTLY the reason why I am writing this series!
Thank you for the comment.
Also a freshman in 1973. The next year we got permission to paint the DSOTM logo along our dorm hallway. At that time, I didn’t appreciate how full of despair the lyrics were, I thought it was coolly cynical.
Another memory from the 73/74 academic year: listening to Court and Spark for the first time in a friend’s dorm room. Like DSOTM, CAS seems to conclude that madness is the inevitable (despairing) response to the world’s problems.
Not a very uplifting message in either case, all things considered.
Well Myra, Marty here ( as we know, not my name ). What a fine journey down memory lane, though I do distinctly remember that there a substance altering experience that went on, though I do respect your political correctness in not acknowledging that part of the story. That being said, I must add to the story. Cut to ( movie terminology ) 2007, when I was able to take my then 14 year old son to the Hollywood Bowl to see Roger Waters perform the album in its entirety. I remember that he and a buddy of his took off to explore the Hollywood Bowl before the show started, and came back with a report that people were “Doing Pot!!!”, which let to an interesting conversation about the wrongs of consuming illegal drugdl. We then settled in to watch a three hour performance of Roger Waters first doing a medley of different Pink Floyd songs. He then proceeded to play the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon from the first song to the last and it was a transcendent experience. The sound was amazing, and the music was as remarkable as what I had remembeed from when I first listened to it in my dormitory room at Ohio State, and then proceeded to share it with you and “Marion”. Today, my son is at a top-of-the-line boarding school in California. His dormitory room is decorated with a remarkable photograph of a compilation of Pink Floyd images from all of their albums on a one-of-a-kind piece of art. What a legacy. Thanks for the memory.
Dearest Marty:
You are correct in remembering there WAS a substance altering experience present in that dorm room in 1973, BUT just like one of your Democrat heroes, “I DID NOT INHALE.”
Uh, not quite how I remember it. Why were you coughing after not inhaling??
Attention PJ Media Readers:
This man is a liberal Hollywood Democrat and as you know, they tend to spin the facts. I stand with that other famous “Almost Hollywood” Democrat in stating that the definition of “is” is that “I did not inhale.”
Greetings:
I discovered Pink Floyd the album before entitled “Meddle”. I got home early one Saturday morning and switched on the TV while I got ready for bed. The local PBS station was broadcasting a Pink Floyd concert and the band was playing “one of These Days (I’m going to cut you into little pieces)” while a video from a cropduster plane showed in the background.
I managed to get the album the next day and one side was a 23+ minute song entitled “Echoes” which is still one of my all time favorites, up there with “In-a-Gada-Da-Vida”.
I was a bit underwhelmed by “Dark Side” mostly due to my prejudice for longer-form songs. “Great Gig in the Sky”, though, still blows me away.
On your question of albums triggering memory images, I have two that come to mind. The first occurred when I was 15 years old, sitting in the front seat of my mom’s station wagon, A song called “Fire’ came on the radio. I can still remember what the radio looked like. That afternoon I walked back to the record store to find out who I had just heard and ended up buying Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?”
The second was during my junior year of high school in the Quad courtyard. At lunch students would set up a phonograph on the balcony and bring albums to play. I had brought “Goodbye” from Cream. A senior named Lucas Guttentag put the first record on; the song “Good Times, Bad Times” started up. My first exposure to Led Zeppelin is still clear in my memory.
I have to say when I saw “Dark Side of the Moon” and cheap sparkling wine in the title of your article, I thought for sure you were going for the connection to “Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill” or one of the “Annie Greenspring” concoctions. Quite an era; great music, not so great libation.
Strawberry Hill, maybe … but surely you’re not demeaning Boone’s Farm Plum Hollow? Now that was some throat-soothing, good libation for those of us with (as John Prine put it) an “illegal smile.”
Dear Mr. Dash:
You obviously missed the first installment of this series.
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/08/11/forgotten-classic-rock-and-cheap-wine/
From now on Mr. Dash PLEASE read this series every week so you can keep up with the rest of the audience.
So here is the paragraph that addresses your comment.
“As for wine knowledge, my early high school years were spent ingesting excessive amounts of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine and to this day even the thought of sweet wine makes me choke. Later in high school, my friends and I progressed to what were then the cheap, popular wines of the early 70’s, Blue Nun and Mateus. (If you are my age you remember how the uniquely shaped Mateus bottles were then used for burning candles with the wax dripping down the sides and proudly displayed as coffee table centerpieces.)”
Greetings:
What !!! No “Cold Duck” ???
this drives me crazy there no dark side of the moon it’s the far side just because the moon is tidal locked with 1 side always facing earth the far side gets sun also that’s when we have a new moon the other side is in full sunlight
Oh john, please.
Do I need to remind you that the Dark Side of the Moon is located at Devil’s Tower, Wyoming?
What else do you think makes Cheney so awesome?
There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it’s all dark.
I know it’s sacreligious to say so, but Dark Side has always been one of my least favorite Pink Floyd albums. I like Animals, The Wall, and Wish You Were Here a lot more.
I rank Dark Side just above The Final Cut (which sucks). Maybe you had to be there at the time to appreciate it properly, but for someone who was a toddler when it came out and listened to it as a teenager with access to everything that came afterward (and before), I think Dark Side is hugely overrated. In fact, I don’t like it much at all.
That’s interesting. I rate DSoTM as one of their best, but it is a lot different in feel than anything PF did before or after it. Wish You Were Here is also one of my favorites. The Wall is good, but the concept was better than the execution. I liked Animals when it first came out, but I was a high-school sophomore then; it was the first album where Waters really started wearing his politics on his sleeve (and also when he first started trying to push Rick Wright out of the band), and it has not stood the test of time for me. I can hardly stand to hear it now.
Am I the only child of the 70′s with fond memories of Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother”?
(the one with the cow on the cover) Or is that just the residual hash memory at play?
Anyway, for pure evocative, take me back to my teens music – it’s Jethro Tull’s “Stand Up” and “Aqualung”.
Greetings, Demonized:
No, your not. I still have that album and get to it once a year or so. Also, there was a 2-LP set called “Umma-Gumma” that had some really great cuts on it, “Be Careful with That Axe, Eugene”, “Astromine Domine”, “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”. Good stuff.
As for Jethro Tull, “Locomotive Breath” my personal favorite.