Pink Floyd – Interstellar Overdrive

Completist item of significant historical value. What's really interesting is how Interstellar Overdrive evolved through 1966 to its recording for Piper. This is possibly the earliest complete version doing the rounds and it is certainly a ragged one. Played fast and loose, lacking the dynamics of later versions this is a compelling mess. Don't pay over the odds for it - £15 is enough of anyones money.

Tasseltoes...First of all how fast or slow a song is, is not an indicator of which version came first. Bands sped up and slowed down versions of a song all the time in both orders. Secondly, just because a song has not been released yet does not mean that a demo version can't slip out first. It has happened before. Third, since the guy who made the film was a friend of Syd and it was a obscure avant garde film it is very easy to understand how Syd could have let him use the demo version. It even says the film was made with the assistance of the British Film Board. Back in the sixties musicians would around acetates to their friends. This has been documented. Your evidence is paltry sir.
Also that slowed down version in the interview could have been another early version that was before the single came out. There are usually many outtakes and sometimes more than one demo. That is a fact of the music business also. I am afraid your evidence comes up wanting.

This is NOT the demo version of "Interstellar Overdrive." Most likely, this version was recorded at the Winterland Auditorium on November 10, 1967. It is played very fast, which tends to indicate that the band had performed it many times. (Compare it to the version from the film "Tonight Let's All Make Love in London," for example, which is rather slow.) Also, how would an American documentary film-maker have access to a demo version of a song by an (at the time) obscure British band? Wouldn't it be more likely that he could get a live concert recording of a song from his home town? Pink Floyd played in San Francisco in November 1967, and it seems probable that some recordings exist.

But the best evidence that this version is NOT the demo version is from the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) interview that was conducted with Pink Floyd in about December 1966, wherein the reporter says that Pink Floyd "have yet to make their debut on record." Pink Floyd's first single, "Arnold Layne," was recorded in January – February 1967, and released in March 1967. Therefore, the interview must have been recorded before March 1967. Yet the interview features a (rather slow) version of "Interstellar Overdrive" behind it. What version of "Interstellar Overdrive" would have been available for the CBC to add to their interview in late 1966? I submit that would have to be the demo that was recorded on October 31, 1966. THAT is the demo version, NOT this.

Got mine from The Love Garden records in Lawrence, KS just yesterday. Thought I'd never get a copy, woo hoo!

I just picked up a copy for £15 at the V&A exhibition shop just before the PF exhibition opens to the public. It's got all the same bits included (poster+postcard+inner sleeve); the barcodes and identifiers as listed above are all the same; the etched matrix is the same but it's so difficult to make out each character so it may be off...

Differences:
- no RSD sticker
- promo sticker shows PFRS126; not PFR12S6 as shown in the ed image

FYI: Archive research conducted by Ron Fleischer should have been included in the credits for this release but were not. It was his work recovering the audio that enabled this release for which he took no payment and as it turned out no thanks. So when all you fine people spin this one chuck a nod for Ron.