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The Online Guitar Store - Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd
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List Price: $15.00
Our Price: $10.20
Your Save: $ 4.80 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 781
EAN: 9780306817526
ISBN: 0306817527
Label: Da Capo Press
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: 2008-11-24
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Studio: Da Capo Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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Mark Blake draws on his own interviews with band members as well as the group’s friends, road crew, musical contemporaries, former housemates, and university colleagues to produce a riveting history of one of the biggest rock bands of all time. We follow Pink Floyd from the early psychedelic nights at UFO, to the stadium-rock and concept-album zenith of the seventies, to the acrimonious schisms of the late ’80s and ’90s. Along the way there are fascinating new revelations about Syd Barrett’s chaotic life at the time of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the band’s painstaking and Byzantine recording sessions at Abbey Road, and the fractious negotiations to bring about their fragile, tantalizing reunion in Hyde Park. Meticulous, exacting, and ambitious as any Pink Floyd album, Comfortably Numb is the definitive account of this most adventurous—and most English—rock band.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Easily among the best Pink Floyd bios
Comment: Quite a few books have been devoted to Pink Floyd and they make for quite a mixed bag. The two best have been Nicholas Shaffner's "A Saucerful of Secrets" and Nick Mason's own "Inside Out." Now we can safely add a third book to that list, perhaps even at the top.
What makes this book so great is that Mark Blake has built quite a respository of behind-the-scenes Floyd info, culled from interviews he conducted over many years as a music writer. It seems that he was willing to pull out all the stops in delivering that info within the pages of this book. As a result, even the most die-hard Floyd fan is bound to learn something new here.
While I loved Shaffner's book, and really considered it the best on Pink Floyd, it presented a somewhat uneven treatment of the band's history, with everything after the release of "Dark Side of the Moon" being somewhat rushed. Not in this book. Blake really digs in deep in his treatment of the "breakup years" of 1974-81, and even delivers new commentary from many players (including Bob Ezrin) on the post-Waters "litigation years" of 1987-94. I particularly enjoyed the backstage info he presents regarding the reunion at Live 8. And given Rick Wright's untimely passing (while I was in the middle of this book ironically), it would seem that event really marks the end of Pink Floyd. This book covers everything that happened after Live 8 -- essentially the Gilmour and Waters solo tours of 2006-07 -- and the only significant event left out is Rick's death.
Really, I can't say enough good things about this book. If you're a Floyd fan, you owe it to yourself to read this book. I guarantee you'll get many new nuggets if information.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing biography of the greatest band ever
Comment: Pink Floyd has been an important part of my life since I heard Ummagumma at the age of 14 in 1970. I feel fortunate to have seen Pink Floyd live in the 70s and Roger Waters' Dark Side of the Moon concert in Madison Square Garden two years ago, paying tribute to Syd Barrett. Now, with Rick Wright gone, I know that Pink Floyd is history. All vague hopes of another reunion are gone. Blake's book is rich on details and anecdotes on the important contributions of this extraordnary band, and is a superb compliment to the more subjective document by Nick Mason, "Inside Out" which provides fascinating photo material but is rather stingy on the creation of the Pink Floyd music. Blake weighs up for much of that, but no written account can describe the music anyhow. I have appreciated the recreation of what must have been a very peculiar Cambridge scene, the British "hippie" culture and a creative music environment, almost too personalized by Syd Barrett's bizarre indulgence. Syd's deep branding of the band is beautifully and tragically conserved throughout the book, and in my opinion, the most touching part is the description of the Syd Barrett tribute concert in the Barbican Theatre in 2007, which would have been an opportunity for another reunion, but which ends up with Waters playing his own music - alone - while the remaining members join up to play Barrett's music, as a real tribute to the spiritual inspiration to Pink Floyd, their fame and success. I agree with other reviewers that Blake has made a very well researched and documented account. The comments from former girlfriends, dealers, roadies and alikes makes up for rather scarse reflections from the rather exentric band members. I have really enjoyed the book which I read in one stretch flying from New York via Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and I will truly recommend the book to everyone whose life has been affected by the music of Pink Floyd.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Find For Fans of The Floyd
Comment: "With the last-minute reprieve, the familiar sound of a human heartbeat could be heard booming across the darkened park: the beginning of "Dark Side of the Moon". Pink Floyd could be glimpsed in the wings; a smattering of worn jeans, greying hair, nervous smiles - incongruous rock stars one and all. Behind the stage, a pig floated over Battersea Power Station. For the first time in almost twenty-five years, the four members of the classic Pink Floyd walked out on stage together. Hostilities suspended. For once, the lawsuits, recriminations, clashing egos and musical squabbles were forgotten. For the next few glorious minutes it was all about the music."
A great excerpt from Mark Blake's terrific book, "Comfortably Numb, The Inside Story of Pink Floyd", which chronicles the band from the early lives of its members prior to Pink Floyd,through the breakup of the band, their reunion for the Live 8 concert in 2004, and beyond to 2007. To me, it's incredible the amount of research and detail that Mark Blake has put into this definitive history of one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time.
I've been a fan nearly 30 years and there has always been a strange mystique surrounding the band mainly due to their desire to remain outside of the public's eye by rarely giving interviews. I've always wondered about all the stories that surrounded their progression, from stories of their original song writer and singer Syd Barret's demise, to the incredible legal fights after Roger Waters left the band. This book allows the reader a clear window on the band and Mark Blake has obviously gone to great lengths to give a comprehensive look. He interviews countless friends, roadies, drug buddies, first girlfriends/wives, business associates, family, etc., to create such a detailed timeline and incredible insight of the band. He also gets the story from each member of the band so there aren't any one sided views of what was going on at any given time. Another nice thing that Blake does is how he not only goes through the happenings of Pink Floyd, the band, but also what is going on in each of the member's individual lives outside of Pink Floyd.
Comfortably Numb is a definite must-read for any fan of Pink Floyd, from the hard core to the casual. The book is long, it jumps around a bit between the decades but Blake's writing style keeps it on track.
I've learned and gotten so much insight on Pink Floyd from this book, I highly recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Comfortably Dumb
Comment: Despite the intriguing cover, there's absolutely nothing new inside. Think of this book as a loosely collected pile of articles, previously known information and a few poorly reproduced photos. The lengthly bibliography should be your first clue. Pink Floyd have always been a very private group and this book is just another outsider's attempt. There's still no better Floyd book than Nick Mason's Inside Out. It may not tell every dirty tale, but at least it's accurate, interesting and extremely well produced. My main problem with this book however was the condition in which it arrived - although this is really Amazon's fault. Book 1 looked pre-read by a very rough hand. To their credit, Amazon replaced it free, but book 2 was far worse. Now there were bent pages, water damage and traces of tape on the cover. I don't know where this book came from or how it was stored, but I'd bet I wasn't the only one to received a trashed copy. Twice! Damage aside, this book isn't worthy of a place in your permanent library anyway.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pink Floyd - from psychedelic genesis to rock deities
Comment: This rock biography of Pink Floyd starts off somewhat tediously, moving through the sloggy psychedelic adventures of Syd Barrett. However, half way through the narrative, things really start picking up, especially when all the Roger Waters generated friction starts to kick in; definitely 5 stars for the second half. The narration keeps flash-forwarding to the 2005 "reunion" concert, as well as flashing-back to the early Barrett years and the chronicling of his mental deterioration through the end of the century. This works pretty well, keeping the reading interest high.
The personality conflicts within the band are detailed very well, which is crucial to understanding the overall success of Pink Floyd. There is in-depth coverage on all the band members, but especially Waters and Gilmour, the two antagonists who drove the creative engine that was Pink Floyd. We see where Roger Waters creative abilities were overshadowed by his massive and at times delusional ego. By the end of the book, he has had to eat an awful lot of humble pie.
Throughout the second half of the book, we also see just how difficult it was for the other three band members to tolerate Waters, who comes across as an insufferable and abrasive control freak. Yet, in his defense, he was the only one who was really stepping up to write the lyrics and deliver on the song concepts. Unfortunately, he made the very bad assumption that he must be the leader and the other guys were just his backup band. Thus, the inevitable schism that occurred.
This book is very well researched and the British slang and phraseologies are kept to a minimum. The interviews with the band members, as well as friends, roadies, and fellow musicians, are juxtaposed throughout the text in a thoughtful way. Plus, the twelve pages of pictures are fascinating. If you can make it though the first chapters without groaning too much, you will be rewarded with a very entertaining read.
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