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Dark Side of the Moon
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Van Morrison
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Dark Side Overtones
With the TIFF in town, I’m talking about peering heavenwards, not towards the glitz of Yorkville!
Starting off with an engaging powerpoint about current Big Bang theory, 25-30 of us moved from the lecture hall to the 16th floor observation area. There we took turns in the darkened, domed observatory to peer through the vintage telescope. I slipped out to discreetly play Holst’s Jupiter and Van Morrison’s Moondance from the reverberant hallway. Bryce, who heads up the series, pointed out that there was a second, twin dome that I was welcome to check out: the acoustics were superb! I wasn’t so sure how my Pink Floyd rendition was working out until I listened the next day, and it’s ok: it has it’s redeeming features, so here’s an acoustic sampling from the classic Dark Side of the Moon. The quasi-echo of the repeated words in the text plays nicely on the parabolic reverberation afforded by the unique domed ceiling.
I’m sure some of my readers will be up on the stats about this historic LP, but all I know is that it broke a personal ‘record’ for me; living in Cambridge, Mass at the time, I purchased Dark Side of the Moon from a record shop in Harvard Square (not the Coop, where I usually went to get mesmerized by flipping through the bins, this was a smaller shop,much more intimate on the ground level off Harvard Square) only to get home and discover there was a wicked warp in the record that made the needle jump: were talking old school here! I took it back but, rather sneakily, I confess, retained the iconic black poster with prism and spectrum, as well as the lime green one of the pyramids.* Long story short, it must have been a bad batch of pressings, because I ended up with 5 posters! An early example of my advocating for consumer rights, sure, although it might have been an early warning of a mild Obsessive Compulsive character trait!? Classically trained musicians are an eclectic bunch, to be sure, although perhaps leaning towards the hyper-neurotic to hone their craft in a competitive market-place…let’s just say that UrbanFlute is a creative channeling of that same hallmark enthusiasm and energy.
If you feel at all inclined to explore the ‘dark side’ – as in black holes and the like – you might really enjoy it: families welcome – no toddlers, please! Contact Bryce Croll through the link provided to be placed on their e-mail list, or just wander in the evening of. As the days get shorter, the open house starts that much earlier, and typically the cooler weather – being drier – affords clearer viewing capability.
I may collaborate with another musician on October 4th for renditions of Fly Me to the Moon,
* Oh, I get it, Pink Floyd’s Pyramids pick up on the triangular shape of the spectrum: sick!
