Inspired by Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon ~ Bright Side is psychedelic & mood enhanced ~
The year was 1973. I was waiting at my local record store with hypnotic anticipation for a copy to arrive of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. I literally bought the first copy out of the box as it was unloaded, raced home on my 10 speed, put the album on my Sound Design turn table, plugged my Koss Headphones in and laid down on my bed to begin the journey that would change my auditory capacity and brain wave response forever. Like most other teenagers at the time and everyone since who has engaged in this same act, I was lulled to sleep by the first cut Breathe. Then, the clock alarms and chimes recorded by Alan Parsons in a London Antique clock shop went off all over the place and I was awakened with the full intention of an air raid. At that very moment I was hooked and obsessed forever on the divine inspiration and ethereally transporting vision that is summoned whenever one dares to submit to the best selling recording of all time Dark Side of the Moon.
Pink Floyd had taken over my psychedelic 70's mind as well as the minds of Teenagers around the Universe.
For the next two years I waited quite impatiently for the release of what I had heard was to be a follow up journey to DSOTM. It never came and while I was quite thrilled with Wish You Were Here I vowed to never lose hope that Pink Floyd would eventually reprise DSOTM because of the remarkable achievement I felt that the recording represented.
I always felt I had a great ear and an even better imagination but I was a mediocre keyboard player at best. The idea though began in 1977 through some fateful meetings that I would make my own attempts at following up DSOTM. At first the idea and the attempts were weak and way off the mark, but as I delved into it, the tracks began to improve and my fellow floyd maniacs thought I was coming up with something that while not as good as the original works by any means, were first respectable and eventually pretty darn good in their own right. Keep in mind I was not trying to be a tribute band - that had been done. Neither was I trying to copy the sound. All I wanted to do was emulate DSOTM's approach in terms of sounds, effects, sequences, connected songs, musical style, time signatures and themes. I wanted all the songs to answer the original. I wasn't going to produce pop songs, and like DSOTM, all the songs would be physically connected as one complete theme and adventure.
22 musicians, two rewrites and three engineers later, I had my first response to Dark Side that I felt deserved to be released. After a great creative struggle, and a lot of lousy recordings, I began to get a rough idea how the magic wall of sound was put together that had endured for two decades. This turned into my first release Bright Side of the Sun.
Several other planetary based sequels will be released in the years to come with the next one now out - Dim Side of Mars. After that I have come up with 32 more tracks for Ring Side Seat of Saturn, Mind of Mercury, and Pleasure of Pluto.
