David Gilmour - Self Titled & About Face - Vinyl - Prog/Psych - Pink Floyd

$

25

The Mad Platter presents:

David Gilmour - Self Titled & About Face

Vinyl: EX, both records look unplayed

Covers: VG+

Labels: Mint

Self Titled:

David Gilmour - 1978

Columbia ?– FC 35388

Credits:

• Bass, Vocals – Rick Wills
• Drums, Percussion – Willie Wilson
• Engineer – John Etchells, Nick Griffiths
• Engineer [Assistant] – Patrick Jauneaud
• Producer – David Gilmour
• Technician – Phil Taylor (5)
• Written-By – David Gilmour (tracks: A1, A3 to B5)

Notes:  Gatefold cover

Credits:

• Arranged By [The National Philharmonic Orchestra Arranged With] – Bob Ezrin
• Arranged By [The National Philharmonic Orchestra] – Michael Kamen
• Artwork [Design & Production] – STd (3)
• Bass – Pino Palladino
• Crew [Equipment] – Phil Taylor (5)
• Drums, Percussion – Jeff Porcaro
• Horns [The Kick Horns] – Barbara Snow, Roddy Lorimer, Simon Clerk*, Tim Sanders
• Mastered By – Doug Sax, Mike Reese
• Mixed By – James Guthrie
• Mixed By [Assistant] – Bob Parr, Ollie Fitzjones
• Orchestra – The National Philharmonic Orchestra*
• Percussion – Louis Jardine*, Ray Cooper
• Photography By – Davies/Starr*, Jill Furmanovsky
• Piano, Organ – Steve Winwood
• Piano, Organ [Hammond] – Ian Kewley
• Programmed By [Fairlight] – Steve Rance
• Recorded By – Andrew Jackson*, Kit Woolven
• Recorded By [Assistant] – Kevin Whyte, Mark Frank, Simon Sullivan
• Recorded By [Assistant], Mixed By [Assistant] – Robert "Ringo" Hrycyna*
• Recorded By [Orchestra] – Eric Tomlinson
• Synthesizer – Anne Dudley, Jon Lord
• Vocals – Mickey Feat*, Roy Harper, Sam Brown, Vicki Brown
• Vocals, Guitar – David Gilmour
• Written-By – D. Gilmour*

Notes:

Released with a printed inner sleeve containing all the lyrics.

Both are 1st U.S. pressings on Columbia Records

Warning! Please read:

Any and all bidders! Records are an impulse buy. I do my best to grade accordingly, and with that being said; my NM might be your VG+, which makes record grading subjective. By bidding on this item, you as the bidder/potential buyer are accepting that possibility. You are also accepting that I will not discount a record once received because you believe it to be graded wrong. I do not accept returns unless you file a case with Ebay. Too many buyers in the past have looked for anything and everything to acquire a discount. This will not be tolerated. In bidding, you have accepted my terms. Thank you.

As always, it will be professionally cleaned, and packaged in new anti static inner sleeve, and quality outer sleeve.

I ship media mail, but I am flexible, just let me know what you want.

USA buyers only.

Here's a little background info on the releases:

David Gilmour is the debut solo studio album by Pink Floyd guitarist and co-lead vocalist David Gilmour. The album was released in May and June 1978 in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively. The album reached number 17 in the UK and number 29 on the Billboard US album charts; it was certified Gold in the US by the RIAA. The album was produced by Gilmour, and consists mostly of blues, guitar oriented rock songs except for the piano-dominated ballad "So Far Away".

The tracks used for the album were recorded between February and March 1978 with engineer John Etchells at Super Bear Studios in France.  They were then mixed at the same studio by Nick Griffiths. Session musicians included bass guitarist Rick Wills and drummer Willie Wilson, both of whom (with Gilmour) used to be part of Jokers Wild.

The album cover used for the first EMI pressings of the album LP was done by Hipgnosis and Gilmour; Gilmour was credited on the cover for contributing "Keyboards, Vocals" although he played guitar. The CBS/Columbia pressings (outside Europe) listed Gilmour as contributing "Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals". Among those depicted on the sleeve was Gilmour's then-wife, Ginger.

The album's only single was "There's No Way Out of Here." The single flopped in Europe, but became popular on Album-oriented rock radio stations in the US.  The song was originally recorded by the band Unicorn (as "No Way Out of Here") for their 1976 album Too Many Crooks (Harvest Records, US title Unicorn 2), which Gilmour produced.  It was also recorded later by New Jersey stoner rock band Monster Magnet on their Monolithic Baby! album.

One unused tune he wrote and demoed at the time would evolve, via collaboration with Roger Waters, into Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" from The Wall. However, a song included on this album, the piano ballad "So Far Away", uses a chorus progression not unlike the chorus to "Comfortably Numb", albeit in a different key.

Likewise, the song "Short and Sweet" can be seen as a musical precursor to "Run Like Hell" (also from The Wall), with its shifting chords over a D pedal point, using a flanged guitar in Drop D tuning.  "Short and Sweet" was written in collaboration with Roy Harper, who recorded his own version for his 1980 album The Unknown Soldier.

A five-song promotional film was made to promote the album. The band comprised Gilmour himself on guitars and vocals plus the two musicians on the album (bass player Rick Wills and drummer Willie Wilson) plus David Gilmour's brother Mark on rhythm guitar and Ian McLagan on keyboards and performed "Mihalis", "There's No Way Out of Here", "So Far Away", "No Way", and "I Can't Breathe Anymore". There were two female backing singers on "There's No Way Out of Here" and "So Far Away". It was recorded live at The Roxy, London.

Also, Gilmour promoted the album with his first ever interviews with North American media and FM rock radio stations. The promotion paid off as the album made a respectable showing on the Billboard album charts peaking at number 29, which - until 2006's On An Island - was Gilmour's highest charting solo album in the US, eventually going Gold.

The performances of the tracks in the promotional film differed to the album versions. "Mihalis" had an extended ending guitar solo. "There's No Way Out of Here" was slightly shorter as one of the verses was deleted but the ending guitar solo was different from that on the album and had a clean ending instead of fading out like on album version. "So Far Away" had an extended ending guitar solo on this performance and ended in a faster tempo than the album version.

The performance of "No Way" had Gilmour playing regular lead guitar solos at the end of the track on his Fender Esquire (with distortion) instead of the lap steel guitar solos (with distortion) that had appeared on the album version and had a clean ending instead of fading out like on the album (the remastered CD version of the album had Gilmour's lap steel solo extended this time to feature a duel between himself playing high notes on his lap steel and lower notes on his trademark Stratocaster during the fadeout on the remaster). The middle part of the album version, for where the first of two lap steel guitar solos were on the album version, was deleted.

"I Can't Breathe Anymore" had Gilmour playing a regular guitar solo at the end of this song's performance while on the album version (and on the remastered CD in an extended coda), a distorted lap steel guitar countered the ending guitar solo. The ending of the promo performance of "I Can't Breathe Anymore" was longer than on the album.

The album was released in the UK on 25 May 1978, and on 17 June 1978 in the US, on Harvest and Columbia respectively.

In an interview with Circus in 1978, Gilmour said: "This album [David Gilmour] was important to me in terms of self-respect. At first I didn't think my name was big enough to carry it. Being in a group for so long can be a bit claustrophobic, and I needed to step out from behind Pink Floyd's shadow."

All music composed by David Gilmour except "There's No Way Out of Here" written by Ken Baker. All lyrics by Gilmour, except where noted.

About Face is the second solo album by the English musician David Gilmour. It was released in March 1984 by Harvest in the UK and Columbia in the United States.[4] Co-produced by Bob Ezrin and Gilmour, the album was recorded in 1983 at Pathé Marconi Studio, in Boulogne-Billancourt, France.[4] The lyrics of two tracks, "All Lovers Are Deranged" and "Love on the Air," were written with Pete Townshend of the Who.

The album received positive reviews and peaked at #21 on UK Albums Chart and #32 on the US Billboard 200. Two singles were released: "Blue Light" peaked at #62 in the United States, while "Love on the Air" failed to chart. The album was certified gold by the RIAA.  A remastered reissue was released in 2006 on EMI.

The album was recorded with engineer Andy Jackson at a time when Pink Floyd's future was uncertain.  It was mixed by James Guthrie at Mayfair Studios in London, England.

Gilmour said he wanted to take his time and make "a really good album" and "get the best musicians in the world that I could get hold of to play with me."  Musicians on the album include drummer Jeff Porcaro, bass guitarist Pino Palladino, Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord, backing vocalists Roy Harper, and Sam Brown, orchestral arranger Michael Kamen (who had also worked on The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and The Wall), and keyboardist Steve Winwood.

"I think Pete feels some restrictions on what he would like to do with the Who, as I guess we all feel restrictions within everything we attempt [to do], just because of the types of personalities and role you've created for yourself. I know he's felt uncomfortable about certain things--- things he could express in solo stuff. For me, the restriction was the scale of what Pink Floyd had become more than anything. It's nice to get out and do something on a slightly different scale; go out and do theaters, which is not really a possibility with Pink Floyd until we get a lot less popular."

When Roger Waters began production of the Pink Floyd album, The Final Cut, Gilmour claims, he requested Waters wait another month for Gilmour to develop some musical ideas himself, but Waters felt he was "on a roll" and already had plenty of material to complete the album, a very personal project about his father's death in World War II, and the further victimization of those who survived it.  Waters, seeing Gilmour and Mason's lack of interest in the concept, offered to make The Final Cut as a solo album, but Gilmour and Mason still wanted a Pink Floyd album, of any kind, to sell. "They know that songs don't grow on trees," Waters told David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine. "They wanted it to be a Floyd record."

Gilmour was later interviewed by Texas-based DJ Redbeard, on the radio program, In the Studio during which the focus was his 2006 third album On An Island. He commented on About Face saying that, "looking back on it, it has some great moments on there but the whole flavor of it is too '80s for my current tastes."

"Murder" was an outcry by Gilmour about the senseless killing of John Lennon, a longtime musical peer and inspiration to him. Gilmour embellished the song with a solo fretless bassline (played by Pino Palladino), adding an edgy funk groove to the acoustic beginning of the song, leading to an instrumental bridge, where the song picks up in the speed of the beat with more electric instruments. Gilmour collaborated with Townshend on the songs "Love on the Air" and "All Lovers Are Deranged," as Gilmour recalled: "I sent him three songs and he sent back three sets of lyrics. Two of them suited me well. One didn't. He did the two on About Face and he did the other one ['White City Fighting'] on his White City album."  The lyrics for "Love on the Air" were written in a day, after Gilmour had asked for Townshend's help.  "You Know I'm Right" was written in a similar vein to Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" and was a dig towards to Waters.  "Cruise" was about Ronald Reagan having cruise missiles stationed in Britain at the time.

The cover of the LP is a little wider than usual, approaching 12 1/2 inches. The inner sleeve bears lyrics and photographs of Gilmour, and exists in at least two variations. A sleeve for the UK Harvest edition has rounded corners and opens to the side; one for the USA Columbia edition has square corners and opens to the top, relative to the lyric text. Like the cover, the latter sleeve is wider than it is tall, and may not fit into the outer sleeve if turned 90 degrees. In one corner of both versions are printed the words "Fleudian slip," a play on the words "Freudian slip" and "Pink Floyd."

The album featured the single "Love on the Air," with lyrics by Townshend, and the disco-style single "Blue Light", later remixed by François Kevorkian; "Blue Light" was released, backed with "Cruise", on 13 February 1984, while "Love on the Air", backed with "Let's Get Metaphysical" on 24 April.  The album was released on 5 March in the UK, and on 6 March in the United States (coincidentally on Gilmour's 38th birthday).  "All Lovers Are Deranged" and "Murder" were released as singles for North American rock radio; the former reaching #10 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart.

Writing for AllMusic, critic Tom Demalon wrote of the album "The songs on About Face' show a pop sensibility that Pink Floyd rarely was concerned with achieving," adding that "About Face is well-honed rock album that is riveting from beginning to end."

All lyrics written by David Gilmour, except where noted; all music composed by David Gilmour.