Read Online Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Blake
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, music, Genres & Styles, History & Criticism, Composers & Musicians, Rock
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education.’
Mason didn’t apply himself quite so vigorously to his academic work as might have been expected. At Frensham, his interest in music was stirred by the modern jazz and, later, bebop records played in the school common room. By the time he was fourteen, he was playing drums again, albeit on his own terms. ‘I never had any formal training,’ he said later. ‘And I think that was a big mistake. The easiest way to learn something properly is to be taught it.’
After leaving school, Nick ‘drifted into a five-year architecture course’ at Regent Street Poly in the spring of 1962. Perhaps tellingly, Frank Rutter, the father of Nick’s then girlfriend and future wife, Lindy, was an architect of some note. Even then, while drumming again, he seemed to share none of David Gilmour’s burning ambition to become a musician. As Mason would tell one interviewer some years later: ‘I’m a very bad example of how things can still go right without trying - how you can still get lucky.’
More than architecture or music, Nick’s passion was cars, one of which, a 1930 Austin ‘Chummy’, he used to drive himself to and from the Poly. Mason wrote in his 2004 book that this car was the reason Roger Waters first ‘deigned to speak to me’. Waters wanted to borrow the vehicle; the protective Mason refused, claiming it was currently out of action. Shortly after, Roger spotted Nick behind the wheel. Nevertheless, when the two were given a shared assignment, they struck up a friendship.
In September 1963, Poly students Keith Noble and Clive Metcalfe were casting around for like-minded students and placed a notice on the college noticeboard. ‘It said, “Anyone want to start a group?” ’ recalls Clive Metcalfe. At the time Noble and Metcalfe were already some way ahead of their new rhythm section. ‘Keith and I used to sing together in a bar in Albemarle Street in Piccadilly. We were doing everything from The Beatles to Peter, Paul and Mary, R&B, twelve-bar blues. I was actually at the Chelsea School of Art, but at the time it was being rebuilt so they put us into Regent St Poly.’ Keen to expand beyond a duo, Noble and Metcalfe began rehearsing in the student common room with ‘the people that saw our notice and turned up’. These included Mason and Waters (then playing rudimentary guitar), and Keith Noble’s sister Sheilagh.
‘Sheilagh used to sing with Keith, but I don’t remember her doing very much with us,’ says Metcalfe. ‘Roger wasn’t very well developed as a musician, so although I originally played lead and rhythm guitar, when we realised we needed a bass player, I switched to bass.’
The band took the name of The Sigma 6 after expanding to a sextet with the arrival of another Poly student, pianist Richard William Wright. Born on 28 July 1943, Wright was the son of a biochemist, Robert, who was employed at the local Unigate Dairies, and his wife Daisy. The Wrights lived in Hatch End, Pinner, North London. Pinner was also home to Reg Dwight, who would become Elton John, and, much later, Duran Duran’s future lead singer Simon Le Bon.
After a stint at the local prep school, St John’s, Richard was enrolled at Haberdashers Aske’s, a fee-paying grammar school, then located in Hampstead. (It later moved to Elstree.) By the time Richard reached his teens, he’d learned trombone, saxophone, guitar and piano, and was a frequent visitor to trad jazz gigs at the Railway Tavern in neighbouring Harrow and Wealdstone, where The Who would later launch their career. ‘I wasn’t into pop music at all,’ he said later. ‘I was listening to jazz. The music I first listened to that made me want to be a musician was back in the days of Coltrane, Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy.’
A brief stint as a messenger boy for the local Kodak factory in Harrow and Wealdstone ensued, but, unsure of what he wanted to do with his life, Richard sheepishly followed his careers master’s advice and, in 1962,
Mason didn’t apply himself quite so vigorously to his academic work as might have been expected. At Frensham, his interest in music was stirred by the modern jazz and, later, bebop records played in the school common room. By the time he was fourteen, he was playing drums again, albeit on his own terms. ‘I never had any formal training,’ he said later. ‘And I think that was a big mistake. The easiest way to learn something properly is to be taught it.’
After leaving school, Nick ‘drifted into a five-year architecture course’ at Regent Street Poly in the spring of 1962. Perhaps tellingly, Frank Rutter, the father of Nick’s then girlfriend and future wife, Lindy, was an architect of some note. Even then, while drumming again, he seemed to share none of David Gilmour’s burning ambition to become a musician. As Mason would tell one interviewer some years later: ‘I’m a very bad example of how things can still go right without trying - how you can still get lucky.’
More than architecture or music, Nick’s passion was cars, one of which, a 1930 Austin ‘Chummy’, he used to drive himself to and from the Poly. Mason wrote in his 2004 book that this car was the reason Roger Waters first ‘deigned to speak to me’. Waters wanted to borrow the vehicle; the protective Mason refused, claiming it was currently out of action. Shortly after, Roger spotted Nick behind the wheel. Nevertheless, when the two were given a shared assignment, they struck up a friendship.
In September 1963, Poly students Keith Noble and Clive Metcalfe were casting around for like-minded students and placed a notice on the college noticeboard. ‘It said, “Anyone want to start a group?” ’ recalls Clive Metcalfe. At the time Noble and Metcalfe were already some way ahead of their new rhythm section. ‘Keith and I used to sing together in a bar in Albemarle Street in Piccadilly. We were doing everything from The Beatles to Peter, Paul and Mary, R&B, twelve-bar blues. I was actually at the Chelsea School of Art, but at the time it was being rebuilt so they put us into Regent St Poly.’ Keen to expand beyond a duo, Noble and Metcalfe began rehearsing in the student common room with ‘the people that saw our notice and turned up’. These included Mason and Waters (then playing rudimentary guitar), and Keith Noble’s sister Sheilagh.
‘Sheilagh used to sing with Keith, but I don’t remember her doing very much with us,’ says Metcalfe. ‘Roger wasn’t very well developed as a musician, so although I originally played lead and rhythm guitar, when we realised we needed a bass player, I switched to bass.’
The band took the name of The Sigma 6 after expanding to a sextet with the arrival of another Poly student, pianist Richard William Wright. Born on 28 July 1943, Wright was the son of a biochemist, Robert, who was employed at the local Unigate Dairies, and his wife Daisy. The Wrights lived in Hatch End, Pinner, North London. Pinner was also home to Reg Dwight, who would become Elton John, and, much later, Duran Duran’s future lead singer Simon Le Bon.
After a stint at the local prep school, St John’s, Richard was enrolled at Haberdashers Aske’s, a fee-paying grammar school, then located in Hampstead. (It later moved to Elstree.) By the time Richard reached his teens, he’d learned trombone, saxophone, guitar and piano, and was a frequent visitor to trad jazz gigs at the Railway Tavern in neighbouring Harrow and Wealdstone, where The Who would later launch their career. ‘I wasn’t into pop music at all,’ he said later. ‘I was listening to jazz. The music I first listened to that made me want to be a musician was back in the days of Coltrane, Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy.’
A brief stint as a messenger boy for the local Kodak factory in Harrow and Wealdstone ensued, but, unsure of what he wanted to do with his life, Richard sheepishly followed his careers master’s advice and, in 1962,
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