IO vs SR

[Mr. FOLLARD]

Achievements? or just grooves?

Do they still excite?

[loveless]

I need IO. They go straight into the ether. The main motif is exciting, and the exploration in the middle is one of those things that....better them than Zappa, you know?

Every original UK mono of Piper I've found skips on the intro to IO. Either this is a pressing defect, or...these records were PARTIED with!

[DarknessFish]

What do you mean by just grooves? Sister Ray grooves like a bastard, never outstays its welcome, it's a monster of a song. Dirty, chunky, and thrilling all the way through.

Interstellar Overdrive is a bit bedroom nerd... Ooooh, spacey, like, far out man. A bit shit.

[Stacy Heydon]

Both way too long, but there seems more purpose to 'Ray' and its nihilism carries more weight. The main riff in IO is an exciting, foreboding thing but at times the track seems to lose its way. I usually skip it.

[fearlessfreap]

Sister Ray invented motorik. It can go on another half hour as far as I'm concerned.

[Mr. FOLLARD]

Sister Ray, although I almost never listen to it all the way through. But it's a glorious noise. Timeless, in the sense that it kind of exists out of time.

The same cannot really be said for IO, which (as DF points out) is really very much a product of its time - or at least that's the way it seems to me. It's very good THO' - and there are some WIZARD live versions on YT

[Charlie O.]

Feb 20, 2024 12:59:05 GMT loveless said:

....better them than Zappa, you know?

Odd comparison!

I pick “IO” as well. The Velvet Underground is far more important to me than Pink Floyd and I don’t often criticize them, but I always get bored with “Sister Ray” after five minutes or so (though those first five minutes or so are GREAT).

[rayge]

In the very early Seventies, I went to a stude party at a lovely 16th-century house in Wickhambreux, near Canterbury. It was around 9pm, late June, still light, and I was out in the garden, standing under an apple tree, just chilling, when IO came, throbbing and pounding and fragrant with hashish, through an open window and undulated across the grass toward me. I acquired a copy a year or so later as part of a re-release of the first two albums as a gatefold double, but it never sounded better - or even as good - as it did then and there.

Sister Ray, though... I bought my mono version of WLWH the week it was released in the UK, before I was ever into psychedelics, and once I got used to the everything in the red way it was recorded, it became one of my favourite five albums and it's stayed there to this day. I remember more than once being tripped out and lying on the floor with the top of my head right up against the speakers of my record player, turned up REALLY LOUD, a form of aural trepanning. 

Sister Ray isn't my favourite track on the album, but nothing (not recorded by Phil Spector) is better than I Heard Her Call My Name. SR is still an absolute wonder, THO: I now have nine or ten versions of it, ranging from the ten minutes of the La Cave version to more than 36 minutes on the Complete Matrix Tapes: I have been know to play the Sweet Sister Ray 1968-70 album/bootleg's 3 versions, 72 minutes on repeat.

Oddly enough, when I play in any other format than side two of the vinyl, it seems diminished by not having IHHCMN storming away in front of it. The perfectly spaced silence between the snick that ends the latter (the life support being switched off on Lou's guitar) and the first beat of Sister Ray is a thing of wonder.

[Mr. FOLLARD]

Preach it, Ray!

[DayoRemix]

Noise, Glorious Noise..Amazing Sister Ray gets that chugging groove without a bass in sight

The Cosmic Noodling of IO doesn't do much for me..

[rayge]

Feb 20, 2024 17:24:04 GMT DayoRemix said:

Noise, Glorious Noise..Amazing Sister Ray gets that chugging groove without a bass in sight

Metronome Moe

[Sneelock]

I cannah choose between them!

fans of Piper in mono will never know the joy of hearing Interstellar Overdrive WHOOSH from one channel to the next.
this thrills me every bit as much as the nearly narcoleptic stupor of Sister Ray and the way it keeps going & going...

[riggers]

Much as I love Syd's Floyd, 'Interstellar' is one of the least interesting things on the debut for me. Not to say I don't like it, I've just played it again and it has more grit than I remembered, but once it drifts away from the 'Steptoe' riff, it loses me and becomes just another dated, 'groovy' 60's wig out.
That footage of them doing it 'Tonight Let's Make Love In London' is pretty cool, but I much prefer 'Lucifer Sam' or 'Astronomy Domine'.

'Sister Ray' on the other hand never fails to get my blood pumping. I love the lyrics, Lou's delivery and the godawful recording quality. The guitars sound like trashcans being whacked around at times, gloriously percussive. Then Cale's organ comes screaming in and you can't hear Moe at all for a bit ..

I agree with Ray, 'I Heard Her Call My Name' is really special, more concise and the guitar sounds even sharper.

I also love some of the epic workouts of SR on the Quine tapes, it has distinct movements or chapters, not unlike 'Midnight Rambler' and every version is wonderfully thrilling.

[Mr. FOLLARD]

There's nothing else in PF's catalogue that sounds like IO, is that right?

[Sneelock]

well, I think the spacey bits sound an awful lot like much of what was to come on "saucerful of secrets"