Pink Floyd

John,

"...but I suspect anyone who equates then with a bar band either hasn't seen much of the Dead, much of bar bands, or not much of either."

Maybe you were just being polite, but there is another explanation.

Any given listener may - without any need to explain him or herself - choose to like or dislike any given performance, but that doesn't justify being dismissive of the performers. Like the songs or not, find the extended improvisations exhilirating or mind numbing...that's a matter of taste. But, there should be NO DENYING that those guys can play.

BTW, I used to work with a bunch of Dead fanatics. It was a 24/7 kind of job, so we'd have music on after hours. It was a constant struggle for me to limit the amount of Dick's Picks that I'd have to sit through.

For much the same reason, I've been talked into seeing The Dead twice. I really don't have the appetite for five hours of that material at one sitting, but I'll still give them their due. They're a great band working a particular corner of a particular genre that has limited appeal for me.

Marty

Sure, the Floyd material is dated. It is 2011 and they were late 60's to 80's band, essentially. They were not a stoner band but that was the era.

They were extremely talented musicians that put together an incredible library of multi-layered recordings that set a standard for sound excellence and aritistry that still exists today. The band's meticulous attention to detail and the mastering abilities of Sax, Guthrie, Parsons and Andy Jackson became legendary.

Many top recording artists still use Astoria because their gear is like none other. Skywalker Ranch in SF followed the benchmarks they set for sound in developing their own studios and gear. Tim DeParavicini (EAR) re-worded the power supplies in Astoria's Studer Master decks.They invested in expensive electronics, power and cable systems because Gilmour cared about getting the best sound. The Floyd started an era that contributed to sound-quality mattering; to sound engineers, musicians and audiophiles alike.

If they are still making money from re-issues, they deserve it. As for talent, in concert, I never saw anyone slay an audience the way Gilmour could with his guitar solo's. His Live 8 Concert Comfortably Numb solo a few years back ( on U-Tube) brought back great memories.

Does anyone know anything about James Guthrie?

James Guthrie begun his career working with Greg Walsh (Tina Turner etc) at Mayfair Studios London. James Guthrie now has his own studio called Das Boot in Lake Tahoe and he uses ATC's (like David Gilmour). Pretty much all the remasters of Pink Floyd (like the SACD stuff) and newer solo related stuff (such as "On an Island" etc) were all done on ATC's. Greg Walsh was one of the early users of ATC along with Hugh Padgham (Police, Peter Gabriel, Phil Colins etc.) A large portion of UK music made in the 80's was done on ATC's whilst the USA were still using horns. Nowadays both sides of the pond have many ATC users.

I believe James Guthrie uses EMM Labs DAC's and preamps

So nothing new about James association with Pink Floyd - so you can expect more of the same.

Just another quick historical note - Alan Parsons is the one responsible for the sound behind the original masterpiece DSOTM. Alan still uses B&W speakers, as far as I know, and swears by them.