Pink Floyd Blues Trivia Quiz

Answer: Architecture

Regent Street Poly merged with Holborn College of Law, Languages and Commerce in 1970 to become the Polytechnic of Central London, which has since been absorbed into the University of Westminster.

If they had stuck to architecture, would there be more brick walls in London?

Answer: Camberwell Art School

Camberwell Art School, now Camberwell College of Arts and one of the colleges of University of the Arts London, has been developing artists for over 100 years. It shares its premises with the South London Gallery.

Goldsmith's is a college of the University of London. Visual Arts is only one of their departments, which also include such areas of esoteric interest as the Afghanistan Music Unit and the Centre for Visual Anthropology. (They also cover many 'mainstream' fields.)

The Royal College of Art is a public school (for Americans, that means a private school) which only takes postgraduate students. A quick look at a list of notable alumni reads like a "Who's Who" of the visual arts world.

Slade is the art college of University College London. It specialises in contemporary art and research into electronic media as it relates to fine art.

Answer: London Underground

Probably everyone who does this quiz can sing Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale" from memory. The group, which originated in Southend-on-Sea in Essex, UK, has had a great many changes in personnel, but as of 2003 was still recording under the same name.

The Soft Machine made music from 1966 to 1976. Their music tended to instrumentals and psychedelia, with a lot of drum in the beginning. (Their first album had the bonus of driving parents, at least my parents, crazy with the long drum solos.)

"Tomorrow" was a short-lived band which didn't achieve commercial success, except for two singles. One member, Steve Howe, did go on to bigger things when he joined the band "Yes".

Arthur Brown formed his "Crazy World" band and ushered in the age of theatrical makeup and bizarre performances, allegedly having performed in the nude and most definately having performed wearing a helmet which would spout fire (and which once overflowed onto him, a disaster being prevented by some quick-witted spectators who sacrificed their pints of beer to put him out.) Brown played the role of the Priest in the film of the rock opera, "Tommy" and is now an ordained minister. And presumably still a pyromaniac?

AMM is an avant-garde band in which the members vow never to rehearse their music, nor plan their concerts. Their genre is improvisational jazz, and while they are largely unknown they have recorded on the Matchless Recordings label, run by one of their members.

Answer: 1968

Barrett's descent into the darkness may have been exacerbated by his near-obsessive consumption of LSD, but the end result was he would sometimes stand on stage and look blankly at a wall, not playing or singing or interacting in any way with the band or audience.

Answer: Eclipse

Their most commercially successful album, "Dark Side" was based on the concept of man's fear of insanity and alienation.

Answer: David Gilmour's wedding

Syd went to the reception with the rest of the band (in the UK, unlike in the US, more people would be invited to a reception than to the wedding itself), then was never seen by them again.

Answer: The Final Cut

"Animals" was released in January 1977. "The Wall" followed in November 1979. "The Final Cut" was subtitled, "a requiem for the postwar dream, by Waters, performed by Pink Floyd"; this finally brought matters to a head and the schism between Waters and Gilmour became too great for them to continue working together.

"A Momentary Lapse of Reason" was released by the new Pink Floyd, without Waters in the lineup. (The legal settlement gave the band's name to Gilmour and Mason, while Waters kept "The Wall" and the floating pig prop used at concerts.) It was the band's first album to reach #1 in both the UK and the US.

Answer: True

The band members overcame the animosity of many years in order to play for a cause in which they could all believe. It also served to honour the original force behind the group, Syd Barrett.

During the set, Waters said "It's actually quite emotional standing up here with these three guys after all these years. Standing to be counted with the rest of you. Anyway, we're doing this for everyone who's not here, but particularly, of course, for Syd."

Answer: cancer

Syd died on 7 July 2006 of pancreatic cancer, shortly after he was diagnosed with the disease.

Answer: Syd's cats were named Pink and Floyd

It was the cats. The rest I made up. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to come up with a plausible explanation for two such unrelated words!

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