I’m not a huge Pink Floyd fan. The Syd Barrett material has its trippy charms, but the later stuff has always struck me as a bit whiny. But when the dynamic Uncle Flakey let me know that the Flaming Lips teamed up with Henry Rollins to cover Dark Side Of The Moon, I just had to come up with an excuse to post something from that one.

Foo Fighters “Have A Cigar” (Pink Floyd)
By and large I don’t find Foo Fighters to be a real good cover band. They tend to pick songs that are very similar to their style and then don’t do much new with them. This time around they take Pink Floyd’s indictment of corporate America and give it a crunchy, muscular workout. I think this version’s arrangement suits the lyrics better than the original.

Wireless “See Emily Play” (Pink Floyd)
Most of the covers of this song hew pretty closely to the original. This one moves further afield and features a tasty Motown-style horn section.

Rasputina “Wish You Were Here” (Pink Floyd)
This isn’t some novelty “let’s get an orchestra to record Pink Floyd” kinda tune. Rasputina is a band that features two cellos and a percussionist. The write some very interesting original music and play some very creative covers.

The Flaming Lips, Stardeath and White Dwarfs w/Henry Rollins and Peaches “The Great Gig In The Sky” (Pink Floyd)
This is a really strong album. There’s not a real consistent sound from song to song, probably because so many people were involved. For me this is the song that sounds most like the Flaming Lips, probably because they’re playing it by themselves with the help of Henry and Peaches on vocals. I particularly like the middle section where Peaches starts wailing.

The Polka Floyd Show “Welcome To The Machine” (Pink Floyd)
Those “Pickin’ On” bluegrass tributes to every band under the sun are generally amusing as a concept but get tiresome after a couple of songs. Same with the endless classical tributes to heavy metal artists. On its surface you would think that a band that does polka versions of Pink Floyd songs would fall into the same category. But you’d be wrong. The Polka Floyd Show clearly love the source music and are still able to have fun with it in creative ways. This is from a live album they put out last year.