Pinky And The Floyd Featured And Playing This Weekend

According to Glenn Povey's 2007 book "Echoes," one in every 14 Americans under the age of 50 has owned a copy of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon."

The album changed rock music with music intertwined with heartbeats, ticking clocks, clanging coins, bells and voices that spoke to generations.

"It was the most amazing thing I've heard in my entire life," Luke Flansberg said of hearing the album during his freshman year of college. "They're one of the greatest bands in the whole wide world to ever make music."

The sound

Pinky and the Floyd, a tribute band with a veritable "who's who" of the Bozeman music scene, features 11 musicians - though one of the vocalists is very pregnant and may only perform one song when the band plays Saturday at the Filling Station.

"To capture that sound and do it any sort of justice at all, we feel we need that many," Flansberg said, citing Pink Floyd's own shows, which featured 11 musicians after the release of "Dark Side of the Moon."

"We modeled it after that," Flansberg said. "It's a big, big sound."

Dustin Tucker described dynamics within Pink Floyd's music as a rollercoaster.

"It can be so quiet and peaceful and romantic and it can be so hard-hitting," he said.

Either way, each member is necessary for an attempt to recreate the familiar echoes of Pink Floyd's albums.

"They have a specific tone, a specific sound and they are complete masters of it," Flansberg said.

Barnett struggles to estimate the number of bands and musical projects Pinky's members are involved in, but said everyone has at least three.

"If we did a collective, it would probably be 35, if not 50," she said. "But there's a lot of overlap."

More than a dozen acts around town include at least two of the musicians from Pinky such as Golden Grenade, The String Jumpers, M.O.T.H., Eightrack Mind, Poco Loco, Florescent Brown, Lester Rocks, The Tiny Funk Band, and Jeni Fleming's band.

Aside from playing all over town, five of the members also run sound for shows.

"It helps with the music," Jake Fleming said. "You understand things on a different level than just chords and our parts."

And there's a lot to understand in Pink Floyd's music.

Stealing, Sean Lehman said, is "the best form of flattery. Emulating what someone else has done pushes you as a musician."

While for the most part, Pinky and the Floyd remains true to their inspiration, each member adds their own artistry to the music. "Another Brick in the Wall," for example, is not the version you would hear on the album.

"It's kind of groovy," Barnett said. "It jams."

With their varied influences, Jake Fleming explained that while they may not push preferred styles on Pinky, each member unconsciously affects the overall sound.

"As players, musicians and artists, whatever you got comes with you," Jake Fleming said.

Though the band members' other projects include everything from jazz to hip hop, Pink Floyd, masters of progressive and psychedelic rock, has influenced all of them.

Founding members and Bozemanites Joe Kirchner and Dustin Tucker cite the Museum of the Rockies' Taylor Planetarium show "Laser Dark Side" as the basis.

"It blew my mind," Kirchner said.

Learning to play the songs is like "reliving the first time you heard the album," he said.

Recreating Floyd

Adam Greenberg will play his first show with Pinky this weekend, taking over from Mario Maltese, who moved out of the area. In the last three weeks of learning all 30 songs in Pinky's repertoire, Maltese's guidance has been invaluable, Greenberg said.

"(Maltese) knew every fill, every little nuance," Greenberg said. " He did his homework. He was awesome."

Chris Cundy, on secondary keys, said his part of the band is easy, and he often holds drawn-out notes on a Hammond B-3, played through a Leslie speaker. But where else would he get to play an organ?

The fact that I get to play this in an epic manner," he said, fingering the organ's keys.

Drew Fleming surrounded himself with all manner of noisemakers during practice - from maracas and cymbals to a tambourine and drum machine - all necessary to recreating the music, he said.

"There's a lot of sound that happens beside drums. I normally play kits. That's what makes this fun."

Jeni Fleming, known for her stirring jazz vocals, had been touring the Northwest with husband, Jake, as a duo when a friend said she hadn't arrived as a musician in Bozeman unless she played the Filler.

"I didn't take him seriously, but I've never forgotten," she said.

This weekend, she'll arrive.

The experience

Pink Floyd used synthesizers and unique instrumentation before they were the norm. But technology's direction at the time wasn't just about music. Pink Floyd tribute bands, like their inspiration, are often about the spectacle as much as the music. Pinky won't reveal exactly what, but Barnett said aside from the lights and fog, they have something up their sleeves.

"It's a show," Flansberg said.

"It's an experience," Barnett added.

So expect spectacle. Expect Kitschner to be sporting a giant pink beehive wig he got from his mother as a joke. In fact, expect a whole lot of pink.

"It deserves it," Tucker said of putting on a complete show. "The music deserves it. The audience deserves it."

And while they're more than happy to dole out a Pink Floyd fix for fans, members of Pinky and the Floyd are friends first and enjoy what each brings to the group.

‘We're all having the time of our lives," Kirschner said.

Rachel Hergett may be reached at rhergett@dailychronicle.com or 582-2603.

Catch Pinky and the Floyd play Hans' birthday bash at the Filling

Station on Saturday at 9 p.m. Then, the band will hit the big stage at the

Emerson Center for Arts and Culture on March 10, where they will

perform with an aerialist (or possibly two) in their first attempt at a stage show. Costumes are encouraged.

Pinky and the Floyd is:

Luke Flansburg (lead guitar, vocals)

Dustin Tucker (rhythm guitar, vocals)

Sean Lehman (bass)

Joe Kirchner (keys)

Adam Greenburg (drums)