Chart Info:

Stays on USA charts for 27 weeks! Highest position reached was #74 (was the first time the Floyd broke into the top 100 on the U.S charts) The album charted at #5 in the UK.

Album Info:

Live tracks for the album were recorded at Mother's Club in Birmingham and at Manchester College of Commerce in April and May, 1969. This album would mark Norman Smith's last production work on a Floyd album.

Apparently this double disc--an obligatory purchase for all hipsters on its release in 1969--isn't too highly regarded by the Floyd themselves these days ("Ummagumma-- what a disaster!", Roger Waters is said to have remarked); but it's one of the most adventurous mainstream rock ventures of
all time, and certainly the Floyd's best stab at being avant-garde.

As with the original LP, the CD set is divided into two discs. The first contains the live album of four old favourites, recorded at favoured Floyd venues of the time (June 1969) like Mothers Club (April 27th) in Birmingham and the Manchester Institute of Technology (May 2nd). The sparkling version
of "Astronomy Domine" and a chilling "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" (the first of many Floyd tracks about insanity) are particularly outstanding,
and helped cement the Floyd's status as cult superstars. Each group member was given half a vinyl side to experiment with, in the second disc -- the studio one.

Nick Mason: "This was absolutely not a band album. The live stuff sounds incredibly antiquated now, although the fact of Pink Floyd playing at Mothers in Birmingham was considered a bit of an event at the time. We were looking for new ways of constructing an album, although I think what this
demonstrates is that our sum is always better than the parts. EMI was very hidebound in those days. It was still run by guys in white coats. I was prevented from editing my own tapes by a studio manager who told me I wasn't a union member."

David Gilmour: "I'd never written anything before. I just went into the studio and started waffling about, tacking bits and pieces together. I rang up Roger at one point to ask him to write me some lyrics. He just said, No."

"Ummagumma" was a slang term for knockin' boots. (Knockin' boots of course being a slang term for doing the Wild Thang; which is, of course, slang for having sex.) Of course, Rock and Roll was a slang term for -- you get the picture. So, looked at that way, the album "Ummagumma" could simply mean "Rock and Roll."

Live Album:
Engineer: Brian Humphries
Produced by Pink Floyd
Recorded at Mothers, Birmingham & Manchester College of Commerce,
June 1969

Studio Album:
Engineer: Peter Mew
Produced by Norman Smith