We at AFG would like to wish a very happy 80th birthday to Pink Floyd founding member and our favorite drummer, Nick Mason! Happy birthday, Nick! We hope you enjoy your day. Nick and his lovely wife Annette will be hosting their annual Middlewick House Open Garden event in June click for info and tickets and in July, Nick and his Saucerful Of Secrets will be on tour in Italy and playing a festival in Germany click for info and tickets.
Good news! The date for Rome has been updated for Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets 2024 tour. Coming off their summer tour in Europe and a run of shows in Australia in September the Saucers announce they are returning with 6 (so far confirmed) shows this upcoming July in Italy and a festival show in Germany! Tickets for Rome are on sale tomorrow at 11am CET! Use the links below, or visit http://www.thesaucerfulofsecrets.com/ for more info.
Robert Walter (keyboards/organ for Roger Waters’ recent live band) has appeared on the Keyboard Chronicles and he speaks about his diverse career in the music industry, how he landed the gig with Roger Waters and touring in a big live production- plus more! It’s a great interview and we highly recommend you check it out.
Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets have expanded their summer 2024 tour with a festival date in Germany at the Herzberg Festival. It is a large festival that has been running since 1968. This year the festival will run from July 25-July 28. The Saucers will be performing on July 28th and tickets are on sale now at this link: https://www.burgherzberg-shop.de/c/ticket and it does look like you can get tickets for just that day, of course if there are any updates be sure to check back here.
CH Vintage Audio together with Allen and Heath original founder Andy Bereza have re-created Pink Floyd’s quad mixing console used between 1971-1974. Allen and Heath built the original mixer for Pink Floyd in September of 1971 and it can be seen in use in the film Live at Pompeii.
During the design and build process of the 1971 Pink Floyd 28 into 4 mixer, Peter Watts who was Pink Floyd’s chief roadie at the time asked Andy Bereza to incorporate a large amount of coloured illuminated push buttons in a variety of colours for routing on the desk, in fact he brought Andy a 1 to 1 drawing of the proposed mixer layout using almost every colour of felt tip pen available. Peter, like a lot of late 60’s early 70’s people was into psychedelics and so he also wanted to see the mixing desk feature lots of bright coloured lights.
The desk was constantly modified between October 1971 and October 1974 including expanding the case and fitting Penny and Giles faders, changing the square layout of the quad pan pots to four in a vertical row, and adding extra meters in the middle of the desk.
The mixer tours Dark Side Of The Moon through until November 1974 when it is replaced with a new Allen and Heath mixer, neither Allen and Heath mixer seems to have survived.
The Mod 1 custom quadraphonic mixer made for Pink Floyd. Seen in the film Live at Pompeii.
For fans in Spain, if you wish to see this recreated ‘Pompeii’ mixer and PA it is making an appearance at the ISE Exhibition in Barcelona from 30th January to 2nd February 2024. More information at the link here
Watch Chris Hewitt, Geoff Goddard and desk designer/builder Andy Bereza explain how they re-created the 1971 mixing console here:
Following on from our news story earlier this month about the UK’s The Dark Side Of The Moon Planetarium Show, the Adelaide Fringe which is an arts festival in the south Australian capital of Adelaide will be hosting the Full Dome Experience of the album in its entirety running from 16th February to 17th March. If you’re in the area and want to check it out please use the following link to buy tickets: https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/the-dark-side-of-the-moon-full-dome-experience-af2024
Pink Floyd’s iconic album ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’, originally released in March 1973, turns 50, and what more fitting a place to celebrate it and experience it than in a immersive fulldome experience that sets 10 tracks from The Dark Side of the Moon to mesmeric 360° visuals.
The show combinines breath-taking views of the solar system and beyond from Pink Floyd’s long time creative collaborator Aubrey Powell. Get set for an all-encompassing surround sound and visual treat that will transcend reality and take you way beyond to The Great Gig in the Sky.
Surging in popularity due to the film Saltburn, the pop tune Murder On The Dancefloor by Sophie Ellis-Bextor has entered the UK charts again coming in at No. 8! For those who don’t know Pink Floyd later years bassist/collaborator Guy Pratt played bass on this tune. In an article posted on MusicRadar.com Sophie Ellis-Bextor talks about the song and its resurgence in popularity and she goes on to say:
There’s a crucial musical element to consider, too: what Ellis-Bextor describes as a “really brilliant bassline. This was played by legendary British bassist Guy Pratt, who’s also recorded with the likes of Madonna (Like A Prayer), Pink Floyd (The Division Bell) and Michael Jackson (HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I)
“He’s got such flair for bringing melody to a bassline,” Ellis-Bextor says of Pratt. “With disco, if you haven’t got the rhythm section doing what they need to do, then it isn’t disco.”
You can read the full article using this link: https://www.musicradar.com/news/murder-on-the-dancefloor-saltburn
Those familiar with Guy’s Youtube channel know that he posted a video playing the bassline on his Lockdown Licks video series, but if you haven’t checked it out we highly recommend you do!
Last year Saucerful Of Secrets’ guitarist and co-founder Lee Harris wrote a really great piece on one of Syd Barrett’s tunes “Here I Go” from The Madcap Laughs with the help of Willie Wilson and David Gilmour. The piece was for a feature on the Syd Barrett website called Stories Behind The Songs. It is a really great read worth checking out, especially today as we remember Syd on what would have been his 78th birthday.
“Here I Go” is on the album The Madcap Laughs and was recorded on April 17, 1969 at Abbey Road in Studio 2. According to the late Malcolm Jones who produced the session it took Syd “a matter of minutes” to write.
However, Joe Boyd remembers hearing the song on a demo tape in 1967 and it originally being called “Boon Tune” – “what a boon this tune” is part of the lyric. Boyd was producing a band called The Purple Gang at the same time as he was working with Pink Floyd on “Arnold Layne”. Syd had put forward “Boon Tune” to Joe Boyd and The Purple Gang as their next single but their record company was not happy with them getting involved with other writers/publishers so the idea was shelved – although they did put a version out many years later.
The fact that the song was already written at least 2 years before it was recorded probably explains why Jones presumed it took minutes to write. I reckon those minutes must have been Syd going through it off the top of his head to remember it.
Malcolm Jones also said “Syd nearly always had lyrics with him on a stand in case of the occasional lapse of memory. This one was the only one I remember him having no cue sheet at all”. Perhaps he even changed something but we’ll never know this as the demo tape no longer exists.
Whilst writing this piece, I contacted the drummer Willie Wilson who is credited as the bass player on the song. Willie hails from Cambridge and played in Jokers Wild which was the band David Gilmour was in before Pink Floyd(he would later play drums alongside Nick Mason on The Wall tour). Willie told me he didn’t know Syd when growing up but that he got to know him when he would occasionally get up and play at Jokers Wild gigs. The band even ended up playing on the same bill with the Floyd who were still known as The Tea Set along with a then-unknown Paul Simon at a friend’s party in 1965. – continues
You can read the full story by using this link: https://www.sydbarrett.com/featured_songs/here-i-go-by-lee-harris-co-founder-of-the-saucerful-of-secrets/
We at AFG remember the late great Syd Barrett today on his birthday. Happy Birthday Syd, without whom none of us would be here if not for your contributions to the arts and pop culture. Shine on Syd, long live RKB.
Syd Barrett’s Official Youtube page has posted a new video, taken from Opel focusing on the track Clowns and Jugglers which became the Syd classic Octopus.
Released on the 1988 album “Opel”. “Opel” is a 1988 album compiled from recordings made by former Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett between 1968 and 1970. The album is a compilation of unreleased material and alternate takes of recordings from sessions for Barrett’s solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett. The album consists of eight previously unreleased songs and alternate versions of six already released songs. Video by ArtistontheBorder
