Nick Mason interview: Chuck Berry's influence on Pink Floyd
Nick Mason Interview: Chuck Berry’s influence on Pink Floyd
Category Archives: News
Guy Pratt Is The Sideman : More Shows
Following his performance of the show on February 10th 2017 in Juju’s Bar & Stage London , “Guy Pratt is The Sideman” is lined up for another few unmissable performances
GUY PRATT IS THE SIDEMAN: a one-man show celebrating 30 years as the bass player of choice for the heavyweights of rock and pop. Guy Pratt is a Grammy award winning bassist who has played live and on record with such megastars as Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, Roxy Music, Bryan ferry, Robert Palmer, Gary Moore, Womack & Womack, Jimmy page and David Coverdale… and worked as a studio sideman for artists including Madonna, Michael Jackson, the pretenders, Kirsty MacColl and Elton John.
In his one man, Guy regales audiences with stories from behind behind the scenes. His self-deprecating wit is irrestible and so are his rip-roaring anecdotes. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. If you’re a musician, you’ll probably sue…
“Bass players are ten a penny, but a good wit is hard to find, so we hired him”
– David Gilmour
This week, on Tuesday, March 21st, Guy returns to the Komedia in Brighton. Tickets from Komedia.co.uk now.
On April 23rd, he performs at the Bingley Arts Centre, and tickets are now available from Ticketsource.co.uk.
Finally, between August 14th-28th, he takes the show to the world renowned Edinburgh Festival, playing the Fringe under the show title “Inglorious Bassterd”. Tickets should be available soon from EdFringe.com.
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon recording console heads to auction
© Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
Assuming Pink Floyd do not play at Glastonbury – and given the coolness between Roger Waters and David Gilmour, that seems a reasonable assumption to make, no matter how tantalising the speculation – then the Floyd obsessive in your life has a hole they need filling.
If they also have a garage or storage unit they need filling, then the perfect gift to meet their needs is on the market: the recording console used by the band when they recorded The Dark Side of the Moon.
The desk – the Abbey Road Studios EMI TG12345 Mk IV, in case you didn’t know – was housed at Abbey Road’s studio two from 1971 to 1983, where it was also used to record solo records by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, as well as work by Kate Bush and the Cure among many others.
It is to be sold by the auction house Bonham’s as part of their TCM Presents … Rock and Roll Through the Lens auction in New York on 27 March. The seller is the producer Mike Hedges, who bought it when the studio upgraded its equipment in 1983. The console was built by Abbey Road and EMI engineers working together, and was among the most advanced of its time when new.
Be warned, however: no estimate is listed, suggesting it may cost more than the casual buyer has to hand. Rolling Stone reports that it is expected to attract “six-figure bids”. It is on view at Bonham’s London branch, in Knightsbridge, from 19 to 27 March.
For something a little less expensive, and for those without room to store a recording console, an early 1970s Pink Floyd promotional poster is being sold at the auction with an estimated cost of between £250 and £410. If you have the money but not the space, then you might want to consider a bid of between £120,000 and £160,000 for Jimi Hendrix’s recorder. Not tape recorder. But recorder, as played tunelessly by children since time immemorial.
You can view a scan of the Abbey Road Console (Lot 35) from the upcoming Bonhams catalogue (March 27) below (Thanks go to Peter Agnos for sending it in)
image2017-03-20-222623Pink Floyd to launch Interstellar Overdrive for Record Store Day
Pink Floyd will release a previously unheard version of 1966 instrumental Interstellar Overdrive on 12-inch vinyl for this year’s Record Store Day, They’ll launch Interstellar Overdrive – a previously unheard mono instrumental recording of the 1966 track – on April 15 on heavyweight 180-gram vinyl.
It’ll play at 33⅓ RPM and will come with a fold-out poster and an A6 postcard featuring a classic image of the band taken while they were recording their debut single Arnold Layne.
A statement reads: “Written and performed by Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Richard Wright and Nick Mason, Interstellar Overdrive is an unheard recording from 1966, running at a hefty 14 minutes 57 seconds long.
“The original recording was done at the Thomson studio in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, on November 31, 1966, before the band were signed to EMI. “A different, shorter version of the track appears on the band’s debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.”
A limited run of the single will also be available at The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum from May 13.
Roger Waters – “Is This the Life We Really Want?” – Coming 19th May 2017
Roger Waters - Is This the Life We Really Want? (Making Of) [Part 2]
![Roger Waters - Is This the Life We Really Want? (Making Of) [Part 2]](https://www.pinkfloydz.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F9etnOcG3v6c%2F0.jpg)
Another Brick In The Wall : The Wall Opera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TleIh4q2yKk
These days, if you mention The Wall, people may think you’re talking about Donald Trump’s proposed barrier separating the United States from Mexico. If you travel northward into Canada, though, The Wall means something else entirely – Pink Floyd’s 1979 album The Wall is being turned into an opera. Another Brick in the Wall: The Opera is a collaboration between Opéra de Montréal and the band’s former bassist and songwriter Roger Waters. It will premiere at the Quebec opera house on 11 March and is one of a series of events meant to help celebrate the city’s 375th anniversary.
© Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette
While the opportunity to transform your rock opera into an actual opera sounds hard to pass up, that’s exactly what Waters did when he was approached by the composer Julien Bilodeau and Pierre Dufour, who at the time was the executive director of the Opéra de Montréal. “I wrote them a very polite, but very firm email back saying that my experience had been that most collaborations between popular music in general, but rock’n’roll in particular, and the symphonic orchestral form were unmitigated disasters and I thought it was a terrible idea,” said Waters.
“I got this fantastic letter back from Pierre Dufour. It was so eloquent in defense of their idea and I agreed that I would meet with them.” Dufour, Bilodeau, and the director Dominic Champagne came to New York to meet Waters, armed with preliminary set designs and operatic transformations of Pink Floyd’s hits Comfortably Numb and Another Brick in The Wall, Part 2. Waters was impressed. “We started talking and five hours later we were still talking,” he said. “After that meeting I said, ‘You know what? All right, you’ve convinced me. Let’s do it.’”
© Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette
Waters joined the team, serving as librettist for the new piece, with music written by Bilodeau. The conductor Alain Trudel and Champagne will guide the Orchestre Métropolitain and Étienne Dupuis, who plays the character inspired by the rock star Pink Floyd, the fictional protagonist of the original rock opera reportedly inspired by both Waters and Pink Floyd’s original leader, Syd Barrett.
Montreal is a fitting place for the opera’s debut, as the origin story behind Pink Floyd’s The Wall started at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium in 1977, when Waters spat in the face of a fan who attempted to storm the stage. It was a move that ended the Pink Floyd concert and shocked the fan, and Waters. “It was a life-changing moment for me only insofar as my response to it made me think of how alienated I had become,” said Waters. “Suddenly a lightbulb went on and this showman in me went, ‘What about doing a rock show and building a wall between the band and the audience, as a physical expression of alienation that caused me to spit on that bloke?’”
To Find Out More And Buy Tickets Online Click Here
Pink Floyd : Their Mortal Remains 360-Degree Audio Experiance
The Pink Floyd Exhibition - Immersive Live 8 Mix | Sennheiser
Fans of Pink Floyd will soon get a special opportunity to hear one of the band’s most famous live performances like never before, as part of a special exhibition on the band at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
The museum has partnered with Sennheiser to present a 360-degree recording of Comfortably Numb from Pink Floyd’s famed Live 8 performance in 2005, the last time that the band’s classic lineup — guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason, keyboardist Richard Wright and bassist Roger Waters — ever shared a stage together.
The demonstration of the latest 3D audio technology seems particularly well-suited to the famed classic rock outfit, who helped pioneer the use of surround sound in the music industry decades ago.
“We have been using Sennheiser equipment ever since Pink Floyd started out as a live band,” said Mason of the collaboration, “It is only fitting that they provide the audio experience at our exhibition.”
To achieve the feeling of being at the concert in person, the team from Sennheiser will employ 25 speakers and its Ambeo 3D technology, which places sound both around and above the listener for a fully immersive audio experience.
This isn’t the first time that fans of Floyd have been able to hear this technology applied to their music. The company premiered the mix to an exclusive audience at Abbey Road Studios, where the band recorded iconic records like Dark Side of the Moon, earlier this month.
Pink Floyd engineer Andy Jackson worked closely with the audio wizards at Sennheiser and producers like Simon Roads (Spectre, Avatar) at Abbey Road to make sure the mix was up to snuff.
The exhibition called Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, will open at the museum on May 13.
MOJO Magazine #282 May 2017 : Pink Floyd [Limited Edition Lenticular Cover]
The package contains a lovingly curated CD of progressive sounds, including mind-expanding tracks by Hawkwind, Foxygen, Public Service Broadcasting, Gong, The Phoenix Foundation, Dungen, Jane Weaver and more. Inside the magazine, the Floyd’s Roger Waters gives an exclusive interview about the Animals album and MOJO is afforded an exclusive preview of the V&A’s extraordinary Pink Floyd exhibition.
MOJO 282’s Lenticular Edition is limited to 5000 copies and is only available to buy online. So order now to avoid disappointment. Our “regular” edition, featuring the free CD and identical content is in UK stores from Tuesday, March 21.
Rick Wright : Identity (Zee album) To Be Remixed and Re-released
Identity is the only album by Zee, a short-lived side project of Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright, a duo partnership consisting of Wright and Dave Harris of New Romantic outfit Fashion, released in 1984. The album was written and produced by Wright and Harris and all the lyrics were penned by Harris.
Dave Harris recently posted on social media that he is “Looking towards remixing and re recording certain tracks from the Zee album with Richard Wright, with a view to a digital release of the original album as it stands and a separate album of re worked songs from ‘Identity’, using Ricks recorded work from 1984.This will involve certain old friends of mine, with whom I have played and conversed with over the years. I cant say anything else at this stage, only to promise that the new tracks will shine with Ricks posthumous involvement.”