Rockonteurs is a podcast all about the real stories behind real music.

Presented by Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, who wrote and performed megahits like ‘Gold’ and ‘True’, and Guy Pratt, a bass player who shaped songs for the likes of Madonna and Pink Floyd, you’ll hear exclusive stories of life on the road, in the studio and what really happened behind the scenes from artists who wrote, performed and produced the some of the biggest classic rock and pop tracks of all time.

Rockonteurs is a podcast all about the real stories behind real music.

This weeks upcoming episode is Number 58 and features guest Sir Tim Rice

Available from 24th October 2021 on Itunes, Spotify and all other Listening Platforms. Click Here to be taken to Apple Musics Listening Page

Ashdown has unveiled a new signature bass amp head for Guy Pratt, the Interstellar-600.

The esteemed British bassist, who has played with everyone from Pink Floyd to Madonna and Gary Moore, has long favored customized Ashdown’s ABM 900 heads, and the new signature model is based on that amp.

That said, there are some extensive modifications packaged with the Interstellar-600. The face of the amp contains two VU meters, for both input and output levels, then there’s a nine-band EQ section and, on the rear, an input for Pratt’s Moog Taurus pedal.

In addition, Ashdown says the amp can be used with an optional footswitch to engage “the compression and the sub harmonics at fixed values to Guy’s exacting specifications when required”.

The large Tube Drive knob on the front of the amp allows players to blend Dual Triode Tube amplification/overdrive section into the signal, allowing you to tweak it from valve-based warmth, to full on distortion.

Pratt also specified a more vintage ’60s aesthetic, so the amp comes with a custom wooden sleeve, which can be removed to place it in a rack unit.

“I can’t tell you how proud it makes me to have a signature amp with my Ashdown family, who’ve been with me every step of the way of my 40 year career,” says Pratt.

“We’ve been tinkering with bits and pieces for years, and this combines our shared passion for great traditional British amps with everything I know and trust about my ABMs. It’s not about bells and whistles, well apart from the dedicated Taurus input, it’s about solid, shapeable, deliverable power. Along with my 3x10s this is my ultimate dream rig. Turn on and trip out!”

The Ashdown Interstellar-600 is handmade in the UK and available for pre-order now.
Head to Ashdown’s official site for more information.

CAREFUL WITH THAT PROGRAMME
A Journey Through Time and the World of Pink Floyd – A Fleeting Glimpse’s Tour Book Exhibition By Richard Hobo

Pink Floyd has always been about a journey. Indeed, one of their earliest performances was entitled, The Man And The Journey and fans often talked about the experience of seeing Pink Floyd live being a real “trip.” Even putting a Pink Floyd album on in your living room, you know you’ll be going on an aural journey.

Now, Pink Floyd website A Fleeting Glimpse has assembled a quite incredible quantity of tour programmes from the pulsing embers of Pink Floyd’s beginnings in the black and white single sheet flyers for the Marquee club in London, right out to the edges of the solar flares of the band’s existence in the lavish, full-colour thirty-seven-page programme for The Division Bell tour. Even the lashing tentacles of the various member’s live solo works are here. The quality of the whole exhibition is fantastic and easy to use, with the user able to turn the pages digitally, just as they would if they had the programme in their own hands.

One of the main thoughts that kept running through my head as I scrolled through over fifty years of tour books was, how on earth had these valuable items survived for so long? I kept coming up with scenarios of what might have happened to the thousands of programmes distributed among the fans over the years. Were some the victims of angry breakups, slashed or burned in retribution for extra-marital shenanigans? Were others accidentally soaked in cheap wine as a result of late night drunken mishaps? Were some simply thrown in the bin once the show was over, their future value as a historic document simply not realised at the time? Was a significant unsold quantity dumped in skips by the promoters themselves, as cash-strapped fans decided to spend their hard-earned cash on T-shirts and beer instead? Personally, I’ve been to more than one concert where I’ve heard a hawker in a STAFF T-shirt call out, “Programmes, programmes, get your programmes here! I’ve only got three thousand left!”

It’s not just tour programmes either, there’s also a selection of Gerald Scarfe’s original drawings for The Wall movie, the credits being written before Alan Parker came on board as director. One of the more time-consuming items for me was the essay written by film director Alan Parker about his involvement with The Wall and how it all came to be. As The Wall is now probably the best, most creative rock and roll film ever made, it seems incredible that Parker struggled to get the project green lit by the film industry.

There are some items in here, that I would challenge any die-hard Pink Floyd fan to know even existed. Did you know that Pink Floyd, Genesis and half of Queen joined Eric Clapton to perform at a black-tie charity concert at a ruined castle in 1993? Eighties popster Paul Young sang Roger’s vocals on Comfortably Numb and Mike Rutherford performed bass playing duties. I sure didn’t know that.

It’s not all English language either, with a Japanese version of the information book on The Wall movie, as well as a Czech language version of The Division Bell tour programme. Whoever said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery probably never had their concert tour  programme ripped off as poorly as Pink Floyd experienced with the unofficial programme for the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour. Hilariously, this rancid tome features more photos of Roger Waters than of David Gilmour and there’s a big spread on The Wall, with absolutely no mention of the new album! It all appears to have been photocopied directly from the book Pink Floyd – A Visual Documentary by Miles. No wonder bands get so annoyed with bootleg products.

If it’s weightiness you want, the sixty-four-page book of The Wall Live in Berlin is one of the most fascinating pieces as both a Pink Floyd and social historical document. Fascinating on a slightly different angle is the brochure for the Volkswagen Golf Pink Floyd edition.

After viewing this tour book exhibition, I did what any self-respecting Pink Floyd fan would do and headed for the Pink Floyd section of my bookshelf to pore over my own tour book collection. Just to make sure they’re ok, obviously.

Please join us in wishing our friend Durga Mcbroom, Backing vocalist with Pink Floyd on all tours from 1987 to 1994 and subsequent album ‘The Endless River’, A very Happy 59th Birthday.

Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett’s guitar will be auctioned off to raise funds a national charity and a Cambridgeshire hospice.

The singer-songwriter left the band in 1968, as they were about to achieve global recognition, and lived in his mum’s basement in Hills Road, Cambridge.

Barrett recorded two solo albums but suffered from mental deterioration, which was blamed on his drug use, eventually becoming a recluse, He died of pancreatic cancer in 2006 at the age of 60.

His nephew Mark Barrett, aged 57, is now selling the 12-string Yamaha acoustic guitar with proceeds to be split evenly between mental health charity Mind and the Arthur Rank Hospice in Shelford Bottom.

Syd Barrett mentioned the guitar in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.“It’s my new 12-string guitar,” said the musician, born Roger Keith Barrett. “I’m just getting used to it. “I polished it yesterday.”

Mark Barrett said the guitar was stored with his father, Alan Barrett – Syd’s brother – after the Hills Road house was sold in 1974.He said his uncle “never collected the guitar” and his father “continued to store it over three subsequent house moves, eventually offering it to me” after Syd’s death.

“I finally collected it from my father’s house in November of 2020, shortly before he died,” he said. “Unfortunately, I never got to know my uncle Roger, though I would have loved to, but he was a recluse in his later years.”

The guitar has a serial number of 1090448 with a date code for October 21 1969.

Also up for auction at Cheffins in Cambridge is what is believed to be the last artwork created by Syd Barrett.

The watercolour and pencil drawing is titled Still Life With Lemons And Green Bottles, and is initialled and dated “RB Jan – 06”. Drawn just months before his death, it was discovered at his home in Margaret’s Square, Cambridge, where he lived for the last three decades of his life.

It first went under the hammer at Cheffins as part of the sale of the contents of his home in 2006, and is now being sold by a private collector with a pre-sale estimate of £4,000 to £6,000.

Martin Millard, director at Cheffins, said: “Syd Barrett still has a cult-like status as one of the greatest icons in the world of music. Syd’s Pink Floyd years were turbulent, marred by drug addiction and struggles with his mental health; however, when he retired to Cambridge, he became a recluse. His lack of public presence in his later years only went to add to the intrigue which still surrounds him.“It therefore seems incredibly fitting that Mark Barrett has chosen to support both Mind and the Arthur Rank Hospice with the proceeds of the sale.”

He said the lots are “sure to be of keen interest to his global army of superfans”, adding that Barrett “frequently destroyed any artworks he made once they were finished” so the painting is “a significant item”.

Also part of the auction are a garden table and four chairs that were home-made by Barrett; a Cambridgeshire High School for Boys photograph from 1959, featuring Barrett, Roger Waters and Storm Thorgerson; and with a Cantabrigian programme for She Stoops To Conquer from 1961, featuring Barrett as Tom Twist.

The auction will take place on Thursday October 28.