Pigs were flying around Princeton University and in the Garden State Thursday night (April 10th) as organizers of the University's interdisciplinary Pink Floyd conference launched the multiday event with an open jam session ("If We All Pull Together: Pink Floyd Open Jam") at Small World Coffee. The café sits adjacent to the University campus, in the downtown Princeton, New Jersey area, about an hour southwest of New York City.

As previously reported by Brain Damage, a number of events, including a screening of "The Wall" and academic presentations analyzing the music and history of Pink Floyd will follow on the campus itself through this weekend. Pink Floyd producer and engineer James Guthrie will also host a "special world-premiere of his just-finished 5.1 mix of Roger Water's Amused to Death on state-of-the-art ATC speakers". Guthrie will deliver the keynote speech.

As many of you know, on April 29th Hendra, by Ben Watt (including a guest appearance by David Gilmour is released. After twenty years in Everything But The Girl, and ten years as a respected DJ and record label boss of Buzzin' Fly, Ben Watt announced last year he was putting everything on hold to complete some long-planned creative solo projects.

Hendra is his first solo album for over thirty years, released on his own new imprint, Unmade Road through Caroline International. David Gilmour adds plangent slide guitar and backing vocals on the track The Levels.

Ben: "We met by chance in London just before the album. We didn't know each other. He invited me to hear his demos. I thought he was joking, but two days later he texted me and invited me down to his studio and we got on well. During my album, The Levels seemed like a perfect track for him. I rang him up and he loved the song and he did it the same weekend. Wish everything was that simple sometimes!"

You can currently pre-order the CD from Amazon UK as a standard or deluxe edition, Amazon.com (US), Amazon Canada, Amazon Germany, and Amazon Espana.

In the meantime, via the Q Magazine website, a video has just been released of a special live stripped-back version of 'The Levels' featuring Ben on vocals and acoustic guitar, and David on slide guitar, recorded at David's Medina studio in Hove last month.

On May 19th, 2014, a reissue of the 2 disc Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story DVD is being released, by Eagle Rock.

The release seems to be a straight repackage of the 2006 DVDisc "definitive edition" which our review reveals a release well deserving of your attention. Other than the 2001 BBC documentary which is the main focus - and worth the price on its own, there are some great extras, particularly the interviews with David Gilmour (36 minutes), Nick Mason (28 minutes), Richard Wright (26 minutes) and a 55 minute interview with Roger Waters.

The interview finds Roger, sitting in a studio, refreshingly honest, and at times, forgetful - which comes as a surprise. It provides a fascinating trawl through Roger's memories, looking at his earliest interactions with Syd, through the many experiences and problems, up to the final time he saw Syd.

The questioning elicits some good responses from Roger, with some unusual lines of attack. He even responds in the positive to a searching question basically positing that his empathy with Syd and his decline had elements of "there but for the grace of God, go I". He relates a situation at Abbey Road Studios where he experienced a shocking, almost out-of-body episode, which he equated to a nervous breakdown. At the time he thought he was "going crazy", and it seemed to give him fresh insight into Syd's condition.

If you haven't already got this in one of its previous iterations, we really recommend it. You can order through these direct links: Amazon UK, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Espana and Amazon Italy, who all run a pre-order price guarantee, which means if they price match any other retailer between now and release, or indeed drop the price further, you automatically pay the lowest price. It is an NTSC format release, it seems, so those of you in North America who want this, should be fine with it on your equipment.

As a follow up to 2009's cover of The Dark Side of the Moon by the Flaming Lips, they've this week released as a digital download, Flaming Side of the Moon.

The band call it "an immersive companion piece" designed to be played simultaneously with the original album. "Listeners are encouraged to listen to the new Lips album while listening to Dark Side of the Moon at the same time," the group states in a news release. "For ideal listening conditions, fans are encouraged to seek out the original Alan Parsons-engineered quadraphonic LP mix of Dark Side, but it will work with the album on any format."

Played by itself, it is said, "Flaming Side of the Moon sounds like ambient music, a series of drones, percussion and sound effects, with occasional familiar chord changes identifying it as inspired by Pink Floyd's work". As with their previous cover of TDSOTM on album and live, this is proving just as divisive amongst fans!

You can stream the whole album here...