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Written by Matt
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Sunday, 18 August 2013 |
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 At the end of March, we told you about BBC Radio 2 helping to mark the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon album by airing an hour-long audio drama by award-winning playright Sir Tom Stoppard. Darkside, which is airing at 10pm on August 26th, will incorporate music from the album as part of its "fantastical and psychedelic" story. Actors Bill Nighy and Rufus Sewell are amongst the cast.
Sir Tom, 75, a huge Pink Floyd fan, revealed that the idea was first mooted by a friend in 1973, but it took him four decades to come up with
a suitable story. "(I thought) yes, I definitely want to do that but had no idea for a long time what I would do. Finally, I found some time
and sat down and listened to the album for the thousandth time and picked up from the beginning and kept going. This is more or less, I
think, the first time anything like this has been done on radio."
In an interview with Sir Tom in today's Sunday Times Culture magazine, he reveals that he gradually began to work out a way forward in his head, helped by friendships with Roger Waters, Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason, talking mainly with Waters about the project. "The album lasts 40 minutes and, as I was to write a play of one hour, I had to work out a way of how to include all their music while developing characters and dialogue," he explained to The Sunday Times. "This means the album is in a way an underscore over which I’ve placed my play. It was a bit like doing a graphic novel for radio, where I was filling my words into the balloons or bubbles."
Back in March, the BBC noted that David Gilmour 'has already read the script and given the play his seal of approval, describing it as "fascinating. I can't wait to hear it come to life with the great cast performing it and our music woven into it. I can't think of a better way to celebrate The Dark
Side Of The Moon's 40 year anniversary."
Stoppard has prior experience blending the world of Floyd with drama - in 2006, he wrote Rock'n'Roll, a stage play inspired by Syd Barrett.
This was adapted for a performance on BBC Radio 3 in 2007, and in 2008, toured regionally in the UK.
To help make the evening even more special, BBC Radio are complementing Darkside with more programming either side of the show. Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music will be simulcasting a unique show that will put the audience in control of the music across both networks for two hours, as they collaborate online to pick the tracks. Now Playing will provide the perfect build up to the evening.
Then, following the broadcast of Darkside, at 11pm, there's another chance to hear the truly fascinating The Record Producers - Pink Floyd Special, which concentrates on the Floyd's music from the late 60s through to the mid-70s, and features David and Nick alongside original multi-track recordings of some of their best work from this period.
Also, on the night of broadcast, visitors to bbc.co.uk/radio2 will be able to watch a specially commissioned animation by Aardman to accompany the drama, creating a unique, immersive audio-visual experience.
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Written by Matt
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Sunday, 18 August 2013 |
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 Ron Geesin's 'The Flaming Cow: The Making of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother' has been getting very positive feedback from all aspects of the Floyd community. The book gives Ron's own perspective on the project, and it really is a fantastic read!
From Nick Mason's amusing foreword, through the story of how Ron got to know the various members of the Floyd, to co-composing and recording the piece variously known as Epic and The Amazing Pudding, before settling on the title we all know and love, the book reveals all with a great wit and honesty. Alongside the text are masses of previously unseen photos from the recording sessions, showing the band and others involved, including the choir and brass, all hard at work creating a transitional piece in the Floyd's history. These alone could be argued as worth the price of admission.
Even if Atom Heart Mother (either the Suite, or the album in its entirety) isn't amongst your favourite Floyd, the book will give you a fascinating insight into the making of a major piece of music. Check out our review here. To order the hardback edition of this great book, please use these direct links: Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Espana and Amazon Italy.
For those who prefer the convenience of reading on their Apple iThings, the eBook version is now available to purchase and download from the iTunes Bookstore. There are enhancements and extras over the print edition - principally, you can see Ron answering questions submitted by Brain Damage visitors about Atom Heart Mother, in a fascinating two-part video Q&A session. There is also a guide to rare versions of the album, courtesy of Ron's son, Joe Geesin. Find out more and order yours, here.
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Written by Matt
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Saturday, 17 August 2013 |
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 An update for you on The Gathering Storm - The Album Art of Storm Thorgerson, which we first told you about in May, and which is being published in October 2013.
Storm wrote and compiled this book over the last year of his life and was still writing it at Christmas - he saw a finished copy a few days before he died. It spans his entire career in album cover design from the 1960s and his days with Hipgnosis, through the intervening decades and it finishes with images he made with StormStudios this year. Due to be released in October, it is a luscious hardback book, 256 pages thick and is available in three editions: Hardback, Collector's and Deluxe. Those of you with the previous book, A Raging Storm - also published by StormStudios and de Milo - will know how nicely done that was, and with the same printers in Italy being used for this, the same quality should shine through.
With artwork created for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Muse, Peter Gabriel, Wombats, 10cc, Audioslave, Black Sabbath, Biffy Clyro, Genesis, Rainbow,
Steve Miller, Pendulum and The Mars Volta amongst others, a wide cross-section of people will no doubt thoroughly enjoy it. Our review,
though, will be along closer to publication date.
In the meantime, pre-orders are now being taken for all three versions through the official TGS website for despatch upon publication. You've got the following options:
- HARDBACK: The book alone. The first 50 copies will be signed by Peter, Dan and Rupert at the Studios. Pre-order HERE.
- COLLECTOR'S: Limited to 125 copies this includes the signed book with a collector's box of 12 roughs (early draft sketches of cover designs) carefully printed onto A5 heavyweight card. Pre-order HERE.
- DELUXE: This very limited edition of just 20 comes with both the signed book and the box set of roughs and a deluxe fine art print of the Liquid Dark Side image from the front cover of the book, replete with special glazes and embossing. Pre-order HERE.
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Written by Matt
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Thursday, 15 August 2013 |
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 A set of six quite incredible 360 degree panoramic photos taken at the August 9th Wall concert at the Commerzbank-Arena in Frankfurt, Germany, have just been published.
The pictures represent the view of the stage AND the audience and venue, at the following points of the show:
- The start of In The Flesh?
- During In The Flesh?
- The end of In The Flesh?
- Another Brick In The Wall part 1
- Another Brick In The Wall part 2
- Mother
Each picture links off to a Javascript controlled, 360 degree picture which you move around and explore yourself as you look around the venue - you can even look up at the ceiling or down to the floor, seeing the photographers in the area between the stage and the crowd. The thumbnail here gives just a flavour of the pictures - the panoramas are MUCH larger.
For me, particularly striking are the Another Brick panoramas which feature a particularly creepy Teacher looming large over the camera... Click here to see them all.
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Written by Matt
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Saturday, 10 August 2013 |
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 Back in March, we told you that there was another performance of Ça Ira coming up this year, to follow on from the four shows in São Paulo, Brazil, in May. The opera is being performed on August 13th, 2013, at G�taplatsen, which is a public square in Gothenburg, Sweden, at the southern end of Kungsportsavenyn (The King's Gate Avenue), the city's
main street. The staging of the opera is the grand opening event of the Göteborgs kulturkalas/Gothenburg Culture Festival, which runs from August 13th -
18th, and of course, Roger himself is in Gothenburg to perform at the Ullevi Stadium on August 17th.
With his proximity to the city, Roger takes an evening off from his Wall tour to attend this show. Whilst the performances thus far have, at best, had Roger introducing the evening, this one is quite different. For this particular show Roger will himself take part in his opera. He will be
narrating the opera, clearly visible to the audience, sitting in a leather armchair on one edge of the stage. The opera was written for the
200th anniversary of the French Revolution, but as many of you know, received its world premiere in 2005 in Rome.
www.goteborg.com has more details of the event, the festival, and the venue. The performance is free - no tickets required - but we would naturally recommend that if you are attending, you arrive early to secure a decent place in the audience area.
Our thanks to Jochen Klug for letting us know about this. If anyone is in the area, or even better, attending the show, we'd love to see ANY pictures, posters, reviews, newspaper reports, and anything else you come across for this show - we look forward to hearing from you! In the meantime, here's the official advert for the event:
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