Back in October 2010, Sir Alan Parker, the director of Pink Floyd's The Wall, the 1982 film starring Bob Geldof and based on the group's classic album, made a very rare special appearance at The Space event, held at the Komedia in Brighton, England. The Space is a monthly music, film and arts event, which features a line-up of highly successful special guest interviewees from the creative industries.
Sir Alan is one of Britain's most successful filmmakers, which made for a fascinating evening. In a career spanning forty years, he has worked with some of the movie world's most respected actors, such as Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Nicolas Cage and Gene Hackman, on films such as Fame, The Commitments, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone and Birdy. Music has been a key theme throughout much of his work, and he has collaborated with Pink Floyd (The Wall), legendary producer Giorgio Moroder (Midnight Express), Madonna and Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita). As an active figure within the British film industry, Parker was a co-founder of the Directors Guild of Great Britain and the UK Film Council, and he is a former Chairman of the British Film
Institute. His work with all these, and more, was covered in some detail with some pretty frank and honest revelations.
Pink Floyd The Wall was something he seemed to shy away from mentioning until the Q&A at the end, when he was asked directly about it. He said that was his "most miserable professional experience" but followed
this up by affirming that "I'm proud of it"! He talked of "how painful it was to put it on screen" but noted that he is good friends with David Gilmour and Nick Mason due to the film (not the case, though, with Roger Waters!). He also revealed that noted director Christopher Nolan played Pink Floyd The Wall to his team just prior to starting work on his movie, Inception.
Whilst we know this was a while ago now, there's good reason for bringing it up again. We've just discovered that the organisers of The Space have put the interview up as an MP3 for everyone to hear and enjoy. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND.
Nick Mason is one of the many drivers who has just been confirmed to be taking part in the 2013 Goodwood Festival Of Speed, which is taking place over July 11th - 14th. The event is a must-attend annual celebration of motor racing held in Sussex on an Earl's estate. Gathering cars (and bikes), drivers, and enthusiasts from all over the world, the event celebrates motor racing from the very early days, through to the very latest F1 cars. It is heldin the grounds of Lord March's estate, near Chichester, Sussex, in the south of England, and has static displays, demonstration runs, and timed runs, up the hill past Goodwood House. It's a wonderful event, and words do not pay it justice!
A plethora of top motor sport names have been confirmed to be in action at this year's much-anticipated 20th anniversary of the Festival. Spectators can gain access to the cars and their drivers, allowing them to get up close and personal with the drivers and riders. For the full list of who is appearing, and what they will be driving, click here.
Nick Mason is a regular each year, having driven a range of classic cars from his and other's collections. At this year's event he will be taking the wheel of an Auto Union Type C and his own Ferrari 250 GTO, which should excite many of the petrolheads in the anticipated 150,000-strong crowd!
Full details of the Festival can be found at www.Goodwood.co.uk/fos, where you can also still purchase your tickets for the event. Entrance is by advance purchased
ticket only, and there is plenty of free parking to be found at the
venue, reached easily from the main A27 coast road in Sussex.
In 2004, a lavish book was written to commemorate the
Festival, and included within its pages is an article by Nick Mason,
along with pictures of him at the event. Click here
to see our review of the book.
Some great news hit the Official Pink Floyd Facebook page late last night: Pink Floyd are finally arriving on Spotify.
The band were one of the few high profile bands who were notable absentees from the music streaming service, and since its launch, Floyd fans have been clamouring for their music to be available on it. In a slight, and typically Floydian, twist, the music isn't available in its entirety - yet. The track Wish You Were Here has been made streamable, and once it has been streamed a million times, the entire catalogue will be available on the service. Here's the link to the track: http://spoti.fi/WishUWereHere.
Spotify has over 24 million active users, and the service allows you to listen to anything in their vast catalogue of songs on demand, and also makes suggestions of music to listen to. There are two levels of membership - a free, ad-supported level, and a premium level which has a monthly fee. We know that many Floyd fans will be delighted with this news; despite already owning most if not all the Floyd's catalogue, Spotify brings convenience of playing tracks that take your fancy, without having to find the CD in your collection.
A couple of weeks ago, KLOS radio station in Los Angeles interviewed legendary producer Bob Ezrin. Their interview with Bob can be seen here:
Ezrin describes his time with Pink Floyd as "magical, challenging, illuminating and life altering". He did note that "[It] was tough. There was a lot of conflict. But dynamic tension makes for much better stuff. There was a lot of it in the making of The Wall, but it just kept making things better, and better, and better."
"Roger's a force of nature", Ezrin said about the post-Waters albums he produced/co-produced, "and a man to be reckoned with. He takes up a lot of energy, and brings an awful lot to the room. Not having him there, on the one hand, it made things slightly less fraught and less tense, but on the other hand also we missed his genius — and his spark, and watching those sparks fly between him and David and me. Somewhere in my heart of hearts, I always hoped they would bury the hatchet and get back together, and that we could do stuff together. Once Rick passed away, that possibility disappeared..."
Nick Mason drew a large crowd on Thursday evening (May 30th), at the RockArchive (RA) store on Monmouth Street in London, for the prearranged signing session we told you about last month. Jill Furmanovsky's new shop, after popping-up in April this year, burst-out this week as Pink Floyd fans flocked to see Nick.
Monmouth Street itself had organized a local shopping-night, making London's rush hour streets more busy than usual, but amongst that there was a clear buzz of excitement outside RA, with a queue forming outside the store on the pedestrianized road.
Many Floyd fans appeared – one even arrived in the morning and queued all day (Wimbledon-style) – for the opportunity to meet Nick and get memorabilia signed. Earlier Tweets about Nick's appearance bolstered numbers, and security were on hand to coordinate visitors.
It was overcast but dry and warm, and waiting the 20 minutes outside to enter the blue fronted shop only served to heighten the anticipation: through the large glass window shop-front one could see the eye-catching picture covered walls, the RA team busy dealing with the influx, and Nick in the corner at the far end...
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Some great news hit the 
Nick Mason drew a large crowd on Thursday evening (May 30th), at the RockArchive (RA) store on Monmouth Street in London, for the 
