Nick Mason is one of the star names supporting 'The Young Songwriters Competition' in aid of the UK's biggest children's charity Barnardo's. As part of his support, Nick played drums on a track called 'This Is My Story' written and performed by Lauren Kelly from Kingswood School, Bath. Lauren was one of the 4 successful finalists that won the opportunity to record at Mark Knopfler's studio 'The British Grove' in London.

The song is now available to download from www.young-songwriters.co.uk or from iTunes. Each track is only available to download until December 17th and costs 80p; for each track sold 45p will go to Barnardo's! The song that achieves the most downloads will be the winner.

The picture to the right is from the recording session [click the thumbnail], and in the video below, you can hear (and see) some of the song itself, along with an interview with Nick:

Last Saturday night (December 4th), Venice used a day off from their performing duties as the backup singers on Roger Waters' "The Wall" tour to stage their annual Venice Christmas Concert in Santa Monica, CA. In attendance was (with the exception of Jon Carin) the entirety of Waters' touring band.

After delivering a blistering two hour set, Venice surprised the crowd at their first encore by returning to the stage with Robbie Wykoff, Harry Waters, Dave Kilminster, GE Smith, Graham Broad and Jon Joyce. They proceeded to perform "Goodbye Blue Sky," "Comfortably Numb" and a medley consisting of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," David Bowie's "Fame," Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" and the Rolling Stones' "It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)." The excitement and enthusiasm from the sold out crowd practically tore the roof off.

The following video shows them performing Comfortably Numb. Our thanks to Matt Levitz from VeniceCentral.com for the info!

Some of you will recall that back in January 2007, we brought you some rare pictures of the Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd playing at the Gyllene Cirkeln (Golden Circle) in Sveavägen in Stockholm. The concert took place on September 10th, 1967, and clearly looks to have been a cabaret show! "No one will like what we play", said a Floyd band member to the audience in resignation before the concert.

Our friend Fredrik Johansson had unearthed the shot to the left, which looks as though it was one of the diners who took this snap, in between courses.

In a fascinating update to this, a full recording of the concert is being played in a special event taking place in May 2011! The organiser of the event has been in touch with us, and here's what's taking place, where and when...

BBC6 Music in the UK are rebroadcasting "Starmakers and Svengalis: Peter Jenner" next Saturday, December 11th, at 3am. The hour long show takes a look at the career of early Pink Floyd manager Peter Jenner, and is one in a series - the other three shows look at Larry Parnes, Brian Epstein, Malcolm McLaren & Tom Watkins.

The show was first broadcast on 18 November 1989 and was repeated in May 2008. BBC6 Music can be heard in much of Europe, online at www.BBC.co.uk, and the show itself can be heard via the BBC's iPlayer service following broadcast. More info on the show here.

Our thanks to David Haddock for the info...