Often cited as a "holy grail" of early Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd television footage, the band's performances of "See Emily Play" on the BBC's Top Of The Pops weekly music programme [click thumbnail, right] have long been missing. The BBC had a disastrous policy of wiping recordings in the earlier days of the corporation, so that they could re-use the tapes as a cost-cutting measure. Many classic performances and shows have thus been lost forever.

However, on occasion private collectors pop up with their own private recordings, filling in some of the missing gems from yesteryear. One such incredible recent find is a couple of episodes of Top Of The Pops - from July 6th and 27th, 1967. The tape condition is very poor, but nevertheless around 20 minutes of each episode, hosted by Alan Freeman, exists. Both shows feature picture rolling and drop outs but every so often there's a 30 second - 1 minute section in near pristine quality. Amongst the performances recovered is, remarkably, "See Emily Play" from the July 6th show!

Plans are now being drawn up to include the Top Of The Pops footage in a special screening event at the BFI Southbank in London, early next year. More details as we get them. Our thanks to Jim Brackenridge, and Adrian Petford, of www.kaleidoscope.org.uk, who have more details of this and other historic, lost recordings.

Swedish music monthly Musikermagasinet (MM) has James Guthrie on the cover of the most recent issue, which hit the stores in Sweden yesterday (November 17th, 2009). MM is the leading Scandinavian magazine for musicians and tech people.

The story, "Behind The Wall" sees James interviewed in depth about his first collaboration with Pink Floyd on their timeless double album. Candid and thoughtful as ever, James also takes the reader into his pre-Floyd years as engineer and budding producer.

The author of the article is Danish musician and songwriter Thomas Ulrik Larsen, who recently left the successful Floyd tribute band, Pink Floyd Project, where he sang and played lead guitar for six years. Thomas now concentrates on his own music and moonlights as a journalist from time to time! More details of the magazine can be found at www.musikermagasinet.com.

Further to our recent news item, offering a pair of tickets for a special show being held on Saturday, November 28th at the Indigo at London's O2, the lucky winner has been drawn out of the BD hat. Our congratulations go to Claire Tunnicliff from Wiltshire!

The "In The Flesh Laser Spectacular" is a one-off event that Pink Floyd fans won't want to miss. It features an authentic excursion into the Floyd's most creative period from the mid sixties to early eighties, state of the art technology alongside traditional analogue equipment and original instruments, and also features the trademark circular projection screen. The centrepiece of this particular show, however, is the promise of a spectacular display of full colour, large scale high-powered lasers that have never before been seen in the concert environment.

Tickets for the show are now on sale through www.Ticketmaster.co.uk, or call them on 0844-856-0202. More details of the band can be found at www.FloydFlesh.com.

Yesterday morning saw Nick Mason make a guest appearance on Danny Baker's BBC Radio 5 Live show [click thumbnail, left], as we alerted you on Friday. Nick was in good form, and within the 24 minutes that they were chatting, subjects such as Nick's early cars, the number of drumkits he owns, and his contribution to the BBC Children In Need charity album ("I've become Terry Wogan's drummer!") were all covered, as was the Royal Mail stamp featuring The Division Bell cover: "It's just sad that there'll probably be a postal strike and no-one will get one...", Nick joked.

He was asked about Roger's possible Wall tour: "I haven't been approached as yet, and I wouldn't have thought that I'd want to do the whole tour of The Wall again. I think this'll be Roger's version of the show."

Danny also asked him if he saw a future for Pink Floyd. "I think so. I think Live8 showed that we could continue and certainly I hope that if there's ever the opportunity to do something like that again, we could step up to the plate". Danny said "as we all know, they need their heads banging together!", to which Nick replied: "I'm getting too old for that - too weak and feeble..."

Finally, Nick raised a laugh in the studio when asked about the impressive stage effects during their concerts: "We never really learnt how to moonwalk - not enough to be comfortable with it!"

You can download the 22MB podcast of the second half of the show, which features Nick's interview in full, HERE.