Jon Carin, the Grammy Award winning musician, singer, songwriter and producer who has been a longtime collaborator with Pink Floyd and the solo careers of David Gilmour and Roger Waters, amongst many other top musicians, hasn't been taking it easy during lockdown. Roger's This Is Not A Drill tour was due to start on July 8th this year, and so Jon would have been in the thick of rehearsals for the concerts when lockdown struck. As you know, that tour has been postponed until next year, and we are awaiting the revised dates once they have been confirmed.

It now seems like he's been working hard on new material of his own, and two new songs have just been released onto Spotify, which are well worth checking out.

The first of these is Like a Drug, an acoustic guitar driven song that is a nice, chilled listen - find it at spoti.fi/3hZ6GeK. Here's a preview of it:

The other is called Fear Of Everything, found at spoti.fi/3buUVtV, a punchier song which gives more prominence to drums and keyboards, and we hope that these two songs are a taste of more to come from Jon. Here's a taster of this second new song from Jon:

Make sure you 'Follow' the Jon Carin artist page at Spotify to access these two songs, and over time, hopefully more.

A date for the diaries of the enthusiasts of Gerald Scarfe's incredible work for Pink Floyd on The Wall. In an upcoming auction at Sotheby's, no less than eight original Scarfe drawings are included in the sale, with six of the eight being Wall related.

Sotheby's "Summer Miscellany" auction runs from July 28th - August 4th, and full sale details, with each drawing viewable in good detail, can be found at the website of Sothebys.com with the auction house recommending the use of Google Chrome for viewing their sales (although we found that other browsers seemed to work fine, but if you are intending to bid, it might be worth using Chrome to be on the safe side).

The individual Scarfe lots are as follows:

• Lot 148. SCARFE | Pink Floyd's "The Wall" - Teacher and Pink ("Wrong do it again!"), original drawing
• Lot 149. SCARFE | Pink Floyd's "The Wall" - Teacher, Wife, Mother and Pink, original drawing
• Lot 150. SCARFE | Pink Floyd's "The Wall" - Teacher, Wife and Pink ("Another brick in the wall"), original drawing
• Lot 151. SCARFE | Pink Floyd's "The Wall" - Teacher and Pink ("Another brick in the wall"), original drawing
• Lot 152 SCARFE | Pink Floyd's "The Wall" - Teacher ("If you don't eat yer meat..."), original drawing
• Lot 153. SCARFE | Pink Floyd's "The Wall" - Teacher ("We don't need no education"), original drawing
• Lot 154 SCARFE | Donald Trump ("Swearing in!"), original drawing
• Lot 155 SCARFE | Boris Johnson ("Fit as a butcher's dog"), original drawing

Click on the above links to see the individual items and for more details. Estimates start from £2000 and bidding opens this coming Tuesday (July 28th).

UPDATE: Gerald has released four more original Floyd pieces for the Sotheby's Made in Britain auction, which is now live online. Gerald's four pieces are lots 204-207, and these can be viewed online now. The sale exhibition will be Saturday 12th - Tuesday 15th September, open to the public 10am to 5pm every day, for those who want to see them in the flesh (so to speak).

Today we bring you the news that we're pretty sure 99% of you have been expecting. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the UK dates lined up for October 2020 for Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets have been postponed until April/May next year when things will hopefully be a little more settled and a sense of some normality will have returned. At the moment, we'd be amazed if any indoor concerts happen this year.

The press release for the move rightly notes the "uncertainty surrounding us all" due to the pandemic, and makes it clear that it "is important to the band that those who are planning to attend the shows are able to do so safely and without concern for their health and wellbeing. To achieve this, and to allow people the opportunity to plan their travel to and from the concerts, postponing until April 2021 was the best option."

With the move of the shows, they've managed to add three new dates to the schedule, and have had to cancel two of the existing shows as they were unable to reschedule them. So, the shows in Gateshead and Southampton have now gone, but have been replaced with shows in Newcastle and Portsmouth, which were as close as they could manage to the original locations. Holders of tickets for the cancelled shows can receive a refund from their ticket provider. 

Tickets for the five additional shows have just gone on sale (at midday, today, UK time) from SeeTickets, Ticketmaster and other normal agents including the venues, so if you are intending to go to one of these additional shows, we suggest you buy now to get the best choice of seats. All the other shows remain on sale, but for the revised dates. The new UK tour schedule is follows:

All existing tickets remain valid on a venue-for-venue basis and tickets are still available to purchase from the links above, or the venues themselves. Using our ticket links gives a small but vital contribution to the ongoing running costs of Brain Damage without costing you any extra and it is hugely appreciated!

A date for the diaries of all you Roger Waters fans out there... having previously attended the Newport Folk Festival, there was a fair chance that Roger would have appeared at this year's event, as it was scheduled to fall just before his brace of concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden in August.

Roger's concerts were of course postponed until next year (and we are still awaiting the revised dates), and, as expected, this year's Newport Folk Festival also has followed suit, and won't be taking place in Rhode Island this year, all due to the ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. However, the organisers of the Festival have arranged for a weekend of livestreams they've called "Folk On Revival Weekend".

Taking place on the same weekend that the festival was originally scheduled - July 31st through to August 2nd - "Folk On Revival Weekend" will feature three distinct webcasts, two of which are ticketed. All proceeds will go to the non-profit organisation Newport Festivals Foundation.

The webcast Roger fans will most want to see though is the third of the three webcasts, and the one which is free of charge to stream.

On August 2nd at 8:30pm EST, Our Voices Together will give artists "a place to speak truth to power. The film will present new performances from Roger Waters with Lucius, Jason Isbell, Tom Morello, Carlile, Jim James, Langhorne Slim, and others.

Our Voices Together will be available via this direct link at YouTube.