Further to the Mojo piece mentioned earlier, which features a couple of interesting shots of Roger with a trumpet, our friends over at darkside reminded us that when Roger visited Moscow during the In The Flesh tour, he took a few trumpet lessons from the famous Russian jazz saxophonist Igor Butman.

Roger said that he took them as he planned to play the trumpet at the "end of tour party" (which was held in Dublin) for band members and friends. You never know, maybe we'll hear his trumpet playing on Ca Ira (the Overture of the piece, when performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London, included a trumpet part).

The new, March 2003 issue of this great UK magazine features an interesting four page interview with Roger, together with some pictures of him with a trumpet! Many of the questions are fairly general, good for the general readership but not that insightful for the long-term fan; the most interesting response is to a question about what Roger is up to these days:

"I'm making a rock'n'roll album. It's about a conversation in a New York bar, and one of the characters is a taxi driver from the Balkans, and his marriage is falling apart... I've recently got divorced, so there's some songs about the breakdown of relationships and... I'm not quite sure how it will all turn out, but as you can hear, it's another kind of loony concept thing. My other project is the opera about the French Revolution. I've recorded about 18 minutes of it with three soloists, a big orchestra and a chorus. It's proper music, not a rock record".

Direct Video Distribution Ltd have confirmed details of the extras on the forthcoming (in the shops on March 24th) Syd Barrett DVD: there's ten minutes of Roger Waters talking about Syd (including Syd's musical influences, his illness, the last time he saw Syd), 4 minutes of David Gilmour talking about how "Wish You Were Here" was written, Robyn Hitchcock performing "Dominoes" (3 minutes) and "It Is Obvious" (also 3 minutes), Graham Coxon performing "Love You" (3 minutes as well), and a biography of Syd by Mark Sturdy. They also confirm the Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS soundtracks for the DVD.

The following extract from Daily Sports Car.com brings the very sad news that Steve O'Rourke is having to give up racing due to health concerns:

It is with a degree of sadness that we have to report that Steve O'Rourke has had a medical examination and a slight heart problem has been detected - which means that his racing career is effectively over. He and Tim Sugden had planned a return to the FIA GT Championship this year, with the EMKA Porsche - one of the most developed of the breed.

Tim Sugden has been O'Rourke's partner since 1996, and expressed the opinion that "Steve epitomised the spirit of the gentleman racer: he ran a superb team, he treated everyone extremely well, and he loved his racing - perhaps more the historics than anything else. We were going to have a very good year together..."

We at Brain Damage echo these comments; we've enjoyed many race meetings watching Steve and will miss seeing him going "ten tenths". Our thanks to Matthew Barlow for passing this news to us.