Archived News from 2016

Archived News from 2016

(12/29/2016)

Roger Waters: Another Brick In The Wall - The Opera; dates added

Another Brick In The Wall - The Opera receives its world premiere at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts, in Montréal, Quebec, Canada on March 11th 2017, with subsequent performances taking place through the month.

Due to the popularity of the show, some additional performances have now been announced, and tickets can be purchased throughTicketmaster.com. For more information on Another Brick In The Wall - The Opera and other events, visitOperaDeMontreal.com.

The press conference for the series of performances was held at the Olympic Stadium, the scene of the infamous spitting incident which inspired The Wall. "It was unpleasant," said Waters. "I accept that. I was unpleasant. The audience was unpleasant. But it clearly had an effect on me and the story I tell is that it had some impact on me creating this piece of theatre, which is extremely valuable to me.

"I was pissed off or disaffected because of a large number of people who, with all due respect to the population of Montreal, were drunk and not really paying much attention to what was going on on stage and some kid was scrambling up the front [of the stage] and I think that I spat at him. I realised I was at the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing. And I needed to express that I didn’t feel human and we all want to feel human. My response to that was to write a show that involved building a huge wall between me and the people that I was trying to communicate with.

“At the end of the day, The Wall is about a journey from spitting in someone’s face towards a position where love becomes more important and our responsibility to those that share this planet with us becomes more important than our desire to engage in things that make us richer.”

At the press conference, Waters noted that “What I’ve heard so far is extremely impressive. Normally when people take rock music and produce symphonic versions of it, they stick slavishly to the melodies, and it’s awful. Julien Bilodeau has nodded gracefully at the work that I did musically all those years ago, but he has transported it into a completely different oeuvre. It’s developing a life of its own, which is in a classical tradition, but the libretto is mine. The words are mine. So the thoughts and ideas expressed in the text belong to me.”

As we note above, tickets for the performances, which take place on March 11th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th, 20th, 22nd, 24th and 26th, 2017, can be purchased throughTicketmaster.comor directly from the venue (Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier).

(12/29/2016)*

Pink Floyd needed conflict

Nick Mason insists Pink Floyd were no more difficult that other bands but thinks their differences only helped their music

Nick Mason thinks Pink Floyd wouldn't have done "good work" without their "conflicts".

The 'Comfortably Numb' hitmaker doesn't feel that the band's ex-bass player and founder Roger Waters' ego was to blame for their disagreements and that it was simply a case of having different "musical preferences".

However, he insists the infamous tension between the band members wasn't necessarily a bad thing as it helped with their music.

Asked if he thinks egos had anything to do with their spats, the 72-year-old drummer exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "I don't think it's that. I think it was to do with musical preferences.

"He did want to do things his own way, so maybe that was the best thing to do was to do his own way.

"I think we have our reputations, but most of the bands you see aren't much better than we are.

"The other important thing is that if we didn't have the conflicts we had then we wouldn't have done the good work we did do."

Meanwhile, Nick previously said he doesn't think he will reunite with Roger and the rest of the band - which also includes David Gilmour - unless it was for a good cause.

Asked if he thinks the group will tour again, he said: "I would say absolutely not. But having said that I certainly don't think there will be another Pink Floyd tour.

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(11/26/2016)* 11/21/ Posted

Pink Floyd reunion: Nick Mason reveals if Roger Waters, David Gilmour will rejoin

The last time the awesome foursome of the band performed together was in the Live 8 concert in 2005.

When was the last time you saw Pink Floyd coming together for a massive gig? Hard to recall, but the Pulse concert at theEarls Court, London,on 20 October 1994, remained a mega event. Of course, Roger Waters wasn't there but still. David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright were there and they did absolute create magic.

Is a repeat of what happened over two decades back, possible now? No, not at all. Unless we get the power to resurrect Wright, the famed keyboardist of the band. Also, until we also have the power to convince Waters to come for a one-off concert and emulate the magic the awesome foursome did during theWall Tour in the early 1980's.

Nick Mason, the drummer of the band, remains the most active member of the band at the moment, as compared to Gilmour or Waters. While Waters does a plethora of concerts around the world still, he doesn't really mention anything about Pink Floyd. Gilmour, too, is keen on more personal space at the moment.

We did report thatPink Floyd could reunite for a one-off concert, probably in support of Palestine, but is that really on the cards? Mason, speaking to Rolling Stone magazine exclusively, didn't rule that out actually.

I always liked playing [with the band]. Maybe next year I would look to do a bit more. I absolutely love us [Pink Floyd] playing things properly. It's not that I have a desperate need to get out in front of any old audience playing any old thing. But I also think it's almost impossible because if we're going to do anything, one would want to do it properly," spoke Mason.

It's great maybe to do one thing for Live 8, but running a full-on Pink Floyd production, everyone would need to have a real enthusiasm for it. I cannot imagine dragging Roger and David around doing it unless they underwent some extraordinary change," the 72-year-old added.

Mason also commented at the friendship among them has shamefully gone the wrong way, over the years.

It's just sometimes it's a shame. There's a friendship element to the whole thing, and it's great when Roger and I had a rapprochement after not speaking for about seven years. It means a lot to me actually, that particular friendship," continued Mason.

I met Roger long before the band, so I've known him for well over 50 years and it's a shame in a way. It's not even that I need to get together and go back on the road. It's just unnecessary sometimes to think that they can still irritate each other.

I think David is very happy doing the very restricted touring he's done. The funny thing is he always starts on one level and then ends up adding more lights or more film or whatever. He worked really hard the years we did without Roger, the really big tours. And he carried that on his shoulders. It was a hell of a lot easier for me than him. He was in front of it all. But I really respect what he did. I think he really just doesn't want to go back there. I respect that," Mason spoke.

The last time David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Was and Richard Wright performed live was at the Live 8 Concert in London in 2005.FULL CONCERT BELOW:

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(11/26/2016)*

35 Years Ago: Pink Floyd’s ‘A Collection of Great Dance Songs’ Sums Up the ’70s

11/23/2016 date of News

Pink Floyd’s record labels in the U.K. and U.S. had gotten used to a schedule.

Since 1973’sThe Dark Side of the Moon, the progressive rockers had released a new studio album every two years. Albums such asWish You Were Here,AnimalsandThe Wallbecame big hits, scaling the charts and selling millions of copies.

But in 1981 – two years afterThe Wall– there was no sign of a new Floyd album. The band’s time had been dominated by ancillaryWallprojects, including a spate of ambitious live performances in 1980-81 and a film version of the double LP, in whichRoger Waterswas heavily involved. In addition, the relationships between Pink Floyd’s members were fracturing.

Keyboardist and founding memberRick Wrighthad been booted from the band, while Waters’s work onThe Wallmovie was putting distance between him and guitarist and singerDavid Gilmour.

With nothing new from the bandon the horizon, its U.S.label decided to forge a stop-gap release. Columbia Records sought to assemble a “best-of” compilation to come out for the holiday shopping season in 1981. As prog rock wasn’t known for hit singles (you could count the number of Floyd’s U.S. hits on one hand), a different approach was warranted, and so the label persuaded Gilmour to curate the collection.

With Columbia demanding a single LP, space was at a premium for the expansive sounds of Pink Floyd. Still, Gilmour hastily managed a six-track compilation that included four album cuts alongside the band’s only ’70s hits – “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” and “Money.” But it wouldn’t be that simple.

Some of the songs would need to be edited to fit on one slab of vinyl. The nine parts of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” had taken up the majority ofWish You Were Here, so the tune was cut down toless than 11 minutes this time (forcing the recording to resemble the original 1974 live version). “Brick” was given the single edition’s intro, but the closing of the album cut, while “Wish You Were Here” received some light trimming. “Sheep” might have been picked simply because it was the shortest of the three major songs onAnimals. Opener “One of These Days” was left alone.

It wasn’t perfect, but the album worked well enough. Still, Gilmour couldn’t walk away quite yet. Columbiareceived noticethat Capitol Records (the previous U.S. home of Pink Floyd), refused to license the version of “Money” that had appeared onDark Side …or at least not for a free that Columbia was willing to spend. Missing one of the band’s best-known songs wasn’t an option, and it fell to Gilmour to record a new version of “Money.”

With producer James Guthrie behind the boards, the Pink Floyd guitarist recut almost all of the instruments himself, trying to mimic the 1973 tune. As on the original, Gilmour sang and played guitar, but this time he also drummed and played keyboards and bass. Dick Parry obliged to come into New Roydonia Studios and rerecord his saxophone part. Only the cash register sound loops remained from theDark Siderecording. Even though Gilmour did his best to keep all sounds as similar as possible, the differences are evident in the guitar and sax solos, as well as the running time (the newer version runs 15 seconds longer).

The now-complete compilation was given the ironic title ofA Collection of Great Dance Songs, a sly reference to the disco rhythms of “Another Brick in the Wall” and/or drummer Nick Mason’s joke that Floyd’s U.S. label probably thought they were a dance band. The album’s art (created by Hipgnosis, under a pseudonym) reflected the gag, depicting a pair of dancers held in place.

Aquote from Gilmourabout the album cover gives you an indication of what he thought about the entire project: “It was so awful, I thought I’d get it cheap.”

A Collection of Great Dance Songswas released on Nov. 23, 1981, in the U.S. (it was also issued in the U.K. by Harvest). While the compilation became Pink Floyd’s worst-charting LP in the States since 1972 – and its worst-to-date overseas – the album has gone multi-platinum over the years. The release has largely been supplanted by Pink Floyd collections released in the digital era.

In an ironic twist, the album that was designed as a basic introduction to Pink Floyd has become a must-have for hardcore Floyd completists.A Collection of Great Dance Songsremains the only release that contains the unique edit of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” as well as Gilmour’s solo studio version of “Money.”

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(11/19/2016)*

Pink Floyd’s Meddle remasters secretly released as part of The Early Yearscompilation

Stereo and 5.1 mixes have been hidden away on one of the compilation's Blu-ray discs

When the expansivePink FloydcompilationThe Early Years 1965-1972was released last week, fans were treated to 11 CDs, eight Blu-rays, nineDVDs, five 7-inch singles, all featuring over 10 hours of audio and video that had never seen an official release. At a $550 price tag, it’s a worthy treasure trove of material, but even still, something was missing.

When the set was first announced, it was said to feature new stereo and 5.1 mixes of 1972’sObscured by Cloudsand the landmark 1971 album,Meddle. However, something changed and they were both replaced by a stereo soundtrack to the concert filmLive at Pompeii. But this is Pink Floyd we’re talking about, and nothing is quite what it seems. Both mixes ofMeddleare actually still part of the box set — they’re just hidden!

Careful with that axe, Eugene — don’t go tearing up the packaging looking for a secret disc. In this case, the album is hidden inside the set’s Blu-ray discs. It’s no mere Easter egg, either; you’ll need to employ specialized software to pull the mixes from the disc. This discovery comes thanks to enterprising audiophiles who, while ripping the files from theREVERBER/ATIONBlu-ray, came away with much more thanAtom Heart Motherbonus content.

Hypothetically, with a record as significant asMeddle, these mixes are destined for a stand-alone release some day. (Perhaps the still unreleasedObscured by Cloudsmixes too.) Rumors of why they weren’t officially included abound, including some well-informed nods that it might have been due to a lack of approval from the band members — a rumorgiven some cloutby Vernon Fitch ofPink Floyd Archives.

Whether intentional or an accident, these mixes ofMeddleare out in the wild now and can be yours if you’ve got the finances to pick up this limited edition box set before it’s gone and the knowhow to extract the files.

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(11/19/2016)*

Pink Floyd's Nick Mason on 'Early Years,' Syd Barrett, Inter-Band Tension

Drummer reflects on group's path to 'Dark Side of the Moon,' chronicled in exhaustive new box set

Pink Floyd's journey to prog-

rock masterpieceDark Side of the Moonwas long and varied, and it's one of the most fascinating stories in rock, with stops in blues jamming, otherworldly psychedelia and trippy folk music. It's documented exhaustively in the recently released box set,The Early Years: 1965 – 1972, but the band's drummer,Nick Mason, remembers their origins as being even humbler than the early recordings in the box let on.

Pink Floyd's journey to prog-rock masterpieceDark Side of the Moonwas long and varied, and it's one of the most fascinating stories in rock, with stops in blues jamming, otherworldly psychedelia and trippy folk music. It's documented exhaustively in the recently released box set,The Early Years: 1965 – 1972, but the band's drummer,Nick Mason, remembers their origins as being even humbler than the early recordings in the box let on.

"From '65 to the beginning of '67, we were a really amateur band," the dapper, soft-spoken drummer says, reclining in a velvet couch in a tucked-away corner of a SoHo hotel. "It's funny because if I could add up the hours of actual drum playing I did between birth and 1966, it'd be, I don't know, 100, 150 hours. I didn't practice. I didn't study. I just had a drum kit and played with my friends for fun. A year later, I'd probably put in 700 hours."

Thinking back on it makes him laugh, and he leans forward. "By then we'd done 200 gigs and been in the studio for hours," he continues. "It was a very rapid sea change from amateur drummer to making a living. It's a curious one."

The box set, modeled visually after the band's early-period van, contains 27 discs, spanning CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray, containing around seven hours of previously unreleased audio and more than seven hours of never-before-seen footage. It begins with the group's first-ever sessions, a Stones-y jaunt from 1965, then it traverses Syd Barrett's psychedelia, their soundtrack improvisations, festival space-outs, ballet dalliances, ambitious orchestral suites and their avant-garde Pompeii film. In the space of seven years, they lived several lifetimes.

When Mason reflects on the group's origins, he speaks carefully and measuredly, while sipping a cappuccino, often making dry jokes that he caps with a chuckle. What's most evident during his in-depth interview aboutThe Early YearswithRolling Stoneis the deference he has for his former bandmates now and the pride and amazement he has about the work the band put into their career on the way to "The Great Gig in the Sky."