Two items of Pink Floyd news hit the headlines last week… Yes, two! Quite remarkable for a band whose ability to entertain all but ran dry following the departure of Syd Barrett and the release of their second album,  1968′s A Saucerful of Secrets – though 1970′s Atom Heart Mother and 1975′s Wish You Were Here do have their moments.

In the first bit of news, Roger Waters’ current 2011 touring of his criminally overrated snorefest The Wall, threw out a surprise for those fans who’d paid to see it at the O2 arena on Thursday night and somehow managed to stay awake. For only the second time in 30 years, he was joined on stage by the surviving members of Pink Floyd. Former adversaries, Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason.

Now, thankfully, I wasn’t there, but I can imagine it to have been a smug burying-of-the-hatchet type moment, accompanied by the musical equivalent of an overdose of Mogadon. Apparently, Nick Mason played a tambourine.

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feature, news, occasional musings, prog rock, psychedelic rock

First the good news. Polydor reissued digitally remastered and enhanced editions of The Soft Machine’s first two albums, Volume 1 and Volume 2 early last month (late to the party, I know). The inevitable bad news is, horror of horrors, they were released solely as MP3 downloads!?!?!

At the risk of sounding like some Luddite with his head stuck in the late 60s and 70s – though I’m sure I probably do – I must ask the question, WHY?

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feature, occasional musings, prog rock

Not quite sure why, but I felt a little underwhelmed by the Classic Rock Presents… Prog! special I mentioned earlier this week. I’ve had it a couple of days now and despite there being some excellent interviews and features on the mighty Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, ELP, etc.(and who’d have thought Matthew Wright of Channel 5′s The Wright Stuff would be a prog fan?) I was left with the uneasy feeling that it could’ve been better.

Granted, it may well be my prejudices colouring my opinion, as the Head Full of Snow musical tastes tend to start late 1966 and peter out around 1979. Despite the occasional sojourn into the realms of the modern, albeit admittedly retro (see Matt Berry’s Witchazel review), it’s between these 13 solid years that they largely remain.

Unfortunately (for me, anyway) the magazine had too many items on modern progressive rock. I wanted to read about the bands of the 70s in all their barmy, spaced out, self-indulgent glory. I wanted tales of excess and folly from the likes of Camel, Web, Arthur Brown, Gentle Giant, The Pink Fairies et al. Fickle, I know, but that’s the cut of my jib. The review pages were largely made up of post 1980 stuff too.

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occasional musings, prog rock