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Gdańsk Tickets – An Update
Ticket details for David's special concert in the
Gdańsk shipyards on Saturday 26th August, to
mark the 26th anniversary of the founding of Solidarity,
will be announced on Monday 10th July.
August 26th is a national holiday, celebrating the
founding of the Solidarity trade union in 1980; nine
years later the Communist Government fell, and Solidarity
leader Lech Walesa was elected president of Poland.
On An Island made it to Number 1 in Poland
and is now certified Platinum; the album's memorable
orchestral arrangements are by celebrated Polish composer
Zbigniew Preisner.
Past Masters Restored – David's Solo Albums
Available Again
As you will have seen from the Calendar,
we have been able to put a date on the re-release
of David's solo albums: David Gilmour (1978)
and About Face (1984).
As with On An Island, the albums are available
via EMI (Europe) and SonyBMG (the rest of the world).
The albums, on CD only, do feature new photographs
inside the CD booklets, but the outer sleeves remain
the same. There are no bonus tracks, but a lot of
time has been spent on the remastering by Doug Sax
of The Mastering Lab (David Gilmour) and respected
Pink Floyd audio associate James Guthrie (About
Face).
Target dates (pending final approvals) are: Monday
17th July (Europe) and Tuesday 18th July (North America).
We also anticipate releases in Australasia and Japan.
Please see Discography
for more details.
A Site For Sore Eyes – More Changes
As promised, the Web team has been slaving long and
hard, working on some new changes.
First is what we hope will be an easy click away from
all useful information – a calendar of David-related
events. This should mean that you don't need to trawl
back through old news or fire off an e-mail –
if it's in the calendar, then that's what we know.
(As always, please allow for typhoons, force majeure,
civil disturbances and plain old changes of mind,
so we stress that future event listings are for guidance
only.) Find it here
or on the navigation bar above. You'll see that you
can choose the format and the month, so enjoy clicking...
The Web team is also in the process of completely
restructuring the Galleries.
You will see numerous changes over the next few days,
with the addition of more photos from the North American
tour, additional rehearsals, and the Royal Albert
Hall shows.
Updated News: Pledge for PBS – See P.U.L.S.E
and Clean Up.
Yes, it's Pink Floyd's P.U.L.S.E on US TV –
but there is a David Gilmour On An Island live
connection, so read on. PBS (Public Broadcast) TV
and Radio in the USA is supported in part by public
donations, so they have regular telethon-style programmes
in which to elicit pledges of support.
The first of a series of pledge programmes will be
broadcast to Long Island today (Sunday 18th June)
at 8pm on WLIW, for around an hour. They will
air some edited songs from P.U.L.S.E in three
sections, with breaks for pledges. With certain levels
of donation, pledgers receive: for a $70 donation,
the David Gilmour On An Island CD; for a $100
donation, the P.U.L.S.E DVD; and for a $150 donation,
a package with both the CD and DVD.
(Drum roll)...in addition, each of the above will
also come with a bonus CD disc containing three
live songs from David's AOL sessions: On An Island,
Take A Breath, and This Heaven, in a
card sleeve designed by 'OAI' designer Steve Knee.
However, the WLIW broadcast is in isolation –
the remainder across the US will be from August, and
the promotion is designed for people who haven't already
bought P.U.L.S.E. Therefore we CAN'T guarantee
shipping of ANY early copies of P.U.L.S.E to
subscribers, so please do NOT participate solely in
the expectation of getting Pulse before the
release date. We will ask Sony to advise, but for
today it would be safer to assume that copies of Pulse
from WLIW will ship to subscribers AFTER July 11th,
the US release date.
WLIW's Web site is
here.
Pledge for PBS – See P.U.L.S.E and Clean Up
Yes, it's Pink Floyd's P.U.L.S.E on US TV –
but there is a David Gilmour On An Island live
connection, so read on. PBS (Public Broadcast) TV
and Radio in the USA is supported entirely by public
donations, so they have regular telethon-style programmes
in which to elicit pledges of support.
The first of a series of pledge programmes will be
broadcast to Long Island this Sunday (June
18th) at 8pm on WLIW, for around an hour. They
will air some edited songs from P.U.L.S.E in
three sections, with breaks for pledges. With certain
levels of donation, pledgers receive: for a $70 donation,
the David Gilmour On An Island CD; for a $100
donation, the P.U.L.S.E DVD; and for a $150 donation,
a package with both the CD and DVD.
AND (drum roll), in addition, each of the above will
also come with a bonus CD disc containing three
live songs from David's AOL sessions: On An Island,
Take A Breath, and This Heaven, in a
card sleeve designed by 'OAI' designer Steve Knee.
The WLIW broadcast is in isolation – the remainder
across the US will be from August; WLIW's Web site
is
here.
It's The Arts: BBC Radio 4 Repeats David's 'Front
Row'.
Thanks to an alert contributor to The
Blog (and Radio Times reader), we've learned
that David's interview with John Wilson for the BBC
Radio 4 arts programme 'Front Row' is being repeated
on Wednesday 21st June at 13:30. You
can find the Front Row Web site here
and, after the programme is over, you should be able
to use the BBC Web site's 'Listen Again' feature to
hear the repeat, even if you weren't able to tune
in at the exact time.
A Double Shot of World Cafe – Repeated June
30th.
As any true David Gilmour fan in the US will know,
'World Cafe' is a radio programme syndicated across
the US to 180 stations, and associated with NPR –
National Public Radio, or non-commercial US radio.
They have already run a David Gilmour live special
on the 'World Cafe' in April, recorded in the US,
and mixed by our very own Andy Jackson in the UK.
Now there are plans to re-run the session on Friday
30th June, so be prepared once again to turn on,
tune in, and wig out.
You can find your local station by going to the World
Cafe Web
site.
And The Winner is...
Dark Side Of The Moon has been voted the
Number One Ultimate Life Changing Track
by BBC Radio 2 listeners in the UK. The result
was announced during this afternoon's Jeremy
Vine show, which also featured an interview
with David. You can hear the show via the 'Listen
Again' feature on the BBC Web site.
DG-Day: Some Things to 'Smile' About.
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Just to remind
those of you who missed the News
on May 25th, the single of Smile
IS available this week in the UK.
If you're looking for the download, it's available
via the On
An Island page and from "all the usual
sites, including iTunes, HMV, Napster, etc."
according to EMI Records UK. iTunes also has
an exclusive of the 'demo' version of
Smile, for completists. |
The 2-track CD single (priced at around £2)
includes the album version of Smile, plus the
highly-collectible Island Jam (6' 33"). It
shows David's absolute mastery of the guitar and features
some of his most expressive playing. Catalogue number
is 0946 364719 2 1.
The Limited Edition 7" single on clear vinyl
includes the same two tracks as the CD single. Catalogue
number is 0946 3 64674 7 4.
Smile is on the UK BBC
Radio 2 'C' List, so please request it regularly
to prompt more airplay.
VINYL LP is also out now: heavyweight virgin
vinyl, a new Steve Knee montage on the centre spread,
a 33" x 22" poster on heavy paper with a picture of
David on one side (emulating the 'wire man'), and
the lyrics on the other, and an inner bag with David
on one side and the 'wire man' on the other, similar
to the end papers of the CD package. Catalogue number
is 0946 3 55695 1 3.
I Got My 'MOJO' By Working: David Scores at MOJO
Awards.
UK music lovers' magazine MOJO held their annual awards,
known as the 'Honours List', yesterday, attended by
an astonishingly broad mix of music legends –
and that was only the presenters.
Jeff Beck, Roy Harper, Rosanne Cash, Bobby Gillespie,
Beth Orton, Nick Cave, Jon Bon Jovi, James Dean Bradfield
and others gathered to pay tribute to their peers,
and seemed genuinely glad to be part of awards that
are solely about the music.
Award winners included Brian May, Bert Jansch, Chrissie
Hynde, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Elton John, Dann
Penn & Spooner Oldham, Scott Walker, and Jools Holland
(The MOJO Medal), while the evening was crowned by
Phil Manzanera presenting David with the 'Lifetime
Achievement' Award, to a standing ovation. It couldn't
have been more fitting.
For the full list, see the MOJO Web
site.
Time To Ring Some Changes
Here at DavidGilmour.com we don't rest on our laurels,
and although the site is very popular, we always want
to improve it, within the constraints of time, computer
servers, and the ever-challenging software.
First in a line of planned changes will be to the
menu above. You will see that the 'Fan Fare' name
has changed to The
Blog, since that's what it's known as, although
strictly speaking a Blog is more of a personal diary.
'Fan Fare' may reappear with fare for fans, while
'Gallery' will expand to include all the photos we
have so far. We hope to be able to add some more features
to make it easier to discover what's going on and
when, so please bear with us as we begin the updating
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