We are pleased to share with you excerpts from the extensive press release for Nick Mason's forthcoming, and long anticipated, book about Pink Floyd - "Inside Out". The press release itself is a superbly produced item - housed in a LP style cover (the front of which shown to the right), is a four page glossy card fold out full of information about Nick's book. If the following details from the release don't whet your appetite for what's in the book, then we are not sure what will!

To accompany the release will be a large number of promotional activities, from interviews with Nick to book signings and serialisations in the press. We have details of most of this, but we are waiting for final confirmations of times, dates and locations...

Finally, we should point out that, having seen the cover of the book, it is quite different to the image to the right.

About this book
Inside Out marks the first time that a member of Pink Floyd has written the story of one of the most successful and enduring bands in the history of rock music. Nick Mason, the only member to have been part of the band throughout its life, tells the full story of Pink Floyd, never shirking from recounting the more difficult moments, from their early days with Syd Barrett to the reformation of the Floyd following the painful split with Roger Waters.

Nick has appeared at every gig, from a handful of late-night dates at a long-extinct London club in late 1965, through to playing the largest stadia in the world, by way of the Palais de Versailles and the Canale di San Marco in Venice.

This is very much Nick's personal view, but in addition to his own research and memories, he has drawn on the thoughts and reminiscences of key players in the Floyd story. The history is rounded off with Nick's own version of the band's discography and chronology, incorporating his comments and observations.

As the band's unofficial curator, Nick's personal archives represent an extensive and significant resource for photographs, including many that are both rare and unpublished, graphics and props.

Nick, Roger Waters and Rick Wright met when all three were architectural students at the Regent Street Poly. In keeping with that architectural background (which perhaps became most overt in The Wall, but is also reflected in the band's high level of involvement in the construction of their stage shows), the contents fall into four blocks of three chapters. The mid point of the book, the end of chapter 6, marks the release of The Dark Side Of The Moon.

The text has been read by Paul Du Noyer (Mojo and Q Magazine), who writes: "When I was asked to read Nick Mason's book for my comments I had no hesitation in accepting. While I was never a particularly avid fan of Pink Floyd, I was always aware of their huge influence on music; I was naturally conscious too, of their phenomenal popularity.

"But more than either of those things, I was drawn to the promise of a great story to be told. Here was a band, after all, who had been at the very centre of the psychedelic upheaval, a band that featured the bewildered but charismatic Syd Barrett (a man whose spectacular rise and fall is one of rock music's enduring legends).

"This is the group who once epitomised 'way-out' experimentalism, yet became the stadium band of choice for mainstream music fans everywhere. And these are the men whose internal divisions would serve as a paradigm of superstar feuding.

"All in all, it promised to be a richly entertaining tale. The question was, would Nick be willing or able to tell it?

"To my delight he was not only willing, he was a superb story-teller. The draft I read was rich with anecdote, clarity and shrewdness. Nick was not only Pink Floyd's drummer, he was their curator. He has been at the heart of their story all along, but has preserved a humorous detachment as well. Perhaps alone of all its members, he appears to have no axe to grind, no score to settle.

"There cannot be many stories left in rock that are as big as Pink Floyd's. And I doubt whether anyone could tell this story so well as the patient, witty man who watched it all unfold from his perch behind the drum kit."

And Alan Parker, the director of the film Pink Floyd The Wall, wrote: "I laughed out loud so many times my wife thought I had Tourette's. It's so well written, full of detail, self-deprecating and funny. A seminal book - an intelligent, literate rock and roll memoir full of candour and wit."

The Images
Since 1994, Nick Mason has employed an archivist to log and curate his extensive collection of images and Pink Floyd memorabilia, which is stored at his office in London. Nick has been collecting this material since the band started: the archive includes a mixture of rare, unpublished material alongside graphics, posters, live photography, props and off-stage snaps by band and crew. Nick has also been able to research and acquire additional material including, recently, shots of Sigma 6, a precursor of the Floyd, in rehearsal at the Regent Street Poly where Nick and Roger Waters met. Their friendship was the starting point of the band's history.

The Design
Storm Thorgerson, the band's long-time album cover designer, will design the jacket and be involved in the art direction and overall design of the book.

Chapter points
Introduction
Poly Days
Going Underground
Freak Out Schmeak Out
Sum of Parts
Tempo Changes
Dark Side
Hard Labour
Balloon
The Wall
Comms Failure
Resurrection
Wiser After the Event
Chronology
Bibliography
Index

We will have more information for you shortly...watch this space!