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A recent report in the Wall Street Journal hints at the possibilities that rare Pink Floyd concert recordings might be on the horizon.
The recordings are part of an
archive of more than 5,000 live audio and video tapes made between 1966
and 1999, and only recently discovered when Bill Sagan spent over $5
million to buy up the Bill Graham Presents collection, which was lying
unwanted and uncatalogued in a warehouse. Some of the collection was
even damaged by a fire.
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| Bill Graham |
Sagan has spent the last two and
a half years carefully going through the items and cataloging them. A
number of items (rare t-shirts, posters, tickets and more - including a
great selection of Floyd items) can be found on the spin-off website - Wolfgang's Vault.
Bill Graham was born Wolfgang Grajonza in Berlin, 1931, before moving
to the US and eventually making his name as one of the most well-known
rock promoters.
The recordings were made at rock
concerts that the late Mr. Graham ran or promoted. The performances,
many of which are professionally recorded and extremely high quality,
were done so legally - as a bulging filing cabinet attests.
Graham's company made the
recordings partly for posterity's sake, and for the patrons of the
restaurant next door.
Graham owned the restaurant, and didn't want to
lose customers when an artist started their set. So, he installed CCTV
and piped the performances through to the diners. Many were also
captured on videotape at the same time.
Sagan is now working on the early
stages of complex negotiations with artists, their representatives and
record labels over the rights to sell the recordings on discs and as
downloads.
In the meantime, Sagan plans to begin "streaming" some of
these recordings as audio feeds on his company's Web site, which
involves little more than paying royalties to organizations that
represent songwriters.
We'll keep a close eye on this and let you know if and when any of Pink Floyd's performances get a release.
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