March 24th 1973.

I was 15 and thought that John Peel’s “Sounds of the 70’s” radio show was where all right-thinking teenagers ought to be…

That week, he played a couple of tracks from a reasonably famous psychedelic rock band called Pink Floyd; “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” if I remember rightly. I was blown away.

The rest, as they say, is history.

3rd best selling album of all time, selling 22.7m certified copies (claimed 50m) – Wiki

I bought my copy that week – £2.19 (I remember it well as it was about 90% of my shop assistant Saturday wage.

Since then I have owned at least three copies of the vinyl record (can’t find any of them now), a CD (also lost but still have the box) and a 1982 Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs “half speed master” limited edition album.

I remember a radio show at about that time that told of the master tapes arriving at the lab in a case chained to the courier’s wrist – I’ve also read on the MFSL site that:

Dark Side of the Moon LP production note: In a recent interview, Gregg Schnitzer of MFSL revealed, “Did you know that the Dark Side of the Moon master was ruined? Somebody put it on a recorder instead of a playback-only mastering deck, and a little piece of Supertramp got dubbed onto the outro of Breathe. Big secret, that. Stan had left the company so a redo wasn’t gonna happen. Makes me seriously wonder where MFSL got the source for the Dark Side of the Moon CD. Hmmm. It would have had to have been a second generation safety or the digital master I made for the cassette run.”

Urban myth?    Who cares!

Here are some pictures taken today as I dusted of my 1980’s Rega Planar 2:Glass platter with belt drive. To switch to 45rpm you had to lift the platter and move the belt onto the secondary pulley wheel.

Rega R65 cartridge.

Rega with dust.

    The observant amongst you will note that at no time during the taking of these photos was the needle actually in contact with the vinyl…  (the clue is in the lifting handle)

Since then I have seen it performed at the Knebworth Festival (1974), Earl’s Court (80s – with The Wall), three times by the Aussie Pink Floyd and once by Roger Waters at the O2 (2008).