News

A school for at-risk teens founded by Pink Floyd in the early 1970s is about to close, after losing funding from its local council.

London’s Schoolhouse Education was started with help from the band, which raised £1,000 for it at a 1972 Oxfam gig at Wembley Empire Pool.

The school’s Lewisham site will close due to declining enrollment and budget cuts. Its Greenwich facility will remain open.

Headteacher Lynda Smith told the News of the World the school “would not exist if it wasn’t for Pink Floyd.”

Pink Floyd has signed a new five-year contract with its long-time record label EMI Music.

According to an EMI press release, under the new agreement, EMI will continue to market and distribute the band’s catalogue, and “all legal disputes between the band and the company have been settled” as a result of the new deal.

Relations between the band and its label had been contentious, as Floyd brought suit against EMI for alleged unpaid royalties, and for selling its tracks piecemeal, an industry practice called “unbundling,” which Floyd claimed was prohibited by the band’s contract.

“Pink Floyd are one of the most important and influential bands of all time and I know I speak for everyone at EMI when I say that it is a privilege to have the opportunity to work with them,” EMI Group CEO Roger Faxon said. “We’re looking forward to continuing to help the band reach new and existing fans through their incredible body of work.

“And, by the way, which one’s Pink?”

(We added that last part ourselves.)

The British Court of Appeal has effectively sided with Pink Floyd when it said the band’s individual songs cannot be sold against its wishes.

This afternoon the court dismissed an appeal by record label EMI, which had appealed a High Court decision on the matter.

Lawyers for the band had argued Floyd’s 1999 contract with EMI prohibited the selling of individual tracks, something much more common with the advent of digital downloads.

Read more in our March 9 post: “Pink Floyd sues EMI over online sales.”

Pink Floyd‘s post-“Dark Side of the Moon” catalog has been removed from digital retail sites such as iTunes and Amazon.com following the lapse of record label EMI‘s contract with the band June 30.

EMI continues to sell CD copies that it already has in stock, but won’t be able to manufacture new copies of post-“Dark Side” albums until, and if, it signs a new contract with the band.

Floyd’s albums following 1973’s “Dark Side of the Moon” were originally issued by Columbia. EMI acquired the rights to them in 2000. Pre-“Dark Side” albums are unaffected and still available as hardcopies and digital downloads from EMI.

This latest development is unrelated to a London High Court ruling that sided with the band, which argued EMI didn’t have the right to sell its tracks online individually, a practice known as “unbundling.”

Reuters reports the band’s management has been shopping its back catalog around to labels for a new licensing deal for 18 months, but the high asking price has turned away a number of labels.

Floyd is one of the biggest selling recording acts of all time. Since 1991, the band’s albums have sold 36.2 million copies in the United States, including 654,000 in 2009 and nearly 311,000 in 2010.

As an example of how digital sales have contributed to Floyd’s volume, consider this: According to Reuters, in the two months leading up to the expiration of EMI’s contract, fans were buying about 1,000 digital copies of “The Wall” a week. That number is now practically zero.

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“Floydian Slip” was written up in the latest issue of the Champlain Business Journal, published in Rutland, Vt., and distributed to Vermont’s northwestern counties.

The monthly paper’s circulation is 14,900, with more than 45,000 readers after factoring in pass-along readership.

Thanks to writer Mike Reilly for the “ink.”

Read the article online.

EMI‘s troubles got a little worse with news Paul McCartney will move his back catalog to a different label.

EMI is Pink Floyd‘s long-time label. The financially-troubled company suffered a setback last month when a court ruled in the band’s favor regarding online sales of individual Floyd tracks (“Court sides with Floyd over online sales“).

McCartney is moving to Concord Music Group, an independent label in California, which has released his last couple albums.

EMI has also seen The Rolling Stones leave, with the band’s back catalog; and Radiohead.

Brad Smith is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame within two disparate groups of fanatics: retro video game fans and Pink Floyd connoisseurs.

He’s recreated Floyd’s 1973 “Dark Side of the Moon” album — with surprising accuracy — using nothing but ’80s-era video game system beeps and bloops.

Smith, a 27-year-old game programmer from Ontario, Canada, tells us he spent about 190 hours working on his creation, which he’s named “Moon8,” for a friend’s birthday.

“I thought I’d put this together, partly as a joke, and play it at the party,” he says. “I say it was partly as a joke, but I really do mean only partly. I spend a lot of time listening to old game soundtracks, and I do find them fully aesthetically satisfying.

“I’ve always been interested in transcription/arrangement, taking a piece of music from one instrument/ensemble to another. I also like the challenge of making something big fit small space.

“‘Dark Side of the Moon’ as an album has been around me all my life, and it’s one I’ve listened to with friends again and again.”

Smith used Famitracker, an application that takes user input and feeds it to an emulation of the Nintendo Entertainment System sound software.

The result sounds something like … well, it’s almost like a cross between … Well, listen for yourself: Download the entire work for free.