Second paragraph of third chapter:

Transportation was — and probably still is — a major problem for new bands. Borrowing a parent's car was an option with limited scope, especially with the almost immediate depreciation caused by cramming it full of drum kits and band members. Acquiring a van represented by far the biggest capital outlay — yet had none of the glamour of spending a student grant on a new guitar or bass drum. But though it was possible to muddle through a show with a mishmash of less than perfect or borrowed equipment, the band — and the ever-increasing pile of equipment — still had to get to the gig, and safely back home afterwards.

Back in 2017, I had a very happy morning with my friend S at the Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A in London, and picked this up as a souvenir. As my regular reader knows, celebrity autobiography is one of the sub-genres I dip into relatively frequently, mostly Doctor Who personalities but not only them. I had read Peter Townshend’s book in 2018, so was looking forward to this as I am more familiar with Pink Floyd than with The Who.

It's a pretty comprehensive account by Pink Floyd's drummer, the only member to have stayed with the band in all its iterations, coming across as honest and fair-minded. The saddest story is of course the decline of Syd Barrett, the band's original genius, culminating with him turning up, unrecognised at first, to the recording of Wish You Were Here, a song which was actually about him. But I also had not heard that Stéphane Grappelli also happened to be in the studio at the time, and recorded a violin track, which in the end was not used. You can hear it here from 3:12. I think it would actually have been an improvement, but of course reasonable people can disagree about that. I guess we are so familiar with the released version that the variation sounds innovative, and I can understand that at the time the band wanted it to sound like Pink Floyd rather than Grappelli's backing group.

The well-recorded tensions between Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and the rest, are laid out with sympathy for both sides (though naturally more for the side Mason himself happened to be on). The account of the creative process for the band's best-known music is detailed without being tedious. I see some reviewers complaining that Mason names many members of the support team for the band, and has a bit to say about each of them, but I actually found that a positive – the success of the band is due to more than just the people who write and play the music, and it is nice that Mason acknowledges this.

It would have been interesting to read a bit more about how the band and its members handled the transition from poverty and squabbling over the van, to being suddenly very rich. Mason talks a fair bit about the technicalities of money management, and also reflects several times that Pink Floyd collectively were firmly left of centre politically; but I miss a connecting thread.

However, it's laugh-out-loud funny in quite a number of places, often but not always self-deprecating. One gets the sense that Mason has been telling a lot of these stories for years, and honed them well. Originally published in 2004, it was updated in 2011, including an account of the 2005 Live 8 performance, and again for the 2017 exhibition. I really enjoyed it. You can get it here.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2017. Next on that pile is Empire Games by Charles Stross.