News

Pink Floyd’s 1969 album “Ummagumma” finds itself in an unusual place: a list of Top 10 New Insect Species for 2016.

The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry has put the Sparklewing damselfly on its list at #10.

As a species of the genus “Umma,” it was easy enough for Klaas-Douwe Dijkstra to give it the species name of “gumma,” honoring a friend’s request from 16 years ago: “If you ever discover a new species of the genus Umma,” the companion suggested, “call it Ummagumma like the Pink Floyd album!”

The 2-inch-long Ummagumma is widespread on Central African rainforest streams, and, we assume, can also be found gathered together in caves grooving with picts.

The original site of Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row studio in the Canonbury district of Islington, London, will become luxury housing.

The Islington Council Planning Committee approved the proposal last night with the condition that a certain portion of the 25,000-square-foot property remain as office and studio space.

Floyd built the studio in the mid-’70s and recorded the ’77 “Animals” album there, as well as parts of “The Wall” (1979). Students at the nearby Islington Green School provided the children’s chorus on “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2.”

Britannia Row studio eventually became the property of Floyd drummer Nick Mason, who sold it in the mid-’90s before it was eventually relocated to its current address in Fulham, London.

Just when you thought the current never-ending presidential campaign couldn’t possibly intersect with the legacy of your favorite rock band, candidate John Kasich has managed to wed the two.

Republication presidential hopeful and Ohio governor Kasich replied to a question posed by a CNN reporter about his favorite concert experience by praising Pink Floyd and “The Wall.”

“I don’t even have to think twice. It was the best,” he says of the Roger Waters’ show he saw in Pittsburgh. “If I’m president, I am going to once and for all try to reunite Pink Floyd to come together and play a couple songs,” he adds.

We think a Constitutional amendment might be easier.

The Chateau d’Herouville, the shuttered French recording studio where Pink Floyd and many other iconic bands recorded, is set to reopen.

Dubbed the “Honky Chateau” by Elton John, who recorded three albums there, the facility had been abandoned until recently purchased by four partners who plan to reopen it for sound recording and more.

Floyd recorded its soundtrack to the 1972 film “La Vallee” there. The album’s called “Obscured by Clouds.”

During its heyday of the ’70s, the French mansion an hour outside Paris offered bands such as David Bowie, T Rex, Cat Stevens and others, a place to not only record music, but to live — sometimes to excess — under the management of owner Michel Magne.

Magne took his life in 1984 as debts on the facility piled up.

New co-owner Stephan Marchi told Classic Rock magazine, “Ultimately we want to expand from sound recording to other mediums — writing, sculpting, painting.

“In everything, we are inspired by the idea of recreating the state of mind that prevailed here in the early 70s.”

Worcester Crown Court today dropped the remaining charges pending against singer-songwriter Roy Harper.

Harper, 74, best known to Pink Floyd fans as guest vocalist on the band’s “Have a Cigar,” had been acquitted by a jury of two sex crime charges earlier this year. The five remaining charges were dropped today.

“This case should never have gone as far as this, or taken so long to resolve,” Harper told the Guardian. “The psychological and personal cost to my wife and myself has been enormous and the financial cost hugely unfair. I lost my livelihood and I spent my savings, and more, on my defense.”

“Despite coming out of this without a blemish on my name, I cannot recoup my costs and that’s left me incredibly angry.”

The Highgate home in northern London where the founding members of Pink Floyd lived while the band took shape has been renovated and is for sale.

The three-story property was owned by Mike Leonard — the band briefly called itself Leonard’s Lodgers — a lecturer at Hornsey College of Art who was instrumental in developing the band’s trademark light shows.

Floyd’s Roger Waters and Nick Mason moved into the home in September 1963, joined a year later by Syd Barrett. Rick Wright also lived there.

Leonard, who continued to own the property until his death in 2012, had allowed the property to fall into disrepair. It was auctioned shortly after his death.

The newly-renovated home is stunning, and is listed for £3 million.

DailyMail.com has a series of before and after photos.

After a two-week accidental blackout, the “Floydian Slip” mailing list is back online.

If you’d like Pink Floyd and “Floydian Slip” news emailed to your inbox in daily digest issues, sign up now.

Thanks to crazy diamond Ray Sourdiffe for bring the mistake to our attention.

“Floydian Slip” is the subject of this week’s “Ten Questions” at broadcasting trade website AllAccess.com.

We answer 10 questions about our show, Pink Floyd, and the state of rock radio thrown at us by the site’s Rock Editor Ken Anthony.

Read “Ten Questions” online now.

AllAccess.com is owned and operated by All Access Music Group Inc. It was formed to keep the radio and music industries informed and up to date.

Stone carver Pippa Westoby (pictured) has started a petition to honor Pink Floyd with a plaque to be placed in Cambridge, England.

The band’s Syd Barrett, David Gilmour and Roger Waters have connections to the town, seen by some as the band’s true home.

The petition has 1,431 signatures; the goal is 2,000. Once complete, Westoby will present it to the Cambridge City Council.

“If we get approval, we will then be fundraising,” she told Cambridge News. “Any money raised (above the cost of getting the plaque carved) will be split equally between a few Cambridge-based charities for music, drugs and mental health.”

Sign the petition.