PINK FLOYD’S HEART OF DARKNESS

It didnt seem like a bad idea at the time I accepted this assignment. Just because Pink Floyd hate the press and wont be interviewed seemed no reason to be discouraged. I also refused to be put off by the unavailability of tickets to their last gig at Madison Square Garden, or by the stories I had read about journalists who had been found dead, lying in a heap of dry ice with a laser beam hole through their ears after writing a rude article about the (Dark Side Of The) Moonies. It couldnt happen here. Or could it?

It was July 13th, a torrid Wednesday evening in the Apple, around 9:30, and the heat showed no signs of giving up. The entire populace seemed terminally cranky, and I wasnt really up for writing about the Floyd. They must have known, because around the second page, as I listened to the fourth side of Ummagumma, it happened. The lights dimmed and died, the turntable ground to a growling halt, the TV flickered off, and all four air conditioners made noises like expiring wildebeests. There I was, sitting in the darkness of BLACKOUT 77, as the networks later dubbed it— the worst New York disaster in years. And to think it was all because I...