Spare Bricks Webzine

"Spare Bricks" was a quarterly webzine covering the music of Pink Floyd, the band, its members and fans. Each issue was published in English. (It is alternately known as "Spare Bricks The Pink Floyd Webzine.")

"Spare Bricks" was started in 1999 by Rick Karhu, primarily as a free and non-commercial alternative to traditional print fanzines. Mike McInnis was editor for most of the webzine's run occupying that role starting at issue 10 (as well as having contributed editorial input for several early issues.) Rick Karhu and Dave Ward were co-editors for the webzine's first three issues.

The debut was published in July 1999, after a one-month delay when it wasn't ready for the announced June unveiling. "Spare Bricks" was a bimonthly webzine for the first two issues, but changed to quarterly publication beginning with issue 3. The webzine officially ceased publication with issue 32 which went online October 2007, ending an 8 year run.

"Spare Bricks" carried on in the tradition of numerous print predecessors (like "The Amazing Pudding" which ceased publication in 1993, and the defunct fanzine "Brain Damage") by carrying a wide-range of articles of interest to both casual and hard core Pink Floyd fans, including feature stories, opinions, reviews, interviews and more. The webzine twisted those traditions with some Web-specific notions about presentation and content, and took a less "editor-centric" approach, encouraging contributors to mold their own stories to a great degree. Each issue focused on a specific theme.

The webzine hosted a wide variety of original columns including Gilmour Guitars and Gear, KAOS Theories, RoIO Review, The Camera Eye, Floydian Places, Vinyl 101, Brick By Brick, Heroes for Ghosts and others.

Publication highlights

In the spring of 2005, the webzine featured an exclusive interview with Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason.

In the winter of 2000, the webzine was granted permission to print exclusive transcripts of an interview conducted with singer/bassist, Roger Waters.

The webzine has also featured interviews with numerous band associates, including backing singer Venetta Fields, photographer Rupert Truman, laser operator Mark Grega, DJ Jim Ladd (who appears on Roger Waters' "Radio KAOS"), singer Roy Harper, screenwriter Ted Shuttleworth and others.

The webzine has included contributions from Vernon Fitch (Pink Floyd archivist and author of several Pink Floyd books) and audio engineer, Johnny Valenzuela who recorded Roger Waters' performance of "The Wall" in 1990 at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.

In the fall of 2006, Pink Floyd archivist Vernon Fitch and Spare Bricks contributor Richard Mahon authored a special feature for "Spare Bricks" on the publication of their book, "Comfortably Numb: A History of The Wall".

Past Issues

The entire back catalog of "Spare Bricks" can be found at the publication's [http://sparebricksarchive.fika.org official archive] . The archive was unveiled August 1, 2006. The archive is open to the public and free of charge.

ee also

*Pink Floyd
*Roger Waters
*David Gilmour
*Syd Barrett
*Richard Wright
*Nick Mason
*Psychedelic music

External links

* [http://sparebricks.fika.org/ Spare Bricks]
* [http://sparebricksarchive.fika.org/ Spare Bricks Archive]
* [http://sparebricks.fika.org/sbzine32/ednote.html Editor's note announcing the final issue]