It was cool to discover recently that "Floydian Slip," the globally syndicated Pink Floyd radio hour, emanates each week from a quiet residential neighborhood in Shelburne. Seven Days profiled the program's creator and radio host, Craig Bailey, in its January 24, 2018 story, "The Great Gig: Radio host Craig Bailey reflects on two decades of 'Floydian Slip.'"

During our hour-long interview, Bailey recounted how he toured the Warner Bros. movie lot in October 2011 and convinced his tour guide to take him to the very spot where the cover photo for Pink Floyd's classic 1975 album Wish You Were Here was taken. Unfortunately, Bailey didn't have a camera with him at the time to immortalize the moment.

It was a good anecdote from Bailey, but space limitations kept it out of the final 7D story. Now here's the serendipitous part: To illustrate our Jan. 24 story — and without any suggesting or prodding by this reporter —  7D art director Rev. Diane Sullivan recreated that Wish You Were Here cover image using photos of Bailey himself.



Sparked by that nod to Floyd fandom, this week Bailey posted a history of the creation of the WishYou Were Here cover art on the "Floydian Slip" website. It includes how Hollywood stuntman Ronnie Rondell was repeatedly set ablaze to capture the photo. Only after the wind shifted and the flames singed his mustache did he say, "Enough!"

Another interesting tidbit that Bailey unearthed: When Wish You Were Here was released in 1975, record executives were less than thrilled with the decision to conceal the cover art beneath opaque black plastic — à la  Spinal Tap's Smell the Glove album in Rob Reiner's 1984 rock mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap. As Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel described that album art, "There's something about this that's so black, it's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black."

None more black indeed.