20 comments

1. 

   Martyn - June 18, 2008 1:29 PM

   Hi Guy,

   As a scouser, I have to apol­o­gise for the behav­iour of the Swale per­son. It only takes one per­son to give a group of peo­ple a bad name, and we could do with­out that lying piece of scum giv­ing us all a bad name.

   I hope this does­n’t alter your opin­ion of peo­ple from Liverpool, or your opin­ion of peo­ple in gen­eral.

   Martyn

2. 

   Nate - June 18, 2008 1:46 PM

   I would never part with my copy of your book that you signed for me at last years Chelsea Festival. I pre­sume Autographs are worth slightly less if they are ded­i­cated to some­one spe­cific?
   I view the peo­ple that appear with their record bags at any Gilmour out­ing with equal sus­pi­cion I’m afraid.
   I had the per­fect oppor­tu­nity to ask Storm to sign my Atom Heart Mother CD and Black Strat book on Sunday evening but decided against it as I felt that he had prob­a­bly signed enough times that evening.

3. 

   Paul Sexton - June 18, 2008 8:04 PM

   Guy, You signed my book at The Underbelly last year and its not for sale at any price!!!…you still on the cigs????
   Cheers
   Paul

4. 

   Bas - June 18, 2008 8:55 PM

   Shit I for­got to ask a auto­graph last sun­day I always for­get to carry any books or lp with me silly me you right those MF spoil it for the gen­uine fans any­way I don’t want an auto­graph I did­n’t get myself
   you looked like you had a rough week­end any­way haha­haha
   shame you missed the gig sun­day was a really unique gig
   hope to see you live again soon
   Cheers

5. 

   Phoenix - June 18, 2008 11:35 PM

   I hate when peo­ple do stuff like this. Someone did some­thing sim­i­lar to one of my favorite comic book artists at a con­ven­tion I was attend­ing… only they had the gall to do it to his face and to bring in a men­tally-impaired per­son with them to say that the moun­tain of comics they brought were all his and not the other bloke’s.

   Thanks for sign­ing my copy of the book at the Odeon and your gen­eros­ity on Gabrielle’s behalf last year (oh, the look on her face…) 😀

   Luv,
   Nix.

6. 

   Karen - June 19, 2008 9:45 AM

   Hello Mr Pratt, thank you for mak­ing an effort for those of us who are gen­uinely inter­ested, and I can say my signed book is very much a prized pro­ces­sion and I do truly appre­ci­ate every­thing you have done for me.

7. 

   Caroline - June 19, 2008 4:43 PM

   I too hate to hear about these kinds of sto­ries. Reminds me all too much of when I used to be a HUGE ice hockey col­lec­tor, and would there­fore go out to events (hosted by the Carolina Hurricanes since I lived in Raleigh, NC at the time) for autographs…you could spot the ‘scum­bags’, as you aptly dubbed them Guy, from a mile away. The ‘scum­bags’ were the ones who did­n’t have only one item per player, as the rules said you should only bring, but any­where from five to ten to even fif­teen or twenty items!! Almost thank­fully, these money grub­bing types were turned away from player tables, but unfor­tu­nately every now and then, one would some­how get through… *sighs*

   Another set of ‘scum­bags’ from the hockey/​sports (and really, the gen­eral) world worth men­tion­ing are those at events like celebrity golf tour­na­ments. Those do not have the ‘one item’ rules, because they would be dif­fi­cult to enforce given that how auto­graphs are dis­trib­uted and you can only have so many vol­un­teers at these ‘tournaments’…once a celeb player fin­ishes a hole, they have to approach their ‘audi­ence’ and sign as many autos as time allows. Based on the two tour­neys I attended, I really wish there was a way to enforce ‘one/​two item’ rules…because I saw way, WAY TOO MANY peo­ple who would bring tons of items, and stay in a cele­b’s audi­ence for all eight­teen holes, and bring a dif­fer­ent item per hole in hopes that the celeb would sign it and not rec­og­nize that it was the same per­son hand­ing them dif­fer­ent items. It seri­ously made me sick to my stom­ach to see such crimes going on…

   …Which leads me to say that my not want­ing to be lumped with such peo­ple is why I even­tu­ally got out of the ice hockey col­lect­ing world. It would­n’t have been ‘even­tu­ally’ if it were not for the fact that hav­ing been a lit­tle younger and not as wiser then, I never really thought about what an over­all dirty hobby sports col­lect­ing can be until my eyes were opened. And even though I have a few autos I paid for then, I feel rather ashamed of them nowa­days know­ing that the money most likely went to the types I just got through describ­ing and have been rant­ing about. So there­fore, I have vowed that if I am to ever pay for an auto, it will only be if 100% of the money goes to charity…though, I may still remain wary of sell­ers claim­ing to do that, because how are we to seri­ously know? That said, when and if I ever decide to sell most of my hockey col­lec­tion, I’m going to see to it that an over­whelm­ing major­ity of the money I make from that, if not all of it, will go to char­ity or some kind of good cause, because it is very much THE right thing to do after all I have wit­nessed.

   In clos­ing, I not only apol­o­gize for yet another long-winded post (can you tell that I have dreamt plenty a time of being a writer? 😉 ), but also have to say it’s quite the coin­ci­dence that you posted about auto­graphs because I was get­ting ready to ask this week if you had ever sent out the auto­graph I asked for back in February. I worry that the post office here or some­where in the US of A ate it. *sighs* If I had ever got­ten it, I would­n’t have not only not entered the nam­ing con­test for your show, but also would cer­tainly never part with it for all of the money in the world. And I mean that as not only some­one who tries their best to be a good fan, Floydian, and Randall and Hopkirk zealot (while I’m at it, other auto­graphs I would never part with for all of the money in the world are the ones I got from Mr. Kenneth Cope and Ms. Annette Andre, my very first and only ones I’ve ever got­ten via send­ing fan let­ters thus far…and it’s THE way to get auto­graphs, because for the gen­uine fans like me, there is noth­ing like the thrill of know­ing a per­son who has enter­tained and/​or enthralled you has taken the time to read your let­ter and send back proof of that) but also some­one who con­sid­ers her­self a friend of yours, albeit a dis­tant one.

   As the oth­ers have said, I hope the inci­dent does­n’t change your opin­ion of peo­ple in gen­eral. But also, after such an inci­dent and all about which I’ve car­ried on, I can cer­tainly under­stand your being a bit more wary of giv­ing out your auto­graph.

   - Caroline

8. 

   ayako - June 20, 2008 4:20 AM

   How awful…
   I have to admit that when­ever pos­si­ble, I try to get auto­graphs from artists I truly like, just for my per­sonal col­lec­tion and as memen­tos of won­der­ful times.
   Like Caroline and oth­ers have said, I also hope the ‘scum­bag’ does­n’t spoil it for true fans… I still show off and brag about the per­son­al­ized authographed copy of ‘My Bass and Other Animals’ which you, Guy, so gra­ciously gave away dur­ing the lim­m­er­ick con­test at dg​.com blog. Once again, thanks!
   Cheers!
   ayako

9. 

   Thomas Robinson - June 22, 2008 12:20 PM

   Some peo­ple will do any­thing to get what they want but to pre­tend to be a 14 year old kid to pull on your heart strings is really low.

   I’d just like to say that about a month ago i did jok­ingly send you a poke prat ask­ing for your auto­graph but i was only kid­ding. Autographs don’t really mean much if you just ‘send off’ for one. Surely they are only mean­ing­ful when you are with the per­son when they sign it? Clearly Robert Swale dis­agrees.

   Can i just ask, am i the only per­son here that has­n’t got a signed copy of My Bass and Other Animals? 🙂 It looks like an un-signed copy might be rarer than a signed copy!

   As its Glastonbury next week and there is a lot of BBC cov­er­age planned do you know if any of your show will be shown Guy?

   Cheers
   Thomas

10. 

    Phoenix - June 22, 2008 7:30 PM

    ‘Rare unsigned copy’ is a joke Guy made to me at the Odeon last year when I waved my copy up at him on the bal­cony. It has since been duly ‘defaced’ and retains prize plac­ing on my book­shelf, only removed to re-read. It even gets dusted. 😀

11. 

    Ed Lopez - June 23, 2008 9:46 PM

    Hey Guy,

    The sit­u­a­tion you described, related to an auto­graph request is quite dis­ap­point­ing. As some­one who has a few things auto­graphed by you and other mem­bers of Floyd, I have to say that there are those of us who truly cher­ish hav­ing a copy of a record or book signed by those who cre­ated or were involved in the cre­ation of the item. I hope this does­n’t sour your expe­ri­ence com­pletely and that some of us can still get an auto­graph now and then. We’re talk­ing about the music and sto­ries that helped shape and form our musi­cal tastes and some­times other aspects of our lives!

    I will say this, and I think many other fans and friends who con­tribute to your blog will agree: we would never buy an auto­graph from some­one like the indi­vid­ual you men­tioned. What true fan would acquire an auto­graph with­out acquir­ing a story — a story of meet­ing the artist whose auto­graph is embla­zoned on the item?

    My intent in col­lect­ing auto­graphs is so some­day, when my kids begin to dis­cover the same bands I liked, I can pull a book or CD off the shelf and show then that at one point I was able to tell the artist how appre­ci­ated his or her music was and to relate a story of a ques­tion or two that I was able to ask that artist in per­son about their work.

    Let’s hope as fans we all pro­tect the sin­cere inter­est we have in an auto­graph over the inter­est of folks like the one you men­tion. We need to refrain from reward­ing these folks by buy­ing their stuff on eBay.

    For each auto­graph I’ve acquired, I have a great story on how I got to meet the artist — some­times it’s sim­ply about the sac­ri­fice it took to make it to a par­tic­u­lar gig, for exam­ple. The last time I had some­thing auto­graphed by you it was out­side the Groucho Club after David Gilmour’s DVD pre­mier in London. I had flown all the way from Utah for that gig!

    Ed

12. 

    Justin Bousquet - July 16, 2008 1:53 AM

    I don’t ever leave com­ments but, this made me sick! I hate that there are some peo­ple out in this world that would do such a thing. Don’t lie and tell a man that he changed your life when you could care less. It sucks that some peo­ple ruin it for all of us true fans! Guy Pratt cer­tainly changed me life, no doubt about it! Thank Guy for try­ing to do what you thought was right and thank you for being my musi­cal inspi­ra­tion!

    Take Care
    ‑Justin Bousquet

    p.s. bring your My Bass and Other Animals Show to the USA, I want to get the full expe­ri­ence!

13. 

    Mondo - July 23, 2008 8:09 PM

    What a wanker!

    Sorry to hear you was duped Guy. Must have been really deflat­ing to find out the per­son ripped you off. 🙁

    I can send you my auto­graph if it would cheer you up. You won’t get much on Ebay for it tho. hehe.

    Later Guy. Have a good rest of year.

14. 

    Hot Lunch - August 9, 2008 3:54 PM

    I hate those fuck­ers who turn up at gigs with bags of gui­tar boards (or what­ever they’re called) expect­ing bands or band mem­bers (and often ones who, like me, don’t know their way around a gui­tar) to sign them. One of those so and so’s cost me the chance of get­ting Ronnie James Dio to sign a copy of ‘Live eviL’ last year.

15. 

    Warren Loveridge - August 24, 2008 6:54 AM

    Guy, you signed my tick­ets out­side the RAH prior to DG’s Monday night gig there in 2006. Those tick­ets aren’t for sale at any price. It is part of the cher­ished lit­tle col­lec­tion of mem­o­ra­bilia that I have con­cern­ing a won­der­ful 3 nights at the RAH. The mere thought of prof­i­teer­ing from your ges­ture absolutely sick­ens me to the gut. There’s some­thing nasty, seedy and under­hand about the whole idea.

    I don’t know how a super-celebrity such as your­self can ever, on-the-spot, tell the dif­fer­ence between a gen­uine fan and an auto­graph par­a­site, but I hope you never feel com­pelled to for­sake the for­mer on account of the lat­ter. I cer­tainly under­stand why DG does­n’t often put pen to odd bits of paper.

16. 

    Robert Swale - December 6, 2008 12:14 PM

    Guy,

    Please accept my sin­cere apolo­gies for call­ing you a ‘liar’.

    I was wrong to do so and i have really learnt a les­son now.

    Yours,

    Robert

17. 

    Robert Swale - December 25, 2008 2:20 PM

    Just for every­one else who has seen this mes­sage, all i did was posted an image of the book onto an auto­graph col­lec­tors forum which included info on how i had achieved it. I have never had any inten­tion to sell the book or cause as much trou­ble as i have done for Guy. All the details asso­ci­ated with the book have now been removed. Also, i never pre­tended to be any­body that i am not.

    Robert

18. 

    autographfanno1 - August 19, 2009 8:26 PM

    Wow, you ARE a pratt. He was a fan of you and was happy to recieve your auto­graph, so he posted it online to show it. It was the fault of other idiots to spam you.

19. 

    jennie - February 4, 2011 7:30 PM

    I have a guy pratt auto­graph from when you were in cal­i­for­nia in 1987 at the ritz car­olton. i just want to know what it worth?

20. 

    domain ip - June 14, 2014 8:47 PM

    wow what a mess…it’s an autograph…don’t be so precious…without fans you would be sat at the desk next to me