Syd Barrett RIP

RIP Syd, 1967 would not have been the same without you.

Me, I'll cue up "Love You" and dig the time sigs.

I will listen to his music tonight with a glass of port, and drink to his memory.

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn was in most ways the beginning of my "time."

RIP.

Could we rename this thread to "Syd Barrett RIP"?

Early version...

Anyway, RIP - a very sad story IMO.

I liked Syd. This seeems much sadder than your average rock star death.

RIP.

RIP

Christ, Syd, I wanted you to outlast all of them.

"Won't you miss me, wouldn't you miss me at all?" RIP and thanks for everything.

well...thats just no news i care to hear...

I never pondered the man's mortality, but I've spent decades listening to his music and living in his sound and word world. One of my all-time favorites, and I've always been so grateful for the handful of songs he gave us.

Wish You Were (Still)Here, Syd.

I really love you, and I mean you. RIP.

Remember that he'd probably want us to be singing. RIP.

what do you want to bet that clear channel radio station DJs nationwide will go "yeah, very sad, he was in Floyd, now here's 'Wish you were here' which we were going to play hundreds of times anyway."

Goodbye, Syd. I hope you've found peace. And thanks.

It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here
And I'm much obliged to you for making it clear That I'm not here.
And I never knew the moon could be so big
And I never knew the moon could be so blue
And I'm grateful that you threw away my old shoes
And brought me here instead dressed in red
And I'm wondering who could be writing this song.

I don't care if the sun don't shine
And I don't care if nothing is mine
And I don't care if I'm nervous with you
I'll do my loving in the winter.

And the sea isn't green
And I love the queen
And what exactly is a dream
And what exactly is a joke.

thank goodness the poor man has finally escaped what this world wants to do to him.

ha..that pretty hillarious (x post)

when i 1st heard dark globe it tore me in half like no other record had...im not sure if any other record ever will.

Barrett's dark genius often was misunderstood and to many he wil be remembered as the posterboy for the term ''Acid Casualty'. This in part is due to the fact that Barrett turned his back on recording music in the early 70s. Maybe I'm just ignorant, but personally I really havent heard anything so bizzare about his behavior that is any worse than what hundreds of other stories about hundreds of other rock stars throughout history. He liked to garden and he lived with his mother. So what? It sounds to me that he just lost interest in going through the "process" of recording music... Who knows, maybe he created masterpieces that no one will ever hear every night while tinkering around in his living room with an accoustic guitar...or maybe he had a million masterpieces floating through his mind as he weeded the garden each morning.
Whatever the case, I'm eternally thankful that he at least shared a glimpse of his brilliance with the rest of the world and that we will be able to listen to it whenever the mood suits us.

-- veronica moser

Yeah, but at least that's preferable to listening to a station with computerized playlists and no DJ at all (as I'm presently doing) play "Money" (which they indeed just did, moments ago) with, naturally, no comment at all - a vacuum.

-- veronica moser (rp...), July 11th, 2006.

Wouldn't it be great if just one of them busted out "Dark Globe" though?

Too bad Peel's gone, his tribute would've been rightly done.

Lost and Found, on WMBR, Cambridge, MA

http://headphones.mit.edu:8000/

RIP

Some paintings.

JD OTM. Ned too. Where's Nabisco? I need more OTM because I find myself inarticulate and also weeping quietly at my desk.

Ivor... Syd... I'm beginning to worry for Captain Beefheart...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yih0XvAdSew&search=arnold%20layne

RIP Syd -- as Ned said above, I hope the last thirty years were happy and peaceful.

Even if it meant hearing nine takes of "Efferverscing Elephant". Syd's the only artist I could tolerate hearing multiple takes on a single song from for hours at a time.

"There are many stories about Barrett's bizarre and intermittently psychotic behaviour - many of which are undoubtedly apocryphal, although some are known to be true. According to Roger Waters, Barrett came into what was to be their last practice session with a new song he had dubbed "Have You Got It, Yet?" The song seemed simple enough when he first presented it to his bandmates, but it soon became impossibly difficult to learn: as they were practicing it, Barrett kept changing the arrangement. He would then play it again, with the arbitrary changes, and sing "Have you got it yet?"; after more than an hour of trying to "get it" they realised they never would."

listening to Syd's Floyd one the experiences that changed everything for me.
Relics was the first PF record I ever owned.

rest in peace

I seem to recall a Mojo article a year or so back that mentioned a set of prints being made available.

"He was so charismatic and such a startlingly original songwriter. Also, along with Anthony Newley, he was the first guy I'd heard to sing pop or rock with a British accent.

"His impact on my thinking was enormous. A major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed."

Won't you miss me?
Wouldn't you miss me at all?

The poppy birds sway
swing twigs coffee brands around
brandish her wand with a feathery tongue
my head kissed the ground
I was half the way down, treading the sand
please, please, please lift the hand
I'm only a person with eskimo chain
I tattooed my brain all the way...

Won't you miss me?
Wouldn't you miss me at all...?

I'll have to pick up those solo albums again ASAP, but I'll definitely be listening to Piper and Relics tonight.

RIP, syd.

Barrett's problem was, by all indications, Asperger's Syndrome. Acid Casualty? Not really. The vast quantities of MANDRAX he was ingesting at the time were what made him sloppy and stupid.

Repeat: Mandrax, not acid!

I've been saying this for decades now. Futile, I know. And now I'm going to be reading the "famous acid casulaty dies" over and over and over and.....

The Peter Green autobiography paints a similar story. The myth is that Green was an acid casualty, but actually, at least according to the bio, Green was suffering from depression and was then placed on a particular kind of medication for nearly a decade. Then the drug was pulled from the market after scientists realized just how badly it fucked people up.

Then again, one of the main reasons why Green and Barrett are considered crazy 'n' insane is simply because they both left hugely popular bands and decided to live relatively quiet lives with their respective families. All their personality quirks and odd traits are then filtered through this perspective, and are blown way, way out of proportion.

RIP You Crazy Diamond

listened to Instellar Overdrive on the 4th of July, and wondered alound about him...
how sadly beautiful his music is...sometimes childish, sometimes the darkness peeked thru, but it was all him...
i think 'Syd' died in the 70's, Roger, however did not.

On Saturday afternoon I interviewed the Skygreen Leopards, and the middle 20 minutes of our talk was devoted to Barrett, which at the time I thought was pretty strange because I don't spend precious interview time with musicians on talking about other musicians. In fact, we all laughed, and said the entire article should be about Barrett.

Roger Waters in 2003:

“Syd was a schizophrenic. It was pretty clear to me that that was what was the matter with him. But not everybody would accept that. I had ties with Syd’s family going back a fair way, and I can remember telephoning one of Syd’s brothers and telling him he had to come and get Syd, because he was in a terrible mess, and he needed help. And the three of us sat there, and in effect, Syd did a fairly convincing impression of sanity. And his brother said, ‘Well, Roger says Syd’s ill, but that’s not the way it seems to me.’
“There was eventually a lot of argy-bargy with his family, and a lot of stuff about whose fault it was. His mother blamed me entirely for Syd’s illness. I was supposed, I think, to have taken him off to the fleshpots of London and destroyed his brain with drugs. And the fact is, I never had anything to do with drug-taking. Certainly not with Syd, although he did indulge in lot of acid, which given the fact that he was an incipient schizophrenic was obviously the worst possible thing in the world for him. But mothers have favourite sons - and if something goes wrong, they have to find someone to blame.”

"arnold layne" + "see emily play" + "apples and oranges" is still one of the great first-three-single streaks of all time: the last in particular is one of the weirdest and scariest songs of the '60s.

FUCK THE WORLDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RIP

Of course, I got it all at first on a bootleg when I was about 13 or so, called Dark Side of the Moo. I'm sure a few of you have this! After a solid year or two of being a huge Floyd fan and loving Piper and loving the Syd two-fer reissue, to finally hear Apples and Oranges and Candy and a Currant Bun was to truly have my mind blown.

The other classic bootleg which I lost ages ago, was called Vegetable Man and featured the cartoon Robyn Hitchcock drew for his own cover of said song. It features a lot of the material that would end up on Opel, though in different forms, and a version of Kevin Ayer's Religious Experiance/Singing a Song in the Morning, but I believe is actually a version without Syd playing on it, for what it's worth. The Syd version, and an explanation of the difference, can be found on the reissue of Joy of a Toy.

The final bootleg I got, about 20 years later(i.e., last year), is the 6 CD set Beyond Rhyme Nor Reason. I'll get back to you when I've digested that one!

i think i like the early p.f. singles better than anything else his name was on....

wasn't he living with his mum much of the past 40 years?

Paul - That's lovely! Let's get the next generation Syd fans started early.

Telepathy? Probably not, but last Saturday I packed away all my Syd and early Floyd CDs to be put in to storage. Then I rearranged the Syd part of my bookshelf so that they were in chronilogical order of release.

And now I hate myself for selling a copy of 'Psychedelic Renegades' (the Genesis publication book by Mick Rock that Syd signed) last year just because I needed the money...

Question: What are the odds that there may be tapes of unreleased solo songs within Barretts house? If so, will they ever be made public? What about the History of Art he had been writing for the last 15 or 20 years?

My thought exactly - the old eccentrics who really make a difference. RIP

Hmmmmmmmmmm, I'd been reading some crappy biog of Syd every night this week just before I went to bed, I finished it a day or two before it was announced he'd died PLUS I'd just put the only CD I own of Syd's onto my iPod a coupla days before. I kept wanting to play more of his stuff but my records are elsewhere and I think if I'd actually heard something like "Flaming" I would have cried.

I snatched a look at the G's trib, looks good. Who else doing one today?

I guess Mojo are holding the front page rightabout now.

Basically, some people got together and got a park bench dedicated to him, went round his house and gave him the details. He was really happy, and chatted to them for a while, even signed a couple things.

They were resisting adding this to their pages, to prevent people being 'inspired' into going to his house in the hope of catching him in a similar mood.

I do hate how the only way the media can explain someone like Syd to their apparently braindead readership is by reference to who he influenced, or how his influence will continue, or how he influenced some people you might have heard of... fuck off!

There's a (umm what to call it... old Record shop seems a bit formal, 60s style museum come shop. That's close enough) in Windsor Peascod street, I went in w/Alice (6), She looked around at all the john/yoko art, who guitars, monterey posters, wombles toys, and says "Dad, you know what I want?" "What's that?" "This room!"

Presumably in the one day.

No great additions as yet, apart from the news we all know.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pink-Floyd-Syd-Barrett-Metal-Guitar-Pick_W0QQitemZ160007256508QQihZ006QQcategoryZ52473QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/37356/Appreciation_Syd_Barrett

The session of June 13th was the last Syd would have for
over a month, as the Floyd had work to do of their own and, in
particular, a tour, during most of July, of Holland. His final
session for the album took place on July 16th, and was completed
pretty much in a hurry! Titles completed during that session
were 'She Took A Long Cold Look', 'Long Gone' (the remade, issued
version), an attempted re-make of 'Dark Globe' (Called 'Wouldn't
You Miss Me' on the session sheet!) and the continuous run of
'She Took A Long Cold Look (at me)' / 'Feel' / 'If It's In You'.
Again, I do not know how the first version on this session of
'She Took A Long Cold Look' went, but my original reaction,
(which I still hold) was one of disappointment. False starts are
O.K. if they give an insight into the musicianship / artistry of
those present, or even if they present the odd mistake which
everyone is capable of. But when I first heard the false starts
to 'If It's In You' my reaction then, (as now) was first one of
anger that they were left in, and, secondly, boredom! Now I hate
to wind people up, but the false starts to the tracks that I had
personally supervised were far more interesting than those left
in the final album. They certainly would have been more of a
candid insight to the atmosphere on the sessions and less
detrimental to Syd's abilities than the ones left in. Those left
in show Syd, at best, as out of tune (which he rarely was) and,
at worst, as out of control (which again, he never was). They
are still my least favourite tracks on the record, in direct
contrast to my favourites which also were Gilmour/Waters
productions ('Octopus', 'Golden Hair'). Apart from the
overdubbing of organ onto 'Long Gone', the whole of this session
was just Syd alone, a rather desolate ending to the recording of
an album that took over a year to make, with as much ending up on
the cutting room floor as on the issued album.

"There's a picture of Syd from April 2001, taken near his mother's house in Cambridge. He's a middle-aged man wearing shorts, a man with a shaved head, a vegetable, a dosser, a loser. He's carrying some papers. You can't help wondering if he's got a copy of Mojo magazine in there somewhere. If he's going home to read about his own moment of aliveness."

OH NOES A MIDDLE AGED MAN WEARING SHORTS

who's to say syd wasn't happier and more "alive" as a normal middle-aged guy than he was as a musician?

^this part can't be stressed enough here

The reason why of course is because Hendrix was widely bootlegged & filmed, so we can hear it, while the only thing that remains of Pink Floyd in full swing are the clips from Tonight Let's All Make Love In London and a few other clips... it's a huge loss that more of his wilder guitar playing wasn't documented, because I keep hearing from the people who were there that he was pretty much the guy who got everyone thinking about absolute freeform noise in a rock context.

Momus is 46. But he looks good.

He's a middle-aged man wearing a poncho, a man with an eyepatch, a douchebag, a tosser, a loser.

Folks.

Any references to "Syd" towards himself, he'd ignore. Heck , that book he signed recently was signed "Barrett" in a spirit of compromise (i.e. not "Roger", but equally not "Syd".

Well, I guess M will be along later...

"And it just makes me think of everyone else so caught in such a terribly unforgiving place, and to wish them well."

And what Syd himself meant when he wrote "Vegetable Man":

In my paisley shirt I look a jerk
And my turquoise waistcoat is quite out of sight
But oh oh my haircut looks so bad
Vegetable man how are you?

I've been looking all over the place for a place for me,
But it ain't anywhere, it just ain't anywhere.

You know, it is possible to fuck up, to waste your life, or to be wasted by genetic disorder. The people who do it, know it. We all know it when we see it. And we're all losers in the end; there is no good death, and ageing sucks.

Rock has an unhelpful relationship with dysfunction -- rock fans find it charming when someone is wasted (vide Pete Doherty). This attitude comes straight from Romanticism, and is obviously deeply problematical, especially when applied to people who combine drug abuse with psychological disorder.

The paparazzi photo of Syd in 2001 does depict a sad loser. Syd died a sad loser. It's all the sadder for that reason. I speculated on whether he's holding a copy of Mojo magazine in that photo because for me it would be the perfect symbol for the time we live in, a time in which rock is seeking its own "mojo", returning obsessively to the 1960s, yet unable to re-capture -- for that very reason -- the experimental spirit it seeks. My Syd entry follows an entry on Charlotte Gainsbourg's forthcoming album 5.55 entitled "Epigone pop". The music made by people born too late, people confronted with music's loss of mojo, condemned to repeat the gestures of dead composers with less and less conviction. It's this museumification of popular music -- its transition to a classical interpretative artform, repeating over-celebrated gestures -- which makes someone like Syd a painfully apt metaphor for the extinction of a once-vital medium. What makes it worse is that it's exactly this logic -- "rock's lost its mojo" -- which makes people turn to Mojo, a time-machine back to a few years of undeniable aliveness.

If you mean that he lost something else, it's probably inarguably true. As you say, we all lose in the end.

Mojo the magazine at least evokes the spirit of aliveness. For something so inarguably retro and 'old man', 90% of the stuff it features is about musicians and bands in their flush of youth. (and if you think 90% of mojo articles are about teh beatles, well QED then.)

Keep the cigars if cigars are awarded to sententious "Ned-Ragget's-wish-come-true" bollocks like:

my wish for him on this board a while back came true -- that whenever his inevitable time came, he would pass quietly and peacefully at home surrounded by his loved ones, with the outside world far away and not prying at him. More should be so lucky, and in his case, it was no less than he deserved. RIP.

You know, paint that scene on a Dickensian postcard if you like, pronounce it at the funeral oration, but life isn't like that. Syd flew very high and -- quickly, before he was even 25 -- fell very low. I'm glad that Ned's next comment amended his original tone.

One of my fav. memes.

And I think I want to add that this is what being an artist is really all about, not all the Romantic crap about being "too sensitive to live" or "doomed to die young". If being an artist is about that stuff, Syd was an artist to the end. If it's about making records, performing engagements, and communicating with people, he lost it during the Floyd's first American tour.

Surely "Syd Barrett" died aeons ago; the guy who died last Friday, Roger Barrett, could also be described as a "millionaire ex-rock-star".

Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry:

Up until his death, Barrett still received royalties from his work with Pink Floyd from each compilation and some of the live albums and singles that had featured his songs; Gilmour has commented that he "[made] sure the money [got] to him all right."

I know Ummagumma and Relics (etc.) haven't sold in Dark Side of the Moon numbers over the years, but surely this adds up?

ahh the old momus trick: projects self onto others and pretends it's fact.

like i said up above, Syd died when in the early 70's, Roger lived till last Friday. and i hope he died happy.

Marcello, that was a great piece!!!! well done.

Judging people based on papparazzi photographs and suppositions about their private life is wrongheaded, no? There's a touch of coldhearted shallowness here as well; unless you're a glamorous youth or headlining Royal Albert Hall and pulling in interviews you're not an artist? Would it have been better if Barrett had fucked off this coil like Nick Drake at 26 and spared you his indignity? I sort of understand where you're coming from; we're all mourning the works of an artist whose music career ended in the early 70s. But there was a real human being behind those songs, one with emotions and thoughts, and one who continued to paint quite stunningly after his silence:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/barrett1979.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/barrett1992.jpg

On a different note, I'm kind of interested in this quote from Bowie:

along with Anthony Newley, he was the first guy I'd heard to sing pop or rock with a British accent.

It this really true? If so it would seem that the cultural signifigance is fairly big. What accent did British people sing rock and/or pop in previously, an American one?

No, I don't think this is really true, you can hear liverpudlian accents in plenty of Beatles songs. Syd did, however, manage to connect a certain English whimsy with true rockstardom better than anyone had before then.

along with Anthony Newley, he was the first guy I'd heard to sing pop or rock with a British accent.

Kinda hard to argue that this wouldn't be true for Bowie, right?

Storm remembers Barrett as a “bright, extrovert kid, Smoked dope, pulled chicks - the usual thing. He had no problems on the surface. He was no introvert as far as I could see then.” Before the advent of the Pink Floyd, Barrett had three brooding interests - music, painting, and religion. A number of Barrett’s seniors in Cambridge were starting to get involved in an obscure form of Eastern mysticism known as “Sant Saji” which involved heavy bouts of meditation and much contemplation on purity and the inner light. Syd attempted to involve himself in the faith, but he was turned down for being “too young” (he was nineteen at the time). This, according to a number of those who knew him, was supposed to have affected him quite deeply.

“Syd has always had this big phobia about his age,” states Pete Barnes, who became involved in the labyrinthine complexities of Barrett’s affairs and general psyche after the Floyd split. “I mean, when we would try to get him back into the studio to record he would get very defensive and say ‘I’m only 24. I’m still young. I’ve got time.’ That thing with religion could have been partly responsible for it.” At any rate, Barrett lost all interest in spiritualism after that and soon enough he would also give up his painting. Already he’s won a scholarship to Camberwell Art School in Peckham which was big potatoes for just another hopeful from out in the sticks. Both Dave Gilmour and Storm claim that Barrett’s painting showed exceptional potential: “Syd was a great artist. I loved his work, but he just stopped. First it was the religion, then the painting. He was starting to shut himself off slowly then.”

...

Perhaps it was the drugs. Barrett’s intake at the time was suitably fearsome, while many considered his metabolism for such chemicals to be a trifle fragile. Certainly they only tended towards a further tipping of the psyche scales, but it would be far too easy to write Barrett off as some hapless acid amputee even though certain folks now claim that a two-month sojourn in Richmond with a couple suitably named “Mad Sue” and “Mad Jock” had him drinking a cup of tea each morning which was unknown to Syd, spiked with a heavy dosage of acid. Such activity can, of course, lead to a certain degree of brain damage, but I fear one has to stride manfully blind-folded into a rather more Freudian landscape, leading us to the opinion of many people I talked to who claimed that Syd’s dilemma stretched back to certain childhood traumas.

The youngest of a family of eight, heavily affected by the sudden death of his father when Syd was twelve years old, spoilt by a strong-willed mother who may or may not have imposed a strange distinction between the dictates of fantasy and reality - each contention forms a patch work quilt like set up of insinuations and potential cause and effect mechanisms. “Everyone is supposed to have fun when they’re young - I don’t know why, but I never did” - Barrett talking in an interview to Rolling Stone, Autumn 1971.

The reactions that proclaim Syd to be a loser and acid casualty say more about the commenter's passive-aggressive insecurities and nothing at all about Syd.

OTM. A large chunk of Barrett's supposed "insanity" rests on the silly idea that one has got to be crazy to drop out of a hugely popular rock band. Only crazy people do that. (This is how Peter Green is portrayed, too.) I mean, one can cite all the pix, old tales, gosspip, and articles they want, but ultimately no one knows who Barrett was and what he was like. Was he a loser and crazy? Did any of us know the guy?

Now I'm not saying Barrett didn't have problems, but fuck all, one of my best friends lives in his mom's basement and is a garbageman. And many, many others have had some serious problems w/illegal drugs and medicated drugs, as they've been diagnosed with all kinds of shit. Are they losers and crazies? I don't think so.

And we're all losers in the end; there is no good death, and ageing sucks.

Mr. Momus, you should change that "we" to an "I" because you can only speak for yourself.

i'm curious as to why syd's death is being attributed to either cancer or diabetes depending on which source you read:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=syd+barrett+cancer

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=syd+barrett+diabetes

Well, except it didn't. Thanks for the willful misreading, though.

Am I a troll? Shit, I didn't think I was. Then again, I don't really understand the troll concept. I did introduce myself twice many, many month back. Please someone clue me in!

Poor fact-checking. It's pretty well-known that Syd was diabetic.

-- Guilty Boksen (jeffm.coo...), July 13th, 2006.

There's a page of his stuff on the Astral Piper site:
http://www.sydbarrett.org/artbysydbarrett.htm

I imagine Google image search could turn up some additional stuff...

is it just fact checking? cuz its kind of ridiculous:

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/9319

“It has been reported that he died from complications related to diabetes,” says the NME, “however, other reports suggest the cause of death was cancer.”

[/asshole]

This attitude of "he may well have had exactly the life he wanted, despite the odd problem" really ignores the elephant in the room. For an artist, to fall silent is the biggest disaster imaginable. That silence is the loudest scream.

no it doesn't. people are simply reacting to the fact that 'loser' seems like a needlessly overstated word for someone struggling with mental problems. you're hijacking a memorial thread, enlightening no one, talking endlessly about yourself and it's time for you to stop

See band account of gig immediately prior to scheduled appearance at the Monterrey Pop Festival, after which Ry Cooder quit:

Snouffer: Do you know how much damage that did to our career?
French: Well, that was the end of it right there, basically.

"Captain Beefheart didn't subsequently move back in with his mother."

At what point, exactly, are you going to shut the fuck up?

There's no rule that says that you must continue your art just because you're good at it. And all of these other points seem to impose your will on his career or are just plain nasty because of his mental condition, something that he may not have had any conscious control of.

We could impose our definitions of "success" on many people, but it seems vile to do it on a man after his death when, to many, he did have great success.

from "Progressive Music in the U.K", File Under Popular, pg 117

noise means a lot of things to a lot of people, but when Cutler describes something as 'Noise' and then immediately brings up AMM, you can kind of get the picture of just how extreme some of those live shows probably were

np: Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs

Figures like Robert Wyatt and Daniel Johnston come to mind as characters who overcame setbacks and mental illness to contribute very valuable work later in their career.

"There's a picture of Syd from April 2001, taken near his mother's house in Cambridge. He's a middle-aged man wearing shorts, a man with a shaved head, a vegetable, a dosser, a loser. He's carrying some papers. You can't help wondering if he's got a copy of Mojo magazine in there somewhere. If he's going home to read about his own moment of aliveness."

They describe the impression left on me by this picture. These lines need to be read in context, as part of an appreciation of Syd Barrett. Out of the 99 comments that followed this appreciation of Syd on my blog, only one complained, in passing, about the "loser" line. It's curious that it's proved so touchy an issue here. Do people here have some special reason to fear that word?

x-post: haha the "loser" word - yeah, I have a problem with it: it's presumptuous. You didn't know him. How about the "vegetable" word, Momus?

Momus = an artist who apparently is compelled to go on a message board (and similarly spout on his blog) to snidely shit on a vastly more important but dysfunctional artist for reasons one can only presume originate from intense jealousy. Or something! I've heard that you were an asshole, Mr. Currie, and now I seem to have some confirmation.

It would seem to me that someone who clearly will be remembered for his sheer originality (and yes, the tragic circumstances of his artistic demise) can hardly be termed a loser in the long view.

Perhaps it would inaccurate to term you a loser, Mr. Currie. Perhaps it would be more accurate to merely call you on your bitch-ass comments regarding how Syd Barrett is far too important to Mojo readers, who should more reasonably be like the Magnetic Fields sheep/Belle & Sebastian sheep/ twee sheep/ people that pay you write songs about them or whatever it is that you have culled some marginal attention for doing. I also remember some highly unsavory stories about you, which knowledgeable people on this message board may know of (I only started here in May of last year), but which i will refrain from mentioing.

Please be less transparently self-aggrandizing.

thanks!

B-but Syd used the term "vegetable man" about himself! It's a reference to his song, for heaven's sake! Members of Pink Floyd quote lyrics from the song in VH1 documentaries when explaining why Syd had to leave the band! It's part of the mythology!

Also, at no point have I brought myself or my own work into this discussion. You guys have done that, and it's a big problem for me posting on this board that you do it. Everything becomes massively ad hominem, and points aren't responded to for what they're saying, but for who's saying them.

Uh, you linked to your page way upthread. Before anyone commented on it.

I weep for you.

Absolutely. And if you'd actually read what I wrote, you'd see that nothing I've said contradicts that. Syd looks like a loser in a specific photograph from 2001, towards the close of his "tragic artistic demise". And the reason it's so tragic is that Syd was a terrific artist, and that's what history will remember. I totally agree with the view, for instance, that See Emily Play is perhaps the best single ever released. I am clearly not "snidely shitting" on Syd Barrett, if you actually read my appreciation. Which of course I linked to, as did everybody here who'd written their own appreciations. Linking to a relevant piece you've written does not equate to saying "Hello, kick me please!"

it does throw up the differences in how we understand the term 'artist' though. a catholic view of an artist as *one who is*, a calvinist view of an artist as *one who does*?

either way, syd barrett made some great records

I find the association of the term "loser" with the process of growing old (or getting mad, by the way) frankly bizarre. It has a couple of disturbing implications that I can't really like.

Nevertheless, proximity to death, and loss of ability/function are always going to be viewed negatively. Or, to put it another way, are not things i want for myself. To extrapolate that to others is something perhaps too easy to do

BEING: we can't call syd a loser, because we don't know him

DOING: we don't need to know him. it is based on output/function, not personality

personally, i am not wishing to call syd a loser, i'm not wishing to call him anything. but i don't believe there is anything wrong with momus' statement. we knew syd only as an artist, we didn't know him as that nice man who lives at number 28

and, we are all judged that way, in capitalist-protestant society, rightly or wrongly, by output and by function. the word 'loser' in its wider sense, fits into this.

achieving a great deal at one stage of life, doesn't preclude falling away at another. and that is, in its own way, a failure, isn't it?

Max Weber to thread.

http://www.sydbarrett.org/artbysydbarrett.htm

i meant to pick up on this ,early , marco

I find the association of the term "loser" with the process of growing old

i dont think this is the case. its not 'growing old' that is being associated, its 'not being active'. momus cites wyatt, johnston etc. these are people growing old, but remaining active.

"In my PAISLEY SHIRT I look a jerk". Not, in my shorts I look a jerk.

"My HAIRCUT looks so bad".

And um, Roger didn't have much hair.

I'm sorry, but you are bonkers. On the evidence of this page Syd -- in utter contrast to his music -- was hopelessly unable to settle on a consistent visual style he could call his own. There's a whimsical charm to some of the work, but that's it. He could never have become a professional visual artist, on this evidence.

I understand your point, but I'm not that sure about it. Even in primitive societies, individuals were valued because of their abilities and their being active productive members of the group. Still rituals, beliefs and a general attitude towards life preserved from the idea that ageing and death could be associated with "being a loser".
I think that what we have here is something specifically modern - more a cultural issue than an economic one. I could be wrong anyway - maybe I'm betrayed by my catholic background? :)
(sorry for the rather convoluted english, btw)

I think that must have been a photo of me pretty much on any given saturday. I'll never achieve a tiny fraction of what Syd Barrett achieved in a very short period of time. Frankly no matter what he wanted to do after those few years I don't care. Who says you've got to keep trying to create? If only most musicians would call it a day after a couple of years we'd be subject to a lot less utter crud. I know this has all been said but i've been offline for a couple of days and only just seen this and it made me somewhat pissed off.

RIP Roger - Long Live Syd.

There's actually not a whole lot of consistency from 1st two singles + Piper -> wacked out "Apples and Oranges"/"Jugband Blues"/"Scream Thy Last Scream"/"Vegetable Man" period -> The Madcap Laughs either. And that was just over like three years.

On the evidence of the couple of dozen artworks shown on that website, Barrett was indeed a patchy artist with a certain amount of Sunday painting in evidence. But I think there are two or three works there that are pretty stunning, the one of the series of crosses disintegrating, for instance, or the late abstracted female nude. Whether he would have ever been able to make the grade as a "professional visual artist" is really beside the point. I guess since Van Gogh only sold one painting in his life, he was a failure as a "professional visual artist".

Oh! My making that statement does not equate with saying, "Hello, kick me plz!"

You assume from this that music and painting was his only creativity. Could someone not retire from the spotlight's glare, brilliant as they are themselves, and quietly decide that tending a garden, baking, meditation was not an artistic pursuit?

If you say no, then what the hell is the point in the joy of life? I'm a creative person but some of my quietest and contentest joy has come from a loaf of bread or growing a cool row of thyme on the windowsill, glowing in the sun.

Music doesn't get to own it you know.

"I have to chime in and say that the very idea of an "acid
casualty" is actually a myth propagated by media/government.
The idea that acid can, in itself, induce a state of mental
illness is absurd, and has been disproven in various modern
studies."

really???! now, that's a new twist on the 'burnout/e-tard' idea!
having taken a pretty vast amount of the stuff (not as much as some, far more than others), i can say there IS a certain degree of 'mental instability' created by it's use. and if there are pre-exsisting conditions, well...it never helps. maybe you've never met an actual 'casualty' but, i have.
it's a very accurate assesment. they simply aren't there. but to say, it's propaganda, well, i think, based on real life, that's just not true.

RIP, obviously.

Look, it was a personal viewpoint on his blog. Someone called him out on it, so he replied here. It'd be nicer if they'd taken it to a "Momus Arg" thread. but heck.

My viewpoint fwiw is much like ailsas.

you didn't say "looks like", you said "is" (way to subtly backpedal) and that small difference is what laid you open for a similar treatment, which i was trying to point out by substituting your name and referencing your own photo (something you've done yourself on ilx; LeCoq's dog thread & "chinese neighbors" anyone?). ad hominem my ass.

Floyd's first producer Joe Boyd also produced AMM, and Floyd's manager, Pete Jenner, was also involved in AMM's production company. According to Jenner, "I think that things like AMM had an influence, and, just generally, improvised music, whether it was jazz or whatever, but in songwriting, the influence was much more pop songs." (from the 33 1/3 book on Piper, which is a v. good read)

Situatedness, yes, of course. But situatedness requires that we recognise the vestedness of all parties. The parties to this slanging match have been Momus and various super-vituperative ILXors, the subject Dead Syd. The oddness, the out-of-lineness, the eccentricity, is the asymmetrical violence of the revulsion shown to me, on the pretext that you can't say that Syd Barrett maybe didn't, latterly, have a wonderful life. This "fuck off... yes, absolutely fuck right off... disgusting... worse than disgusting... who's he to say that kind of thing... asshole... tool" stuff.

It's beyond the call of duty, let alone good manners. It seems to have become a bonding ritual of some kind. And it's always the most insecure people who need to bond around the abuse of someone else.

His brief journey in recorded music has given me a great deal of pleasure. What he did after that is of no concern to me at all. I don't see what puts any of us in a position to judge him, especially since he went out of his way to avoid the public eye.

I've criticised you without being in any way abusive.

Perversely, the 35-year silence has probably made Barrett the popstar more of a success than if he'd continued, Bowie-like, to churn out mediocre efforts after his three stunning albums. In that respect, Barrett is the pop Rimbaud, whose wilderness years retrospectively give some shape to the work.

Barrett the popstar was a supreme success, then. As for Barrett the non-popstar, Barrett who ran away and lived in semi-seclusion, Barrett who didn't at all want to be famous, Barrett who prefered to do a bit of painting and a bit of pottering about his house and garden, it's a bit presumptuous to conclude he was a loser, if he ultimately found a certain peace of mind from his lifestyle.

That's bull. Being unable to overcome mental illness is not the same as choosing to step down.

"The story of his personal meltdown has been told and retold as a cautionary tale for indiscriminate druggies to the point where Barrett's status as rock's most illustrious casualty often threatens to outweigh his actual creative contributions to the form. This is not as it should be."

And that's where context becomes important. Because I didn't just say "victim". That was one tiny paragraph on late Syd, but it's all people chose to pick up from my appreciation.

What if you replace "Bowie-like" with "Robert Wyatt-like" there? And "mediocre efforts" with "even more brilliant late work"? We just can't know, can we? Why celebrate this silence, why suggest it was fated, chosen, inevitable, for the best?

Momus, have you ever heard the sessions Barrett did in 1974? Full of rambling, going-nowhere, uninspired blues riffs?

Revivalist: I wasn't aware these sessions even surfaced...

Kate and various other people: "Pete Doherty, ha ha, isn't he dead yet?"
Ailsa: "Dear God, you people are all horrible. The guy is ill, for fuck's sake. And when he tries to do something about it, the horribleness still continues."
Kate: "Ailsa, if he wasn't a pop star, if he was just some homeless junkie begging for change on the train would you feel the same way?"
Ailsa: "Kate, not necessarily. I'm not a saint, I haven't got time to care about every person with a problem in the world. But, I think yes, in principle at least, if not explicitly and in practice. I have encountered several addicts and ex-addicts in my time, and, yes, I feel the same about them as I do about Doherty. It's a waste of a life and a horrible horrible thing to live through and deal with."
Various people: "Okay, we don't want him to die, but we want him to go away."
Patrick: "I think if he got an infection in his arm and it fell off so he couldn't play guitar anymore--that would be a good ending to the Doherty saga."
Kate: "Patrick, your heart is a shrivelled lump of tar, and I love it."

Now re-read, substituting Syd Barrett's name for Pete Doherty's.

Yes, I'm aware of that. However, Barrett continued to live his life and produce art in one form or another after the illness took hold. Who knows, really, whether he took a conscious decision that he could't cope with doing it publicly rather than privately, or whether it was a lifestyle forced upon him. Either way, he lived with it, and may or may not have been OK with that. Plenty people live a worthwhile and fulfilling life without seeking public recognition for it. I think it's doing him a disservice to suggest that he's somehow failed, less worthy, by not whoring himself round stadia or producing idiosyncratic little pop tunes in his later years.

btw, Or because it's the canonical view, and you're all resolutely anti-canonical?

Again with the ascribing sentiments to all and sundry. Not everyone's disagreeing with you. And I'm disagreeing, not out of some desire to fly against the perceived canon, or to score points in the Momus v the world battle but, quite simply, because I think you're wrong.

(xpost - your point being what, exactly?)

I'm not denying he may or may not have been ill - that's not even my point. I am getting cross that you think he's a "loser", that he's somehow failed because he's a shuffling old man and not some sort of posturing artist.

Someone who loses is not necessarily a loser.

Momus' impression on seeing the picture is of someone giving the impression of perhaps taking "Mojo" hoome to read the Syd article in it, which is what I objected to as even from the little we know of him we can gather that he had no wish to see any of it.

He was a musical artist, he gave up and went off to do painting instead. His level of success was entirely his own affair.

The form arrived, and the first line read:

Name of Loser:______________________

So I chucked it in the bin. Woargh!

xpost so we're all agreed then.

i will repeat what i posted above:

99.99% of all people who think they know what he or his life was like should probably shut up about it. cuz they don't know nothin'.

-- scott seward (skotro...), July 11th, 2006. (scott seward)

Why the hell *should* I see him as a victim?

Also, what makes you such an expert in what Syd Barrett wanted? Are you basing it on what he wanted thirty years ago and projecting? Because 30 years ago I wanted to be a ballerina or a showjumper, but I've changed a bit. People do.

Maybe he did spent the latter part of his life bitter, twisted and full of regrets. I don't know any more than you do. But I'd prefer to think he was happy. Sorry for being such a liberal old hippy on you.

xpost. Also, yeah, I'm out of here. Scott S OTM.

David Gilmour to thread.

Momus: "There's a picture of Syd from April 2001, taken near his mother's house in Cambridge. He's a middle-aged man wearing shorts, a man with a shaved head, a vegetable, a dosser, a loser."

Nick Currie is a middle-aged man 3½ years away from eligibility for AARP membership, and is shocked at the sight of a 55-year-old Roger Barrett; Mr. Currie is afraid of getting old, and fails to see that comparing Doherty in 2006 to Barrett in 1970 is like comparing apples and oranges. What a loser.

And since Syd more or less incarnates a certain spirit of the 60s, speculation in the 70s about where Syd went is also speculation about where a whole culture went.

Romanticism requires artists to make tragic, dramatic disappearances, and rock, being Romantic, requires it. And art requires it too; it creates "legends", and as we know there's a whole industry around legends. Silence becomes them, though they seldom become as silent. That takes something extra, some organic tragedy, something fatal or semi-fatal.

That's insight.

And yet Syd went even further when he titled his solo record "The Madcap Laughs", no?

Hi, I woke up. Sorry to revisit the ugliness but are you playing games? Bit of a qualitative difference between reacting against someone's opinion about art and reacting against a person calling someone a vegetable, being called on it but still insisisting on going on and on about how the person lived with his mother, etc.

However, I do kinda agree w/Momus about the ad hominem attack thing. He's deliberately confrontational (also not the best idea on an RIP thread - what were you expecting when you kicked at that hornets' nest?) but ILM def. prefers the ad hominem attack (and the pithy aside) to any kind of polite engagement.

If some talking head like Ann Coulter died tomorrow most of us wouldn't give a shit if someone wrote something much worse in her obituary. What Momus wrote was harmless and, if anything, generally positive.

or that rat bastard red buttons:

Red Buttons, RIP

he did?!? I've never heard of this - which ones?

the most frustrating thing is that after Momus ruins a thread like this with his Me Me Me Me Me posturing, he doubtless feels as though his nonsense was the only thing of interest on the thread - how, after all, could people possibly enjoy quiet reflection on what someone's life's work had meant to them? How boring! How much more exciting to strike empty confrontational poses and generate "controversy" by linking to one's own mirror-gazing thoughts.

i probably am too defensive. it has always bugged me when people made a crazy mountain out of the mundane molehill of barrett's life. and i do think that pink floyd kept the "craziness" and myth alive more than the actual music and genuine accomplishments alive.

i hear harper lee and jd salinger drink the blood of virgins together under the pale moonlight. keep it under yer hat.

The design on the back of "Piper" is Syd's, I believe. The painting on "Barrett" is an old one, possibly even from schoodays? So more than a bit of hyperbole going on there methinks.

x-post: Whenever it's from, that's a great cover!

My argument is complicated by the fact that I'm seeing Syd's silence also as a sort of (unwelcome, un-wished-for) communication, used by Pink Floyd and, in a sense, by everyone who still cares about Syd as a sort of cinema screen for projections ("cathexis", as the shrinks would have it).

I don't accept that this emphasis is "unsympathetic". It comes from a view of man as homo faber, man the maker. That view is at the heart of Marxism, for instance.

Henry Darger to thread...?

There's an assumption there is that Syd was self-aware of his silence and by extension, his legacy.

Also, I'm just naive enough to believe that Pink Floyd's subsequent "cathexis" is nothing more than simple grieving over having lost a friend and trying to come to terms with it.

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/sydbarrett/artofsyd/sydartoranges.jpg

Ultimately though, once you get past the songs you bonk up against the same questions that dog analysts of any artist who's critical breakthrough runs concurrent with mental breakdown. Which drives which? Syd himself was the closest on-scene narrator despite layers of unreliability. There's not much in the way of spiritual narratives, quests for enlightenment, or an occasional door of perception. Syd wrote about himself and how he perceived the world, each time adding some layer of unreality to it like Louis Wain's famous progression of increasing psychotic cat paintings. Hmmm... Syd wrote a song about a cat too.

Being a pop star isn't exactly congruent with undiagnosed acute schizophrenia though and it seems like the deck was stacked against Syd from the beginning. To address the annoying "acid casualty" phrase again, I can't help but wonder if Syd was really trying to chemically address a reality that was rapidly slipping through his fingers. He seems sad in this clip, or maybe just annoyed from having to answer such hostile questions.

Professionalism isn't about exchange, it's about recognition and legitimation (in Max Weber's sense) more than anything else, and my definition of art is pretty much "that which gets recognized as art in a given society". Henry Darger's work wasn't seen as art (it wasn't even seen) during his lifetime, but now it is. In fact its quality of "beyondness" gives it something in common with Syd's work. The work is a sign within the system pointing outside the system, and the system loves that. That makes us dream, it makes us project. We can't avoid talking about "authenticity" here, but defining authenticity as "the system acknowledging the appeal of things beyond its own mode of production". Authenticity is a projection; it points to a "beyond", but its trompe l'oeuil effect goes on entirely within the system.

But I believe Syd really was mad. So was Darger, and so were the artists collected by Hans Prinzhorn in asylums. So although Syd's craziness was a commodity within the system, he was also really outside it all. Not happily, and not by choice. His silence means one thing for us (permission to project authenticity), quite another to him (inability to communicate).

viewing art as necessarily communicative or participatory is itself a heavily romantic stance but of course you know this already - Emily Dickinson & Franz Kafka & Maurice Blanchot & Geoffrey Chaucer would all have some choice words for you on whether art can take place in solitude

BTW- That Apples & Oranges single cover -- if it is from the 60s -- is a mind blowing piece of fortune telling.

B-b-but the sole FORM of "recognition and legitimation" that you're using here is one of economic renumeration, no? That's how it seems to me. Art doesn't reach the populace through any other means besides the marketplace, if we're talking about "art" as defined by larger social approval.

I really can't subscribe to that definition - for one thing its too fluid (societies are constantly changing what they consider "art") and secondly its actually one step removed from the actual ACT of production, of making art, of physically creating something expressive, which seems to me to be the key component, and also does not require any social dialogue or recognition or even direct communication with the world at large or even other people.

i dont think like that now, i haven't in a long time probably. i like the idea that value is in what we can give to society, what we can do. the challenge, and the effort, and the making of things. you're only as good as your last xyz

i think when someone makes things, and then isn't able to anymore, is tremendously sad, is it not? perhaps it is better, to think of someone that had retreated completely as living the way they wanted, but...i dont really believe that. do you?

the kind that says Art fills a societal role? doesn't art have to reach out to people, to leave the arena of hobbyism, and touch others*

*unless you believe there is art in everything, which perhaps there is!

Is Art...Communication?

No! You just have to be recognised as a professional by other professionals in the system of the day. That could be by being a guild member, or a scribe in the service of an Egyptian emperor. It could mean winning the Lenin medal or landing a recording contract with the Soviet state label Melodiya. It's only capitalist and market-oriented in societies which work that way.

Also, Kafka certainly admitted to writing in great solitude. But he published, and socially he frequented published authors like Max Brod, or literary professionals like Milena Jesenska (a translator). Like Van Gogh, Kafka aspired to be a professional, and wanted very much to be inside the system. Like Van Gogh, he entered it eventually in a big way -- but only after he died.

I mean, which work in a capitalist way.

But fuck, Stewart kicked our asses and then even since -- what? -- Atlantic Crossing has proceeded to punish us for ever digging him in the first place. Fuckin'-A.

this just seems elitist to me. and sorta tautological too ("a professional is someone who's called a professional by other professionals" uh okay) and seeing as how EVERY society is currently capitalist and market-oriented then yes, what you're really saying is art's sole worth is measured by the market-place = ie, people who are paid to do what they do. Essentially I have always been more interested and been more encouraged by the works of NON-professionals, by people who do what they do regardless of whether they are paid for it or even recognized for it by society at large. I find the marketplace of creative arts (music, painting, lit, etc.) deeply deeply alienating and increasingly see any desire to participate it as stemming from unattractive motivations (greed, self-aggrandizement, neurotic desire for approval, etc.). To say that this is the only route to legitimacy - or the only way to avoid being called a "loser" - is almost offensive.

This is Aesthetics 101 stuff, I'm afraid. Something cannot be a work of art without an art system to designate it as such. There is no art not contingent on professional legitimation by the art system. Romanticism sees authenticity as something residing outside the art system, but even this "outside" has to be designated (we could say "created") by the art system. The art system creates authenticity, but then projects it somewhere, apparently, beyond itself.

Now, Shakey Mo, that just isn't so!

i played football last week, i even scored, a looping header off the back post. im not a footballer though, like Fabio Cannavaro is

when i got home, i made a great risotto, i wouldn't say i was a chef though

uh, really? Unless yr talkign about some isolated tribes here and there in New Guinea and the Amazon, I have no idea what countries/societies/cultures you're referring to that currently exist outside the global capitalist marketplace.

The thing is, if you give me a list of worthy, authentic outsider artists, they're sure to be people who've been collected by Alan Lomax, or Jeremy Deller, or some legitimated professional. Unless it's your granny. Just because Syd went silent for 35 years, it doesn't mean we don't know about him because of, you know, EMI A&R, the BBC, etc.

There are communist societies. North Korea, for one.

You're saying that Syd was a 'winner' now, I take it.

why the stigma about being paid for art anyway?

apparently its democratic too!

ie, i dont think professionalism equates to filthy lucre at all

He hath forsaken postmodernism. Which is what that gallery suggests - a committed postmodern modernist or something. Where does something like this fit in some kind of literary trajectory of modernism/postmodernism?

It's an idea, someday
In my tears, my dreams
Don't you want to see her proof?
Life that comes of no harm
You and I, you and I and dominoes
The day goes by

You and I in place
Wasting time on dominoes
A day so dark, so warm
Life that comes of no harm
You and I and dominoes
Time goes by

Fireworks and heat, someday
Hold a shell, a stick or play
Overheard a lark today
Losing when my mind's astray
Don't you want to know with your pretty hair
Stretch your hand, glad feel,
In an echo for your way.

It's an idea, someday
In my tears, my dreams
Don't you want to see her proof?
Life that comes of no harm
You and I, you and I and dominoes
The day goes by

RIP Syd. And RIP the 60s.

We've done this bit!

Momus please not to ever ever ever complain about conservatives again, because you are their mouthpiece

this is what's known in the trade as a circle jerk

Anyway, Syd RIP, which is why I'd logged in to begin with. He had an absolutely fucking brilliant 1967 (on vinyl), and I'll be forever in love with that music.

Fuck rehashing the rest. I'll wait for the inevitable biopic.

Howling, the pack in formation appears
Diamonds and clubs, light misted fog, the dead
Waving us back in formation, the pack in formation

Bowling, they bat as a group
And the leader is seen - so early...
The pack on their backs, the fighters
Through misty the waving - the pack in formation
Far reaching waves
On sight, shone right
I lay as if in surround...
All enmeshing, hovering...
The milder I gaze
All the animals laying trail
Beyond the far winds
Mild the reflecting electricity eyes...
Tears

The life that was ours grows sharper and stronger
Away and beyond
Short wheeling - fresh spring
Gripped with blanched bones - moaned
Magnesium, proverbs and sobs

Howling, the pack in formation appears
Diamonds and clubs, light misted fog, the dead
Waving us back in formation,
The pack in formation

I agree Cutler's prose is dramatic, and a bit vague on specific details -- he leaves it to others to describe the guitar techniques he's referring to. I don't doubt the historical influence, though, even if it was only passed on to the people at the early live shows -- I have to say I don't hear anything as radical as what he's describing on any of the records, and perhaps only a hint of it on the live 66/67 lo-fi boot.

However I have a great deal of respect for Cutler's opinion, who was there -- and the two other people I know who got to see Syd with Floyd specifically mentioned his abstract lead guitar solos as being the most groundbreaking and impressive thing about the band -- it was the first thing they mentioned actually -- noise. So I don't doubt that this aspect of his impact on fellow musicians, especially in London & New York, even if the documented evidence is lacking.

about Keith Rowe -- Rowe & AMM were on the scene with Syd in 1965/6, playing the same happenings & venues, and he definitely saw Rowe in action. Googling their names:

Syd had seen a Binson Echorec being used in May 1966, when he'd been invited to watch experimental electronic band AMM recording their debut album with Joe Boyd. AMM's guitarist was Keith Rowe, who favoured an unsentimental approach to his instrument that made use of effects, treatments and the use of assorted household implements. One of his favourite effects was achieved by running a plastic ruler up and down his guitar strings for an unusual grating sound. (Apart from Interstellar Overdrive, Syd used this trick on the middle section of Arnold Layne while the guitar was routed through the Binson.) Seeing AMM liberated Syd. He began to use his guitar more as an effect generator than a mere device for playing chords and solos.

http://www.sydbarrett.net/subpages/articles/wish_you_were_here_mojo.htm

He was also an innovative guitarist, exploring the musical and sonic possibilities of dissonance, distortion, feedback, and the echo machine; his experimentation was partly inspired by free improvisation guitarist Keith Rowe [2]. One of Barrett's trademarks was playing his Fender Esquire guitar by sliding a Zippo lighter up and down the fret-board through an old echo box to create the mysterious, otherworldly sounds that became associated with the group.

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/20440

AMM were still wearing modernist suits and polo neck sweaters during the psychedelic Summer of Love, yet experimentalism was also dressed in ruffled paisley shirts that year. Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett claimed to be influenced by the guitar playing of AMM's Keith Rowe, and in the live shows, if not so much on record, Barrett could produce a spectacular wall of noise.

http://addendum.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/lmj/tooplmj11cdintro.html

"Interstellar Overdrive" took the essence and tactics of AMM - they shared management with the early Floyd, and Barrett was a vocal champion of theirs, hiring them as the Floyd's support act, sigh those were indeed the days my friend

http://cookham.blogspot.com/2006_07_09_cookham_archive.html#115269090101525762

Nick Mason in his Inside Out book also talks about AMM... Specifically, an AMM show at a Yoko Ono opening.

My "contract definition" of art tallies exactly with what Nabisco says on the thread about how only snobby hipsters, apparently, could possibly pretend not to like "The Dark Side of the Moon". It's a good example of "the status argument in action", that proposition, and Nabisco rightly shoots it down with a "contract" argument:

"Yes, the human animal is physically incapable of not-liking Dark Side of the Moon, except as an act of superiority. This kind of raises a sub-question for me, which is that I tend to think the way we use music socially is pretty inextricable from the music itself -- I mean, the people making it are in part making it to be used socially..."

I repeat my plea that in the future you start your own somebody-just-died threads to do the it's-all-about-Momus dance on somebody's grave. If it sounds an angry plea, it is, but it's also an earnest one, and your manners are generally good enough that I'd hope you might see the sense in it. I know you have a whole schtick about how we really honor the memories of the dead when we engage in open & free debate, and how isn't it great that we can explore one another's ideas etc etc, but honestly, forcing the terms of that is unkind. Leave some space for people to reflect in tranquility, eh? Or don't, but I thought I'd ask.

Apart from the studio "Interstellar Overdrive," the other great recording of the Pink Floyd's improvisational music is the Tonight Let's All Make Love in London thing. There was a CD that came out about a decade ago with that version of "Interstellar Overdrive" and another piece called "Nick's Boogie." It is great.

you mischaracterize what I said, though by this point I shouldn't be surprised: if you stopped doing that, people might not respond to you, and what could be worse than that? Nothing! horrors! - so would starting your own thread for speaking ill of the dead & trying to score points on them somehow not be discussing something on a bulletin board? your ability to spot a censor lurking behind every bush remains nothing short of miraculous

http://pf-db.com/index.php?bootleg_id=3217&concert_id=1439

maybe I was thinking of Set the Controls and not Careful with that Axe.

In any case, it cost me 100 dollars and is a pretty intense bootleg.

or are you ALWAYS right, being possessed of apparent superhuman levels of reasoning?

I do not wish to excavate other threads you have contributed to, nor do I have the time at the moment for a game of "gotcha." I am also not suggesting that you alone might possess perceived infallbility and that no one else herein behaves similarly—internet forums have given rise to the tendency wherein many people have the bravery to say things to people separated by an ocean that they would not say to their face, or to stubbornly stick to a variety of points, some clearly ludicrous (cf North Korea).

So this question would seem to address your notion of "situatedness." Over to you.

Asked with the respect and politeness that I acknowledge were absent in my previous posts.

It's not a question of being "always right", it's simply being "always me". In this case, something was lifted from a blog appreciation of Syd Barrett with what I believe was a malicious selectiveness -- to make it look as if I were simply trashing Syd for wearing poor clothes or something. Much as ILX seems to have a functional need for a pantomime villain, a cursory reading of the text the "loser" line was taken from should convince any relatively fair-minded person that I'm not quite ready for the top hat and twirly moustache.

Momus give me a contemporary example of a professional who is given that designation independent of whether they are paid or not.

(Did you mean that question?) Any professional working pro bono. Someone who works on commission, and fails to make a sale. A painter who holds a show in a commercial gallery but doesn't sell any paintings. Me when I had my New York show last year, just stories ringing around an empty gallery, nothing for sale. And so on... Professional status does not necessarily require any money to change hands. But it does require the relevant authorities to recognize you as such (for instance, the New York Times reviewing my art show where nothing was sold).

Momus

Momus, are you saying that at heart you’re an old romantic, or are you merely saying the reaction you’ve received on this thread springs from a sensibility rooted in the romantic. I’m not sure which you mean. If you’re arguing from a romantic perspective, then frankly I’m surprised. Your own career, (I’m probably one of the few people on this thread that likes and admires your work) strikes me as the very antithesis of the romantic “tragic artist” ideal. If anything you’ve stomped and pissed on that meme from day one. Indeed, I salute you for it. Art, of course, doesn't require any of the things you've sited above. Tragic gestures, consciously adopted, self-inflicted, or imposed by mental illness aren’t necessary for producing good art, but they help when constructing the myth, which by the way you obliquely reference when calling Syd a loser. A loser, in your view, because the songs stopped.. People in earlier centuries would've found it ridiculous and I’d wager it has little currency in the artistic world today. It’s strange that the ideal does live on, but transmuted to the celebrity tabloids, the occasional Momus posting, and the obituary pages.

The word “loser” implies judgment and dismissal. If your judging the work or lack there of, fair enough, but to dismiss the man without knowing the personal details of the last forty years of his life is uncharitable to say the least. We can’t know from that picture what Roger Barrett’s state of mind was. Perhaps he was thinking, “Jesus Christ! I’m glad I’m not in Pink Floyd anymore.”

So ends another episode of deconstructing Momus. Now I think I’ll do some gardening. I’m such a loser!!

You've really been using inflated words - "bile and vitriol," "Tourette's Syndrome," "malicious selectiveness." Someone mentioned that they found Nick Kent's piece ugly and then I mentioned that I found your bit ugly as well. I was talking about the bit itself. Which you linked to and which was ugly. Sorry I didn't happen to say at that particular time, "Oh but he's a great guy and he also said X, Y, and Z."

HI DERE ARE YOU WEARING SHORTS?

Mark OTM! Let's go outside and take in the sun. Maybe hum a little snippet of "See Emily Play."

"takes two to know," as the most interesting line in "Arnold Layne" has it, eh old bean

OH JOY!!!

Sorry that reply took a while. Been outside.

http://www.oldnavy.com/browse/product.do?cid=16159&pid=345961&scid=345961012

Also: cool Townshend-ish guitar solo on "Lucy Leave."

Reading and transcribing these liner notes was a bit harrowing, because the author obviously knows about the details of Syd's life to a great degree, seemingly, but has a tone that grates in a "I always knew what was best for Syd" way, while -- in the end -- essentially saying "Well anyway, hopefully we'll break even on this baby yeah yeah it exploits sessions we're not supposed to hear, and it's stuff that Syd would have ultimately destroyed anyway, even though Syd deserved to have this opinion, but thanks Syd luv ya k thanks bye"

Here are the full liner notes which contains the track listing, grammar, spacing, punctuation, warts and all:

Syd Barrett: OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

1968 to 1974
Tell me what you d be &.. The elusive "Madcap"? The "Crazy diamond"? plain Syd? No &. In these more modern times, Syd Barrett has taken on the presence of Roger Barrett.

Syd Barrett is today a recluse living in a bungalow in Cambridge. A life that can be described as a million light-years from that of the prominent acid rock artist that would have seemed to be his destiny in 1967.

And to further parody the life that once was Syd Barrett, "Syd-spotting" is now (unfortunately) as big in Cambridge as Elvis spotting is at any Burger King.

While some feel the need to expose Syd by printing recent photos (Mojo) or listing his home address on the Internet, most fans are content to maul their idol simply by listening to the music.

It is through the music that we are able to connect with the artist Syd Barrett.

For those unaware, and want to know, Syd (aka Roger) Barrett is now a middle-aged man, his hair now dimming on top, and a little overweight. No big deal, Dave Gilmour these days doesn t look that much better.

Syd has stayed single since the mid 1970's, although he was engaged for a time during the 1970.

Syd Barrett s only artistic outlet today is through his painting, but you are unlikely to see an exhibition of any of his artwork. Syd destroys all his art upon completion. Surely this is a true a statement regarding what art is. Art is the creation, not the existence of exploitation. In this Syd Barrett still creates, but doesn t exploit his name to get mileage out of his art (are you listening Paul McCartney ?).

Syd now lives content, albeit an isolated life.

The eccentricity of years gone by has now passed. Syd did have a mental breakdown late 1967. This manifested itself in numerous ways, most notably in his loss of communication skills, his loss of timing and his heavy drug use. All three issues adding up to his eviction out of Pink Floyd. For their part, and after their success since the early 1970's, Pink Floyd have kept Syd on the payroll. A generous undertaking.

Syd Barrett today has nothing to do with rock music. His one acoustic guitar hangs upon a wall gathering dust. The only music that attracts Syd's attention being classical, or some traditional jazz or blues.

Any new official Syd Barrett release or reissue only gains approval once it has gone past Syd's family members who look after his affairs. Syd cares little to relive the past, or wallow in any artistic triumph of days gone by. Perhaps, if he had his chance, Syd would destroy the master tapes containing his greatest work?

Art is in the creation, not the existence.

Syd Barrett s solo studio sessions commenced on the 6th of May 1968.

Syd went into the studio with Peter Jenner (former Pink Floyd manager) and recorded primarily solo, with overdubs often provided by the band Soft machine, Pink Floyd (minus Nick Mason) and Jerry Shirley.

For the next year, these Jenner driven sessions remained unreleased and unrealised. While producing many highlights, the sessions lacked a great deal of direction. There is no doubting that Peter Jenner was concerned about getting the best out of Syd (as well as doing his best for himself), but Jenner s inexperience in the studio was a serious hurdle to jump. With Syd rarely operating on all cylinders, he required all the help he could get.

Dave Gilmour took control of Syd s solo sessions on the 4th of May 1969. The difference in output is testament as to how functional Syd could be when handled in the right way. While the first half of The Madcap Laughs took a year to record, the album was essentially finished early August 1969.

The Gilmour sessions perhaps lack the variance of the Jenner sessions, but they are more focused. While Jenner session tracks Silas Lang, Lanky Part 2, Clowns and Jugglers are brilliant in their eccentricity, they do suffer a little in their execution. Whereas the Gilmour sessions produced classics of the calibre Dark Globe, Long Gone and No Good Trying, Syd appears as if he had the reigns pulled in. Syd s self-titled album (Barrett, 1970) also bares these hallmarks, being totally Gilmour produced.

Syd needed the control of an understanding producer, Peter Jenner, but he also needed a producer who would get results, Dave Gilmour. In this Syd was lucky to have both gents working for him during these sessions.

It is from these sessions, May 1968 through to July 1970 that the albums The Madcap Laughs, Barrett and Opel were released.

The hallmark of Syd Barrett s solo work was the forlorn love songs that interspersed his more cerebral journeys. Syd s love songs were endearingly wistful or painfully suggestive of loss. A listen to these raw takes featured on this release underlines the personal nature of his solo work.

The comparison to Lennon s Plastic Ono Band album (1970) is obvious. In both cases we have talented artists who have removed all patience. What we have are talented individuals communicating at the most basic of levels. With Syd s body of work however, the wordsmith is still hard at work, whereas Lennon came straight to the point (Working Class Hero, I Found Out, and God being examples)

Unfortunately for Syd there was no cleansing process to work out his demons. Where Lennon returned with Imagine, Syd sort the solitude of Cambridge. Apart from a few live appearances (in various forms) from 1970 through to 1972, Syd has rarely been seen apart from a few mystifying cameos.

If you go, don t be slow &..

November 1974 saw the return of Syd Barrett to the confines of Abbey Road studios for three days of sessions.

Once again, Peter Jenner was producer over a series of instrumentals that are yet to see the light of day officially.

If Jenner was unable to get an album worth of material out of Syd from May 1968, what could be expect to get out of Syd in three days?

Syd would have been unaccustomed with being in the studio after a four-year break. He would have needed weeks to gain confidence with not only being in a studio, but also working with people again.

Since late 1970 Syd had been living in his mother s basement at Cambridge. Going back to London, to the same studio that he recorded Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, the Madcap Laughs and Barrett would not have been an easy exercise for Syd.

Three days were all he was allowed to get his act together. Three days, Syd's first two solo albums took more than two years to record.

The unsympathetic team around Syd had little patience for the elusive madcap. As Peter Barnes snarled, "It was an abortion. He just kept overdubbing guitar part on guitar part until it was a total chaotic mess. He also wouldn t show anyone his lyrics, I fear actually because he hadn t written any".

Syd never worked well under pressure. Evidence of this is the If It s In You session from July 1969. Anyone listening to this session becomes aware of how fragile Syd's confidence could be. Once he became uncomfortable he lost the plot. Syd needed a two-week break from the July 1969 sessions before he could commence with recording again.

Three days in November 1974 was never going to be enough to scratch the surface of what Syd had to offer, let alone discover the treasures that lay beneath. What did come out of the sessions were a series of instrumentals of a R&B influence. An engineer labelled the tape box various bits and pieces with the indicative titles Echo Stuff , John Lee Hooker , If You Go, Don t Be Slow ,and Chooka-Chooka-Chug-Chug .

Peter Jenner at least had some empathy for Syd, "It was very frustrating, and very sad. Glimpses of things would come through in the chaos and confusion, a bit of a melody line or lyric. From the doodling of a sick mind, bits of clarity would emerge. In the undergrowth the flowers were still growing, but he could not get at them. He was a great artist, and incredibly creative artist, and it s tragic that the music business may well have had a lot to do with doing him in."

1974 through to 1981 were perhaps his darkest days in Syd s life. He was in and out of hospital for treatment for his mental illness. An impromptu visit to Abbey Road on the 5th of June 1975 had Syd meet up with fellow Pink Floyd band-mates as they were recording Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

Syd was totally unrecognisable to his former band-mates. Syd was not 16 stone and had his head shaven. That he should turn up at the very session where Pink Floyd was recording a song about him is a coincidence.

Rick Wright relates the story of Syd getting up every few minutes to brush his teeth. The sight of an overweight, bald, teeth-brushing Syd being too much for his former band mates to handle, with Roger Waters apparently breaking down and crying.

Syd s sister Rosemary later stated in interview that Syd had put on the June 5th visit as a joke. Perhaps the madcap laughs still?

Oh it seems like a dream &..

What we have here is a generous cross section of Syd Barrett studio material from May 1968 through to November 1974.

To round the collection off, two radio sessions are featured >from 1970 and 1971. Dates for all performances have been sourced from the Julian Palacios book Lost In The Woods Syd Barrett And The Pink Floyd.

Many of the tracks are new to collectors; others are included because they are upgrades. The 1970 peel sessions are included because the original EP has been unavailable for a number of years and the tape we had access to being a sonic upgrade to that originally released.

Disc One
1.Silas Long (Swan Lee) RM 1 Take 1 - 6th May 1968
2.Swann Lee (Silas Lang) (inst + overdubs) Take 5 - 28th May 1968
3.Swann Lee (Silas Lang) . vocal without overdubs Take 5 - 28th May 1968
4.Swann Lee (Silas Lang) instrumental + overdubs Take 5 - 28th May 1968
5.Rhamadam fragment - 14th May 1968
6.Golden Hair unmixed instrumental - 14th May 1968
7.Clowns And Jugglers mixing session - 20th July 1968/10th April 1969
8.Clowns And Jugglers - alternate - 20th July 1968/10th April 1969
9.Opel - take 9 - 11th April 1969
10.Opel (unedited/unmixed) - 11th April 1969
11.Love You slow acoustic Take 2 - 11th April 1969
12.Dark Globe (version 2) Duet - 12th June 1969
13.Long Gone (acoustic) - 12th June 1969
14.She Took A Long Cold Look (unedited/unmixed) - 26th July 1969
15.Terrapin - John Peel Radio Show Radio 1 - 24th February 1970
16.Gigolo Aunt - John Peel Radio Show Radio 1 - 24th February 1970
17.Baby Lemonade - John Peel Radio Show Radio 1 - 24th February 1970
18.Effervescing Elephant - John Peel Radio Show Radio 1 - 24th February 1970
19.Two Of A Kind - John Peel Radio Show Radio 1 - 24th February 1970

Disc Two
1.Maisie Takes 1 & 2 - 26th February 1970
2.Rats - Takes 1 & 2 (spoken intro) - 5th June 1970
3.Wined And Dined Takes 1 & 2 - 5th June 1970
4.Birdie Hop - 5th June 1970
5.Milky Way (unedited/unmixed) - 7th June 1970
6.Word Song (unedited/unmixed) - 17th July 1970
7.Baby Lemonade Whispering Bob Harris Show BBC1 - 16th February 1971
8.Dominoes Whispering Bob Harris Show BBC1 - 16th February 1971
9.Love Song Whispering Bob Harris Show BBC1 - 16th February 1971
10.Instrumental 1 - November 1974
11.If You Go, Don't Be Slow
12.Instrumental 3 - November 1974
13.Instrumental 4 - November 1974
14.Instrumental 5 - November 1974
15.Instrumental 6 - November 1974

Acknowledgements:
Thanks needs to go to Lorraine of Big L productions for her efforts on the sound. This project has meant a lot to the team. Your efforts are appreciated as always.

Cosmos I and the elves for their support, the dB Brothers for their continued excellence in everything they do. Julian Palacios for his book Lost In the Woods Syd Barrett And The Pink Floyd.

Lastly, thanks for Roger Syd Barrett. Your work through the 60's and early 70's continues to inspire many across the dark globe. What ever you are up to, we hope you find your own peace.

..with one grand exception, and that's the only titled instrumental "If You Go, Don't Be Slow"... this was certainly overdubbed, and out of sync, out of tune bass, and everything. Add reverb and pretty female vocals, and you have the ultimate Azalia Snail song.. or replace the female vocals with a more forlorn male vocal and you have Bugskull. This track is great.

http://www.glaad.org/images/eye/ontv/05-06/lword.jpg

I got quite the opposite. R&B riffs are what you play:

a) reflexively in guitar shops or
b) right before you play nothing at all.

a) reflexively in guitar shops or
b) right before you play nothing at all.

it would be unsporting of one not to say "Momus OTM" here

Meaning on The Madcap Laughs, obviously.

Maybe Syd wanted those false starts to remain, perhaps?

from what i've read about those sessions, gilmour and waters took over production halfway through and it was their decision. not that i think it was them going "haha" but.. the whole point of doing multiple takes is to be able to throw out the mistakes and keep the best take.

this is kind of funny:

"Syd was carrying a small, portable cassette player, which I assumed he was bringing so that we could make a copy of 'Rhamadan'. I was very wrong. 'I'd like to overdub some motorbike noises onto 'Rhamadan'', he said, 'so I've been out on the back of a friend's bike with the cassette player. They are all ready to put onto the 'Rhamadan' four track.' When Syd played the cassette of the sound effects, it was terrible!"

True, generally speaking, but sometimes keeping misfired takes on the final product can provide a certain spontaneity to a song that would otherwise be missing... I wouldn't wish this for any other artist, but it makes most sense with Syd. Still though, unless I read or hear otherwise, I'm unconvinced that Syd was completely left out of this decision.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2271741,00.html

This sort of denial becomes particularly worrying when Rosemary says of Syd's diabetes: "For days at a time he wouldn’t take his pills — which, being a nurse, could have worried me. But to be honest, it can’t have been very severe because he never showed any ill effects.” Well, it was severe enough to kill him at 60. Maybe Syd wasn't the only one in denial.

There's also something worrying in the description of how Rosemary steered Syd away from old friends who tried to reforge links with him, and how she hasn't read his book on the history of art. Of course she must be desperately sad right now, but at the same time there's something in there we all recognize about families, how their protection can verge on protectionism. Smothering, after all, is also pigeonholing.

That's the danger of overgeneralization, and why it's healthy (and kind, and progressive) to always be on guard against you. Your quixotic desire to preserve the benefits of generalization at all costs isn't the noble quest you think it is, because it's not really in danger.

We should take this to another thread if you wanna do this, or even to email, though I know you prefer an audience for these sorts of discussions. But another Momus-on-PC raveup on Syd Barrett's RIP thread isn't necessary I think.

But I'm a great believer in folk wisdom, and it's mostly that which PC stands in opposition to, not the professional diagnoses you seem to be mapping it to. Of course, it's folk wisdom to burn witches at the stake, so we shouldn't get too close to that stuff.

Actually, that was clumsy. The model would be more like PC emerging out of the educational sector, paricularly humanities courses, and under attack on both sides; from science-medicine-empiricism on the one hand, and from folk wisdom on the other. And the problem with PC (and yes, take it to another thread by all means) is that it believes the world can be changed if we merely change language.

The only thing I'd say is, I don;t think anyone was in 'denial' about the diabetes, only that occasionally he'd miss or forget to take medication, but then wouldn't be actually poorly, but then would resume.

Certainly there was a sense of "he's actually fine and healthy, mentally DONT APPROACH HIM!!"

Now, I remember sounding off pompously somewhere about Peel's betrayal of specialness, and how the fundamental presuppositions of his two shows were at odds. A show which showcases art (and especially eccentrics like Syd, or Ivor Cutler, or Captain Beefheart, or Viv Stanshall, as Peel did -- people who are legendary for being way outside the norm) cannot have anything in common with a show which a show which interviews Mrs Robinson about her daughter Nicole and her untidy bedroom. Or can it?

In fact, you could say that Ivor Cutler, Viv Stanshall and the author of "Arnold Layne" all had something in common: they all examined very ordinary, undramatic lives and found something extraordinary, eccentric and artistic in them. It's a thoroughly English theme; think of Ray Davies and The Beatles. In this reading, Peel was being absolutely consistent in his two shows. There's a man down the chipshop swears he's Elvis... and perhaps he is. At the very least, he might be Syd.

1. Places where even ordinary people can be special and put out a record, almost like the real artists on the big labels.

2. Places for artists so special that big labels -- who make music for "normals" -- couldn't possibly understand them.

momus...lambastic political correctness is one thing, but you don't have to be such a racist!

Actually, I'll refrain from the "spastics" bit, because according to Wikipedia it's "A politically incorrect term of abuse, as in "You're such a spastic" (also colloquially abbreviated to "spaz", "spazz", "spack", "spacko", "spanner" and "spacker"), derived from a popular misconception that those with any physical disability resulting in spasticity would necessarily also have a mental or developmental disability."

isn't this most art? taking the ordinary and making it, um, less ordinary.

Yes, Scott. Second only to Pitchfork for authoritative, argument-settling judgements.

By the way, my biggest problem isn't that I have no limbs or head, it's fighting the preconceptions of people who think it's bad to have no limbs or a head. Luckily, since I have no head, I have no way of seeing those people or hearing the hateful things they say as I pass. Or don't pass, actually.

IN: Political position.

EVEN MORE IN: The politics of the non-political.

“Roger may have been a bit selfish — or rather self-absorbed — but when people called him a recluse they were really only projecting their own disappointment. He knew what they wanted but he wasn’t willing to give it to them.

Roger was unique; they didn’t have the vocabulary to describe him and so they pigeonholed him. If only they had seen him with children. His nieces and nephews, the kids in the road — he would have them in stitches. He could talk at length and he played with words in a way that children instinctively appreciated, even if it sometimes threw adults."

I like these passages because it makes him sound so normal. Perhaps, contrary to popular belief, he was just a normal guy with an extraordinary past, who had left that world behind, and had moved on to a life far removed from it, and instead of being what others expected of him, was content satisfying his own interests without regards for what others might think of it. I like the idea that perhaps in his years of solitude, he was a person very much unlike what others speculated, and was so unwilling to enter a dialogue in which he had to prove this to people that it ended up magnifying that image of him. And I like the idea that he still wouldn't care-- only taking his time to satisfy his own intellectual and artistic cravings.

I wonder if this is the reality of the story.

I like those ideas you list too, but I think we have to accept that all the ideas about Syd that we like are projections, including the "normal guy" ones. The only man who could tell us chose to remain extraordinarily silent for 35 years, and has just left the arena.

isn't this most art? taking the ordinary and making it, um, less ordinary.

I called this "the eccentricity of the domestic" thing "very English" because I don't think you hear it so much from American artists. America expects art and artists to be more Nietzchean, to find the superman or overman within themselves. Think of Michael Jackson, on a trajectory away from normality so extreme it could have been charted by NASA.

Tom Lehrer: I don't know how that got started. I've said that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize. For one thing, I quit long before that happened, so historically it doesn't make any sense. I've heard that quoted back to me, but I've also heard it quoted that I was dead, so there you are. You can't believe anything you read. That was just an off-hand remark somebody picked up, and now it's been quoted and quoted, and therefore misquoted. I've heard that I stopped because Richard Nixon was elected, or because I got put away in an insane asylum, or whatever. It was just a remark about political satire, because it was true. Not literally, but everything is so weird in politics that it's very hard to be funny about it, I think. Years ago, it was much easier: We had Eisenhower to kick around. That was much funnier than Nixon.

i disagree. it's all over american film/t.v./literature/poetry/etc. the craziness/eccentricities beneath the supposed normality, but also the fascination with the oddball. maybe not as much in music though. you might be right there. fantasy/wish-fulfillment/larger than life/legend stuff has always been big in music here.

Yeah, this is wrong too. Most people are really boring, mundane, and traditional.

Quite possibly, but "Nietzschean" is an English word.

"When I woke up today
And you weren't there to play
Then I wanted to be with you"

perhaps, we should adjourn to the pete docherty thread? where people are ahead of the game?

That's a pretty weird way of looking at, for instance, pro bono legal work.

"A professional provides a service IN EXCHANGE FOR PAYMENT in accordance with established protocols for licensing, ethics, procedures, standards of service and training/certification. A professional is a member of a licensing body which is legally established within the laws of a given state, county, province or nation."

the legal work pro bono thing is a red herring and you know it (unless there's some "professional licensing body" for artists that I don't know about - the NY Times perhaps? You aren't a pro lawyer unless you've paid your way through law school and become accredited, which is a slightly more complex and dare I say it, exchange-value based designation than just being "recognized by other professionals as a professional")

http://www.nme.com/images/84_NMEcover_sydbarrett_L140706.jpg

Pro·fes·sion·al (pr?-f?sh'?-n?l)
adj.
1a. Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people.
1b. Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.
2. Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer.
3. Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football.
4. Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.
n.
1. A person following a profession, especially a learned profession.
2. One who earns a living in a given or implied occupation: hired a professional to decorate the house.
3. A skilled practitioner; an expert.

As you can see, in adj 1a, 1b, half of 2, and 4, no money is required to qualify someone as professional. In noun, no money is required in definitions 1 or 3.

Press would be one of the "legitimate authorities" -- for instance, if the art press had written about Syd's art on its own merits, Syd would be on the road to being considered a professional visual artist. But on its own, press is not enough; to be considered a professional artist you also have to be represented by a gallery, included in museum shows, and so on. See the Art Facts website, for instance, with its categorization of artists by [Biography] [Representing galleries] [Public collections] [Catalogs] [Auction results]. Actually, they have no Press section for artists. It's apparently less important than having catalogs published, etc.

Are you accusing an ILMer of waylaying Thin Boab in a bar in Madrid and giving him two shiners?

1. Edgar Froese

There's more than three chords in "Dark Globe" tho, there's definitely a 7th in there somewhere

This thread will never end!

Discuss.

Well, I, IV, and V chords, right? If there's a V7, you could say it's just a variant of the V chord. "If It's in You" has these chords, too.

My favorite bit: where they reprint the original NME review which states that Syd wrote all the tracks but two, one a co-write with all the band, and one a "cover of Muddy Waters' "Take up thy stethoscope and walk"..."

I'm sure Roger's still sulking about that one.

xpost

-- milton parker (milton.parke...) (webmail), July 14th, 2006 5:12 AM.

You know, listening to The Piper at the Gates of Dawn again, I take back what I said about Cutler overdramatizing. It's remarkable how extreme the performances on the RECORDS were.

PS. I can't believe Dave and Rog decided to go with that
particular take of "Dark Globe" on _Madcap_. It seems
almost deliberately cruel.

http://www.mojo4music.com/newissue/

http://images.q4music.com/design/mojo/images/issues/big-issue.jpg

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/barrett%20tribute%20gig_1003914

Apparently he became desillusioned with Dylan after seeing him at one of his shows. He perceived him as a kind of sellout caricature of himself. He went back home and wrote that song. I can understand anticlimax over Bob Dylan, I felt that way after viewing the documentary: Don't Look Back.

If i hear shine on you crazy diamond one more time i am going to laugh, but maybe Syd had no problem with caricaturalizing himself as the archetypal madman, after all he named his own solo effort Madcap Laughs. Or was that supposed to be self-satire? Does it make a difference to the audience?

Squirrel Police, what problem do you have with Dark Globe on Mad Cap Laughs, why do you find it cruel, do you think it is too raw and revelatory of Barrett's breakdowns? The Opel version is even more so!

P.S. Can someone tell me if it's possible to edit one's own post after posting it?

I thought it was funny.

I have not read this thread so forgive me if I am repeating.

They didn't play it :(

VEGETABLE FUCKIN MAAAAAANN!!!

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/city/2006/08/02/a86de92f-fef2-4ea1-9e27-c3868ad175fb.lpf

One bit of unpublished news. Not Syd's last words - but still, some very interesting ones. When he was at home, in the last week of his life, his sister asked him what he thought about God and the after-life. "Do you know," Syd replied, "it never occurred to me."

http://uk.news.launch.yahoo.com/dyna/article.html?a=/060822/340/gk3ju.html&e=l_news_dm

he borrowed it.

this is in response to what Momus was getting out of Syd Barrett's silence and seclusion:

SUSAN SONTAG:

But the choice of permanent silence doesn’t negate their work. On the contrary, it imparts retroactively an added power and authority to what was broken off; disavowal of the work becoming a new source of its validity, a certificate of unchallengeable seriousness. That seriousness consists in not regarding art… as something whose seriousness lasts forever, an “end,” a permanent vehicle for spiritual ambition. The truly serious attitude is one that regards art as a “means” to something that can perhaps be achieved only by abandoning art; judged more impatiently, art is a false way or (the word of the Dada artist Jacques Vaché) a stupidity.

Though no longer a confession, art is more than ever a deliverance, an exercise in asceticism. Through it, the artist becomes purified — of himself and, eventually, of his art, The artist (if not art itself) is still engaged in a progress toward “the good.” But formerly, the artist’s good was mastery of and fulfillment in his art. Now it’s suggested that the highest good for the artist is to reach that point where those goals of excellence become insignificant to him, emotionally and ethically, and he is more satisfied by being silent than by finding a voice in art…

So far as he is serious, the artist is continually tempted to sever the dialogue he has with an audience. Silence is the furthest extension of that reluctance to communicate, that ambivalence about making contact with the audience which is a leading motif of modern art, with its tireless commitment to the “new” and/or the “esoteric” Silence is the artist’s ultimate other-worldly gesture; by silence, he frees himself from servile bondage to the world, which appears as patron, client, audience, antagonist, arbiter, and distorter of his work.

from:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/blogs/crazedbythemusic_post/syd-barrett-silence-and-fan-contracts/

man this is expensive but it looks AMAZING.

http://barrettbook.com/

oh wow

why did they think it was necessary to charge three hundred quid for the "special" version?

Ten years ago. RIP Syd.

http://www.sydarthurfestival.com/july-7th-2006-death-of-syd-barrett

Is that meant to be a pun on 'siddhartha'?

What else?

Dunno, it took a while for me, it could have been a coincidental.

Syd Barrett / Arthur Lee

Quite.

Some nice punning going on there. Has everybody heard these interviews with Syd from Aug. 1967? Syd and interviewer both sound out of their gourds but, Jesus, the interviewer, what a dick: Part 1 and Part 2.

Saw the new documentary last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtR19VBThkA

I'm on the outside here, but I thought it was okay--a bigger fan might feel more strongly in either direction. Wished they'd used the Television Personalities song towards the end (I left immediately, so maybe it turned up later in the end credits). Was able to order both his albums for around $30 from Amazon when I got home.

I’m kind of interested in this but there are roughly 15,000 documentaries about Syd currently available on YT, including hour-plus long unedited interviews with each of the other four Floyd members. Having just gone through a p big early Floyd thing, I def. came away thinking that his is not a legacy that has gone unexplored these last 15-20 years.

Didn't know that. You'll probably want to skip this--doubt there's anything new in there for you. (They also haul in this hokey framing device.)