He Was a Genius Maaaan: The 60s Acid Casualty Burnout Poll

Make myne Syd. Brian and Roky aren't burntout anymore, or weren't the last times I saw 'em (a few years ago).

Write-in vote for the rhythm guitarist in Funkadelic who got into an acid-eating contest and fried his brain.

Tawl Ross

Yes! Him.

I could never get into that Skip Spence album tbh

peter green!

feel like peter green should be an option.

ha!

Almost too close to pick between Syd and Brian. I guess Syd by a single brain cell.

huh didn't know the deal w Peter Green (can't stand Fleetwood Mac)

Voted "Other" (write-in vote for Peter Green)

Gene Clark deserves a mention here I think.

he kept working all through the 70s!

Wilson did too, if you equivocate "working" with "doing lots of drugs and recording an album here and there".

Scott Walker

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, but it soon became impossibly difficult to learn and they eventually realised that while they were practising it, Barrett kept changing the arrangement.[79][82] He would then play it again, with the arbitrary changes, and sing "Have you got it yet?". Eventually they realised they never would and that they were simply bearing the brunt of Barrett's idiosyncratic sense of humour.[83] Waters had called it "a real act of mad genius".[79][82]

syd is my favorite of the bunch, prob my favorite lyricist of all time.

i don't think clark counts, his work in the '70s is pretty incredible. he did acid iirc but i think his descent was a more slow sinking via alcohol rather than a sudden burnout via acid.

i love clark though, more than anyone else listed.

idk Clark just seemed to keep up a higher degree of functionality than these other guys, and I was under the impression acid wasn't really his problem. He wasn't kicked out of the Byrds for being out of it, he was kicked out for being a threat to Crosby. And he didn't go through that kind of forced withdrawal all these other guys did (to a bathrobe, to an institution, to mum's house, etc.), he got on with his career and collaborated with all sorts of folks on different projects pretty consistently.

xp

Let's face it, you can't make a serious claim to being an acid casualty burnout until you have donned a bathrobe

...made of roadie skin!

eel like peter green should be an option.

― fact checking cuz, Monday, July 21, 2014 4:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually just one of several Fleetwood Mac vets who could populate this list

what happened to Scott? are there any books that go into it? the film (30 Century Man) was very cagey on this era of his life.

There were hints of substance abuse problems but walker absolutely doesn't belong on this list, I assumed that was a joke answer

I mean if we're opening "acid casualty" up to "had a creative slump & did lots of blow probably"

Roky for me.

Syd cos of the extent of his burnout and how it got (excessively prob) documented in his post-Pink Floyd records

Arthur Lee was famous for his ingestion of acid. Not sure if he declined though. Must get Black Beauty now that it's available.

Did Lennon decline due to acid? Certainly put out some very challenging listens and married a renowned Fluxus member. Did put out both Plastic Ono Band lps and Imagine after before the slump. But I guess he recovered?

Not sure which of the 2 famous Rogers to plunk for so might go for Ro Kynard over the one who poached his better known name from an older local musician. Though I have been enjoying him recently.
Do like Oar too.

Sly Stone?

yeah scott was joke due to low visibility followed by mussolini meat punching

go w/ roky myself, mostly for the evil one (era/versions/etcs) but also the less celebrated all that may do my rhyme LP, both of which i love more than the jusifiably klassic material all these guys descended from

is "beloved casualty" always a guy thing?

Roky by some distance, although I haven't heard much Skip.

is "beloved casualty" always a guy thing?

Well there's the folk-singer Shelagh McDonald who withdrew form music and basically disappeared for 30 years after a bad acid experience iirc, but she's not anyway near as famous musically as any of the guys upthread, and she doesn't have that mad genius cachet either - her story somehow seems a lot more sobering without all the lol syd anecdotes, just a sudden withdrawal and then *nothing*

syd for me mr. octopus garden ride but yeah, where's sly? or jackson c. frank, nico, or nick drake? i demand answers!

first of all, gotta love how these polls always devolve into "why wasn't ____ an option?"

second, there is an "Other" option to accomodate this.

Lastly, Sly's problem wasn't acid, and Sly made music all through the 70s. It's just that it was not as popular. I don't know who Jackson C. Frank is. Nico was a junkie who also maintained a career all through the 70s. Nick Drake - did he ever even do drugs? At any rate, not really a 60s figure, what with his first album coming out at the end of '69.

I don't know who Jackson C. Frank is.

Fix that.

jesus christ that is a grim fucking story! no acid though

WAs Jackson C Frank an acid casualty? I thought he was just somebody who had been dealt a very nasty hand by fate and suffered the consequences both physically and subsequently mentally.
I hadn't heard much about him and LSD but maybe there was something? He was certainly around London at the right time and his decline started right at the time the popularity of acid was becoming widespread.

Do love the Castle/Sanctuary set Blues Run The Game which has most of his recordings from the 60s and 70s.

i always thought he was a sensitive hippie casualty -- bipolar and should have stayed way the hell away from the harder partying that was going on

nico died in 88 and wasn't terribly active after the mid-70s

nick drake smoked mountain ranges of marijuana and hash and ODed on downers

i still say syd though

roky, not even close

Refuse to choose between Syd, Brian and Roky. Skip wrote some great songs for Moby Grape but his solo stuff never did much for me tbh. Peter Green should definitely be on here, that whole story of the acid trip that finally did for him is weird, in Munich, am I right in thinking Uschi Obermaier (who 'played' in Amon Duul) and Rainer Langhans (who later worked with Fassbinder) were somehow involved? Ace Kefford from the Move was another acid burnout btw.

Newcastle Brown Ale probably more to blame for Scott Walker's lost years than acid.

is "beloved casualty" always a guy thing?

Judee Sill, maybe? Although she was arguably a casualty before she started her music career

Judy Garland, Dinah Washington, Janis Joplin, Peggy Lee, Connie Francis

...but women are immune to acid, it seems

John George Haigh didn't think so.

"...but women are immune to acid, it seems"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDRbnmjzY7U

Karen Dalton?

Licorice McKechnie? Oh, hold that was Sc1ent0l0gy, not acid.

:( that could be a different poll, musicians who were never the same after they went "clear"

Cary Grant.

:( that could be a different poll, musicians who were never the same after they went "clear"
―( X '____' )/ (zappi), Thursday, 24 July 2014 09:56 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Defend the Indefensible: Woody Woodmansey's U-Boat.

Judee Sill, maybe? Although she was arguably a casualty before she started her music career

Thought of her, but heroin was her drug not acid.

thx for the Jackson C. Frank heads up btw, nice album

is "beloved casualty" always a guy thing?

Billie Holiday kinda the ur-text for tragic female musicians, I would think

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Man, do I not get the reverence for Syd fucking Barrett. Pink Floyd weren't worth a shit until they were rid of him.

no

Holy shit. The dimension of wrongness you live in, where does it intersect with ours? The rift must be closed.

I voted Syd... eventually... but I can understand why him winning this poll might outrage some people.

This place being full of Floyd fans is a real black mark.

Cosign that Floyd were far better under Waters than they were under Barrett.

Different not better. Am loath to give much credit to Roger Waters tbh.

That period where noone ws particularly in charge ws too great for that

OTM

Never been a fan of Syd's solo stuff, and some of the twee whimsy on Piper gets a bit wearing ("Bike" makes me ia at times). But the greatest guitar moments in Pink Floyd's discography are all by Syd.

Except for Shine On, Comfortably Numb, Run Like Hell and Dogs, that is.

Gilmour has a moment or two here and there (my favorite is probably "Echoes" from Pompeii), but compared to Syd, he might as well be John Mayer.

That period where noone ws particularly in charge ws too great for that

The little-remembered "Peter Noone & the Pink Floyd" Northern cabaret tour

Careful With That Axe, Henry VIII.

Arthur Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter