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SYD BARRETT


jonthebhoy

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With the operative word being "crazy".....the madcap laughs...eh...!

Yes no doubt the man was a tortured soul but I suppose the drugs didn't help in those halcyon days.

Set the controls for the heart of the sun Lord..............Syds coming!

JTB

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And now we will see Emily play forever..........................who was Arnold Lane ? and what was strange about his hobbys anyway ?

Mind you, if you think Syd's lyrics are weird try Marc Bolan's Ride a White Swan!

BTW I've drunk a whole bottle of ......... picture clue tommorrow, assuming I make it to work....

Pete, :D

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Pink Floyd...used to be a great band. I don't know how much I like the early Syd Barrett works though... I think his effect on Pink Floyd is grossly overrated. They made all their important and most creative works after Barrett's departure.

But of course: sex, drugs and rock'n'roll is so chic... and it sells lots of albums, so the band members (or their image consultants) always liked to keep Syd Barrett's long LSD trip in the conversations.

Roger Waters was/is the most important figure of Pink Floyd (imho)...in good and bad. It's funny how much better album "Amused to Death" is than "Division Bell". But guess which one toured huge arenas and sold multi-million copies? The brand is very important in pop music...and that light show. ;)

Nothing against Gilmour's Pink Floyd though. But I hope he has enough sense to let the band rest in peace.

Oh yeah, this was about Syd Barrett. I guess I should feel very sad that a rich ex-rock star and drug addict dies at the tender age of 60, but I don't. Yeah, I'm a cynical, bad person.

Edited by By-Tor
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I suspose Syd would say........."All in all it's just another brick in the wall"

Actually, those lyrics are way post-Barrett.

"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun"

I think Syd can be credited as being a founder of an important movement in music - RIP

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......ehm........they likely would never have existed but for him! ;)

JTB

Debatable. Waters found the band along with Barrett... and Mason & Wright joined almost immediately. While "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" was mostly Barrett's work I'm sure Waters was the leading member from the beginning.

Nothing to take away from "Piper" which was kinda revolutionary album, but nothing compared to the post-Barrett works (just forget Ummagumma). But you know, music taste is always a subjective thing. ;)

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Waters found the band along with Barrett... and Mason & Wright joined almost immediately.

Aye, and they were planning something more like The Monkees! (joke, joke)

So I suppose you're saying "Shine on you insignificant diamond" and "Wish you were here, but we would have done it without you, and we're not all that fussed"

Poor sod either way. I doubt he was 'right' in the head from the start - that is very often the way with flashes of brilliance (but I will refrain from my full Oliver Sacks spiel!)

RIP :wounded1:

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So I suppose you're saying "Shine on you insignificant diamond" and "Wish you were here, but we would have done it without you, and we're not all that fussed"

Insignificant? Where did I say that? I don't see things black and white. I'm saying that he was part of a great rock group, but Barrett's work didn't impress me _personally_ as much as the works they released after his departure. Arnold Layne, See Emily Play, etc. were very "Beatlesque" material and the Barrett-era is very much different from the generally known Pink Floyd "sound" (that we love). And the psychedelic material they played in the beginning was mostly due to their non-existant playing skills (according to Waters himself). Maybe some people see it revolutionary or "art", maybe it was... but it still doesn't impress me today. Neither did the first post-Barrett album Ummagumma which is mostly just noise. Pink Floyd became musically important band after that (just imho of course).

And shame about his fate, but I've become a bit cynical about all drug-related "heroic" rock'n'roll stories. Yes, people say his breakdown was was tragic, but at the same time "Syd Barrett's endless LSD trip" always added mystical aura over the Pink Floyd name...which had little to do with their music. Sometimes I felt they used Barrett's fate to help and build certain image for themselves... which is very important in pop music. Not to say Barrett wasn't important figure in those early years but I'm saying (again) that he got too much coverage when people discussed Pink Floyd over the decades. They weren't pretty boys, they didn't destroy many hotel rooms but Barrett's story was exciting to general public...and very much "rock'n'roll".

PS: This my personal view, don't take it as gospel.

Edited by By-Tor
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I only said insignificant because you said it was debatable if the band would have existed without him; it was just me trying to be funny anyway.

I think you're right from the perspective of his influence on the later music of Pink Floyd.

But I think that the first album had a huge impact on music beyond Pink Floyd - that's where I see his importance.

As for the rock 'n' roll stories - Keith Richards has long since set the drug tolerance "put up or shut up" level for wannabe rock 'n roll suicides everywhere!! lol !! :lol:

Cheers! :)

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As for the rock 'n' roll stories - Keith Richards has long since set the drug tolerance "put up or shut up" level for wannabe rock 'n roll suicides everywhere!! lol !! :lol:

Yeah. Axl Rose and Guns'n'Roses stole the whole image in the 80'S... and kids loved it. There's always the new generation of sheep to buy these same old rock'n'roll clichés... it gets a bit tired after 30 years you know...that's probably why so few new bands are interesting. Everything has been done over and over again thousand times.

I recently read an old Pete Townshend interview in "Musician" magazine from the late 80'S. The article criticized the beer sponsors Who used in their comeback tour 1989. Back then sponsors in arenas were unheard of...and against the commonly accepted "rules". Kinda pretentious, since pop music has always been about money, mainstream and masses.

Well anyway... in that article he admitted that he got money from the guitar companies in the early days of "The Who". They sponsored his "rebellious" guitar smashing. :lol: Townshend was hilarious in that article. The interviewer (JD Considine) was disgusted when Townshend said he'd even sell "My Generation" to advertise laxative pills any day if he got enough money. You know..."My constipation"...

I'm sure his purpose was just to piss of the interviewer but at least he was dead honest about it. I have always loved his sick sense of humor and his music. He's a true rock genius if I ever see one.

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Well anyway... in that article he admitted that he got money from the guitar companies in the early days of "The Who". They sponsored his "rebellious" guitar smashing. :lol: Townshend was hilarious in that article. The interviewer (JD Considine) was disgusted when Townshend said he'd even sell "My Generation" to advertise laxative pills any day if he got enough money. You know..."My constipation"...

I'm sure his purpose was just to [censored] of the interviewer but at least he was dead honest about it. I have always loved his sick sense of humor and his music. He's a true rock genius if I ever see one.

And to emphasise the point, one need only be reminded of their 1967 album, 'The Who Sell Out' which is much forgotten about but quite brilliant and funny.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_Sell_Out

JTB

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And to emphasise the point, one need only be reminded of their 1967 album, 'The Who Sell Out' which is much forgotten about but quite brilliant and funny.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_Sell_Out

JTB

Indeed. Of course I have that nice album. I also love Pete's solo career which doesn't get enough respect. White City and Iron Man are my personal favourites.

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a pic of syd circa '67 was my old avatar on RWG I.

Syd i hardly knew thee, only for the past 4 years.

i discovered his brilliance when i was age 20, and his music immediately reminded me of "art brut"--raw, spontaneous, insouciant, largely dionysian.

those who don't get syd and prefer the commercial floyd stuff are simply swayed by the reified musical template provided by mass culture, which says "good," "cultured," and "tasteful' must abide by democratically derived or pre-approved standards.

even though i only discovered the band posthumously, i can recognize that syd's music was highly deconstructivist. Later floyd stuff seemed too formulaic. Sounds like they were at first trying to imitate Barrett, but unsuccessfully. The beauty of Syd's music was in its absence of ideology. closeminded individuals who live in a sythetic "reality" beleive in apriori aesthetic absolutes and syd's music deliberately subverted these kinds of criteria. Psychadelic rock is one of the most underrated, trivialized, and misunderstood movements of modern art.

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