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Post by jk on Feb 28, 2021 10:30:44 GMT -5
With the Pink Floyd topic languishing on page five, i feel justified in launching a simple thread on Mr Barrett. Where to start? How about with the Floyd's first 45, "Arnold Layne"? I remember a radio deejay asking listeners to let him know the colour this pioneering UK psychedelic record brought to mind. I didn't take part -- if I had, I would have chosen mauve:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Layne |
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Post by jk on Mar 1, 2021 3:47:37 GMT -5
Let's get this anomaly out of the way first.  "Interstellar Overdrive" isn't a song, let alone a Barrett song. But Syd is all over the thing. If Gilmour had been the fourth co-writer in Syd's place, it would have been an utterly different affair. Showcasing Syd's highly individual approach to his instrument, "Interstellar Overdrive" is one of my all-time favourite instrumentals. But by Godfrey it must be heard in mono or not at all. The stereo version is in my view an absolute travesty -- and it's not just because I'm used to the mono version (I bought the LP at the time). What was Norman Smith thinking?  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_Overdrive |
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Post by jk on Mar 2, 2021 7:56:55 GMT -5
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Post by kds on Mar 5, 2021 10:30:41 GMT -5
I've only recently released that three of my favorite songs off Piper - Flaming, Chapter 24, and The Scarecrow - feature very little lead guitar.
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Post by jk on Mar 6, 2021 16:44:15 GMT -5
I've only recently realized that three of my favorite songs off Piper - Flaming, Chapter 24, and The Scarecrow - feature very little lead guitar. Interesting point. When I owned the mono LP (1967-1972), I always used to take the needle off side two after "Interstellar Overdrive". It's only in the last couple of years, since a kind poster at a now-defunct forum burnt me a new copy (and with a gentle nudge from a friend), that I've taken to listening to the whole album and discovered every track is a gem. Some shine more brightly than others but gems they are, one and all. I see Richard Wright played cello as well as Farfisa on "The Scarecrow", which I also see began life as a B-side: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarecrow_(song) |
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Post by jk on Mar 8, 2021 4:47:51 GMT -5
This isn't meant to be chronological, just a Syd appreciation topic to be added to at will. I never saw Syd perform (I could have done if I'd made the effort), although I'm just a handshake away (assuming Syd shook hands). Bassist-singer Jack Monck, who played with Syd in the short-lived trio Stars, was a member of the Anglo-Dutch band The Relatives, which is how I met him. Jack talks about his time with Syd in this video, starting at 1:17: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_(British_band) |
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Post by jk on Mar 10, 2021 18:20:26 GMT -5
Time for a solo song from Syd. This is "No Good Trying", one of my favourite tracks from The Madcap Laughs, which was released in the first week of 1970. Barrett laid down vocal and guitar tracks for this song on 10 April 1969 and Robert Wyatt (drums), Hugh Hopper (bass) and Mike Ratledge (keys) of Soft Machine overdubbed stuff on 3 May. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Madcap_Laughs |
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Post by jk on Mar 16, 2021 8:45:33 GMT -5
"Matilda Mother" is my absolute favourite Floyd track. In many ways, it's a perfect song. The verse beginning "Across the stream with wooden shoes" is evocative in the extreme. And the minor chord on the word "dreaming" (here at 1:10) may not have been intentional but it's a magic moment, without wanting to read too much into it. The change of tempo and mood at the end is another felicitous touch, with the rising and falling wordless motif fading into the distance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_Mother |
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Post by jk on Mar 17, 2021 6:31:51 GMT -5
In the words of my blogger friend, "See Emily Play" was to England what "White Rabbit" was to America in 1967. [ Source] Her essay on Syd goes on to quote a passage from Rob Chapman's A Very Irregular Head: The Life of Syd Barrett. It's a neighbour's account of a conversation she had had with Syd (Roger) in his later years: "Once, when I was about seven, I was engaged in a heated argument with my best friend and her visiting cousins over whether an imaginary horse from the game of make believe we were playing would be able to fly from my house to my best friend's house. She argued that it was daft because horses don't fly at all. "So finally, exasperated and angry, I trudged the whole group down the street to the Barretts' where Rog was gardening at the side of the house. I reckoned he'd be the one to ask because he never got short with us children, like all our parents would do when we asked nonsense questions. I didn't even ask if he was busy. I just marched into the garden and poked him in the back. He took his gloves off and looked at me. I remember him as always having an expression of very mild annoyance mixed with fond, caring indulgence. And I burst out with the dilemma we were having and asked him something like 'It's true that the make-believe horse can fly from here to Cherry Hinton, isn't it, Rog?' "He was very patient, and took the time to explain that not only was I right that the imaginary horse could definitely fly to Cherry Hinton, but that in make believe, absolutely anything you can think of is completely real and possible. He smiled at us all and then shooed us away so he could get back to his gardening." This is for my blogger friend: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_Emily_Play |
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Post by AGD on Mar 18, 2021 4:27:57 GMT -5
That book made me grind my teeth and think bad thoughts: much as a biography I've got of Wilfred Owen goes to ridiculous lengths to (try to) convince the reader that Owen wasn't gay at all, so the Barrett tome insists that every musical thing he did was an expression of his artistic temperament: the possibility that, on his solo albums, he frankly didn't have a clue is dismissed. Great title, mind.
The truly charming thing about that recollection is that the local kids just knew him as Rog Barrett, their friend down the road: I can understand why he must have found that so refreshing.
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Post by jk on Mar 21, 2021 6:59:43 GMT -5
The truly charming thing about that recollection is that the local kids just knew him as Rog Barrett, their friend down the road: I can understand why he must have found that so refreshing. Absolutely -- charming is the word. Now why did I only get to hear these two extraordinary Syd-era Floyd tracks for the first time yesterday? Apart from my tendency to dig my heels in once I get a bee in my bonnet, maybe it was because "Scream Thy Last Scream" and "Vegetable Man" got the thumbs-up in the Syd essay I quoted from last time: |
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Post by kds on Mar 21, 2021 19:45:30 GMT -5
Those two songs, while widely bootlegged, didn't finally get officially released until 2016 on The Early Years set.
Scream features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason. Speaking of whom, Nick's band played Vegetable Man on tour in 2018 and 2019.
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Post by jk on Mar 25, 2021 4:28:40 GMT -5
Syd ends what in my view is his best solo album in a dark place, in more ways than one (three, if you listen to it with the lights off). According to the wondrous site linked below, the backing track of "Late Night" (take 2, musicians unknown) was recorded on 21 May 1968 and Syd's vocal and guitar (using a cigarette lighter as a slide) on 11 April 1969. www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/text/malcolmjones.pdf |
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Post by jk on Apr 5, 2021 5:43:43 GMT -5
I see there are covers aplenty of Syd songs but most of what I've heard adds little to the original. Now The Damned are a band I paid little attention to during their punk rock days but they've expanded in other, more interesting directions since then. I noticed bassist Captain Sensible had covered "Octopus" but it was the band's gritty 1979 demo of "Arnold Layne", with some manic fills by drummer Rat Scabies, that really took my fancy. (See the BBC link below for an interesting interview with Captain S.) And I see Nick Mason produced their second album (in the second link below). www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p05wtd90en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_Pleasure_(The_Damned_album) |
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