R.I.P. Syd Barrett

[Piranha]

Sad, very sad.

[J.4knee]

I just read that too. Yeah Syd was a very tragic story. Sad indeed.

[oldbuckster]

No Disrespect intended here; This will boost the sales of Pulse, Syd always thinking of the band..........RIP..........another member of God's Band..........Boy, he'll have his hands full with Syd..............Shine On............

[mark1101]

RIP Syd. Too bad....the tragedy was long ago. Sorry to see Syd passing. Pink Floyd had a major influence on my college days and types of fun and games we played back then. I'm sure there are a lot of lucky folks that didn't wind up like Syd.

[m00n]

Huh... I guess I don't know my Pink Floyd history very well. I never even knew of him. [:$]

[rplace]

Huh... I guess I don't know my Pink Floyd history very well. I never even knew of him. [:$]

Moon, give this a look

http://www.earcandymag.com/rrcase-3.htm

[DoubleJ]

"Shine on you Crazy Diamond!!!"

RIP Syd

JJ

[J.4knee]

I beleive he was Roger Waters inpriation for writing "The Wall"

[jt1stcav]

A tragic story indeed.

Wonder if this is the end of Pink Floyd...

[BigStewMan]

According to Roger Waters, Sid was the inspiration for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."

[colterphoto1]

How bizarre that this

occured nearly simultaneously with the long-awaited release of Pulse

DVD! May Syd's tortured mind rest in peace at last.

Accordingly,

I have curtailed opening the Pulse package in order to play my double

LP set A Nice Pair containing the Barrett compositions on The Piper at

the Gates of Dawn and Jugband Blues from Saucerful of Secrets.

~ Michael (yes this is my 10,000th post)

Pink Floyd legend Syd Barrett dies

Musician a major influence on British psychedelia

Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Posted: 3:45 p.m. EDT (19:45 GMT)

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Pink Floyd in 1967: Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright.

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LONDON,

England (CNN) -- Syd Barrett, the eccentric guitarist who founded Pink

Floyd but later left the music business to live quietly and somewhat

reclusively, has died at the age of 60, according to a spokeswoman for

the band.

A spokeswoman for Pink Floyd told the Press

Association: "He died very peacefully a couple of days ago. There will

be a private family funeral."

"Syd was the guiding light of the

early band lineup and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire," the

surviving members of Pink Floyd -- Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick

Mason and Richard Wright -- said in a statement.

They were "very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death."

The

singer and guitarist, born Roger Keith Barrett on January 6, 1946,

founded the band in 1965 with Waters, Mason and Wright. (Its name was

derived from two American bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.)

He wrote many of the early hits for the avant-garde rock band, including the 1967 album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and the band's first hit singles, "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play."

His

songs were odd and charming combinations of childlike lyrics and

swirling melodies, often augmented with strange arrangements. The

titles alluded to space, the occult and sometimes nonsense: "Astronomy

Domine," "Lucifer Sam," "Chapter 24."

Consider some lyrics of

"Bike," from "Piper": "I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house / I

don't know why, I call him Gerald / He's getting rather old, but he's a

good mouse."

Pink Floyd, taken under the wing of Beatles

engineer Norman Smith, had early success, but Barrett, suffering from

mental problems and heavy drug use, started demonstrating erratic

behavior, including catatonia during concerts. He left the band in

1968. He was replaced by David Gilmour, who had joined the band as its

fifth member earlier that year.

Barrett put out two noted solo albums, "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett," both in 1970.

In

1975, during the recording of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" album,

Barrett showed up unannounced at the studio -- ironically, during the

recording of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," a song about him. He had

become overweight and shaved his eyebrows; the other members didn't

recognize him at first.

"Wish You Were Here" was dedicated to Barrett.

Much

of British psychedelic music was influenced by Barrett, and a number of

musicians have credited him, according to Allmusic.com.

In a statement, David Bowie said that Barrett had been a "major inspiration."

"His

impact on my thinking was enormous," Bowie wrote on his Web site. "A

major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed."

Barrett

had since lived in anonymity in the eastern English city of Cambridge.

According to The Associated Press, he suffered from diabetes.

The spokeswoman said a low-key, private funeral would be held. She did not disclose the cause of death.

[colterphoto1]

A bad hair day.

[colterphoto1]

Syd sez: 'play more vinyl'- photo by Bob Rock

[colterphoto1]

Syd and GTO

[colterphoto1]

THE MADCAP LAUGHS LAST

By Xan Brooks / Music 04:41pm

In the limelight ... Syd Barrett
(back right) with Pink Floyd.
Photograph: PA
Rest easy Syd Barrett, who has died at the age of 60.
When the news broke earlier today there were a few startled looks
around the Guardian office. "Syd Barrett?" gasped one of my co-workers.
"I thought he died years ago."

This, I suspect, is an impression
he would have been comfortable with. The sardonic boy genius who
founded Pink Floyd was one of rock music's more notable casualties;
laid low by mental illness at the peak of his fame. While it has never
been established whether Barrett suffered from schizophrenia, or
Asperger Syndrome, or a combination of the two brought on by drug use,
he never fully recovered. He spent his last three decades as a virtual
recluse at his parents' home in Cambridge, apparently too scared to
step onto the street. In the meantime he eked out a living on the
royalties from 1967's Piper at the Gates of Dawn and his brace of
anguished solo albums from the early 1970s.

In other respects, it seems safe to assume that the Pink Floyd
legacy was a hindrance, if not an outright curse. Despite its
reputation as a young and vital art form, rock music thrives on a kind
of necrophilia, whether it be embodied by the image of the Rolling
Stones still flogging the corpse of their 60s reputation or the notion
of a sick man who has run home to live with his mum. Evidence suggests
that Barrett's exile only served to fuel the myth. He became the
emblematic nutty rock star, the madman in the attic, the visionary who
saw so much that it pushed him over the edge. Over the years there have
been stories of fans who have camped out on his Cambridge street, or
snapped pictures of him as he walked to buy his groceries. I imagine
these fans were motivated by the same impulses as the bozos who stake
out JD Salinger because they love him and feel his pain and, like,
totally relate to his desire to live apart from a world full of phoney
bastards.

The sad truth is that Syd Barrett chose to retreat
from the limelight and turn his back on his career. There was nothing
glamorous or enigmatic about this decision. He was not "making a
statement" or appealing for the love and support of his fans, or
secretly planning some fiendish comeback. He got out because he could
not cope. Had he not done so, it seems likely that he would never have
lived to see his 30th birthday.

Syd Barrett died last Friday,
although the news was not announced until this morning. In later years
he had apparently passed his time painting pictures, or working in his
garden. It might have been a sad life; it might even have been a happy
one. Personally, I'm rather glad that we don't know, and that he never
came out to tell us. Barrett went away and stayed away. He took his
secrets to the grave.

[colterphoto1]

Syd Barrett: The crazy diamond

Syd Barrett, a founding member

of the rock band Pink Floyd and the godfather of psychedelia, has died

aged 60. Terry Kirby examines the legacy of a rock star who became a

virtual recluse

Published: 12 July 2006

In June 1975, while Pink Floyd were recording the album Wish You Were

Here at London's Abbey Road studios, a portly, shaven-haired man

arrived and stood quietly at the back, watching.

He appeared as the Floyd performed the song "Shine On You Crazy

Diamond". It contains the words: "Remember when you were young, you

shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond. Now there's a look in

your eyes, like black holes in the sky."

At first, they didn't recognise the man, whose head and eyebrows

were shaved and who was apparently trying to clean his teeth by holding

the brush still and jumping up and down.

But this was the "crazy diamond" himself: Syd Barrett, the subject

of the song. He was the most famous "acid casualty" of his generation,

and the writer of much of the original material of the group, from

which he had been ejected because of his drug-induced eccentricities.

When Roger Waters saw his old friend, he broke down.

Rick Wright, the keyboards player later told an interviewer: "I saw

this guy sitting at the back of the studio... and I didn't recognise

him. I said, 'Who's that guy behind you?' 'That's Syd'. And I just

cracked up, I couldn't believe it... he had shaven all his hair off...

I mean, his eyebrows, everything... he was jumping up and down brushing

his teeth, it was awful...

"Roger [Waters] was in tears, I think I was; we were both in tears.

It was very shocking... seven years of no contact and then to walk in

while we're actually doing that particular track. I don't know -

coincidence, karma, fate, who knows? But it was very, very, very

powerful."

Pink Floyd continued as one of the biggest names in music, but for

much of the time since, Barrett lived reclusively in Cambridge,

painting and gardening, cycling to the shops and refusing all

interviews. He preferred to be known by his original first name, Roger,

and looked very different from the slim and dark-eyed genius of the

Sixties.

While he had driven them to despair, Barrett was never forgotten by

his former bandmates, who made sure he received all his royalties. On 2

July last year, when the Floyd, whose remaining members reformed for

the Live8 concert in London, they dedicated "Wish You Were Here", to

Barrett.

Just over a year later and after nearly four decades as the most

famous recluse in rock'n'roll, Barrett, has died, aged 60. He had been

suffering from diabetes and stomach ulcers.

Last night, the Floyd paid tribute: "The band are naturally very

upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death. Syd was the guiding

light of the early band line-up and leaves a legacy which continues to

inspire."

Despite the fact he had not produced any original work since the

early Seventies, Barrett remained an iconic, almost mythical figure in

music. He was a presence whenever Pink Floyd performed, and was cited

as an influence by contemporaries such as Pete Townsend and David

Bowie, and groups such as The Cure, Placebo and The Libertines. In Tom

Stoppard's new play Rock'n'Roll, showing in the West End, he is

portrayed in the opening scene, and his life and music are a recurring

theme.

Bowie, who recorded a version of "See Emily Play", the Floyd's

second single, on his album Pin-Ups' said: "I can't tell you how sad I

feel. Syd was a major inspiration for me. The few times I saw him

perform ... during the Sixties will forever be etched in my mind. He

was so charismatic and such a startlingly original songwriter. His

impact on my thinking was enormous. A major regret is that I never got

to know him."

Former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon cited Barrett as one of the greatest influences on his career.

Barrett was from a middle class Cambridge family and was at school

with Waters and guitarist David Gilmour, although he later studied at

the Camberwell School of Art in London.

Originally called The Tea Set, The Screaming Abdabs or The

Megadeaths, Barrett renamed the band the Pink Floyd when he joined them

in 1965. They originally played R'n'B covers.

In early 1967, they signed to EMI and released Barrett's "Arnold

Layne" reaching 21 . "See Emily Play", also written by Barrett, reached

sixand they followed with their first and critically acclaimed hit

album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn; Barrett wrote most of the album.

Barrett soon tired of playing their hit and began to experiment on

stage. The Floyd became a more improvisational group and a mainstay of

the psychedelic underground music scene.

But, even as Piper was released, Barrett's drug abuse spiralled out

of control, becoming a liability to the band. One night on stage he

de-tuned his guitar, and on others he simply stood there staring

straight ahead. In the United States, he once took the stage with a pot

of Brylcreem on his head into which he had crushed a bottle of Mandrax,

the sleeping tablet favoured as a recreational drug.

According to Tim Willis, Barrett's biographer, there were stories of

Barrett being locked in cupboards by hangers-on and dark rumours he was

being fed, without his knowledge, daily LSD doses by "friends". Gilmour

would later say: "Syd didn't need encouraging. If drugs were going,

he'd take them by the shovelful."

Because Barrett sometimes forgot to turn up for gigs, Gilmour was

recruited as stand-in guitarist. The end came in 1968, not long after

Barrett's 22nd birthday, they decided not to bother picking him up on

the way to a performance. It was, said Willis, debatable, whether

Barrett ever realised.

Although he would never play with them again, Barrett's career

continued sporadically for some time. Once or twice, he would turn up

for gigs, guitar in hand, only to be ushered away.

By that time, the Floyd were well on their way to huge commercial

success, with Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall,

until tensions between Waters and Gilmour led to a final split in 1985,

although Gilmour continued to lead various versions of the band until

1994.

Over the next few years, Barrett made sporadic music appearances.

Assisted by Gilmour and Waters, he made two solo albums, The Madcap

Laughs and Barrett, released in 1970, both revered by fans for their

whimsy and madness. He appeared on Peel's radio programme, Top Gear and

there was one gig in Olympia, in 1970, when Barrett walked off stage

after four songs. One further attempt in 1974 to get him back into the

Abbey Road studios, ended in failure.

Barrett eventually withdrew completely. He sold the rights to his

solo albums back to the record company, checked into a London hotel

and, after his money ran out in 1981, walked to his mother's home in

Cambridge. He stayed there until his death.

No-one now doubts that what was dismissed in the Sixties as just

another case of LSD abuse was more likely to have been schizophrenia,

Asperger's Syndrome or another type of autism, aggravated by the drugs.

Otherwise, it was a quite life. Apart from his painting, he worked

briefly as a gardener. Some of his paintings were made public, and an

album of previously unreleased material came out in 1988.

And, in 2002, the BBC screened a documentary about him, which he

watched at his sisters. Afterwards, Barrett was said to have enjoyed

hearing "See Emily Play" again, he found much of it, "too noisy".

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Remember when you were young

You shone like the sun.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Now there's a look in your eyes

Like black holes in the sky.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

You were caught on the crossfire

Of childhood and stardom

Blown on the steel breeze.

Come on you target for faraway laughter

Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr and shine.

You reached for the secret too soon,

You cried for the moon.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Threatened by shadows at night,

And exposed in the light.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Well you wore out your welcome

With random precision,

Rode on the steel breeze.

Come on you raver, you seer of visions,

Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.

Lyrics by Roger Waters

In June 1975, while Pink Floyd were recording the album Wish You Were

Here at London's Abbey Road studios, a portly, shaven-haired man

arrived and stood quietly at the back, watching.

He appeared as the Floyd performed the song "Shine On You Crazy

Diamond". It contains the words: "Remember when you were young, you

shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond. Now there's a look in

your eyes, like black holes in the sky."

At first, they didn't recognise the man, whose head and eyebrows

were shaved and who was apparently trying to clean his teeth by holding

the brush still and jumping up and down.

But this was the "crazy diamond" himself: Syd Barrett, the subject

of the song. He was the most famous "acid casualty" of his generation,

and the writer of much of the original material of the group, from

which he had been ejected because of his drug-induced eccentricities.

When Roger Waters saw his old friend, he broke down.

Rick Wright, the keyboards player later told an interviewer: "I saw

this guy sitting at the back of the studio... and I didn't recognise

him. I said, 'Who's that guy behind you?' 'That's Syd'. And I just

cracked up, I couldn't believe it... he had shaven all his hair off...

I mean, his eyebrows, everything... he was jumping up and down brushing

his teeth, it was awful...

"Roger [Waters] was in tears, I think I was; we were both in tears.

It was very shocking... seven years of no contact and then to walk in

while we're actually doing that particular track. I don't know -

coincidence, karma, fate, who knows? But it was very, very, very

powerful."

Pink Floyd continued as one of the biggest names in music, but for

much of the time since, Barrett lived reclusively in Cambridge,

painting and gardening, cycling to the shops and refusing all

interviews. He preferred to be known by his original first name, Roger,

and looked very different from the slim and dark-eyed genius of the

Sixties.

While he had driven them to despair, Barrett was never forgotten by

his former bandmates, who made sure he received all his royalties. On 2

July last year, when the Floyd, whose remaining members reformed for

the Live8 concert in London, they dedicated "Wish You Were Here", to

Barrett.

Just over a year later and after nearly four decades as the most

famous recluse in rock'n'roll, Barrett, has died, aged 60. He had been

suffering from diabetes and stomach ulcers.

Last night, the Floyd paid tribute: "The band are naturally very

upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death. Syd was the guiding

light of the early band line-up and leaves a legacy which continues to

inspire."

Despite the fact he had not produced any original work since the

early Seventies, Barrett remained an iconic, almost mythical figure in

music. He was a presence whenever Pink Floyd performed, and was cited

as an influence by contemporaries such as Pete Townsend and David

Bowie, and groups such as The Cure, Placebo and The Libertines. In Tom

Stoppard's new play Rock'n'Roll, showing in the West End, he is

portrayed in the opening scene, and his life and music are a recurring

theme.

Bowie, who recorded a version of "See Emily Play", the Floyd's

second single, on his album Pin-Ups' said: "I can't tell you how sad I

feel. Syd was a major inspiration for me. The few times I saw him

perform ... during the Sixties will forever be etched in my mind. He

was so charismatic and such a startlingly original songwriter. His

impact on my thinking was enormous. A major regret is that I never got

to know him."

Former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon cited Barrett as one of the greatest influences on his career.

Barrett was from a middle class Cambridge family and was at school

with Waters and guitarist David Gilmour, although he later studied at

the Camberwell School of Art in London.

Originally called The Tea Set, The Screaming Abdabs or The

Megadeaths, Barrett renamed the band the Pink Floyd when he joined them

in 1965. They originally played R'n'B covers.

In early 1967, they signed to EMI and released Barrett's "Arnold

Layne" reaching 21 . "See Emily Play", also written by Barrett, reached

sixand they followed with their first and critically acclaimed hit

album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn; Barrett wrote most of the album.

Barrett soon tired of playing their hit and began to experiment on

stage. The Floyd became a more improvisational group and a mainstay of

the psychedelic underground music scene.

But, even as Piper was released, Barrett's drug abuse spiralled out

of control, becoming a liability to the band. One night on stage he

de-tuned his guitar, and on others he simply stood there staring

straight ahead. In the United States, he once took the stage with a pot

of Brylcreem on his head into which he had crushed a bottle of Mandrax,

the sleeping tablet favoured as a recreational drug.

According to Tim Willis, Barrett's biographer, there were stories of

Barrett being locked in cupboards by hangers-on and dark rumours he was

being fed, without his knowledge, daily LSD doses by "friends". Gilmour

would later say: "Syd didn't need encouraging. If drugs were going,

he'd take them by the shovelful."

Because Barrett sometimes forgot to turn up for gigs, Gilmour was

recruited as stand-in guitarist. The end came in 1968, not long after

Barrett's 22nd birthday, they decided not to bother picking him up on

the way to a performance. It was, said Willis, debatable, whether

Barrett ever realised.

Although he would never play with them again, Barrett's career

continued sporadically for some time. Once or twice, he would turn up

for gigs, guitar in hand, only to be ushered away.

By that time, the Floyd were well on their way to huge commercial

success, with Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall,

until tensions between Waters and Gilmour led to a final split in 1985,

although Gilmour continued to lead various versions of the band until

1994.

Over the next few years, Barrett made sporadic music appearances.

Assisted by Gilmour and Waters, he made two solo albums, The Madcap

Laughs and Barrett, released in 1970, both revered by fans for their

whimsy and madness. He appeared on Peel's radio programme, Top Gear and

there was one gig in Olympia, in 1970, when Barrett walked off stage

after four songs. One further attempt in 1974 to get him back into the

Abbey Road studios, ended in failure.

Barrett eventually withdrew completely. He sold the rights to his

solo albums back to the record company, checked into a London hotel

and, after his money ran out in 1981, walked to his mother's home in

Cambridge. He stayed there until his death.

No-one now doubts that what was dismissed in the Sixties as just

another case of LSD abuse was more likely to have been schizophrenia,

Asperger's Syndrome or another type of autism, aggravated by the drugs.

Otherwise, it was a quite life. Apart from his painting, he worked

briefly as a gardener. Some of his paintings were made public, and an

album of previously unreleased material came out in 1988.

And, in 2002, the BBC screened a documentary about him, which he

watched at his sisters. Afterwards, Barrett was said to have enjoyed

hearing "See Emily Play" again, he found much of it, "too noisy".

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Remember when you were young

You shone like the sun.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Now there's a look in your eyes

Like black holes in the sky.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

You were caught on the crossfire

Of childhood and stardom

Blown on the steel breeze.

Come on you target for faraway laughter

Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr and shine.

You reached for the secret too soon,

You cried for the moon.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Threatened by shadows at night,

And exposed in the light.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Well you wore out your welcome

With random precision,

Rode on the steel breeze.

Come on you raver, you seer of visions,

Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.

Lyrics by Roger Waters

[colterphoto1]

Advert for the Peel Radio Show

[colterphoto1]

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

RIP PINK FLOYD'S SYD BARRETT: SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND

Brad Kava, 02:31 PM in Brad Kava, Celebrities, Music

The history of rock is littered with tales of those who flew too

close to the sun by experiementing with drugs, the same way that so

much creativity in modern hip-hop has been lost by those for whom

gangsta was more than a fashion statement.

Pink Floyd founder, Syd Barrett, who died this week of diabetes at

the age of 60, was not only a visionary musician whose career ended

when he took too much LSD, but he was the inspiration for his bandmates

successful studies of madness.

His plunge to depression and insanity was the underlying theme of so

many of Pink Floyd's classic works, from the screaming lunatics of

"Dark Side of Moon," to the mournfully charged paeon to Barrett, "Shine

on You Crazy Diamond"--all of which were also testaments to the

abilities of his partners to hang on to their own sanity and

creativity, after exploring some of the same paths.

(PHOTOS: Syd, then and later)

While the music they made about Barrett, and his songs they

continued playing, were evocative and glorious, in interviews and

biographies, the other members never glamorized his downfall.

The picture they painted of him before he became a recluse for 30

years, was of a lost soul, raving and drooling, with no signs of the

former genius.

Lyrically, they covered him with lines like: "There's someone in my head, but it's not me," in 1972's "Brain Damage."

Although Barrett wrote most of the bands's breakthrough first

singles and album in 1967, the others picked up after he stopped

writing and moved into longer symphonic pieces, still pushing the edges

of psychedelia that he brought to the band.

(Barrett used to play his guitar with a cigarette lighter, through

an echo chamber to get some of those innovative spacey sounds. Later,

he just stood motionless onstage, strumming one chord or detuning his

guitar, irritating his bandmates, but reportedly pleasing some San

Francisco acidheads, used to strange experimentational jams.)

Waters and Gilmour still pull out Barrett pieces such as "Astronomy Domine" on their current tours

Barrett is hardly alone as a rock outcast who lost his way or his

mind as he achieved stardom. Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green, who

is back touring and playing again, left his career climbing band in a

haze of drugs and cults.

The Beach Boy's parted with genius songwriter Brian Wilson, who has

since recovered, for years when he was lost in a fog of drugs.

Roky Erickson, of the 13th Floor Elevators, a Texas psychedelic band, has spent his life in and out of institutions.

For a long time San Joseans could see former Jefferson Airplane and

Moby Grape member Skip Spence sitting on the sidewalk at 10th and Santa

Clara streets, bearded and dirty, panhandling or mumbling. He died in

Santa Cruz in 1999, his music celebrated, but his life a casualty to

drugs.

[fini]

So strange. Just yesterday I read this article about Vince Welnick, another talent plagued by demons, and now gone.

[colterphoto1]

sorry about the dupe on the 'crazy diamond' article. I know the text is repeated twice. When I go to edit it, it only shows up once in the window. Must be some glitch.

M