Absolutely. He was there, he lived it. One of the best journalists that NME ever employed. His book 'The Dark Stuff' is an excellent read.

Well, it IS fun to talk about. But really, we have the music history, what exactly could he have done? Nobody knows. Could he have shown up at Live 8 or Live Aide and had some mythical song that was so perfect that it brought about a full scale humanistic evolution against the growing neo liberalism? Well, religions have been started with people doing far less, but I still think it unlikely. David Bowie was certainly an artist, but frankly Lets Dance was a great commercial album, but really the seventies were kind of it for MOST of those guys. Pink Floyd I think DID manage to hang onto that musical ethos for longer than most those bands, but part of that was capitalism....we just didn't HEAR the other stuff.

Thanks ! I love your phrase “effervescent artistry”

Much appreciated!

My pleasure!

My pleasure

too right brother!🎸

Glad you like them!

Wow, thank you!

It’s hard to use that as it relies on PF music tracks. Result would be a copyright challenge unfortunately

That quote only sounds profound to very shallow people.

You are very welcome !

My pleasure!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Cheers Neal!

Cheers!

@@JOHNEDGINTONDOCUMENTARIES Keep up the good work!

Completely agree with you.

That’s high praise. Much appreciated!

Thanks. I hope you enjoy the 2nd interview with Nick I just posted

Yes, thanks- just watched it, an interesting perspective.​@@JOHNEDGINTONDOCUMENTARIES

Yes indeed. Nick does mention the Kinks as a group Syd was listening to

@@JOHNEDGINTONDOCUMENTARIES To me, Arnold Lane or Apples and Oranges come from a big Kinks influence. In many ways Britpop owes the most to Ray Davies and Syd Barrett.

Thanks !

I don't think you can say any 'one' thing does much of anything. Humans aren't computers. When a guy loses it you can say they were drunk, but not all drunk guys lose it. From the interviews all the Pink Floyd guys say that Syd really enjoyed Fame. The famous story about Syd showing up and saying "John Lennon" doesn't have to rehearse seems to indicate not just a guy well aware of fame but a little bit of self entitlement from the 'mommas boy'. Momma's boys don't tend to shirk from attention. But by now Pink Floyd has achieved almost mythic status. There is so much out there that it almost doesn't even matter what 'actually' happened. From interviews even Roger says he can't remember much from one day to the next and doesn't think much about the past. Just from Johns interviews we heard at least two and maybe three somewhat different stories of the Syd meeting at WYWH. Probably his sister has the most to say, I can't remember if she has an interview here or not. I find it a good analogy to remember when talking about religion, because here we are talking about half a century on and stories go all over the place. I kind of tell people who take religion a little TOO literally to remember that. But I'll just tack my thought onto yours rather than posting a comment, which is that I don't think an artist actually DOES say 'this is me' and lets everybody see. I don't think thats true at all. I think that could have been some belligerence, much like Roger has made a career out of, but being a mommas boy may mean he simply felt he was DUE his own voice and not a copy of others. Thats a different issue from an artist. Its a good and interesting conversation about bands and art, especially of that time period, becaues while they made a living, these guys in prog rock didn't make a BIG living for a long time, but SOMETHING kept them going, maybe it was just what Geddy Lee says, and a desire to avoid 'real work'. But somebody like Rush and Pink Floyd really made it seem like it was 'all about the music', which I most certainly put in 'artistic' category. Then later Roger got more interested in the visuals. And again, very much like Syd the painter, but it was Roger the architect, which I think is why he was smart enough to hire people that had that skill. The other thought was when this guy said that Syd had both a dark side and a playful side evident in his music, which was interesting because essentially what happened was that it took a David Gilmour and a Roger Waters to make ONE Syd Barrett. Roger brought the dark, David brought the play, and their career together was almost an analogy for Syd Barrett....in that 'mythic' sense. Eventually the dark over ran the play and it imploded, with fame being the main catalyst. So in that I think you are right, not 'in reality', but certainly in the myth of Pink Floyd that makes perfect sense. I think one time I said something like that on his acid trip he saw the future of Pink Floyd and it destroyed him. It was that residue floating down that Roger picked up on with Shine On. I always thought it was a little mean in addressing a guy who clearly was out of his mind and going to stay home, but its likely the shine on is exactly what we are talking about, that myth of Syd Barrett. And as its close to 'literature' then it really doesn't even matter if Roger said it wasn't. PS I don't think he would have tried recording two albums if he were really that afraid of fame. At that point he didn't even seem to be AWARE of 'fame'. That interview with the drummer that worked with him had some interesting thinngs to say about that. PPS Might as well put this here as well, but one time I saw a comment somewhere that in the eighties when Roger was suing Pink Floyd somebody said that Syd one time flipped out in his backyard and was saying how much he hated Roger Waters. Thats most certainly 'misinformation' unless we get the story from his sister, but it just seems to fit so well for that time period. Syd burning most of htis paintings when they were done kind of fits that mythos as well.

Hi Peter. That's a very flattering question. I think the answer is probably going to disappoint. I would like to be interviewed by somebody who is passionate about documentaries and who appreciates mine .. not in an uncritical way either.

@@JOHNEDGINTONDOCUMENTARIES A fair answer as expected, you are a legend.

Well no, he was the creative force behind the band in its original incarnation but once he dropped out Pink Floyd invented themselves. He isn't Pink Floyd. He wrote and recorded some incredible music as the leader of Pink Floyd, but the band that came after he left is valid in its own right.

@@AnthonyMonaghan But even if you listen and read about what Waters, Wright and Mason were doing before Syd, you understand that the pink floyd sound was born when Syd became the main songwriter and leader of the band. The Pink Floyd sound was created by Syd, the rest just followed the past and reinvented the sound until what we know.

@@silentgnome Nonsensical Syd fanboy,the Floyd which followed Syd was totally different and equally unique.

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@mjh5437Roger Waters is the ultimate Syd fanboy. Syd is the inspiration for DSOTM, WYWH, major parts of The Wall and even Animals (Orwell’s Animal Farm, similar to Syd inspiration from Wind in the Willows, Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Underground and Through the Looking Glass). Even Division Bell has Syd inspired themes. Syd is, was and will always be Pink.

The thing is his very own songwriting style and playing is really impressive for that time still. Too ahead of his time.

Dave also did great covers of Dark Globe and on a radio show once he played Here I Go.

Yep and Syd's wholly unacknowledged creative ideas being blatantly copied like the clock work room at end of Bike that was clearly rerecorded for start of Time which Alan Parsons oddly got praised and awards for instead and then there's Syds suggestion of bringing a saxophone player and girl singer into the mix coming into fruition on Darkside as well which Roger Waters decided to call "crazy" at time of Syd wanting them brought in then fired him on strength of calling it "the final straw". Darkside is coming across as half Syds idea now and Waters a hypocritical thieving backstabber.

@@wotdoesthisbuttondo Whoa, whoa, whoa there, friend! Hang on a sec. Roger and Dave DID coax Syd back into recording. Thanks to them, I have "Maisie." 😉 (Seriously, that track just floors me every time.) Dave cribbed the clocks, too, for "One Slip." Roger wasn't entirely wrong; Dave admits, as did Rick, that they got lazy and sloppy after WYWH. It was Roger who kept "Raving And Drooling" off WYWH, and it was Roger who wrote "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" to pull together the Animals concept. My guess is that's when his ego inflated like their swine balloon over Battersea Station. That said, I'm MUCH angrier that Roger sued over use of the name.

@@wotdoesthisbuttondo Apologies for "and another thing...!" 😄 but my pet theory always has been that Syd the Piper was entirely a product of the London Underground of 1966-67. He was at home in the all-night tripping and raving, freeform, experimental light and soundscape environments of the UFO Club and the like. He was among friends. He was the main attraction. Ask Bowie and Bolan. Syd was the shining star in their basement world. Then, when it came to The Machine of record label execs and lip-sync TV shows, he was lost. He wasn't allowed to do what felt good and right for the art---he was told to perform "Emily" for screaming tweens and teens instead of "Overdrive" for his actual peers. Acid casualty? Sure, maybe, I guess. Didn't help to be dosed every time he turned his back. But my pet theory is that the Piper wanted not a damn thing to do with sneering critics in the tabloid press and outraged parents and three-minute pantomimes and girly heartthrob photo shoots. To their credit---even though Syd taught them everything they knew---the Floyd earned props for scratching and clawing their way back from the brink. Those Saucerful and Ummagumma years were threadbare. If the lads hadn't landed those film soundtrack gigs...? Well? Thank goodness they earned the shot at cobbling some of Syd's neatest tricks onto the Darkside.

@@rlwetz4317 Whoa after all that? haha fair opinion yes but the core points about Darkside/Waters reprehensible attitude stand, he said he and Pete Jenner were the ones hoisting a clearly very unwell Syd onstage but in the Wall it's just the manager being pushy and selfish getting him spiked by some doctor to be hoisted onstageno cameo from Waters when there should be, Syd was heard by his neighbour yelling his head off saying "f*ck Roger fkn Waters i'm going to fkn kill him" in 1982-3 after the Wall film came out but he was well institutionalised actually instigated by Waters not Syds family in first place by placing Syd in hands of R D Laing who essentially gave Pink Floyd control to Waters by declaring Syd "an incurable madman" when probably just on a serious bad one being very well partied out spikings included, makes me wonder if even Waters spiked Syd with the possible golden future of being a communist hero in sight? I forgot Waters also nicked Syds Scribbled Black line from Mathilda Mother for Time as well as using him for subject matter in the song without saying so. Waters blocking the release of or inclusion on Saucerful of Scream Thy and Vegetable Man was like Waters strangling Syds creative power in music, they were fkn good songs as well kind of like Blackberry Way telling people the whole acid hippy thing is a bad idea for people and like warnings Syd was trying to make, they toured europe with those new songs oddly with no objection from Waters to them then and Syds playing/singing during those late 1967 concerts grainy and badly recorded as they were was pretty damn good, Saucerful would've been a killer album with them on itinsteadof Jugband, i'm sure Syd wouldn't have objected to Waters having more songs on it anyway. I'm wondering if they had a fundamental argument about the direction of Floyd that's never been spoken about by Waters because he wanted to use Floyd to be the heroic commie he thought his dad was who wasn't no doctor like Syds dad was and indeed family, Waters dad was an ambulance driver but he once denigrated David Gilmour as a "van driver", interesting that eh, Waters is definitely top of the class for getting ideas above his station, maybe thatScottish teacher was right after all Damn, this saga is getting exceptionally heavy.

Was it later songs like superman he sang in cockney ,but he did sing in a more well 'spoken ' but in a British singing way in mid 60s .

Nick Kent says that Syd “was ONE of the very first who sang as an Englishman” (3:10), and to explain better the concept at 5:05 he adds that Syd “was seeing what the Kinks were doing, what the Beatles were doing on Revolver…”: of course Nick Kent knows how Ray Davies sang better than you.

​@@PCM72 First of all you can leave out the schoolboy snark about 'Nick Kent knows better than you' which is a little pathetic, champ. Nick Kent is a fried, woman beating, junkie - not exactly the most reliable of narrators. Second you're coincidentally leaving chunks of what he said out 'Everyone else, EVERYONE else was singing in a kind of mid-Atlantic accent, everyone else coming from the British Isles. It was him and David Bowie....otherwise it's Bernard Cribbins...there were novelty pop records were people sang in Cockney accents but that was the only the representation of the English accent in pop in the 60s'. In other words the fat old tart is talking bollocks as usual.

Nice thought but absolute nonsense

Did see Nick's group at the Bull and Gate in Kentish Town around 1982. The Subterraneans had a single on Stiff called 'My Flamingo'. Nick was my favorite writer from the 70's. He never steered you down a wrong path. His autobiograhy 'Apathy For The Devil' is a great read.

Of course he did. He was releasing music sporadically in the late seventies and the eighties and he went on to record seven albums with the splinter group, so yeah he came back for sure.

Also, Skip Spence def did not come back after Oar. But that's quibbling.

Yeah I thought the same thing. He took acid but not to the point of loosing his mind or not being able to function in society. Skip spence was an acid casualty who never come back.

@@DavidB-py8nz Yes skip ended up worse in and out of mentil hospitals through out his life But being on heroin and coke and maybe alcohol that would of contributed .He wrote enough music to of helped him get money instead of being homeless a lot thanks to that git of a manager who ripped him off and when he was in jefferson airplane which should of been a lesson 1st time around.

I think probably Rocky Erickson is the American Syd in a way, he had mental issues too and was definitely an acid head. The 13th Floor Elevators are certainly comparable to Pink Floyd at exactly the same time period. Eric though did play in a band until his death, also a highly original talent too!

How do u know?

Wth! Get the hell out of here with that bs!