R.I.P PINK FLOYD'S SYD BARRETT: SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND
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.
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
A Tribute to Syd Barrett
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.
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
A Tribute to Syd Barrett
posted by Mabes.pp03 at 11:35 am
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