This page contains all the articles that were uploaded in June 2013, chronologically sorted, from old to new.
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Jose Ángel González (no accent on the first name, please) was born in Santiago
de Compostela on February 28, 1955. Spending most of his youth in Venezuela
he returned to Spain at the age of 17.
For the past 30 years he has been a free-lance journalist, covering a
broad range of the classic and modern media: spoken and written word,
video and television, electronic adventures in cyberworld for official
and private institutions or companies. In those three decades he has
witnessed successive births, deaths and resurrections of magazines and
papers but this hasn't taken away the fun and inspiration to go on
writing. In his own words: telling a story, whatever the medium, is the
most beautiful of the story.
Jose Ángel González is also a photographer, has exhibited his work in
Madrid, Barcelona and San Francisco and has published some work in
magazines. He likes photography as an expressive medium as pictures can
be a workaround for when words aren't telling enough.
In 1986 he published a mockumentary
in La Naval, a shortlived 'Atlantic movement' journal that he
founded. It was a fable about Syd Barrett's alleged stay at the Oseira
monastery. Throughout the entire piece the protagonist's name is
misspelled as Barret, not Barrett. Not that anyone noticed. See: Spanishgrass,
one year later.
Unknown to him the story turned into an urban legend and the Syd in
Oseira rumour was repeated and extrapolated among Spanish Syd Barrett
fans.
In 2002 he published a follow-up article on a (disappeared) blog in a
series of hypothetical records. Here is where the Spanishgrass
album was named for the first time.
This added extra fuel on the urban legend and blogs and forums picked up
the 'news'. According to González he was not aware of this until he was
contacted by Antonio Jesús from Solo
En Las Nubes who made it his quest to search for the origins of the
Spanishgrass myth.
Antonio Jesús has lived in Cambridge where he helped at The
City Wakes festival (2008, already) and met several people of the
pre-Floydian incrowd. His blog Solo
en las Nubes is the starting point for Spanish speaking Barrett fans
all over the world. In a series of so-called Self-Interviews
he has highlighted several personalities of the past and present Syd
Barrett world.
As a close collaborator of the Holy Church he decided to investigate the Spanishgrass
hoax, go to the bottom of it and find the source of the urban legend.
Not only he traced back the articles that started the legend but managed
to interview the author, Jose Ángel González.
He is the author of much more than "Syd Barrett looking for celestial
harmony in Oseira" and "Monastic Syd" (aka Spanishgrass).
Once we had found Jose Ángel González, we had no other choice then to
ask about his article of La
Naval... However, there were many other things to talk about as we
had only seen the tip of an artist's iceberg.
What follows are the questions, what follows are the answers ...
About the [Atlantic] movement that started in Vigo... when was the
time when you realized that those changes were going to stay forever?
Have they "stayed forever"? Their remembrance should be personal and not
entrenched in a historical museum. I think that all these changes have
now been usurped by the professionals of recuperation: politicians,
artists in search for the holy grail of early retirement, mediocre
artists, professional curators looking for patronage... They want to be
awarded with an approved nostalgic blessing, they want to give
expression of a comfortable and comforting situation...
I'm thinking of the shameful and manipulative exposition Desembarco
de los 80 (Disembarking of the eighties, 2011 exposition
remembering the Atlantic movement) that was mounted on lies for the
greater glory, also financial, of its survivors... I don’t like the
durability of this idea, although of course I am a human being and I
have the right to worship my private saints.
[Note: for an explanation what the Spanish cultural and political
Atlantic movement was about, please see: Spanishgrass,
one year later.]
Where did you live and what did you do then?
When the Vigo
movement hatched in the media I was living in Coruña.
I don't call her the Galician A Coruña nor the Spanish La
Coruña, I only use the feminine surname of the city, as she is the lady
whom I love. I was working for the only Galician FM radio-station that
played the Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, Television, Patti Smith or the
Ramones...
First the show was called Frenesí (Frenzy), later El lado salvaje (The
wild side) and it was diffused by Radio Popular in Ferrol,
but recorded in Coruña. Much later the show changed into Vuelo nocturno
(Nightflight) on the FM station Radio
Coruña-Cadena SER.
In 1980 I had returned from Madrid where I had been lucky enough to
witness the first concerts of the groups that were liked by the
[Atlantic] movement and I found out that Coruña was a wasteland where
the people of my generation where listening to Emerson,
Lake & Palmer in the best case and to Mercedes
Sosa in the worst.
La Naval [the semi-official magazine of the Atlantic movement]
was not the only project I was involved in. I also organised weekly rock
concerts in a discotheque and co-managed two official rock contests for
my city.
The initial musical tristesse that I had found was ameliorating, but not
much.
From the artists of that fruitful era, which one do you prefer?
There is no doubt for me: Siniestro
Total (Total Sinister). They were provocative and cultivated
despite their rudeness and they liked black American blues, which was
quite strange in Galicia, where everything coming from the USA was
considered imperialistic, influenced as we were by our nationalistic
blindness.
How did La Naval come into place? Where there other competing
magazines? What made it so different?
A new style of magazines was more or less created out of boredom with
the old ones. We worked for newspapers and radio-stations of A Coruña
but it was hard to get some media attention in the city and to have our
alternative agendas published. The La Naval magazine began with 100.000
pesetas I had put aside on a long-termed bank account, the result of an
apartment sale belonging to my parents. I think it will be obvious what
followed: I never recovered the money.
[Note: 100.000 pesetas is roughly 601€, 802$ or 510£. The value today
would be at least the double as in the mid-eighties.]
How was the atmosphere between the collaborators of La Naval?
Although I stayed on the editorial board for all numbers it was not my
thing. The magazine's editorial line was based on the alleged
alternative Atlantic culture, as opposed to the Mediterranean one. It
soon led to an attempt to make a sales brand out of Galicia and to sell
it to the mainland. It gave expression to nationalism, rascally and
low-fi perhaps, but nationalism after all.
And how did La Naval end?
In my case, with a hole in the bank, but others took profit out of it.
For example, Radio
Océano, a band created by two of our founding members, recorded
an album that was paid by national radio, where its leadsinger was
working, by the way.
What do you miss most about the movement?
There was a clan feeling that was not bad, but it was limited to our own
small tribe with mutual masturbation among participating journalists. We
were a Mafia, like any other.
Number "500" had the article about Syd Barrett visiting the Oseira
monastery. Was this based on some urban... or better said: rural legend?
How was the article conceived?
The story was born in me with the fascination I felt for Syd Barrett and
his work. The article uses no legend as a starting point. It is my own
personal fiction.
A few years ago the story, without direct references to the original
article, resurfaced on the Internet. How did you react to that?
None whatsoever. La Naval only had a limited impact. Only now I have
learned through you about the impact of the article, and I'm interested
and proud. I find it very funny that an urban legend grew out of it that
has been further associated with others or confirmed by others.
A few years after the publication of the La Naval article I wrote an
extended and corrected version for a series about hypothetical records.
It was published on a blog that eventually ended and added the lyrics of
some of the songs from Spanishgrass.
Why did you choose Syd Barrett as the protagonist of this monastic
adventure? And why Oseira?
Because Syd Barrett is one of my preferential musicians. Because Oseira
is a place of great tellurian force and it seemed appropriate as a
setting for this fiction. The summers of the English author Graham
Greene in the monastery, the power of nature, the retirement, the prime
nobility of those Cistercian monks... All that, my fragile memory
recalls, had to do with the initial idea.
What music are you currently listening to?
I've never stopped listening to old blues (Charlie Patton, Howlin' Wolf,
Bessie Smith...), Bob Dylan, King Crimson, David Bowie, The Beatles...
I'm not seeking for new things. But what has excited me most recently is
Wilco.
How did you get into photography?
I started taking pictures and developing them in a dark room in my
teens, but I had never any other intention than doing some family
snapshots. A few years ago, while recovering from an illness and with my
first digital reflex camera, I started using photography as a form of
therapy, to try to find the humanity that was fleeing from me. Quite
naturally I went back to analog photography. And here I am: I have
already stated a few times that I would like to have more time to pursue
photographic projects. It is not easy ...
What brought you to the USA and San Francisco in particular?
To make a long story short, I was keen to leave Spain and its sadness
behind.
In the 'Strike' collection your photos seem not to capture the moment
but the spirit of those who appear in it. Is that the magic 'analog'
touch? And in the 'Her Name is Holga' series you seem to carry away the
dream. Were these pictures taken in th USA? What inspired you?
I can rarely explain a photo, and especially those on the street have
been taken instinctively. Someone said that the photographer is, or
should be, an emissary of his own sadness. I apply that story.
Your blog is superb, in photographic work and in the texts you write.
Do you think there is something in common? What accounts for your
preference for black and white? When do you choose colour instead?
I see in black and white. Always has been. I do not pretend to be better
or more arty: it's a spiritual condition.
And that romance with Holga? What does she has that others do not
have?
The Holga
camera is a simple, plastic toy, cheap and unsophisticated. I love
flirting with her and I think she fancies me, as she returns miracles. I
have over 50 cameras: if I have to choose just one, it would be the
Holga.
It's a Tumblr,
a scrapbook, a microblog... I have another as well: Hot
Parade, dedicated to photos only. I also have two websites: joseangelgonzalez.com
is my official site, I have recently rebuilt it after an accidental file
loss. On joseangelgonzalez.net
are those photos that embarrass me the least.
Do you have any artistic ambitions to further develop?
Just living and trying to be happy, which is already something.
June 2013: Syd in Spain. Spanishgrass, the hoax revealed.
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit receives many letters from believers
all over the world and on the 23rd of may 2012 at 04:31 AM (UTC+1) Babylemonade
Aleph asked the following to the Reverend:
I have read that Syd made a trip to A Coruña, who was in a monastery,
and recorded some songs that formed part of a recording entitled,
"Spanishgrass, songs for the space and the nap". What you know about
that, friend?
Frankly this didn't ring a bell, but the Church decided to look further
into the matter. As the story of Syd Barrett recording a partly Galician
album in a monastery in Spain seemed rather improbable an article was
published in the satirical The
Anchor division (Spanishgrass
or Syd Barrett's lost Spanish record).
Normally this should have been it. But some dull boring people didn't
like that the Holy Church, always in for a bit of controversy – we duly
admit, had thrown a stone into the quiet Barrett-pond, where
self-proclaimed fisher-kings have been angling for the same fish for the
last four decades. One of them even found it necessary to comment as
follows:
Wierdos (sic) come on here presenting this sort of stuff as FACT,
fake pictures, stupid stories about Syd recording an album in a Spanish
monastry (sic). All balls.
Just when the Reverend was going to go into zen-therapy to recover from
that vicious blow help came from the Iberian peninsula in the form of Antonio
Jesús from Solo
En Las Nubes. Not only did he find back the original article that
started the Syd In Oseira rumour (Spanishgrass,
one year later), he also managed to interview the author of the
article (Jose
Ángel González, Spanishgrass & more).
Jose Ángel González reveals that there has been more than one Oseira
article and that he also invented the Spanishgrass album:
A few years after the publication of the La Naval article I wrote an
extended and corrected version for a series about hypothetical records.
It was published on a blog that eventually ended and added the lyrics of
some of the songs from Spanishgrass.
And so, without further ado, here it is... (for the original, Spanish
version, please click on the image below)
Syd Barrett "Spanish grass (twenty songs about space and siesta)" Nonsense
music, 1978
Spanishgrass (original cover).
Manantial (Spring) / Reverential mourners / Black maid / Plastic
gunpowder / Mouse after a fête / Breakwater and tea / Grey trees / Two
bangers + mash / Whining at the moon / Greenland / Eu son Dhaga (I am
Dhaga) / Na outra banda (On the other hand) / Un poeta
esquece os días de chuvia (A poet forgets the rainy days) /
Saturnalia / William Phips / Stede Bonnet / Gabriel Spenser / Gospel at
noon / Waste Deep / Frog
Before leaving the world to enclose himself at Hotel Schizophrenia, Syd
Barrett (Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1948), the founder and evicted
leader of Pink Floyd, traveled to Spain for two years (1976 and
1977). Suffering from dromomania,
the same paranoid ambulatory psychosis Rimbaud
and other chronically restless people endured, Barrett toured
anonymously, using public transport or by hitchhiking, through
Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia. No one was with him and his luggage
was scarce and revealing: a backpack, a Martin acoustic guitar and the
complete works of the visionary William
Blake.
During one of his wanderings he discovered what would become his private
retreat, the Oseira monastery in the north-west of the Iberian
Peninsula.
Nestled in a secluded canyon of the City of San Cristovo de Cea
(Ourense), the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Oseira is the first
establishment in Spain (twelfth century) of the Cistercian monastic
order, founded as a radical alternative to the aristocratic congregation
of Cluny. The Cistercians practice Christian friendship, revere poverty,
adhere mythical culture and establish themselves remotely from the
world, in places away from roads and population.
Caught by the sturdy charm of the place, the quiet floating of monastic
life and the hospitality of the monks, he was at peace with himself,
perhaps for the first time since the wicked years of psychedelia.
Barrett stayed in one of the Oseiran guest cells for four months in 1976
(September-December) and for three months the following year (April to
June) and only left the monastery to roam the nearby hills. He liked in
particular two nearby sites: Loma Chaira, a wide panoramic grassy
terrace situated nearly 1200 metres high, and Penedo de Cuncas, a
ridge shaded by an abundant mass of chestnut trees.
During his stay the visitor wrote and recorded a dozen songs. He sat in
the courtyard of the monastery, usually at the siesta time, and softly
sung accompanied by his guitar, afraid to disturb the community. The
sound of the recordings is technically bad, but from a poetic viewpoint
very suggestive: Barrett's voice is hushed, like it would never be
recorded in a studio, by the wind blowing and the effervescing water
fountain. Perhaps this was the 'untanned arms' and forestry environment
he vainly had tried to outline in his two solo works "The Madcap Laughs"
(1970) and "Barrett" (1971). [Note: this seems to be a
Spanish poetical description the Reverend frankly doesn't understand.]
Late 1978 twenty songs were released on vinyl by a bootleg record
company in A Coruña, called Nonsense Music, using the unique tape
recording made by Barrett and smuggled outside by a deserting Oseira
novice. The album was titled "Spanishgrass" ("Hierba española")
accompanied by the subtitle "twenty songs about space and siesta," a
phrase the artist used when the monks asked him about the meaning of his
songs.
"Spanishgrass" is currently unavailable. The first and only edition of
the record - about 20 copies – wase not made for profit. All copies were
given away by Gema Noya, the Nonsense Music manager, to her closest
friends, under the promise that they would not distribute or duplicate
the material, a pact that was fulfilled to the letter thanks to the
loyalty of these good hippies. Noya used the record as a farewell gift
before retiring to a Buddhist community at Pokhara (Nepal), where
she still resides. According to sources close to her family, she burned
the original tape and scattered the ashes on the beach of Carnota, close
to the Pindo mountain, the Celtic Olympus, after she had sent a copy to
Barrett, who lived in Cambridge since 1978.
The tracks on the secret record are musically blunt with guitar
arrangements that are stripped of all artificiality, almost always
orbicularly strumming a single chord, but the lyrics are, in contrast,
very dense. They range from the usual surreal Barrett humour (Mouse
after a fête, Two bangers & mash) to Pentecostal mysticism, with
quotations from ancient Welsh bard songs taken from “The
White Goddess", Robert
Graves's work that the English musician consulted with interest at
the Oseira library.
Also other books Barrett read at the monastery seized him deep in his
mind. He dedicates three songs (William Phips, Stede Bonnet and Gabriel
Spenser) to the flamboyant characters described by the extravagant Marcel
Schwob in "Imaginary Lives". But above all, Barrett was seduced by
the medieval-sounding poems "Herba aquí ou acolá" from the fabulist Alvaro
Cunqueiro. He put music and sings three poems of the book in
Galician (Eu are Dagha, Na outra banda and Un poeta esquece os días de
chuvia).
The Anchor is the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit's satirical
division, intended for people with a good heart, but a rather bad
character. More info: The
Anchor. Read our legal stuff: Legal
Stuff.
We have just all had the BEST time ever in Cambridge - with the best
people in the world - we have laughed and hugged and kissed and talked
and none of us wanted to come home! (Libby Gausden Chisman)
Undoubtedly the best, friendliest, most lively and most accurate Syd
Barrett group on Facebook is Birdie
Hop.
It is the equivalent of Eternal Isolation's Late
Night forum that, let's not be fussy about that, has suffered a
lot from Facebook's ever-groping octopus tentacles. A person (m/f) with
a critical mind could add that Facebook is shallow and volatile, that
any post older than three days tends to disappear in a bottomless pit
never to be found again and that, to the Reverend's mind, there is
continuous repetition and proportionally it can get a bit boring.
But Birdie Hop has an audience. And people who have an audience ought to
be heard. There is no point in constantly hammering that Betamax
is the better recording system when VHS
has conquered the world. Now there's a comparison that seems to be
fruitless today and quite opaque for the young people among us.
Birdie Hop is a spirited place and like Late Night at its peak period it
is the village pub. People come and go, friendships are made (and
sometimes lost) and scarcely hidden love affairs happen, with snogging
outside in the garden under the cherry tree.
But all this happens in the relatively safe environment of cyberspace.
In September of last year the idea was uttered, among Birdie Hop
members, to meet and greet in Cambridge.
(The Holy Igquisiton has vainly tried to find that post back on
Facebook, while on a forum it would take about a minute, perhaps
somebody should call the NSA.)
We all have seen this happen before really, people saying 'let's meet',
but when push comes to a shove, nothing happens. But Birdie Hop has an
excellent set of administrators, not only they are friendly, beautiful
and intelligent but they can be bloody effective as well.
Alexander the Great
Alexander made it his mission to make this happen, immediately a
date was pinpointed (14 to 16 June 2013) and Mick Brown was
kindly asked to act as Birdie's local liaison officer. The bandwagon
started rolling and an I
Spy Syd in Cambridge tour (with a bus) was organised through the
capable hands of Warren
'Bear' Dosanjh. In March of this year Alexander travelled to
Cambridge to tie the loose ends (and test the quality of the local beer)
and from then on it was a restless wait for the day to come.
Here we go. (Underneath text largely taken from Alexander & Warren's
tour program.)
Friday 14 June 2013
An evening at the Cambridge
Blue on Gwydir Street: a totally real ale pub with the best
selection of (Belgian!) ales in Cambridge plus pub grub and a large beer
garden.
Giulio Bonfissuto, Neil Chisman, Jenny Spires, Alexander.
Saturday 15 June 2013
09.30 Meet at Le
Gros Franck for breakfast and to buy a take-away lunch from a
fantastic choice of international dishes, 57 Hills Road.
Fernando Lanzilotto, Libby Gausden, Viv Brans, Mick Brown.
10.00 Botanical Gardens, where the actual tour started. Unfortunately
they had to chase a bum away who had been sleeping on Syd's bench.
The incredible Mr. Mick Brown.
10.30 Pick-up by coach at the main entrance of the Botanical Gardens in
Bateman Street.
Warren Dosanjh, Alexander, Viv Brans.
Stops at:
183 Hills Road, Syd's house.
The Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now the Hills Road Sixth Form
College), where Syd, Roger Waters, Bob 'Rado' Klose and Storm Thorgerson
studied.
Morley Primary Junior School where Mary Waters taught her son and Syd.
The Friends Meeting House on Hartington Grove, where Geoff Mott & The
Mottoes played their one and only gig.
6 St. Margaret's Square, where Syd last lived after moving back to
Cambridge.
Cherry Hinton Chalk Pits where some Birdie Hop members did a bizarre
reenactment of the Syd's First Trip movie.
Giulio Bonfissuto, Fernando Lanzilotto, Alexander, Brian Wernham, Viv
Brans, Mario von Barrett, Libby Gausden, Neil Chisman, Tio Junior, Mary
Cosco, Eva Wijkniet.
Grantchester Meadows: lunch stop with a pint (BYO) from the Blue Ball
pub opposite.
Neil Chisman, Peter Gilmour.
Walk on the meadows...
And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees Laughing as
it passes through the endless summer Making for the sea.
...and back on the bus at David and Peter Gilmour's house, 109
Grantchester Meadows.
City walk (Corn Exchange, Union Cellar, King´s College, Market Square
etc..)
Mario von Barrett, Giulio Bonfissuto, Mrs & Dave "Dean" Parker, Fernando
Lanzilotto.
Sunday 16 June 2013
Informal meet and goodbye greet at the Earl
of Derby, 129 Hills Road for a full English breakfast from 8.30 in
the morning or lunch from 12.00 for those who couldn't get out of bed.
Unfortunately nobody seemed fit enough to take any pictures or wanted
their pictures to be taken!
Be a part of the legend!
Why don't you join Birdie
Hop, not only you'll be able to see all the pictures of this
amazing journey, but you'll meet a bunch of friendly, sexy people!
The list of attendees of the 2013 meeting not only had the best Birdies
around but also reads like a Cambridge Mafia wet dream: Libby Gausden
Chisman, Neil Chisman, Jenny Spires, Viv Brans, Eva Wijkniet, Sven
Wijkniet, Dave "Dean" Parker, Mrs. Parker, Vic Singh, Brian Wernham,
Mick Brown, Peter Gilmour, Mary Cosco, Antonio (Tio Junior), Mario von
Barrett (González), Fernando Lanzilotto, Giulio Bonfissuto, Hazel
(Libby´s school-friend), George Marshall (school-friend of Syd and Roger
Waters who happened to be drinking in the Blue Ball when the gang
arrived), Gary Hill, Stephen Pyle (only Friday afternoon, afterwards he
had to run a street fest), Warren Dosanjh (tour guide), Alexander P.
Hoffmann (host)...
Two of a kind: Alexander & Warren Dosanjh.
Eva
Wijkniet: Warren was the best tourguide and took us to the best pubs
in Cambridge. Great guy to talk to and we have to thank him massively
for the effort he made for us.
Brian Wernham: What a great day in Cambridge doing lots of Syd stuff,
meeting some of Syd's old friends, Peter Gilmour and meeting some
wonderful Syd fans as well!
Warren
Dosanjh: I have guided nearly all Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett tours
in Cambridge since 2006. But this was the best and most extraordinary
ever.
Libby Gausden Chisman: too exhausted to tell you atm - I have lost my
voice due to over talking and over laughing and over kissing and hugging
- it was just the best time evah!
A nice pair: photographers extraordinaires Vic Singh & Mick Brown.
A 'many thanks' line to end this article would merely repeat the people
who are all cited above, but let's have an exception and thank the most
extraordinary person who wrote the most peculiar kind of tunes.
Many thanks to Roger Keith 'Syd' Barrett, for making this all happen
and for creating friends for a lifetime.
See you in 2015...
Update 03 01 2014: Mick Brown made a video of the event that we
forgot all about, so - with over a half year's delay - here it is. Update
16 06 2014: The copyright gestapo censored Mick Brown's original movie,
so a second version was uploaded with an excellent soundtrack by Rich
Hall (taken from his Birdie
Hop and the Sydiots record).
