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NSFW warning: this article contains pictures of naked b⊚⊚bs which
may result in temporary blindness for minors.
On the 5th of March 2009 the Syd Barrett Trust received Fart
Enjoy, a one-off book, created and illustrated by Syd Barrett,
believed to be made late 1964 or during 1965. It was donated by Syd's
school friend Andrew
Rawlinson who had kept it all these years. The day after it was put
for auction
on eBay. On Monday the 23rd March the highest bid reached £27,323 but
this was rejected and brought back to £12,100. Eventually the book sold
for £12,600.
Black Holes
The Trust published all the pages of the (f)art-book and a moving essay
of Andrew Rawlinson about his friend. Unfortunately this has all
disappeared. The trust was constructed around Barrett's heritage,
estimated at about one
million seven hundred-thousand pounds. Barrett's household
articles and furniture made £119,890 for charity, the Two
Warriors mosaic went for £10,700 and three (big) Mick
Rock prints were auctioned as well, half of the proceedings going to
the Fund. (Mick Rock always needs to have a slice of the pie.)
And yet, 12 pounds a year to keep their website running was too much to
ask, http://www.syd-barrett-trust.org.uk
now points to a Japanese website trying to find nurses in Saitama
city. (Update 2017: it now simply points to a blank page.)
All related websites (and organisations) seem to have vanished: Syd
Barrett Trust, Syd Barrett Fund (the change of name
took place at the request of the Barrett family), Interstellar, The City
Wakes, Escape Artists,... We came across the rumour that Escape Artists
was, and we quote: 'a financially incompetent group'. The Syd Barrett
Fund was probably conned by 'useless PR men and bullshitters', but as we
can't verify this we'll leave it like that. Eventually Escape
Artists dissolved and Rosemary Breen, Syd's sister, teamed up with Squeaky
Gate that seems seemed to be a more reliable charity.
Update 8 April 2014: The metaphorical ink on this page wasn't
even dry or we were informed, on 30 March 2014, that Squeaky Gate may
need to close the books. While chief executive Simon Gunton told the Cambridge
News (on the 7th of April) that the fundings, coming from the
government, were running dry, the rumour pit in Cambridge has a slightly
more salient story of several ten thousands of pounds disappearing from
its bank account. Syd Barrett & charity: it's no good trying. Update
9 April 2014: We have had confirmation that Squeaky Gate is now history.
Well not exactly. Page 13 was missing and replaced by the following
cryptic text:
This particular page has been left blank for legal reasons For
further details see www.pinkfloyd.com
For many fans the abundance of the 'fuck' word (9 times) and the
presence of a pin-up might have had something to do with that.
Especially in America big chains do not like to sell records that may
potentially besmirch the frail American psyche with swear words and
naked boobs. Going to the official Pink Floyd website obviously didn't
explain anything at all, so Keith Jordan of Neptune
Pink Floydcontacted
the band's management:
Pink Floyd's manager told me earlier that the page is missing from the
album booklet because of copyright issues. EMI are not willing to face
unlimited litigation against them for including it! So it's not about
censorship at all!
Which is weird as the missing page had been published in Tim Willis's Madcap
book before and it can be still found on the NPF website
(and numerous others) as well.
Scribbled Lines
Should you not know what all this hassle is about, at the left is the
picture in question. It surely gives the impression that Roger Keith
Barrett, like most pimpled adolescents, had a rather debatable sense of
humour and was overtly sexist, putting raunchy graffiti (FUK, SUK, LIK,
TIT, NIPL and a hard to find CUNT), including a stylised penis, all over
the picture. Rob Chapman describes it as:
a porn-mag photo of a topless woman encrypted with toilet-wall graffiti
daubs.
And Julian Palacios adds that the page reveals Barrett's:
misogynistic adolescent fear and a fascination with naked women.
In Will Shutes' excellent Barrett essay, that like all art essays
meanders between the sublime and the slightly ridiculous, he cleverly
remarks that the BOYS FUCK GIRL word permutations - on the same page -
form 'two tip-to-toe penises'.
BOYS FUCK GIRL
BOY FS UCK GIRL
BO FYUS CK GIRL
B FOUYCS K GIRL
F BUOCYK S GIRL
FU BCOK YS GIRL
FUC BK OYS GIRL
FUCK BOYS GIRL
FUCK BOY GS IRL
FUCK BO GYIS RL
FUCK B GOIYRS L
FUCK G BIORYL L
FUCK GI BROL YS
FUCK GIR BL OYS
FUCK GIRL BOYS
As if two penises isn't serious enough he has also the following to say
about the pin-up:
The voyeuristic theme evident in Fart Enjoy relates to the omnipresence
of the sexualized image, and is humorous in its deliberate childishness.
In Barrett's most prominent foray into Pop Art, he illustrates the
anatomy of an anonymous topless model with tears and glasses, snot,
spiders, a cyclist ascending her left breast, and some sort of discharge
from her 'NIPL'.
Beat Girl
For another observer the snot under her nose could also be a moustache,
the nipple discharge could be some sort of surrealistic fart (enjoyed or
not) and the anonymous topless model could be someone who ran for miss
Great Britain in 1955 and who played roles in the cult-horror movie Peeping
Tom (1960) and in the ultimate sixties sex comedy Alfie
(1966).
In 1963 Playboy
called this actress a sex siren who was:
for years exploited as English grist for run-of-the-mill pin-up roles,
until her portrayal of Sir Laurence Olivier's mistress in The
Entertainer proved she could deliver lines as well as show them.
She must have left an everlasting impression because in the March 1966
issue this 'perky, pretty Lancashire lass' was portrayed by none other
than the British photographer of the stars, David
Bailey. One of these pictures
is the one that was massacred by Syd Barrett for his Fart Enjoy booklet.
As a movie star Shirley
Anne Field disappeared in the mid seventies but eventually she
returned in My
Beautiful Laundrette (1985), stayed for 42 episodes in the Santa
Barbara soap (1987) and was last seen on the silver screen in the
2011 comedy The
Power Of Three. IMDB
lists her impressive career, Shirley Anne Field starred in 70 different
movie and TV productions (not counting individual episodes) in nearly 6
decades.
Time Lord
Andrew Rawlinson writes
the Fart Enjoy booklet is probably from 1965.
I’m not sure about the exact date. I know where I was living, so that
places it between the end of 1964 and the summer of 1965. He was in
London (Tottenham Street I think, not Earlham Street) and I was in
Cambridge.
But unless somebody unequivocally proves that Syd Barrett really was a Time
Lord (now here's a daring subject for our satiric The
Anchor division, we might say) we seem to have a problem as the
David Bailey pictures of Shirley Anne Field date from March 1966 and not
from the year before.
How on Earth did Syd Barrett happen to insert a picture from a March
1966 Playboy into a 1965 (f)artwork?
All seems to turn around the exact moment in time when Syd Barrett moved
from Tottenham Street to Earlham Street. Mark Blake and others put this
in 1965 but Rob Chapman in A Very Irregular Head writes:
During the summer of 1966 Syd moved out of Tottenham Street and with his
new girlfriend, fashion model Lindsay Corner, took up residence in the
top-floor flat at 2 Earlham Street, just off Shaftesbury Avenue.
One chirping biographer doesn't make spring, especially not this one, so
isn't there another way to date Fart Enjoy?
Actually there is.
Rogue Roger
Page 10 in the booklet has a transcript from a letter (postcard?) from
Syd's mother to her son. Some biographers call it a spoof although this,
nor the authenticity, can be proven. But made up or not, it contains
three interesting sentences.
I hope you are having a nice weekend. How did the group get on at
Essex? Shall we reckon to set off – Devon-wards – on Sat. 26th?
Let's start with the last line, the one that carries a date. Browsing
through calendars from nearly 50 years ago we can see there have only
been a few Saturdays the 26th between 1964 and 1966: two in 1964
(September and December), one in 1965
(June) and three in 1966
(February, March and November).
1964 Syd Barrett, as a member of The Hollerin' Blues, didn't
have that many gigs in 1964, and these were all around Cambridge. In the
autumn of that year he joined the proto-Floyd, who where probably still
called The Spectrum Five, but they only had about 3 concerts in London.
1965 Pink Floyd and/or The Tea Set had a slightly busier
schedule in 1965, but all in all there were only a dozen of gigs. None
of these were in Essex or happened around the only Saturday the 26th of
that year.
1966 "By early 1966 Pink Floyd's fortunes were taking a
dramatic turn for the better", writes Glenn Povey in Echoes, but frankly
their career only started to mushroom end of September. The Tea Set's
first claim for fame was when they were billed, thanks to Nick
Sedgwick, for three sets on a two-days festival on Friday the 11th
and Saturday the 12th of March 1966, next to real FAMOUS people and
bands. Nick Mason remembers:
The only gig that might have brought us to wider attention had been at
Essex University. At their rag ball, we shared the bill with the Swinging
Blue Jeans, who did appear, and Marianne
Faithfull who was billed as appearing – if she managed to return
from Holland in time. It didn’t sound hopeful. We were still called Tea
Set at the time although we must have given the impression of being in
transition to psychedelia, since in spite of having ‘Long
Tall Texan’ in our repertoire, where we all sang to the
accompaniment of acoustic guitars, somebody had arranged oil slides and
a film projection.
Roger Waters (as quoted in Palacios' Dark Globe):
‘We’d already become interested in mixed media,’ recalled Roger Waters.
‘Some bright spark there had given this paraplegic a film camera and
wheeled him round London filming his view. Now they showed it up on
screen as we played.’
The avant-garde movie lovers at the Church sometimes wonder if this
cinematographer wasn't an American who had recently moved to England.
Later he would play an important part in the London's Film-Makers'
Co-op, that grew out of film screenings at Better
Books. But looking into that would take us too far, actually.
The Essex University Rag Ball was the Floyd's first event to be
proud of and something Syd would have been bragging about to his mother
and friends. Not only was this their only Essex gig in the 1964 –
1966 period, but it also perfectly matches the 'spoof' letter in Fart
Enjoy.
I hope you are having a nice weekend.
Refers to the week after the Essex gig when Syd hypothetically received
the letter (around 19 March 1966).
How did the group get on at Essex?
Syd's mum asks about the concert of the week before, when The Tea Set
had their first breakthrough (12 March 1966).
Shall we reckon to set off – Devon-wards – on Sat. 26th?
Points to a date in the immediate future, Saturday the 26th of March
1966.
Bob Dylan Schmooze
It's a shame EMI couldn't track down the owner of the copyright of the
woman with her boobies out which Barrett cut from a magazine. EMI chose
not to include it in the reproduced Fart Enjoy book in PATGOD.
So writes Neptune Pink Floyd on their Facebook
page, about a year ago. Well, now that the Holy Igquisition has
settled this matter, once and for all, EMI will have no excuse any more
not to include the complete Fart Enjoy booklet in - let's say - a 50
years anniversary Immersion set of Pink Floyd's first album.
We think we have gathered enough evidence to bring back the creation
date of the Fart Enjoy booklet from a two-years period to roughly one
week in 1966. The Church managed to identify the pin-up Syd Barrett drew Kilroy
on, as well as the photographer and the magazine it appeared in.
The only question that stays unanswered is: Why did Syd Barrett have
this particular Playboy?
Easy.
The Playboy of March 1966 not only had topless pictures of Shirley Anne
Field. Pages 41 to 44 and 138 to 142 make room for a 'candid
conversation with the iconoclastic idol of the folk-rock set'. Syd
Barrett, like all Cantabrigian beatniks, admired Bob Dylan and discussed
his records, he had written a parodic song
about him, and took Libby Gausden to the Royal Festival Hall on 17 May
1964 to see him.
If we can be sure of one thing, it is that Syd Barrett really
bought this Playboy for the interview.
Many thanks to: Anonymous, Giulio Bonfissuto, Mick Brown, Warren
Dosanjh, Rich Hall, Alexander Hoffmann, Keith Jordan, Göran Nyström,
Neptune Pink Floyd Forum, Vintage Erotica Forum. Update July
2017: images and some text. ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
Sources (other than the above links): Atagong, Felix: Fasten
Your Anoraks, The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, 8
September 2007. Beecher, Russell & Shutes, Will: Barrett,
Essential Works Ltd, London, 2011, p. 165. (This book has the complete
Fart Enjoy.) Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and
Faber, London, 2010, p. 62, 111. Mason, Nick: Inside Out: A
personal history of Pink Floyd, Orion Books, London, 2011 reissue,
p. 35. Palacios, Julian: Dark Globe, Plexus, London, 2010, p.
92, 98. Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd,
3C Publishing, 2008, p. 32, 48. Rawlinson, Andrew: Syd Barrett -
His Book @ Syd Barrett Research Society, 15 March 2009 (forum no
longer active). Rawlinson, Andrew: Syd
Barrett - His Book, 20 March 2009 (mirror). Willis,
Tim, Madcap, Short Books, London, 2002, p. 53-55. (This book has
a few pages of Fart Enjoy.)
When Jumpstart
from Men
On The Border was released end of November 2013 we didn't
suspect that the tracks would be haunting us for weeks to come. Slowly
it dawned to us that this record was not just a simple collection of
rock songs, but that there was a certain flow in the music, a well
hidden concept that was the direct result of their previous album that
solely existed of Syd Barrett covers.
We (FA) invited Göran Nyström (GN) and Phil Etheridge
(PE) to Atagong mansion where we had the following, Guinness induced,
conversation.
Why don't you listen to the Jumpstart album on Spotify while reading
this interview? (A Spotify membership is probably needed, but this is
free. There is no need to download and install the Spotify player, the
music will (hopefully) play in your browser.)
FA: Shine! was an album with Syd
Barrett, so to speak, but Jumpstart is about him, right?
PE: Yes! Jumpstart takes over where Shine! left off. On
that album we explored Syd's solo songs. It was fun and it gave us the
appetite for more. Then we started to wonder: what happened next in
Syd's life?
GN: We tried to send a message by the sequencing of our first
album, telling a story of the period 1968-1972-ish and using a fair
sprinkling of licentia
poetica. On the new album we have stretched that poetic license
much further. Jumpstart is all about Syd, but more of a fantasy, a
speculation even. The premise is simple. What if Syd, at age 50, would
have had an epiphany. A lightning strike, a jumpstart. A reverse perhaps
of that electric shock he received in Santa
Monica?
FA: Maybe all that Syd needed was a second electrical shock to
get him on the rails again? Just like in the comics where the main
character regains his memory by a second blow on the head.
GN: That's it. That's the Jumpstart. The kick in the behind. How
we used to fix our old TV sets.
PE: Or how my school teachers used to fix me...
GN: The two Jumpstart songs on the album are the fantasy
bookends. They speak of that very moment, the awakening in fantasy-land,
anno 1996. In-between, 12 songs spread over four "seasons", telling the
inner story of the years from 1972 till 1996. It speaks of the fantasy
journey of a tormented soul and of reminiscence.
PE: We used only two of Syd's songs and the rest are not trying
to be typical Syd songs either. They speak about him, or some sort of
fantasy Syd. The song 'Jumpstart' is about fixing your heart, about
kicking it into action again and about life over death.
Autumn
FA: The first season, or song trilogy, starts with 'Baby
Lemonade'...
PE: 'Baby Lemonade' is pure Syd of course. We wanted to give it a
good solid punk rock drive with psychedelic sonic explorations - the
elements that Syd did so well in his heyday. This is when we dive back
in time to 1972, through Syd's own reflections on his life, which I
found kind of shocking.
GN: And the starting point is the thematic Autumn. A new energy
injected into that fading autumn. In the afterglow of a glorious summer
comes a season of neglect and departure. In the inescapable poetry of
Led Zeppelin: "Leaves are falling all around. It's time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay. But now it's
time for me to go." (2)
FA: And rain falls in gray far away... The next track 'Pills'
really is a great track, instrument wise.
GN: Yeah. The guitar-work is Phil magic. Sinister. The song is
about addiction and relapses. But also about love and hunger. It's all
weirdly poetic and ambivalent. How to resist a temptation. A constant
inner monologue, very much about pills of course and how that addiction
is ended. “Your place by my bed, no more”. Or is it properly ended?
FA: In 'I Don't Want To Be Your Man' one can picture Syd
who almost begs to the fans to be left alone, and who is slowly getting
more and more angry about being disturbed all the time.
PE: Good point! And that theme appears in a couple of the songs.
I think it's partly that but also memories of a time waiting outside a
studio and really wanting to contribute. “No more waiting on your
steps”. But what the fuck - reaching a conclusion that he never wanted
it anyway. At the end it reverts to the question of 'Pills', those that
keep wanting him back.
FA: The maniacal Floyd anorak in me also sees a certain lyrical
familiarity to Gilmour's plea to the fans 'What
Do You Want From Me', which was a more civilised way to show his
frustration over the years than Roger Waters did who spat in the face of
a fan. Or am I just over-analysing?
GN: It's about dependency and ending a dependency. Whether that
is in sex or drugs or rock'n roll. All three components play into most
of the songs on Jumpstart. But I guess you just took it one step
further! The dependency between the artist and the fan base. Yeah,
interesting.
Winter
FA: 'Have You Got It Yet', declares the cold winter in
Syd's life.
GN: This is the start of the Winter trilogy. "I've felt the
coldness of my winter. I never thought, it would ever go. I cursed the
gloom that set upon us." (3) The
title has an obvious Syd reference. We debated that for a while. In the
end we wanted to bring out an element of anger and bitterness.
PE: Riding buses and going into pubs. Never quite able to drown
out memories and thoughts. And quite a lot of debate over the title.
There’s some tongue in cheek in the lyrics though. As a matter of fact
it’s not all dark…
FA: I hear in the frantic guitar solo near the end a glimpse of
what really happened between Syd Barrett and Roger Waters on that day he
wanted them not to learn 'Have You Got It Yet'.
PE: Could well be. Who knows? Still, the starting point of this
song is from a far distance.
GN: Yeah. An alternative title was 'Have You Still Not Got It?'
PE: And we're back in the debate again!
FA: After the mild anarchy of 'Have You Got It Yet' 'The Public'
really is a breath of fresh air.
GN: That song is sung by Phil. All other songs are from a Syd
perspective, but this one is from the troubadour at the pub watching
Syd. That's why it's a kind of Irish pub song, the sort you would hear
at the pub. And different in style to everything else on the album.
PE: The lead character joins in for the second half of the last
verse. That's the moment when it's becoming clear to him that he
absolutely must leave things behind. A song partly about a pub
existence, but definitely not Irish. Well, maybe London Irish. 'The
Public' does of course carry a dual meaning and the middle verse should
make that clear. I'm sure they don't even have public bars in London
pubs anymore, but dual meaning was too good to give up.
GN: Syd meets ABBA.
You will note some sonic references to 'Wish
You Were Here'. A song about how old friends always remain a
support. Don't they?
PE: Benny
Andersson was a conscious musical starting point for this, with the
flute and oboe melodies in the middle and the end just a bit longer than
you’d expect, typical for ABBA. Lyrically the song is miles from them
though and at least for me was one of the darker moments on the album.
FA: I have always been enchanted by the ABBA song 'The
Piper' that was the B-side of 'Super Trouper'. I even suspected it
contained a hidden message for early Pink Floyd fans: "We're following
the piper and we dance beneath the moon..."
GN: The dark side of that moon surely!
Spring
FA: 'Garden' is the place where one notices spring at
first. Syd had a gardener's job once, given to him by an old Cambridge
friend...
GN: 'Garden' is about finding solace. Walking with buttercups.
Inner monologues. Dwelling on love lost. Rather despairing and probably
half crazy. Botanical garden walks. Not gardening. This is also when he
starts to realize how deep the love was that he walked away from. "You
are the sunlight in my growing. So little warmth, I've felt before. It
isn't hard to feel me glowing. I watched the fire that grew so low." (4)
PE: The mid-section with the focus on garden and garden walk is
that moment of staring point blank at the essence of existence, the core
of the brain of our lead character. The garden and the garden walk. One
bite of an apple and then a long walk out.
GN: Or back in again.
FA: 'Destiny Today' is about Syd's long walks along the
river Cam?
GN: That is true but it’s more than that. The river symbolises
life, as it does in many Floyd songs, and the walk is about finding your
destiny. And accepting the fact for what it is. It's a strange warm
feeling of peace when you can finally come to terms with what your life
became.
PE: And what remains, which is the killer. It's a turning point.
Of the album too. This was one of the first songs we recorded for
Jumpstart. It set the mood for a kind of reconciliation. Of coming to
terms with life and to make the best of whatever it is that remains. Of
accepting your destiny, and doing that today.
FA: I hope I don't embarrass you by saying that the atmosphere of
this song reminds me of Gilmour's mesmerizing hymns, like 'The
Blue' and 'Where
We Start'.
GN: That is indeed a great compliment. David lived in his youth
close to Grantchester Meadows. I was there in June 2013 and played an
early demo of the song right there. Just by the river. To a friend who
had been there at the time. It's that kind of soothing chord structure
to it. Plus the repetitive lyrics. And Phil plays some of his best
guitar ever on it.
PE: I'm blushing. Nah, just kidding. Everything on these two
albums is my best stuff ever.
FA: 'Warm From You' starts like a warm spring day... but
what is it about, a lost love or the growing expectation for Syd to
finally do something with his life...
GN: Love mainly. The purpose of living, I guess. Live to love. It
tells a story of first failing and then picking up again. The sun and
that revolution can mean many things though. In the case of Syd, we
fantasize that love and love lost continued to mean a lot to him.
Shining through occasionally. How it "will always be a very special
thing to me".
PE: Like most things in life there’s ambiguity throughout and
that’s reflected in most of the songs actually. I unambiguously borrowed
a bit from Jimi Hendrix on this and it was a real pleasure to have an
opportunity to do that. The end has ‘Hey Joe’ stamped all over it. The
sounds at the end are drummer Björn Hammarberg scraping a drumstick over
his hi-hat - just a fun detail.
FA: So that was the tune that haunted me and that I couldn't
place, shame on me. I also find that the intro has a certain French
aspect, I can't stop thinking of Petula Clark's Coeur
Blessé...
PE: And strangely enough that leads me to "pour encourager les
autres", which is a nice reference a friend of mine used just the other
day and possibly the title of a new song, unless it's already been done
a whole lot.
Summer
FA: 'Terrapin' starts a new summer of love? Physical love
or is it the love for music?
PE: The summer of love was very physical, and that’s what
'Terrapin' is about for me. It also reads like an acid trip, which was
the other end of the summer of love. 'Terrapin' is also the only track
on the album which doesn’t have a keyboard of any sort, only guitars,
bass and drums. There are lots of guitars though. There must be a
hundred versions of this song on YouTube, mostly live in someone’s
bedroom, which says something about its popularity.
GN: "It is the summer of my smiles. Flee from me, keepers of the
gloom. Speak to me only with your eyes. It is to you I give this tune." (5)
It’s an essential song in the Barrett cannon. It speaks of love very
directly. We wanted it to be euphoric rather than subdued. It's the
moment of calling out for what all that yearning was about.
FA: But 'Something For the Waiting' is rather
introspective again... with a glimpse of misery and despair... begging
to god to invent "some kind of help to carry on"....
GN: It was the last song we added. I am not 100% sure if it is a
happy or sad song. Obviously it is very desperate. But it also shows a
realization and stamina. That there is something worth the waiting for.
Unfortunately, as the song goes, the rights to happiness “fell into the
hands of Paul McCartney”.
FA: It's the Men On The Border's 'As
Tears Go By', so to speak?
PE: Yeah. Olle
Ljungström has never given me happy vibes, so I’d go with sad.
GN: It's not a very faithful cover though!
PE: Göran was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t like this when he
sent me the acoustic demo, but I loved it right away and it fits.
Working on the arrangement was a blast. I used a thumb piano (a birthday
present from my sister) at the beginning of the song. I started out
playing a sort of non-tune, but Göran suggested the song melody, which
focused the whole thing. I also got to use the string quartet idea
(Lennart Östblom doing a number of overdubs) which Göran thankfully
vetoed on 'No Man’s Land'. This will be more electric live and we’ll
debut that in May.
FA: And that is when 'Let's Party' kicks in... which is
(for me) the highlight of the album...
PE: That’s great to hear! Jan Stumsner from P-Floyd
makes a much appreciated guest appearance on this track. Göran and I
each wrote our own parts for 'Let’s Party', basically two separate songs
which we melded. Göran’s lyrics are mostly poetic, whereas mine are more
about realism, like in 'The Public'. In this case the scenes were
experienced by me in 1973 courtesy of Eich Erzmoneit, a German drummer I
was playing bass with at the time, who did enjoy his acid and beer.
GN: In the context of the Jumpstart story, this is when Syd in
the end is shrugging his shoulders. Saying fuck this and let's party.
It's the best we can do. Something like the conclusion of the book 'Candide:
or, All for the best'. Playing the cards we are given. It's also a
sort of nod to the art rockers saying that there is real life to be
enjoyed behind the eyeliners and pretence. Voltaire concludes with
Candide saying that "we must cultivate our garden". That garden link
again. The heart at the center.
The Next Year
FA: So that wraps up the Jumpstart journey then? Bringing it all
back to the Jumpstart moment with a reprise of the first song and full
speed towards the future? Can I bore you once again with a quote from
someone else: "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.
We're so glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside!" (6)
GN: Indeed. Supersonic fighting cocks and all. You have an inner
view now. And who knows what the future will bring. One thing is clear,
Men On The Border was always about more than the music. We wanted to
bring back that old fashioned album experience. That is probably
something we will explore further in the future.
PE: Kajsa-Tuva
Henriksson (now Werner), did the previous cover and made justice to
the Syd Barrett early story in an amazing way. You can read many things
into that picture. She also contributed with an original piece for
Jumpstart, that takes the earlier picture – that life of Syd – into the
tumbler. It is a fabulous illustration of a Jumpstart, and of a broken
but vividly red heart at the center.
GN: Yes indeed. We were also thrilled to have Ian
Barrett on board, Syd's nephew and by now a good friend. He
contributed to the whole concept in no small way. He took the whole
thing one step further by adding the symbolism of Syd’s mirrored guitar
and reflections.
PE: That concept is so perfectly in tune with the whole idea of
Jumpstart, which is really a concept album about reflections and new
energy, and about Syd of course. Maybe that electric bolt in Santa
Monica that we started out discussing?
GN: Yes! Maybe that's where that guitar originally got lost?
Burnt out by the electric shock? And now we bring it full circle.
PE: Ian made a linoleum cut of those guitar mirrors and then
painted this in the famous floorboard colours. He actually made a whole
series of prints for us.
GN: We then used the idea of mirrors and reflections and energy
in a little photo session we did, courtesy of David Parkin. Our combined
photographer and bass player! We are forming a live band now. Band On
The Border!
FA: So what is going on with that? What happens next?
PE: We will try out some live gigs and see how it goes.
Rehearsals have been ongoing for a few months. It is all very fun and
energizing.
GN: Ideas are developing continuously. Check out our Facebook
site to be updated. If all goes well, and there is a demand, there could
be something unique in the works. It feels like we can see pieces of a
big puzzle, a collage if you will.
FA: A collage?
PE: Hey Felix, do you have any more of that Guinness?
Many thanks: Ian Barrett (Ian
Barrett Art), Phil Etheridge, Göran Nyström. ♥ Iggy ♥
Libby ♥ Birdie
Hop ♥
Notes and quotes (1) During the
immensely difficult negotiations to have this interview ("Do you mean
any colour you like, except blue M&M's or only blue M&M's and no
others?") the word 'interview' was wrongly written as 'innerview' on one
document, but it stuck. Back to text. (2)
Led Zeppelin - Ramble
On. Back to text. (3)
Led Zeppelin - The
Rain Song. Back to text. (4)
Led Zeppelin - The
Rain Song. Back to text. (5)
Led Zeppelin - The
Rain Song. Back to text. (6)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Karn
Evil 9, 1st impression, part 2. Back to text.