Picture: © Chris Lanaway, 2010.
In 2023 the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates its 15th anniversary.
Picture: © Chris Lanaway, 2010.

The City Wakes

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2008-08-30

Shaken not stirred

Iggy by Anthony Stern
Iggy by Anthony Stern

Moviemaker Anthony Stern, who knew Iggy before she met Syd, has confirmed that the person at the Granny Takes A Trip boutique on the IN Gear movie is indeed her. On his turn he will present a home movie called Iggy, Eskimo Girl at The City Wakes festival in Cambridge. A short teaser can be found on YouTube.

According to Mick Rock Syd was touched when she left him:

Once I’d developed the film (from The Madcap Laughs photo session, note by FA), I went round to show Syd the pictures. He took this one opposite (page 21 in the PR-book, note by FA) and scratched some lines and his name onto it. I think there was a bit of negativity directed at Iggy. He just started scratching the print, with a big grin on his face. (Taken from Psychedelic Renegades.)

It could be that the scratches on the picture were destined at Iggy, but why did Syd Barrett scratch (more or less) around her figure? Not (and I hope my shrink will never read this) her face or body, in my garbled opinion the logical thing to do if one would try to express negative or revengeful feelings on a photograph. Syd’s body and face is far more scratched than Iggy’s and Barrett also cut the letters SYD on the picture... Perhaps he was just trying to make clear to Mick Rock that he wanted to get rid of his pop-life alter ego.

Mick Rock writes further that he heard from Duggie Fields, the painter who was Syd Barrett’s roommate and who still lives in the same apartment today, that ‘she later went off with some rich guy in Chelsea and lived a very straight life’.

On an old and abandoned blog (and also on the Late Night forum) I wrote that none of the Pink Floyd biographers have been really looking for Iggy. Mark Blake, author of Pigs Might Fly, responded: “I can't speak for all the PF or SB biographers, but I certainly tried.”

The only bit of new info I found was that there was a chance 'Iggy' may have gone to school in the South London area, as she was known as one of the regular teenage girls at the dancehalls around Purley and Caterham. This would have been around 1965. Duggie Fields recalls seeing her some time after the Madcap Laughs photo session and she was looking a lot more "sloaney". Most of the people I spoke to who knew her believe Iggy married a rich businessman and doesn't now want to be 'found'. (Taken from The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit on Late Night.)

Although scarce the above information is about the most relevant we have had from a biographer in about 30 years.

The most famous dancehall in Purley was the Orchid Ballroom where The Who, The Troggs and The Hollies gigged a couple of times. It started as a regular dance hall (and concert and sporting events hall) in the Fifties and had a local house band The Jackpots in 1963 and 64.

In the mid Sixties (1964 – 1966) the Orchid Ballroom was the meeting place for the Croydon mods who would assemble every Monday night. Witnesses remember Mike (?) Morton, Tony Crane, Jeff Dexter and Sammy Samwell spinning the records. Pete Sanders and Mickey Finn used to be part of the crowd.

Not all these names ring a bell. I could not trace back Mike Morton, but Lionel Morton was the singer and lead guitarist from the Four Pennies who had a hit in 1963 – 1964 with Juliet. Tony Crane was a member of The Mavericks, a band that became famous when they changed the name to The Merseybeats, later The Merseys (David Bowie would cover their Sorrow on his Pin-Ups album, a tune they had borrowed from The McCoys). Mickey Finn could be the man who was the drummer of T. Rex and who also played on the record made by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, the people who were behind the Granny Takes A Trip boutique.

Elizabeth Colclough used to work at the bar in 1968: "It was the place to go to meet friends old and new, weekday evenings and also at the weekend. We saw some great bands, some who are still going strong today.”

Another witness recalls how Cathy (Mc Gowan), the queen of the mods and presenter of the ever popular Ready Steady Go! Show, came to the Orchid Ballroom to spot for dancers to appear in her show. Seen the fact that Iggy was present at an RSG!-party, organised by the show's main choreographer, it is not improbable that she may have been present at some RSG! television-shows as well, as a dancer or as a pretty face in the public.

A book about the history of the Orchid Ballroom has been made and the Church will try to contact its author, there is the (very small) chance that Iggy is mentioned in it.

Update August 2009: Brian Roote, who studied the history of The Orchid confirmed later to the Church: 'I have no knowledge of this girl whatsoever'.

An image gallery with stills of the Iggy, Eskimo Girl movie.


Sources (other than the above internet links):
McAleer, Dave: Beatboom!, Hamlyn, London, 1994, p. 57-59.
Rock, Mick: Psychedelic Renegades, Plexus, London, 2007, p. 20.

2008-10-03

Iggy played guitar

The Trashcan Sinatras
Oranges & Apples, The Trashcan Sinatras.

The Trashcan Sinatras, probably the best band name ever since the Soup Dragons, have recorded a 6 minutes and 41 seconds single commemorating Syd Barrett. Oranges And Apples will be released on the 13th October on iTunes and will later appear on their forthcoming album In The Music.

A percentage of every sale will be donated to the Syd Barrett Trust in support of arts in mental health.

The first two minutes of the song can be heard on The City Wakes and these contain the following lyrics:

Emily and the English Rose
Shining out the UFO
Hand in hand with your Eskimo.

As far as the Church is aware of this is the first time Iggy has ever been mentioned in a song… and actually… it is a rather good and catchy tune as well…. Now if only they could get rid of that iTunes download… 8-(

The Church is still following the path as it leads towards the darkness in Iggy’s past. In the near future we will dedicate some space to a movie featuring Syd Barrett and our goddess. It can be found on YouTube (in rather bad quality) but the Church of Iggy the Inuit managed to locate a low generation copy. As soon as that version will arrive at Atagong manor it will be revealed by the Reverend to his disciples.

Until that moment arrives we bid you to live long and prosper, dear brethren and sistren, and don’t do anything that Iggy wouldn’t have done.

2008-10-11

Anthony Stern Photoshoot

A couple of posts ago it was prophesised in Where did she go? that some of Anthony Stern’s unpublished Iggy pictures would find their way to the public. And they will… the City Wakes website now has an Iggy gallery as well. (Update: this website no longer exists.)

The 15 pictures, sadly in a very small format, come from different photo-shoots, and with exception of the ironic black and white pictures, most of them are very representative for the psychedelic era they were shot in. Signed prints of the Iggy pictures will soon be exclusively available from the City Wakes website.

© Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern
© Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern
© Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern
© Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern
© Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern

Update (2010-2016): Anthony Stern's website no longer contains these pictures and so the Church has stored these for pure academical purposes: Iggy Triptychs.
Update (2016): Anthony Stern's 2016 BBC documentary Memory Marbles contained some new Iggy pictures, they have been published on Tumblr: Memory Marbles.

2008-10-26

Pictures at an exhibition

The Other Room (picture: Dark Globe)
The Other Room (picture: Dark Globe)

It is far from a coincidence that this blog started more or less when The City Wakes project was announced. The City Wakes is an official Syd Barrett tribute, held in the city of Cambridge, and it has been officially opened past week. But the history of the instalment of the Church will be told on an other day, promised.

Supported by Syd’s family and friends, The City Wakes is the first ever official tribute to Syd Barrett – original front-man and songwriter for Pink Floyd. A celebration of Syd’s creativity, The City Wakes focuses on Syd’s early life in Cambridge, providing a showcase for his remarkable talent and painting a picture of the explosive and vibrant early 1960s cultural scene in which he grew up.
Involving many of Syd’s former friends – not least Storm Thorgerson and Mick Rock - The City Wakes includes concert performances, exhibitions, guided tours, music workshops, a 1960s style ‘happening’, talks and a new book of interviews and memorabilia.
The City Wakes has been developed by Escape Artists, a UK arts and mental health charity and professional production house. Working with clients in both institutional and non-institutional settings, it aims to improve quality of life, health and social welfare, by recognising the vital importance of creativity to an individual’s well being. Funds generated through The City Wakes project will be used to support the charity's work in the mental health sector. Escape Artists has been working in the mental health sector in Cambridge since 1999. (Taken from The City Wakes - deleted)

One of the exhibitions taking place is called The Other Room, it is held in the Ruskin Gallery at Anglia Ruskin University, and is open from 24th October to 2nd November 2008.

At the Ruskin Gallery visitors can see over fifty of Syd's paintings, the majority of which have never before been seen in public. Also on display are rare archival-quality prints from Syd's photo-biographer Mick Rock and original pieces from Pink Floyd's legendary designer Storm Thorgerson. The exhibition features rare Syd-related memorabilia, including diaries and correspondence. (Taken from Anglia Ruskin University - link no longer available)

But of course the Church is far more intrigued by the pictures from the personal collection of Anthony Stern that are exposed as well: Pink Floyd performing at UFO (1967-ish) and his Iggy pictures.

The Other Room: Syd Barrett's Art and Life
Date: 24 October - 2 November 2008
Time: 10am - 9pm Monday to Friday, 10am - 5pm Saturday and Sunday (link has been deleted).


Thanks to Dark Globe for the picture, other pictures of the exhibition can be seen at Inside The Other Room.

2008-11-05

The Other Room

The Other Room catalogue
The Other Room catalogue.

The Other Room: Syd Barrett's Art And Life was a Cambridge exhibition that ended a couple of days ago. More details about it could be found in a previous post: Pictures at an exhibition.

A lucky wind (thanks SgB!) brought me a copy from the catalogue, an 18 pages booklet. The following can be found inside:

Page 2 & 3: introductions by Stephen Pyle and Anji Jackson-Main, curators of the exhibition.

Pages 3 to 9 are dedicated to the paintings of Syd Barrett. This is far the most interesting part of the catalogue as many unseen works of Syd Barrett are represented here, albeit in a rather small thumbnail format. I’m pretty sure those pictures will find their way to the specialised Syd Barrett websites and blogs so I’m not going to put them here.

Pages 10 to 12: photographs by Mick Rock. This reminds me that the Church still hasn’t dedicated some of its holy space to Mick Rock’s excellent Psychedelic Renegades book. This will be done during the long winter days when a lonely hungry wolf howls at the suburbs of Atagong Mansion.

Page 11: some family snapshots taken by Syd's relatives. I don’t want to sound too snotty, but I’ve seen these before.

Pages 14 & 15: artwork by Storm Thorgerson (Syd Barrett album cover, Barrett album cover, The City Wakes green doors poster.)

page 17: colofon.

But The Church is of course most interested in pages 12 and 13 that contain some pictures from the collection of Anthony Stern (see also: Anthony Stern Photoshoot).

© Anthony Stern © Anthony Stern
© Anthony Stern.

Antony Stern’s Iggy pictures can be seen on The City Wakes website, a link to that particular gallery can be found at the Galleries section of their blog. And if you have a quick peek you might find something more... (Update: The City Wakes website no longer exists.)

I want to thank all the members of the Late Night forum, who visited The City Wakes, for their impressions, their pictures, their testimonies and the goodies they have been distributing amongst the other members who couldn’t attend the festival.

The Other Room's catalogue can be visualised at the gallery.

2008-11-16

Chelsea Cloisters

Pink Flamingo by Felix Atagong
Pink Flamingo by Felix Atagong.

Update 2019 07 30: This post is no longer valid and is kept for archival purposes only. It has been replaced by Si les cochons pourraient voler... 

A rather long post about Mark Blake's Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly has been published on Felix Atagong's (that's me) Unfinished Projects. It contains some bits and pieces about Iggy as well.

Update 2010: as Unfinished Projects is a thing from the past this review has been added to the Holy Church blog: Si les cochons pourraient voler… 

(I don't want to go to) Chelsea

Speaking about Iggy, Anthony Stern's Iggy, Eskimo Girl movie was shown at The City Wakes festival during the first weekend. Unfortunately one of the technicians mistakenly gave the film back to Anthony Stern. As the absence of the film wasn't noticed until just before the next screening it was too late to retrieve the DVD.

After the (first) presentation there was a Q&A round with Anthony. One member of the audience maintained that Iggy is currently living in Chelsea. The Church will try to investigate further into this matter.

Update 2016: this rumour was false, BTW.

2008-12-29

Love In The Woods (Pt. 2)

A mysterious brunette...
A mysterious brunette.

The so-called Lost in the Woods movie, that was part of the Knebworth pre show documentary, is a mix coming from different people, at different places, on different occasions. The Church quotes archbishop Dark Globe, who has scrutinized the movie before:

There's footage of Syd larking around in a garden with friends in 67, the 'lilac shirt' footage of Syd (late 67/68?) in which Lyndsay Corner also appears, and the blue suit/yellow ruffled shirt footage of Syd in the woods with two girls (Iggy and a mystery brunette) from 69.
The home movie footage is multilayered and you can catch glimpses of different footage superimposed on top of the main footage.
During the bit of Syd in the woods with Iggy, there's some footage of Syd with an acoustic guitar (at least that's what I can see). The flashbacks movie only shows tantalising glimpses of the Syd home movie footage. (taken from Late Night.)

The home movie snippets are used twice in the Knebworth documentary.

The documentary starts with Pink (Langley Iddens) pouring a glass of wine. For the next 39 seconds several vintage clips, taking no longer than a couple of frames, will be intercepted with shots from the actor. The first home movie scenes have already ended when the documentary is just one minute old. The main bunch seems to be filmed at a garden party.

The second home movie scenes arrive about 10 minutes later and will go on for 42 seconds. The main footage has Syd walking in a park with Iggy and a mysterious brunette, Syd and Iggy climbing trees, the two woman running hand in hand, Syd acting funny with a stick in his hand… The park footage is intercepted a few times by other home movies from other occasions…

Part 1: Garden fun – blowing bubbles

Several garden shots have been used in this compilation. There is a scene with a girl on a swing, people blowing soap bubbles and generally having fun, Syd eating a - very hard to spot - banana…

The Church tried to identify the people in the movie with the help of the worldwide web, posting screenshots at several anorak fora, and Dark Globe took it upon him to show these pictures to David Gale and Matthew Scurfield after a reading at the City Wakes festival this year.

Hester Page Hester Page Hester Page. It could be that screenshots 1 and 2 depict the same person. She remained unidentified until Dark Globe showed the pics to David Gale who recognised picture 2 as ‘Hester’. Barrett fan julianindica could narrow this down to Hester Page. Hester Page gets mentioned in the Syd Barrett biography by Julian Palacios, aptly called Lost In The Woods, as part of the 101 Cromwell Rd incrowd. That two-storey flat in Kensington was the place for many Cantabrigians to sleep, meet and greet. Syd Barrett and Lindsay Corner lived there for a while and Pink Floyd used the place to rehearse (much to the annoyance of painter Duggie Fields). It was also somewhat of an LSD epicentre and a ‘critical nexus for Underground activities of every shade and stripe’.
David Gale David Gale. This man is David Gale. To quote his own words at the City Wakes – it’s the hooter that gives me away. Gale was a schoolmate of David Gilmour and a friend of Syd. In 1965 David’s parents went to Australia for a 6-month period leaving the house and its garden in the safe hands of their son. It didn’t take long before the Cambridge jeunesse would meet there and there is a chance that the first part of the Syd Barrett Home Movie has indeed been shot in the garden of David Gale’s parents. Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon and Storm Thorgerson had film cameras so one of them may have shot the footage (NLG made the iniquitous Syd’s First Trip movie where David Gale can be seen). It was also at David Gale’s place that Syd Barrett had a cosmically encounter wit a plum, an orange and a matchbox, as witnessed by Storm Thorgerson who would later use this for a record sleeve and for a concert movie.
Lyndsay Corner Lyndsay Corner. David Gale and Matthew Scurfield identify the girl on a swing as Lyndsay Corner.

Part 2: the Lost In The Woods footage
 

Mick Rock Mick Rock. When Syd and Iggy are walking in the woods a face is superimposed. It is Mick Rock who has (probably) shot the movie. Iggy is wearing the same necklace as on the Madcap Laughs photo sessions and (perhaps) the same clothes. Syd however has another shirt than in the Psychedelic Renegades book. The Lost In The Woods scenes have been edited on the Knebworth documentary and carry parts from at least 3 other home movies.
Lost In The Woods footage
Unknown. Syd and another man walking & talking in a garden in front of a house. Identity Unknown.
Lost In The Woods footage Unknown. Syd and a girl blowing bubbles in a park. Identity unknown.
Lindsay Corner Lyndsay Corner. Close-up of Lyndsay Corner (in a park).
Lost In The Woods footage Lost In The Woods footage
Mysterious brunette. 3 people can be identified on the Lost In The Woods movie: Syd, Iggy and Mick Rock. In several shots with Iggy and Syd we see a second woman, the mysterious brunette, whose identity we don’t know yet.
Update: on second thought, she could be Hester Page (see first picture above), although it is a wild guess.
JenS, however concludes that the girl is not Hester Page. Gretta Barclay does not recognise her either: "I do not recognise the brunette – the name Jennie Gordon came to mind, but in truth, I simply have no idea of who she is."

Radiocarbon dating

Pop-art painter Duggie Fields, who still lives in the same apartment, and Mick Rock have testified that Iggy only stayed at Syd’s place for a couple of weeks. When Mick Rock showed Syd the pictures of the photo sessions for the cover of The Madcap Laughs she was already long gone…. According to Duggie Fields, a homeless and drug-addicted couple, Greta and Rusty, took the vacant place, much to the aggravation of the painter who had to bring Greta to the hospital after an overdose.

Update 2010: in an exclusive interview to the Church Margaretta Barclay absolutely denies the above. Please consult: Gretta Speaks and Gretta Speaks (Pt. 2) 

Neither Mick Rock nor Storm Thorgerson give the exact date when The Madcap Laughs photo shoot was made: the closest thing they can come up with is Autumn 1969. Syd Barrett and David Gilmour met at the studio on the 6th of October to sort out the running order of the album. Other studio work, that didn’t need Syd’s presence, was done the same month: banding the LP master (9 October) and cutting the LP (16 October). After hearing the master Malcolm Jones ordered a recut early in November. The record was officially released on the second of January 1970.

Malcolm Jones recounts:

One day in October or November I had cause to drop in at Syd's flat on my way home to leave him a tape of the album, and what I saw gave me quite a start. In anticipation of the photographic session for the sleeve, Syd had painted the bare floorboards of his room orange and purple. Up until then the floor was bare, with Syd's few possessions mostly on the floor; hi-fi, guitar, cushions, books and paintings. In fact the room was much as appears on the original 'Madcap' sleeve. Syd was well pleased with his days work and I must say it made a fine setting for the session due to take place.

Based on this information most anoraks radiocarbon the photo shoot date in the second half of October, although November is also a possibility. The Lost In The Woods home move with Syd, Mick, Iggy and the mysterious brunette should thus be pinpointed to that period (this was written in December 2008).

Update: But... as the Holy Church would find out the next year (January 2009) the above photo shoot date appears to be wrong. It is pretty sure that Iggy left Syd in April 1969. Further analysis of the Madcap pictures show that several details point to spring 1969, rather than autumn. For a complete report please consult: Anoraks and Pontiacs.

(This is the second part of the Love In The Woods post. Part 1 can be found here: Love in the Woods (Pt. 1))

An image gallery with stills of the Lost In The Woods home movies can be found at the gallery.


Sources (other than the above internet links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2007, p. 141.
Jones, Malcolm: The Making Of The Madcap Laughs, Brain Damage, 2003, p. 13.
Palacios, Julian: Lost In The Woods, Boxtree, London, 1998, p. 241.
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 154-158.

2009-05-15

Trip to a Dream Dragon

Iggy, Eskimo Girl stills
Iggy, Eskimo Girl stills.

Last week the Reverend revealed two new Iggy pictures appearing at the Chimera Arts website that distributes the Iggy Eskimo Girl movie in various parts of the world (alas, not those parts of the world the Reverend is familiar with).

Anthony Stern who, should you not know, shot the movie in question recently updated several pages on his site and for those that want to dive into Stern’s work there is an interesting essay about his work as well.

Iggy the Eskimo Girl (1966/2008)

Update 2016: Anthony Stern's main website has been updated and all relevant movie links have disappeared. He has a Film Archive website as well but at the time of writing (November 2016) not much can be found there.

The (now deleted) filmography page has got the following to say about the movie:

Iggy was a model and the girlfriend of Syd Barrett, and appeared on the cover of his album The Madcap Laughs (1970). She was terrific fun to be with and to photograph. I made a short film of her dancing in Russell Square, which portrays her as the ultimate flower child of the 1960s.

That particular page also has a (now deleted) filmstrip dedicated to Iggy showing some screenshots that have never been shown before.

Iggy filmstrip at Anthony Stern (deleted)
Iggy filmstrip at Anthony Stern (deleted)
 

Stern did not only film Iggy, he also made some pictures of her that were premiered after 40 years on The City Wakes Syd Barrett Festival (a glimpse of those can be found in the catalogue of The Other Room). A (then also unpublished) black and white picture of Iggy also accompanied the ‘Where did she go?’ article that appeared in a (free) London newspaper and that was published after some mild excruciating techniques administered by the Church.

An (updated) image gallery with stills of the movie Iggy, Eskimo Girl can be found at the gallery section of the Church

Iggy 'The Eskimo Girl' Triptychs

Stern’s pictures form the so-called Iggy Triptychs, 5 in total. His website has to say the following about these:

I re-discovered these photographs in my cellar in an old suitcase. All the optical effects were obtained in-camera. The colour images of Iggy were taken on a houseboat at Chelsea Reach. In the background you can see Lots Road Power Station. The distortions were achieved using a flexible mirror material called Malinex, as well as a magnifying fresnel screen. I have presented these images at the Ruskin Gallery as triptychs, because they remind me of Francis Bacon images in the same format. (Taken from iggyphotos - link no longer available)

Every triptych also has a page of its own and on these the following titbit can be found:

Iggy was terrific fun to be with and to photograph. I knew her before she was introduced to Syd by JenS, and I remember walking through Battersea Park in the early mornings together.

Here are the individual triptych pages: all pictures © Anthony Stern.

Iggy Triptych 1 by Anthony Stern
Iggy Triptych 1 by Anthony Stern.
Iggy Triptych 2 by Anthony Stern
Iggy Triptych 2 by Anthony Stern.
Iggy Triptych 3 by Anthony Stern
Iggy Triptych 3 by Anthony Stern.
Iggy Triptych 4 by Anthony Stern
Iggy Triptych 4 by Anthony Stern.
Iggy Triptych 5 by Anthony Stern
Iggy Triptych 5 by Anthony Stern.
 

Page 1: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip1.htm (link no longer active)
Page 2: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip2.htm (link no longer active)
Page 3: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip3.htm (link no longer active)
Page 4: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip4.htm (link no longer active)
Page 5: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip5.htm (link no longer active)

The photographs on Stern's website are were for sale, signed, framed and numbered, either as triptychs or single images.
(Note: prices in 2009 were £175 for single images and £225 for the triptychs, not including postage).

No Church without some triptychs from our blessed saint and these can be admired in a new image gallery

2009-08-01

When I'm 64

Iggy 64, by Fratzen
Iggy 64, by Fratzen.

Brethren Dan5482 visited the several Church locations (see underneath) that can be found on the World Wide Web and confessed the following to the Reverend:

Despite all that collective amnesia I think that Iggy can still be found. There are journalists, detectives... who have found more difficult "targets".
However, an intense and widespread interest for her is a necessary condition. Your Church is a source of hope in this sense. It lets many people know that once such a mysterious woman existed.
It occurs to me that many people simply don’t want to know who or where Iggy is. Imagine finding a 70-year old woman and to find out that her words about that period are as simple and disappointing as "I don't like to remember that period. I was out of my mind..." That could be the end of a romantic dream.
Besides the fact that Iggy herself is an extremely intriguing figure, there is also the possibility of obtaining a new narrative and facts surrounding Syd Barrett's life in that fabled year of 1969.

Wise words from a wise man.

If JenS’ assumption that Ig was born at the end of World War II is true she is 64 or 65 years old at the moment (provided she is still amongst us). True believers know the following story for sure… in April, or early May of 1970, Ig closed the door behind her at Wetherby Mansions and was never seen back…
Update: obviously this was written before Ig, or Emily, was traced back by Mojo magazine.

Mick Rock has apparently stated that he heard from Duggie Fields, the painter who was Syd Barrett’s roommate, that Iggy ‘went off with some rich guy in Chelsea and lived a very straight life’ afterwards.

However Mark Blake squeezed a slightly different story out of him:

I have no idea who Iggy was or even what her real name was. She was never Syd’s girlfriend. They just got together from time to time. (…) I saw her not long after Syd left the flat and she was looking more like a Sloane Ranger. I heard she’d become involved with one of the voguish religious cults at the time.

Mark had some extra comments to give at the Late Night discussion forum:

Nobody knew her real first name, never mind her surname, or if they did, they weren't telling. Duggie Fields recalls seeing her some time after the Madcap Laughs photo session and she was looking a lot more "sloaney". Most of the people I spoke to who knew her believe Iggy married a rich businessman and doesn't now want to be 'found'.

The Cinderella story may be a case of confabulation. One witness supposes that Ig married rich and over the years this story infiltrates the memories of other people who, decades later, believe this is really how it all happened. This is not done on purpose; our memory likes to fill in the gaps and if we need to borrow memories of other people we will subconsciously do that. Pink Floyd history contains several anecdotes like that and in the several biographies and articles Floydian insiders have told about situations that were originally witnessed by others.

Update 2016: After Syd, Iggy met a rich banker who was a witness of Jehovah, so the rumours were at least based upon some facts. The relationship didn't last though and Iggy didn't marry 'rich'.

In February of this year Mark Blake reported to the Church:

I spoke to Emo a couple of weeks back and asked about Iggy and he immediately said he remembered hearing she had gone back to the Far East/Asia. But, as I have learned since doing the book, everyone has conflicting memories about these things. (mail to the Reverend on 23/02/2009)

At The City Wakes festival in October and November of 1988 Anthony Stern’s Eskimo Girl movie was shown to the public and during the Q&A afterwards a member of the audience told the director that Iggy was living in Chelsea. Nobody knows who this person is but if (s)he attended the festival (s)he must have been a fan of Barrett or one of the members of the Cambridge or London Underground gang who took this opportunity to meet again after three decades. The Church would like to invite this person to come forward and to contact the Reverend.

On the 7th of October 2006 the SydBarrett.net forum got the following message from a certain YoungForEternity.

Does anyone know roughly how old Iggy would be? There's a woman who works at a supermarket in my local town who claims to be "the" Iggy and I don't know whether to believe her or not...I'd appreciate any pointers or recognisable features? Her name is definitely Iggy, and I've been studying images but it's difficult to tell... (Taken from whatever happened to iggy the eskimo?)

The forum in question is no longer active and the messenger only posted this single item. In 2006 Ig was (probably) 61 or 62 years old so theoretically she should no longer have been working, as the State Pension age for women born before 1950 is 60 (in the UK). But of course there are always exceptions. To qualify for a full basic State Pension she needed to have built up 39 years of National Insurance payments and perhaps that may not have been the case. The Church would also like the author of this post to come forward and to contact the Reverend.

Update 2016: YoungForEternity was probably closer to the truth than we all expected. Iggy has indeed been working at a local supermarket.

Next week, sistren and brethren, the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit will celebrate its first birthday and a small and delicate special treat will be offered. Till then. And remember; don’t do anything that Ig wouldn’t have done…


Sources (other than internet links mentioned above):

Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press, London, 2007, p.141.

Many thanks go to young 3D artist Arthur Fratzen who lend me a copy of his WIP Iggy 64.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit can be found at: http://atagong.com/iggy. Authorised subsidiaries can be found at:

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Youtube channel
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Facebook Fanpage

The Reverend's MySpace page
The Reverend's Facebook page and last but not least
The Reverend's Unfinished Projects blog.

2010-02-13

Iggy’s first interview in 40 years

Iggy by Anthone Stern
Iggy by Anthony Stern.

Last week The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit published the incredible news that Iggy had been traced back. This was a world exclusive as no other news medium had reported this before.

The news that Iggy had been found was, unfortunately, also all there was to say. Although discreet investigations were done it was soon made clear that she wanted to stay anonymous and that she didn’t want to blow her cover. A short interview was out of the question, even for Mojo magazine and Mark Blake who triggered these latest events.

The Reverend is by all means not a souvenir collector who wanted to ring at her bell like all those true fans used to do at Syd Barrett’s door and her wish to be left in peace was immediately and unconditionally granted.

In September 2008 The Croydon Guardian published an article about Iggy after the Church had contacted the newspaper to get more information about The Orchid dancehall in Purley: Where did she go?  This article unearthed some unpublished pictures by Anthony Stern that were later shown at The City Wakes festival in Cambridge and was also mentioned in the March issue of Mojo.

Kirsty Whalley, the journalist who brought us the first Iggy article in The Croydon Guardian, has now managed to interview Iggy, an interview that can be found in today’s issue of this newspaper.

When Mick turned up to take the photos I helped paint the floor boards for the shoot, I was covered in paint, I still remember the smell of it.

The Church will not publish the entire interview in its columns - for at least a week - as it can be consulted at the following websites:
Croydon Guardian Tracks Down Elusive Rock Star Muse (The Croydon Guardian)
Croydon Guardian Tracks Down Elusive Rock Star Muse (This Local London)

In the next weeks however the Church will scrutinize the interview, and comments will be added where appropriate. For the moment all we wish to say is hip hip hurray to Kirsty Whalley!

2010-04-02

Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea

This is not Iggy.
This is not Iggy.

Tranquillity is slowly descending upon the Holy Church of Inuit like smog upon Victorian London. Several brethren and sistren of the Church, and one-time visitors who entered through the front gate to study its baroque interior, have passed some valid information to the Reverend and these will be further investigated in the future. The Reverend also wants to apologise to the people that have been contacted (and interviewed) last year, especially those associated with The Cromwellian club. The articles about The Crom have been postponed due to the unexpected result the Mojo Syd Barrett article created, but they will - one day - hopefully appear.

To all our readers: please keep on going on giving the Church information, how futile it may be, but remember that the Reverend will not break its own rules that stay unchanged even now that Iggy (Evelyn) has been found. Especially now that Iggy (Evelyn) has been found.

The Reverend is not a souvenir collector who will ring at her bell like all those so-called (and in the Reverend's eyes: messed up) true fans used to do at Syd Barrett’s door. Evelyn's wish to be left in peace is and will be unconditionally granted. The same goes for other witnesses of the Barrett era, the Church will send them a nice note from time to time, as a reminder of its presence, but will not break their privacy. Some will call this bad journalism but the Church is not dependent from sold issues and follows a strict deontological code.

Croydon Guardian

On the thirteenth of February of this year The Croydon Guardian published a short, hastily noted down, interview with (a quite reluctant) Iggy, titled: Croydon Guardian tracks down elusive rock star muse. Here it is in full (with some comments from the Reverend):

Croydon Guardian tracks down elusive rock star muse
By Kirsty Whalley
An iconic model who stole Syd Barrett’s heart in the 1960s has been found after three decades of anonymity. Known only as Iggy, the enigmatic woman was immortalised posing naked for the Pink Floyd star’s solo album, Madcap Laughs. She disappeared in the late 1970s and has been living in West Sussex, oblivious to her iconic status. In September 2008, the Croydon Guardian appealed for information about the model and, more than a year later, we managed to track her down.

The story of how the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit convinced The Croydon Guardian to assign some place in its columns for the Iggy enigma can be found at Where did she go? and (I've got my) Mojo (working...).

She inspired artist Anthony Stern, who filmed her dancing in Battersea Park and also took striking photographs of her on a houseboat in Chelsea. They were released at the City Wakes festival – a tribute to Syd Barrett – in October 2008, in Cambridge.

The above has of course been extendedly covered by the Church as well: Anthony Stern.

Mr Stern said: “Iggy was my muse. I met her at a Hendrix gig at the Speakeasy. She entirely captures the spirit of the Sixties, living for the moment, carefree.”

Jimi Hendrix gigged quite a few times at The Speakeasy and was spotted there on other occasions as well, for instance on the 22nd of February when he attended a press conference for The Soft Machine.

Jimi Hendrix

The club has been described in the (excellent) London Live book from Tony Bacon as follows (most information about the club has been taken from that book).

When The Speakeasy was opened by Roy Flynn around the end of 1966 in Margaret Street, just north of Soho, the rock elite soon discovered a handy new watering hole, a prime early-hours jamming post, and an altogether useful hanging-out kind of place.

By May 1967 the club was part of the London spot-the-celebrity circle next to - amongst others - the Scotch (of St. James) and of course the Crom. On a good night you could having a drink next to The Bee Gees, Jeff Beck or The Who, although, keeping up his avant-garde experimental jazz appearance, Robert Wyatt from The Soft Machine couldn't care less: "Rock groups meeting in expensive clubs that are difficult to get into? What's all that crap?"

On the 19th of January 1967 Jimi Hendrix gave the first of 3 concerts at The Speak. On top of that he would also jam a few times with other people on stage, including Jose Feliciano and Georgie Fame. That night in January he tried to get into Marianne Faithfull's pants with the seductive remark: "What are you doing with this jerk, anyway?" The jerk in question was of course Mick Jagger who wanted to check out the new kid in town.

Yes-fans will know the club for its owner Roy Flynn. When, on the 13th of December 1968, Sly And The Family Stone didn't show up for their gig an impromptu band was found to take their place. When Roy Flynn saw Yes's performance he was so thrilled that he became their manager for a while. The band eagerly agreed, not because he had some managerial skills but because the restaurant at The Speak had an excellent reputation:

Roy had never managed a band before and he kind of took us on and then the whole world of the Speakeasy opened up (laugh). It was a great club, I mean, it was a wonderful club, it used to close at 4 AM and we would not only rehearse there, we would play there some nights, and of course after a gig if we were playing within, let's say 150 miles from London, we would rush and go to the Speakeasy and eat there, and most of the meals were completely free. So for about a year I ate pretty good. Most of the evenings I ate there. Because that was the life style, we would be in the Speakeasy after 3 AM and the kitchen still would be opened and the food was not fantastic but thanks to Roy Flynn we would get free food and quite a lot of few drinks as well. (Peter Banks, who invented the band's name and left the group in 1970)

The extensive Jimi Hendrix gig database located at Rich Dickinson only mentions 3 genuine Jimi Hendrix performances in 1967: the aforementioned gig on the 19th of January 1967 and two more in March: 8th March 1967 and 21st March 1967. So Iggy (and Anthony Stern) must have attended one of these. For the completists amongst us the Church gives now the complete list of Hendrix sightings at the Speakeasy (1967):
67-01-19: Gig.
67-02-22: Press reception for the Soft Machine.
67-03-08: Gig.
67-03-16: Launching party for Track records (Jimi gives three interviews).
67-03-21: Gig.
67-04-17: Jam (on bass) with Georgie Fame (on organ) and Ben E. King (drums).
67-05-08: Brian Auger Trinity Concert.
67-06-04: Jose Feliciano concert and onstage jam.
67-12-06: Party for The Foundations.
67-12-22: Musicians from Christmas on Earth and Hendrix jam until the morning hours.
67-12-31: New Year's Eve Party where Jimi plays a thirty minute 'Auld Lang Syne'.

London Live

There is quite an intriguing picture on page 103 of the London Live book, showing co-managers Roy Flynn and Mike Carey, sitting at the Speakeasy bar, accompanied by two ladies. According to CowleyMod one of the women undoubtedly is Ig. Although most of the members of the Church do not think it is her the Church wants to give Cowleymod the benefit of the doubt and the visitors of the Church the chance to make up their own mind (click here to see the full picture).
Update (November 2010): it has been confirmed to the Church that the person on the picture is NOT Iggy / Evelyn.

Iggy said: “I cannot believe there is a film of me, that there are photos of me.”
 
Iggy spent a brief part of the 60s living in Croydon with DJ Jeff Dexter, who used to play at the Orchid Ballroom. She said: “The Orchid Ballroom was the place to be, the atmosphere was fantastic. I loved going there, I loved to dance. Jeff wanted to turn me and two other lovely girls into the English version of the Supremes, but that never happened.”
 
She does not like to talk much about Syd Barrett, but admits she lived with him in Chelsea in the late 1960s. She said: “Syd was so beautiful looking. We had a relationship, I lived with him for a while.”

Although the Reverend is aware of at least four witnesses who have confirmed in different biographies (and directly to the Church) that Iggy and Syd weren't an item this is now contradicted by Evelyn herself.

It was at that time she became known as Iggy the Eskimo. She said: “In part I made up the nickname. The rest was the photographer Mick Rock, who asked where I was from. I said ‘my mother is from the Himalayas’ and he said ‘we will call you Iggy the Eskimo’.”
Update March 2018: Iggy's mother, so was confirmed to us, didn't live near the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range in Mizoram, Mizoram, situated at the North-East of India, sharing borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar.

NME, 25th of November 1966
NME, 25th of November 1966.

The Church will not deny that Mick Rock may have thrown around the 'Iggy the Eskimo' nickname to describe the mysterious girl on his pictures but the epithet dates from much earlier. It was first spotted in the NME magazine from the 25th of November 1966 (more than 2 years earlier) where Evelyn was described as 'Another Bender - model IGGY, who is half-Eskimo': Bend It! 

Mick Rock took the pictures for Madcap Laughs. Iggy said: “When Mick turned up to take the photos I helped paint the floor boards for the shoot, I was covered in paint, I still remember the smell of it. In the pictures my hair looks quite funny, I remember hiding my face behind it because I did not want my mum and dad to see it."

Again other witnesses tell other stories. They claim that Syd (with a little help from Iggy) painted the floor boards early in the year, certainly before April 1969. As Syd only started recording mid-April it is a bit weird that he painted the boards especially for the album cover, unless - of course - he (and with him Mick Rock) already had the cover in mind before the recording sessions started. A theory that is not implausible.

She broke up with Syd Barrett shortly after the photo shoot and moved to Brighton. She said: “I have just been living very quietly, I left London in the 70s and I got married in 1978. I met so many people in the 60s – the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart. I was a free spirit. I have left that life behind me now.”

The Church would gladly accept to publish her memoires though. But until that happens, my dear sistren and brethren, don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't have done…

A new gallery has been uploaded containing the complete Come with NME for a pic-visit to THE CROMWELLIAN article and pictures from New Musical Express 1037, 25 November 1966. Photographs by Napier Russel & Barry Peake. Words by Norrie Drummond. (Just another world exclusive from the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.)


Sources (other than the above internet links):
Bacon, Tony: London Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 101-104.

2011-03-13

The Mighty Queen

Eskimo Rose.
Eskimo Rose.

In January of this year Mojo published a (way too short) Mark Blake article about Iggy, who – in the Sixties - was metonymically but erroneously described as an Eskimo. There is a realistic chance that this blog, politically correct named the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, would never have seen the light of day if Iggy had been nicknamed something else.

Titled SYD BARRETT'S ENIGMATIC COVER COMPANION CLEARS UP SOME QUERIES the article actually added to the mystery, although Mark Blake is, of course, not to blame: Iggy is just mysterious by nature. And the more we find out, the more mysterious it gets.

The Church was erected for just that, to reveal the enigma behind an enigmatic woman but now that Evelyn has stepped into Mark Zuckerberg's limelight the Church has made a deliberate step backwards. Let it be known that the Church will be discreet about present Evelyn. She is not Truman Burbank and it is none of our business what she had for breakfast this morning anyway (bacon butties and a steaming hot cup of tea, if you wanna know, and the Reverend had some croissants and a cup of coffee).

Mark Blake also published an extended 'director's cut' of his interview and now the time for the Church has come to comment, amend or append on some of his poignant paragraphs. We will be cruel and ruthless although the reader should realise that above every line a virtual 'Well done, Mark Blake!' Church sign is blinking. A bit like this:

Well done, Mark Blake!

NME 1037

Before long, The Holy Church Of Iggy The Inuit, a fansite in her honour, had appeared, its webmaster, Felix Atagong, sifting through ever scrap of information gleaned from MOJO and elsewhere with a forensic scientist's attention to detail. Among Felix's discoveries was a November 1966 issue of NME which featured a photo of "Iggy who is half eskimo" dancing at South Kensington's Cromwellian club. (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 3)
Mark Blake
Mark Blake.

Mark gives the Reverend too many credits here. The Church mainly rips other people's ideas (not an uncommon practice with Churches, although they mostly prefer to rip other people's wallets) and the November 26, 1966 New Musical Express Iggy picture was not discovered by the Church. The scan was already floating around on the web. Neptune Pink Floyd, for instance, published it in November 2006, two years before the Church started.

However the Church did trace a copy of that particular NME, hoping there would be some extra news about Evelyn, but to our regret Iggy is not mentioned at all in the accompanying text (several scans of NME 1037 can be found in our gallery).

The Croydon Guardian

Believing that Iggy may have gone to school in Thornton Heath, Jeff and Anthony contacted The Croydon Guardian, who ran an article - So Where Did She Go To, My Lovely - enquiring after the whereabouts of the girl "who entirely captured the spirit of the '60s". (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 4)

Time to pull the plug of that 'Well done, Mark Blake!' sign above we're afraid, as The Croydon Guardian was informed by none other than the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

After the Church was informed that Iggy had been a regular visitor of The Orchid in Purley the Reverend googled and found two Croydon Guardian articles about the dance hall: In dance hall days (9th August 2006) and We remember the Orchid (29th August 2006).

The Church contacted Brian Roote, a historian from the Bourne Society who had been researching the history of the Orchid, but without success. Journalist Kerry McQueeney, author of the Orchid articles, passed the Church mail to Kirsty Whalley, editor of the Croydon Guardian Heritage pages. She replied the Church on the third September of 2008:

We would like to feature this story in the newspaper next week and hopefully it will prompt a few people to call in.
Kirsty Whalley
Kirsty Whalley.

Kirsty Whalley also asked the Church for a decent Iggy picture and here is what the Reverend answered:

Probably the best way to get an (unpublished) picture of Iggy is to contact Anthony Stern (former boyfriend of Iggy in 1966) who made a movie with her that will be shown on The City Wakes festival in Cambridge, so more than 40 years after it was filmed. (Taken from: Visitor at Orchid Ballroom - 1965 – 1967, mail to Kirsty Whalley, 3 September 2008 22:04.)

Kirsty Whalley took the information, given by the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, to heart (probably the first time in the Reverend’s entire career that a woman actually listened to his advice) and interviewed Anthony Stern who also donated a previous unpublished picture of Evelyn, just like the Church had predicted. She then did an excellent job by contacting Jeff Dexter (or perhaps Jeff Dexter contacted her after having spoken to Anthony Stern) and wrote a damn fine article: Where did she go? 

It took over a year for someone to 'call in', because in February 2010 Kirsty Whalley published the very first Iggy interview in 40 years that even took the Church by surprise (see: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea). What the Reverend doesn't understand though is why the Croydon Guardian journalist doesn't like to be reminded that it was the Church who gave her the scoop. So no pretty blinking Church sign for you, Kirsty!

From Dieppe to Delhi

Iggy's father was a British army officer, who served alongside Louis Mountbatten, and attended the official handover ceremony from Great Britain to India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharial Nehru in 1947. (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 7)
Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten.
Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten.

Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, born in 1900 and killed by an IRA bomb in 1979, was destined to pursue a glorious military career. Like so many of his aristocratic peers this career was not per se based on actual military performances but on the amount of names he had been given at birth. After a military débâcle at Dieppe in 1942, where 3,623 out of 6,086 soldiers, mostly Canadians, were either killed, wounded, or captured by the Germans, Mountbatten was given a new military playground as Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command. The Dieppe raid (unauthorised by the general staff) provoked a schism between the Canadian and British army leaders during the second world war and the mistrust would linger on for decades to come.

In 1947 Mountbatten was nominated Viceroy and Governor-General of India and his principal task was to lead India (separated from Pakistan) in a peaceful way towards independence. This lead to one of the bloodiest massacres the subcontinent has ever seen. Muslims fled from India to Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan to India and about 500,000 people lost their lives in the process (death toll numbers vary from 200,000 to a million).

Up the Khyber

"My father also knew all about Mountbatten's wife's affair with Nehru," she adds mischievously. During a spell of leave, he had travelled to a remote village in the Himalayas "where he met the woman that would become my mother." Iggy was born in Pakistan, and attended army schools in India and Aden, before the family moved to England. (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 7)

In the night of 14 to 15 August 1947 India and Pakistan officially separated from London and because this had been supervised so well by Mountbatten, he was entitled to another promotion. From now on he could add the title of Governor-General of India on his business card. In other words: Mountbatten was now the de facto monarch of the new state.

Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten
Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten.

Lucky there was still his wife, Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten. Her part-time job was to visit the refugee camps her husband was so kind to fill up and to hump India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, although there are some biographers who maintain that their relationship was purely platonic.

But enough politics. Around that time Iggy's father, posted in Pakistan, went for an evening stroll in the Himalaya's where his spell of leave soon developed in a spell of love. It is believed that in March 1947 the couple did exchange something more than friendly kisses. The Church always believed that Iggy was somewhat older than Syd Barrett (see: When Syd met Iggy), but this new evidence shows she is nearly two years younger than him (and, should this be of any interest to anyone, both Syd and Ig were born on a Sunday).

If Ig attended school in Pakistan, the family must have been there until early 1950. Although the country was independent several hundred of British officers stayed in Pakistan until the Pakistan army had enough officers to take care of its own. There was a 1st Battalion Wiltshire Regiment at Rawalpindi (Pakistan), with Indian bases at Amritsar, Calcutta, Jhansi, Jullunder (Jalandhar) and Lahore (Pakistan) but the Church's research couldn't link Ig's father to this battalion. The Wiltshire Regiment left the Indias in October 1947, but her father stayed in Pakistan for a couple of years longer.

Update March 2018: Iggy's mother, so was confirmed to us, wasn't from Pakistan, but from Mizoram, situated at the North-East of India, sharing borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar. Probably that is where Iggy was born and went to school. The 'evening stroll' of Iggy's dad did not take place in the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range in Mizoram and Tripura, India.

Map of Aden
Map of Aden.

The garden of Aden

It is not that weird either that the family was dispatched to Aden. Before 1937 Aden was an (overseas) part of British India and after that it became a separate British Crown colony, much to the enjoyment of philatelists from all over the world. It would stay under British reign until 1963 and in 1967 it was absorbed by the People's Republic of South Yemen.

Kids could go to the Khormaksar primary and secondary school (close to the RAF airport base), but there was the (Roman-Catholic) Good Shepherd Convent School for girls as well, the Isthmus School and the Selim Girl's School that was badly damaged in the anti-Semitic pogroms from 1947.

There are quite a few blogs and forums about Aden with hundreds of pictures of the fifties and sixties, but the Reverend couldn't find Iggy back, yet. The Mojo article has a picture from Ig at Worthing Beach, in the early Sixties, so around 1963 they may have returned to England.

London Underground

In January 1969 Iggy met Syd, thanks to their common friend Jenny Spires. The outside world didn't always realise that Ig and Syd became an item. Ig was unaware that Syd had been a pop star, but then one day:

He [Syd] then said, 'Would you listen to this?' And he bought out this big, old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder, and said, 'Tell me what you think'." Syd then played her the songs that would end up on The Madcap Laughs. One track, Terrapin, made an immediate impression. "I said, 'That's quite catchy', and, of course, I don't think Syd was really into catchy...It was a long tape, and he didn't demand any opinion, but just asked if I thought it was OK. At the end he said 'Someone at EMI - I cannot remember the name - wants me to make a record. How would you feel about having a rock star boyfriend?'" (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 12)

This may have happened in the weekend of 12 and 13 April 1969 after Malcolm Jones and Syd had started working on the new album:

During the tea break we discussed going back to some of the songs started the previous year, in particular 'Golden Hair', and perhaps 'Late Night' although the original version of that had been destroyed, it seemed. We returned to the studio and started work on another new song, 'Terrapin'. In one take Syd laid down a guitar and vocal track that was to be the master! At my suggestion Syd double tracked his vocal part, and that was it!

One day Syd Barrett disappeared from the flat and Iggy, in a jealous mood, fearing he was seeing another woman, tracked down her friend in David Gilmour's appartment, just a few blocks away.

"I went in, shouting, 'OK, where is she?' thinking there was a woman hiding in one of the rooms. But, of course, the meeting had been with Dave about the record they were making together." Barrett left Iggy with Gilmour, but rather the worse for wear, she knocked the stylus on his record player accidentally scratching his copy of Pink Floyd's brand new album. "I have no idea what album it was, only that it was their new album," Iggy sighs. (The likely candidate seems to be Soundtrack From The Film More) "So Dave threw me out..." (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2, paragraph 3)

Here is again an excellent opportunity to grab the Church's copies of Glenn Povey's 'Echoes' and David Parker's 'Random Precision'. According to David Parker Barrett had his last recording session with Malcolm Jones on the 3rd and 4th of May, while the David Gilmour sessions started a month later (see our 1969 calendar). On the 6th of May however 'a set of rough mixes' of the album was made, presumably to be handed over to Gilmour (and Waters), who had promised to finalise the album (it is significant that on that tape Opel, Swan Lee and Rhamadan are still present).

But probably Barrett, Jones, Gilmour and Waters had been discussing about all this before. The Church has always believed that Iggy left Syd somewhere in April and up till now Ig's visit to Gilmour's apartment fits nicely into that scheme.

Mark Blake wisely deducts the scratched record has to be 'More'. More was released on Friday, the 13th of June 1969, but of course Gilmour may have had a copy some weeks before. Another, but more unlikely, candidate is 'Ummagumma'. Although only released in November the Floyd had already been recording some pieces for this album in January and February, together with the 'More' sessions, so perhaps Gilmour and Barrett could've listened to an acetate instead. And of course the live tracks of that album must have been circulating amongst the band members as well.

But there is still another possibility. Margaretta Barclay told the Church she has a postcard sent to her and Ig at Wetherby Mansions in June 1969 so perhaps Ig's departure took place after More had been officially released (see: Gretta Speaks 2).


Notes (other than internet links mentioned above):
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 139-158.
Jones, Malcolm: The Making Of The Madcap Laughs, Brain Damage, 2003, p. 7.
Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd, 3C Publishing, 2008, p. 104-112.

The Church wishes to thank: Adenairways.com, Mark Blake, Jenny Spires, Natashaa' and the beautiful people at Late Night.
♥ Iggy ♥

2012-01-06

Antonio Jesús Reyes, a new career in a new town

Iggy Rose, mid 70's.
Iggy Rose by Felix Atagong.

First of all, happy New Year sistren and brethren of the Church. These wishes do not only come from the Reverend but also from our mutual point of adoration, our nadir and zenith, Ms. Iggy Rose. With every contact she proves to us that she still is extremely exuberant, hilariously silly and all together daft as a brush (all used in a non-pejorative way).

Today, the 6th of January, is a special day as well for Sydaholics all over the world and it rejoices us that Iggy has been a part in the life of the diamond. Our wish to you, dear Iggy, is not to change a bit, because wherever you walk rainbows magically appear. We take the small inconvenience for granted that our ears are ringing when we lay down the phone. Keep on shouting to the world, Iggy, not only your anger, but your happiness and joy as well.

Somewhere near the end of 2010 the Reverend was invited by the webmaster of the Spanish Syd Barrett blog Solo en las Nubes (Alone in the Clouds) to produce a so-called auto-interview. You can read the original Spanish version of this slightly ludicrous interview at Autoentrevista - Felix Atagong: "Un hombre sincero" and an English version was later published at the Church (Felix Atagong: an honest man).

Solo en les Nubes

So now it is about time for La Sagrada Iglesia de Iggy La Esquimal to return the favour. Antonio Jesús Reyes from the Spanish Syd Barrett blog has finally found the time to add his version of the truth and nothing but the truth.

Antonio Jesús Reyes, a new career in a new town

Antonio Jesús
Antonio Jesús.

Tell us about your Syd-Floyd connection. How did you end up living in Cambridge?

This is a short but complex story. I met an English girl in Seville whose mother was moving to Cambridge and I ended up going out with her… no, not with the mother! So, we decided at some point to move from Seville to Cambridge although I did not know what to expect.

Things began to get surreal when we went to the first City Wakes concert (2008). I was introduced to Rosemary Brent, and after the show we had a drink (without Rosemary). In the pub I introduced my girlfriend’s mother to a good friend of Syd, who had played the drums in Those Without (I remembered his name from a picture I saw years ago).

From that moment on, and for the rest of my stay there, these two years were sydbarretianly amazing. I nearly met every Cambridge mafia member in town. Two years after the end of it all, I’m still realizing that I was often ignorant of the fact that I met these people who had been part of Syd's and the early Floyd’s life.

So coincidentally Stephen Pyle almost became my father-in law. He told me lots of anecdotes. We talked about films, paintings, music and his work for The Rolling Stones, Queen, U2… I miss him most of all.

I worked with him at The City Wakes. One day he introduced me to Jenny Spires at Mick Brown’s and it was only after thirty minutes of conversation that I realized that I had heard that name before. She was quite kind to me and has an extraordinary good taste in music.

The Cambridge experience was incredible. My literary idol, Laurence Sterne, ‘studied’ where David Bowie played in the 70’s and… ...well, there are too many stories to tell them all.

My relationship finished some time after returning to Seville. Let me quote John Milton’s Paradise Lost, I can affirm that it is "better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven". My Cambridge bonds are mostly cut off now but I still appreciate the friendship forgetting they were connected to one of my idols.

How did you begin to listen to Syd-Floyd music?

I hope I can tell you in a chronological way:

First: in 1994 I was watching a documentary about the career of Pink Floyd. I remember someone saying something like “If we could make it without X, we can make it without Y”. I was reading or writing something while watching it, so I was not paying much attention. First there came a lot of noise from the TV speakers, which annoyed me… and then… a piece of music that was enchanting. It was A Saucerful of Secrets, performed live in Pompeii. It was a life-changing experience forgotten in a minute or two. I was a teenager, and it was summer, please, understand me.

Second: one day while listening to the radio, I heard a song that really touched me. It was 'Wish You Were Here’. I completely misunderstood every single thing the radio show host said and thought it was written by Syd Barrett.

Third: in a record store I found the Crazy Diamond Box. I quickly read the info and I remembered all I seemed to know about him. There was a mistake in the price as well as one of those boxes was priced 1700 pts instead of 7100 pts. You don't have to guess which one I bought.

When I got home, and listened to it, I did not like it at all. With the passing of time (a year or longer!!) I tried to listen to Opel and found that it was so different to the stuff I was usually listening to, that I got hooked.

By chance, a friend of mine lent me The Piper at the Gates of Dawn… I began to listen to Pink Floyd, the band founded by the Opel guy. At the time, I was studying English Language and Literature, so Syd was a source of knowledge here (Lewis Carrol, Hilaire Belloc, Edward Lear, James Joyce…).

With Stephen Pyle
Antonio Jesús with Stephen Pyle.

Wontcha tell us about your blog?

Why not? It all began when I posted Here I Go, sung by David Gilmour on a radio show. I noticed this post got some visitors and as it was the only Syd blog in the Spanish language on this side of the universe, I decided to do something about it.

After some entries I added a device to translate the entries into other languages. I thought that other people would be interested in some of the posts like, for example, the ones offering essential and very good bootlegs. I even dared to share a home-made compilation of the Have You Go It Yet? series. Things are growing rapidly and news is becoming the core of the blog.

I also wanted to share things that haven’t got a place in the project I’m working on, that is, a book about Syd… which is going to be a quite hard task to do. Time & money, apart from Pink Floyd songs, are quite annoying. I cannot say much about this yet. There’s always the bittersweet risk of giving up, so don’t hold your breath, or you’ll suffocate. I’m trying to do my best, I swear.

The self-interview section is my favourite. I got Duggie Fields, some Belgian Reverend and Kiloh Smith to interview themselves for the blog and others are in the pipeline. It is not easy as you run the risk of being misinterpreted when choosing the subjects. Basically there are only two rules:

1. Have fun.
2. Free subject matters.

What's next? It was a surprise when I found that www.sydbarrett.org.es was free… so my blog points to this URL as well. One problem is that my computer skills are limited. I need designers for the bootlegs and layout artists for things unseen in the sydbarretian world. The number of visits is high, the collaborators are scarce. The pipe of the pipeline is going to explode.

Why Syd Barrett?

His music works like a hyperlink (a thing he has in common with David Bowie). It’s because of him that I got to know some writers I didn’t study at the university. His musical influences are quite rich. By scratching the surface you end up knowing lots of amazing musicians and albums like Zappa’s Freak-Out, Love’s Forever Changes, the works of Kevin Ayers, and The Byrds to mention a few. It made me fully appreciate other genres like psychedelic folk and blues. Syd's friend, Stephen Pyle, showed me to appreciate blues. He used to play Bo Diddley (whom he met once!), John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Buddy Guy...

With Barrett, I learned to see what’s behind a song. Some of those, for reasons we know, were under-produced (sometimes, even less than that) and yet they have reached a kind of status that will make them last forever. You know they are quite good songs even without a proper production, even with a quite imperfect performance.

Today, we see the contrary. No matter the means musicians have today, most of contemporary music seems to suffer from a dance song fate and their perishability is faster than the yoghourts in your fridge. There must be something extremely special in those under-produced Syd Barrett tracks, rougher than demos, that makes them what they are.

Grantchester Meadows
Antonio Jesús at Grantchester Meadows.

Tell us about your favorite music.

Recently, I’ve been listening to Kevin Ayers a lot, and The The. Also The Beach Boys are on my mp3 player. They are something special. The sound and the songs of The Beach Boys have a special quality which makes this music a kind of healing experience, the kind of help we need to survive modern life. …The Manics, Travis, Maximilian Hecker, Sun Ra… Spanish singer-songwriters like Nacho Vegas and Diego Vasallo… Good old rock and roll, like Chuck Berry, Jerry-Lee Lewis, Elvis…

You could say I’m a kind of David Bowie connoisseur. I collaborated on Nicholas Pegg’s The Complete David Bowie proposing some ideas I found interesting. I strongly recommend it. Bowie’s 1967 album is very avant-garde, and very ironic.

In general, I like artists who are innovative, like producer Joe Meek, and those who can transform the past into something completely different or revive it in a new and exciting way, like Suede.

What do you think about the recent Pink Floyd re-re-re-re-re-releases?

Those are not my cup of tea. These boxes have so much useless gimmicks and several music stuff is simply repeated! The unreleased material of every album could have been compiled in the way of The Beatles Anthology and then everyone would have been satisfied. The Pink Floyd vaults seem not to be very deep, but the treasures are so hard to get!

I understand that EMI intends to make business, however, at the same time and paradoxically, they don't make their customers happy. So what’s this for? To get cash and disappoint people? It makes people eager to download the stuff instead of buying it.

I don’t need a Piper / Saucerful Immersion set. I don’t want those marbles, I don’t need a scarf, I don’t use placeholders (I got plenty of them during my stay in Belgium). I haven’t got a Blue-ray player. In summary, I don’t want to create more needs… Do ya?

Would Barrett have become a second Bowie if only?

The otherness in Barrett could have derived into something different from Bowie or the other way round, but never would he have become a second Bowie. They would have provoked some kind of artistic turmoil in the best of the senses. Along with Brian Eno, both are (were) aware that "music is where you can crash your plane and walk away”. Songs like Arnold Layne, so childlike, or Astronomy Domine, with such an exciting and new sound, were made with a goal. Bowie and Barrett are the kind of artists carrying that old Monty Python sentence: “And now… for something completely different”. That’s what Barrett did most of the times. Every Syd tune was different.

Best memories of England?

It was all quite surreal. I remember walking on the grass of Grantchester Meadows, having coffee in The Cambridge Corn Exchange, and feeling like in a dream I had never dreamed, just because I was there by chance. I visited every place I had read about in the books, like St. Margaret Square. I also did the same in London, the three times I went there.

I arrived there in a sort of tele-transportation. I did not have the time to think of the things I knew I would see there. And surprises came in little by little; I did not know the grass of King’s College was the one mentioned on ‘Brain Damage’, for example.

I remember working for The City Wakes, restoring old magazine adverts for concerts and saying to myself… “What is this where I’m in??!!”. The result was part of a collage by Stephen Pyle (again), and it ended up on the wall of a jazz bar (and part of a postcard collection).

But life was not always easy for an immigrant. All in all it was a beautiful and wonderful bitter-sweet experience.

Storm Thorgerson signature.
Storm Thorgerson signature.

Apart from the aforementioned people… who else did you meet?

I met Storm Thorgerson during one of his exhibitions. I had some kind of problem with him. I had a City Wakes poster with me he made the artwork for and he put his autograph on it. I was going to leave, when he said “you have to pay 20 pounds”. I said I did not have a penny! And he let me go in a… special way.

I had the chance to meet Mick Rock, but I did not make the effort to avoid another disappointment. Steven Pyle and Mick met… and… during a chat in a bar, they removed a Syd poster from a wall and Mick dedicated it to me. Stephen said he was a very nice person, to which I thought… “****!”, it was like winning the lottery without having a coupon. A good summary of my stay.

What more can you say?

Not much. Visit Solo En Las Nubes using the translation tool or read it like that in order to improve your Spanish. There are a lot of surprises to come, not only for the Spanish speakers. Cool compilations, some material to read (in English too) and lots of music recommendations.

In the meantime, enjoy music.

© 2012 Antonio Jesús Reyes, Solo en las Nubes. Pictures courtesy of Antonio Jesús Reyes. Notes & Introduction : the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Translation mistakes, typos and all possible errors are entirely the responsibility of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

2016-04-02

Iggy The Eskimo Girl (full movie)

Iggy the Eskimo by Anthony Stern
Iggy the Eskimo by Anthony Stern.

Update 2016 04 03: After the movie was 'found' on Facebook, it took less than 24 hours before it was deleted from Dailymotion. We hope that the original uploader will not get into trouble. We are currently trying to get a reaction from Anthony Stern and Chimera Arts. (More info: afterword.)


The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, that wacky blog with an even wackier Reverend vehemently tries to catalogue all things Iggy Rose, and although several pictures and movies have been unearthed since then, one important and most reverential piece was still missing in our collection.

Shot in 1968 by Anthony Stern, 'iggy the eskimo girl' (all in lowercase) showed Iggy Rose dancing barefoot through London, annoying the square folk who had to go to work, creating kerfuffle wherever she put her lovely feet and using something that resembles a smartphone, 30 years before these were invented. The movie with its Pink Floyd soundtrack, restored in 2008 by Sadia Sadia from Chimera Arts, was shown at the legendary The City Wakes in Cambridge and would now and then resurface on avant-garde film festivals all over the world.

The movie never made it to the 'big' public though and several demands of the Church to obtain a copy were politely refused. A one minute 27 seconds audience recording, taken at a Paris movie festival, was the longest version we had (Iggy, Eskimo Girl), next to a teaser from City Wakes (Syd Barrett - Iggy).

Cut to 2014 when Anthony Stern launched a new website 'Anthony Stern Films' with the promise to publish a DVD 'Get All From That Ant' containing his complete filmography (see: Magnets & Miracles). However the project came to a standstill and some spin-offs, like an Iggy The Eskimo magnet never came off the ground either (see: The perfect Xmas gift: put Iggy on your fridge!).

Since then it was awfully quiet around the movie maker / glass artist and frankly, the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit had given up hope to ever see the 'iggy the eskimo girl' movie in full.

Iggy the Eskimo Girl, by Anthony Stern
Iggy the Eskimo Girl, by Anthony Stern.

Until today.

This morning we were informed by an enthusiastic Iggy that a full version of the movie can be found on Dailymotion, where it had already been uploaded at the end of the previous year by someone who is internationally recognised as a Pink Floyd buff. Quality isn't too bad, although it isn't really spectacular either. This is due to the fact that it is an audience recording as well, taken from a 2010 film festival in Lille. Some cropping and editing had to be done and the audio was re-sampled. But as far as we can judge, this is the most complete version and the closest to the original.

In the same breath Iggy also mentioned that she, with a couple of friends, had some more tricks up her sleeve, but alas as the Reverend of the Iggy's Church we had to take a vow of silence. But watch this space if you want to be kept informed.

So for now, sistren and brethren, here is 'iggy the eskimo girl'. Enjoy and don't do anything Iggy wouldn't do.

Video down message.
Content deleted. This video is no longer available because it has been deleted.

If you dig deeper into the reason you get the message: The above video has been deleted after a copyright claim.

Afterword

After the movie was 'found' and published on the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, it took less than 24 hours before it was deleted. Uploaded at the end of past year it led a calm life at Dailymotion until it was found by a Birdie Hop group member, if our information is correct. From there it quietly expanded to other groups and on other people's timelines, including the one of Iggy Rose. Reactions were generally ecstatic, except for one.

It didn't take long for Stephen W. Tayler to claim that this was a copyright infringement. He is a mixer, music producer, composer and sound designer who has worked on hundreds of projects, including Kate Bush, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel and Howard Jones. As a partner in Chimera Arts he helped restoring eight Anthony Stern movies in 2008, including 'iggy the eskimo girl'.

Neither Anthony Stern, Sadia Sadia, nor Anthony W. Tayler wanted to give comments. (Back to top of the article.)


Iggy the Eskimo Girl at Anthony Stern Glass.
Iggy the Eskimo Girl at Chimera Arts.

Many thanks to: Marc-Olivier Becks, Rich Hall.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

2018-08-08

10 Mind-blowing facts you didn't know about the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit

Don't mind the title of this article as that is a load of bollocky clickbait, but today...

Holy Church Wordcloud. Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix Atagong.
Holy Church Wordcloud. Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix Atagong.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates its 10th birthday!

Would you believe that the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit actually started as a joke? And that this happened 10 years ago? On the 8th of August, 2008?

A New Religion

It all started with a fun thread, titled: Possibility of new religion, on the Late Night Syd Barrett Discussion Room. On the 4th of December 2007 Stanislav, an international Syd Barrett prankster whose Dadaist Photoshop creations even fooled the official Syd Barrett website (and who still manages to confuse Barrett fans today!), uttered the possibility of a Syd Barrett based religion. Dani proposed to name it Barrett's Temple, Felix asked who would be the holy virgin and Kim Kastekniv suggested it could be none other than Iggy.

The thread meandered on, not always in good taste, until Felix Atagong, yes - him again, came up with the Congregation Of Saint Iggy, adding a picture of Iggy the Eskimo, blessed by heavenly rays. (That Felix-made picture however, already had been posted on the 29th of August 2007 on a 'Syd and women'-thread and may be much older, perhaps even dating from Astral Piper days.)

Iggy the Eskimo, blessed by heavenly rays.
Iggy the Eskimo, blessed by heavenly rays.

It was more a joke than anything else, an early attempt that lead to nothing. A couple of months later, on the 21st of March 2008 DollyRocker (not to be confused with Dolly Rocker) recognised Iggy the Eskimo in a 1967 Rank Organisation Look At Life documentary called IN Gear (Late Night forum link: Iggy Shopping in Shops?). It lead to another Atagong comment (with the same picture):

That's it. I'm starting the Church of Iggy! Nice find btw...

But as procrastinating is a pricey synonym for Atagong nothing happened, again... but somewhere in a dark corner of Felix's mind a minuscule seed was growing into a tiny plant.

Picture: Dark Globe, 2008.
The City Wakes posters. Picture: Dark Globe, 2008.

The City Wakes

Meanwhile some people in Cambridge wanted to celebrate Syd Barrett in a festival that was called The City Wakes. It was announced in July 2008, asking Barrett fans to step in and join their knowledge, and a semi-official subforum was opened at Late Night, that was pretty huge in those days and would even grow more popular thanks to the festival. (The City Wakes forum is still on the web, and as such, the only 'official' trace it ever happened. Much kudos to Eternal Isolation for keeping it alive!)

The City Wakes is a series of arts events that together make up the first ever official tribute to Syd Barrett.

The festival was authorised by the Barrett family and organised by Escape Artists who tried to swindle the family out of Syd's heritage as much as possible. Potty mouths also rumoured that the two top dog Syd Barrett photographers, obviously we won't cite their names for privacy reasons, filled their pockets with their 'charitable' contributions.

The City Wakes by Storm Thorgerson
The City Wakes by Storm Thorgerson.

But of course, nobody was aware of this by then and fans were more than happy to be able to attend the festival, that would be held in October – November 2008. The festival promised a Barrett art exhibition 'The Other Room', concert performances, guided tours, music workshops, a 1960s-style happening, a Storm Thorgerson exhibition, lectures and 'talks' with members of the Cambridge mafia and Pink Floyd biographers, etc..., etc...

The motives for the start of The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit on the 8th of August 2008 have been lost in the mist of time and as such the Reverend needs to reconstruct his train of thought, but it is certain that the announcement of The City Wakes festival was an important trigger.

The City Wakes
The City Wakes (header).

Another Syd blog

Since the dawn of the internet several Syd Barrett related fan-sites existed, but many simply disappeared or merely prolonged their existence in a vegetative state. (A bit like the official Syd Barrett website now, we might add. Announced with much pride, pomp and circumstance in January 2016 and doing absolutely nothing ever since, not even correcting the mistakes that crept in at launch.)

So a new Syd Barrett blog wouldn't be that bad, Felix Atagong thought.

But why Iggy?

There had always been a recurring interest for Iggy the Eskimo at Late Night and, before that, on the Astral Piper forum. For those who are too young to remember, Astral Piper was a Syd Barrett fan made website and forum, run by an enthusiast webmaster who was apparently less enthusiast when it came to money matters. The forum closed down in 2007 when the internal quibbling between 'astralpiper1' and some unfortunate members became too distracting to go on. The website, however, was salvaged from destruction and a copy lives further on at the Atagong domain: ASTRAL PIPER Redux 2013.

On those fora, Sydiots discussed Iggy's 'history' and her disappearance since ages and some new (although very scarce) information had been unearthed with the IN Gear movie. As such there was already some kind of a small fan-base present.

The only problem, so thought Felix Atagong during a sleepless night, was that the scarce Iggy evidence was shattered all over the internet. “Wouldn't it be nice to assemble all information at one place for aeons to come?”

This question became even more pertinent when Anthony Stern hit the scene.

Stern and Barrett exposition, 1964.
Stern and Barrett exposition, 1964.

Stern and Stubborn

LSD-pioneer Anthony Stern had been a part of the Cambridge set in the mid-sixties, with beat poets, aspiring musicians and artists meeting at the local coffee-bar El Patio. Ant and his pal Syd had a mutual art exhibition, in the summer of 1964, above the Lion and Lamb pub in Milton. Just like Peter Whitehead and Storm Thorgerson he was an aspiring photographer and would-be movie maker. Around 1967 he and Syd discussed co-writing and -producing a movie 'The Rose Tinted Monocle' but the project unfortunately never materialised. (A Barrett-less version was later torpedoed by Pink Floyd manager Steve O'Rourke.)

However, Anthony Stern did make a few Floyd-related movies and one of those, using the Floyd's hit-single 'See Emily Play', was the legendary 'Iggy Eskimo Girl', a relic that had been hidden for four decades. That movie and a set of unseen Iggy 'triptych' pictures would be a part of The Other Room exhibition. On the 25th of July 2008 a teaser was published on YouTube and it is even more of a miracle that this is still online a decade later: Syd Barrett - Iggy.

Iggy Eskimo Girl stills.
Iggy Eskimo Girl stills.

From Eskimo to Inuit

Surely there was enough material now (and more would certainly surface in the near future) for an Iggy the Eskimo blog. It must have been at that point that Felix Atagong's mind went into overdrive and less than two weeks later the first post at The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit was published. That first post, titled: Iggy, was literally copied from a (now untraceable) Acid Mandala forum post at The Syd Barrett Archives, and turned out well, all things considered.

But why Iggy the Inuit?

Not out of political correctness, a newspeak term that has as much impact on the Reverend than a fart in a wind tunnel, but as an ironic nod, perhaps inspired by Metal Mickey's comment on Late Night nearly a year before:

Not to get all PC on you folks but, 'eskimo' is apparently not a very nice term and not commonly used anymore...the correct tribal/nation name is Inuit or Innu...so there! (Metal Mickey Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 7:01 am.)

It was clear from the beginning that The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit would not take Syd Barrett, nor Pink Floyd idolatry too seriously. Fun fact: the decision to call it a Church was directly inspired by a humoristic Star Trek page that listened (and still listens to) the name: The First Church of Shatnerology.

It was now time to boldly go where no Eskimo (or Inuit) had gone before.

The City Wakes (logo)
The City Wakes (logo).

(End of part One. Part two: Bang A Gong (10 Years of Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit))


The Church wishes to thank all of those who started rolling the ball 10 years ago. Unfortunately, many of them have already left the scene. : Alien Brain, Astral Piper, Sean Beaver, Bell That Rings, Mark Blake, Charley, Dani, Dark Globe, Bea Day, Dolly Rocker, DollyRocker, Ebronte, Eternal Isolation, Gnome, Juliian Indica (aka Julian Palacios), Kim Kastekniv, Little Minute Gong, Madcap Syd, Metal Mickey, Music Bailey, Mystic Shining, Psych 62, Silks (नियत), Stanislav, Stars Can Frighten, Syd Barrett's Mandolin, Anthony Stern, The Syd Barrett Sound... (Sorry to those we have forgotten to mention.)

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Links:
The City Wakes forum @ Late Night.
Syd Barrett festival "The City Wakes", Cambridge Oct-November 2008 @ Brain Damage.
City Wakes - Official Tribute to Syd Barrett Info @ Neptune Pink Floyd.

2018-08-12

Bang A Gong (10 Years of Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit)

This is Part Two of our 10-years anniversary post. To read the first part, head over here: 10 Mind-blowing facts you didn't know about the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

Holy Church Wordcloud. Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix Atagong.
Holy Church Wordcloud. Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix Atagong.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates its 10th birthday!

Ten years ago the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit started with a (big) bang, not coincidentally surfing on the waves that were created by the Cambridge City Wakes festival, later continuing on its own momentum. On the 8th day of the 8th month of the 8th year a first article was posted.

A couple of days later it's birth was also announced on the Late Night forum, the then leading Syd Barrett community:

OK, the old habitants of this forum must have seen it coming and the forthcoming Iggy the Eskimo movie triggered it a bit.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit

The first post is just a try-out (to check parameters etc...).
The second Bend It! is what I would like to achieve, a picture of Iggy and a lot of information about the who's, where's and abouts...

Let me know what you think of it...
BTW, all information is welcome... (and errorzzz)...
(I hope that the subdomain fully works: https://atagong.com/iggy)

Here is how the first header looked like, created in Xara 3D. (The 'vintage' old-school look was done deliberately.)

First Church header (2008)
First Church header (2008).

In the first year of its existence the Church published 37 articles (for those who love statistics that is 17% of all Church articles in its first decade). Those from August 2008 presented and analysed some of the Iggy material that was already available:

Iggy's presence at the 1966 'Bend' dance contest (Bend It!);
her cameo in the recently discovered IN Gear documentary (IN Gear) and (obviously)
her picture on The Madcap Laughs sleeve (Stormy Pictures).

For those who love statistics. Blogposts of the first decade.
For those who love statistics. Holy Church blogposts of the first decade.

The Orchid

After a hint from Mark Blake, author of the Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly, that Iggy used to go dancing around Purley and Caterham, the Church contacted (local) newspaper The Croydon Guardian, that had written a few articles about the dancehall The Orchid. Journalist Kirsty Walley took the bait, she interviewed Anthony Stern and Jeff Dexter and officially started Iggymania with her article: So, where did she go to, our lovely? (en passant making free publicity for The City Wakes and The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit).

First Church header (2008)
So, So, So, where did she go to, our lovely? by Kirsty Whalley. Croydon Guardian, September 17, 2008.

It gave the Holy Church a certain authority it didn't want in the first place, but it can't be denied that the search for Iggy was taken pretty seriously by some people (not in the least the Reverend who also started to believe in it).

The Other Room

In that very first trimester we obviously reported about The City Wakes festival, especially when it was Iggy-related. The Trashcan Sinatras commemorated Syd and Iggy in their song Oranges And Apples and several articles commented on The Other Room exhibition where Anthony Stern's Iggy triptychs were exposed for the very first time: Anthony Stern Photoshoot.

As far as we know, The Other Room catalogue is still the only official printed publication where some of Anthony Stern's Iggy pictures have been published.

Anthony Stern - Iggy triptych Anthony Stern - Iggy triptych
Anthony Stern - Iggy triptych, taken from The Other Room catalogue.
A mysterious brunette
A mysterious brunette.

Storm and Rock in the Woods, featuring a mysterious brunette

When the City Wakes festival ended the Reverend thought that the rest of the season would be more at leisure, and that we would have to fill our blog with book reviews and the odd obituary (poor Rick died in September). But Iggymania had taken its momentum. The snowball started to roll...

We were informed that Iggy could be found on another Floydian document, a Syd Barrett Home Movies compilation that had been shown once (and only once) before a 1990 Pink Floyd charity concert at Knebworth. The Church (with - again - a lot of help from Late Night members) could identify most people in the so-called Lost In The Woods movie with the exception of 'a mysterious brunette' who was seen walking with Syd and Iggy (Love in the Woods (Pt. 1) & (Pt. 2)).

A decade later she still has not been identified.

Daffodils and a paintcan
Daffodils and a paintcan.

JenS

Thanks to Julian Palacios, author of two Syd Barrett biographies and the administrator of a (now deleted) Syd Barrett highbrow 'research' forum, the Church was contacted, in January 2009, by the person who introduced Iggy to Syd Barrett four decades before.

This resulted in a few articles that brought forward some new and interesting findings, promoting the theory that The Madcap Laughs record sleeve picture had been taken in the spring of 1969 and not in autumn, as other witnesses used to declare in Pink Floyd and Barrett biographies. (See: When Syd met Iggy - Pt. 1 - Pt. 2 - Pt. 3 - Pt. 4.)

It gave the Church the reputation of being contrarious, but now, ten years later, this theory seems to be generally accepted. That you read it at the Church first, is thanks to JenS, our witness who wanted to remain anonymous, despite the fact that every level 2 Syd anorak knows who (s)he is.

Pontiac Parisienne (Blue)
Pontiac Parisienne (Blue).

Pink Pontiac

It would not be the only time the Church had to confront witnesses, who were high on the Floydian pecking order, with a 'false memory syndrome'.

One of the weirder ones is Mick Rock's theory that Syd Barrett had a pink convertible parked before his door, while the few coloured photographs actually show it was 'midnight' blue. A pink car would also turn light-grey on the various Madcap Laughs BW pictures, but they invariably show a very dark-grey, almost black, coach.

Also Duggie Fields, who must have passed the car parked in front of his apartment for months, remembers it as pink and has even painted the car in that colour, for the artwork that accompanied the Their Mortal Remains exhibition (2017).

Of course the Pontiac Parisienne, with license plate VYP74, was later turned into pink for its role in the movie Entertaining Mr. Sloane. This movie, however, was shot after Syd Barrett seemingly gave it away to a bystander, although some witnesses still pretend the contrary after all these years. Others pretend it was a 'chameleon' car that originally was pink, then painted blue, then painted pink again. You can't win them all.

Update 20181223: Iain Owen Moor (Emo), friend of the Floyd and the London underground remembers the car, when it was still owned by Mickey Finn.

Thought it was black. I went in it a few times in 68 (?) with Sue Worth, Mickey's then girlfriend. The car seems to have had a life of its own like The Yellow Rolls-Royce.
Syd Barrett and (pink) Pontiac Parisienne by Duggie Fields
Syd Barrett and (pink) Pontiac Parisienne by Duggie Fields.

Words of Hope

In May of the Church's first season, however, the Reverend already fell into a dip, because of... a lack of Iggy. Luckily there was Dan5482 who gave the Church a thumb's up, adding:

Despite all that collective amnesia I think that Iggy can still be found. There are journalists, detectives... who have found more difficult "targets".

However, an intense and widespread interest for her is a necessary condition. Your Church is a source of hope in this sense. It lets many people know that once such a mysterious woman existed.

His words unknowingly predicted the future, but that is a story we will keep for August next year, if at least the orange buffoon hasn't pushed the Armageddon button by then.


The Church wishes to thank all of those who started rolling the ball 10 years ago. Unfortunately, many of them have left the scene. : Alien Brain, Astral Piper, Sean Beaver, Bell That Rings, Mark Blake, Charley, Dan5482, Dani, Dark Globe, Bea Day, Dolly Rocker, Ebronte, Eternal Isolation, Gnome, Juliian Indica, Kim Kastekniv, Little Minute Gong, Madcap Syd, Metal Mickey, Iain Owen Moor, Music Bailey, Mystic Shining, Psych 62, Silks (नियत), Stanislav, Jenny Spires, Stars Can Frighten, Syd Barrett's Mandolin, Anthony Stern, The Syd Barrett Sound... (Sorry to those we have forgotten to mention.)

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥