2013-03-30 Songs of Praise
2013-01-01 Bend It (2013)
2012-12-24 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...

Iggy played guitar

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-(

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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 and 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.

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Iggy played guitar (2)

A couple of weeks ago the Church signaled that The Trashcan Sinatras recorded a 6 minutes and 41 seconds single commemorating Syd Barrett and his companion Iggy (Iggy played guitar).

The song is now available for download at the devil’s pit, better known as iTunes, but Amazon will follow as well. A percentage of every sale will be donated to The Syd Barrett Trust in support of arts in mental health. As far as the Church is aware of this is the only song that has a direct Iggy reference.

Lyrics

Evening sun in an English sky
Orange as the pigeons eye
No-one knew when you cycled by..

Oranges were made for you .... apples too, all made for you

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

Oranges... they fell for you.. and the apples too.. all fell for you

Light shines through
Brightest of all was you
and i just don't know what i would do without your light

Green wheelbarrow, Bikes, red and blue
Orange drawers that winked at you
All the colours that fell from you

and all the things that you went through
and now everything is enhanced by you
and the oranges were made for you
and the apples too.. all made for you

© and (p) Trashcan Sinatras 2008

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The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...

 

...and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

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Check out all our igmas cards:
2012 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2011 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...  
2010 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2009 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2008 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 

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Eskimono

To all followers of the cult of Iggy: a happy new year!

The Church received a nice mail from Anthony Stern last week:

I see that you have continued to update your website and that the cult of Iggy is snowballing. Although my Iggy photos were shown on City Wakes website nobody was interested in buying the framed prints.

If you are still looking for a belated Xmas present: Anthony’s Iggy pictures are on sale, signed, numbered and framed: £225 for the Triptychs, individual pictures for £175 (plus postage). For more info please contact Anthony Stern Glass. (The Church is not affiliated with or endorsed by this company.)

Another message came from Mark Blake, author of the Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly:

Good luck with the Iggy hunt. I spoke to Ant Stern and Jeff Dexter again last week. They're no nearer to finding her than they were before. I think it's funny that nobody even knew her real name.

For that matter we don’t even know if she was Eskimaux or not.

My good old encyclopaedia Brittanica divides the people that we commonly describe as Eskimo in two categories: Eurasian and Western Arctic people. The Western Arctic people are the Eskimo (including Inuit and Yupiit) and the Aleuts who originate from North America, Greenland and part of Siberia. Amongst the Eurasian arctic people are the Sami (or Lapps) from northern Fennoscandia and several other cultures dispersed over the Ural Mountains and Siberia.

According to the Narwhal Inuit Art Education Foundation there are no Inuit currently living in England (confirmed to the Church by mail). Is it more logical to believe that Iggy’s roots originate from Europe rather than America or Siberia? In that case Iggy, the Eskimo really had to be nicknamed Iggy, the Lapp by her contemporaries.

Translating these into politically correct terms The Church of Iggy the Inuit really had to be baptised the Holy Church of Iggy the Sami to begin with.

As Mark Blake stated above, we don’t know if Iggy was her real name. Iggy could be an alias or perhaps an anglisized version of a foreign name.

If she has Sami roots her name could be Ing, originally meaning progenitor, ancestor, leader – which of course she is for the Church – Ingegerd or one of the many variants such as Inge, Ingine, Yngva, Ingar, Iŋgir… The more popular Ingrid also has its roots in the Nordic countries and this could have easily been shortened to Iggy by her relatives or friends.

The problem is that not a lot of Sami people have the so-called Inuit look Iggy is famous for. There is however a part of Europe (although geographically it belongs to North America) that was originally populated by Inuit people and was later on colonised by Iceland, Norway and Denmark. The Church is of course referring to Greenland.

The Inuit are believed to have crossed from North America to northwest Greenland, the world's largest island, between 4000 B.C. and A.D. 1000. Greenland was colonized in 985–986 by Eric the Red. The Norse settlements declined in the 14th century, however, mainly as a result of a cooling in Greenland's climate, and in the 15th century they became extinct. In 1721, Greenland was recolonized by the Royal Greenland Trading Company of Denmark. (taken from Infoplease)

In November of last year 3 out of 4 Greenlandic voted yes on a referendum that could eventually lead to the complete independence of the country. About 88% of the Greenland population has Inuit(-mixed) roots. The following link shows a (slow-loading) picture of premier Hans Enoksen voting for Self-Governance in Greenland with 5 year old Pipaluk Petersen (added here to show the Inuit characteristics).

So Iggy’s ancestors could have come from Greenland.

Well perhaps... at least one other Iggy enthusiast believes she is not Inuit at all, but (partly) Japanese, probably belonging to the Ainu people of Hokkaidō (who had their own language and were maybe the first settlers on America). Iggy could then be a nickname for Igumi.

And aside from that there might be a very slim chance that Iggy hides behind the Philippine Maria Ignacia as another author from a Floydian biography has whispered in the Church's confessional box.

Update: the above post is somewhat redundant as Ig's mother came from the Himalayas: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea 

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Feel free to add your own comments, theories and rumours at the brand new Iggy forum.

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SBRS

The Syd Barrett Research Society forum has been down now since Sunday the 8th of March. This is not, to deny some rumours, due to SBRS, nor to the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, but to the (free) hosting company running these forums: http://www.hostingphpbb.com.

All the forums (more than 10,000 apparently) on their domain (and even the introduction page) show the following error:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@hostingphpbb.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

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Apache/1.3.41 Server at www.hostingphpbb.com Port 80

SBRS has contacted the server administrator who replied with a very dry...

Hi,
We are aware and working on the problem.
Apology for the inconvenience.
regards
(no signature)

This is what their website usually has to say about their performance…

Since august 2004, we have achieved 99.999% server's uptime.
Hosted by liquidweb - one of the most reliable dedicated server provider - our servers are guaranteed 100% network uptime and 2 hours of hardware replacement.
Our web network has been designed to accommodate clients demanding the highest quality network performance. There is a central focus on redundancy allowing our network to rapidly self-heal failures without interruptions to connectivity.

For the moment SBRS and the Church are waiting until hostingphpbb gets back online. But at the same time we are already looking for alternative solutions if the forums will not reactivate in the next few days.

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Tattoo You

In a new Syd Barrett biography that was recently published in France its author, Emmanuel Le Bret, can get quite lyrical from time to time. How this reacts, interferes or enriches the biography is a question that will be further investigated on Unfinished Projects but only after the current ruttish series of ArianeB walkthroughs is out of the way. But the Church can’t of course not ignore some Iggy statements to be found in a chapter well spend on The Madcap Laughs:

La cinquième chanson est Dark Globe (Sphère Sombre), un titre inspiré du Seigneur Des Anneaux. C’est l’un des moments les plus forts de l’album, une chanson où Barrett démontre une fois encore ses talents d’écriture.

The fifth song is Sphère Sombre (Dark Globe), a title inspired by Lord Of The Rings. It is one of the strongest moments of the album, a song where Barrett can once again demonstrate his writing talents…

Then, in fine French tradition, starts an in-depth review of some of the themes to be found in Dark Globe. What to think of the following:

Il y a une allusion à la drogue (l’opium que l’on fume allongé) et qui explique le vers suivant: « Ma tête embrassa la surface de la Terre. » Quant à « La personne enchaînée à une Esquimaude », c’est bien sûr Syd qui vit épisodiquement avec Iggy, moitié Inuit!

There is an allusion to the drug opium that is smoked lying on the floor and that explains the following verse: “my head kissed the ground”. “I'm only a person with Eskimo chain” is of course about his short episode with Iggy, who was half Inuit!

The opium reference is quite far-fetched and the head down / ground image symbolism can be found in several Syd songs:
I'll lay my head down and see what I see - Love Song
She loves to see me get down to ground - She Took A Long Cold Look
Creep into bed when your head's on the ground - It Is Obvious.

That the Eskimo Chain verse could refer to Ig is something that the Church has wondered about before in When Syd met Iggy... (Pt. 3) , but according to JenS, who knew both Iggy and Syd in the Sixties this is quite a preposterous idea:

Syd wrote songs and not all of them were about one person or another. It was his job.
His songs were more often a jumble of ideas put together to serve his purpose. I think it’s risky, even though you like the idea, to project this as it just leads to further mythologizing. Syd was not romantically inclined this way.
“I'm only a person with Eskimo chain” refers to the evolutionary chain, not to a specific person. He was on a very much higher spiritual plane, not so much on the material.
I find this idea quite funny and I just hear Syd roaring with laughter.

But Emmmanuel Le Bret mythologizes, to use JenS’s discourse, even a bit further…

Le célèbre vers « J’ai tatoué mon cerveau », qui fit les gorges chaudes de journaux à sensation, possède un pouvoir évocateur exceptionnel. Parmi les nombreux sens qu’on peut lui donner, n’oublions pas que, dans la tradition shamanique Inuit , il existe une tradition du tatouage (comme chez les Maoris) qui consiste à se tatouer le crâne en bleu. L’on peut interpréter ces mots comme l’allusion à un rite initiatique pour rentrer dans la « famille » d’Iggy.

The famous verse ‘I tattooed my brain all the way’, which was a splendid headline for the tabloids, has an extraordinary evocative power. Of all the significances one can find, we may not forget, that in Inuit shamanic tradition, there is a tattooing tradition (as with the Maori) to tattoo the skull in blue. One could interpret these words as an allusion to the ritual initiation to enter Iggy’s ‘family’.

Lars Krutak, an anthropologist who specializes in body adornments, has written about Inuit tattoos:

Arctic tattoo was a lived symbol of common participation in the cyclical and subsistence culture of the arctic hunter-gatherer. Tattoo recorded the “biographies” of personhood, reflecting individual and social experience through an array of significant relationships that oscillated between the poles of masculine and feminine, human and animal, sickness and health, the living and the dead. Arguably, tattoos provided a nexus between the individual and communally defined forces that shaped Inuit and Yupiget perceptions of existence… (Taken from: Vanishing Tattoo. An updated version of the same article can be found at: Lars Krutak.)

Although all the writings of Lars Krutak are very interesting it would take us to far to dig further into the specifics of tribal tattooing. Further more, regardless of the fact that ‘Eskimo chain’ may well or not refer to Iggy, who may have acted as a muse for Syd, rather than the groupie some biographers have made of her, she probably was not Inuit at all.

And as far as the Reverend can see, with his little piggy eyes, he cannot distinguish any tattoos on her body.

Update: some of the above post is redundant as it has been established that Ig has got no Eskimo roots whatsoever: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea 

Notes (other than internet links mentioned above)
Le Bret, Emmanuel : Syd Barrett. Le premier Pink Floyd., Editions du Moment, Paris, 2008, p.210-211. (Translations from French to English done by the Reverend.)

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Feel free to add your own comments, theories and rumours at the brand new Iggy forum.

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Rock around the Blog

One of the lesser profane tasks of The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is to check the amount of iggybility on the World Wide Web and to act (or react) accordingly. As the one and only keeper of the true faith this means that in very grave situations the Holy Igquisition has to intervene.

Here is such a case.

It came to the attention of the Church that the popular website whodatedwho.com has got a webpage devoted to Iggy. That is no problem as such, but a closer look on the page in question reveals that it contains some errors and some unaccredited links.

The Iggy picture gallery contains a lot of video-screenshots that have been taken from The Holy Church, but without referencing it. The Igquisition does not need any divine intervention to make this assumption as several screenshots have been taken from an alternative copy of the Syd Barrett home video that isn’t widely available on the web but that belongs to the Church’s archives.

The Holy Church does not pretend to be the one and only gospel and anyone is entitled to add his (or her) own interpretations on the web. On the other hand the Holy Church has the ambition to become the one and only godspell, god spell as in collection of (good) news, the one a bit more canonical than the other.

After long consideration the Holy Igquisition has decided that the true believer will find the Church anyway, so every Iggy webpage, even considered heretic by The Church, will be beneficiary at the end. But there is another matter with graver consequences the Igquisition has to look into...

The Who Dates Iggy page has some limited space to add links to other websites. The most prominent one links to a forum thread located at pinkfloydfan.net. The Who is Iggy?-thread, dating from 2004, starts with the following remark ‘these are some links to pictures with her (meaning Iggy) and Mr. Barrett’ and point to 5 pictures located at the pink-floyd.org website.

The pictures present at this location have been described here and there as Iggy with Syd, sitting in the back of his garden in Cambridge in 1971. To avoid any rumours of a Syd and Iggy reunion in the Seventies the Church vehemently wants to contradict this mystification. The woman present on the picture is not Ig, but Sheila Rock, Mick Rock’s first wife:

I met my first wife Sheila in 1969 and within about six months we were married. (…) The images were taken in Syd’s mother’s house to accompany a small article that I did for Rolling Stone magazine in 1971. (…) By that time Syd had moved back to Cambridge. The pictures were shot in the garden. Sheila took the pictures of me and Syd together…

Although all trace of Sheila has been carefully removed from the pictures in the Psychedelic Renegades book, with the exception of her hand on Syd’s sleeve on page 132, some uncensored pictures made it to the fans, probably through Bernard White who issued the Terrapin magazine in the Seventies. But to settle this matter once and for all: she is not Ig; she is Sheila Rock.

The pictures of Sheila Rock and Syd Barrett, taken by Mick Rock, can be found on the heretic Madcap page of pink-floyd.org. Please note that the description of the pictures is wrong and that the woman on the picture is not Iggy.
Syd Barrett & Iggy #1 NOT!
Syd Barrett & Iggy #2 NOT!
Syd Barrett & Iggy #3 NOT!
Syd Barrett & Iggy #4 NOT!
Syd Barrett & Iggy #5 NOT!

Notes (other than internet links mentioned above)
Rock, Mick: Psychedelic Renegades, Plexus, London, 2007, p. 98.

The Reverend wants to apologise for the - sometimes harsh - tone of the above text. It has been written by the Holy Igquisition, and nobody expected the Holy Igquisition, not even the Reverend.

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Feel free to add your own comments, theories and rumours at the Iggy forum.

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Catwoman

Rejoice, dear followers of the Esqimau, as The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates its first birthday. On the eight day of the eighth month of the eight year of the third Millennium the Church was born. That day two messages were posted, the first, a very modest one, was a mere introduction that was basically written by someone else, the second post however told the story of the first public appearance of Iggy, already nicknamed the Eskimo, in November 1966.

Ig, as the Church prefers to call her now, was spotted by NME on a party in the presence of Patrick Kerr, the main choreographer of the Ready Steady Go!-show, one hit wonders Twinkle and Adrienne Posta, Frank Allen from the Searchers and Mick Jagger wannabee Chris Farlowe. Already then she was about a mover and could bend it better than Wickham. (Read the article here: Bend It!)

It is possible that Ig was a dancer / guest / visitor at a couple of Ready Steady Go!-shows, but the Church’s investigations have only found circumstantial evidence of that. The Church is still trying to get hold of some courageous witnesses who want to testify this before the Holy Igquisition. Also present at the NME party was pop-PR-publicist Simon Hayes who may have made the aspiring model believe that he was her agent. Up till now The Church couldn’t trace the man although several attempts to contact him have been made.

But this is no time for grief, let us rejoice, rejoice, as today, so declares the Church, is Ig’s day. And celebrate we will…

In the summer of 2006 Denis Combet, professor at Brandon University, wrote a collection of poems as a tribute to the musician and painter Roger Keith Barrett who passed away in Cambridge on the 7th of July 2006. The poems highlight the life of the young artist as a nonconformist who preferred – or was forced – to withdraw from the music world for a more humble existence.

About a year later, part of the collection was published under the title Guitars and Dust Dancing, in the student webzine Ecclectica, together with art work from Lou Visentin and music from Pascal Mascheroni.

The poems describe fragments of Barrett’s life, his youth, his hometown, his friends and relatives and the collection contain poems dedicated to and inspired by David Gilmour, Gala Pinion, Lindsay Corner, Nick Mason, Rick Wright, Roger Waters, Rosemary Breen and Winifred Barrett. And one of them From Quetesh to Bastet is all about Ig.

From Quetesh to Bastet  
 
Quetesh,
Majestic.
 
Iggy the Eskimo,
Girl of space.
 
Often very alone,
But always a friend.
 
Star fallen from the black sky:
Solar, solitary, solstice, soloist.
 
Pale blue crystal dawn, pearl wine dusk.
A mauve Venus, disrobed on the silk orange milky way.
 
Magical music, medieval Median, magnetic:
Even in worlds where love is impossible.
 
Transcended, transparent, translucent, transitory:
Life together unconditionally and forever.
 
And that black cat caressing him with a glance, the night.
The malefic vision of Lucifer Sam.
 
© Denis Combet, English translation by Constance Cartmill (2007). Previously published at: Guitars and Dust Dancing.

Denis Combet had originally written the poetic cycle in French and when the Reverend contacted him to get permission to publish the above the Church also asked for the original to be published as well. It is with great proudness that we hereafter present the original version of the Iggy poem that, as far as we know, has never been published before… Just another world exclusive of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

De Quétesh à Bastet
 
Quétesh,
Impériale.
 
Iggy l’Esquimo,
Fille de l’espace.
 
Souvent très seule,
Mais toujours amie.
 
Étoile tombée du ciel noir:
Solaire, solitaire, solstice, soliste
 
Aube de cristal bleu pâle, crépuscule de vin de perles.
Une Vénus mauve, dénudée sur voie lactée de soie orangée.
 
Musique magique, médique médiévale, magnétique:
Même dans des univers où l’amour est impossible.
 
Transcendée, transparente, translucide, transitoire:
La vie ensemble sans détours et pour toujours.
 
Et ce chat noir qui le caresse du regard, la nuit.
La vision maléfique de Lucifer Sam.
 
© Denis Combet, 2006. Previously unpublished.

Originally it was planned to launch a separate website (now a dead link) in 2008 containing the complete works (poems, music and art) and to publish the cycle in book form. But due to the high costs involved to print an art book the author is still looking for a publisher who would be interested. For the time being the Reverend wants to invite you all to read the poems, have a look at the artwork and listen to the music at Ecclectica: Guitars and Dust Dancing.

The Reverend wants to thank Dr. Denis Combet for his permission to publish the Ig poems on this space. And with this final message comes an end to the official proceedings of the first anniversary of The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Let's have some booze and party! Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice but… to carry on… A la prochaine, my friends, et ne fait pas ce que Iggy ne ferait pas…

Notes:
Born in Marseille, France in 1955, Professor Denis Combet holds a doctorate from the Universit de Nancy II. Since 1975 he works in Canada at the University of Manitoba, the College Universitaire de Saint-Boniface, and the University of Victoria. He is currently an associate professor in Arts > Languages at Brandon University (Brandon, Manitoba, Canada).

Dr. Denis Combet is (co-)author of several historical works and articles:
º Gabriel Dumont, Mémoires/Memoirs was nominated by the Manitoba Writing and Publishing Awards for the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award, Winnipeg 2007.
º In Search for the Western Sea/A la recherche de la mer de l’Ouest, mémoires choisis de La Vérendrye, Selected journals of La Vérendrye was selected by The Globe and Mail (November 24, 2001, p. D 40) among the «Best of the year» 2001, in the category Gift-History. It was nominated by the Manitoba Writing and Publishing Awards, for five awards, and won two, Best Design, and the Mac Williams Awards, for best Popular History book.

The above poems are the property of Denis Combet and are protected by international copyright laws. You may not reproduce, modify, distribute or republish materials contained on this site (either directly or by linking) without prior written permission from the author.

Guitars and Dust Dancing. Poems to Syd Barrett, written by Denis Combet, translated by Constance Cartmill, illustrated by Jean Vouillon and music by Pascal Mascheroni. All texts © Denis Combet, 2007. Poèmes a Syd Barrett, écrits par Denis Combet, traduits par Constance Cartmill, illustrés par Jean Vouillon et musique par Pascal Mascheroni. Tous les textes © Denis Combet, 2007.

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Authorised subsidiaries:
The Holy Chuch of Iggy the Inuit forum located at the Syd Barrett Research Society (SBRS)
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Youtube channel
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Facebook Fanpage

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The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...

 

...and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

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Check out all our igmas cards:
2012 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2011 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...  
2010 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2009 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2008 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 

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Back to the future...

First of all, happy 2010 to all brethren and sistren of our Church!

It was in the Seventies that Bernard White’s Syd Barrett Appreciation Society and its fanzine Terrapin died a silent dead because of what was later described as ‘lack of Syd’.

There has been fear that The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit would also vaporize into a state of oblivion for ‘lack of Ig’. The Reverend however assures this will not be the case. Although about all there is to find about Ig has been published on this holy place there are still enough spin-off scenarios to make a Star Trek producer grow pointed ears. Of course the Church will still be looking for Ig but, and that is primordial, it may never slide down into a witch-hunt. Confucius once said that the quest for a goal is more important than to reach it. On second thought that could have been Obi-Wan Kenobi as well.

In 2010 the Church will further publish articles about The Cromwellian (the bar where Ig was first spotted) and has (some very premature) plans to dedicate some of its space to the Ready Steady Go!-phenomenon.

And of course the Reverend will go on lobbying at Chimera Arts to finally release the Iggy, Eskimo Girl movie if the judges will be willing to ease his restraining order a bit.

So far for the New Year’s resolution list of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Watch this space, my sistren and brethren, and don’t you do anything that Ig wouldn’t have done.

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All about Evelyn

Nothing is so stupid as New Year resolutions, especially when you read them when the katzenjammer is over. On the second of January of 2010 the Reverend uttered the fear that the Church would soon disappear by lack of Ig. If this meant one single thing it is that the Reverend is by no means a reliable prophet.

The March edition of the music magazine Mojo, that mysteriously appeared in January 2010, had a 14 pages cover story about the Syd Barrett album The Madcap Laughs that was finally released in January 1970 after nearly twenty months of tinkering. Its main article I'm Not Here (Pat Gilbert) gave the portrait of the artist as a young man and his struggle to get his first solo album done. A small insert Who's That Girl (Mark Blake) tried to reveal some of the mysteries around Iggy The Eskimo, but to no avail (more questions were raised then answered, see: (I've got my) Mojo (working...). Last, but not least, In My Room (Paul Drummond) gave some background information about The Madcap Laughs photo shoot, interviewing Duggie Fields, Storm Thorgerson, inevitably Mick Rock and en passant citing Jenny Spires and the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit (but not in so many words, see Goofer Dust [(I've got my) Mojo (working)... Part 2] .

(For your information: the complete Mojo article can be downloaded quite legally and for free at the official Syd Barrett website: direct link to the scanned pdf document.)

It needs to be said that the Mojo article achieved in two week time what the Church couldn't achieve in two years: finding Iggy. On the 6th of February 2010 it was revealed that she was alive and well and living in southern England and although this news was covered by the Church the scoop arrived, noblesse oblige, at the Mojo offices in a letter from an acquaintance of her: Peter Brown (not the Pete[r] Brown from Cream and Piblokto fame).

Part of this letter has been published in issue 197 (April) and goes like this:

One woman,
with many faces

Re Iggy’s whereabouts, I can enlighten you a little on her post-Madcap life. I first met Iggy - her real name was Evelyn - in the early ’70s, when she arrived from the King’s Road to the house where I lived in Brighton with a miscellany of artists and eccentrics.

I spent a lot of time with Iggy including nights ‘on the town’. She was a loose cannon, absolutely stunning, and fab company I soon discovered that it was none other than Iggy gracing my copy of The Madcap Laughs, and told her that Syd had been a peer of mine in Cambridge. I also knew Jenny Spires (who introduced Iggy to Syd), and saw Pink Floyd at various venues. I spent an evening with Syd once and we walked back together to our respective homes near Cherry Hinton in stoned stupor.

In the mid ’80s I learned that Iggy was living in Sussex and working at a racing stables, where she married a farmhand. She’s since kept her whereabouts quiet, though a friend at the stables, who I spoke to recently informs me of Iggy’s low-key flamboyance in the area. There are a wealth of other stories, but brevity forbids!

Next to Brown aka Thongman, Jenny Spires decided to comment as well:

I struggle,
you collaborate

I’ve read your Syd article and there are two or three things to correct. First, I met Iggy [the Eskimo] in 1966, not 1969 as stated. Also, the floor was painted as soon as Syd moved into Wetherby Mansions, and was already done when I was there. Part of it, under the bed, wasn’t finished, but was done by the time I left in early 1969. I don’t think it was painted with a photoshoot in mind. Also, in the larger photo, the daffodils look quite fresh, but in the photo used for the cover they are dead. This seems to suggest that that photo was done a couple of weeks later?

With reference to Mandrax - there were no Mandrax in the flat at this stage. These came later, around early summer. This is not to say Syd had never had Mandrax, but they weren’t readily available to him at that time.

It seems now that there is enough material left for the Church to go on with its mission for the next lustrum. So keep watching this space and remember, don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't have done.

The Reverend wants to thank Mojo for donating a copy of the April issue to the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Thanks guys!

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We are all made of stars

History, as we know it, is the story of royalty and generals and does not contain the memory of the millions who succumbed or who tried to build a normal life.

This also applies to modern popular history. Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett biographies and the so-called Sixties counter-culture studies that have appeared all repeat the memories of a small, nearly incestuous, circle of people who made it, one way or another. You always stumble upon those who have become the royalty and generals of the Underground. Others are less known, the lower rank officers, but still officers.

Other people had less luck, but at least we know some of their stories. Syd Barrett, although a millionaire in pounds, still is the prototype of the drug-burned psychedelic rock star. But there are other members of the Sixties Cambridge mafia, a term coined by David Gilmour, who didn’t make it and whose stories are less known.

Pip

Ian Pip Carter, whose career started in Cambridge in the early Sixties as pill pusher, had to fight a heroine addiction for most of his life. After a visit to his friend (and employer) David Gilmour in Greece Pip was imprisoned for drug possession where he was forced to go cold turkey but he fell again for the drug once released, despite the fact that the Pink Floyd guitarist send him to (and paid for) several rehab sessions. “The needle had dug so far; searching relentlessly for a vein, (that it) had decimated the nervous system in his left arm”, writes Matthew Scurfield in his account of the Cantabrigian London mob.

Described by Nick Mason as 'one of the world's most spectacularly inept roadies' the Floyd eventually had to let Pip go. He was the one who accidentally destroyed a giant jelly installation at the Roundhouse on the 15th October 1966 by parking the Pink Floyd van in the middle of it or, different witnesses tell different stories, by removing the wooden boards that supported the bath that kept the jelly. (You can read the story, taken from Julian Palacios 1988 Lost In The Woods biography here.)

In 1988 Carter was killed during a pub brawl in Cambridge. Mark Blake writes how David Gilmour used to help his old Cambridge friends whenever they were in financial trouble and Pip had been no exception.

People familiar with the finer layers of the Syd Barrett history know how Maharaj Charan Singh, the Master of the Sant Mat sect, rejected the rock star for obvious reasons. The religion was strictly vegetarian, absolutely forbid the use of alcohol and drugs and didn’t allow sex outside marriage. Syd 'I've got some pork chops in the fridge' Barrett hopelessly failed on all those points.

Ponji

It is believed that John Paul Robinson, nicknamed Ponji, a very ardent follower of the Path, tried to lure Syd into the sect after he had visited India in 1967. And probably it had been another Cantabrigian, Paul Charrier who converted Ponji first. (Paul Charrier was one of the people present at Syd's trip in 1965 where he was intrigued for hours by a matchbox, a plum and an orange. This event later inspired Storm Thorgerson for the Syd Barrett (compilation album) record cover and an impressive and moving Pink Floyd backdrop movie.)

John Paul Robinson had his own demons to deal with and in the Sixties he visited a progressive therapist who administered him LSD to open his doors of perception. Only after he had returned from India he ‘literally seemed to be shining with abundance’, passing the message to all his friends that he had been reborn. Ponji gave up his job, wanted to lead the life of a beggar monk, but his internal demons would take over once in every while.

He'd sit on the stairs with his elbows on his knees and forehead placed carefully at the tips of his fingers, reeling out the same old mantra proclaiming how he was just a tramp, that his body was an illusion, a mere prison, a temporary holding place for his soul.

The story goes that he shouted ‘I refuse to be a coward for the rest of my life’ just before he jumped in front of an oncoming train (1979?).

Kaleidoscope

We only happen to know these people in function of their relationship with Syd Barrett. Their paths crossed for a couple of months and we, the anoraks, are only interested in that one small event as if for the rest of these peoples lives nothing further of interest has really happened.

But the truth is that their encounter with Barrett is just one small glittering diamond out of a kaleidoscope of encounters, adventures, joys, grieves, moments of happiness and sadness. It is the kaleidoscope of life: falling in love and making babies that eventually will make babies on their own. A granddaughter's smile today is of much more importance than the faint remembrance of a dead rock star's smile from over 40 years ago.

The Church should be probing for the kaleidoscope world and not for that one single shiny stone. Syd may have been a star, but our daily universe carries millions of those.

Dedicated to those special ones whose story we will never know.

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press, London, 2007, p. 47, p. 337.
Palacios, Julian: Lost In The Woods, Boxtree, London, 1998, p. 85.
Scurfield, Matthew: I Could Be Anyone, Monticello Malta 2009, p. 151, p. 208, p. 265-266. Photo courtesy of William Pryor, p. 192.
(Thanks to Paro. नियत)

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Updates and stuff

The Holy Igquisition, that part of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit that nobody likes to talk about, firmly controls the state of Iggyness on the world wide web and on printed matter.

Thus, after their monthly congregation, held in a Trappist monastery, they issue a report that is handed over to the Reverend who will take note of its accounts.

Siren's of Sound and Image

So they had, for instance, noticed late in 2009 that the Siren's of Sound and Image blog had consecrated an entry to none other than our goddess. On Wednesday, April 29, 2009 that blog published a post aptly titled: Iggy and Syd: How I wish you were here. Its text sounded remarkable familiar but luckily at the end of the article due credit was given to the Church.

Vintage Groupies

More recently (2010-05-18), another blog, Vintage Groupies dedicated a page to Iggy the Eskimo, with its text largely based upon the articles that have appeared in the Croydon Guardian. Further investigations from the Holy Igquisition have found out that this blog has already consecrated 5 articles to Evelyn, the earliest dating from 2008.

Rod Harrod

Last year the Church contacted Rod Harrod, the person who organised Jimi Hendrix's first gig on British soil and made him sign a record contract on a napkin from The Scotch of St. James club. Before joining the Scotch Harrod had been the public relation manager (although that term probably didn't exist by then) of The Cromwellian. The Church was, of course, eager to know if he remembered Iggy who had been snapped, dancing the Bend, by a photographer of NME.

The Church is a little bit ashamed that the post, although largely written, has not been published yet but sees now the chance to pay back its debt. In his later career Rod Harrod started the South-African PROmpt music school and he has asked us now to vote for his candidate in the National Anthem contest for the FIFA World Cup.

Zami from Guguettu is representing Cape Town and currently FOURTH just go to: www.singitloudandproud.blogspot.com and vote for ZAMI now!

Gretta Speaks

Last but not least, a message from our own house. When JenS, who may well have been the person who introduced Iggy aka Evelyn to Syd Barrett, read our Margaretta 'Gretta' Barclay articles, she remembered that she had been involved as well with The Magic Christian movie (see top left picture).

Margaretta Barclay, from her side, found back a picture of Rusty Burnhill in her archives and gave us the kind permission to publish it at the Church.

Gretta Speaks (Pt. 2) has been updated as from today and contains Rusty's picture and JenS's account.

So long my brethren and sistren, and don’t do anything that Iggy wouldn’t have done!

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Julian Palacios' Syd Barrett biography

Julian Palacios, contributor and friend of the Church let us know that the revised version of his Syd Barrett biography (first edition, 1998 already) will be out any day now. So, for the first time in the history of the Church, let us celebrate a commercial break.

Update: The final title is 'Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe', and it is out 29 September in Europe and America (Source: Julian Palacios).

Here is a loud announcement.
Silence in the studio!

Syd Barrett, who died in 2006, was a teenage art-school student when he founded Pink Floyd. Famous before his twentieth birthday, Barrett led the charge of psychedelia onstage at London s famed UFO Club, and his acid-inspired lyrics became a hallmark of London s 1967 Summer of Love. Improvisatory and whimsical, Zen-like and hard-living, Barrett pushed the boundaries of music into new realms of artistic expression while fighting what would prove to be a losing battle against his inner demons.

Julian Palacios' probing and comprehensive biography, ten years in the writing, features a wealth of interviews with Syd s family, friends, and members of the band, providing an unvarnished look at Barrett s life and work. Author Julian Palacios traces Syd s evolution from precocious youth to psychedelic rock star; from leading light to drug burnout; from lost exile to celebrated icon, examining both his wide-ranging inspirations and his enduring influence on generations of musicians. A never-to-be-forgotten casualty of the excesses, innovations and idealism of the 1960s, Syd Barrett is one of the most heavily mythologized men in rock, and this book offers a rare portrayal of a unique spirit in flight and freefall.

Buy Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe on Amazon.

The official (still not updated) page:
Julian Palacios. Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe. Plexus Books.
320 pages / 60 photos / 230 x 155mm
ISBN10 85965 431 1
ISBN13 978 0 85965 431 9

(The Church is not affiliated with or endorsed by this company.)

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Octopus Ride

So busy, the Reverend has been, that he forgot to mention the second birthday of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Luckily there was the Holy Igquisition, sending him a memorandum on parchment paper. And a whip. And a letter of instructions.

Founded on the eight of August two thousand and eight the Reverend didn't know what a strange trip it would eventually prove to be. More than a trip, it was a true octopus ride taking the Church from childhood to stardom.

For the past year the Reverend tried to re-trace Iggy's footsteps and that not always with success. Knowing that Ig had once been to a Dusty Springfield party we asked Dusty's bass player if he remembered her. The answer was he didn't. We asked Vickie Wickham, from RSG! fame and Dusty's manager. The answer was she remembered hardly anything from the sixties. We asked Rod Harrod from the Cromwellian, where Ig was spotted dancing The Bend, but he apologised for not remembering her.

What the Church couldn't achieve, Mojo did. January 2010 saw the appearance of the March issue of that particular music magazine, dedicated to the 40 years anniversary of Syd Barrett's mythical album The Madcap Laughs. On the 6th of February 2010 the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit triumphantly broke the news that Ig was alive and well and living in the south of England: World Exclusive: Ig has been found!

One week later saw Evelyn's (her real name) first, and rather reluctant, interview in 40 years, by Kirsty Whalley from The Croydon Guardian. (The transcript from that interview, with some extra comments from the Church can be found here: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea.)

But the Church did achieve something else. Margaretta Barclay, who often visited Syd in 1969, gave an exclusive interview, revealing - en passant - that the controversial picture of Syd visiting the Isle of Wight festival in 1969 was genuine indeed. Also musician Meic Stevens used to visit Syd in those days, but alas, the Welsh proto-punk-folk-rocker had no further comments for the Church. His memoirs reveal though that the BBC filmed a visit of Syd Barrett at Stevens' house in Caerforiog, but that the rolls may have been lost: Meic meets Syd.

The Church will continue, at its own pace, to look further for people and clues that can explain the madcap's enigma. The Reverend recently revealed the (first) names of two women who knew Syd in the late sixties, early seventies: Dominique (from France) and Carmel. We would like to see these grannies talk about their trip, for sure.

But not all people are inclined to talk about their flower power days. A musician, who used to jam with Syd Barrett in his flat at Wetherby Mansions, recently told the Reverend:

Isn't it time this all ends?
This has been going on for 40 years now.
Can't you just let the music speak for itself?

But as any Barrett anorak will tell you, it is hard to close our eyes and just enjoy the octopus ride… now going strong for its third consecutive year... In the meantime, sistren and brethren, don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't have done!

---

Last year's birthday party can be found here: Catwoman, containing an exclusive (and unpublished) poem dedicated to Iggy, by Dr. Denis Combet (Manitoba University, Canada).

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2011

On Friday, the fifth of November, an entrepreneurial rock journalist of the best music magazine in the world, who happens to have written - en passant - the most accurate Pink Floyd biography in ages, met a mysterious Asian looking lady. Although this was meant to be kept secret the news had leaked to the headquarters of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit before the meeting even took place. Thus are the hidden special forces of the Holy Igquisition.

We can now say it is official. The Mojo issue of January, the 1st, 2011 will have an Iggy / Evelyn interview by Mark Blake. It will have a recent picture of her and - perhaps - an unpublished photograph from the Seventies.
Update December 2010: the January issue of Mojo (nr. 206) doesn't have the Iggy interview (yet), although Mark Blake is omnipresent with a 13-pages in-depth article about Freddie Mercury and Queen. (If you are still looking for a Xmas present: Mark Blake has just written an excellent Queen biography: Is This The Real Life? The Untold Story Of Queen, Arum books).

For the rest the Reverend is as anxious as you to read the interview, dear followers of the Church who not only visit us from the United Kingdom and the States (the mythical place Tarzana comes to mind), but also from the northern chilly depths of Oslo, the accordion larded ruelles of Montmartre and several unspeakable places in Russia and the rest of the world.

And late last night when the Reverend was contemplating his inner musings he was interrupted by the tantalising ping of an incoming mail. It read as follows:

Hello Felix.
I am truly overwhelmed by your interest in me.

And ended with:

Yours truly and eternally.
Iggy.

The bit in between shall remain a mystery for now, but hopefully 2011 shall start with a bang. Have some patience, brethren and sistren, and remember...don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes to thank Mark Blake, Natasha M. and of course... Iggy / Evelyn.

P.S. We have from a quite reliable source that the picture taken at the Speakeasy club isn't Evelyn at all. The Church apologises for the inconvenience: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea 

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The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...

 

...and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

---

Check out all our igmas cards:
2012 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2011 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...  
2010 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2009 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2008 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 

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Church Mailboxes Offline

For one inexplicable reason or another the Atagong domain mailboxes are not or only partially responding and that since probably a week.

Some senders may have received a warning note, others not.
Some mails passed through, others not.

The thing is that - in these days of recent Iggy activity - quite some people have tried to contact the Church (including perhaps Ig herself) and were (probably) unable to do so (and they may not always have been informed that the mails never arrived).

The Church and her Reverend duly apologise.

If you have tried to reach us past week and didn't receive an answer, please resend the message to the following mailbox: atagong@lycos.com.

Update 31st of January 2011: Apparently there has been a conflict in the mx records (& mxav1 & mxav2). The necessary changes have been made but it can take 8 to 12 hours before all servers in the world accept the new records.

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Reaction time

Prologue

Let's start with what you are all waiting for. At the left you find another unpublished picture, from the mid Seventies, Iggy was so friendly to mail us. The recent interviews at Mojo, probably the best music magazine in the world, by Mark Blake, probably the best music journalist in the world, has triggered a gentle snowfall of friendly reactions all over the web.

At night, before going to sleep, you notice but a few snowflakes falling down and you think: is this all? But the next morning the garden has been transformed in a peaceful white blanket only disturbed by the parallel stepping marks of a passing Lucifer Sam.

The Church has gathered some of these heartwarming reactions. Let's start with one from the city of light:

I’ve just read Mark Blake’s article and I am extremely moved to read Iggy’s words about those months with Syd in 1969 and extremely moved to see her on a brand new photo. She looks like an attractive lady.

Some elements are quite interesting : the fact that Syd wanted Iggy to be naked on the photos and the fact he decided not to smile on the photos are a great new perspective on that shooting.

Also the fact that she confirms she and him were together (which some people seemed to doubt about these latest years) is a lovely confirmation. And when she says he wasn't a dark-minded man and used to laugh a lot with her, this is so cute...

By the way, the article ends with Iggy saying she’s very flattered to discover she hasn’t been forgotten by everyone: what a pity we have no (mail) address to write a small message to her, to tell her that not only many of us hadn’t forgotten her at all but, on the contrary, her photos and especially the album sleeve have been part of our lives. (Taken from: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit @ Late Night.)

Questions for Ig

The past year several questions have been submitted to be asked to Ig, for the then unlikely event an interview would take place. Some of those have been asked by Mark Blake and were (partially) answered in the Mojo extended interviews:

I would just ask her what she remembers about Syd...
Dear Iggy, do you have anything of Syd's that I can have?
Did you think there was anything wrong with Syd mentally?
Do any particular discussions stand out for you... were they deep and philosophical, did you discuss current events or just what you needed at the market...
In his song "Dark Globe" Syd Barrett says: "I'm only a person with Eskimo chain". Do you think that is/could be a reference to you?
Maybe you have some personal photos/snapshots of Syd.
Was Syd violent towards you like he was with others girlfriends?
Were you at the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream at the Alexandra Palace? If yes could you tell us your impressions about that?
What do you think happened to Syd in 1967/1968?
What happened to you after you last saw Syd?
Would you prefer to be called Iggy or Evelyn?

Mark Blake added to this:

Off the top of my head, (…) Iggy doesn't have any snapshots of her and Syd, or any of his possessions (unfortunately, she no longer has the photo she had of the two of them, which he tore in half, mentioned in some of the books). She was at the Technicolour Dream '"all 14 hours of it!" - and tried but couldn't spot herself in the documentary DVD. She was also at the Isle Of Wight festival in 1970 (went with Twink of the Pink Fairies) and the first Glastonbury Fayre. (Taken from Questions for Iggy @ Late Night.)

People and places

The recent interviews show that Iggy met a lot of people and visited lots of places in Swingin' London. The Croydon Guardian and Mojo articles mention Brian Epstein, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart & other assorted Beatles, Who and Rolling Stones. Oh yeah, and of course also a bloke named Syd Barrett.

The clubs she visited did not only include the Cromwellian, the Flamingo, the Orchid Ballroom, the Roaring Twenties and the Speakeasy, but in a mail to the Church Iggy also remembers other places like the Alexandra & Crystal Palace, Annabel's, Bag O'Nails, Embassy, Garrick & Hurlingham private clubs, Roundhouse (Chalk Farm), UFO, Marquee, Middle Earth, Tramps (Tramp Club?) and generally everything that was located in or around Carnaby Street. Needless to say that we try to look further into that for the next couple of months.

But after the many pages the Church and Mojo have dedicated to Evelyn, it is perhaps better to let Ig speak for herself. She send a long mail to the Church and we hope she doesn't mind that we will publish some of its heartwarming highlights here. Ig doesn't have an Internet account so the mail was written and send by a friend. The Church took the liberty of omitting some names and places.

Iggy wishes to express her thrill and excitement for putting this factual and honest portrayal of her and is enchanted by your unwavering interest. She is utterly flabbergasted of the magnitude of it all.

Many thanks to Mark Blake, for his perseverance and the genuine way he has cared for and protected Iggy.

Many thanks go to Ig's wonderful husband and to her most trusted and loyal friends [some deletions here by the Church] and Z., who was there for us right at the beginning by printing hundreds of pages on her computer.

But some old friends from the past haven't been forgotten either:

Iggy also feels the need to mention the charismatic Jeff Dexter, who has given so much of his precious time by always welcoming and receiving all her calls at all hours day and night.

Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock, who created such amazingly beautiful images. To debonair Nigel Waymouth and the extraordinary couple Pete and Sue.

Many thanks and good love for the wonderfully exquisite description of Iggy. She is totally overwhelmed and humbled by the delightful memories of her.

Much love,
Iggy

Vintage groupies

Reading the pages that a good friend had printed for her, Iggy got hold of the Vintage Groupies website that also dedicated some space to her. She asked the Church:

Felix, would you do me a really big favour and contact vintage groupies (little queenies) to express my gratitude to all the lovely people who left all the nice comments about me.

Love from Iggy.

Immediately after it had been published several reactions arrived:

Wow, thanks so much Felix for the message, please tell to Iggy thanks so much from Little Queenies :)
This is so great, she is so kind to think about us :)
Warm regards to her and to you Felix
Elia & Violeta, Barcelona, Spain

Its wonderful, to hear from her.
Dancas

So amazing! Thank you so much for not only sharing the interviews but relaying the message to us here at Vintage groupies! So fantastic.
Lynxolita

Iggy the Eskimo 2011 photo shoot
by Chris Lanaway

The Mojo article had a recent Iggy picture, taken by Chris Lanaway. A second picture has recently turned up at his Tumblr account. Chris writes:

Here is a teaser from a recent series which will be viewable soon: Iggy the Eskimo.

A hi-res version of the picture in question can be found here.

This article has nearly ended, and we pass the word to Anne from Paris who passed us a letter for Evelyn:

Dear Iggy,

Because you told Mark (Blake) that you were surprised and flattered to discover that so many persons were interested in you (and I'd even say that they're your fans!), I want to tell you that many of us have got a great tenderness for you; you've been part of our lives during decades and were at the same time a magnificent mystery and a flesh and blood woman in Syd's life, two good reasons not to be able to forget you!

Of course, the fact that in these latest years, a great deal of beautiful photos of you appeared just increased the admiration and fascination about you.

I hope that the affection, admiration and fascination that many of us have been feeling towards you warm you up and that you'll stay in touch with us in any way you want ("us" means Felix, Mark, Syd's fans and even maybe, one day, the organization around Syd's memory in Cambridge).

Needless to say that not only was it a great relief and a great joy that you were found again last year, but it's also a great joy now to see new photos of you.

Friendly regards.
Anne (Paris, France)
(I've got the "Madcap laughs" since 1988, I was 17 then)

From an entirely different continent comes the following:

It was really nice to know that you are around and OK. My happiness is enormous! I’ve just loved your recent interviews and pictures. You are indeed a beautiful person! I hope you share with us some of your views and stories on those fabled years that influenced the cultural paradigms in so many ways and in so many countries. I wish you the best with all my heart.

Peace and Love,
Dan, Ottawa, Canada

And...

HI. My name is Griselda. I just wanted to say I am a big fan of Iggy. When I saw on your website that she was going to be on Mojo Magazine, I was so excited. I can't imagine how you felt!

You may find it strange that a 19 year old girl is so interested in Evelyn, but I really think she was a wonderful model. The pictures taken by Anthony Stern are really beautiful. She was such a free spirit, living in the moment. I think most models today are so polished up, their too skinny, or try to change their looks as much as possible to look like Barbies or something. That's why I love Iggy so much because she was a natural beauty, and she didn't have to try hard to look wonderful in pictures.

Take Care.
Griselda, USA

Space girl

The Mojo (extended) interview ends with an excited Iggy who phones Mark Blake out of the blue.

Last week, Iggy called to tell me she had found a poem online written about her by a professor at a university in Missouri. "And it's in French," she said, sounding astonished. "'Iggy l’Esquimo, Fille de l’espace.'...it goes. I never believed anyone would ever write a poem for me."

Although the professor actually lives in Manitoba, Canada, where the temperature descended to a blistering minus 41 degrees in January, the news arrived to him. Probably by sledge-dog express, driven by – who else? – an Eskimo.

In the summer of 2006 Denis Combet wrote a collection of poems as a tribute to the musician and painter Roger Keith Barrett who passed away in Cambridge on the 7th of July 2006. The poems highlight the life of the young artist as a nonconformist who preferred – or was forced – to withdraw from the music world for a more humble existence. They were published (in an English translation) in the online magazine Ecclectica of February 2007.

The Church got the permission to pick an Iggy dedicated poem out of the collection, not only in English, but also the original French version, that had never been published before: From Quetesh to Bastet / De Quétesh à Bastet .

Unfortunately these poems never went into print, because of the high cost involved for publishing poetry, that often sells no more than a few dozen of copies. But miracles sometimes do happen and hopefully we might read more from Denis Combet in the near future.

Epilogue

In the next post the Church will probably give a detailed analysis of the latest Iggy interviews, until then, sistren and brethren. We leave the last word to Anne from Paris:

I don’t think Iggy's mystery will be over from now on;
I do think the mystery that comes out of her photos in the 60’s just cannot die.

The Church wishes to thank: Anne, Dan, Dancas, Denis, Ela & Violetta (Little Queenies), Griselda, Jenny, Kieren, Lynxolita, Mark, Zoe, Late Night, Mojo magazine & Vintage Groupies and all others who commented and contributed.

Last but not least: ♥ Iggy ♥ and her loyal friends who pass her messages to and fro.

---

The Mark Blake Iggy tapes can be found at:
Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home (Mojo 207 article - hosted at the Church)
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo - part 1 (hosted at the Mojo website)
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo - part 2 (hosted at the Mojo website)

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Rockadolly

What a strange few weeks it has been. A new Barrett book was launched with a big Syd exhibition in London, attended by the crème de la crème of the Cambridge mafia, freewheeling dharma buns, madcap mad cats, Sydney fans, look-alikes and collectors, Late Night friends, the odd blurry rock star, unfortunately no Reverend and at least one thief, but more of that later.

(Drawing: courtesy and © Dolly Rocker.)

Syd Barrett | Art and Letters

The Barrett book, that the Church still has to savor in detail, but like Romeo thought he ought to do with Julia, the Reverend is waiting till the time is ripe, is indebted to (amongst others) eternal goddesses Libby Gausden and Jenny Spires, whose presence radiated through the vernissage.

Mount Olympus is a place filled with many splendors. For many it was an unsurpassed surprise when Iggy appeared, like Ayesha out a pillar of fire, leaving a trail of buzzed excitement wherever she went. She said: "Captain?" and he sensibly said: "Wot!" dragging Ian Barrett over to have their picture taken. Red carpet paparazzi asked her to do the famous Iggy pose and fans wanted her to autograph the Barrett book although she has, strictly speaking, nothing to do with the book at all. (Several pictures of Iggy at the IG (!) Gallery can be found at the appropriately titled post: Iggy at the Exhibition.)

Barrett, the book

There isn't really a trace of Iggy in the Barrett book, apart from the well known Madcap back cover shot that has been reproduced on page 178, but pages 114 to 121 contain a few outtakes of The Madcap Laughs photo sessions, wrongly dated as Beecher & Shutes maintain they were taken in autumn 1969. Probably autumn 1969 was when a second photo session by Storm Thorgerson took place, the so-called yoga shots that have already been discussed extensively on this place before (see, for instance: The Case of the Painted Floorboards).

Iggy revealed to Mark Blake that, on the same day, there was an alternative photo session as well:

I don't think Storm and Mick were very impressed by them. If you've ever seen the cover of the Rod Stewart album, Blondes Have More Fun, they were a bit like that... Of me and Syd. There were others of me and Syd, as well, which remind me of the picture of John and Yoko [on Two Virgins] which came out later. I'd love to see those pictures now. (Taken from: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2)

But despite some discrete investigations nothing so far nothing has been unearthed, yet.

La Gazza Ladra

That not all Syd Barrett fans are trustworthy holy men proves the following story.

Last Saturday, 9th of April, a self-portrait of the artist as a young man (page 187 in the Barrett book) was stolen from the Idea Generation Gallery between 2:15 and 3 PM. It belonged to Libby Gausden since 1962, who had received the painting as a present from her boyfriend Syd and who had lend it to the exhibition to commemorate the Barrett book-launch.

In a short press release Libby stated that she was devastated: “I am very upset at the theft of the painting, it has huge personal value to me and I am appealing for its safe return.”

For once the Barrett and Pink Floyd community reacted unisono, fans and foes all alike condemned the theft and promised to be on the lookout for the painting and to return it immediately to Libby if it would show up.

And the improbable did happen. On Tuesday, the 12th, the painting was brought back to the gallery which provoked the following dry comment from Libby (once she had finished jumping up and down in the air): “'I'd give it to you if I could - but I 'borrowed' it.”

Miracles do happen from time to time.

Iggy Fandom

Iggy has been a source of inspiration through the ages: Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock... and it will never change. The fantastic drawing at the top of this post has been made by Dolly Rocker from Buenos Aires, proving that we are all Eskimos in our hearts. Thanks Gaby!

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Beecher, Russell & Shutes, Will: Barrett, Essential Works Ltd, London, 2011.
The Church wishes to thank: Mark Blake, Libby Gausden Chisman, Dolly Rocker, Jenny Spires and the beautiful people at Late Night and Facebook.
♥ Iggy ♥

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AnthropoLSD

Let me start this review with a quote at the end of 'Anthropologie du Rock Psychédelique Anglais', a title that is so universal that I don't have to translate it into English, unless for some Americans, I guess. Alain Pire quotes Simon Frith who wrote in 1978:

The rock audience is not a passive mass, consuming records like cornflakes, but an active community, making music into a symbol of solidarity and an inspiration for action.

Obviously this quote should be branded on the bodies of record company executives all over the world, especially those that gave us the music of Britney Spears and other singing cattle, and who think that pop music is something repetitive, uninspired and slick (but alas not Slick as Surrealistic Pillow Grace once was). But this post seems to be turning psychedelic before it has even started, so I'll wait a bit until that sugar cube wears off a bit.

Anthropology of English Psychedelic Rock

Alain Pire is a Belgian musician whom I may have caught about 30 years ago when he was a member of the Jo Lemaire & Flouze band, although he won't probably remember that gig in the Stella Artois Feestzaal in Louvain anymore. Neither do I, by the way, I only have a slight recollection that I may have watched that band through a beer enhanced haze.

It was Jenny Spires who pointed me to him, noting that I would perhaps be interested in his (French) study of English psychedelic rock. It is weird that a member of the Sixties underground Cambridge mafia, a term coined by David Gilmour if my memory is correct, had to point me to a book written by a compatriot. The gap between the Belgian French and Dutch community is so deep and our internal relations are so troubled that we don't know any more what the other community is up to, even on a cultural level.

In the Sixties we would have called this divine intervention but I thank social networking services for bringing this study into my attention.

Anthropology of English Psychedelic Rock is based upon Alain Pire's doctoral dissertation for the University of Liège in 2009, counts roughly 800 pages and is divided into 4 parts:

English psychedelic music
Analysis of British psychedelic songs
British counter-culture
Psychedelic drugs

English psychedelic music

Paradoxically the subject of the book is its biggest weakness. Defining psychedelic music is like describing a butterfly's flight. We all know instinctively how psychedelic music sounds, but it is nearly impossible to write down its genetic formula on a piece of paper.

It is extremely complex to give a definition of a musical genre that is so protean as psychedelic rock. (p. 92)

Basically Alain Pire, or Dr. Alain Pire for you, doesn't get any further than stating that psychedelic music is music that simulates or evokes psychedelic sensations. It's a bit like saying that the girl above is nude because she has no clothes on.

As vague as the above definition is, psychedelic music does have some common points. It uses technical novelties that had only recently been introduced in the record studios and that in some cases were invented on the spot by sound engineers at the demand of the musicians.

One of these psychedelic sound effects is the so-called phasing (or flanging) that was already invented in 1941 by Les Paul but was largely ignored for nearly 25 years until it reappeared briefly on Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. The first 'full' utilisation of this effect can be witnessed on the Small Faces' Itchycoo Park (1967).

Another psychedelic brand mark is the reverse tape effect or backmasking. The legend goes that John Lennon, under the influence of cannabis, 'invented' the effect by listening to a tape that had not be rewound, but sound modifications and (reverse) tape loops had already been used in avant-garde music circles since the early fifties. Those same avant-garde musicians had also experimented with musique concrète, using acousmatic sound as a compositional resource, and with tape speed effects but, once again, these techniques were made popular by psychedelic rock bands in the Sixties, notably The Beatles who seemed to be one step ahead of all the others.

It is due to George Harrison that Indian instruments invaded psychedelia as well, first used in Norwegian Wood and later picked up and copied by The Rolling Stones, Traffic, Pretty Things, Donovan and others. I won't give the other characteristic instruments of psychedelic music here, otherwise there would be no reason to buy the book, but I'll gladly make an exception for the psychedelic instrumental gimmick par excellence: the mellotron.

The basics of this instrument was already around since the late forties, but once again, and I'm starting to sound like a stuck vinyl record here, it was re-discovered by English psychedelia. Graham Bond may have been the first to record it on Baby Can It Be True (1965), but its full potential was used by The Beatles and The Moody Blues who made it their signature instrument. For a while it was even nicknamed a Pindertron, after the keyboards player of that band.

Music Analysis

It took me a couple of months to finish Anthropology of English Psychedelic Rock and that is due to the second part where the author analyses 109 psychedelic songs. I had the chance to listen to the songs on my iPod while reading the book and that is of course the ideal way to benefit of the detailed descriptions.

Starting with Shapes of Things (Yardbirds, 1965) and ending with Cream's I'm so glad (1969) it describes the four heyday years of psychedelia. Influental bands and their albums get extra attention and a short biography: The Beatles (obviously), but also The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Pretty Things, The Soft Machine and Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd.

It struck me, quite pleasantly, that Pire quotes Julian Palacios' Lost In The Woods on page 251, intriguingly not in the Pink Floyd, but in the Sergeant Pepper section, an album that – according to both Pire and Palacios - started the end of the psychedelic era.

This strange psychedelic movement, blossoming quickly in an explosive flash of colour, already seemed to be withering slightly. Its momentum was to be felt everywhere in the world, but the original Big Bang, so to speak, was nearing an end.

Of course Pire can't write detailed biographies about every band, that isn't the purpose of his work, but the anoraky nitpicker in me came across some mistakes that could have been weeded out by a better editor or proofreader. Some examples:

The influence of science fiction stories will be found later in the lyrics of 'Interstellar overdrive' or 'Astronomy Domine'. (p. 289)

I agree with Astronomy, but I have some difficulties believing that the lyrics of Interstellar Overdrive find their origins in a science fiction story as it is... an instrumental. Alain Pire knows bloody well that the track contains no lyrics as he gets quite lyrical about the piece later on:

This track is more than a piece of music: it is the testimony of an era, a musical spokesman for a generation. When the band was in a good shape its open structure symbolised, on its own merits, the term Psychedelic Music. (p. 369)

Another mistake that slipped through is this one:

Duggie Fields, painter and friend of Syd Barrett at that time, still lives at 101 Cromwell Road (p. 293).

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit has dedicated enough space to Syd's (and Duggie's) apartment, located at Wetherby Mansions, Earls Court Square. Of course Duggie lived at 101 Cromwell Road before and that is probably were the error comes from.

During the year 1968, Barrett recorded his first solo album: The Madcap Laughs, with the help from David Gilmour and Waters... (p. 340)

Also this is only part of the truth, Syd Barrett recorded some demos in 1968, but the sessions were abandoned after Peter Jenner agreed they were 'chaos'. In April 1969, perhaps thanks to the the good influence of Iggy, Syd found himself fit enough to start with the real recordings for his first album.

But like I said, nitpicking is unfortunately enough the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit's core business and the few mistakes certainly don't take away the merits of this study. (But I would have a stiff talk with Gérard Nguyen 'secrétariat de rédaction et mise en page' if I were you, Alain, there are still too many printing errors in this release.)

Alain Pire doesn't only describe the psychedelic big shots but also dedicates some space to bands like Tintern Abbey, who only issued one single in their entire career or the almost forgotten band Blossom Toes. Butterfly flights indeed.

Echoes

Throughout the book Alain Pire has the funny habit of first fully explaining a quote that he has found in an extensive bibliography or from interviews taken by himself, then followed by the quote itself and thus merely repeating the previous.

I can understand that a doctoral thesis must be large and that some professors at the University of Liège may be a bit slow to understand but printed in a book this makes you feel like you are standing on top of echo mountain. (Of course it could be that he uses this gimmick as the written equivalent of the psychedelic tape loop trick.)

Even then, by deleting these double entries Alain Pire could at least have saved 20 pages, handy for an index that is now missing.

It must be a second millennium thing that scholars don't put indexes any more in their books. Alain Pire's study literally cites hundreds of people, but the reader is unable to find these back once you have closed the book. That's a pity. Especially as I like to borrow these things myself for my various web doodles. Perhaps it is another way of saying, look it up yourself, buddy.

(I suddenly realise that if I ever publish a Pink Floyd inspired book the people that I have duly pissed of in my blog reviews will jump on my back as a horde of hungry dogs.)

Counter Culture

The third part of the study, a description of the London Counter Culture, is a book in its own right.

Of course there isn't much new you can tell about the underground. Jonathon Green wrote perhaps the ultimate counter culture bible with Days In The Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961-71 and its alter ego All Dressed Up: The Sixties and the Counterculture and recently Barry Miles has added a sequel to his In the Sixties book, London Calling: A Countercultural History of London Since 1945.

But Alain Pire puts down some cleverly made points here and there, such as the following remark about the decline of the traditional British values in the Sixties:

Family, religion, marriage, faithfulness get beaten in the face and other values like sexual liberation, hedonism and alternative spiritualism emerge. These new values embrace individualism like the growing importance of one's appearance, but also, and paradoxically, new forms of group participation like the ritual passing of a joint, the sharing of sexual partners and living in communes. (p. 538)

Of course the Sixties counter culture could only thrive under the favourable economical and cultural circumstances of that period.

Counter culture can only live a parasitic life, meaning that it carries, right from its start, the seeds of its own failure. (p. 563)

Basically the classless society of Swinging London was a (very small) mixture of (rock) stars, young aristocrats and middle class youth who had the financial means (or their parent's support) to live outside the square world.

Psychedelic drugs

One of the many instruments that helped creating psychedelic music was a wonder drug called LSD. Alain Pire tries hard to give an unbiased, albeit slightly favourable, opinion about the drug that was, almost from one day till the other, reviled by the American and British governments.

LSD has been tested as a medicine or therapy by several scientific investigators but these experiments had to be stopped, despite the fact that most clinical test gave positive results, especially with proper professional accompaniment.

Of course LSD also had its negative sides, even more when people started to use it as a leisure drug, Pire notes about Barrett:

If LSD helped Syd in the beginning to reveal his genius as a composer, it became a real brake for his creativity and progressively sucked away his writing potential. (p. 324)

Not that the dangers of LSD were not known. Michael Hollingshead, one of the early LSD researchers, accidentally administered himself a massive dose of the drug. After that event he got the constant impression of living in a no man's land, partially in reality and partially in the twilight world and at one point he asked Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary for help.

While LSD seems to be the ideal method to open certain doors of perception it can turn into a living nightmare if these doors refuse to shut again, leaving its victim behind like a character from an Arthur Machen story. I may not think if this is what really happened to Syd Barrett.

Conclusion

The psychedelic era and its music is still greatly remembered and loved. It mainly arrived because several puzzle pieces, randomly thrown in the air, landed in such a way that they formed a nice picture.

Alain Pire divides these puzzle pieces into two parts: the pedestal and the components.

The pedestal of the psychedelic era was a thriving economic situation and a socio-cultural context that was open for change. George Harrison called the Sixties a period of 'mini renaissance'. Alain Pire rightfully mentions the art schools that were a pool of inspiration and experiment. The list of those who attended art school is long: Chris Dreja, Dick Taylor, Eric Burdon, Eric Clapton, Iggy Rose, Jimmy Page, John Lennon, John Whitney, Keith Relf, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Phil May, Ray Davies, Robert Wyatt, Roger Chapman, Roy Wood and Syd Barrett.

Three extra components were the psychedelic icing on the cake:
First: extremely talented musicians suddenly came out in the open;
Second: psychedelic drugs opened doors of (musical) imagination and experiment;
Third: technical wizardry made it possible to find new ways to deal with sound.

But all this couldn't have happened without the support of a fifth pillar: the public. Without a public open for change and experiment the psychedelic movement would have stayed a small avant-garde movement unknown to the outside world.

Let me end with a quote taken from the introduction by Barry Miles:

Anthropology of English Psychedelic Rock is the most complete history of that period's music that I have ever read. The author has to be complimented for his erudition and I heartily recommend his book to anybody who wants a profound explication of what really happened during the Swinging Sixties. (p. 9)

I couldn't say it better. Anthropologie du Rock Psychédelique Anglais is a damn well read and urgently needs to be translated into English.

Pire Alain, Anthropologie du Rock Psychédelique Anglais, Camion Blanc, Rosières en Haye, 2011. 815 pages, foreword by Barry Miles. 38 Euros. (Link)

The Church wishes to thank: Alain Pire, Jenny Spires.

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Sources: (other than internet links mentioned above):
Palacios, Julian: Lost In The Woods, Boxtree, London, 1998, p. 153.
Image 2: © Jenny Spires.
Images 3 to 8: © Glastonbury Fayre (1972). I'm sorry if you recognize your grandmother.
All excerpts from the Anthropology book have been translated from French into English by Felix Atagong, who is the only person to blame if they sound dodgy.

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Cut the Cake

Sistren and brethren, behold!

On the eight day of the eight month of the eight year of the third millennium the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit saw the light of day (read our first article: Iggy).

Its initial function, goal or intention wasn't really clear from the start as has been revealed in an intriguing interview the Reverend had on the Syd Barrett blog: Solo en las Nubes. The (Spanish) interview can be read at Autoentrevista - Felix Atagong: "Un hombre sincero" but for those ignorants who aren't fluent in the language of Cervantes an English version can be found at The Anchor: Felix Atagong: an honest man.

La Iglesia empezó como una especie de diablura. Discutiendo la (teórica) posibilidad de una religión con Barrett como centro en el foro de Late Night, mencioné la existencia de una congregación de Santa Iggy.

(Translation) The Church more or less started as a prank. Discussing the (theoretical) possibility of a Barrett religion on the Late Night forum I mentioned a Saint Iggy Congregation.

That was in May 2007, but it would take until August 2008 before the Church published a first article, triggered by Argentinian Dolly Rocker. In those past three wonderful years magical things happened to the Church and its Reverend. JenS and Margaretta Barclay added some missing puzzle pieces to the mystery of the singer and his Eskimo Girl (the Church was less lucky with Rusty B. and one of Syd's 1969 temporarily girlfriends Dominique H., but our first rule is to respect their wish for privacy). The support from Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake and Mojo magazine made it possible to locate the mystery woman who had posed on the rear cover of The Madcap Laughs and – en passant – to debunk several myths about those days (although it is not always that easy to revive situations that happened in 1969).

Dozens of contributors and fans of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit have helped with our quest but aren't mentioned here, let it be known that their names have been encrypted in solid gold in the Church's secret archives.

Even more: real friendships emerged out of this, not least from Iggy Rose, whose phone calls to the Reverend are a mixture of roaring laughter, psychedelic tomfoolery and do sometimes contain, but luckily not very often, an odd tear drop about long-lost persons and situations. The future looks bright for the Church although this will not always result in articles on this place. Our apologies for that. (In the meantime, you can always check the Holy Church Facebook page, that publishes unassorted bits and pieces now and then.)

It sparkles and shines

The sparkle that lit the Church's fuse was a 2007 Late Night forum post: Possibility of new religion, asking if a religion could be based upon the writings of Barrett. That thread was started by Stanislav (alias ~SVG75~) a Russian Barrett fan who has always flirted with the boundaries of reality. As a computer graphics programming teacher he has published several Syd Barrett parodies in the fine (Belgian) tradition of surrealism and dadaism and this at several places on the web.

Not unlike Marcel Duchamp, who painted a moustache on the Gioconda and gave the ready-made its bawdy title LHOOQ, Stanislav took existing pictures of Barrett and electronically modified them, thus creating alternative but non-existent realities in the life of Syd Barrett.

Stanislav's work has not always been appreciated by the Syd Barrett community. The average (read: non-anoraky) fan could easily be misguided by the near-authenticity of some of his pictures and stories and sometimes only those 'in the know' were able to distinguish the parody from the original.

Syd Barrett dot CON

Stanislav's most spectacular guerilla art attack was when his subverted graphical work infiltrated the official Syd Barrett website. He fooled the Syd Barrett Estate and Pink Floyd Ltd. by making them believe his creations were genuine Barrett related artworks or publications.

The official Syd Barrett website started on the 19th of February 2010 (not taking into account the test page that had been present several months before) and in the next couple of days different Late Night punters tracked down several mistakes ranking from the silly to the stupid.

Dark Globe was the first to spot a non-existent biography that had crept into the book section:

The books section of the new site lists a book called 'Crazy Diamond' by Tony Bacon.
The cover looks like a Stanislav design.
I'm wondering - is it for real?
I can't find reference to it anywhere else.
(Taken from: Syd's Official site gets a makeover.)

Well spotted.

It was indeed a Stanislav mash-up deconstructing two existing books: Crazy Diamond by Mike Watkinson & Pete Anderson and London Live by Tony Bacon (see pictures at the left for the real covers). That last book is still on the biography list from the official Syd Barrett website although it is an inventory of bands who played London clubs from skiffle, rock'n roll and trad in the 1950s to progressive, pub-rock and punk in the 1970s, passing by at the London venues during the R&B, folk and psychedelia years (it does have Syd on the cover though, but isn't a Barrett biography as such).

Another proof that the website's authors didn't (and still don't) have a clue about what they are publishing. It is a damn disgrace that the best Syd Barrett biography that has appeared in the last decade, Julian Palacios' Dark Globe, isn't put there, but that is probably because the Barrett Estate are actively sponsoring an 'approved' biography from someone else.

Prior to the website launch Mark Jones, the (unofficial) Syd Barrett picture archivist, had been consulted by Pink Floyd Ltd. to render his expertise on Barrett and early Pink Floyd photo material. So he was quite surprised to find many dating errors and another Stanislav-readymade that had mysteriously placed itself in the art section of the official Syd Barrett website:

In the 'Paint' section, 1 across 3 down, Syd with the windmill, is another homemade job by Stanislav.
(Taken from: Syd's Official site gets a makeover.)

Mark Jones mailed the manager of the Syd Barrett Estate on Sunday, the 21st of February, and by Monday all the errors had disappeared. The makers of the website never did comment on their mistakes hoping that the matter would soon be forgotten.

Unfortunately the Holy Igquisition never forgets and the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit finds it among its tasks to praise Stanislav for his impromptu Banksy-like actions. The fact that his forgeries were published at the official Syd Barrett site give his works a meta-realistic certificate of authenticity. Syd Barrett, quite a jokester himself so we have heard, would probably have liked this very much and is laughing his arse off from the great gig in the sky.

When geniuses meet

It was written in the stars that on Friday, the 5th of August 2011, Stanislav and the Reverend would meet in front of the Brussels Magritte museum. On that occasion Stanislav handed over a present for the Church that was immediately digitally immortalised by hordes of visiting Japanese tourists. The Church and Stanislav will now be for ever bonded and Iggy Rose has commented on Stanislav's new artwork with the following unforgettable phrase:

Oh WOWEEEE that is FANTASTIC XXXX

Let's end this article with the words of a wise man: “In the sunny land of Belgium Stanislav was forced to eat a Brussels waffle and there was much rejoicing.”
Happy Birthday, Stanislav!
Happy Birthday, Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit!

The Church wishes to thank all the fans and contributors of the Church, especially the lovely people of the Late Night community from the past and present. Stanislav and Dolly Rocker for sparkling the fuse, JenS and Julian Palacios for rolling the ball, Margaretta Barclay and Mark Blake for adding up to the Iggy Follies. The French connection for putting my feet back on the ground. And, last but not least: ♥ Iggy ♥.

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Immersion

The next months will be musically dedicated to Pink Floyd and several, if not all, of the serious music magazines are hanging a separate wagon at EMI's gravy train.

Classic Rock 162 (with AC/DC on the cover) comes with a separate Pink Floyd 24 pages booklet, titled at one side: The making of the Dark Side Of The Moon, and at the other side (when you turn the booklet around) The making of Wish You Were Here, written by Pink Floyd biographer Glenn Povey, with pictures of Jill Furmanovsky.

Mojo 215, ridiculously called the October 2011 edition while we purchased it now in August (somebody ought to tell those Mojo editors what a calendar is), has a 12 pages Pink Floyd cover story from Pigs Might Fly author Mark Blake and with pictures from... Jill Furmanovsky, but more about that later.

Rock Prog (out on August 31) will be celebrating the 40-iest birthday of Meddle, an album that – according to their blurb – changed the sound of Pink Floyd and prog rock forever.

But we start with the most recent Uncut (that has a Marc Bolan / T-Rex cover, but it didn't cross the Channel yet) where Nick Mason expresses his belief that there still is room for a combined Piper/Saucerful Immersion set. That extended CD-box-set would have early Pink Floyd rarities as Vegetable Man and Scream Thy last Scream but also...

...we've got some demos that were made really early on, which I think are just charming. these come from 1965 and include 'Lucy Leave', "I'm A King Bee", "Walk With Me Sydney", and "Double O-Bo". They're very R'n'B. Of course we were yet another English band who wanted to be an American style R'n'B band. We recorded the demo at Decca. I think it must have been, in Broadhurst Gardens. A friend of Rick's was working there as an engineer, and managed to sneak us in on a Saturday night when the studio wasn't operating.

As all Immersion sets come with some live recordings as well all eyes (or ears) are pointing into the direction of the Gyllene Cirkeln gig that was recently sold by its taper to the Floyd. But Mark Jones, known for his extensive collection of early Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett pictures, heard something else from his contacts at Pink Floyd Ltd. He fears that this gig will not be put on an early Floyd immersion set:

I doubt it, my answer from someone 'high up' was 'the Stockholm recording does not feature Syd's vocals'. I take that means either his mic was not functioning properly or he was singing off mic. (…) My answer was from 'high up' and from what I gathered it meant they weren't releasing it!

Like we have pointed out in a previous article (see: EMI blackmails Pink Floyd fans!) the September 1967 live set does not have audible lyrics, due to the primitive circumstances the gig has been recorded with (or simply because Syd didn't sing into the microphone). But that set also has some instrumentals that could be put on a rarities disk: a 7 minutes 20 seconds unpublished jam nicknamed 'Before or Since' (title given by the taper), Pow R Toc H (without the jungle sounds?) and Interstellar Overdrive.

It will be a long wait as an early Immersion set can only see the light of day in late 2012 and only after the other sets have proven to be successful.

Back to Mojo with its Dark Side Of The Moon / Wish You Were Here cover article. Obviously the 'Syd visits Pink Floyd' anecdote had to be added in as well and at page 88 Mark Blake tells the different versions of this story once again (some of them can also be found in here: The Big Barrett Conspiracy Theory).

In his Lost In Space article Mark Blake also retells the almost unknown story about an unpublished Pink Floyd book that has been lying on Roger Waters' shelves for about 35 years. After the gigantic success of Dark Side Of The Moon the band, or at least Roger Waters, found it a good idea to have a documentary of their life as successful rock-stars. Waters asked his old Cambridge friend and golf buddy Nick Sedgwick to infiltrate the band and to note down his impressions. Another sixties Cambridge friend was called in as well: Storm Thorgerson, who hired Jill Furmanovsky to take (some of) the pictures of the 1974 American tour. Nick and Storm could follow the band far more intimately than any other journalist or writer as they had been beatnik buddies (with Syd, David and Roger) meeting in the Cambridge coffee houses in the Sixties. In his 1989 novel Light Blue With Bulges Nick Sedgwick clearly describes how a loud-mouthed bass player and the novel's hero share some joints and drive around on their Vespa motorcycles.

Life on the rock road in 1974 was perhaps too much of a Kerouac-like adventure. The band had its internal problems, with Roger Waters acting as the alpha-male (according to David Gilmour in the latest Mojo article). But there weren't only musical differences, Pink Floyd had wives and families but they also had some difficulties to keep up the monogamist life on the road. Then there was the incident with Roger Waters who heard a man's voice at the other side when he called his wife at home.

When David Gilmour read the first chapters of the book he felt aggrieved by it and managed to get it canned, a trick he would later repeat with Nick Mason's first (and unpublished) version of Inside Out. But also Nick Mason agrees that the book by Nick Sedgwick was perceived, by the three others, as being to openly friendly towards Roger Waters and too negative towards the others. Mark Blake, in a Facebook reaction to the Church, describes the manuscript as 'dynamite'.

Unfortunately Nick Sedgwick died a couple of days ago and Roger Waters issued the following statement:

One of my oldest friends, Nick Sedgwick, died this week of brain cancer. I shall miss him a lot. I share this sad news with you all for a good reason.

He leaves behind a manuscript, "IN THE PINK" (not a hunting memoir).

His memoir traces the unfolding of events in 1974 and 1975 concerning both me and Pink Floyd. In the summer of 1974 Nick accompanied me, and my then wife Judy, to Greece. We spent the whole summer there and Nick witnessed the beginnings of the end of that marriage.

That autumn he travelled with Pink Floyd all round England on The Dark Side Of The Moon Tour. He carried a cassette recorder on which he recorded many conversations and documented the progress of the tour. In the spring of 1975 he came to America with the band and includes his recollections of that time also.

When Nick finished the work in 1975 there was some resistance in the band to its publication, not surprising really as none of us comes out of it very well, it's a bit warts and all, so it never saw the light of day.

It is Nick's wish that it be made available now to all those interested in that bit of Pink Floyd history and that all proceeds go to his wife and son.

To that end I am preparing three versions, a simple PDF, a hardback version, and a super de-luxe illustrated limited edition signed and annotated by me and hopefully including excerpts from the cassettes.

For those interested in the more turbulent episodes of the band Pink Floyd this will be a very interesting read indeed.

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The Church wishes to thank: Mark Blake, Mark Jones & although he will probably never read this, Roger Waters.

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Iggy Rose's Fantastic Birthday Bash!

The Reverend confesses that the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit has been vegetating somewhat for the last year. Lucky for us there was the international cooperation with the excellent Spanish Syd Barrett blog Sole en las Nubes who gave us the exclusive rights to publish their interviews with Warren Dosanjh, Lee Wood and Duggie Fields.

Then there was that foul-mouthed Alex Fagoting vulture of The Anchor, who jumped into the void and published some wretched articles on the Church's space. The Reverend solemnly apologises for that.

To our defence we can add that at the beginning of this year the Church was struck as if by lightning. Shortly after Mark Blake published his Iggy the Eskimo article in Mojo #207 the Church made contact with the subject of its adulation: Ms. Iggy Rose.

The initial hesitant passes towards each other where a bit like kittens exploring a strange new world outside their mother's nest but it didn't take long before it grew into a profound friendship. And when Iggy discovered the power of social media it became soon clear that Iggy fandom wasn't something that was run by a weird Reverend alone.

At the Barrett IG exposition in March the promoters of the event scratched their heads trying to find out why so many visitors had their Barrett books signed by this unknown woman and not by the authors of the book: Iggy at the Exhibition.

Iggy Rose, also known as the Eskimo, is an international woman of mystery. So make a mark on your agendas, dear sistren and brethren, because next week, on the 14th of December, an unforgettable Facebook event will take place under the signature: Iggy Rose's Fantastic Birthday Bash! Instigator is artist and general troublemaker Jenni Fiire who promises 'an online celebration to show Iggy Rose how much we love and appreciate her on her birthday. A groovy electronic party!!'

This could well become the Facebook event of the year (and if by sheer luck it isn't, we will still maintain it is and anyone denying will be ostracised from the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit anyway), so do the wise thing and leave a message on the fourteenth and all your sins, and the Reverend knows what kind of despicable sinners you all are, will be forgiven. For a very short while...

And it could possibly be that some things might happen here as well next week, so turn on, tune in and certainly don't drop out.

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Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!

Well, in a couple of hours we will celebrate Iggy's birthday (14th of December) so please forgive the Reverend to add his personal wishes at first...

Something to watch: Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

A while ago the Holy Igquisition got hold of an unseen home movie from Iggy from the mid Seventies. Although it only takes a few seconds this is the right moment to release it here. The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit would like to inform you that the Reverend overdid himself and that the Flash version will take about 5 Megabytes to download, so a quick Internet connection is needed... (and it has a happy tune as well). A (smaller) Youtube version of the birthday movie has been published as well...

Flash link: Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!

Something to read: Crystal Blue Postcards

When Syd Barrett's seminal record The Madcap Laughs hit the record stores, the woman who was immortalised on its back cover had already disappeared from his life.

Multiple fireside legends emerged throughout the years, but we now know that Iggy's naked presence was a cleverly staged act, an underground performance, directed by Barrett, rather than a psychedelic drug-induced pun.

Feet stained by the freshly painted floor, Iggy the Eskimo materialises behind Syd, symbolising Aoidē, the ancient Boeotian muse of song. Although in the background, her appearance is doubtlessly omnipresent, an ethereal antenna capturing floating words and sounds from the space between men.

Like the flutter-by butterfly, Iggy was never the girl to stay long at one place. But she always left an ineradicable impression in the minds of the minds she touched. Even in the third millennium, people are still finding archaeological traces of her presence in a long forgotten past.

Journalists and bloggers can reconstruct, archive and catalogue Iggy's past moves with clockwork precision, but this doesn't say anything about her real self. Only the poet, musician or painter is able to capture a fleeting glimpse of her free spirit. It takes a common soul to encompass another one.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit proudly presents:

Over two years ago the Reverend unearthed a poem, dedicated to Iggy: From Quetesh to Bastet. Author was Dr. Denis Combet, professor at Brandon University (in the middle of Eskimo-land) and now a very close friend of the Church. Iggy was so impressed with this that it even got mentioned in her interview with Mark Blake:

Last week, Iggy called to tell me she had found a poem online written about her by a professor at a university in Missouri [in fact Manitoba, Canada, FA]. "And it's in French," she said, sounding astonished. "'Iggy l'esquimo, Fille De Le Space'...it goes. I never believed anyone would ever write a poem for me." (Taken from: The Strange Tale of Iggy the Eskimo.)

Since then Denis has been tinkering and polishing at his poems and especially for Iggy's birthday he has now released an electronic 'pageFlip' book of his work: Crystal Blue Postcards. With excellent digital artwork by Jean Vouillon this is, without doubt, a work of art, a worthy present for a celestial goddess.

Crystal Blue Postcards (Flash pageFlip presentation).

Something to listen to: "Guitars and Dust Dancing" by Rescue Rangers

Rescue Rangers are a stoner power trio from Marseille. As an extra present for Iggy's birthday, Pascal Mascheroni sent us the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars and Dust Dancing that can be found on their first album. We present this song with a slide show of the artwork of Jean Vouillon (see above).

And while we're at it, don't forget to check some of their other songs out, especially Black As Bastet (yes, here comes that that Bastet chick again) that has its lyrics written by none other than the aforementioned Denis Combet.

Something else to listen to: "Iggy the Eskimo" by The Underground Youth

In 2010 the British band The Underground Youth released their third album called Mademoiselle. Track seven is called Iggy the Eskimo although we seriously doubt it is about our rose.

Something extra to listen to: "Oranges and Apples" by Trashcan Sinatras

Dating from 2008 this Trashcan Sinatras tune hints at Iggy with the enigmatic lyric:

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

WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOURSELF?

Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at:

Iggy Rose's Fantastic Birthday Bash! or at
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's personal page as well.

Let's raise our glasses to our darling mad cat who laughed at the man on the border. Make this a birthday to remember, brethren and sistren, but remember: don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do!

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The Church wishes to thank Denis Combet, Pascal Mascheroni (Rescue Rangers) & all the nice people at Blah F. Blah, Clowns & Jugglers, Late Night, No Man's Land and all the others we have forgotten.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

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The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...

...and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

Iggy Rose's Fantastic Birthday Bash! was a huge success with our dear Iggy literally not sleeping for two days because she didn't want to miss the hundreds of messages that came zooming in from all over the world.

Iggy may have been but a small footnote in the world of rock but to us and dozens of fans she is far more human than those with a 'I was awfully big in the Underground' attitude.

The above image is a variation on an original drawing from Jenni Fiire with advice, ideas, help and input from Amy Funstar, Brett Wilson & the Reverend. A very – very – very special hug goes to Libby Gausden, femme extraordinaire, Iggy's dearest friend and keeper of the holy flame that warms the hearts of all Syd Barrett admirers. And the jacket of course, let us not forget the jacket...

See you in 2012.

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Check out all our igmas cards:
2012 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2011 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...  
2010 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2009 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2008 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 

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Antonio Jesús Reyes, a new career in a new town

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).

So now it is about time for La Sagrada Iglesia de Iggy La Esquimal to return the favour. Antonio Jesús Reyes from sydbarrett.es 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

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…).

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.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.

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.

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 ♥

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Solo en las Nubes self-interviews (in English)
It is with great pleasure that the Reverend introduces a new contributor at the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Not only did Antonio Jesús Reyes live in the beautiful city of Cambridge but as editor of the slightly fantastic Spanish Syd Barrett blog Solo en las Nubes he has published several Autoentrevista or Self-Interviews with Barrett specialists, biographers and friends.
Felix Atagong: an honest man 
Warren Dosanjh, Syd Barrett's first manager 
Kiloh Smith Interview, hosted at Syd Barrett Pink Floyd
Lee Wood, the man who knows everything
Duggie Fields, much more than a room-mate 
Antonio Jesús Reyes, a new career in a new town 
Wondering and Dreaming (a self-interview with Ewgeni Reingold) 
Eva Wijkniet: my Syd (Roger) Barrett project 
John Cavanagh, so much to do, so little time 

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The Sixties Unplugged

What a wonderful decade the sixties were. A small group of students at both sides of the Atlantic changed the world forever, by making weird music, weird posters and even weirder sex, and since then we live in continuous paradise. Of course this is utterly bollocks but for the bulk of I Remember the Sixties-books this is the general atmosphere they exhale. For the business hippies, who have made successful careers out of the sixties by rehashing pink coloured memories in their coffee table books, the legend has become reality, but they are probably just a minority. The sixties had a silent majority, in- and outside the Underground, that will never be heard.

In 1988 Jonathon Green compiled an oral history of the sixties titled: Days In The Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961-71. In it a constellation of Underground self-proclaimed heroes repeated the clockwork adagio that the sixties were fantastic, but this book was the first, for me at least, that contained some less triumphant testimonies as well. Nicola Lane, who by her own account 'did little other than sit in a corner, roll joints and nod when required' had a stab at the sexual morals of the period in general. Susan Crane (better known as Sue Miles) confirmed that the Beat movement was very sexist towards women, invariably called chicks, and when her husband Barry Miles had those very important International Times meetings her job was 'to make the tea and the sandwiches' and to leave the room 'whenever they were going to actually take decisions'. Which she did.

Another International Times-founder Jim Haynes, by definition a messiah of the Underground, was described by Cheryll Park, then a 19-year old coming from the North of England, as a sexual pervert who wanted her to end up in his bed with six other women. “I'd love to meet Haynes again, now that he's a shrivelled-up old man, and humiliate him in the way he humiliated me.”, she snapped. Be it Jim Haynes, Julian Assange or Dominique Strauss-Kahn, some men will never ever change.

In The Sixties Unplugged, Gerard De Groot repeats the above testimonies of Nicola Lane, Sue Miles and Cheryll Park. The book already appeared in 2008, but I was unaware of it until now. A few copies ended up in the sales bin of a local bookshop and that is how I got hold of it. I hesitated first as the book, at first glance, seemed to be a mere recollection of the counter-culture in America, but browsing through the contents I saw that the author also had things to add about Biafra, China, Congo, France, Germany, Great-Britain, Holland, Indonesia, Vietnam and even our closest extra-terrestrial neighbour, the Moon.

Ronnie takes a trip

The Sixties Unplugged is a decade's compendium in 67 short essays and rather than repeating what good things came out of it, it attempts to describe where we went wrong. The book is sceptical, ironical and cynical but also utterly readable, vivid and funny at places. What could have been lying on your stomach as a gloomy brick becomes the proverbial box of chocolates, especially thanks to the many unexpected anecdotes that lighten it up. De Groot constantly dips his pen in a vitriolic inkpot (does anybody in the 21st century understand this?) and like a pigeon flying over an open air statue exhibition he has plenty of choice where to launch his droppings.

I do have the impression that De Groot's has more fun in ridiculing the liberal caste than the conservative one, but I could be wrong as we have been taught that the sixties were generally progressive anyway. It is true that lots of noise was coming out of progressive circles... in Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris or London... but De Groot also notes that 20 miles outside the city or university centres life went on its usual conservative way. As a matter of fact, while the progressive thinkers were believing that they were going to change the world by smoking pot and listening to Hendrix guitar solos the conservative movement was silently preparing its coup with repercussions that are still visible today.

But some changes even the conservatives didn't see coming. A bit like Rick Santorum now, a certain Ronald Reagan was first laughed away by his fellow republicans and called 'a flagrant example of miscasting'. The man didn't know anything about politics, they quipped and this was probably true, but that was precisely Reagan's strength. He started his career by saying that he wasn't a politician but a simple citizen who understood the needs of the common Californian. While his opponents, republicans and democrats alike, were sneering at him from their élite business millionaire clubs, smoking expensive cigars and showing general disdain for their voters, Reagan proved that the time was ripe for popular conservatism, based on easy to digest one-liners (“One of the great problems of economics is unemployment.”).

To get elected in 1966 Reagan needed to convince over a million of democrat voters to cross over to his side and paradoxically enough one of the issues that helped him to achieve that were... the hippies. Berkeley had a history of tumultuous student uprisings (free speech movement, Vietnam war protest & People's Park) that had infested other Californian universities as well. Reagan only needed a one-liner to describe those radicals: “His hair was cut like Tarzan, and he acted like Jane, and he smelled like Cheetah.”

Those beatniks at Berkeley University thought they were changing the world, and they did indeed, but not as they intended. Ronald Reagan got elected in California... This was the start of a brilliant political career and may have been the pivotal point turning the world into an arena of conservative capitalism...

There's a killer on the road

Did anybody notice dead bankers hanging on trees, lynched by an angry mob lately? I don't think so. But we did see poor, unemployed and homeless people, frozen to death this winter, because this crisis – created out of greed – has hit them hard. Jean-Luc Dehaene, ex-prime minister of Belgium and representative of the Christian Labourers Union, will receive a tax-free bonus of 3.26 million Euro (4.35 million dollars) this year. He is the man who led the Dexia bank to its bankruptcy, well knowing that the Belgian government would be obliged to intervene. The Belgian caution for the Dexia 'bad bank' is 15% of our BNP, so if the holding goes into liquidation, a scenario that is not improbable, all Belgians will face a general tax increase and cutbacks on all social programs...

Speaking about Belgium, my little country gets a mention in Gerard De Groot's book as well. Congo, once the sadistic playground of a Belgian king who thought that cutting off hands was a pleasant pastime, got independent in 1960. When its first democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba, had the guts to insult the Belgian king on Congo's independence day this was nothing less than an invitation to murder.

Not that the Belgians were playing solo, on a White House meeting in August 1960 president Dwight D. Eisenhower vaguely proposed to assassinate Lumumba and CIA director Allen Dulles, who described Lumumba as a mad dog who needed to be put down, immediately gave orders to his secret agents to come up with a cunning plan.

While the CIA was thinking of an all-american-superhero sophisticated way to get a poisoned toothbrush over to Congo and hand it over to the prime minister the Belgians had a much simpler idea. Under mild Belgian pressure Lumumba was arrested, ceremonially and perpetually beaten and tortured and finally shot through the head while four Belgian officials were looking, mildly amused, from a few yards distance. Incidentally, the prime minister of Belgium who was aware of this all, Gaston Eyskens, belonged to the same Christian party as Jean-Luc Dehaene now, but this is of course just a silly coincidence.

Although Gerard De Groot obviously agrees that this was an act of 'cynical criminality' he refuses to believe in the Lumumba myth, that is a big in Africa now as the Che Guevara-myth in the sixties. De Groot quips Lumumba would have been assassinated anyway and if not, he dryly adds, the Prime Minister would probably have grown into a typical African corrupt dictator just like his spiritual heroes Nkrumah, Nyerere or Kenyatta.

Love, peace & happiness

And these are just two of the 67 essays in this book. The general rule is that De Groot shows almost no respect for anybody (with some notable exceptions here and there) although there is of course not always reason for respect in his stories.

Biafra had an outburst of ethnic and political violence from 1966 to 1970 causing one to two million deaths, most of starvation. This happened while the 'civilised' world was dutifully monitoring the situation and organising UN congresses.

China had a few uprisings in the mid sixties. In 1968 communist government troops killed 200000 rebels in the Guanxi province, although the term rebel could mean women, children, babies or someone wearing glasses or the wrong clothes. One of the weirder, perhaps tribe related, rituals in Guanxi was to eat the enemy and over 3000 cannibalistic acts in the name of communism have been documented. Called an orgy of violence by Gerard De Groot the Cultural Revolution would make 2.8 million victims, although these numbers greatly vary from source to source. The amount of people persecuted, imprisoned, beaten, tortured or raped out of love for the Great Helmsman is estimated to at least a tenfold of the previous number.

That not all political violence had a communist signature was proven in Indonesia. In September 1965 and the months to follow between 500000 and one million 'communist' sympathisers were killed in Indonesia, with just a little help of the intelligence services of Great Britain and the USA. Joseph Lazarsky, deputy station CIA chief in Jakarta, revealed that the CIA had made a top 5000 hit-list to help the government troops. The list was crossed off as enemies were liquidated and as an extra bonus president Suharto received lucrative contracts with American Express, British American Tobacco, British Leyland, General Motors, Goodyear, ICI, Siemens and US Steel...

The shameful lesson of this book is that in 30 or 40 years time, absolutely nothing has changed in this world, except perhaps for the fact that in Syria people now have smartphones and can put music in their ears to stop hearing the falling bombs.

Parallel lines

One review of the book I found on the net says that Sixties Unplugged often follows very familiar lines.

Although he claims that his work is 'more global than any book previously produced', it is dominated by American characters and events, most of which have been written about dozens of times before. His selection policy is nothing if not orthodox, so his opening sections cover such well-worn topics as the origins of the transistor, the invention of the Pill and the poetry of the Beats. Later, we read about the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the expansion of the Vietnam War, the development of the hippy movement and the Civil Rights marches. The supporting cast is the usual mixture of hairy protesters and senior politicians, above all Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

There is some truth in that, and when Gerard De Groot hits the ground I am a bit familiar with, namely the British psychedelic scene, all he can come up with are testimonies from a book that appeared twenty years ago. Sometimes he even tries too hard to make a point. I don't think that using British Underground quotes to add value to an American situation is really deontological. And there is a certain shock-jock aspect present as well, as the chapter 'Summer Of Rape', amongst others, shows:

Rape was popular in the Summer of love. Rape was easy because there were so many naïve young girls separated from parental protection.

or, quoting some juicy sixties newspaper article...

A young long-haired girl stripped and danced in the warm rain... (…) Her friends stood by while a dozen young men raped her in an animal frenzy.

But it needs to be said that the sensational stories and its many anecdotes make this book a real page-turner. Gerard De Groot likes to divulge that every important man has his smaller side. Martin Luther King, for instance, not only had a dream but also a busload of extramarital affairs and probably that is one of the few things he had in common with JFK. If sex oozes from the pages, it is because the sixties had a sexual revolution and revolutions not only tend to liberate but often lead to an aftermath of violence as well. One hippie leader literally said that women needed breaking like a horse before entering his commune (I wonder how he could get any female followers) and the average discours érotique of the Black Panthers Party then wasn't really different from gangsta-rap today.

The Hole in the Ozone Layer

There aren't a lot of women in the book, and when there are they don't always like to be reminded of the sixties. Bernardine Dohrn's 1969 eulogy to Charles Manson, for instance, can't be found on her CV at the Northwestern University School of Law and neither is the fact that she once was one of the most wanted terrorists of the United States. But of course that is nothing to be proud of, The Weathermen only succeeded in blowing their own members to pieces rather than turning America into a communist republic.

In September 1967 hundreds of New York Radical Women assembled before the Miss America contest in Atlantic City. They massively removed their bras, much to the enjoyment of the watching crowd, threw those in a dustbin and set the contents on fire. Unfortunately, this is one of the sixties feminist myths that is just that, a myth. The truth was slightly different. About twenty protesters threw some symbolic girlie stuff in a trashcan: girdles, bras, makeup, curlers, mascara, shoes... and apparently they also crowned a sheep as Miss America, but that was all that happened.

A reporter however called it bra-burning and from then on the legend mushroomed until the point was reached that feminists really started to believe in burning bras or protesting topless, a tradition that happily lingers on till today, but now you will call me a male chauvinist pig probably.

According to The Sixties Unplugged the decade ended in 1971 with the obscenity trial of Oz. One of the questions was if a bawdy cartoon of Rupert Bear (made by a fifteen years old) was obscene or not. The judges decided it was but nobody really cared any more. The world had changed, only the judges didn't know it yet.

Despite some flaws this is a very interesting book indeed. Even with 67 chapters and almost as many topics it gives you something to chew on and makes you start thinking. Lucky we have Wikipedia nowadays, to further dig into those subjects one really digs... but what did the sixties bring into our world then, other than perpetual paradise... Gerard De Groot:

The decade brought flowers, music, love and good times. It also brought hatred, murder, greed, dangerous drugs, needless deaths, ethnic cleansing, neocolonialist exploitation, soundbite politics, sensationalism, a warped sense of equality, a bizarre notion of freedom, the decline of liberalism, and the end of innocence.

Groovy man, really groovy...

Sources (other than the above internet links):
De Groot, Gerard: The Sixties Unplugged, Pan Macmillan, London, 2009.
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p. 60, 119, 418-419, 448 (first edition: 1988).

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Formentera Lady

Despite the fact that the sixties children of the revolution all wanted to express their individualism and refused to be a part of the square 9 to 5 world they all managed to show up at the same places, dress virtually the same and take the same chemical substances.

This also applied for their holidays. Although they had been seeing each other the whole year in old rainy England, in summer they would pack their bags and flee – en masse – to the same cool (but sweaty) locations, following the so-called Hippie Trail.

The Hippie Trail extended to the Himalayas and several Cantabrigian hipsters made it to the Indies, looking for a guru who would teach them things a local vicar couldn't teach them. Paul Charrier, one of the Cantabrigian mods, beats or whatever denomination they liked that week, was one of the first to witness this. When he returned to England and opened his bag of tricks, he managed to convert a few others to the narrow path of Sant Mat, but others, like Storm Thorgerson and Matthew Scurfield, opposed to this 'wave of saccharine mysticism hitting our shores' (see also: We are all made of stars).

India and Pakistan were long and hazardous journeys and for those who only had a few weeks to spend there were always the Balearic islands where they would meet at La Tortuga or La Fonda Pepe.

Some 700 hippies arrived in Formentera in 1968 and by the summer of 1969 there were already 1,300, almost one for every 2.5 islanders. They didn’t stay all year round but were usually university students spending their holidays on the island. In 1970, Franco’s regime threw all 3,000 of them off Ibiza and Formentera. According to the regime, the hippies gave the place a bad name, but the islanders didn’t agree – for them the hippies were simply tourists. (Taken from: Thinkspain.)

Of course the islands of Formentera and Ibiza (Balearic Islands) already had some reputation of their own. The place not only gained popularity by (American) writers and artists after the second world war for its mild climate, but also because it was a central drug smuggling point. The heroes of Beat literature not only liked the bohemian's life, but in their quest for nonconformity they also actively sought contact with 'the perilous margins of society - pimps, whores, drug dealers, petty thieves'.

Quite some Dutch artists visited the place, for one reason or another. The proto-hippie-folk singing duo Nina & Frederik (Dutch-Danish, in fact), who had some hits in the fifties and early sixties, lived there. In his later life Frederik Van Pallandt attempted a career as drug smuggler and his murder in 1994 may have been a direct result. Other artist included poet Simon Vinkenoog, author Jan Cremer and Black & Decker trepanist Bart Huges. The sixties saw visits from the Beatles, the Stones and in their wake some beautiful people from London (for a more detailed list: Ibiza in the beatnik & hippie eras.)

1963

David Gale, his girlfriend Maureen, Dave Henderson, Storm Thorgerson and John Davies went to Ibiza in 1963 for their holidays where they visited Formentera island for a day. Back at home they all decided to have another holiday there.

1965

Mary Wing (and her friend Marc Dessier) found Formentera so beautiful that in 1965 they decided to stay there.

1967

Nick Mason acknowledges that after the '14 hour technicolour dream' (29 April 1967) the band was very tired and that Syd showed more severe symptoms than the others. Despite all that the continuous, eight days a week, gigging went on with the mythical Games For May concert two weeks later (12 May), the memorable Hans Keller BBC interview (14 May) and the See Emily Play recording session (18 May). There were nearly daily concerts or recording sessions between May and June of that year, but little by little cracks started to appear in their overcrowded agenda.

June, 11: two cancelled concerts in Holland
June, 18: public appearance on a bikini fashion show for Radio London, cancelled
June, 24: two cancelled concerts in Corby and Bedford
June, 25: two cancelled concerts in Manchester

On Thursday, July the 27th 1967, the Pink Floyd mimed (for the third time) on the Top Of the Pops show although Barrett was rather reluctant to do it. The next day they had a recording session for the BBC, but apparently Syd was seen leaving the block when it was their turn. This time the band and its management took Syd's behaviour seriously and decided to cancel all August gigs (with the exception of some studio recording sessions).

Update September 2012: one of these cancelled gigs was the 7th National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival that was visited by Iggy the Eskimo: Iggy - a new look in festivals.

Now what would you do when the lead singer of your band has got mental problems due to his abundant drug intake? You send him to a hippie, drug infested, island under the supervision of a psychedelic doctor who thinks that LSD has been been the best invention since masturbation.

Sam [Hutt, aka Smutty] was the underground's very own house doctor, sympathetic to drug users and musicians: as Boeing Duveen And The Beautiful Soup and later Hank Wangford, Sam was able to introduce a performer’s perspective. (Nick Mason)

In 1969 Smutty would have his medical office at Jenny Fabian's apartment: “I did find it a bit weird though, trying to lie around stoned listening to the sounds of vaginal inspections going on behind the curtain up the other end of the sitting-room."

After a first attempt in the studio on Scream Thy Last Scream, Pink Floyd finally went on holiday for the second half of August. Syd Barrett, Lindsay Corner, Rick Wright, Juliette Gale (Wright), Dr. Sam Hutt, his wife and baby went to Formentera while Roger Waters and Judy Trim (Waters) headed for Ibiza. They all had a good time, except for Barrett who – during a storm - panicked so hard he literally tried to climb the walls of the villa, an anecdote that is so vehemently trashed by biographer Rob Chapman that it probably did happen.

In retrospect the decision to take a hippie doctor on holiday wasn't that stupid. One of the underlying ideas was that he would be able to communicate with Syd on the same level. The band, conscientiously or not, were also aware that 'there was a fear that sending Syd to a [traditional] doctor for observation might lead to his being sectioned in a mental hospital'.

In those days most care centres in Great Britain were still Victorian lunatic asylums where medical torture was mildly described as therapy. At least these were the horrid stories told by the people who had been so lucky to escape.

He showed me to the room that was to be mine. It was indeed a cell. There was no door knob on the inside, the catch had been jammed so that the door couldn't be shut properly, the window was high up in the wall and had bars over it, and there was only a standard issue bed and locker as furniture. (William Pryor)

Nobody wanted this to happen to Syd, but a less prosaic thought was this would have meant the end of the band, something that had to be carefully avoided. “The idea was to get Syd out of London, away from acid, away from all his friends who treated him like a god.”, Rick Wright explained but in reality Dr. Hutt, and the others, merely observed Syd Barrett, catatonic as ever and still 'munching acid all the time'. Nick Mason, in his usual dry style: “It was not a success.”

Whoever thought that giving Barrett a few weeks of rest was going to evaporate the demons from his brain must have been tripping himself and on the first of September the agenda was resumed as if nothing had happened. The first 6 days were filled with gigs and recording sessions. Three days later a Scandinavian tour with the legendary Gyllene Cirkeln and Starclub gigs, followed by an Irish Tour and later, in October, the disastrous North American Tour...

Although the previous paragraphs may seem harsh they are not meant to criticise the people nor their actions. It is easy to pinpoint what went wrong 45 years ago, but as it is impossible to predict an alternative past we will never know if any other action would have had a different or better effect. The Reverend is convinced that Syd's friends, band members and management tried to do their best to help him, but unfortunately they were running in the same insane treadmill as he was. Syd wasn't the only one to be exhausted and at the same time the atmosphere was imbibed with the 'summer of love' philosophy of respecting someone's personal freedom, even if it lead to self-destruction...

1968

In 1968 Aubrey 'Po' Powell (Floydian roadie and later Hipgnosis member) visited the Formentera island together with some friends.

I first came here forty-one years ago [interview taken in 2009, FA] with David Gilmour, and then the year afterwards with Syd Barrett. The first year I came to Formentera I stayed about four months living like a hippie, and I just fell in love with it. (…) Also it was kind of difficult to get to. You had to get the plane to Ibiza and then the ferry which at that time was the only ferry that went between Ibiza and Formentera and that took about two hours to get across and it only went twice a day. So it was an effort to get there, you know, it was a rather remote place. But a lot of writers, painters and musicians gravitated there. (Taken from: Aubrey Powell: Life, light and Formentera’s influence on Hipgnosis.)

1969

Shortly after Syd Barrett watched the first moon-landing (that had been given a Pink Floyd soundtrack on the BBC) he panicked when he found out that his pal Emo (Iain Moore) and a few others (Po, John Davies) had left Albion for sunny Formentera. He literally grabbed a bag of cash and dirty clothes and headed to Heathrow, driven there by Gala Pinion.

The story goes that Syd tried to stop an aeroplane taxiing on the tarmac. In at least one version the plane actually stopped and took him on board, but other say he had to wait for the next departure. Again it is biographer Rob Chapman who categorises this anecdote as 'unsubstantiated nonsense', on the weird assumption that it failed to make the newspapers, but other biographies have also omitted this story for simply being too unbelievable.

Anyway, somewhere in July or early August 1969 Syd arrived in Ibiza and met Emo who was on his way to San Fernando (Formentera). The biographies Crazy Diamond (Mike Watkinson & Pete Anderson), Madcap (Tim Willis) and Dark Globe (Julian Palacios) all add bits and pieces to that particular holiday.

Iain Moore: “He had a carrier bag of clothes that I could smell from where I was standing.”

Emo says Syd's behaviour was pivoting like a see-saw. One moment he could be seen laughing, joking and singing with the gang; the next moment he could snap into an emotional freeze. It was useless to warn him for the blistering sun and in the end his friends 'had to grab him, hold him down, and cover him from head to toe in Nivea'.

At Formentera Syd stayed with Mary Wing, who had left Great Britain in 1965 to live on the island with Marc Dessier. According to them Barrett was a gentle soul but 'like a little brother who needed looking after'. Barrett was in good form and to an audience of European hippies he claimed he was still the leader of Pink Floyd.

Barrett borrowed Dessier's guitar: “Then he sat there, chose a letter of the alphabet and thought of his three favourite words starting with the same letter. He wrote them on three bits of paper, threw them in the air and wrote them again in the order that he picked them up.” This technique was not uncommon for beat poets and Syd may have been inspired by Spike Hawkins who showed Barrett his Instant Poetry Broth book the year before.

One Formantera picture shows Syd with an unknown girl who hides her nudity behind a red veil. The (copyrighted) picture can be found on John Davies MySpace page (image link) and has been published in the Crazy Diamond biography and on A Fleeting Glimpse.

For Pink Floyd buffs the picture shares a resemblance with the red veil picture on the Wish You Were Here liner bag, that actually exists in a few different versions. Storm Thorgerson has used the past from the band and its members for his record covers, backdrop movies and videos on several occasions, like the Barrett vinyl compilation that had a cover with a plum, an orange and a matchbox.

Hipgnosis collaborator 'Po' Powell was with Syd in Formentera in 1969, but what does Storm Thorgerson has to say about it all? He reveals that the idea for the veil came from John Blake, and not from Po:

John Blake suggested using a veil – symbol of absence (departure) in funerals ans also a way of absenting (hiding) the face. This was the last shot (…) which was photographed in Norfolk.

And in Mind Over Matter:

The red muslin veil is an universal item, or symbol, of hiding the face, either culturally as in Araby, or for respect as in funerals. What's behind the veil?

Formentera Lady

According to Nick Mason a female nude can be seen on the Wish You Were Here inside cover but of course this doesn't say anything about the unknown woman on Formentera. Who is she?

Nobody knows. And that secret remained a secret for over 40 years.

Now let's suppose a witness would show up who remembers she has been seen walking near Earl's Court.
And that she was called Sarah Sky although that probably was not her real name.
And that she spoke with a foreign accent and lived in London.
And that Sarah Sky vanished around the late 1970's and has never been heard of since.

Partially solving a problem only makes it bigger. A new quest has begun.

Update 2012.05.26: According to Emo (Iain Moore) Sarah Sky may have been one of the girls who went with them to Formentera. The Syd Barrett Archives (Facebook) have the following quote:

Actually, I spoke to Emo last night and he said she was just another person who was staying at the house they rented. It was a nudist beach, lol. At least Syd kept his pants on this time! (…)
Anyway, Emo said they didn't know her and he couldn't remember who she was with. (...)
The girl in this photo is name unknown. She was American and staying in a house in Ibiza. She was visiting Formentera for the day.

Update August 2012: Author and movie maker Nigel Gordon does not agree with a quote in the above text, taken from Matthew Scurfield:

I just want to respond briefly to your article on Formentera etc where you wrote or quote that Santmat is ‘saccharine mysticism’. I don’t agree with you. Santmat recommends that we meditate for two and a half hours a day. It’s pretty ‘salty’!

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Many thanks to: Nina, ebronte, Julian Palacios, Jenny Spires.

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2007, p. 90, 131.
Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 228, 341.
Davis, John: Childhood's End, My Generation Cambridge 1946-1965.
De Groot, Gerard: The Sixties Unplugged, Pan Macmillan, London, 2009, p. 27.
Gordon, Nigel: Santmat, email, 18.08.2012.
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p. 286.
Green, Jonathon: All Dressed Up, Pimlico, London, 1999, p. 255.
Mason, Nick, Inside Out, Orion Books, London, 2011 reissue, p. 95-97.
Palacios, Julian: A mile or more in a foreign clime': Syd and Formentera, 2009.
Palacios, Julian: Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, Plexus, London, 2010, p. 265, 353.
Pryor, William: The Survival Of The Coolest, Clear Books, 2003, p. 106.
Scurfield, Matthew: I Could Be Anyone, Monticello Malta 2009, p. 176.
Spires, Jenny: The Syd Barrett Archives, Facebook, 2012.
Thorgerson, Storm: Mind Over Matter, Sanctuary Publishing, London, 2003, p. 80.
Thorgerson, Storm: Walk Away René, Paper Tiger, Limpsfield, 1989, p. 150.
Thorgerson, Storm & Powell, Aubrey: For The Love Of Vinyl, Picturebox, Brooklyn, 2008, p. 104 (essay written by Nick Mason).
Watkinson, Mike & Anderson, Pete: Crazy Diamond, Omnibus Press, London, 1993, p. 90-91.
Willis, Tim, Madcap, Short Books, London, 2002, p. 113-114.

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Men On The Border: full of guitars and no dust...

Summer time has come and this means it is time to take the plastic chairs and table into the garden and have an afternoon drink. The main problem always is: where are the coasters to put the glasses on? Surely you didn't pay 120 Euros for a Dark Side of the Moon Immersion box set to ruin its cheap (but expensive) content by putting a glass of Mojito on top of those exclusive carton collector's coasters, did you?

Thank god there is Mojo's Return to the Dark Side of The Moon - Wish You Were Here Again from a couple of months ago. I you have ever listened to it then you certainly would wish you were over there, praising that nobody can hear crap in a vacuum. My Wall Re-Built albums are still shrink-wrapped and will probably stay like that until eternity or till I finally have the nerve to make that final cut.

The Madcap Laughs Again treatment from 2010 was slightly better, probably because nobody tried to make too much of a fool out of the mad cat, but nevertheless I only gave the album a 4 out of 10 score. It does contain some interesting versions though, like Marc Almond's Late Night that has grown on me like a wart on a witches nose.

But for most of those covermount disks the only slightly ecological way to give them a purpose in life is to recycle them as beverage coasters. By the way, Mojo should realize that these CDs can be counter-productive as well. A while ago I saw the issue with Pet Sounds Revisited and because I didn't want to spoil my good mood I simply turned my back, deciding not to buy it. No way I was going to listen to the massacre of one of the finest albums in the world.

This just to say I am slightly grumpy when it comes to these tribute albums. But sometimes there are exceptions, like...

Men On The Border

Swedish Men On The Border, so learns us the blurb, started as a project inspired by the music and art of Roger Keith ”Syd” Barrett. The power duo consists of Göran Nyström and Phil Etheridge and the result is Shine!, a CD of interpretations of songs by Syd Barrett.

And what interpretations they are, rather than dumbfoundedly mimicking Roger Keith they flavour their interpretations with power chords, contemporary sounds, odd humour and slightly hidden musical references.

I have a soft spot for track number 5 that starts as a Joy Division, Gary Numan or Blur inspired rendition of No Man's Land, seamlessly sliding into Golden Hair and retreating to No Man's Land again. The track is dark, a bit industrial with screaming guitars and probably a signature track for what Men On The Border really stand for. Göran Nyström:

(I'm) quite happy with it. As black as it should be. And yet with a little golden shimmer deep inside.

The cool thing is that MOTB give an odd, unexpected, turn to the classics we know so well. Wined And Dined makes you think that the song will dive into Irish jig territory but the guitar that follows (not that far from Gilmour’s Raise My Rent, if you ask me) brings back happy memories from the music I liked in the seventies (those heavenly oohs and aaahs), ending with a Beatlesque streak. Göran Nyström:

I want to do this with great respect, yet not ending up imitating Syd and his weaknesses at the time. I always felt uncomfortable with cover artists trying to be the sick and poor Syd. I think his songs should shine.

Listening to Gigolo Aunt, that I have always found a bit simple as a song, it comes to me that some of the influences of MOTB lay in the pub-rock from Graham Parker & The Rumour, Rockpile (with Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds) and the cruelly under-appreciated The Motors (their Airport still is in my all times Top-20).

Opel, here renamed as Opal which is probably more correct, has an intro reminding me of a hungry Jaws swimming towards some EMI sales representatives who immediately devour the poor animal. First its intro made me think of an Emerson, Lake and Palmer thing... but at second thought some classic Deep Purple may be a bit closer to it. Anyway it is classic stuff. The song has glimpses of an all female string quartet, playing in the nude, but probably my imagination is having a go at me now.

Long Gone starts – literally - with an interstellar joke before jumping into Mark Bolan or David Bowie cockney territory , it's a totally loony, but irresistible version (and it has a fine moog-a-like outro as well).

What did I forget so far:
Octopus, not as erratic as the original and larded with slight psychedelic effects...
Dark Globe, loving the crack in Göran's voice at the 'wouldn't you miss me at all' bit...,
No Good Trying, a straight forward rocky rendition with lots of reverb, oohs, aahs and nananananas...
Feel, well over seven minutes it starts with a slightly Floydian ambient intro and it further meanders into a pastoral Grantchester Meadows classic but at the four minutes mark a slightly brilliant Narrow Way guitar solo takes over...

Late Night must be one of the most beautiful songs that Syd Barrett ever wrote and Men On The Border also get this one right. Love, peace and understanding are omnipresent (not only on this track, but on the whole album) and, frankly, this is a quite moving version.

You may have deducted by now that the album is excellent and then we haven't said a word about the art department yet, one of the extra reasons you should buy this album for.

The cover art has been made by Kajsa-Tuva Henriksson and the booklet illustrates every song with a painting from Jennifer D'Andrea's (aka JenniFire) I.N.Spired series. Buying the CD will also financially help the Cambridge based Squeaky Gate organisation.

Men On The Border haven't set up a web-shop for their album yet, but you would be more than obliged to mail them at info@menontheborder.com and ask for a copy.

And if the above review didn't convince you, you can listen and watch their songs on the Men On The Border Sound & Vision pages (have a go at Feel with more intriguing art work from JenniFire).

Those Swedish surely have something I can't explain.

---

Many thanks to: Göran Nyström, Phil Etheridge & JenniFire.

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Iggy & the Stones

The Holy Church's secret service, also know as the Igquisition, has sent over its latest trimester report about all things Iggy. Underneath the smooth surface of our blog and Facebook page a maelstrom of facts and rumours are reinforcing and contradicting each other, making the Church's hidden agenda to inundate the Barrett world with false and gratuitous information so much harder to achieve. So let us immediately open this can of worms and have a meditative look at what the (2013) future may bring (or not).

1. Photo shoot

Recently Iggy was the subject of a photo shoot by a Canadian journalist / photographer and we are pretty sure these pictures will eventually find their way into a magazine or to the different Iggy Rose pages on the web.

2. Rolling Stones

Ig was also contacted by a renowned journalist and biographer who wanted to know if she would be willing to share some memories about her days with the Rolling Stones, to appear in a new biographical article or even a book about the band. Iggy Rose has told the Church and Mojo a few anecdotes about her different encounters with the Stones before, but it would be nice to see these all bundled into one publication.

Iggy met Syd Barrett in the spring of 1969 but before she had been spotted in Rolling Stones circles, as has already been revealed in the Mark Blake's Mojo article from 2011.

In February '67, [Iggy] narrowly avoided the police raid at Richards' country pile, in West Wittering: "The night before, I decided not to go, thank God." A year later, still in the Stones' orbit, she found herself watching the recording sessions for what became Sympathy For The Devil. where she was present at several studio sessions.

Iggy 'rolled' into the Stones through Stash (Prince Klossowski de Rola) who presented her to Brian Jones. There is a picture of Iggy, taken by Bruce Fleming, standing close to John Lennon, at the party of Georgie Fame's girlfriend Carmen Jimenez at the Crom (January 1967) and Iggy still remembers eating Carmen's delicious paella at Brian's apartment just around the corner.

After some time she befriended Keith Richards although one thing she says she will ever regret is turning down 'Hot Rod' Stewart in favour of Keith. Photos of her with the Stones should exist, but those in her property have all been stolen, lost or destroyed (see also: Iggy - a new look in festivals).

Having met Keith Richards she also befriended Anita Pallenberg and went with her to the set of Performance where most of the action did not take place in front of the camera. Iggy told the Church:

They used real magic mushrooms... I was at the house [Powis Square, Notting Hill, FA] when they where getting ready to shoot the bedroom scene, the lady in charge was getting shrooms for the cast and offered me some as well.

At the set she met Donald Cammell, the co-director of the movie and his 'beautiful dusky' girlfriend (probably Myriam Gibril). Unfortunately this is not the time nor place to start writing about Iggy's adventures in movie land but we certainly hope someone will some day.

Donald Cammell would only make half a dozen of movies in 30 years, being burned after the Performance débâcle (the movie only gained notoriety decades later), and one of these, White Of The Eye (1987), is known by Pink Floyd fans for its soundtrack by Nick Mason & Rick Fenn.

More about the movie at the excellent Another Nickle In the Machine blog: Donald Cammell’s Performance at Powis Square.

3. Cambridge Summer Meeting 2013

On the 15th of June 2013 the first annual Birdie Hop meeting will take place in Cambridge. It will be a small, exclusive and informal encounter between about 20 fans from all over the world and those that still carry Syd Barrett deep in their heart. Although an agenda has not been set yet there will probably be a guided Cambridge Pink Floyd Walking Tour and some drinks in The Anchor (or another relevant pub) afterwards. The only official demand to make this fan meeting possible was that the Church would not be present and in his infinite goodness the Reverend has agreed.

4. The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit next Big Thing

The weirdest rumour, with echoes arriving only this week, is that the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is preparing a Big Thing for 2013. Unfortunately nobody seems to know what this big thing is going to be and when asked, the Reverend didn't have a clue what it was all about, so you might as well just forget about that. On the other hand, this blog publishes nothing but big things, so keep on checking once in a while.

---

Many thanks to: Alexander P. HB.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

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Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!

After someone thought Iggy's birthday was the beginning of this week, probably due to a Facebook reminder that arrives every Sunday, her birthday went nearly viral and people have been congratulating her for this fabulous event every single day. This proves two things:
One, that 'rumours' quickly snowball on Facebook without being checked first; and
Two, that Iggy Rose is loved and cherished and appreciated by lots of people on this globe...

Not that weird, because - and this is the only time in the year you may believe the Reverend - Iggy Rose is authentic, she is real and she won't change her opinion, nor her mind, because some ninkenpoop thinks that would be better...

...and in an hour time (for the West-European Time Zone) we will officially shout:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

(Yeah, we are aware that the Reverend's handwriting looks like the trail of a wildebeest on LSD.)

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

We know it is from past year, but Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card contains a few seconds from a super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy Birthday Iggy Rose! or YouTube:

Crystal Blue Postcards

An electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, by Denis Combet, with a little help from his friends Constance Cartmill and Allison Star. Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon and some tinkering from Felix Atagong (more about Denis Combet and his Iggy poem(s): Catwoman).

Crystal Blue Postcards (Flash pageFlip presentation).

Guitars and Dust Dancing by Rescue Rangers

Last year, Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers donated the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars and Dust Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at iTunes: Guitars and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the artwork from Jean Vouillon (see above).

Oranges and Apples by Trashcan Sinatras

Dating from 2008 this Trashcan Sinatras tune hints at Iggy with the enigmatic lyric:

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

WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's personal page as well.

Let's make this a birthday to remember, brethren and sistren, but always: don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do!

---

The Church wishes to thank Denis Combet, Pascal Mascheroni (Rescue Rangers) & all the nice people at Birdie Hop, Bill's Blah Blah Blah, Dark Globe Syd Barrett, Late Night and all the others we have forgotten.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

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The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...

...and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

Iggy Rose's birthday didn't went by unnoticed and literally hundreds of people wished her all the best on Facebook, proving that it is not only a wacky Reverend who cherishes her. Later that evening Iggy asked the Holy Church to post a thank you note on her behalf, you can have a look at it here: Thank You (Facebook link).

The above image is a variation on an original drawing from Dolly Rocker from sunny Buenos Aires who gave us some other sparkly Iggy-art in the past (see: Rockadolly), thank you for your drawings! This is the time to thank all the friends, fans and collaborators of the Church (and even some foes who - unwillingly - carry our name around): Adam, Alain, Alex, Alexandre, Allison, Amanda, Amy, Amy-Louise, Ana, Anas, Andre, Angel, Anne, Anni, Anthony, António, Argus, Artemis, Babylemonade, Beate, Bernie, Bianca, Bill, Brian, Brooke, Chang (Phi Phi), Chelsea, Cherri, Chris, Christos, Chuck, Damien, David, Débora, Denis, Dinkie, Dolce, Dolly, Dominique, Duggie, Ed, Edouard, Emily, Eternal, Eva, Evanthia, Ewgeni, Flame, Gary, Gaz, Gian, Giulio, Göran, Greta, Hally, Helen, Hugh, Ian, Ilich, Irmi, Jane, Jennifer, Jenny, Jessica, Jimmie, Joe, Johann, John, José, Joshua, Judi, Julia, Kathy, Keith, Kiloh, Kimberley, Larisa, Leni, Lia, Lisa, Little Queenies, Madcap, Margaretta, Maria, Mark, Marlies, Marsha, Mary, Maynard, Mhari, Michael, Mohammed (Twink), Moon, Nadine, Nancye, Natashaa, Nemanja, Nick, Nigel, Nina, Paloma, Pat, Paul, Paulina, Penny, Phil, Psylo, Rachel, Rafa, Rebecca, Riccardo, Rich, Rick, Robert, Roger, Russell, Sana, Sarah, Scarlet, Shen, Shunda, Sky, Stanislav, Susan, Tam, Terri, Theo, Tiana, Vera, Violetta, Wil, Will, Winnie, Zale... sorry for all those we have forgotten...

And a very – very – very special hug to ♥ Libby Gausden ♥ and ♥ Iggy Rose ♥ ...

See you all in 2013.

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Check out all our igmas cards:
2012 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2011 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you...  
2010 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2009 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 
2008 The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes you... 

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Bend It (2013)

Happy New Year to all visitors, sistren and brethren, of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

When this blog was created on the eighth day of the eight month of the eight year, more or less as a harmless prank, we didn't know yet it would grow into a little monster when, in a weird apotropaic collision, synchronicity and serendipity morphed into Iggymania.

The Holy Igquisition interrupts this post for the following message:

 

2012

We had our good and lesser days in 2012 and a quick glance at the articles we published learn us that this blog would not have existed without our friends, colleagues and (sometimes reluctant) informants from Argentina, England, Germany, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Russia, Spain and Sweden... we may not always have the same opinion but the common thing that binds us all is our love for Syd & Iggy...

2008 - 2013: 5 years in the name of the Rose

This year we will celebrate the Church's first lustrum and how can we honour this better than with a little dance that brought a certain Iggy the Eskimo into the spotlights.

The Band

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich formed a band in 1961 but it would take until 1964 before they got a recording contract (together with their impossible name) with Fontana. After a few false starts DDDBMT finally hit the British charts late 1965 and the next year they were ready to conquer America. September saw the release of 'Bend It', a catchy tune with some saucy vocals. However, the suggestive lyrics put their managers (and authors of the song) Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley (nicknamed Spike & Owly) before a dilemma:

The song stormed the charts in no time. It teased the audience with its sped-up tempo and an offbeat guitar break midway but mostly with its salacious lyrics! The heavy tongue-in-cheek suggestiveness arose some moral outcries - but exactly that was probably the extra boost to shoot the single to #2 in UK in September and even #1 in Germany! (Taken from: www.dddbmt.com)

Conquering decadent Europe was one thing, but to win puritanical America over some drastic measurements had to be taken. NME reported:

Dozens of US radio stations have banned Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich's 'Bend It' because the lyrics are considered too suggestive, and the group have responded by recording a new version in London with a different set of words.

According to the official DDDBMT website the band recorded two new versions of the single, a clean one for the American market and an even smuttier one, that is - as far as we know - still unreleased 47 years later. The band apologised in an open letter:

As a pop group we have no right or wish to set ourselves up as arbiters of public taste or morals. But neither would we want to be viewed in any way as corrupters of these standards. Our two countries are so close in most things that it is always surprising to find the exceptional cases where meaning and innuendo differ between us. (Taken from: www.davedeedozybeakymickandtich.nl)

The replacement of the dirty single for a clean one was done with almost KGB secret service efficiency as the catalog numbers of both versions are identical. Collectors, however, can recognise the different versions by comparing the master number and the duration of the single printed on the label. On Youtube a 'clean' version can be heard in the cover version by Barbara Eden: 'Bend It!'.

Bandits

By re-recording the single an American boycott had been avoided but at least one British radio station had threatened to put the single on the blacklist as well (see also: To bend or not to bend). A somewhat cheaper trick was used to divert the attention from the English censors. It was explained that The Bend was really a brand new dance craze sweeping the country, like The Watusi or the Twist.

The only problem, there wasn't a dance to start with, so one had to be invented, and really fast.

In came Patrick Kerr, choreographer of Ready Steady Go!, who didn't mind creating a few steps that, if we may be so bold, look a bit like Zorba the Greek staggering home after his eleventh ouzo. On the 23rd of September 1966 Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich played their single on RSG! and the dance was promoted in the teenage pop music papers. (See also: Ready, Steady, Kerr!)

BEND IT! STEP-BY-STEP

It had to happen! That smash hit for Dave, Dee, Beaky, Mick and Tich - “Bend it” - has just been crying out for some bright person to devise a '66 dance for it. And who better than Patrick Kerr who introduced countless dances to “Ready Steady Go” viewers? Above is his step-by-step idea of how it should be done. Read it, put on the record and get bending!

1. Step forward on to left foot, at the same time bending at the knees and lowering the left shoulder.
2. Step forward on to right foot, still with knees bent, but on this beat lower right shoulder.
3. Take a step back with left foot at the same time beginning to straighten.
4. Take a step back with the right foot, now straightening to upright position. Repeat this three more times.
5. Step to side with left foot. Close right foot to left. Bend knees and then straighten again. Step to side with right foot. Close left foot to right. Once again bend knees and then straighten them. Repeat this three more times. Now repeat first step four times. Now repeat pattern once more but this time make a quarter of a turn each time on the first variation and a half turn on each of the second variations. With feet slightly apart, bend at the knees and sway from left to right. Repeat this three times more.
6. Take a step forward with the left foot at the same time bending at the knees and lowering left shoulder. Without moving feet sway back so that weight is on the right foot. Repeat three more times. Now go back to the first variation for four more times. Then, starting from first variation, do each of the other variations doing only one of each. Kepp going until fade of the record.

© 1966 by Lynn Music Ltd., 142 Charing Cross Road, London W.C.2.

Inside Playboy

The above instructions, we are afraid, read a bit like a Korean micro-wave manual and therefore a Bend It video was shot by Pathé News who showed it in the ABPC movie theatres all over the country as part of their Inside The Playboy Paradise documentary. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich mime their greatest hit (so far, there would be others) in the London Playboy club and Patrick Kerr, in a Bend shirt, demonstrates the dance with his group Tomorrow's People, a few Playboy Bunnies and some random guests who miraculously know the dance moves as well. One of them, the girl in the plastic triangle dress, will even show up in The Cromwellian, a few weeks later. The full documentary is on British Pathé (with an annoying watermark) but the song (and dance) that make up the biggest chunk of it anyway can be found on YouTube:

To give The Bend a status of authority there was even a national competition although it can be discussed if regional contests were ever organised. A so-called final took place in November at The Cromwellian with as one of the contestants an unknown model named Iggy the Eskimo. The report about this event in NME started this blog, almost five years ago: Bend It! 

Happy New Year!

(This text is a partial rehash / redux / upgrade / update from a 2010 article that has even more detailed information about Patrick Kerr, DDDBMT & the different Bend singles: Rod Harrod remembers The Crom.)

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Tobler, John (editor): NME Rock ‘N’ Roll Years, Hamlyn, London, 1992, p.163.

Many thanks to: Ron Cooper, Herman van Gaal.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

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The Cromwellian at the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit:
1. Bend It! 
2. The Style Council 
3. Rod Harrod remembers The Crom 
4. Dr Death and other assorted figures... 
5. RIP Paul Lincoln (owner of the Cromwellian)
6. The Wrestling Beatle 
7. Cromwellian blog launched! 
8. Bend It (2013) 

The Emily Archer Cromwellian blog: The Cromwellian Club.

Our NME gallery contains hi-res scans from the Come with NME for a pic-visit to THE CROMWELLIAN article in New Musical Express 1037, 25 November 1966. Photographs by Napier Russell & Barry Peake. Words by Norrie Drummond.

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Songs of Praise

The BBC describes its program Songs of Praise as 'inspiring hymns and songs, together with uplifting stories of faith from around the UK and beyond' This is what we immediately thought of when church-member Rich Hall from Illinois send us a copy of his song The Reverend.

In our humble opinion there is no other day better than Easter to listen to this gem that perfectly describes the Church, its Reverend and our prime object of adoration, Iggy Rose.

Here it is in splendid hi-res, hi-fi and 25 frames per second. As it is a Flash presentation, it might not be visible on your portable phones and other overpriced Apple stuff like that. A fast internet line is recommended.

The Reverend (hi-res Flash version)

And as this is Easter and Songs of Praise we hereby give you the text, so that you can all join in this magnificent hymn.

The Reverend

Oh, congregation
Standing here before me
I offer you this simple sermon

You can trust in Iggy
She's never led me wrong
In Iggy we trust

Don't put your faith
In medieval superstitions
Believe in something that matters

Release your inhibitions
Sit back; let it envelope you
Soon you'll feel Iggy's love

Out in the snow
The wind was starting to blow
As the sun went down
And the fire began to glow

Have you ever looked for someone so long
You have to wonder if they even exist

Here in my igloo with Iggy the Eskimo
Watching the snow falling down

Devoted listeners
Hanging on my every word
I give you Iggy's love

No need to look we further
We can stop the inquisitions
Iggy's message is love

Don't be afraid
to let yourself go
give in to Iggy's love

You'll feel it wrap around you
It's all you'll need to keep you warm
You're no longer alone.

Have you ever looked for someone so long
You have to wonder if they even exist

Here in my igloo with Iggy the Eskimo
Watching the snow falling down

Have you ever looked for someone so long
You start to wonder if they even exist

Here in my igloo with Iggy the Eskimo
Watching the snow falling down

© Rich Hall, 2013.

The Reverend (YouTube version)

For those who haven't got a Flash-enabled webbrowser, let's try it another way. Here is a, somewhat downgraded, version on Youtube. Even if this was created using a 2.64 Gigabyte AVI file, it has some stuttering and, unfortunately, the music came out not entirely synchronised with the graphics. But don't let that spoil the fun.

Felix the Atagong Cat (a bonus track)

Rich is not the only multi-instrumentalist who has been inspired by the Church. The incredible Joe 'cheesecake' Perry released a progressive hard-rockerish instrumental, Felix the Atagong Cat, on his Soundcloud channel. The track reminds us vaguely of fast cars, fast boats, fast women and hungry alligators that are held as pets. Lose your mind and play it here:

Happy Easter!

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Richard Michael John Hall is a self-publishing artist in the 'alternative' or 'indie rock' genre with about ten releases on his name. It is rumoured that his next release will be a concept album about the weird world of Barrett anoraks.
Website: Richard Michael John Hall
BandCamp channel: RichMFHall
SoundCloud channel: RichMFHall
YouTube channel: RichFMHall

Joe Perry regularly composes musical tributes to Syd admirers around the world. So far the Reverend is proud to be among the following people that have all been rewarded with a signature tune: Syd Barrett, Libby Gausden, Iggy Rose, Jenny Spires, Twink...
SoundCloud channel: Krazy Uncle

The Church wishes to thank: Amy Funstar, MAY, Brett Wilson for their (un)willing cooperation in the making of the videoclip.
Thanks to Rich Hall and Joe Perry for making music.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

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