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On the 29th or 30th November of 2006 collector Brian Wernham
bought a painting at the Syd Barrett charity Cheffins auction. The
charity closed down a couple of years later, after all the money had
vaporised, but that’s a vicious gossip that is very hidden on this blog.
Described as ‘Lot 741 Still life of “Dried Flowers” painted at
Camberwell School of Art’ it was hammered at £8,500. if we may believe
Steve Bassett who sent the results to the late Astral
Piper website and forum. (Archived at: Cheffins
Auction for the late Syd Barrett.)
Barrett (art book)
The Barrett art book by Beecher and Shutes catalogues it as follows: Untitled
7 Cat. 9 1963 55 x 68 cm Ink, pastel, and watercolour on
paper
On the second of July 2024 Brian Wernham told the Barrett community that
the painting was up for auction. Taken from Brian’s Facebook:
Rare Work of Art by Pink Floyd Rock Genius to Go Under the Hammer in
Carlisle.
The earliest known existing work of art by Pink Floyd founding member,
Roger Keith ‘Syd’ Barrett is set to go under the hammer at Thomson
Roddick Callan’s auction of fine art in Carlisle on 30th July.
The pastel and watercolour work was painted at home in Cambridge in 1963
while studying at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, where
he met soon-to-be-bandmate, David Gilmour. The following year, he
enrolled at Camberwell College of Arts in London to study painting and
in 1965 Pink Floyd began to emerge from London’s underground music scene
to become one of the most influential psychedelic rock bands of all time.
Unfortunately, Syd’s time with the band was brief due to various
personal issues and he officially left the band in 1968 to pursue a solo
career, but not before he had made an indelible mark on music history.
In later life, he continued to find peace and solace in creating works
of art, although these were usually destroyed on completion, and Thomson
Roddick Callan are thrilled to be able to offer one of his
rarely-available works onto the open market. Competition for it is
likely to be fierce and the auctioneers are expecting interest from
around the world. Prospective bidders will be able to register to bid at
the sale and view the catalogue from 19th July with live internet
bidding available at www.thomsonroddick.com. (Taken from: Facebook.)
The selling price is estimated between £6,000 and £8,000 (€7,125 to
€9,500 / $7,757 to $10,343), not that far off of the price it was bought
for in 2006.
Obviously, some fees apply to the hammer price: Room and Absentee
Bids: 24% inc VAT Online and Autobids: 27.6% inc VAT
If you are interested in the description of the painting, here it is: Roger
Keith (Syd) Barrett (British 1946-2006) Still Life of dried flowers Pastel
and watercolour Signed lower left R Barrett. Syd painted the
picture while he was at Camberwell School of Art and subsequently, he
gifted it to his sister Rosemary. 55 x 69cm
Sold for £8000. Barretts
Signature (back). Barrett's
Signature (front).
Controversy
Rule #1 of all things Barrett is that you can’t publish anything without
some controversy taking place. While the painting has been described as
Syd’s ‘earliest known existing work of art’ this was, obviously,
contested. Maurock Guglielmi at Birdie Hop:
They say that this is the first painting made in 1963 (Which is
currently being auctioned) but it seems to me that it is self-portrait
of 1961 made after the death of Max Barrett and given to his girlfriend
at the time. (Birdie
Hop, private Facebook group.)
The ‘girlfriend’ in question, Libby Gauden, confirmed this:
The self portrait I have it was earlier than this one. (Birdie
Hop, private Facebook group.)
But first or not, this is a pretty important piece of early Pink Floyd
related history. This article will be updated after the auction has
taken place or when more information is available.
Update; July 30,2024.
Sold for £,8000.
Many thanks to: Astral Piper Redux 2013, Birdie Hop, Brian Wernham, Dion
Johnson, Libby Gausden, Maurock Guglielmi, Neptune Pink Floyd, Steve
Bassett. Pictures courtesy of Brian Wernham, Thomson Roddick Callan
auctions.
Syd fantasy, based upon a drawing from Julie Salvatore.
Shine on You crazy Diamond
Review and comparison of the 2001 documentary ‘The Pink Floyd &
Syd Barrett Story’ and the 2023 film ‘Have You Got It
Yet?’
Beware: this is a pretty long article and not always written in a
coherent way. Some pictures are fanart products.
2001: The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story
‘The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story’ is a praised 2001 documentary made
by John Edginton (Otmoor Productions) for BBC Omnibus. In true Pink
Floyd tradition, it has been issued several times. The Church has it in
three different releases, culminating in a 2-DVD set with lots of
extras. As usual, we never watched those, so we haven’t gotten a clue
what secrets are hidden in there.
Starting with — how original — Shine
On You Crazy Diamond, we see Syd performing in slow motion, wearing
his favourite Freddy
Krueger shirt. Roger Waters acknowledges the song is
‘absolutely about him’ and Nick Mason gives a short
account of the legendary 1975 Wish
You Were Here encounter.
The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story: 3 different ones. Syd
Barrett in his favourite Freddy Krueger shirt.
Cambridge
Over at Cambridge,
in black and white, with the first few notes of King
Bee. David Gilmour admits that a lot of people, himself
included, were a bit jealous of the ‘bright light’ Barrett was in those
days. Libby Gausden says ‘Syd the Beat’ wore very tight jeans,
giving the documentary a sudden (and probably unwanted) Rutles
vibe.
London
In London,
Syd joins his old friends Roger Waters and Bob Klose, who are
already in a band. Mike Leonard will become their landlord, light
wizard and keyboard player for a while. Pink Floyd records Lucy
Leave, and Bob Klose leaves the band shortly after that. There
simply is no future for an R&B band.
The Pink Floyd join the London Underground clubs and find managers in Peter
Jenner and Andrew King. They contact Joe Boyd, and
that leads to the recording of Arnold
Layne and The
Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
LSD
LSD
was seen as a quasi-religious method to change the world and end the Vietnam
War, so we are told, but it merely changed Syd’s mind and behaviour.
David Gilmour: “Syd was a changed person.”
Rick Wright remembers Syd’s lost weekend: “Something happened to
Syd. (…) He took too much and was gone. He was still looking the same,
but he was somewhere else.”
Getting Syd to play on stage is becoming difficult. It doesn’t make him
popular with the gang. Nick Mason: “Shall I roll with laughter or shall
I try to kill him?”
The English way to deal with the Syd situation is to ignore it until it
leads to the point where they ignore picking him up.
Syd is missing (Black123).
Wetherby Mansions
Duggie Fields, who shared a flat with Syd, remembers how Barrett
painted the floor in two different colours, but he actually painted
himself in. There is no word about Iggy, though, who was there
with him that day.
Sessions
Jerry Shirley remembers that Syd sometimes faked his eccentric
nuttiness when he didn’t want to cope with reality. This is also a
theory Rosemary Breen has put forward. She has claimed that Syd
was actually just joking, while people around him were thinking he was
bonkers.
Procrastination
Duggie Fields has a kind of philosophical explanation of Syd’s
incapability of doing anything — laying in bed all day long.
While he lay there, he had the possibility of doing anything in the
world that he chose. But the minute he made a choice, he was limiting
his possibilities, so he lay there as long as he could.
Stars
Syd, after his failed solo career, returns to Cambridge, where he joins
the band Stars
with Twink and Jack Monk: “You were witnessing the
breakdown of someone in performance.”
1975: Wish You Were Here
The spectre of Syd, as David Gilmour calls it, haunts Pink Floyd for
years, culminating in Wish You Were Here.
The last four or five minutes of the documentary are used to describe
Syd’s visit(s) at Abbey
Road in 1975 (without specifying a date). Wright remembers Syd
jumping up and down, brushing his teeth, which has been largely debunked
by Nick Sedgwick’s testimony, noted down by Mark Blake.
(Nick Sedgwick describing Syd's visit at: Roger
is always right)
Conclusion
This is an excellent documentary, catch it while you can.
HYGIY poster.
2023: Have You Got It Yet?
The story of how Storm Thorgerson’s and Roddy Bogawa’s
documentary came into place can be read in an earlier post: Incarceration
of a Flower Child. Let’s just say it took an awful long time to see
the finished product. We can only guess if Pink Floyd, the company, is
to blame for that. They like to have their hands in the till. The movie
made a world tour in cinemas around the globe, meaning that it mainly
toured Great Britain and the USA.
While initial reviews were exhilarating and enthusiastic, later comments
toned down a bit, as we shall see.
Opal
The film opens with a quote from Don
DeLillo’s novel Great
Jones Street. This novel is about a rock star who leaves his band
and escapes to an unfurnished flat, where he takes a drug that
incapacitates his speech.
While surreal scenes play in his brain, people keep harassing him. Fans
knock on his door; record label executives want him to release a ‘lost’
album.
Last but not least, he has a girlfriend named Opel. Sounds familiar, huh?
Syd Barrett statue with cats and rats and a fluffy pig.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
The quote from the Don DeLillo novel segues into a Syd Barrett interview
where he says that he will take a break from pop music in order to do
some more painting.
Before someone can say Several
Species Of Small Furry Animals (etc…) the mourning tones of Shine On
You Crazy Diamond start. A Storm Thorgerson Mister Screen movie starts,
and these snippets will intersect the documentary at regular intervals.
Not all viewers like this, but it needs to be said that this film was
initially Thorgerson’s baby.
Cut to an interview with Roger Waters, dating from over a decade ago.
All conversations from Storm with the old Cambridge mafia date
(obviously) from before his death in 2013.
A Syd
Peter Jenner remembers that there was almost religious acid-taking in
the 1960s and that Syd was one of the saints of that underground cult.
”Syd was the perfect god, and gods must be killed and eaten,” adds Peter
Whitehead. “But then you must be reborn.”
That’s a lot of pseudo-philosophical cackle even before the documentary
has well started. To add insult to injury, we have a glimpse of a boy
carrying an orange, a plum, and a box of matches just before
disappearing through a magical door, guarded by some dogs. Welcome to
cuckooland.
Sid James.
Cambridge
We teleport to Cambridge, where it all started. We learn that Roger
Keith is nicknamed Syd after a local jazz musician. That story may or
may not be exactly true, as there is anecdotal evidence that Syd’s
nickname came from his love for Carry
On actor Sid
James. But that is anorak territory and not fit for the average
viewer.
Old Cambridge friends remember Syd as a talented, flamboyant, and
sympathetic youngster. Syd joins Geoff Mott & The Mottoes and
is part of the ‘crowd’. He already looks like he is going to go places
and is the star of the gang. There is not a word about the drugs and sex
experiments in the group. These grandmas and grandpas don’t want their
grandchildren to know how groovy they were, swallowing pills, smoking
dope, and having a regular dose of ummagumma.
London Lodgers
In 1964, Syd goes to London, where he joins his old buddy Roger Waters.
He also meets Nick Mason and Rick Wright. For a while, they are Leonard’s
Lodgers. Syd has to choose between a career as a painter or as a
rock musician. The money is simply too good, and he takes a sabbatical
from the academy.
The counterculture blossoms in 1966 with lots of drugs. Syd dives
willingly into that world and comes up with Interstellar
Overdrive, a track that Pete Townshend describes as
psychedelic heavy metal.
LSD
David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist for fuck’s sake, explains
that LSD stimulates a specific serotonin receptor in the brain,
interrupting the traditional way in which the brain is organised.
In other words, Syd’s brain may have been categorically miswired after
one trip too many.
Psychiatrist Mark Collins puts it this way: “The right brain has
got nothing left, and the left brain has got nothing right.”
Change Returns Success
Pink Floyd makes it big with Arnold Layne, See
Emily Play and The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. That is the moment
when Syd realises he doesn’t want to be a pop star any more.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t ventilate his feelings to the rest of the band
and retreats into an impregnable inner space.
The American tour, as we all know, is disastrous, and Syd becomes a
problem — a very big problem.
Looks like someone didn't get the memo.
Mad Jock and Sue
The rumour that Syd was spiked with LSD every morning is once again
denied by Sue Kingsford. As Storm puts it, it is quite ‘good’ if
your hero is flawed by someone else rather than by himself.
Pink Floyd and Syd break up, and Barrett begins a solo career. Po
(Aubrey Powell) tells the story of how Storm and Mick Rock go to
Syd’s place to take some pictures (a thing that has been minimised by
Storm for ages). Mick Rock mentions Iggy, ‘who was never really his
girlfriend, because these were hippie times’.
Storm erroneously believes she was an Eskimo ‘who liked to run around
naked’. So far for research. Iggy occasionally liked to stroll in the
altogether (but she wasn't an Eskimo).
Gala Pinion
Gala gets into Syd’s life. She testifies how he suddenly buys
canvasses, pots of paint, and brushes. Syd locks himself up and paints
day and night, destroying or overpainting the works of the day before.
They move to Cambridge, where they live in a cellar.
There is the tomato soup incident, the engagement is stopped, and Syd
returns to London.
Poor Syd
There is no such thing as poor Syd claims Mick Rock, saying that he
earned millions of pounds. But, as some people have suggested, Roger
probably never cashed the checks that were destined for Syd. His family,
helped by Pink Floyd, had to run after the money.
Wishing (if I had a photograph of you)
Half an hour before the end of the documentary, we get to the weird
encounter during the Shine On You Crazy Diamond sessions. There is no
precise date, nor is the marriage of David Gilmour mentioned. We will
get to that a bit later.
During the occasion, Phil Taylor takes some pictures, and these
haven’t been shown before. Syd is in a white Fred
Perry shirt, sitting next to Roger Waters, who plays an acoustic
guitar. Another shot shows Syd with the Martin
D-35, but he never played it, apparently.
WYWH flame.
London – Cambridge – London – Cambridge
Syd disappears completely from the radar. Around 1981, he is practically
bankrupt. He returns to Cambridge, where he will stay for the rest of
his life.
There is a huge In Memoriam section, at the end of the documentary,
remembering those people who aren’t here any more: Duggie, Nigel, John,
Hoppy, Peter, Anthony, Iggy, Mick, Luke, Storm, Rick, and, of
course, Syd. Our old pal Mick Brown isn’t on the list, but he always
distanced himself from those ‘old toffs stuck in a lava lamp’ anyway.
Interlude
I’m going to kick in an open door by saying that although there is a
two-decade gap between both documentaries, there isn’t that much
difference. Although biographers and documentary makers claim to have
created the ultimate Barrett story, there is the black hole that is
Barrett’s London life between the mid-seventies and the early eighties.
And then there are the Cambridge days when Syd’s privacy, now Roger
Keith's, was better protected than the 13th chapter of the Necronomicon.
The Barrett family was pretty protective of their brother and had all
the right to be that way.
There are some scarce anecdotes that are not always in ‘Have You Got It
Yet?’ In 1977, Barrett invited Gala Pinion to his apartment for some
tea. She accepted but fled when he insulted her in a very rude way.
The Office
Barrett was no stranger to the office, whatever the office was. In 1980,
he entered Blackhill
and, just like in 1975, wasn’t recognised at first. Syd had an
administrative problem with his passport and wanted Peter Jenner to
solve it. The question is what he was planning to do with a passport
anyway, other than undertake a pilgrimage to an Oseira
monastery. There have also been rumours that Barrett called the Pink
Floyd ‘office’ in later days to get rid of unwanted visitors, knocking
at his door all the time.
Euro Anarchists
Steve (aka Melodylaughter) remembers an anecdote, told to him by none
other than Bernard White.
Bernard White once told me a story about some Euro anarchist kids who
came to commune with Syd one day and wouldn't leave. They were camped
out on his lawn and expected him to invite them in. (...)
It was embarrassing. So much so that he called the Pink Floyd office and
asked them to send a few security types up to Cambridge to make them
clear out. And they did. He was grateful.
Funny Farm
Barrett wasn’t in great shape when he returned to Cambridge, neither
physically nor mentally. His mother was afraid of his sudden aggressive
outbursts, and it was decided to separate him from her.
On one occasion, Barrett was transported by the police to Fulbourn
Hospital, where he was released after some hours. There was nothing
they could do for him. So they returned him to his mother.
A stay in the therapeutic Christian community of Greenwoods
took a lot longer. According to different sources, he resided there
between one year and 18 months. This is Pink Floyd territory where no
single witness agrees on the version of another one. People claim he
left the centre one day in 1984, walking the 50-mile (80 km) distance to
home.
Fun with the Floyd.
Kid's Play
In December 2006, the Mail on Sunday ran a story how Barrett frightened
the neighbours’ kid by having frequent anger attacks. While this
anecdote made it into Mark Blake’s acclaimed Pink Floyd biography,
another biographer didn’t ‘want to give this individual a scintilla of
publicity’. Weird, because that author added Radha’s story in his
biography, about an enchanting encounter between a young girl, who
allegedly lived a few houses away, and her friendly, gardening,
neighbour Roger. Radharani’s existence has been highly controversial
since 2007. (More about her at: Making
it clear...)
Various Oddments
But let us go back to ‘Have You Got It Yet?’ What initially made the
fans happy are the few new pictures that can be seen in the movie,
especially those from 1975.
These pictures create a problem, discussed by several anoraks on the
World Wide Wicked Web.
Up until now, we had two pictures of Syd during the Wish You Were Here
sessions. The first has Syd in a white polo shirt. It can be found in
Nick Mason’s memoirs (2004) and has been dated June 5, 1975 (page 211 in
the hardcover version).
A second picture appeared 13 years later when Pink Floyd promoted the Their
Mortal Remains exhibition. It shows Syd in a striped shirt,
allegedly taken on the 7th of July 1975, coincidentally (or not?) the
day that David Gilmour got married.
Calendar Boy
Pink Floyd Summer of 1975 calendar
The 'Have You Got It Yet?' documentary doesn’t say when Syd visited the
Abbey Road studios, nor does it say that he visited the studio at least
twice.The above calendar explains why there was a month between both
visits: Pink Floyd were on tour in America. Probably the band may have
informed Syd that they were leaving for the States the day after his
visit.
A month later the Floyd had an average gig at Knebworth Park, Stevenage,
England. Ginger Gilmour claims this was due to jet-lag, and so does
biographer Mark Blake.
Road manager Phil Taylor took some pictures of Syd in a white Fred Perry
t-shirt, shown for the very first time in the documentary. His testimony
allows us to make an educated guess, as several Sydiots have pointed out.
Marc-Olivier Becks:
In the documentary, Phil Taylor says he took the pictures with a camera
that the band gave him after the Knebworth gig, which happened on July
5, 1975. So, the picture must have been taken early in July, not in June.
Rarepinkfloyd:
What Phil Taylor reveals in the documentary is very precise: the
pictures he took were with the camera that the band offered him at the
end of the Knebworth gig (the last date of the 1975 tour). So, it should
be after July 5.
It appears that Taylor’s pictures were taken on July 7, 1975. This means
that the 'Mortal Remains' picture of Syd in a striped t-shirt is
not from that day. However, the picture that is dated June 5, 1975, in
Mason’s biography, shows Syd in a white polo.
The logical conclusion is that the dates need to be swapped. The striped
shirt picture is from the 5th of June, and the white Fred Perry one is
from the 7th of July 1975, on Gilmour’s marriage day, a week after the
North American tour. If you look close at the picture, you can see
several bottles in the background, perhaps because they all have been
celebrating.
Roddy Bogawa at one of the movie theatre screenings.
Weird Scenes
But it gets weirder. According to Phil Taylor, ‘it took a while before
Roger or David realised this was Syd’. This makes no sense at all
because the band met him a month earlier, before the American tour.
Ginger Gilmour's description of the event, in her book 'Memoirs Of The
Bright Side Of The Moon', does not really clarify the situation. Her
second autobiography, 'Behind The Wall', has the following:
There is a huge sofa in front of the mixing desk in that EMI recording
room. I don’t think any of them were completely certain who was sitting
there until David confirmed it. David looked and his face clouded over
with the reality of what he saw. Under his breath, he said, “It's Syd.”
The atmosphere in the room went silent as they digested the moment.
Roger, especially, who is quoted to have had many mixed emotions for the
past came flooding back.
Again, this makes no sense if they met him the month before. In our Shady
Diamond article, we wrote:
For one reason or another, Pink Floyd members (and other witnesses)
amalgamated the different Barrett appearances into one quasi-mythical
event.
Unfortunately, this documentary does the same. It doesn’t mention that
Syd ‘came two or three days’, as David Gilmour said, and makes this one
big, muddled, event out of it.
Unless, of course, the meeting on the 5th of June never took place and
has to be situated somewhere in July, but that contradicts Mason’s
account (who is known as the archivist of the band).
Syd at Greenwoods (Stanislav).
Hats off to Harper
Roy Harper was at the Knebworth festival, joining the band for Have A
Cigar and has an even weirder story to tell, as noted down by Watkinson
& Anderson:
According to Harper, who was also managed by Blackhill, a set of
photographs were taken earlier in the day when a Floyd-versus-Blackhill
cricket match was held in the festival grounds. Harper: "When the snaps
were passed round at Abbey Road a week later, somebody said: 'My God,
that's Syd!' We all crowded round to have a look and I'm absolutely
certain it was Syd. There was this bald overweight figure actually
standing next to me in one of the photos yet no one could remember
seeing him there at the time."
This anecdote, however, has been vehemently denied by Gilmour and as far
as I can remember hasn't been repeated in other biographies.
Pictures
Here are the Barrett WYWH pictures that made it into the documentary.
Roger Waters and Syd Barrett at Abbey Road. Syd
Barrett holding Waters' guitar. Roger
Waters and Syd Barrett.
To add insult to injury, it has been rumoured that other pictures of
this event exist. These will probably be saved for yet another
overpriced limited set somewhere in the future.
Ladies Night
Fans were exhilarated when they found out that two of Syd’s girlfriends,
who had been silent for decades, would have their say in the documentary.
As a matter of fact, news was already given to us with the first ‘Have
You Got It Yet?’ trailer, published in 2013, when the project was still
named ‘Wouldn’t You Miss Me?’ (a filmic investigation by Storm
Thorgerson). Yes, that is 2013, a full decade before the product was
finally released. (This trailer can be seen in our previous HYGIY
episode: Incarceration
of a Flower Child.)
Gaylor ‘Gala’ Pinion arrives at about 7:50 in the trailer. “He wasn’t
normal at all," she jokingly adds. A minute later, Lindsay Corner joins
the gang of talking heads, claiming that Syd smoked too much.
Fans were thrilled because, up until then, these two people had stayed
in the shadows, refusing to comment on their relationship with Syd. It
was even impossible to get a fairly recent picture of them, unless you
were a part of the special few high-ranking Syd investigators, and
agreed to a non-disclosure contract, signed at midnight, in virgin’s
blood at a cemetery of your choice, under a full moon.
But all that changed in the last decade, and pictures of Gala and
Lindsay are now quite common to find.
Obviously, it is very nice to see them in the documentary, but those
fans who thought they were going to reveal the answer to life, the
universe, and Syd Barrett will be a little disappointed.
There is not a lot to say about Syd that we don’t already know, and that
hasn’t been revealed in the biographies out there. Other friends who
talk dearly about him are Jenny and Libby. Iggy was asked for an
interview as well, at Libby’s place, but she freaked out at the last
minute, plagued by one of her many phobia.
He [Storm, FA] wanted to do it and was setting it up in London. Anyway,
my lovely Libby offered her beautiful home for me to be filmed and
interviewed. I think Rupert [Truman, FA] was going to do the interview
with a script.
Someone whom I would have liked to see is the elusive Dominique, but
alas, she doesn’t want to talk about what happened during her été
d'amour. What is her right, obviously.
Syd chasing dragons. (Antonio Jesùs Reyes). Syd
phones home.
Conclusion
HYGIY is a pretty decent documentary about someone who wanted to
disappear through an infinity of pleasure. Many Sydiots want to know
more about Syd because he was an enigma. But because he was an enigma,
there is not a lot we can say about him. And maybe that is for the best,
although not all Barrett scholars agree. Hallucalation, for instance,
accuses the makers of being 'lacklustre', despite the 10-year ingestion
of the project:
[The] Director (...) told me on Facebook that he wasn't even aware of
[Syd's tap-dancing home movie, FA] when I asked why it wasn't included.
Footage research was lacklustre to say the least - there's still plenty
of unseen Floyd prime silent footage from UFO club in Blu-Ray like
quality out there, none of it are in the film. (Source: Hallucalation on Steve
Hoffman Music Forums.)
StarsCanFrighten agrees:
The Syd Barrett universe is full of so many obsessive, detail-oriented
researchers and fans, it was a little disappointing to have someone
undertake the project who appeared to be a more casual admirer.
Sometimes, those type of documentarians can produce a more unbiased,
unvarnished look at their subjects, but I think in this case the lack of
detail and research-focus, hurt the end product. (Source:
StarsCanFrighten on Steve
Hoffman Music Forums.)
I never got the impression that Roddy was that compelled with Syd’s
story. Either that, or he just never had a grip on precisely how to tell
it. (Source: StarsCanFrighten on Steve
Hoffman Music Forums.)
It is unfortunate that Pink Floyd Ltd never listens to the fans, that
their archivist team sucks and that they deliberately change history
when there is recycled product to promote. There may have been some
diplomatic rope dancing to finish this movie after all. Especially when
one finds out that Paul Loasby is an executive producer.
We, obsessive fans, will never be satisfied, but frankly, this is an
excellent movie. Perhaps it is time to leave the man alone and grant him
the peace of mind he always wanted. Despite the internal Pink Floyds
wars, there is one constant they all agree on. As long as there are £££
(or $$$ or €€€) signs at the horizon, they will produce.
Guest List
For those who kick on those things, here is a list of the talking heads
in both documentaries. It shows that both have an exclusive list of
guests. How many of these people do you know?
Name
SBS
HYGIY
Andrew King (HYGIY)
⚛
Andrew Rawlinson (HYGIY)
⚛
Andrew Vanwyngarden (HYGIY)
⚛
Anthony Stern (HYGIY)
⚛
Aubrey Powell (HYGIY)
⚛
Bob Klose (SBS)
⚛
Cedric Bixler-Zavala (HYGIY)
⚛
Cora Barnes (HYGIY)
⚛
David Gale (HYGIY)
⚛
David Gilmour (SBS, HYGIY)
⚛
⚛
Diana McKenna (HYGIY)
⚛
David Nutt (HYGIY)
⚛
Duggie Fields (SBS, HYGIY)
⚛
⚛
Gala Pinion (HYGIY)
⚛
Graham Coxon (SBS, HYGIY)
⚛
⚛
Jack Monk (SBS)
⚛
Jasper Rose (HYGIY)
⚛
Jenny Spires (HYGIY)
⚛
Jerry Shirley (SBS, HYGIY)
⚛
⚛
Joe Boyd (SBS)
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John Davies (HYGIY)
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Johnny Gordon (HYGIY)
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Julian Leff (HYGIY)
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Julian Palacios (HYGIY)
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Libby Gausden (SBS, HYGIY)
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Lindsay Corner (HYGIY)
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Maggi Hambling (HYGIY)
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Mark Blake (HYGIY)
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Mark Collins (HYGIY)
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Mick Rock (SBS, HYGIY)
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Mike Leonard (SBS)
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Nick Laird-Clowes (HYGIY)
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Nick Mason (SBS, HYGIY)
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Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon (HYGIY)
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Noel Fielding (HYGIY)
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Pete Townshend (HYGIY)
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Peter Barnes (HYGIY)
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Peter Jenner (SBS, HYGIY)
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Peter Whitehead (HYGIY)
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Peter Wynne-Wilson (HYGIY)
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Phil Taylor (HYGIY)
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Rick Wright (SBS)
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Rob Chapman (HYGY)
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Rob Dickinson (HYGIY)
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Robyn Hitchcock (SBS)
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Roger Waters (SBS, HYGIY)
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Rosemary Breen (HYGIY)
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Sam Hutt (HYGIY)
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Seamus O’Connell (HYGIY)
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Storm Thorgerson (HYGIY)
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Sue Kingsford (HYGIY)
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Tim Freke (HYGIY)
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Tom Stoppard (HYGIY)
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The Church wishes to thank: Antonio Jesùs Reyes, Eleonora Siatoni,
Hallucalation, Marc-Olivier Becks, Rarepinkfloyd, Roddy Bogawa,
Stanislav V. Grigorev, StarsCanFrighten, Steve (Melodylaughter).
Sources (other than the above mentioned links): Blake, Mark: Pigs
Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013. Chapman, Rob: A
Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010. Chapman, Rob: Rob
Chapman answers your questions, private publication, 2010, p. 7. Gilmour,
Ginger: Behind The Wall, New Haven Publishers LTD, 2023, Chapter
12. Gilmour, Ginger: Memoirs of the Bright Side of the Moon,
Angelscript International, 2015, p. 103-104. Mason, Nick: Inside
Out: A personal history of Pink Floyd, Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
London, 2004, p. 211. Palacios, Julian: Darker Globe: Uncut and
Unedited, private publication, 2021, p. 983, 987. Parker, David: Random
Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 7-8. Povey, Glenn: The
Complete Pink Floyd, The Ultimate Reference, Stirling, New York,
2016, p. 239-243. Watkinson, Mike & Anderson, Pete: Crazy
Diamond, Omnibus Press, London, 1993, p. 120.
Fanart images by Antonio Jesùs Reyes, Black123, Felix Atagong, Julie
Salvatore, Stanislav (and a couple of unknowns).