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The Anchor's editor was kindly asked, although summoned would be a more
appropriate term, to do an independent review of an interview of the
Reverend of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit that recently appeared on
the extraordinary Spanish Barrett blog Solo
en las Nubes (Alone in the Clouds).
Run by Antonio Jesús the blog is a mix of information and
fun, containing several references to La Sagrada Iglesia de Iggy La
Esquimal, that could be without doubt a title for one of the weirder Pedro
Almodóvar movies. Quite recently, in a dark corner of The
Anchor, dimly lit by a dripping candle in a bottle on the rough
wooden table, I bend over to the gorgeous black-haired girl sitting in
front of me, slowly whispering 'La Sagrada Iglesia de Iggy La Esquimal'
in her ears (actually, in one ear only as it is quite infeasible to
whisper in two ears at the same time, except for Mick Jagger perhaps).
Oh Alex Fagotin baby, she passionately sighed with heaving
breasts, say that to me one more time, but unfortunately my hair already
had caught fire by then.
One very interesting part of the Spanish Barrett blog are the so-called self-interviews
(or autoentrevista) and so far Antonio has persuaded Duggie
Fields and Laughing Madcaps front-man Kiloh Smith to reveal
their souls in these autobiographical Rorschach
tests.
Titled 'Felix Atagong: "Un hombre sincero"' the latest
self-interview has provoked roars of hysterical laughter from the Åland
Islands to Wallis
and Futuna. We reveal no real secrets if we tell you that the
Reverend has left a trail of female victims from Oslo to Tarzana
and rumour goes there will be more to follow despite many international
warnings.
The Reverend's self-interview can already be described as absolute
rock-bottom and without doubt it will be voted the all-time-worst-entry
at the - otherwise excellent - Spanish Barrett blog. Time to let you
decide for yourself what a kind of pompous pathetic pumpernickel that
Reverend of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit really is. Ladies and
gentlemen, the Anchor presents, but not too proudly: Felix Atagong: an
honest man...
Solo en las Nubes.
Felix Atagong: "Un hombre sincero"
Even the roads of rock are unfathomable.
Felix Atagong, from Belgium, has created a blog dedicated to Iggy, the
model of The Madcap Laughs album. Nobody knew her whereabouts for almost
forty years. The coincidence of life, meaning that it is not
coincidental at all, has lead this case to an unexpected but
long-awaited path.
Publius Enigma.
In his self-interview, Mr. Atagong, the Sherlock Holmes of the Floydian
world (he even helped to clarify the Publius Enigma) and always
committed to the truth he slowly peels the layers of the story of his
blog, and more... (introduction written by Antonio Jesús)
1. What is the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit?
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is a blog for Syd Barrett fans dealing
with the – very short – period in 1969 when Syd's alleged girlfriend
Iggy lived with the singer. Apart from some unverified rumours about her
Eskimo roots nobody really knew something about her, nor what happened
to her after her sudden disappearance in 1969.
2. How did it all start?
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 in 2007 and when, in March 2008, DollyRocker
recognised Iggy acting in a 1967 British documentary, I jokingly announced
the Church's birth. But the idea still ripened for five months before
any blog post appeared.
3. What were your intentions?
These were quite ambiguous by design.
Obviously the Church frame, lead by an all-knowing Reverend who
addresses his flock in a swollen and theatrical language, is satirical.
I wanted to imitate those overzealous fans, who can't stop arguing that
Barrett is the world's most underrated musical genius and graphical
artist and who painstakingly, almost in religious stupor, scrutinize
every minute of his life.
But while I was developing the blog I soon realised that I was
painstakingly, almost in religious stupor, collecting all available
puzzle pieces that lay shattered over the net, on blogs, in forums, that
were published in different articles and biographies, thus creating the
ultimate Iggy repository.
Both concepts share an an osmotic relationship and - by being what it is
and what it pretends to be – the Church has evolved into a meta-concept,
although that thin ironic line is probably completely ignored by the
people who visit it.
4. But the Church did trigger an Iggy revival, didn't it?
Not really. Every avalanche starts with a couple of snowflakes and by
sheer luck the Holy Church happened to be on the right place at the
right time. After nearly 40-years of silence several people
simultaneously remembered Iggy. Most of the time the Church was not
involved but has been monitoring and commentating these events. What
nobody expected, except perhaps for the Holy Igquisition, is that it
resulted in some sort of Iggymania.
Iggymania started when Mojo magazine put Syd Barrett on its cover in
2010. Of course that cover story was all about The Madcap Laughs 40th
birthday but the Church had clearly inspired one of the articles. Not
only did this boost the hits on the website but a few days later The
Church could reveal that Evelyn (Iggy) had been found back as well and
that thanks to Mojo.
Beginning of this year Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake could finally
interview Iggy and that is when Iggymania fully exploded.
5. Not bad for something that started as a joke.
Syd and Iggy - Spring 1969.
The Church had already turned serious when JenS shared her memories with
us, revealing that she (probably) introduced Iggy to Syd and pinpointing
The Madcap Laughs photo-shoot date in spring, rather than in the autumn
of 1969. Some time later another acquaintance of Syd gave her first
interview ever to the Church. Margaretta Barclay and her boyfriend Rusty
were regular visitors at Syd's flat and they even tried to resuscitate
Barrett's interest in music by dragging him over to Meic Stevens, who is
still some kind of weird folk cult figure.
I find it rewarding that some of the Church theories have been reprinted
in magazine articles and biographies, so I guess we're not all rubbish
after all.
6. But finding Iggy also presented a major crisis for the Church,
isn't it?
It is the ambiguity of all organisations that have a certain goal. What
do you do if the goal has been reached? What will Greenpeace do if
no-one hunts little seals any more? The worst thing that could happen to
the Church was to find Iggy! But every time the Reverend uttered the
fear there would be lack of Iggy, something new turned up. And 2011 has
already proved to be no exception.
Thinking about the future the Church did some reorganising and will
continue developing into other areas, of course not neglecting its
primary task to inform about al things Ig. One of the new items at the
Church will be a gossip corner called 'The Anchor', named after the
Cambridge pub Syd Barrett used to visit in the early Sixties. We hope it
will stir things up as the Barrett community has become quite lethargic
lately. We're all old farts who fall asleep after our afternoon tea and
biscuits.
7. The question we are all waiting for: is Iggy aware of it at all
and what does she think of the Church?
Evelyn kept a low profile over the years, although she apparently never
hid the fact that she had been on the cover of The Madcap Laughs album.
But the path of Iggy and the path of the Barrett fan community simply
didn't converge for the last 40 years.
Recently Iggy has contacted the Church and she gave us valuable
information. However the question is what will happen when Iggymania
freezes over. I feel it a bit hypocrite to say that now, but it was
never the Church's intention to invade Iggy's privacy.
8. This interview should have at least one anoraky question,
reflecting the true nature of the Church. Does the 'eskimo chain' line
in Barrett's Dark Globe refer to Iggy?
Dark Globe is a very poignant, hermetic track and, as is the case in
many of Syd's songs, its lyrics can be interpreted in different ways. I
think Julian Palacios describes it as a lament to Pink Floyd or
something of that order. It also reads as a goodbye song to a past love
and here is where the 'eskimo chain' line fits in – or doesn't.
I'm only a person with Eskimo chain I tattooed my brain all the way... Won't
you miss me? Wouldn't you miss me at all?
Solo en las Nubes banner.
Most people who read Barrett blogs will know that Barrett recorded under
the guidance of Malcolm Jones, but somewhere in May 1969 he passed the
torch to David Gilmour (Roger Waters would join in as well on a later
date). Jones had given up in desperation, as Peter Jenner had done the
year before, that last one declaring that the sessions had been 'chaos'.
Finally it was David Gilmour who pleaded Harvest records to allow
Barrett a third and final chance to finish his solo record. Of course
this is just one interpretation and not all biographers and witnesses
agree with that. Another story goes that Malcolm Jones simply invited
Gilmour (and Waters) for marketing reasons: three Pink Floyd members for
the price of one, so to speak (four if one adds Rick Wright who might
have done some uncredited overdubs on Golden Hair). Probably the truth
lies, as is often the case, somewhere in the middle.
The first session of the third recording round took place on the 12th of
June 1969. Barrett premiered two new songs: Dark Globe and Long Gone. On
the third (and final) session (26th of July) Roger Waters joined David
Gilmour and a couple of other attempts were made of the same songs.
(this alternative version of Dark Globe, now retitled as Wouldn't You
Miss Me, was later released on the Opel outtakes album.)
It would be logical to see Long Gone and Dark Globe as an indivisible
pair as they are both sad love songs. But there is an abundance of that
theme on The Madcap Laughs. Jenny Spires told the Church: “Syd wrote
songs and not all of them were about one person or another. It was his
job. (…) 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.”
But on the other hand Syd liked to put wordplay and little nods to
reality in his texts. Pink Floyd's second single See Emily Play refers
to psychedelic debutante Emily Young and to Libby Gausden, Jennifer
Gentle from Lucifer Sam is a mixture between Jenny Spires and an ancient
English ballad called 'There were three sisters' (Jennifer, Gentle and
Rosemaree).
Dark Globe also contains the verse: “'The poppy birds way, swing twigs
coffee brands around.” At first sight this is just a nature description
set in a romantic mood but if one knows that a former girlfriend of Syd
was Vivian 'Twig' Brans it becomes quite clear that Syd has cryptically
entered her name in that line.
So while Dark Globe may have no-one specific in mind the Eskimo chain
line may have been a slight nod toward Iggy.
9. This explanation made my appetite grow for more. How can one join
the Church?
To paraphrase Groucho Marx: I don't want to belong to any Church that
will accept me as a member, so you can't. The Church does have some
loyal friends though who have helped by passing on valuable information.
Basically the Church just reaps what others have sown (a common practice
amongst churches, I might add). Many kudos go to a long list of loyal
brainstormers, informants, witnesses and friends (and I already want to
apologise for the ones I have forgotten): Anne, Anthony, Bea, Denis,
DollyRocker, Douggie, Eternal, Gretta, Jenny, Julian, Kieran, Lisa,
Mark, Paro, Prydwyn, Rod, Sadia, Sean, Vicky, our many visitors and
fans... And of course Iggy herself.
10. What is this recurring thing about the Holy Igquisition?
Nobody expects the Holy Igquisition!
Self-interview courtesy of: Solo en las Nubes (2011) - Felix
Atagong: "Un hombre sincero", introduction written by
Antonio Jesús. Self-interview written in December 2010 and updated in
January 2011.
The Anchor is the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit's satirical
division, intended for people with a good heart, but a rather bad
character. More info: The
Anchor. Read our legal stuff: Legal
Stuff.
Those that have been living on planet Magrathea for the past
couple of months may not have been aware that Thursday, 17th of March
2011 was a great day in the life for a Barrett-fan.
The long awaited book 'Barrett',
apparently nobody attempts to use a combination of Madcap or Crazy
Diamond any more, which is a good thing, was launched with a
mega-party and exhibition at Idea
Generation, London.
The Church will review the definitive visual companion to the life of
Syd Barrett in the weeks to come so for the moment you have to content
yourself with the message that it is a splendiferous (and heavy... and
pricey) work of art... and love.
Attending the launch were Anthony Stern, Aubrey "Po" Powell, Captain
Sensible, Dark Globe, David Gale, Duggie Fields, Graham Coxon, Ian
Barrett, Irene Winsby, Jenny Spires, John 'Hoppy' Hopkins, Libby
Gausden, Mark Blake, Miles, Philip James, Rosemary Breen, Vic Singh,
Warren Dosanjh and many others... enough to make a Pink Floyd aficionado
drool...
But for the Church (and not only for the Church) the star of the evening
undoubtedly was a woman of international mystery... and here are some
pictures of her:
Some answers: Antonio Jesús: "The tall guy in brown is Warren
Dosanjh." Mark Jones: "Duggie Fields." Jenny
Spires: "Nigel Gordon and Jimmie Mickelson, Will Shutes and Viv's
nephew, Kieren and his partner..." Libby Gausden Chisman: "Roe
Barrett and her husband Paul Breen, Buster and his partner who used to
come swimming with Dave Gilmour and me at Jesus Green swimming pool in
Cambridge."
One of our brethren told the Reverend afterwards:
I saw Iggy at the launch yesterday. She did very well, considering it
was her first public appearance. She had a legion of female admirers so
she was happy, and people were thrilled to meet her.
The Church wishes to thank: Antonio Jesús, Mark Blake, Libby Gausden
Chisman, Dark Globe, Paul Drummond, Jimmie James, Mark Jones, Jenny
Spires, Brian Wernham and the beautiful people at Late Night and
Facebook. ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
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 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.
These interviews will now find their way to the English speaking part of
the world at the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. We start with a bang as
this one is already a world exclusive, an interview with the manager of
one of Syd's first Cambridge bands: Those Without.
If you would like to visit Cambridge this summer, it is too late to book
an I
Spy Syd In Cambridge tour. In 2008, Warren Dosanjh, Syd Barrett's
first manager, was invited by a non-profit organisation to guide
visitors through the city. Many of these field trips had exclusive and
unexpected guests and left the visitors in awe.
Warren Dosanjh is every inch a guide. I was lucky to attend the very
first tour, still a try-out, and it was a blast. He told us a thousand
and one stories and anecdotes like only an expert could do. On top of
that he also knows the best places in the slummy parts of Cambridge.
But today we're lucky as Warren has decided to give a self-interview for
Solo En Las Nubes.
Where did you meet Syd Barrett for the first time?
We were at the same school. It was called The Cambridgeshire High School
for Boys aka The County. Roger, as he was called then, was a year below
me. I think that Roger Waters was one or two years above.
Those Without (the early days).
How well did you know him then?
Quite well but not as a close friend. Many of us were excited about the
emergence of rock'n roll, R&B and to a degree some folk music,
particularly Bob Dylan. Some evenings were spent at Syd's home in Hills
Road or that of a neighbour, Dick Whyte, listening to and playing music.
Did you play a musical instrument?
I tried very hard to learn the 5-string banjo but as I am left-handed it
proved to be too difficult in the long-term.
How did the band Those Without evolve?
Alan 'Barney' Barnes and Steve Pyle came to my home one evening wanting
to form a new band. They were in a band called Hollerin' Blues
but wanted to disband as a means of getting rid of Brian Scott, their
manager. They asked me to be the manager of the new band and I agreed.
And the name Those Without?
Very late that same night Steve spotted a book on my shelf titled Those
Without Shadows by Françoise
Sagan. "That's it! We just drop the word Shadows.", said Steve. All
bands in those days seemed to be called 'The' someone or other and this
was certainly a new concept in band names.
Volkswagen Dormobile.
So what was it like being a manager?
Getting the bookings was quite easy I remember. The difficult bits were
having transport for us and the equipment particularly when we played
outside of Cambridge. Luckily I had a lovely girlfriend Vernia whose
father owned a VW
Dormobile.
But the most difficult part for me was handling Alan Barnes. He was
without doubt one of the best musicians around, playing keyboards,
harmonica and singing lead. He had a great feel for R&B. But
unfortunately he knew this and could be very contentious and 'up
himself' after a few drinks. There were often occasions when I would
have to take him outside for a quiet word.
So what sort of music did Those Without play?
Mostly R&B. Bands like Jokers Wild were mostly playing cover versions of
pop records in the charts whereas a few bands like ourselves were
playing classic R&B covers of artists like John Lee Hooker, Howlin'
Wolf, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, etc...
Syd with Those Without.
How did Syd get in the band?
Syd wanted to have a go at being in a band. He had previously played for
one night at a CND fund-raising event with a band invented for just that
night, called Geoff Mott & The Mottoes. Steve Pyle brought
Syd along to a practise and asked if he could play bass with us and help
out on the vocals. They were at that time both at The Cambridge School
of Art. I remember Syd bringing along The Kinks' new record - 'You
Really Got Me' - and playing it over and over again.
You mention The Kinks - were there any other bands that influenced
you?
I guess you have to mention The Rolling Stones and The Animals. But at
the grass-roots were people like Cyril
Davies R&B All Stars (Long John Baldry, Dick Heckstall-Smith)
and Graham
Bond Organisation.
So what was special about Cambridge in the 60s?
It was unique. A melting pot of contrasting views, opinions and
influences that often fused together to create a new exciting life for
young people trying to throw off the shackles of post-war Britain. I
remember Allan Ginsberg giving a poetry reading at King's, Duke
Ellington playing an organ recital at Gt. St Mary's Church, student
'rag' days, continental films at The Arts Cinema, nights in Grantchester
Meadows, smoking my first spliff and losing my virginity. Much much
more...
Those Without Shadows.
When did you last see Syd?
I saw him a lot in the 60s. He played with the band about 12 times
before finally settling in London and forming Pink Floyd. When he
returned to Cambridge and after the failure of Stars he became more
reclusive. Sometimes I would pass him in the street as he lived just
around the corner from me but he was always in a different world and I
didn't want to invade his privacy.
We, his school mates and friends, just let him go about his business. We
just remember him not for Pink Floyd but as a well-spoken likeable guy
that we grew up with - a friend who just lost his way.
Check out the I
Spy Syd in Cambridge website that holds many goodies, even now
when the tours no longer exists.
The music scene of Cambridge, Walking Tour, Venues and Bands. A
must read for everyone who is interested in Syd's Cambridge. This 36
pages booklet contains a Cambridge city map and has descriptions of the
different venues and many unknown Cambridge bands of the Sixties.
Researched and compiled by Warren Dosanjh. Edited and layout by Mick
Brown. Further contributions and research: Lee Wood, Alan Willis, Jenny
Spires, Brian Foskett, Viv ‘Twig’ Brans, Stephen Pyle, Albert Prior,
Jess Applin, Cherrill Richardson, Mike Richardson, Hank Wingate, David
Ellingham, Jonathon Church, Sudhir Agar, Dave Parker, Graham Smith, Tony
Middleton, Ivan Carling, Judy Woodford, Jenny Taylor, Stuart Dingley,
Dave Thaxter, Tim Renwick, Pete Rhodes. (March
2011 PDF download, about 5 MB)
History
of Those Without and Hollerin' Blues, with the staggering news that Syd
Barrett has never been a member of that last band. More about the
different gigs
of Those Without (with and without Syd).
Pink Floyd Syd Barrett Interviews with Friends (2009): Roger
"Syd" Barrett - Cambridge Autumn 2009 Interviews with friends Richard
Jacobs, Sue Unwin, John Watkins, Stephen Pyle, Warren Dosanjh, Diana
McKenna, et.al. by Alexandros Papathanasiou. Hosted at Youtube: Pink
Floyd Syd Barrett Interviews with Friends.
Reflections: Sixties Counterculture in Cambridge, a film from
Alexandros Papathanasiou & Kameron Stroud (2011). Reminiscence of the
sixties alternative movement in Cambridge by 7 local interviewees,
including Warren Dosanjh and Stephen Pyle. The film reflects the
interviewees memories during that time as well as it addresses their
powerful conclusions about the impact of the 60's alternative generation
on the present time. Hosted at Youtube: part
1 (10:46) and part
2 (10:11). Hosted at Vimeo: Reflections.
Early November 2008, while we were baffled by The
City Wakes festivities in Cambridge, a mystery man send the
following message to some Syd Barrett oriented forums:
Next Week (November 10th) I begin filming a DVD of places associated
with Syd and the roots of Pink Floyd in Cambridge. I'm looking for
someone to assist as a production assistant. This will be PAID work.
Three days - Monday, Tuesday and Friday. There are 25 locations I am
aware of that were not included on the tours and I will also be
including interviews with many people not at the Wakes events.
What does a production assistant do? Lugs equipment, gets coffee but
also has an input into the production and filming. If anyone is
interested please email me. (Taken from: Syd's
Cambridge, help wanted.)
Lee Wood in the 60s.
Raw Power
That man was Lee Wood who, in the sixties & seventies played in a
few obscure bands such as The Antlers, The Pype Rhythms, The New
Generation, The Sex and LSD. Because it was so difficult to find obscure
records he opened a record store “Remember Those Oldies” in
1974 that grew into an independent punk rock record company after he had
witnessed a rehearsal session from the legendary punk band The
Users.
The sessions were recorded in Spaceward
Studios who are known in Pink Floyd's territorial waters because
they used to have the only tape
in the world of a concert of the Last
Minute Put-Together Boogie Band, recorded on the 27th January 1972
at Corn Exchange, featuring a certain Syd Barrett. Also present were Hawkwind
and their live set of that day has just been issued by Easy
Action. There is no clearance yet for the other bands and at their
website Easy Action has only put the following enigmatic message:
Syd Barrett, Pink Fairies
Easy Action has purchased a number of reels of master tape capturing a
performance by Hawkwind, Pink Fairies and a band hastily assembled
featuring Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett NOT Stars!
Recorded in Cambridge in January 1972, we will be investigating further
copyright clearances and one day hope to produce the whole lot for your
listening pleasure!
Lee Wood in 1978.
Unfortunately Lee Wood did not become the second Brian Epstein or
Richard Branson. As a newbie in the record business he didn't realise
that even punk bands need a business plan (and some proper bookkeeping).
He kept on releasing those records he liked, and about the only one that
actually made a decent profit was 'Settin'
The Woods On Fire' from rockabilly rockers Matchbox.
Other bands that landed on Raw Records were The Killjoys whose leader
Kevin Rowland would later form Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Soft Boys
(with Robyn Hitchcock) and even Sixties sensation The Troggs:
When I was growing up in the 1960’s I loved The Troggs. It’s a long
story but in 1977 I became their manager and we recorded “Just A Little
Too Much” at the legendary Olympic Studios in London. (…) It was issued
in 1978. (Taken from: Just
A Little Too Much.)
Raw Records also had its Decca
audition disaster. Between 1977 and 1978 Lee Wood literally received
hundreds of demos, after he had put an ad in a music magazine. One came
from an average Manchester band called Warsaw and the tape was
binned without further ado. A year later the band had changed its name
to Joy Division and hit the post punk scene with its dark and
gloomy classics.
In 1979 the company was losing so much money that the record store
couldn't cope any more for its losses (several singles only had white
sleeves because there was no money to print covers) and after about 30
singles and a few LPs Raw Records was history. (Raw Records history
compiled from: Punk
77.)
Solo en las nubes.
But a decade before Lee Wood ventured into punk he had been following
the Cambridge R&B scene. Antonio Jesús could persuade him to confess the
following on the Solo en las Nubes blog... and here it is, for
the first time in the English language and exclusively licensed to the
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit...
I have lived in Cambridge since 1962. My parents moved to a small
village called Histon just outside Cambridge when I was 12 years old and
they ran a Public House.
Did you ever meet Syd or members of Pink Floyd?
I never met Syd but I probably bumped into him (literally) as I used to
go Roller Skating about 3 or 4 times every week at Cambridge Corn
Exchange and I’m told Syd went there with his sister.
I knew David Gilmour to say hello to, as I played in a band and spent a
lot of time in the local music shops. In fact I was in a shop called Ken
Stevens on the day David came in and bought a Fender Stratocaster. 3
days later we all read in Melody Maker magazine he had joined Pink Floyd.
I have since met a lot of his friends. People like Warren (Dosanjh,
Syd Barrett's first manager), the very beautiful Jenny Spires, Clive
Welham (drummer in Geoff Mott and the Mottoes) and many more. Let me say
– I can understand why Syd liked them so much. These people are loyal
friends and wonderful human beings. It is a pleasure to know them.
Did you ever see Pink Floyd play live?
Yes. At The Dorothy Ballroom in Cambridge. Of course they were amazing.
Note: The Floyd played that venue on Friday, 17 February 1967 for the
St. Catherine's College Valentine Ball, with Bob Kidman, Alexis Korner's
Blues Incorporated and Pearl Hawaiians.
The Racehorse ad.
What was the music scene like in Cambridge during the period 1965 to
1968?
It was probably like any other town or city of its size. There were lots
of groups and a lot of places for them to play. Unlike today you could
put on a concert at virtually any church hall or the back room of a pub
and people would turn up. It was a very vibrant place. The music scene
was incredible. Everything you read about the 60’s – and more. The Corn
Exchange and The Dorothy ballroom put on lots of famous bands every
week. I saw The Who just after My Generation came out, The Kinks, The
Rolling Stones, Spencer Davis Group, The Kinks, Small Faces and many
more.
Did you ever see Syd perform in his first band “Those Without”?
It is possible. When I was 15 some of the older guys who used to drink
in my parents pub in Histon would go to another pub in Cambridge called
"The Racehorse". Even though I was underage they would take me virtually
every week and I saw a lot of bands. I didn’t drink – I just went to see
the bands play. I am sure I saw Jokers Wild play there and I know Those
Without played there around that time. The band I remember the most and
my favourite were called “Something Else” after the Eddie Cochran song
but it is possible I saw Syd play there and didn’t realise it. There was
also another great band from the area where Syd lived called The Go Five.
Note: Those Without played The Racehorse on Sunday, 20 June 1965 while
Jokers Wild had passed there on Friday, the 26th of March 1965. In those
days Jokers Wild were quite popular, in 1965 they swept the Dorothy
Ballroom 9 times and gigged 22 times at Les Jeux Interdits
(Victoria Ballroom).
Were there any other bands in Cambridge who sounded like Pink Floyd?
Yes. There was a group called "This Sporting Life" who really liked them
and copied their light show. They were a really good band. The drummer
was a friend of mine called David Orbell who actually had a professional
recording studio in Histon from 1965 and recorded a lot of bands. He is
certain Syd came over and played guitar with another band on one
occasion.
Note: the garage freakbeat compilation Le Beat Bespoké 3
(Circle Records, 2008) has an intriguing 1966 track, from an unknown
Cambridge band: Time's
A Good Thing by Syd's Group. Obviously the liner notes hint
that Syd Barrett had a hand in this recording but actually nobody knows
the band members, the record studio or the exact date. While some claim
that the guitar play is similar to Syd's in a typical fuzzy Sixties
style, Kiloh Smith from Laughing
Madcaps has suggested that the track is an Eighties forgery annex
tribute annex pastiche by a neo-garage-freakbeat band. If only someone
could access those tapes in Lee Wood's collection...
He gave me the tapes of a lot of local bands who recorded there,
including "The Wages of Sin" with lead guitarist Tim Renwick. David
lives in somewhere like Brazil nowadays so I never see him.
Do you still have the tapes?
Yes I do. But I sold my old reel-to-reel tape recorder many years ago
and have no way of playing them. But I did hear the track and it is
possible. It certainly sounds like Syds style but was recorded in 1965.
Who knows?
Syd's Bench.
Do you know where the famous bench dedicated to Syd that two fans
told him about when they visited his house is located?
I know exactly where it is. I have visited it on several occasions. The
inscription is not obvious. It doesn’t actually mention Syd by name. I
show details of it on the DVD I produced called "Syd's Cambridge".
Can you tell us what is on the DVD?
The DVD consists of three seperate tours of Cambridge.The first tour is
the City centre. The second tour is the area were Syd grew up and lived.
The third tour is all the places inside and just outside Cambridge
connected with Syd and the early days of Pink Floyd. As I have lived
here all my life I know the city very well. A lot of the books that have
been published have incorrect information so I decided to include all
the correct details. It shows over 30 locations associated with Syd and
Pink Floyd. It even shows the place where Stars played that no one knew
about before.
It also corrects details about the only performance by Geoff Mott And
The Mottoes. They didn’t actually play at the Friends Meeting House – or
other places previously mentioned. I give the real location on the DVD.
You can see it all. It also shows the inside of Syds house and garden
and has an interview with the girls in the artshop where Syd bought his
artist paints.
Syd's Cambridge DVD1.
Can you tell me about the special box set as I have heard about it
but never seen one.
The box set is very special. A beautiful pink box with a ribbon
containing two DVD, the tours DVD plus one of Matthew Scurfield and Emo
talking about Syd and life in the 60’s. The box also contains a book of
places connected to the band, the real estate agents details of Syds
house when it was for sale (with details from his sister), a Cambridge
postcard and bookmark, some special wrapping paper I had designed and
specially made and also a small plastic bag with some soil I took from
Syds garden when I visited it. There are also some other items in it.
There were only 100 copies of the box set made. Each one is individually
numbered and when I sent them out to people they were sent from the Post
Office Syd used just round the corner from his house. I also had a
special cardboard posting box made to make sure the box set arrived in
perfect condition. I’m quite proud of it and the comments and thank you
letters I received bear this out.
Some people have asked me about the box set and what it contains, so
here goes:
The first DVD
is divided into 3 tours. In total we cover 58 locations. There is a lot
of new information, including a review of a little known STARS
performance at The Perse School, with the actual date and a review of
the concert. There is also video of the hall where it took place.
The Geoff Mott And The Mottoes performance did not take place at either
the Friends Meeting House or in the Union Cellars. The DVD reveals for
the first time where this historic event did take place.
As has been revealed - our research proves beyond a shadow of doubt Sid
Barrett was the Double Bass player with the Riverside Jazz Band - not
the drummer as claimed in virtuallly every book and article. We also
discovered the origins of his nickname originally given to him in the
scouts.
Note: this was later confirmed by Syd's school and scouts group mate
Geoff Leyshon in A very Irregular Head (Rob Chapman, 2010).
The DVD has footage of 183 Hills Road including the back garden and
takes you right up to the front door. There is exclusive footage from
INSIDE the Union Cellars and inside Homerton College. Both of these
locations are not open to the public.
New information about David Gilmour just days before joining Floyd, the
exact location of the park bench dedicated to Syd, the EXACT spot on the
Market Square where STARS performed plus lots of photos from the
1960's/70's including The Dandelion Cafe.
There is also an interview with the girls from the art shop where Syd
(Roger) purchased his brushes and paints.
Plus a lot more - his local shops, post office, supermarket and places
he played when a member of Those Without, including Cheshunt College
Lodge.
The city centre tour is conducted by two friends of Syd and at each
location they reveal details of their times with him.
The box set also includes a DVD
of the City Wakes discussions by Emo and Matthew Scurfield, a book with
maps and places around Cambridge, details
of Syd's house, cuttings
from the local newspaper including adverts for the STARS concerts, a
Cambridge greetings
card and a small sample of soil
taken from 6 St Margaret's Square. There is also exclusive video footage
of Syd's house and garden filmed by me in 2006. (Taken from: Syd's
Cambridge Box Set.)
Syd's Cambridge Box Set Gallery
Our new gallery shows artwork of the (sold out) Syd Barrett Limited
Edition Deluxe Box set issued in 2008 by Sound Publishing. The scans
contain (most) material of the box and follow the numbering of the certificate.
Some parts have (deliberately) not been scanned and some have been
slightly tampered with: Syd's
Cambridge Box Set Gallery. The interesting book
inside the box is Pink Floyd Fans Illustrated Guide of Cambridge
(96 pages) by Mark Warden and Alfredo Marziano. A review of this book
can be found at Brain
Damage and Amazon still has got a few copies left.
Notes (other than internet links mentioned above) Chapman, Rob: A
Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 11-12. Povey,
Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd, 3C Publishing,
2008, p. 25-27.
In the Seventies, Eigthies, Nineties and Naughties (sic) no
interview with an (ex-) Pink Floyd member could be published without the
obligatory Syd Barrett question. This enervated the interviewees
sometimes at a point that they may have said things they would later
regret but that are continuously repeated, decades later, by Sydiots all
over the world in their quest to prove that member D, R or N still holds
a grudge against that godlike creature named Syd.
I's a bit like Paul McCartney who will, forever and ever, be reminded of
his 'It's
a drag' comment the day John Lennon died, a comment he gave to the
press vultures while he was emotionally exhausted.
In 2005 when Roger Waters' (rather unexciting) Ca Ira opera saw
the light of day he was obliged to face the press, but his management
insisted to talk about the opera and not about Pink Floyd. Belgian
journalist Serge Simonart described this wryly as interviewing
Winston Churchill and only asking about his hobbies. The music
journalist however smuggled in a Barrett-related question and noted down
the following statement:
The press is also to blame, because they want a juicy tale. Syd was a
juicy tale, and that is why his influence seems to be so much bigger
than it was in reality: he barely was a year in the band, and we have
made our best work later without him. (Taken from WHERE ARE THEY NOW...
ROGER WATERS (PINK FLOYD), currently hosted at A
Fleeting Glimpse.)
Apart from the fact that Roger Waters needs an extra semi-trailer to
transport his ego while he is on tour, he has a valid point although
some Syd anoraks will obviously not agree with the above.
Duggie Fields at Wetherby Mansions, ca. 1970.
In December 1968 (give or take a month) Syd Barrett, Duggie Fields and a
drop-out named Jules rented a three bedroom apartment at Wetherby
Mansions. As Jules left a short while later the witnesses who can tell
us something substantial about Syd's daily life are Duggie Fields, Gala
Pinion (who took the spare bedroom about 6 months later), Iggy Rose plus
the circle of close friends and, unfortunately enough, hanger-ons who
were only there for the free food, free booze and free drugs. Syd
Barrett was either a very generous host or simply too spaced-out to
understand that he was being ripped-off.
Our good friend Iggy Rose is rather reluctant to divulge too much to the
outside world and anything that she has told the Reverend stays well
inside the Church's sigillum confessionis. Gala seems to have
disappeared in Germany of all places, so perhaps someone ought to create
a Semi-Holy Church of Jules in order to find and question him.
Most people who knew Syd seem to have valid enough reasons to keep a low
profile, unless they want to sell overpriced Barrett photo books.
The result is that all weight falls upon the man who lived with Syd for
a couple of years and who tried (and succeeded) in making a successful
art career of his own: Duggie Fields. But it must have been, and
probably still is, a pain in the arse that whenever he wants to inform
the press about a new exposition they all friendly smile into his
direction and say: “Fine, but we only want to know about Syd Barrett
really”.
So let's set the record straight, shall we? With a little help of our
Spanish-sister-blog Solo En Las Nubes we hereafter present you an
exclusive Duggie Fields self-interview (from the 24th November of 2010)
and we will not add another word about Syd. Sort of.
Artistically, a Duggie Fields interview speaks for itself and needs no
introduction.
Although there are some obvious influences on his paintings, his art –
like with all great artists - is immediately recognisable. But the
Duggie Fields label is not limited to canvas alone.
His life is filled with very curious anecdotes. One of those is how he
shared a flat with Syd Barrett (and – although only for a couple of
weeks – with Iggy Rose [note from FA]), the protagonist of
this blog. Exclusively for Todos En Las Nubes Mr. Fields has written
this self-interview. An honor.
ARTSCAPE (juggler6) - Duggie Fields.
So how do you start your day...?
Usually at the computer. In the winter in my dressing gown; in the
summer in my underwear, with a cup of green tea....
And...?
I check my emails. Facebook.
And then sometimes I sit working on a new idea, a picture or less
frequently a piece
of music. And some times hours can pass without me registering.
What are you working on then now?
On the computer I have a couple of new image ideas started. How well
they’ll develop I don’t yet know. And a new piece of music on the way,
the first for quite some time. There’s also the canvas I’ve been working
on for most of the summer now.
So what’s that all about?
That’s not so easy for me to say. If it has a narrative I’ve yet to work
out what it is about. There seems to be some kind of story. There are
two figures in the picture occupying the same, but not quite the same,
space. Both looking at something but not quite the same something. Both
figures have spiritual overtones. The male figure came from a statue in
the graveyard just around the corner from here. The female figure was a
chance vision at an Arts and Antiques Fair up the road in Olympia.
Photographed randomly, not initially intended to pair with him but
somehow ending there intuitively.
Male Female - Duggie Fields.
What’s “just around the corner” ?
Just around the corner is Brompton Cemetery. Just around the corner is
also the name of a series of photographs I have been taking. Almost
daily and with my mobile phone and then posted on my Facebook page. The
Cemetery is Victorian, designed to echo on a much smaller scale
St.Peter’s in Rome, and ravishing when over-grown and wild as it was
last year. I photograph in there regularly. Always managing to discover
unseen statues, so many angels, and a wealth of ever-changing imagery.
And also I take pictures just around the corner on the streets where I
live.
And where is that?
Earls Court, an area I’ve lived in now for over 40 years. In the same
home, the one I first got with Syd Barrett shortly after he’d left the
Pink Floyd and which we shared together for a couple of years or so
before he left even further from the life he’d once lived, and that I’ve
lived in ever since.
Have you always taken photographs?
At Art School I did photography briefly as part of my course there,
enjoying time in the dark-room developing, processing and printing my
own film, but not really getting on with their prevailing concepts of
what the subjects should be. Over the years I’ve had various cameras,
though nothing got me so involved again until going digital allowed me
to print and process on screen. The camera phone I enjoy enormously, not
having to carry a separate camera with me, one less item to fill the
pockets and think about. I use it kind of as a visual diary. I upload
the images to Facebook as it is currently simpler than adding them to my
own website the way it is set-up at the moment.
Note: This year (2011) Just Around The Corner evolved into a very
agreeable book.
That implies you might change it..?
That will change at some stage, but it’s a job that just adds to the
list of things to do. And right now that’s a growing list. The website
(www.duggiefields.com)
works well enough as it stands. But all its sections, and there are many
already, could be expanded on. Like everything it is a question of time,
and of priorities.
What’s the biggest change then that might happen to it?
Well apart from a dedicated Photography section, I have over 1,000
images to choose from to add there. Mostly landscapes and things, the
“Just around the corner” series, “Tree offerings”, and “Curiosities”.
There is more music to add. Quite a few more pieces in addition to what
is already online. And lastly to update the “Word” section with some new
writing. Have been working for the past few years on anecdotes from my
life, from childhood on. Currently have written up to my early years in
Wetherby Mansions.
And when might this happen?
You might well ask that. Really it depends. Right now I’m finishing off
one very large acrylic canvas; thinking about what the next one I paint
might be, painting always being my priority over everything, though now
first starting with imagery made on computer whereas before it would
start on tracing and graph paper. Working on a couple of digital images
that will stay digital whatever, possibly being output as digital
printed canvasses an option. As well as continuing with the music piece
I started only recently. So I am occupied, pre-occupied, engaged, and
other-wise committed. Enough in fact to think, this is enough for this
too so I can back get on with some real work, which of course it always
is. Time demanding however rewarding it feels in the process, which it
does, there is never enough of it it seems........
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 the Spanish
Syd Barrett blog has finally found the time to add his version
of the truth and nothing but the truth.
Antonio Jesús Reyes, a new career in a new town
Antonio Jesús.
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…).
Antonio Jesús with Stephen Pyle.
Wontcha tell us about your blog?
Why not? It all began when I posted Here
I Go, sung by David Gilmour on a radio show. I noticed this post got
some visitors and as it was the only Syd blog in the Spanish language on
this side of the universe, I decided to do something about it.
After some entries I added a device to translate the entries into other
languages. I thought that other people would be interested in some of
the posts like, for example, the ones offering essential and very good
bootlegs. I even dared to share a home-made compilation of the Have
You Go It Yet? series. Things are growing rapidly and news is
becoming the core of the blog.
I also wanted to share things that haven’t got a place in the project
I’m working on, that is, a book about Syd… which is going to be a quite
hard task to do. Time & money, apart from Pink Floyd songs, are quite
annoying. I cannot say much about this yet. There’s always the
bittersweet risk of giving up, so don’t hold your breath, or you’ll
suffocate. I’m trying to do my best, I swear.
The self-interview section is my favourite. I got Duggie Fields, some
Belgian Reverend and Kiloh Smith to interview themselves for the blog
and others are in the pipeline. It is not easy as you run the risk of
being misinterpreted when choosing the subjects. Basically there are
only two rules:
1. Have fun. 2. Free subject matters.
What's next? It was a surprise when I found that www.sydbarrett.org.es
was free… so my blog points to this URL as well. One problem is that my
computer skills are limited. I need designers for the bootlegs and
layout artists for things unseen in the sydbarretian world. The
number of visits is high, the collaborators are scarce. The pipe of the
pipeline is going to explode.
Why Syd Barrett?
His music works like a hyperlink (a thing he has in common with David
Bowie). It’s because of him that I got to know some writers I didn’t
study at the university. His musical influences are quite rich. By
scratching the surface you end up knowing lots of amazing musicians and
albums like Zappa’s Freak-Out, Love’s Forever
Changes, the works of Kevin Ayers, and The Byrds to mention a few.
It made me fully appreciate other genres like psychedelic folk and
blues. Syd's friend, Stephen Pyle, showed me to appreciate blues. He
used to play Bo Diddley (whom he met once!), John Lee Hooker, Jimmy
Reed, Buddy Guy...
With Barrett, I learned to see what’s behind a song. Some of those, for
reasons we know, were under-produced (sometimes, even less than that)
and yet they have reached a kind of status that will make them last
forever. You know they are quite good songs even without a proper
production, even with a quite imperfect performance.
Today, we see the contrary. No matter the means musicians have today,
most of contemporary music seems to suffer from a dance song fate
and their perishability is faster than the yoghourts in your fridge.
There must be something extremely special in those under-produced Syd
Barrett tracks, rougher than demos, that makes them what they are.
Antonio Jesús at Grantchester Meadows.
Tell us about your favorite music.
Recently, I’ve been listening to Kevin Ayers a lot, and The The. Also
The Beach Boys are on my mp3 player. They are something special. The
sound and the songs of The Beach Boys have a special quality which makes
this music a kind of healing experience, the kind of help we need to
survive modern life. …The Manics, Travis, Maximilian Hecker, Sun Ra…
Spanish singer-songwriters like Nacho Vegas and Diego Vasallo… Good old
rock and roll, like Chuck Berry, Jerry-Lee Lewis, Elvis…
You could say I’m a kind of David Bowie connoisseur. I collaborated on
Nicholas Pegg’s The Complete David Bowie proposing some
ideas I found interesting. I strongly recommend it. Bowie’s 1967 album
is very avant-garde, and very ironic.
In general, I like artists who are innovative, like producer Joe Meek,
and those who can transform the past into something completely different
or revive it in a new and exciting way, like Suede.
What do you think about the recent Pink Floyd
re-re-re-re-re-releases?
Those are not my cup of tea. These boxes have so much useless gimmicks
and several music stuff is simply repeated! The unreleased material of
every album could have been compiled in the way of The Beatles Anthology
and then everyone would have been satisfied. The Pink Floyd vaults seem
not to be very deep, but the treasures are so hard to get!
I understand that EMI intends to make business, however, at the same
time and paradoxically, they don't make their customers happy. So what’s
this for? To get cash and disappoint people? It makes people eager to
download the stuff instead of buying it.
I don’t need a Piper / Saucerful Immersion set. I don’t want those
marbles, I don’t need a scarf, I don’t use placeholders (I got plenty of
them during my stay in Belgium). I haven’t got a Blue-ray player. In
summary, I don’t want to create more needs… Do ya?
Would Barrett have become a second Bowie if only?
The otherness in Barrett could have derived into something different
from Bowie or the other way round, but never would he have become a
second Bowie. They would have provoked some kind of artistic turmoil in
the best of the senses. Along with Brian Eno, both are (were) aware that
"music is where you can crash your plane and walk away”. Songs like
Arnold Layne, so childlike, or Astronomy Domine, with such an exciting
and new sound, were made with a goal. Bowie and Barrett are the kind of
artists carrying that old Monty Python sentence: “And now… for something
completely different”. That’s what Barrett did most of the times. Every
Syd tune was different.
Best memories of England?
It was all quite surreal. I remember walking on the grass of
Grantchester Meadows, having coffee in The Cambridge Corn Exchange, and
feeling like in a dream I had never dreamed, just because I was there by
chance. I visited every place I had read about in the books, like St.
Margaret Square. I also did the same in London, the three times I went
there.
I arrived there in a sort of tele-transportation. I did not have the
time to think of the things I knew I would see there. And surprises came
in little by little; I did not know the grass of King’s College was the
one mentioned on ‘Brain Damage’, for example.
I remember working for The City Wakes, restoring old magazine adverts
for concerts and saying to myself… “What is this where I’m in??!!”. The
result was part of a collage by Stephen Pyle (again), and it ended up on
the wall of a jazz bar (and part of a postcard collection).
But life was not always easy for an immigrant. All in all it was a
beautiful and wonderful bitter-sweet experience.
Storm Thorgerson signature.
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.
The Venn-diagram-intersection of Proto-Floyd, Vintage-Floyd and Syd
Barrett anorak sets isn't that ginormous and even if a same person
carries different identities throughout forums and social media websites
you keep on stumbling upon each other. Unfortunately, the Reverend is
not really sure what the previous sentence really tries to say.
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit came across Ewgeni Reingold
around October 2008 and our Russian friend is the living proof that new
blood can bring a breath of fresh air into our rather sclerotised Syd
Barrett community. Without wanting to sound too morbid we Sydiots
need to realise that there are only a good two, perhaps three, decades
left to unravel those great unsolved Pink Floyd or Syd Barrett
mysteries. After that we will only have memories from third-party
sources and not from the (f)actual people themselves...
All it takes are some adventurous people who dare to ask some questions,
search through archives and go digging for the holy grails that are
still undiscovered. Ewgeni did just that and his YouTube
channel has several gems, not only from Pink Floyd or Syd Barrett, that
would have stayed unnoticed without his research.
The Spanish blog Solo
En Las Nubes had the honour to self-interview Ewgeni and the
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit simply pinched the result and put is here.
Life isn't fair, but such is life.
What if I told you that the rarest Syd Barrett and early Floyd
audiovisual material has been published on 4 DVDs, that is it of
professional quality, is extremely detailed, has been thoroughly
researched and was compiled by just one person?
Right.
One of the greatest pleasures in life is to share what you love. This is
the motto of Ewgeni Reingold, born in the city of Samara (Russia) on 12
May, 1991. He still lives there today and studied German and Public
Relations at its university.
Ewgeni has had the honour to grace us with a self-interview. At the end
of this entry, we'll describe this DVD collection in detail. But for the
moment, let's focus on the what, how, why and when and who is
responsible for such great work.
1. How did you discover Syd Barrett’s music?
Well, I’ve been a music fan since I was four or five years old. My
parents used to play Beatles albums on a vinyl player, so I became an
obsessive Beatles fan. Then I discovered new groups little by little:
The Who, The Kinks, The Hollies, lots of old Merseybeat and all that
things. In April of 2006 I heard a radio show about Syd Barrett. It
smashed my mind completely. All that really weird music, the tragic
story and all that stuff...
I listened to this special late night show with headphones, lying in my
bed. I still remember the really strange feelings when I listened to
“Interstellar Overdrive” for the first time. It was completely new music
to me. Of course, I had listened to several Pink Floyd songs on the
radio and on TV before (like “Time”, “Another Brick” and so on) but I
didn’t like it at that time.
I didn’t expect to listen to THIS Pink Floyd. Fortunately I
taped the program from the radio and listened and listened to it again
and again. I still have this tape.
I became a big Syd fan: I began to search for early Floyd CDs and his
solo albums around town and as I didn’t have Internet at that time,
looking for video stuff and bootlegs.
2. How did you come to the idea of making those Syd DVDs?
It was around 2009. I realised that I had tons of video stuff related to
Syd and the early Floyd. I loved the “Have You Got It Yet?” series so
much, but the quality of the video material was poor. So I thought: “If
I have these videos on my hard drive, why not making the definitive
video anthology covering all the 1966-69 videos? That’s the moment, when
the “Ultimate Collection” DVD’s started to materialize.
I didn’t know how to make DVD’s, so I spent a huge amount of time trying
to make discs. When I finished that, I shared this on Yeeshkul
and was shocked by a wave of greetings from Floyd fans. In the
summer of 2011 after long research and trading with collectors, I
started to make an upgraded anthology – 4 DVD’s (can you imagine?). It
was called “Wondering and Dreaming” and included EVERY bit of known
footage of Syd Barrett on circulation.
3. How long did it take to make “Wondering & Dreaming”?
Almost 2 years. New upgrades and new videos started to appear.
(Amazingly, in the summer of 2010 we got the “Dope”
footage!), I became more interested in trading with other collectors,
not just using sources floating on the Internet. At this time I became
more professional in using video decoding, DVD authoring etc.
Every DVD of this series has liner notes, correct dates and cool picture
galleries.
4. What’s your favourite video with Syd?
It’s a difficult question; honestly, I like it ALL and can’t choose. I
just hope more footage to appear in the future, especially the recovered
“Top
of the Pops” footage.
5. What was the most difficult video to find?
Definitely “Die
Jungen Nachtwandler” footage from 24.02.1967 (UFO Club). Of course,
this video surfaced around 2004-5, but I was looking for a better
quality copy from the Bavarian Archive. Shit! It took me four years to
get it, and finally I succeeded. You can compare the quality easily and
the new version rocks!
Have you noticed that Soft Machine also appears in this scene?
I also want to mention other rarities: Jugband Blues with the original
soundtrack (it sounds terrible, but this is an alternate unbooted mix!),
Syd’s 1969 home movies in better quality and John
Latham “Speak” – Floyd 66-67 backdrop film.
6. What do you think about the recent Pink Floyd
re-re-re-re-re-releases?
It was great, those guys changed their minds and gave us the chance
(finally) to hear something new, not just again a “super-dooper-cool”
remastering. Of course, I really want to hear more unreleased Syd music.
The full December ‘64 session, Bike with alternate lyrics (and other
“Piper” era early mixes), the Stockholm tape in full and the holy grail
of all Syd collectors: The De Lane Lea sessions from the Fall of ‘67
(John Latham, “Intremental”, In the Beechwoods, Vegetable Man and Scream
Thy Last Scream). I would pay a high price to hear all that.
7. Can you imagine Syd Barrett today and still active as a musician?
No, I just can’t imagine Syd writing songs and performing in the 80s,
90s, and 2000s. Another Roky Erikson and the Aliens? Definitely not. It
was a tragedy and big loss for popular music, but... Syd belonged more
to the 60s than the 70s.
Most great music was gone in 1971-72 (with the exception of some glam)
and briefly returned in 1976 with punk (just my opinion). I can’t
imagine Syd playing hard rock or progressive and I can’t imagine him and
Pink Floyd in the 70s. By 1970 Syd's songs became darker and depressive.
Songs like “Birdie Hop” or “Word Song” are difficult to listen to, you
know... I think Syd said to us all what he wanted to say and that he
left rock music at the right time.
8. What are your hobbies?
Just listening to music, reading books (not often). My favourite music
era is the 60s: Kinks, Soft Machine, Pretty Things, lots of raw garage
and R&B, proto-punk. My last major discovery is Them with Van Morrison,
T2, and The Untamed. If I had a time machine, I would go back to 1965 or
66 and never return at our times again.
9. Tell us something about the Russian pop-rock panorama.
Well, there is absolutely nothing much to say about that. There is no
normal pop and rock scene, just shit everywhere. “Russian Rock” is
like... well... quasi-folk in the worst sense of the word, and I can't
define that as rock music honestly. You can check examples of this on
YouTube (Воскресение
Случилось Что-То В Городе Моем
or Цой
- Группа крови).
The only good example is some good punk rock from the USSR, there were
some nice groups in the mid-80s, but mostly it was just ripped off from
well-known groups like T.Rex etc...
10. What more can you say?
Just do what you want to do and feel free to express yourself. Listen to
great music and keep on rockin'!
Wondering & Dreaming DVD Collection (written by: Ewgeni
Reingold)
Almost 4 years ago I decided to make a first major DVD compilation of
all Syd Barrett material in circulation. The first set was called
“Ultimate Collection” and released in 2009.
But all is different now because this time I used non-compressed sources
for this anthology and also because many upgrades have appeared since
the last time. I decided to make the most complete picture, using all
available sources (such as: there are 4 versions of “Jugband Blues” with
different audio and video, 2 versions of the complete “Look Of The Week”
because I can’t choose what’s the source is the best, etc...)
This 3 DVD set covers the most important years in the Syd Barrett and
early Pink Floyd group history – 1966 to 1969. I also added a 4th bonus
DVD with related material (such as: “Speak” by John Latham)
I would like to thank all people who help me in this project: Pete M,
Ron Toon (& Harvested), Captain Bronstain for his technical help &
patience, Felix Atagong & Mark Jones for his wonderful covers.
1. Syd’s First Trip – Summer of 1966 1.1 Source 1: VHS 1.2
Source 2: HRV (edited, best quality)
2. “San Francisco” by Anthony Stern - 1968 (ARTE rebroadcast) 3.
“Tonight Let’s All Make Love In London” – Floyd’s bits, 1967
4. London 66-67 – Filmed on 30.12.1966 (?), 11/12.01.1967, 17.01.1967 (?) 4.1
Copy from Japan Laserdisc (Interstellar Overdrive & Nick’s Boogie) 4.2
Unissued Fragment 4.3 Promo video for “London 66-67” release (1994) 4.4
Interstellar Overdrive (VH1 edited version)
5. Syd’s Silent Home Movies – 1966 or early 1967 5.1
Source 1 5.2 Source 2
Running Time: 71:18
Wondering & Dreaming DVD 2 (1967) (same download location
as above)
1. Scene Special aka “It’s So Far Out It’s Straight Down” – filmed on
27-01-1967 1.1. Full TV Special – Broadcast on 7.03.1967, taken from
2nd Gen S-VHS 1.2. Interstellar Overdrive – without voiceover (HRV) 1.3.
Excerpts from Documentary, best ever quality
2. Excerpt from “Dope” Movie – January or February 1967
3. Excerpt from “Die Jungen Nachtwandler” Documentary, filmed on
24-02-1967 3.1 Interstellar Overdrive - Master Copy from BR 3.2
Interstellar Overdrive – VHS source 3.3 UFO Club – outtakes
4. Arnold Layne – Promo Film, Filmed in Late February 1967 4.1
Master Copy (?) (HRV) 4.2 16:9 Version
5. Beach Home Movies – Spring of 1967 5.1 Zoomed Footage 5.2
Original speed (and silent)
6. Abbey Road Home Movies – April 1967 6.1 Source 1: VHS 6.2
Source 2: HRV (edited, best quality)
7. Bouton Rouge – “Arnold Layne” Second Promo, filmed 29-04-1967 7.1
Original Non-Remastered Source 7.2 HRV Remaster
8. Look Of The Week – 14.05.1967, Source 1 8.1 Raw most
complete source – Pow.R. Toh.H., Astronomy Domine, Interview 8.2
Pow.R. Toh.H. (without logo)
1. Look Of The Week – 14.05.1967, Source 2 (BBC 4 rebroadcast +
different source of interview) HRV 2. Top Of The Pops (See Emily
Play) – 6.07.1967, Reconstruction
4. Beat Club Mentions – 1967 to 1969 4.1 Hit Parade (22-07-1967) 4.2
“Reaction In G” audio from unknown source, 1969 4.3
Probably Pink Floyd footage, 1969
5. American Bandstand – 7.11.1967 5.1 Complete (Apples &
Oranges, Interview) 5.2 Excerpts without timecode
6. Central Office Of Information (Jugband Blues) – filmed on early
December 1967 6.1 Original Uncut Source with original audio 6.2
Harvested Remaster 6.3 BBC Soundtrack (fake) 6.4 “Seven Ages Of
Rock” version
7. Tomorrow’s World – Filmed on 12.12.1967 7.1 Complete
(Green Onions, Unknown song) 7.2 The Story Of Pink Floyd – first
mention, 1994 7.3 Roger Waters on Jools Holland Show (without
timecode)
8. Christmas On Earth Continued – 22.12.1967 8.1 Joe Cocker –
“With a Little Help From My friends” promo 8.2.Floyd
Footage – zoomed
9. Home Movies - Filmed Between 1966 and 1969 9.1 New Edit from best
available copy 9.2 Zoomed footage 9.3 Best quality excerpts
1. Jeannetta Cochrane (Peter Whitehead 1967 Footage & IO soundtrack) 2.
John Latham “Speak” (Pink Floyd Backdrop 1966-67 Film) 3.
Road 1967 Footage ? (Taken from “Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd Story” DVD) 4.
Mike Leonard – Pathe Newsreel (1968) 5. Mike Leonard – Pathe
Newsreel Outtakes (1968) 6. Richard Laing ,1966 clip (Infamous Syd’s
related psychiatrist) 7. Duggie Fields, 1975 clip (Syd’s neighbor) 8.
Look At The Life, 1967 Film (feat. Iggy The Eskimo) 9. Excerpts From
Anthony Stern 1968 Movie (feat. Iggy The Eskimo) 10. Peter Whitehead
Interview (1993) 11. “A Day So Dark So Warm” – Syd’s Last Circulating
Footage (1998, Better source, than usual)
Old Documentaries (1988 - ?)
12. Dave & Rick Interview (1988) 13. Knebworth Documentary (1990,
Complete from better source, incl. 1969 Home Footage) 14. Eight Miles
High (Japan Version) 15. Eight Miles High (English VHS) 16. Eight
Miles High (Another Different Version)
Sad News (2006)
17 BBC News # 1 18. BBC News # 2 19. Sky News 20. Auction News 21.
Mick Rock talks about his Book
Oddities (2007 - ?)
22. Seven Ages Of Rock (early Floyd part only) 23. Project Syd –
Friends About Syd 24. Funny Cartoon 25. Here I Go – Promotional
Clip, 2010
Running Time: 143 Minutes
Although there are several download locations for these DVDs the Church
only deliberately gives the 'official' Yeeshkul torrents. Yeeshkul is a
place where Pink Floyd audio collectors meet and share files through a
torrent network. Registration is needed to access the files.
The official Pink Floyd franchise grows and grows, we have (or have had)
Pink Floyd bags, bottle openers, coasters, golf balls, key-rings, mugs,
playing cards, shoes, shooters, undies, wallets, wine and even incense
sticks. There are countless unofficial (and a few semi-official)
biographical and under-review-style DVDs and if we may believe certain
rumours there are still a few of those in the pipeline.
And then we didn't count the books yet. At the Late Night forum there is
a selection of Syd Barrett or vintage Pink Floyd related books, and
currently there are over 35 listed: The
Big List of Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd Books.
Dark Side Globe
There are, luckily, not that many books describing individual Pink Floyd
albums but one that was announced, in 2005, with many bells and whistles
was John
Harris's The Dark Side of the Moon: The
Making Of The Pink Floyd Masterpiece.
It is the perfect example to show the difference between a good and an
excellent rock book. The book starts rather traditional with the
well-known story about Syd and the boys and how Syd named the band 'in
partial tribute to two of his favourite blues singers'. Even in 2005
that story was old news and, on top of that, wrong. The chance for Syd
Barrett to have heard a Floyd
Council track before 1965 was infinitely close to zero. As a solo
performer Floyd Council is a footnote in blues history and only Piedmont
blues scholars remember 'Dipper Boy' as a part-time member of Blind Boy
Fuller's busking and recording band (a quick count shows he was only
present on 7 out of about 138 songs).
Picture by Matt Groening.
Although a pleasant read, with the odd interesting titbit here and
there, John Harris's book has quite a few flukes. There isn't a word
about the dozens different vinyl versions of the album, not a word about
its many tributes, covers or parodies, not a word about the hundreds of
bootlegs. It lacks an in-depth description of the songs or the themes on
the album and no mention of how the revolutionary artwork has been
'cited' over the past few decades on records, magazines, books and in a
well-known cartoon show.
The Making Of The Pink Floyd Masterpiece is a nice coffee-table book,
especially if one realises that the artwork has been made by the same
person who designed the record sleeve and for that reason it is
unforgivable that John Harris, throughout the book, insists of naming
that man Storm Thorgeson (without an R).
The Scottish Piper
Not only does John
Cavanagh's The
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn cost about one-third of the above but it
also manages to spell Thorgerson's name right. And if you thought
for a second this post was going to be about Dark Side of the Moon then
you have entered the wrong universe.
Cavanagh's Piper, so tells the blurb, paints a vivid picture of how Pink
Floyd's remarkable debut album was created. It brings to life the
stories behind each track, as well as the Floyd’s groundbreaking live
performances of the time. Generally, most reviewers
think this is an excellent 'little' book about the Floyd's first and who
are we to contradict them? John managed to interview Nick Mason, Peter
Jenner, Jenny Fabian, Storm Thorgerson, Duggie Fields, Peter Whitehead
and this lead to information, that in 2003 when it first came out,
hadn't been told before.
Recently, the Spanish Syd Barrett blog Solo
En Las Nubes published an auto-interview with John Cavanagh, and
the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, as its preferred partner, has
received the exclusive honour of putting the English version on here.
Next to a musician and radio presenter the Scottish John Cavanagh is the
author of a small guide about the Pink Floyd's first album. It is a work
of pleasant reading and essential information. For Solo En Las Nubes he
demonstrates what he knows and what we as well want to know. There will
be no time for boring moments.
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by John Cavanagh.
Our readers may know you from the book you wrote about Pink Floyd's
Piper at the Gates of Dawn album, that was published in 2003. Could you
tell us something about that?
I was thrilled to be asked to write one of the first books in
Continuum's series on classic albums, especially as it brought so much
to my life on a personal level. The first person I found to interview
was Vic
Singh, the photographer responsible for the front cover of Piper.
Vic had withdrawn from fashion photography to follow his other artistic
and personal pursuits in the early '70s and no one had sought out his
story in any Pink Floyd books I'd seen, so I was very pleased to find
him. We've become good friends since then and he actually shot the front
cover for one of my own records (the second album I made under the name Phosphene)
using the same lens which he had on the Piper photo session. Since then,
Vic has worked on photo and video work with quite a lot of new artists
in London and he's a man who finds great excitement in the here and now,
which I find very refreshing.
From my first conversation with Vic, the book developed through
discovering many more stories which hadn't been told in print before. I
thought that potential readers were likely to have bought other books on
Pink Floyd, so I wanted to be sure that they felt they weren't just
reading the same old stuff over again. Thankfully, that seems to have
happened, as I've had so many positive thoughts on the book across time
and it has found friends around the world - indeed, I have one very good
friend whom I met thanks to this book, so it has a lot of personal
significance in my life.
You were into Pink Floyd from a very early age - right?
The first Floyd album I bought was Meddle.
That was when I was 9 years old. I discovered Relics
the following summer, as I wanted more Floyd and this compilation LP was
very cheap, so I had the money to buy it! That's what took me towards
Piper - the Relics album and hearing Astronomy Domine on the
radio - but my dad and I shared a lot of musical interests and we had,
in time, all the Pink Floyd albums between us, so that band became a
special thing for both of us and something I associate with discovering
lots of music when I was growing up.
Phosphene (picture: Vic Singh).
Let's talk about some of the other things you do... you mentioned
your own music: tell me about that.
For a long time, if anyone asked me "do you play anything" (meaning an
instrument), I'd reply that I played other people's records! Then, one
day in 1996 when my friend Gayle and I were planning to do some
recording of a band we knew using an old Ferrograph
valve tape machine, she encouraged me to get out a clarinet, which I
hadn't played in years, and she played a Farfisa Pianorgan. The idea was
just to test the recorder and mics, but after improvising together we
thought that it felt good, we rewound the tape and, in that moment of
listening back, decided we should become a band and so that's how I
found the magic moment of being able to create something as well as play
other people's records!
We made a lot of our own records in the following 4 years, then we had
our solo projects from 2000 onwards, mine is called Phosphene
and Gayle's is called Pefkin.
We played on each others things sometimes too and then one day in late
2010, we ended up doing a show in a wonderful place in Glasgow called
the Sharmanka
Kinetic Gallery. We were supposed to be playing with a friend who
had to pull out that night, so all of a sudden we were playing a show
which wasn't either of our solo projects and afterwards some friends who
really enjoyed it kept saying that we should do things as Electroscope
again, so we thought, well, why not?
Our first show went really well, so we've continued to enjoy playing
again, we're working on a new album too and we released a compilation of
rare tracks earlier this year called Diapause.
I have a fourth full-length Phosphene album pretty much finished too and
in the time I've made music under that name, I've been privileged to
record with lots of wonderful people, including Bridget
St. John and the late and much missed Lol
Coxhill.
John Cavanagh.
You said you played other people's records. I know radio is a big
part of your life.
Oh yes, I've presented all sorts of shows for the BBC since 1990 and I
also have a weekly show which goes out on a station called Radio
Six International which is carried on various stations in such far
flung places as Taiwan, New Zealand and the U.S.
Radio can be such a magical medium and I was very much inspired by
free-spirited djs like Alan Freeman, John Peel and Johnnie Walker when I
was growing up and also by a show called The Sequence which used
improvised passages and Radiophonics to link the records and sessions
they featured. I think that was important in my discovery and
appreciation of abstract sound in music.
All of these things were important in forming my idea of what radio can
be, so I was never going to head down the direction of working in some
computer playlist format... not for me! I still find as much excitement
as ever in putting together programmes with some sort of unusual twists
in them or starting a long live show wherein listener requests will be a
lot of the content and where I have no idea quite which direction we'll
be moving in.
In more recent years, you've moved into producing other people's
records too. How did that happen?
The first of those projects was The Seance at Hobs Lane by Mount
Vernon Arts Lab, aka Drew Mulholland. Drew had already joined with
Electroscope to cover Geoff Goddard's Sky
Men and I'd known him for quite a while. He wanted to make an album
with guests and acoustic instruments on it and he asked if I would work
on that.
This was a really interesting process and it also led to my meeting with
some people I would record with subsequently, like Raymond MacDonald and
Isobel Campbell. At the time, the album had limited circulation, as
there were business problems with Cargo, the company who released it,
going bust, but it was re-issued more recently by Ghost
Box Records. It was heartening to read that Seance was one of the
things which inspired the people behind Ghost Box to start a label in
the first place.
After that, other things started to be made here. A lot of the source
material for the album Colleen et les Boites à Musique was recorded
here, although Cecile Schott then manipulated the sounds in her own
unique way, so that was quite different from recording a band or
whatever. I got into that sort of thing rather more, starting with the
first album by Family Elan "Stare of Dawn" and right now I'm working on
the new record by Rab Noakes, which is tremendous fun! I've known him
since I started working at the BBC and we've made, literally, hundreds
of hours of radio shows, but we'd never worked together on his music
before. Amongst many releases, Rab made 2 albums produced by Elliott
Mazer (famed for his work with Neil Young, The Band, etc.), so I was
well pleased when he asked me to produce a record, asking specifically
that I choose the players who would work with him which gave me a lot of
creative input right from the start. At the time of writing (August
2012), we still have some things to add before mixing starts, but we're
both excited by how well it's coming together. In between those points,
there have been albums by Nalle & Ben Reynolds, the debut by Two Wings,
Trembling Bells first two releases, projects with some outstanding
improv players active here in Glasgow including George Burt & Neil
Davidson, Una MacGlone and an album by Lol Cohxill & Raymond MacDonald
(yet to be released), plus the pleasure of working with George Gallacher
and Fraser Watson of the legendary Scottish pop band The Poets on a new
recording for a project being put together by Andrew Loog Oldham.
Sharmanka Kinetic Gallery.
You mentioned a place called Sharmanka Kinetic Gallery earlier. Tell
me more about that.
Sharmanka is the unique and wonderful world of a Russian sculptor called
Eduard Bersudsky. He and his partner Tatyana came to Scotland in the
'90s and set up a permanent exhibition here which is now located in an
arts centre in Glasgow called Trongate 103. I first saw Eduard's
marvelous mechanical sculpture machines in 2000 and become completely
hooked at once on this work which blends Eastern European woodcarving
traditions with a feel Eduard has for using old bits and pieces to tell
stories. In Russia, Eduard did some public art (a big wooden sculpture
of a lion in a playpark, for example), but most of his creations were
just made and operated in his own apartment using parts of old bicycles,
typewriters, gramophones, you name it along with his carvings.
That's where Tatyana first met Eduard and, as a gifted theatre director,
she saw a possibility to create a show which, in time, has become
aligned to a whole sound and light experience and has toured many parts
of the world.
The machines animate some sort of story, it might be about Soviet
society, literature (for example, Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and
Margarita), film (Fellini's La Strada), something from Eduard's dreams,
it's very wide ranging. However, I thought there was another possibility
and that was to have live players improvising with the machines and
we've been running these shows on the first Thursday of each month since
March 2010. I believe that Sharmanka is one of those things where, in
many years time, people will look at photos or film and marvel that
there was once a place where you could go and see this show, but it's
here right NOW! If anyone reading this is coming to Glasgow - or is here
already - I urge you to have a look at the website (sharmanka.com) and
go along to see this place: I feel you will not regret it!
Sharmanka isn't your only connection to this Trongate 103 place, is
it?
The centre opened in September 2009 and another of the places in there,
Street Level Photoworks, began their exhibitions in this new location
with a retrospective of work by John
"Hoppy" Hopkins. Hoppy was another person I met and
remained friends with through the Piper book, so I was asked to conduct
a public interview with Hoppy in the gallery. This went so well that it
developed into an occasional series of events and I've hosted
discussions there with the likes of Barry
Miles, Jenny Fabian, Jim
Haynes and Joe
Boyd. On one especially memorable Saturday afternoon in 2010, the
room was packed to see Andrew
Loog Oldham in conversation and this was a great day for me as ALO
is someone I admire tremendously for his innovative spirit, style and
chutzpah and he's also no pushover to interview, so that became a
wonderfully memorable event.
You seem attracted to doing lots of different things. Tell us about
some of the "one off" events you've been involved in.
Earlier this year I was one of five people chosen to contribute a
sound-work to a series of pieces called High Slack Low Slack High
devised by a Glasgow-based artist called Minty Donald. The theme of
these pieces was to reflect or respond to the tidal flow of the River
Clyde. My piece used a collage of sounds ranging from underwater
gurglings captured at low tide by a hydrophone to the sounds heard
inside a nuclear submarine. That was quite an experience in itself, to
be permitted to have a peep inside that world and the way sailors live
on these vessels. The sounds were fascinating too.
Then there was an event in an old place here called The Glue Factory
which is indeed an erstwhile glue factory! That was called Games Night
and was a "happening" in the true sense of that term, something unique
for those who attended it. My friend Claire Biddles were co-presenters
of a live game show which, at first, seemed to be an innocuous quiz
event, but as each round unfolded it became increasingly bizarre.
Next month (September 2012) I'm off to the Isle of Lewis to take part in
a show which is part of the celebrations of the centenary of John Cage's
birth. That will be broadcast on American NPR radio stations, so that's
all exciting too. Lewis is one of Scotland's Western Isles, I've never
been there before and I'm staying for a few days so there's a chance to
see round the island and visit some stone age sites there.
Those are some of the things happening this year. I do like the idea of
exploring new things and... I don't know... maybe people get some
sensation of that and respond by asking me to try working in new ways.
Whatever generates it, I'm glad it happens!
What's the most unusual thing you've worked on recently?
Something I've done for a long time is to work as a commercial
voice-over artist. That might involve voicing, say, a radio commercial
for the tourist agency Visit Scotland, perhaps a tv spot for station in
Ontario or some such place or providing the narration for a video for
UNICEF in Vietnam. Recently I've been doing some children's story
narrations which included character voices and even animal noises. Those
were great fun, but I think the most unusual one was the American guy
who commissioned me to read a love letter to his "Scots/Irish lass".
This was, as you may imagine, a very personal thing to be entrusted with
and I'd never been asked to do such a thing before, but I'm pleased to
say that he was very happy with the outcome and, apparently, so was she!
What are your ambitions?
To keep on finding interesting things to do and to be able to enjoy
working on them! I wouldn't say I was "ambitious" in any sense of
wanting, you know, lots of money or anything like that. So long as there
are ample funds to enjoy life and wonderful people to enjoy it with,
places to see, things to discover... next week I'm going on an evening
looking for bats and moths where we'll have a bat detector and be able
to hear their ultra high frequency calls decoded in a range audible by
the human ear. That, to me, is a more interesting thing to look forward
to than be craving some flashy car or something... I don't even drive!
When the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit got hold of an Iberian Floydian
legend, thanks to a Mexican Syd Barrett fan, the Reverend's alter ego, Alex
Fagotin, spend a couple of days searching the Internet for clues and
started to translate half a dozen of Spanish, Galician and Italian
webpages about the subject. According to these articles Syd Barrett had
stayed in a Spanish monastery where he had recorded a third solo album
called Spanishgrass.
If you missed it, you can still consult the original article here: Spanishgrass
or Syd Barrett's lost Spanish record.
In May 2012 the Holy Church published excerpts from these articles 'as
such' under the satirical 'The
Anchor' banner. Authenticity warnings were put at the beginning and
end of the article and it was made clear throughout the text that the
story was an urban
legend that had thrived in Spain around the Eighties and was still
discussed on Internet fora today.
Only a fool would believe this was a true story, but unfortunately the
Internet ans especially Syd Barrett's anoraky fandom is a fool's oasis.
La Naval.
Investigative Journalism
Some airheads immediately accused the Church of deliberately spreading
around false information, even going as far as claiming it had a hidden
agenda. As if blogging about 'Paul
is Dead' would automatically mean that you believe it. Several
Spanish speaking friends, however, were glad about the article and
informed the Reverend that the Spanish press had indeed written about
Syd Barrett overwintering in a monastery in Oseira.
Once again we repeat for those pigheaded readers that The Anchor, the
Church's satirical division, didn't start this hoax. The Anchor
merely reported about it, with a twenty five years delay. Unfortunately
nobody could lead us to the origin of the hoax and our research lead to
nothing.
This is when Barrett investigator Antonio Jesus, of Solo
En Las Nubes, came into the picture. He decided to get to the bottom
of this using his (Spanish) network of Barrett and Pink Floyd fans.
After some exhaustive research he not only found the article that may
have started the Spanishgrass
legend but even contacted the journalist who wrote it. This first
follow-up article is largely based upon his findings.
A warning for our fast food readers, what follows is rather long, even
for people who are used to The Anchor's long-windedness.
Solo en las Nubes. La
Naval.
Un canto a Galicia
In 1978 (ratified in 1981) Spanish region Galicia
acquired a partial self-governance with its own president, parliament
and court. This created a change in cultural and political awareness,
fed by local television, press and organisations who wanted to cut the
umbilical cord with Madrid. This was later baptised the Atlantic
movement.
Journalist and musician of the influential Galician post-punk band Radio
Océano, Xosé
Manuel Pereiro, better known as Johnny Rotring, witnessed the
birth of it: “Everyday new things were happening and you had the feeling
that everything could pass.” A crucial turning point seems to have been
a concert of The
Ramones in November 1981 that showed that there was a growing
contemporaneous underground scene outside traditional Spanish folklore.
Leading Spanish newspaper El País wrote that it was a cultural awakening
that buried 40 years of ostracism and dictatorship.
Franco's Legacy
In 2013 it seem weird that a concert of The Ramones would mark a turning
point in the cultural history of a European country. To better
understand this we have to start with a brief history lesson.
After the second world war fascism was abolished in Europe with one
exception, Spain, where dictator Francisco Franco would rule until his
death in 1975. Although Richard Nixon called General Franco 'a loyal
friend and ally of the United States' it can't be denied that the
dictator ruled harshly over his country, helped by the influential
Catholic Church, the army and the police. European and American
politicians however opportunistically regarded Franco as an enlightened
leader and closed their eyes for the less friendly aspects of the regime.
This included the systematic suppression of dissident views through
censorship and coercion, the imprisonment of ideological enemies in
concentration camps, the implementation of forced labour in prisons, and
the use of the death penalty and heavy prison sentences as deterrents
for the opponents of the regime. (Taken from Wikipedia.)
After Franco's death democracy slowly settled in, including freedom of
speech, freedom of press and the freedom to listen to subversive music.
Before that, having long hair had been reason enough to be arrested by
the Guardia Civil and be beaten in their cells (with wet towels, to
leave no marks) just for the fun of it, like it was told to the Reverend
by a young dissident who had fled Spain for Belgium in the seventies.
Atlanticism
From rock'n roll awareness, with alternative radio stations and Galician
new wave and post punk bands, the Atlantic movement shifted towards more
critical and political viewpoints, often with an ironic wink. This
resulted into several alternative publications but the one that became
the Atlantic manifesto was La Naval that appeared twice a year in
a circulation of 5000 copies.
La Naval.
La Naval
La Naval managed to unite most participants of 'Atlanticism', from Miguelanxo
Prado over Enrique Ordovás to José Manuel Costa. It only existed for
two years, between 1984 and 1986, but each number announced 'una
visión crítica e irónica de la cultura y la actualidad '
to quote poet Louis
Pereiro, one of its creators.
Its pages offered not only avant-garde Galician samples in art,
literature, music or journalism, but it published self-confident,
humoristic and hilarious articles about non-existent rock bands asking
for parliamentary support, the 'National Cocho Front' forbidding
all derogatory meanings of the word 'pig' and... the diary
entries of a certain Syd Barret (with one T) who allegedly stayed at a
monastery in Oseira.
La Naval, Revista Atlántica, appeared at least four times between 1984
and 1986 (and may not be confused with a few other Spanish magazines
that carry the same title). Not only its countenance was alternative,
but also its dates of apparition and the numbering. Number 0 came out in
November 1984, followed by number 1 in March 1985, a third issue was
numbered 00 in September 1985. The final issue had number 500 and was
released somewhere in Autumn 1986.
That last issue had an article by José
Ángel González, titled: Syd Barret busca en Oseira la
armonía celeste and Antonio Jesús from the Spanish Barrett blog Solo
En Las Nubes was so friendly to scan it in.
So here is, ladies & gentlemen, for the first time translated into
English, the text that probably started the Spanishgrass hoax... (the
scans of the original (Spanish) article can be consulted at our Spanishgrass
library)
Syd Barret busca en Oseira la armonía celeste.
SYD BARRET LOOKING FOR CELESTIAL HARMONY IN OSEIRA
In Oseira
they are getting used to them, both are British, with blue eyes, and
they annually visit the monastery. The novelist Graham
Greene, who prefers the summer and the dry smell of the ground,
scattered with crevices, perhaps mimicking his far-away tropical
experiences when he was working for the Foreign Office. His annual
visits to Oseira, where he is awaited by the monk Leopoldo
Durán, confidant and cicerone of the British master, are
reflected in the novel "Monsignor
Quixote". In one of its pages Greene defines Oseira as "a deserted
island colonized by just a handful of adventurers determined to build a
home on the ruins of a bygone civilization."
Perhaps this same idea was playing in the mind of the monastery's other
annual guest: Syd
Barrett, founder and leader of the group Pink
Floyd that coloured the sixties. One of the legends that
periodically amused the world of 'pop' referred to the premature
retirement of Barrett to a 'Spanish monastery', but hardly anyone
decided to check this at the actual place. Barrett, more wintry than
Greene, annually visited Oseira in the month of December and that since
1968.
The author of the two 'most genuine psychedelic albums of pop', as
quoted by John
Peel when describing 'The Madcap Laughs' and 'Barrett', searched
each year for celestial harmony in Oseira that neither fame nor LSD
could give him.
The village is gloomy, with that special, deep and captivating sadness
that is standard for the northern beauty of Spain. However, the
exception is the monastery 'El Escorial de Galicia', in the great plains
surrounding the sandy slopes of Serra do Faro. For the monks in cyclic
retirement the maelstrom of Oseira is a spiritual refuge.
La Naval: original artwork.
There is also a pub, of course. The 'Sabadelle' is a sad café, with its
original walls in rough granite that have been cemented by poorly
masons. It is a sad place that is in tune with the landscape and its
owner, Arcadio Mourin, admits with watery eyes that he 'has lived for
thirty years in Galicia but has been homesick for Catalonia for at least
twenty'.
From his two Mediterranean decades Mourin keeps a firm disgust for 'Pa amb tomàquet' [traditional dish with bread or
toast with tomato rubbed over and seasoned with olive oil and salt, the
Anchor] and a no less vehement passion for Football
Club Barcelona, evident on the walls of the 'Sabadelle', that is
covered by Blaugrana flags and pictures of 'Lobito' Carrasco.
The bar's decoration is further completed with calendars from Carballiño
and Chantada ironmongers and bazaars that are nailed into the wall next
to a tattered rag that announces a big 'fiesta' in Villamarin.
In a small shed, with a green semi-transparent corrugated plastic roof,
attached to the 'Sabadelle' Arcadio Mourin has installed a youth club
for the town youngsters. They meet on Saturday afternoons to play table
soccer, seven balls for a peseta. Next to the wall is a stack of soft
drink cases and at the other end stands a jukebox, a 'Wurlitzer'
made in 1966, adorned with abundant chrome and painted fuchsia and blue,
a nod towards the preferred soccer team of the owner.
The musical menu of the 'rockola' is renewed every Blue Monday by an
Orense salesman, who also represents a famous brand of biscuits, and his
choice is colourful but commonplace. For a peso you can musically
acclimatise the place with songs of Georgie
Dann, Fuxan
os Ventos, Azul
y Negro, Golpes
Bajos, Xoán
Rubia or Duran
Duran. The least heard song of the entire repertoire of the machine
is identified by the letter B and number 7. Rarely a young man will
decide to spoil a coin on it, perhaps because the small piece of paper
with the title and performer is illegible. But when Arcadio Mourin
permits it, visitors can open the plastic dome of the Wurlitzer and
examine the single in question. It is the only one not coming from the
travelling salesman from Orense and is a British 1967 edition of 'See
Emily Play' and 'Scarecrow', two songs written by Syd Barrett and
performed by the group Pink Floyd.
Jose Ángel González
Interviews
To add further credibility to the article several small interviews and
quotes were added from people who testify about Barrett's yearly trip to
the monastery: Arcadio Mourin (pub owner), Francisco Gasalla (Spanish
friend of Syd Barrett), Leopoldo Durán (Oseira monk), Joe Boyd
(producer), Kurt Digger (journalist), Jo Cannon (lightshow designer),
Robert Wyatt (musician) and Rodney Bennett (movie maker).
A bar in Oseira.
Oseira. 1985 by Arcadio Mourin
We thought he could not speak our language or that he was dumb. Coming
down here almost daily, at nightfall, he took a few glasses of wine
while watching television. (...)
We knew that he lodged at the monastery and that he was an English
countryman and novelist... Sometimes he headed towards Povadura to walk
in the mountains in silent solitude. I think he came here the first time
in '68 or '69 and after that we got used to see him arriving every year,
in early December. Today he is liked much more and he relates more to
the people, but he still leaves after a short time. He gave me a single
for the machine that is there and it will continue to stay there,
because the youngsters will not spend a peso on it. (...)
His best friend here is Paco Gasalla, from the Chamber of Agriculture,
who was an immigrant in England and speaks the language.
Comments: A search on Arcadio Mourin or on the Sabadelle pub
was without results.
Oseira. 1985 by Francisco Gasalla
I personally met Syd when I paid a visit to Father Durán, a long time
family friend. It was in the monastery at Christmas 1975... Barrett and
the Father spoke of Graham Greene. (...)
I thought he was a painter because I saw him walk on the mountain,
carrying a large book, the kind of book to put sketches in, and a case
of coloured pencils. At first he did not speak a Castilian word. With
the monks he spoke in English, especially with Father Durán, and with
others in French. (...)
I still don't know him very well, I did not even know he was a musician
until an English journalist came by. We see him every year with the
Christmas holidays. He always brings something from Cambridge and I use
the opportunity to practice my English, because I miss that. And he asks
me things about the people of the village, things about people's lives.
(...)
He is very shy, very artistic.
Comments: A search on Francisco Gasalla was without results.
Leopoldo Durán with Graham Greene.
Oseira. 1985 by Leopoldo Durán, Oseira monk and a personal friend of
Syd Barrett and Graham Greene.
Mr. Barrett, whom I have known for many years, has asked me to be
discreet and not to have contact with the press. Year ago a British
weekly published a sensationalist story full of exaggerations and we
would not want something similar to happen.
Comments: Leopoldo
Durán, 1917-2008, was a professor in theology, philosophy and
literature and a close friend (and biographer) of Graham Greene. There
is no proof he ever met Syd Barrett. In over 35 years of Pink Floyd
research the Reverend has never encountered an English press article
mentioning Syd's annual retreats into a Spanish monastery, neither has
it been cited in any of the biographies.
Oseira. 1985 by Francisco Gasalla
Once we went to Carballiño.
We especially invited Syd because the annual Film Festival had put a
film with Pink Floyd music on the agenda. It was called "The Valley", it
was an African adventure film, made by some Germans. Syd had not seen it
before and was very quiet, chewing 'Sugus'
sweets, a sight I will not forget. Every year he would take several
packages back to England. "They're for my hippie friends"; he once said.
I asked him if he liked the movie and he said: “only the music”. (...)
I proposed him to come to my house if he wanted to grab a guitar or the
Casio that my daughter's grandparents had given her for her name day,
but he always said no. He said he had done 'too much music'.
Comments: La Vallée is a (horrible and
pretentious) 1972 French film written and directed by Barbet
Schroeder. The most notable point of the movie is its soundtrack by
Pink Floyd, resulting in one of their finest albums ever (Obscured
By Clouds). A trifle more (satirical) info at: Careful
with that stash, Gini.
Joe Boyd.
San Francisco (USA). 1983 by Joe Boyd, record producer and film maker
in an interview for the magazine Cult
My first job as a record producer was in 1967, in London, a city that
went through a musical frenzy. I did several singles with Pink Floyd, a
group of Cambridge that had very little to do then with the band they
are today. They were crazy, really crazy, continuously taking all kinds
of drugs, but they were really creative, especially Syd Barrett, singer,
guitarist and principal songwriter. (...)
I lost their track for a while, but Barrett once wrote me to ask for a
copy of 'See Emily Play'. I sent it to Cambridge and I knew nothing more
of it. The letter said he wanted to give the disk to a good friend.
Comments: Joe
Boyd is of course known by Pink Floyd admirers, he opened the UFO
club and produced the Floyd's first single Arnold
Layne. In contradiction with the above 'quote' he was not involved
with the Floyd's second single, See
Emily Play. Several magazines called 'Cult' have existed throughout
the years but no interview with Joe Boyd for one of them could be found.
London. 1982 article signed by Kurt Digger in the weekly Sounds
magazine, headlined "Barrett: Mad as Always"
The darling son of psychedelia has found peace in the arms of
contemplative Catholicism. In the monastery of Oseira (Galicia,
geographically the closest Spanish region to the UK), Syd Barrett,
founder of Pink Floyd and 'enfant terrible' of the London 'underground'
66-67 years, has retreated for a long stroll through the wastelands. (…)
Surrounded by monks Barrett showed himself proud, arrogant and even
rude. (...)
"You are still waiting for me to return, vultures", he yelled
semi-hysterical. (...)
No wonder his mother expels him annually from his home in Cambridge,
thus the patient lady can enjoy a pleasant Christmas.
Comments: Sounds
magazine did exist in 1982, but a search on the title or the author
didn't give any results.
LONDON. 1969 by Jo Cannon, head of the light show of the first
concerts of Pink Floyd, in an interview published in the magazine Oz.
Late last year I received a postcard from Syd. It was a tourist view of
a Spanish monastery called Ossarium (sic). Written on it were two
stanzas of 'See Emily Play': “There is no other day. Let's try it
another way. You'll lose your mind and play. Free games for May." Since
then I've heard nothing more."
Comments: Syd Barrett was already interested in light
experiments before he hit the charts with Pink Floyd. Anthony Stern has
told how he and Syd had been fascinated by Reg Gadney at King's College
who made light projections (1964-ish) and later Syd tried to repeat
these at home with John Gordon. In the early days of Pink Floyd the band
lived in the house of Mike Leonard, who experimented with oil slides,
rotating mirrors and lights. When the Floyd went professional in 1966
their first light show came straight from Haight-Ashbury, thanks to a
couple of hippies, Joel and Toni Brown. Unfortunately they returned to
the USA and Peter Jenner (and his wife Sumi) had to improvise a
copycat-light-set.
At one point seventeen years old Joe Gannon was hired who became their
first lighting tech, but he had already left when the Floyd started
hitting the market.
It is improbable that Joe Gannon (not Jo Cannon) would have
received a Spanish holiday card from Syd Barrett in December 1968. That
month Syd, Duggie Fields and Jules moved into Wetherby Mansions and
according to Jens she visited Syd there before year's end.
LONDON. 1968 anonymous entry, inserted in the journal 'International
Times', part of the British Underground.
The sorcerer's apprentice can't stand 'speed'. Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd's
first singer, lived for two lost months a monastic life in a small place
in north-western Spain. Barrett's mother confirmed a few days ago that
her son is 'travelling', but denied that it had to do with any physical
or mental problems. “He simply is doing some sightseeing.", said Mrs.
Barrett, who owns a pottery shop in Cambridge. (…)
After his final separation with Pink Floyd, Barrett travelled last
January through various countries on the continent and finally settled
in a monastery in Galicia, in north-western Spain. This was revealed by
light expert and close friend of the singer, Jo Cannon.
Comments: As far as we know Syd's mother didn't have a pottery
shop. It is also weird that the same wrongly named person, Jo Cannon,
surfaces in two different articles in the English press. A search for Jo
Cannon on the extensive IT database didn't give any result, neither did
Joe Gannon, by the way.
Robert Wyatt.
MENORCA. 1975 by Robert Wyatt, British musician and inhabitant of the
Balearic Islands, in an interview by Claudi Montaña and published in the
magazine 'Vibraciones'.
I knew that Syd Barrett was going through a bad time and invited him to
spend some time at home, here in Menorca. He wondered where this place
was and I answered that it was in Spain, next to Ibiza. "In that country
only one place interests me," he replied but I had never heard of it.
(...)
A few months ago he sent me a tape with traditional music of that
Spanish region. It was similar to Scottish bagpipes but with more
emotions. Something really spiritual.
Comments: The Spanish magazine Vibraciones
did have a Robert
Wyatt article in its issue of November 1975 called En Menorca, de
week-end con Robert Wyatt. Unfortunately the article itself could
not be consulted.
LONDON. 1985 by Rodney Bennett, director of the 'Monsignor Quixote'
production for Thames Television, filmed partly in Oseira and based on
the novel of the same name by Graham Greene. Published in the magazine
Film Maker.
I knew that Syd Barret was a regular of the Oseira monastery and I wrote
to Cambridge offering him to compose the music of 'Monsignor Quixote'.
Graham Greene and the producers knew of the agreement. However, Barret
declined the offer in a very nice letter. He wished me luck and success
with the series, admitted being a fan of Greene and a "staunch defender
of the purity of Oseira".
Comments: The American magazine Filmmaker only started in
1992, but it is possible that a magazine with the same name existed
before, although the Church didn't find any trace of that. Rodney
Bennett did make a Monsignor
Quixote television movie but nowhere he has mentioned Syd Barrett as
a possible collaborator. Neither does any of the Barrett biographies
mention him.
CONCLUSION
The La Naval Barrett article could be the source of the Oseira Floydian
legend. It needs to be remarked though that in this article there is no
word of an unpublished Spanishgrass album. That part of the story
seems to have been added in a later stage when the story mushroomed in
the pubs around A Coruña by people who failed to see the satire of it
all.
Seventeen years later, in 2003, a certain Eric Burdon (obviously a
nickname) published a Spanish Internet article called 'Discos
perdidos - Spanish Grass- Syd Barrett' that has been quoted ever
since... And perhaps more solutions will be revealed by Antonio Jesús
when he will publish his investigations at Solo
En Las Nubes.
The Anchor is the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit's satirical
division, intended for people with a good heart, but a rather
bad character. More info: The
Anchor. Read our legal stuff: Legal
Stuff.
Jose Ángel González (no accent on the first name, please) was born in Santiago
de Compostela on February 28, 1955. Spending most of his youth in Venezuela
he returned to Spain at the age of 17.
For the past 30 years he has been a free-lance journalist, covering a
broad range of the classic and modern media: spoken and written word,
video and television, electronic adventures in cyberworld for official
and private institutions or companies. In those three decades he has
witnessed successive births, deaths and resurrections of magazines and
papers but this hasn't taken away the fun and inspiration to go on
writing. In his own words: telling a story, whatever the medium, is the
most beautiful of the story.
Jose Ángel González is also a photographer, has exhibited his work in
Madrid, Barcelona and San Francisco and has published some work in
magazines. He likes photography as an expressive medium as pictures can
be a workaround for when words aren't telling enough.
In 1986 he published a mockumentary
in La Naval, a shortlived 'Atlantic movement' journal that he
founded. It was a fable about Syd Barrett's alleged stay at the Oseira
monastery. Throughout the entire piece the protagonist's name is
misspelled as Barret, not Barrett. Not that anyone noticed. See: Spanishgrass,
one year later.
Unknown to him the story turned into an urban legend and the Syd in
Oseira rumour was repeated and extrapolated among Spanish Syd Barrett
fans.
In 2002 he published a follow-up article on a (disappeared) blog in a
series of hypothetical records. Here is where the Spanishgrass
album was named for the first time.
This added extra fuel on the urban legend and blogs and forums picked up
the 'news'. According to González he was not aware of this until he was
contacted by Antonio Jesús from Solo
En Las Nubes who made it his quest to search for the origins of the
Spanishgrass myth.
Antonio Jesús has lived in Cambridge where he helped at The
City Wakes festival (2008, already) and met several people of the
pre-Floydian incrowd. His blog Solo
en las Nubes is the starting point for Spanish speaking Barrett fans
all over the world. In a series of so-called Self-Interviews
he has highlighted several personalities of the past and present Syd
Barrett world.
As a close collaborator of the Holy Church he decided to investigate the Spanishgrass
hoax, go to the bottom of it and find the source of the urban legend.
Not only he traced back the articles that started the legend but managed
to interview the author, Jose Ángel González.
He is the author of much more than "Syd Barrett looking for celestial
harmony in Oseira" and "Monastic Syd" (aka Spanishgrass).
Once we had found Jose Ángel González, we had no other choice then to
ask about his article of La
Naval... However, there were many other things to talk about as we
had only seen the tip of an artist's iceberg.
What follows are the questions, what follows are the answers ...
About the [Atlantic] movement that started in Vigo... when was the
time when you realized that those changes were going to stay forever?
Have they "stayed forever"? Their remembrance should be personal and not
entrenched in a historical museum. I think that all these changes have
now been usurped by the professionals of recuperation: politicians,
artists in search for the holy grail of early retirement, mediocre
artists, professional curators looking for patronage... They want to be
awarded with an approved nostalgic blessing, they want to give
expression of a comfortable and comforting situation...
I'm thinking of the shameful and manipulative exposition Desembarco
de los 80 (Disembarking of the eighties, 2011 exposition
remembering the Atlantic movement) that was mounted on lies for the
greater glory, also financial, of its survivors... I don’t like the
durability of this idea, although of course I am a human being and I
have the right to worship my private saints.
[Note: for an explanation what the Spanish cultural and political
Atlantic movement was about, please see: Spanishgrass,
one year later.]
Where did you live and what did you do then?
When the Vigo
movement hatched in the media I was living in Coruña.
I don't call her the Galician A Coruña nor the Spanish La
Coruña, I only use the feminine surname of the city, as she is the lady
whom I love. I was working for the only Galician FM radio-station that
played the Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, Television, Patti Smith or the
Ramones...
First the show was called Frenesí (Frenzy), later El lado salvaje (The
wild side) and it was diffused by Radio Popular in Ferrol,
but recorded in Coruña. Much later the show changed into Vuelo nocturno
(Nightflight) on the FM station Radio
Coruña-Cadena SER.
In 1980 I had returned from Madrid where I had been lucky enough to
witness the first concerts of the groups that were liked by the
[Atlantic] movement and I found out that Coruña was a wasteland where
the people of my generation where listening to Emerson,
Lake & Palmer in the best case and to Mercedes
Sosa in the worst.
La Naval [the semi-official magazine of the Atlantic movement]
was not the only project I was involved in. I also organised weekly rock
concerts in a discotheque and co-managed two official rock contests for
my city.
The initial musical tristesse that I had found was ameliorating, but not
much.
From the artists of that fruitful era, which one do you prefer?
There is no doubt for me: Siniestro
Total (Total Sinister). They were provocative and cultivated
despite their rudeness and they liked black American blues, which was
quite strange in Galicia, where everything coming from the USA was
considered imperialistic, influenced as we were by our nationalistic
blindness.
How did La Naval come into place? Where there other competing
magazines? What made it so different?
A new style of magazines was more or less created out of boredom with
the old ones. We worked for newspapers and radio-stations of A Coruña
but it was hard to get some media attention in the city and to have our
alternative agendas published. The La Naval magazine began with 100.000
pesetas I had put aside on a long-termed bank account, the result of an
apartment sale belonging to my parents. I think it will be obvious what
followed: I never recovered the money.
[Note: 100.000 pesetas is roughly 601€, 802$ or 510£. The value today
would be at least the double as in the mid-eighties.]
How was the atmosphere between the collaborators of La Naval?
Although I stayed on the editorial board for all numbers it was not my
thing. The magazine's editorial line was based on the alleged
alternative Atlantic culture, as opposed to the Mediterranean one. It
soon led to an attempt to make a sales brand out of Galicia and to sell
it to the mainland. It gave expression to nationalism, rascally and
low-fi perhaps, but nationalism after all.
And how did La Naval end?
In my case, with a hole in the bank, but others took profit out of it.
For example, Radio
Océano, a band created by two of our founding members, recorded
an album that was paid by national radio, where its leadsinger was
working, by the way.
What do you miss most about the movement?
There was a clan feeling that was not bad, but it was limited to our own
small tribe with mutual masturbation among participating journalists. We
were a Mafia, like any other.
Number "500" had the article about Syd Barrett visiting the Oseira
monastery. Was this based on some urban... or better said: rural legend?
How was the article conceived?
The story was born in me with the fascination I felt for Syd Barrett and
his work. The article uses no legend as a starting point. It is my own
personal fiction.
A few years ago the story, without direct references to the original
article, resurfaced on the Internet. How did you react to that?
None whatsoever. La Naval only had a limited impact. Only now I have
learned through you about the impact of the article, and I'm interested
and proud. I find it very funny that an urban legend grew out of it that
has been further associated with others or confirmed by others.
A few years after the publication of the La Naval article I wrote an
extended and corrected version for a series about hypothetical records.
It was published on a blog that eventually ended and added the lyrics of
some of the songs from Spanishgrass.
Why did you choose Syd Barrett as the protagonist of this monastic
adventure? And why Oseira?
Because Syd Barrett is one of my preferential musicians. Because Oseira
is a place of great tellurian force and it seemed appropriate as a
setting for this fiction. The summers of the English author Graham
Greene in the monastery, the power of nature, the retirement, the prime
nobility of those Cistercian monks... All that, my fragile memory
recalls, had to do with the initial idea.
What music are you currently listening to?
I've never stopped listening to old blues (Charlie Patton, Howlin' Wolf,
Bessie Smith...), Bob Dylan, King Crimson, David Bowie, The Beatles...
I'm not seeking for new things. But what has excited me most recently is
Wilco.
How did you get into photography?
I started taking pictures and developing them in a dark room in my
teens, but I had never any other intention than doing some family
snapshots. A few years ago, while recovering from an illness and with my
first digital reflex camera, I started using photography as a form of
therapy, to try to find the humanity that was fleeing from me. Quite
naturally I went back to analog photography. And here I am: I have
already stated a few times that I would like to have more time to pursue
photographic projects. It is not easy ...
What brought you to the USA and San Francisco in particular?
To make a long story short, I was keen to leave Spain and its sadness
behind.
In the 'Strike' collection your photos seem not to capture the moment
but the spirit of those who appear in it. Is that the magic 'analog'
touch? And in the 'Her Name is Holga' series you seem to carry away the
dream. Were these pictures taken in th USA? What inspired you?
I can rarely explain a photo, and especially those on the street have
been taken instinctively. Someone said that the photographer is, or
should be, an emissary of his own sadness. I apply that story.
Your blog is superb, in photographic work and in the texts you write.
Do you think there is something in common? What accounts for your
preference for black and white? When do you choose colour instead?
I see in black and white. Always has been. I do not pretend to be better
or more arty: it's a spiritual condition.
And that romance with Holga? What does she has that others do not
have?
The Holga
camera is a simple, plastic toy, cheap and unsophisticated. I love
flirting with her and I think she fancies me, as she returns miracles. I
have over 50 cameras: if I have to choose just one, it would be the
Holga.
It's a Tumblr,
a scrapbook, a microblog... I have another as well: Hot
Parade, dedicated to photos only. I also have two websites: joseangelgonzalez.com
is my official site, I have recently rebuilt it after an accidental file
loss. On joseangelgonzalez.net
are those photos that embarrass me the least.
Do you have any artistic ambitions to further develop?
Just living and trying to be happy, which is already something.
June 2013: Syd in Spain. Spanishgrass, the hoax revealed.
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit receives many letters from believers
all over the world and on the 23rd of may 2012 at 04:31 AM (UTC+1) Babylemonade
Aleph asked the following to the Reverend:
I have read that Syd made a trip to A Coruña, who was in a monastery,
and recorded some songs that formed part of a recording entitled,
"Spanishgrass, songs for the space and the nap". What you know about
that, friend?
Frankly this didn't ring a bell, but the Church decided to look further
into the matter. As the story of Syd Barrett recording a partly Galician
album in a monastery in Spain seemed rather improbable an article was
published in the satirical The
Anchor division (Spanishgrass
or Syd Barrett's lost Spanish record).
Normally this should have been it. But some dull boring people didn't
like that the Holy Church, always in for a bit of controversy – we duly
admit, had thrown a stone into the quiet Barrett-pond, where
self-proclaimed fisher-kings have been angling for the same fish for the
last four decades. One of them even found it necessary to comment as
follows:
Wierdos (sic) come on here presenting this sort of stuff as FACT,
fake pictures, stupid stories about Syd recording an album in a Spanish
monastry (sic). All balls.
Just when the Reverend was going to go into zen-therapy to recover from
that vicious blow help came from the Iberian peninsula in the form of Antonio
Jesús from Solo
En Las Nubes. Not only did he find back the original article that
started the Syd In Oseira rumour (Spanishgrass,
one year later), he also managed to interview the author of the
article (Jose
Ángel González, Spanishgrass & more).
Jose Ángel González reveals that there has been more than one Oseira
article and that he also invented the Spanishgrass album:
A few years after the publication of the La Naval article I wrote an
extended and corrected version for a series about hypothetical records.
It was published on a blog that eventually ended and added the lyrics of
some of the songs from Spanishgrass.
And so, without further ado, here it is... (for the original, Spanish
version, please click on the image below)
Syd Barrett "Spanish grass (twenty songs about space and siesta)" Nonsense
music, 1978
Spanishgrass (original cover).
Manantial (Spring) / Reverential mourners / Black maid / Plastic
gunpowder / Mouse after a fête / Breakwater and tea / Grey trees / Two
bangers + mash / Whining at the moon / Greenland / Eu son Dhaga (I am
Dhaga) / Na outra banda (On the other hand) / Un poeta
esquece os días de chuvia (A poet forgets the rainy days) /
Saturnalia / William Phips / Stede Bonnet / Gabriel Spenser / Gospel at
noon / Waste Deep / Frog
Before leaving the world to enclose himself at Hotel Schizophrenia, Syd
Barrett (Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1948), the founder and evicted
leader of Pink Floyd, traveled to Spain for two years (1976 and
1977). Suffering from dromomania,
the same paranoid ambulatory psychosis Rimbaud
and other chronically restless people endured, Barrett toured
anonymously, using public transport or by hitchhiking, through
Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia. No one was with him and his luggage
was scarce and revealing: a backpack, a Martin acoustic guitar and the
complete works of the visionary William
Blake.
During one of his wanderings he discovered what would become his private
retreat, the Oseira monastery in the north-west of the Iberian
Peninsula.
Nestled in a secluded canyon of the City of San Cristovo de Cea
(Ourense), the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Oseira is the first
establishment in Spain (twelfth century) of the Cistercian monastic
order, founded as a radical alternative to the aristocratic congregation
of Cluny. The Cistercians practice Christian friendship, revere poverty,
adhere mythical culture and establish themselves remotely from the
world, in places away from roads and population.
Caught by the sturdy charm of the place, the quiet floating of monastic
life and the hospitality of the monks, he was at peace with himself,
perhaps for the first time since the wicked years of psychedelia.
Barrett stayed in one of the Oseiran guest cells for four months in 1976
(September-December) and for three months the following year (April to
June) and only left the monastery to roam the nearby hills. He liked in
particular two nearby sites: Loma Chaira, a wide panoramic grassy
terrace situated nearly 1200 metres high, and Penedo de Cuncas, a
ridge shaded by an abundant mass of chestnut trees.
During his stay the visitor wrote and recorded a dozen songs. He sat in
the courtyard of the monastery, usually at the siesta time, and softly
sung accompanied by his guitar, afraid to disturb the community. The
sound of the recordings is technically bad, but from a poetic viewpoint
very suggestive: Barrett's voice is hushed, like it would never be
recorded in a studio, by the wind blowing and the effervescing water
fountain. Perhaps this was the 'untanned arms' and forestry environment
he vainly had tried to outline in his two solo works "The Madcap Laughs"
(1970) and "Barrett" (1971). [Note: this seems to be a
Spanish poetical description the Reverend frankly doesn't understand.]
Late 1978 twenty songs were released on vinyl by a bootleg record
company in A Coruña, called Nonsense Music, using the unique tape
recording made by Barrett and smuggled outside by a deserting Oseira
novice. The album was titled "Spanishgrass" ("Hierba española")
accompanied by the subtitle "twenty songs about space and siesta," a
phrase the artist used when the monks asked him about the meaning of his
songs.
"Spanishgrass" is currently unavailable. The first and only edition of
the record - about 20 copies – wase not made for profit. All copies were
given away by Gema Noya, the Nonsense Music manager, to her closest
friends, under the promise that they would not distribute or duplicate
the material, a pact that was fulfilled to the letter thanks to the
loyalty of these good hippies. Noya used the record as a farewell gift
before retiring to a Buddhist community at Pokhara (Nepal), where
she still resides. According to sources close to her family, she burned
the original tape and scattered the ashes on the beach of Carnota, close
to the Pindo mountain, the Celtic Olympus, after she had sent a copy to
Barrett, who lived in Cambridge since 1978.
The tracks on the secret record are musically blunt with guitar
arrangements that are stripped of all artificiality, almost always
orbicularly strumming a single chord, but the lyrics are, in contrast,
very dense. They range from the usual surreal Barrett humour (Mouse
after a fête, Two bangers & mash) to Pentecostal mysticism, with
quotations from ancient Welsh bard songs taken from “The
White Goddess", Robert
Graves's work that the English musician consulted with interest at
the Oseira library.
Also other books Barrett read at the monastery seized him deep in his
mind. He dedicates three songs (William Phips, Stede Bonnet and Gabriel
Spenser) to the flamboyant characters described by the extravagant Marcel
Schwob in "Imaginary Lives". But above all, Barrett was seduced by
the medieval-sounding poems "Herba aquí ou acolá" from the fabulist Alvaro
Cunqueiro. He put music and sings three poems of the book in
Galician (Eu are Dagha, Na outra banda and Un poeta esquece os días de
chuvia).
The Anchor is the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit's satirical
division, intended for people with a good heart, but a rather bad
character. More info: The
Anchor. Read our legal stuff: Legal
Stuff.
We have just all had the BEST time ever in Cambridge - with the best
people in the world - we have laughed and hugged and kissed and talked
and none of us wanted to come home! (Libby Gausden Chisman)
Undoubtedly the best, friendliest, most lively and most accurate Syd
Barrett group on Facebook is Birdie
Hop.
It is the equivalent of Eternal Isolation's Late
Night forum that, let's not be fussy about that, has suffered a
lot from Facebook's ever-groping octopus tentacles. A person (m/f) with
a critical mind could add that Facebook is shallow and volatile, that
any post older than three days tends to disappear in a bottomless pit
never to be found again and that, to the Reverend's mind, there is
continuous repetition and proportionally it can get a bit boring.
But Birdie Hop has an audience. And people who have an audience ought to
be heard. There is no point in constantly hammering that Betamax
is the better recording system when VHS
has conquered the world. Now there's a comparison that seems to be
fruitless today and quite opaque for the young people among us.
Birdie Hop is a spirited place and like Late Night at its peak period it
is the village pub. People come and go, friendships are made (and
sometimes lost) and scarcely hidden love affairs happen, with snogging
outside in the garden under the cherry tree.
But all this happens in the relatively safe environment of cyberspace.
In September of last year the idea was uttered, among Birdie Hop
members, to meet and greet in Cambridge.
(The Holy Igquisiton has vainly tried to find that post back on
Facebook, while on a forum it would take about a minute, perhaps
somebody should call the NSA.)
We all have seen this happen before really, people saying 'let's meet',
but when push comes to a shove, nothing happens. But Birdie Hop has an
excellent set of administrators, not only they are friendly, beautiful
and intelligent but they can be bloody effective as well.
Alexander the Great
Alexander made it his mission to make this happen, immediately a
date was pinpointed (14 to 16 June 2013) and Mick Brown was
kindly asked to act as Birdie's local liaison officer. The bandwagon
started rolling and an I
Spy Syd in Cambridge tour (with a bus) was organised through the
capable hands of Warren
'Bear' Dosanjh. In March of this year Alexander travelled to
Cambridge to tie the loose ends (and test the quality of the local beer)
and from then on it was a restless wait for the day to come.
Here we go. (Underneath text largely taken from Alexander & Warren's
tour program.)
Friday 14 June 2013
An evening at the Cambridge
Blue on Gwydir Street: a totally real ale pub with the best
selection of (Belgian!) ales in Cambridge plus pub grub and a large beer
garden.
Giulio Bonfissuto, Neil Chisman, Jenny Spires, Alexander.
Saturday 15 June 2013
09.30 Meet at Le
Gros Franck for breakfast and to buy a take-away lunch from a
fantastic choice of international dishes, 57 Hills Road.
Fernando Lanzilotto, Libby Gausden, Viv Brans, Mick Brown.
10.00 Botanical Gardens, where the actual tour started. Unfortunately
they had to chase a bum away who had been sleeping on Syd's bench.
The incredible Mr. Mick Brown.
10.30 Pick-up by coach at the main entrance of the Botanical Gardens in
Bateman Street.
Warren Dosanjh, Alexander, Viv Brans.
Stops at:
183 Hills Road, Syd's house.
The Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now the Hills Road Sixth Form
College), where Syd, Roger Waters, Bob 'Rado' Klose and Storm Thorgerson
studied.
Morley Primary Junior School where Mary Waters taught her son and Syd.
The Friends Meeting House on Hartington Grove, where Geoff Mott & The
Mottoes played their one and only gig.
6 St. Margaret's Square, where Syd last lived after moving back to
Cambridge.
Cherry Hinton Chalk Pits where some Birdie Hop members did a bizarre
reenactment of the Syd's First Trip movie.
Giulio Bonfissuto, Fernando Lanzilotto, Alexander, Brian Wernham, Viv
Brans, Mario von Barrett, Libby Gausden, Neil Chisman, Tio Junior, Mary
Cosco, Eva Wijkniet.
Grantchester Meadows: lunch stop with a pint (BYO) from the Blue Ball
pub opposite.
Neil Chisman, Peter Gilmour.
Walk on the meadows...
And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees Laughing as
it passes through the endless summer Making for the sea.
...and back on the bus at David and Peter Gilmour's house, 109
Grantchester Meadows.
City walk (Corn Exchange, Union Cellar, King´s College, Market Square
etc..)
Mario von Barrett, Giulio Bonfissuto, Mrs & Dave "Dean" Parker, Fernando
Lanzilotto.
Sunday 16 June 2013
Informal meet and goodbye greet at the Earl
of Derby, 129 Hills Road for a full English breakfast from 8.30 in
the morning or lunch from 12.00 for those who couldn't get out of bed.
Unfortunately nobody seemed fit enough to take any pictures or wanted
their pictures to be taken!
Be a part of the legend!
Why don't you join Birdie
Hop, not only you'll be able to see all the pictures of this
amazing journey, but you'll meet a bunch of friendly, sexy people!
The list of attendees of the 2013 meeting not only had the best Birdies
around but also reads like a Cambridge Mafia wet dream: Libby Gausden
Chisman, Neil Chisman, Jenny Spires, Viv Brans, Eva Wijkniet, Sven
Wijkniet, Dave "Dean" Parker, Mrs. Parker, Vic Singh, Brian Wernham,
Mick Brown, Peter Gilmour, Mary Cosco, Antonio (Tio Junior), Mario von
Barrett (González), Fernando Lanzilotto, Giulio Bonfissuto, Hazel
(Libby´s school-friend), George Marshall (school-friend of Syd and Roger
Waters who happened to be drinking in the Blue Ball when the gang
arrived), Gary Hill, Stephen Pyle (only Friday afternoon, afterwards he
had to run a street fest), Warren Dosanjh (tour guide), Alexander P.
Hoffmann (host)...
Two of a kind: Alexander & Warren Dosanjh.
Eva
Wijkniet: Warren was the best tourguide and took us to the best pubs
in Cambridge. Great guy to talk to and we have to thank him massively
for the effort he made for us.
Brian Wernham: What a great day in Cambridge doing lots of Syd stuff,
meeting some of Syd's old friends, Peter Gilmour and meeting some
wonderful Syd fans as well!
Warren
Dosanjh: I have guided nearly all Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett tours
in Cambridge since 2006. But this was the best and most extraordinary
ever.
Libby Gausden Chisman: too exhausted to tell you atm - I have lost my
voice due to over talking and over laughing and over kissing and hugging
- it was just the best time evah!
A nice pair: photographers extraordinaires Vic Singh & Mick Brown.
A 'many thanks' line to end this article would merely repeat the people
who are all cited above, but let's have an exception and thank the most
extraordinary person who wrote the most peculiar kind of tunes.
Many thanks to Roger Keith 'Syd' Barrett, for making this all happen
and for creating friends for a lifetime.
See you in 2015...
Update 03 01 2014: Mick Brown made a video of the event that we
forgot all about, so - with over a half year's delay - here it is. Update
16 06 2014: The copyright gestapo censored Mick Brown's original movie,
so a second version was uploaded with an excellent soundtrack by Rich
Hall (taken from his Birdie
Hop and the Sydiots record).
(This article contains a much concealed review of the Rich Hall album Birdie
Hop and the Sydiots, to immediately access it, click here.)
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates its fifth birthday.
An official statement by the Reverend:
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is five years old. It has always taken
an independent road and has maintained an ironic and satirical view on
the Syd
Barrett phenomenon and its fans.
We will, however, never spit on the fans. We have embraced the term Sydiot
as our Geusenwort,
meaning that we have reappropriated this derogatory nickname as an
honorary title.
While we have the utmost respect for the casual Barrett fans, the cosmic
brides (persons [m/f] who claim to have a relationship with Syd of some
kind, often crossing spiritual boundaries) and the Sydiots, we
intuitively question the official Barrett
organisations, record companies and nincompoops who circle around Syd
like vultures. We will not automatically endorse their websites, their
records and their books... and this has not always been appreciated. It
seems that nothing has changed much since those days in 1967 when Norman
Smith was reprimanded by his boss:
EMI
were ignorant, lazy and paranoid. I'd once been carpeted by Sir
Joseph Lockwood, almost fired, told to stay away from courting Pink
Floyd. But I took no notice.
If Norman Smith had obeyed we would never have had The
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Taking no notice was, is, and will
always be the Holy Church's attitude, even if this puts us in the firing
line of some of the minor half-gods and makes us wonder if this Church
was just a waste of time. But:
This is my church This is where I heal my hurt It's a natural grace Of
watching young life shape It's in minor keys Solutions and remedies Enemies
becoming friends When bitterness ends This is my church (Faithless,
God
is a DJ, 1998)
All tomfoolery aside, we are proud to have put a thing or two on the
Floydian agenda in the past five years that would otherwise have stayed
unnoticed. If we may lead you to one paragraph on this blog, that we are
particularly fond of, it is this
one and we constantly try to live by those standards. So-called
social media make witnesses easy accessible nowadays but this doesn't
give the Sydiot nor the Reverend a wildcard to constantly harass them
with questions about how 'Syd really was'. Remember:
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. (Taken
from: We
are all made of stars.)
And for those who don't agree the Church can only bring solace by citing
the following words of that great Cantabrigian band:
So I open my door to my enemies And I ask could we wipe the slate
clean But they tell me to please go fuck myself You know you just
can't win (Pink Floyd, Lost For Words, 1994)
But this speech has been going on for too long, so...
Let's party!
It's a fucking birthday godammit! And we have exactly the right party
album for that... and you can have yours too!
Rich Hall.
Birdie Hop and the Sydiots
Richard
Michael John Hall is a self-publishing artist in the 'alternative'
or 'indie rock' genre with about a dozen releases on his name. In March
2013 he surprised the world with his songs The
Reverend and Uncle Alex and it came to the Church's ears that this
was going to be a part of a quintessential concept album. Written in
about a month's time the album has been released a couple of weeks ago.
Birdies and Barretts
Birdie Hop and the Sydiots is named after a rather decent Facebook
group and its members who range from the wacky to the insane now
that an old cricketer has left the crease. Its first song, Birdie Hop,
is a pastoral tune about this relatively calm oasis and how it is a
reference to all who have enclosed Syd Barrett in their hearts.
I've seen your mother (and she's beautiful) is a track about our
most cherished and most hated family member. Rich Hall perfectly catches
that ambiguity (see also John
Lennon & Roger
Waters) but apparently that is not what the song is about. Let's
just resume by saying that Barrett fans come in different colours and
sizes. Cosmic brides are fans, who declare their unconditional love for
Syd and sometimes meet him on a higher esoteric level. It is good that
what happens in the spirit world cannot be seen by the naked eye
although sometimes weird erotomanic
anecdotes drip through. Cosmic brides are usually harmless, although
they can be annoying when they start messaging people with important
directives from the other side.
With Cheesecake Joe, a catchy hard rock tune built around one of
Birdie Hop's most flamboyant members, the Birdie suite lifts off into
the higher stratosphere. Cheesecake is the deadhead equivalent of the
Floydian fan. He is the UFOnaut who still claims Pink Floyd is a stoner
band and that their main message is to turn on, tune in & drop out...
The Reverend is the first highlight of the album, what a psychedelicate
song, what a fine realistic description of this genius, what an
adoration for Iggy the Eskimo, what a magic looking glass. But even
after having heard this song for about 45 times I still don't know if
the song really isn't an insult packaged as a gift. But walking the thin
line between praise and mockery is what the Holy Church is all about.
Great song. It should be a hit. Really.
A high-res Flash clip of this song can be found here.
The Reverend. Sound: Rich Hall. Vision: Felix Atagong. Hi-resolution Flash
movie.
And for those who prefer a somewhat lighter YouTube version:
Just when you think that it can't get any better there is Uncle Alex,
an ear-worm of a song. Not wanting to go too far into details I can only
say that some of the apparently throw-away lines are far closer to the
truth than you possibly can imagine. Rich Hall is a poignant observer.
This should even be a bigger hit.
A videoclip for this song can be found on the Reverend's YouTube channel.
Solo en las Nubes could be the theme song for a Sergio
Leone spaghetti western with Antonio
Jesús as the vengeful balded bad-ass. On his own this man is
responsible for most of the Barrett admiration in the Spanish-speaking
world and thus he is, by definition, regarded as a potential danger by
the powers that be. Speak out his name in a certain provincial
university town, close by the river Cam, in East Anglia and gallows are
spontaneously risen again. This is a song that should be played around
camp-fires all over the world. This is an urban hymn.
Jenny and Libby makes me think of the Television Personalities
for one thing or another. Throughout the song Rich Hall name-drops
several Birdie Hop alumni and their doings. I wonder if the artist has
amazing powers of observation and if he knew, when he wrote the song in
spring 2013, that the refrain was predictive for the shape of things to
come.
Jenny and Libby ends, what I call, the birdies section of the album.
This is being followed by the madcap suite, a trilogy about the darker
side of Barrettism where the weirdness, the madness and the
obsessiveness turns into a Stephen
King nightmare...
Blow Syd.
Madcap Laughter & Hammerings
Fuggitaboutit, build around a fifties teenage tragedy song, is
based upon the endless laments of certain self-proclaimed Barrett
scholars.
Your Significant Other is a track about those weird trolls who
infests groups with different aliases, spreading false information and
starting discussions, sometimes among themselves, just for the sake of
argument. So what's your name today, which identity will you choose?, is
the question Rich Hall asks. Based upon a true story.
Yer List Monger. Call it this album's The
Trial but with a haunting Twin
Peakish atmosphere, a hot burning sun, a mad priest preaching on the
telly about sin and redemption, a fat red-neck orating conspiracy
theories at the end of the bar, suddenly spitting out the venomous
question: are you real Syd Barrett fans? Dwarfs are passing by,
walking backwards and speaking in tongues. Meet the Hannibal
Lecter of the Syd Barrett world.
A Cry From The Outside
Birdie Hop and the Sydiots has its coda with a rather alienated version
of Barrett's Feel
that leaves me with a bitter-sweet taste in the mouth. It's puzzling,
it's not nice. It's all dark, as a matter of fact.
At times Rich Hall's way of words makes me think of Jason
Lytle and Lee
Clayton, his music is a kaleidoscope of sounds that reminds my
fragile memory of T-Rex, neo-psych or garage rock. But of course Rich
Hall is at first Rich Hall and nobody else.
Throughout this article I have dispersed some quotes from Pink Floyd and
I did catch some resemblances here and there with themes from The Wall,
but that is probably because I've recently watched a Mr. Roger Waters
show. Let's hope this album will never grow into a monster and that a 69
years-old Rich Hall will not be obliged to lip-synch next to a 130
metres long plastic wall with hi-tech projections and a ridiculous
flying cactus balloon in the air.
You don't need to be a Birdie
Hop member to enjoy this album as all songs stand by themselves, but
if you grab this and listen to it why don't you let the birdies
know what you think of it.
Birdie Hop and the Sydiots July 2013 Instruments &
vocals by Rich Hall. Mixed by Rich Hall and Ron Bay. Mastered
by Ron Bay.
Thanks: Anonymous • Freqazoidiac • Solo En Las Nubes • Psych62 • Anni •
Bill • Euryale • Brooke • Jeff • Prydwyn • Chris • Helen • Sean •
JenniFire • Sadia • Herman • JenS • Vince666 • Nipote • Gretta • Viv •
Adenairways • Giuliano • Dolly • John • Babylemonade • Duggie •
Synofsound • Mark • Xpkfloyd • Rich • Brett • Krackers • Peter • Phil •
Zag • Warren • Listener • Bob • MOB • Nina • Dark Globe • Emily •
Retro68special • Natashaa' • Vic • Jenny • Neonknight • Lord Drainlid •
Ebronte • Simon • Ian • Will • Motoriksymphonia • NPF • Greeneyedbetsy •
Anton • Hallucalation • PF Chopper • Lee • Felixstrange • Michael •
PhiPhi • Eva • Cicodelico • Julian (Gian) • Denis • Dallasman •
Emmapeelfan • Paro नियत • Ewgeni • Matt • Kiloh • Elizabeth • Alexander
• Kirsty • Paul • Mohammed (Twink) • Nigel • Rusty • Braindamage •
Pascal • Mark • Stanislav • Anthony • I Spy In Cambridge • Mick • Alain
• Wrestling Heritage • Bloco do Pink Floyd • Moonwall • Rod • Charley •
Amy • Joe • Griselda • Eternal • Dominae • Russell • Beate • KenB •
Dan5482 • Tim • Antonio • Party of Clowns • Anne • Late Night • Lori •
Colleen • Brian • Christopher • Jose • Göran • Jancy • Banjer and Sax •
Ron • Vicky • ...and all those we have forgotten to mention!
Is it already over a year ago that this blog reviewed the Men On The
Border's Shine!
CD? Lots of things happened meanwhile to the Reverend who was recently
spotted at an Andrew
Lloyd Webber's musical. Since then, when he sits in the evening in
his comfy chair, a glass of Amontillado
in his hand, you can hear him murmuring the immortal refrain...
Memory All alone in the moonlight I can smile at the old days I
was beautiful then...
Thinking that we're getting older and wiser When we're just getting
old
But I have grown older and You have grown colder and Nothing is
very much fun any more. (Taken from: Memory
[Cats] / Near
the End [David Gilmour] / One
of my Turns [Roger Waters])
Roger Waters:
Andrew Lloyd Webber sickens me. He's in your face all the time and what
he does is nonsense. It has no value. It is shallow, derivative rubbish,
all of it... (Taken from: Who The Hell Does Roger Waters Think He Is?, Q
Magazine, November 1992, hosted at: A
Fleeting Glimpse.)
But it is not because the Reverend deliberately ignores Roger Waters'
warnings that he can't recognise decent music any more.
Shine! from Men On The Border is a splendid album that shouldn't be
ignored by the redneck Sydiots out there. Luckily, neither did the
Spanish Syd Barrett blog Solo En Las Nubes and that's how the following
self-interview came into place, an interview with some old friends...
Men On The Border, who or what are they? Are they men or myth? With an
album, artwork and history myth-busting/building, they have rocked the
psychedelic foundations of the Syd Barrett world with a pop mentality.
Yes, pop. This sounds too cool to be true. We decided to find out more.
Phil: Well, wouldn't you like to know! We're just a couple of sticky
Swedes, except for me, because I'm just a Brit with Swedish tendencies. Göran:
And I am just a Swede with British tendencies. Phil: I've now lived
longer in Sweden than I did in Britland. I moved here because of my
spiritual affinity with the elks and they're thin on the ground in
London. Apart from that I've been a fanatic guitarist most of my life. Göran:
They are very thin is what I've heard. Phil: Disappearingly thin. Göran:
Disappointingly thin.
How long have you been involved in music?
Phil: All my life, actually from a very early age and my earliest
memories are musical - banging on boxes, as I wanted to be a drummer. Göran:
I wanted to be an astronaut. The space age - and the music that came
with it. Ahhh. Phil: From age 10 and onwards, everything was guitars.
My life is littered with musical tags which can take me back to specific
events in seconds - like most people probably have. Göran: Indeed.
Some good events, some less good, some joyful, some simply embarrassing. Phil:
Music has also steered major life-choices, like my conscious decision to
reject both schooling and religion in my teens. Göran: My music
universe imploded and exploded at the same time. I was a punk rocker, a
prog rocker and a 60s pop fan – all at once. My first band was named
Läder, the second one Yeah. Then I ditched music for education and...
things. Phil: My first band was at the age of 17. Unfortunately I was
unable to also reject the other very basic family philosophy: you have
to have a proper job! Getting a good education was obviously less
important. If I'd put my energies into music instead of a string of shit
jobs in my teens, maybe this album would have been made 20 years ago. Göran:
Maybe it WAS made 20 years ago in a time vortex kind of thingie.
Why did you make the album Shine!?
Phil: I love to make music, I love to play and I love to record in my
studio. If it's my music or someone else's doesn't really matter as long
as it has something to offer. Göran: As it happened, Syd Barrett had
something to offer. Phil: I hadn't actually heard any of his solo
material when we started. I was a Pink Floyd fan, but had completely
missed out on Syd. Göran: This helped to motivate me. I sent him a
first primitive demo. Phil: Making Octopus
whetted my appetite for more. Göran: And this in turn drove me
further. To convince people like Phil! The joy of discovery. Squid for
dinner! Phil: Well, he was dead keen to continue, so to make a whole
album was an easy decision. Göran: We made an early promise to be
ready for a festival the next summer. Phil: Yes. The absolute
deadline for mastering was June 8th 2012.
Men On The Border.
Can you describe the creative process of making Shine!?
Phil: Göran made acoustic demos which he sent to me. Sometimes I made an
initial draft recording, which I sent back for suggestions on how to
proceed and a few times we sat together and played. Göran: It was a
case of working out some new types of arrangements that would fit Syd’s
songs without losing too much of the feelings behind the songs. Some of
them were “road tested” in some acoustic gigs and more. Phil:
And more? Göran: Dreaming in a forest, Phil. Then I just recorded on
my smartphone and mailed over to Phil and he sent me some new amazing
twists back. Every time was such a joy! Phil: As an example of the
process my string quartet arrangement in the Golden Hair part of No
Man's Land was axed by Göran. Göran: Sorry! Phil: He
came up with another suggestion, the one that ended up on the album. I
thought that was SUCH a good idea, but was actually easily persuaded by
Göran to ditch the strings.... Göran: Creative conflicts. We
bounced things between us to create the right blend. Those strings were
brilliant, but did not work in the context of No Man’s Land. It would
have worked as a stand-alone. Phil: I also waited until all the
Shine! recordings were completed before listening to the originals and
was thus not influenced by them at all. Göran: Well, there was one
where you cheated. Phil: Yes! I actually listened to Gigolo
Aunt because I couldn't figure out the timing from Göran's demo
-there's a half-bar in there. Göran: The fun and beauty of Syd's
songs. Phil: All-in-all there was a LOT of bouncing back and forth. Göran:
Happy bouncing!
Which are your favourite songs on Shine!?
Phil: All of the songs have elements in them which I love. But if I had
to choose one song it would be Opal,
because it has everything. Poignant lyric, great vocals from Göran. Göran:
Well... Phil: And also my best performance ever on a recording. 7
minutes of stark beauty. Göran: Opal was always special and I knew it
had to be on the album. We saved it for last really. It's tricky and I
had to record my demo to Phil in several segments. Phil: Oh yes. A
bit of a puzzle really. Göran: I am very pleased with how it turned
out. Personally I like the duo of Long Gone and No Man’s Land, moving in
that punk/prog territory. Feel is also such a wonderful melody and we
stretched that to tell a bit of a story, but with sound only. Wonderful
guitar work from Phil.
Which great Syd Barrett songs did not make it to be included on
Shine!?
Phil: Terrapin,
which we recorded a week after the album was released. I love that song,
but because of the deadline we didn't have the spare week we needed to
record it. We'd planned to include that with a string quartet, though
fortunately the quartet idea wasn't included. I love the result on that.
There may be others.... Göran: Terrapin works best as a bonus track
really. There is a thematic structure to Shine! and I am not sure how it
could have fitted in. We had some ideas to include obscure Pink Floyd
stuff, like Scream Thy Last Scream. I am sure that would have been
really interesting, but then again it was never a Syd solo song.
Octopus. Artwork: Jennifer D Andrea.
What can you tell us about the artwork included with Shine!?
Göran: Back in March 1971, Syd admitted that at heart he was really a
painter. We just felt we should try to reflect this in our little
tribute. Phil: But none of us can paint. Göran: We tried sonically
to bring more colour to his rather bleak songs and also to illustrate
the whole album with colourful art. Phil: The cover was specially
made for us by a wonderful Swedish artist, Kajsa-Tuva Henriksson.
You can read all sorts of things into that painting. Göran: Yeah. I
first met her at a festival and played some of the early demos for her
and she really liked it. Then later, I described the overall ideas and
parts of Syd’s life. She made that painting to reflect all of this. Phil:
The booklet has one painting for each song in a sort of an exhibition,
where you move through different rooms actually. The paintings were made
by a Syd Barrett fan in the USA, Jennifer D’Andrea. Göran:
I really love those. I have Octopus framed as a constant reminder in my
working room.
Now honestly, what is really so great about Syd Barrett?
Göran: It's all great. You cannot easily separate the life and the art
of Syd Barrett. It is all so interwoven, as indeed it is with many great
artists through history. Van Gogh springs to mind, but also many more.
Their art might not have reached their true audience during their life
time, but would grow in importance. Phil: For me it has been a bit of
a discovery really. Göran: So Syd made some great stuff with Pink
Floyd and got that band on track for stardom, but I think he actually
did his best work after Pink Floyd. In a similar way that John Lennon
did his best work at a very vulnerable stage after The Beatles. Their
respective music is so extremely honest, but also very unpredictable and
full of layered meanings. Entering the “Syd universe” is very
worthwhile. We just want to help more people find it. Phil: Turn on,
tune in, rock out!
OK, you've convinced us. Where and how can we buy Shine!?
Göran: We have a few hundred copies left still, stored in USA, UK and
Sweden. Just visit our website and drop us a mail. We are quick to
answer and will happily send the CD to wherever you are. Phil: By
interstellar overdrive. We have fans on our Facebook
page from all over the planet, but no worries, we can mail the CD to all
locations!
Last question! Where is the pussy willow that smiled on this leaf -
and if it’s there will you go there too?
Phil: I've been advised by my lawyer not to answer this question, but
Göran, being brave and foolhardy in equal parts, probably has an
exclamation up the sleeve of his kaftan. Göran: The pussy willow is
in springtime Cambridge, and yes we will certainly go there one day to
gig and make recordings. Right Phil? Phil: You’ll have to talk to my
manager……
Men on the Border.
Göran Nyström and Phil Eheridge are preparing a new album called (at
least for now) Jumpstart that will at least have two other Syd
covers and own material. On the third of October 2013 they are billed at
the Floydian
Cruise gig in Sweden.
Happy New Year, sistren and brethren of the Holy Church of
Iggy the Inuit. Another year has passed by, with ups and downs, with
happiness and grief, with joy and pain... In our Inuit realm some people
passed away unfortunately, and luckily some new ones were born...
welcome Vasilisa Alla... to this world of magnets and miracles...
Browsing through our scrapbook with unfinished articles, pictures and
movies for the Church we noted this report from our fashion department.
It is a 1969 documentary about Ossie
Clarke with Lindsay Corner as one of the models.
To quote our fashion specialist:
In the first bit Lindsey Corner is on the left, then in the yellow dress
with the blonde in blue, then in the middle with a long pink thing, then
again in yellow with the blonde. She's the one with darker blonde wavy
hair basically.
And yes we are aware of the rumours that circle about Lindsay Corner and
Gala Pinion since a year or two. And no, we don't know when this will
see the light of day...
2013
2013 was a weird year for the Church and its Reverend. Again we thought
we would not be able to write anything for our lustrum, but in the end
we clocked down at 20 slightly stupendous articles.
We started anoraky enough with an article about Syd's hair-length in the
early Seventies, this to please the female audience of our little cult: Hairy
Mess. Sometimes the Reverend regressed into Brian
Eno mood and then he wrote some ditty texts about sweet nothings: King's
Road Chic(k).
The Church's biggest scoop this year was made in collaboration with the
Spanish Sole
En Las Nubes blog. Not only did Antonio Jesús find back the article
that started the infamous Oseira rumours, but he also managed to
interview the author of the hoax, Jose Ángel González. The Church merely
harvested Antonio's excellent work, like churches mostly do: Spanishgrass.
Facebook's thriving Syd Barrett community, Birdie
Hop, organised a meeting in Cambridge with several young and less
younger Barrett fans, friends and lovers. It was a most amazing meeting
in remembrance of a man who wrote the most peculiar kind of tunes: Birdie
Hop: wasn't it the most amazing meeting?
Did Syd leave us a message in a letter from a decade ago? Sometimes the
truth is more beautiful than the legend: Making
it clear...
2014
And that is what we will continue to do in 2014, make it a fantastic
year, boys and girls! And everything seems so much brighter... Let's
party! Thanks Men
On The Border!
Many thanks to Alexander, Amy Funstar, Anonymous, Antonio Jesús,
Babylemonade Aleph, Baron Wolman, Birdie Hop, Bob Archer, Brett Wilson,
Cambridge News, Christopher Farmer, Col Turner, Dion Johnson, Elizabeth
Voigt-Walter, Stanislav, Euryale, Göran Nyström, Herman van Gaal, HYGIY,
Joanne 'Charley' Milne, Joe Perry, Jon Felix, Jonathan Charles, Jose
Ángel González, Julia, Kiloh Smith, Kirsty Whalley, Late Night, Laughing
Madcaps, Lori Haines, Mark Blake, MAY, Men On The Border, Michael
Rawding, MvB, No Man's Land, Phil Etheridge, Psych62, Radharani Krishna,
Rich Hall, Rod Harris, Ron Cooper, Simon Hendy, Stefan Mühle, USA
National Register off Historic Places, Viper, Vita, Wolfpack,
Younglight, Yves Leclerc... Love you Swoonies!
And if I go insane, And they lock me away, Will you still let me
join in the game?
It contained, next to a CD and several goodies, a tape reel, marked
'reel four'. An undated letter from High Fidelity GCA Sound, Purveyors
of Fine Audio Equipment, explains how the four reels have been
transferred to CD.
GCA Sound letter.
Mastering Report:
Project instructions: Leopoldo Duran
(customer) provided four reel to reel tapes. Customer stated reels have
been left unprotected in a drafty room. Customer would like archive
copies made from whatever is on tapes. No alterations to the sound are
to be made. Please deliver transferred files on to a compact disc.
Project
Engineer Notes:
Minor water damage to tapes. Main concern is
tape quality. Tape age is estimated to be mid 1970s. Due to the age of
the tape, the tape is oxidizing and showing wear. In order to achieve
the most optimum archival copy, the reel to reel machine heads were
cleaned and aligned before each reel. Tapes were baked to achieve
optimum quality from source. While a digital copy has been created from
the reels provided, certain audio defects remain present. Even with
adequate preventative measures, tape transfer achieved was not optimal.
Listener should expect audio imperfections. This is most noticeable as
minor distortions, speed inconsistencies, and subtle drop outs.
Reel 1, courtesy Rick Barnes.
And then there were three
Our assumption that four tapes, each containing different tracks, have
been anonymously 'delivered' to people around the world seems right.
Last week boxes arrived in Spain at the Solo
En Las Nubes webmaster Antonio Jesús (reel 2) and in the USA at Birdie
Hop administrator and music collector (and professional) Rick Barnes
(reel 1). As a matter of fact the Spanishgrass set made it onto Rick
Barnes' VC
Vinyl Community update on Youtube (skip to 20 minutes to watch the
Spanishgrass bit.)
For the moment we still have no clue about the whereabouts of reel
number 3.
Next to the music on tape and CD there are some Polaroids from the
Oseira monastery that further immerse the listener into the Spanishgrass
set. These will be published on a daily base at the Spanishgrass
section of our Holy
Church Tumblr page.
The question that troubles most anoraks though is: do the tapes (and CD)
really contain lost Syd Barrett tunes that have been recorded during his
alleged stay at the Oseira monastery, somewhere in the seventies? We
will only publish a review of the record next week, but this is what we
can already divulge.
Reel 2, courtesy Antonio Jesus.
Save a prayer
Leopoldo Durán, professor of (English) literature, philosophy and
theology, lived for three decades in Great Britain where he was
contacted by Graham Greene after Durán's doctoral dissertation about
priesthood. The two men became friends for life and the author annually
visited the priest at the Oseira monastery. Greene's humorous and
satirical novel Monsignor
Quixote was a direct result of the long religious and political
conversations both friends had, more triggered by visits to local
vineyards than for the need of philosophical discours. Graham
Greene died in 1991, after his final confession was taken by his Spanish
friend. Durán would still correspond with Greene's widow and family
until his dead in 2008 and published several biographical books about
the author.
The Durán archives, 48 boxes in total, containing letters, manuscripts,
pictures from Durán, Greene and others are archived at the Georgetown
University Library Special
Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C., but nowhere there is
a trace of a certain Roger Keith Barrett staying at Oseira.
Leopoldo Durán died in 2008, but the alleged Spanishgrass
tapes were only posted six years later to four Syd Barrett scholars, after
the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and Solo En Las Nubes articles about
the 1986 hoax (and its follow-up, by the original author, Jose Ángel
González, in 2003). See: Spanishgrass
or Syd Barrett's lost Spanish record, Spanishgrass,
one year later and subsequent articles on this blog.
Where did the tapes stay between 2008 and 2014? Surely, if Leopoldo
Durán would have had the Spanishgrass tapes, they would logically be in
his archive, but they are not.
Leopoldo Duran signature.
Last but not least. In the letter that can be found in the four
Spanishgrass Immersion boxes (with one box still missing), Leopoldo
Durán misspells his own name consequently as Leopoldo Duran, without an
accent on the last a. On top of that Durán was a professor of English
literature, so it is weird that the letter, destined for an English
speaking audience, has been written in Galician.
Sometimes a hoax can be too elaborated...
So who or what is this Spanishgrass band or artist and what is on the
album? Be patient, sistren and brethren, all will be
revealed in due time...
Many thanks to Mr. Anonymous for sending us this package. ♥ Iggy ♥
Libby ♥ Babylemonade Aleph ♥
The Anchor is the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit's satirical
division, intended for people with a good heart, but a rather bad
character. More info: The
Anchor. Read our legal stuff: Legal
Stuff.
Finally the fourth copy of Spanishgrass has been found. It is
somewhere in that immense country that is Russia, in the hands of the
slightly dadaist artist Stanislav, whom we happen to have met
this summer in Brussels, the territory of Manneken
Pis, Hergé
and Magritte.
If this was an episode of Crime
Scene Investigation, where the actors have the uncanny habit of
talking way too fast, we would say that the net closes around the Syd
Barrett Facebook group Birdie
Hop as all people who have received a copy are linked, one way or
another, to that gang. On the other hand, as Birdie Hop undoubtedly is
the best Syd Barrett group around on Facebook this is not really
earth-shattering news either.
Oseira
The great grey edifice of the Osera monastery stretches out almost alone
within a trough of the Galician hills. A small shop and a bar at the
very entrance of the monastery grounds make up the whole village of
Osera. The carved exterior which dates from the sixteenth century hides
the twelfth-century interior – an imposing stairway, perhaps twenty
metres wide, up which a platoon could march shoulder to shoulder, leads
to long passages lined with guest rooms above the central courtyard and
the cloisters. Almost the only sound during the day is the ring of
hammers where half a dozen workmen are struggling to repair the ravages
of seven centuries. (Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote)
Let's cut the crap, once and for all. Of course the 2014 Spanishgrass
(Twenty Songs About Space And Siesta) 'immersion' set, that has only
been issued in four copies, isn't Syd Barrett's lost Oseira
record. Syd has never visited that monastery. The Spanish blog Sole
En Las Nubes has dedicated some valuable webspace to investigate the
Spanishgrass hoax and managed to trace it back to a Spanish journalist
and photographer who decided to have some fun in a satirical underground
magazine of the mid-eighties. (Thanks to Antonio Jesús for allowing us
to publish his articles in English: Spanishgrass.)
If you call yourself a decent Barrett-fan you should know that by now,
so don't feel insulted.
But this doesn't mean that there isn't a 'Spanishgrass' record by a
'Spanishgrass' band. The numbered and limited deluxe sets have been sent
to four extremely lucky people on 3 different continents. There also
seems to be a regular CD release, but it is pretty limited as well, and
probably you will have to ask for one if you want to receive it, but of
course you need to puzzle out who is behind the record first. Luckily
the set has been released
this week on Bandcamp where you can listen to it, track per track, or download
the album in its entirety on a 'name your own price' basis (0.00$ is an
option as well).
Why don't you listen to the Spanishgrass album on Bandcamp while
reading this review?
Spanishgrass (Twenty Songs About Space And Siesta)
Spanishgrass 2014 is a re-imagination of a record that never was in the
first place. Its maker had to explore the unexplored, like those
medieval cartographers who wrote hic sunt dracones (here are
dragons) on uncharted regions of their maps and who drew mythological
creatures, dragons and sea serpents on the empty spaces.
The record, 57 minutes in total, has 23 tracks (3 more than on the
'original' Spanisgrass), divided into 4 blocks and closely following the
track-listing and the lyrics that have been published by the Solo
En Las Nubes and Holy Church blogs (Spanishgrass,
the hoax revealed). Supplemental lyrics have been taken from The
White Goddess (Robert Graves, 1948) and Imaginary Lives (Marcel
Schwob, 1896).
Like in Eduardo
Galeano's Book of Embraces where every anecdote stands on its
own but interactively forms a complete chapter, each track has its own
merits but unites with the others. The record has been made to listen to
in its entirety, or at least part by part, 4 in total, each separated by
a 'division' Bells track (#1, 2 and 3). An interesting experiment would
be to play the record on shuffle and see what new auditive interactions
are created.
The music consists of evocative instrumentals and up-tempo tunes, with a
spacey, early Floydian, guitar sorrowing in the background, psychedelic
keyboards, fragile percussion and spoken word, whispered mostly in
English and sometimes Galician (Na Outra Banda). Soundscapes and musique
concrète are omnipresent: babbling brooks, chirping birds,
whistling teapots (Breakwater and Tea), a lawnmower (Waste Deep) and
some excited monks.
Do not expect an easy parcours, the music can be annoying,
harrowing, exhausting, cathartic, transcendental, repetitive. It is
impossible to fit the tracks into a single category other than that
melting pot that is avant-garde
or art-rock.
There are traces of early and vintage Floyd (from Ummagumma to Obscured
By Clouds), haunting rhythms that stay remnant in your mind like those
irritating Swans
drones (The
Seer), seventies porn flick lounge tunes, Tarantinesque
exotica, Michael
Nyman's repetitiveness and even (cough, cough)... Spanish bluegrass
rockabilly (Grey Trees).
Either you find this record utterly irritating or utterly brilliant and
the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit seems to fall in the second category.
A masterpiece for non easy listeners, but we have never been easy,
haven't we?
Reel three (by Stanislav).
Tracklisting
Part One: Manantial (Spring) / Reverential Mourners / Black Maid /
Plastic Gunpowder / Bells 1 (approx. 14 minutes)
Part Two: Mouse after a fête / Breakwater and tea / Grey trees / Two
bangers + mash / Whining at the moon / Bells 2 (approx. 15 minutes)
Part Three: Greenland / Eu son Dhaga (I am Dhaga) / Na outra banda (On
the other hand) / Un poeta esquece os días de chuvia (A poet forgets the
rainy days) / Saturnalia / Bells 3 (approx. 16 minutes)
Part Four: William Phips / Stede Bonnet / Gabriel Spenser / Gospel at
Noon / Waste Deep / Frog (approx. 13 minutes).
(This is part three of the the Spanishgrass,
the myth continues... series. Hi-def scans and pictures will be
revealed, on an irregular basis, at our Spanishgrass
Tumblr gallery.)
Many thanks to Mr. Anonymous for sending us this package. Spanishgrass
can be downloaded at Bandcamp. ♥
Iggy ♥ Libby ♥ Babylemonade Aleph ♥
Happy New Year, sistren and brethren of the Holy Church of
Iggy the Inuit. 2014 is gone and again what a long strange trip it has
been, to quote – once again - musician, lyricist and poet Robert
Hunter. Syd Barrett is dead all right and unfortunately his
legacy hasn't been ageing gratefully at all last year. An enlightened
visionary once said that if you put two Barrett fans together they will
start a group and if you'll put three they will start a fight. This is
past year's history in a nutshell and enough reason for the Reverend to
say adieu to all Facebook Syd Barrett groups, without exception, even
the ones he co-founded. 2014 showed they are as unique as Pepsi is to to
Coca Cola, perfect clones and excelling in superfluous and sickly sweet
mediocrity. This crusty dinosaur needed to get rid of the bickering, the
hijacking of each other's members, the shouting to and fro, the arrogant
standpoint of people who never heard of Syd Barrett three months before
but who feel it their constitutional right to surpass their ignorance
and insult the old farts for the only reason they can.
Luckily there are still some free minds around who do the things they
do, unburdened, in all artistic freedom and who we can call our friends. Rich
Hall comes to mind, over the years this multi-instrumentalist has
acquired an impressive back catalogue of indie records, with of course
the impressive Birdie
Hop & The Sydiots that appeared in 2013.
This year he surprised the lethargic Syd Barrett world with an enhanced
version of the Barrett track Opel. Opal, as some people claim it should
be, is a haunting tune and has some of Barrett's finest verse (crisp
flax squeaks tall reeds) but it only exists as a demo. Hall added
additional layers of guitar, thus creating something that could be close
to the definitive Opel / Opal version.
Opel (upgrade) by Rich Hall. Opens in a separate window.
In the privacy of the confessional Rich had already whispered into the
Reverend's ears that he was of the opinion that Barrett's seminal 1974
sessions could be turned into something more coherent and because nobody
believed him, the Reverend included, he decided to give these tapes the
Opel treatment as well.
The
Dark Side of the Moon had made Pink Floyd a supergroup and
their record companies decided to earn some quick cash, surfing on the
success of the million seller. The first budget release was A
Nice Pair (1973) that combined the Floyd's first two records, The
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and A
Saucerful Of Secrets, although American copies had some alternative
mixes of some of the tracks. Actually this was not such a bad idea,
because in America Pink Floyd had been a relatively unknown band till
then. The compilation hit the Billboard top 40.
For the first time American kids heard of Syd Barrett and his two solo
albums, that had never crossed the ocean, were re-packaged in 1974 as a double
album with a 'founder member of Pink Floyd' sticker on the front.
The album rose to position 163 in the American charts, which was an
unexpected success and made the record executives hunger for more at
both sides of the Atlantic.
Bryan Morrison, who was still Barrett's agent, convinced Syd to get back
in the studio with Peter Jenner (who we interviewed this year: An
innerview with Peter Jenner) to start a third studio project, but it
only resulted in some hastily shambolic recordings. But now, in 2014,
Rich Hall took the 1974 demos, added extra guitar, bass, drums and
sleigh bells (where would rock music be without sleigh bells?) and here
is how it sounds. The result is still best described as your drunk uncle
torturing his guitar on Christmas eve after his fourth coffee cognac,
but kudos to Hall for enriching the demos. At least we hear now where it
could have led into if only Barrett would have had the balls...
Tracklisting:
Start
Boogie #1 (with a trace of Bo Diddley’s ‘Pretty Thing’)
0'00
Boogie #2
1'28
Boogie #3
2'58
If You Go #1
4'24
If You Go #2
6'38
Untitled
8'25
Slow Boogie
9'40
Fast Boogie
12'22
Ballad
13'30
John Lee Hooker (actually Lighting' Hopkins' Mojo Hand)
15'20
Chooka-Chooka Chug Chug
18'18
Endless Insults
Opposed to a band called Pink Floyd there is a company with the same
name that seems to have other interests than to serve the band it
represents, even going as far as insulting and legally threatening
webmasters and active forum members (read: über-fans)
because they dare to write something that doesn't fit into saint David's
money scheme, who thinks he is the caretaker of all things Syd Barrett,
which – in reality – means buying all possible Barrett-related items,
movies and recordings and hiding them in a storage place, out of sight
of the public and the fans. Ted Shuttleworth about his Crazy Diamond
movie script in 2011:
Presently, the script is with a guy who has been placed in charge of the
Syd Barrett estate. He is also David Gilmour's manager, and ostensibly
Pink Floyd's manager as well. I have no idea if he's ever read it. I
imagine he hasn't. But if a movie about Syd is ever going to seriously
happen, he is the man who is going to give the first OK. Maybe one of
these days he'll call me back. (Taken from: Ted
Shuttleworth and the "Crazy Diamond" Movie)
Well, in the case of the Crazy Diamond movie, that was equally trashed
down by Roger Waters and by David Gilmour, this might have been a good
thing.
Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band.
The Last Minute Never Mentioned Boogie Band
Not that the webmasters of the Pink Floyd fan sites are any better. The
three big Pink Floyd fan-sites, two of them serious and a third who
copies all from the others, wet their trousers whenever a Floyd member
or Floyd collaborator does a 'thing' however trivial that 'thing' might
be. The Igquisition made a nice table about some recent Floydian
events, counting the times they have been mentioned.
Of course we don't mind that Snowy
White selling his 1957 Goldtop Standard Les Paul guitar
gets a mention, it can be heard on the 8-track version of Animal's Pigs
On The Wing (this track was later re-issued on Snowy's Goldtop
compilation).
It is not more than normal that Nick Mason, sitting in on drums on a
(frankly dreadful) Kirsty Bertarelli Christmas single (The
Ghosts Of Christmas Past), or David Gilmour, joining
Bombay Bicycle Club at the last gig ever on Earls Court, is documented
on the fan-sites, that is what fan-sites are for.
But that Andy
Jackson's solo album gets mentioned 5 times more by the fan-sites
than the The
Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band, with Syd Barrett guesting on 3
tracks, is frankly unbelievable. The original tape of this concert was
confiscated in 1985, in a rather NSA-shaped way, by a Pink Floyd black
suit and then hurled into the maelström they call their archive (see: The
Last Minute Put Together Reel Story). Luckily a second copy of this
tape was found back in 2005 and issued by Easy
Action records after nearly a decade of legal struggle.
When I am A Good Dog They Sometimes Throw Me A Bone In
That Neptune Pink Floyd is not aware of this release is probably just a
sign of their overall ignorance. However it is more problematic for A
Fleeting Glimpse not mentioning it. Col Turner, by his own words a fan
of Pink Floyd since 1966, should be well aware of Syd Barrett's
importance and legacy. His website, that has attracted over 50 million
visitors and whose forum has over 13000 members, brags that it is the
most accurate, the most informed and the first to come out with
officially confirmed news. Not mentioning the Last Minute Put
Together Boogie Band could be a sign that Col T only publishes what
his One
Fifteen puppet master allows him to publish, as the Endless River
incident has clearly proven past year (see: The
loathful Mr. Loasby and other stories...).
Update 2015 08 02: Browsing through the Late
Night forum we came across a post from Lee
Wood who made the Syd's Cambridge DVD Box Set, limited to 100
copies, in 2009. He send a copy of the box to one of the leading Pink
Floyd fan-sites but was informed by the webmaster that they would not
review the release. Lee Wood:
"The Management" of PF seems to like total control. I sent a review copy
of the box set to Brain Damage whom I always thought were a good source
of information but they couldn't run a review until they got permission
from official sources. Needless to say it's been several months and
nothing has appeared. So perhaps its not worth looking to them for
unbiased information or any form of news of interest to fans. (Source: Syd's
Cambridge Box Set.)
Oh by the way, the official Syd Barrett website
never mentioned the Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band release either.
But they are a One Fifteen product as well, and as such only interested
in selling t-shirts, some of those are quite nice even.
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit published several articles
about this record, with interviews of Carlton
Sandercock, Mohammed
Abdullah John Alder (Twink for short) and Fred
Frith. Pearls for the swine, one might say, because even the
self-proclaimed Syd Barrett fans largely ignored this release and were
openly shouting for the tracks to be illegally published on YouTube.
Spanishgrass album 2014.
Caca Del Toro
When a Mexican Syd Barrett fan asked the Church, in May 2012, if we knew
anything about a third solo album, allegedly recorded in a Spanish
monastery, we didn't know this old urban legend would rip the Barrett
community open like zombies with their entrails gushing out of their
bellies.
All the Church did was looking into this (obvious) myth and reporting
about it. The research was taken a step further by Antonio Jesús from
the phantasmagorical blog Solo
En Las Nubes who not only tracked down the rumour to its source, an
article in a satirical magazine, but also managed to interview the
person who started this hoax. What we thought was a fine piece of
investigative journalism, taking months of research (the last articles
were published in 2013), was considered inappropriate by those people
who fill their time by studying the hair-length of Barrett (see: Hairy
Mess) on coloured photographs that were once published in magazines
back home.
However, the myth was far from over. In August of this year, four
reel-to-reel tapes were sent in a luxury 'immersion' box to 4 people on
3 continents containing a 2014 re-imagination of the record. Two of them
were the people who had published the Spanishgrass files on their blogs:
Antonio Jesús & the Reverend. The two others were Rick Barnes, record
collector, music investigator, administrator of the Facebook Syd Barrett
group Birdie Hop and Stanislav Grigorev, whose Floydian con-artistic
artwork even fooled the professionals that are Barrett's management.
Obviously the Church reported and commented about this (quite intriguing
and musically excellent) record and published a review when it was
streamed on Bandcamp (see: Spanishgrass
by Spanishgrass, a review of the 2014 album). Useless to say that it
was mostly disregarded by those fans who squawk orgasmically over
photoshopped Barrett images where it looks as if someone has just
vomited a bowl of three-coloured pasta all over him.
The general disinterest and the continuous backstabbing was a sign o'
the times, so thought the Reverend, to seek up new pastures and to say
goodbye with a cheerful bless you all.
(Warning: this blogpost contains gratuitous nudity.)
Happy New Year, dear sistren and brethren, followers of
the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, we know these wishes come a tad too
late, but for us, Sydiots, the sixth of January is all that more
important, isn’t it?
Barrett’s seventieth birthday, as you probably know, was going to be
remembered with the launch of a renewed official website at www.sydbarrett.com,
under the supervision of Ian and Don Barrett and the help of some fans
who want to stay anonymous, except the one bloke who bragged about it on
that particular Whining Madcaps group we have long been blocked from.
Who is it who’s credited in 4 Syd books, spent months of (…) free time
collating photos of Syd and the early Floyd cos NO ONE else had done it
before, (…) has a credit at the end of the Technicolour Dream
documentary, was interviewed by Storm for his Syd film, helped Pink
Floyd’s manager with the original Syd website THEN was asked by Ian and
Don Barrett for (…) help with the new one.
Who you gonna call? Syd-busters! The rant goes on after that and
we seriously wonder why the man still hasn’t got a statue in that
cultural indifferent town that is Cambridge, instead of the one that is
going to be erected for Syd.
Antonio Jesus in Brussels (with ginger cat).
Caturday
Saturday the ninth saw two magical gatherings, one at the Geldart
in Cambridge and one at the Cirio
in Brussels. The one in Cambridge had the usual gang of Sydiots who
don’t want to be remembered of the madcap’s London exploits. The one in
Brussels was just an alcoholic debauchery between two webmasters and
their mutual adoration for ginger pussies, which is a far more
interesting starting point to, uhm..., start a conversation.
But, like we said, on the sixth of January of the year 2016 a new
official Syd Barrett website
was launched. It also immediately crashed which means that it either was
inundated by the amount of hits or that the chosen internet provider
happens to be a cheap and cheerful one who can’t handle more than a
dozen clicks per minute.
Apart from that the website
is a nice surprise, compared to the old one that already looked outdated
the day it was uploaded (and that had many wrong entries, including
wrong release dates for Syd's solo albums and examples of Stanislav's
dadaist fanart that crept into several sections). See: Cut
the Cake (2011) and/or Syd's
Official site gets a makeover (2010).
Much effort has been put into a short biographical Introduction
that tries to condense Syd's life into a readable article that won't
scare the fans away. While every Barrett scholar would probably
highlight other aspects of the madcap's life it is a nice treat, written
by someone who cares.
The Photo
section is what probably will attract most of the fans to the new site,
publishing many unseen portraits of the artist as a young man, hidden –
up till now - in private family albums. Obviously there are also
sections of the early Pink Floyd and Syd's solo years, nothing really
earth-shattering can be found in there (for the anorak, that is) but it
is a nice touch though that the pictures with Syd and Iggy (by Mick
Rock) have lost the legend that they were taken during the autumn of
1969. We don't see any Storm or Hipgnosis pictures in there but this
could be a coincidence...
A ridiculously wide menu banner (it looks cool on a smartphone though)
brings us to the Music
page where different songs will be analysed. For the launch it is Octopus
that gets the geek treatment, with – next to an introduction – Paul
Belbin's Untangling the Octopus essay, in a Julian Palacios
revision. It is great to see this 'Rosetta stone for decoding the
writing inspirations for one of Syd Barrett's most beloved songs' appear
on an official website.
Hidden underneath the introductory Syd Barrett Music page are four
sub-sections that are, at first sight, not entirely coherent and can be
easily missed.
Octopus (compilation).
Rocktopus
Syd's Recordings
gives an overview of his discography, Pink Floyd and solo, including
compilations and different formats. This list omits the 1992 Cleopatra
Octopus CD compilation (although you can mysteriously find its cover on
a different page) and also two early Pink Floyd compilations: The Best
Of The Pink Floyd (1970) and Masters Of Rock (1974). Obviously the Last
Minute Put Together Boogie Band release that was confiscated by Pink
Floyd, unaware of the fact that a second copy of the tape was still
hiding in a Cambridge cupboard, is nowhere to be found either.
Syd's Songs
publishes a complete list of Barrett's compositions, released and
otherwise, and it is a section that gives already much food for debate,
especially as an early Pink Floyd Immersion set could be in the make.
Dedicated
Albums tends to give an overview of tributes. It is a bit a
superfluous (and very incomplete) list, perhaps only added to do Men
On The Border the favour they deserve. Personally I don't understand
why the pretty ridiculous Vegetable Man Project is listed 6 times, but
the equally ridiculous Hoshizora
No Drive not. Closer to home I don't see Rich Hall's Birdie
Hop And The Sydiots, nor Spanishgrass
by Spanishgrass, appearing in the list.
Concert
Posters gives what the title says, but also here the list is pretty
random, although (early) Pink Floyd poster collectors are known to the
people coordinating this section of the website.
But we've seen things change rapidly, even for the past few days, so
when you read this some of these glitches may already have been repaired.
Shirley Anne Field by David Bailey, Playboy March 1966.
Enjoy (f)Art
Obviously there is also an Art
section on the site, divided into several sections: Student
Days, Later
Art, Notebooks
& Sketches (this section has some unseen pictures of Roger's notebooks)
and Syd's DIY
furniture (and his bike). The Fart Enjoy art-book is published as
well, but mentions that it was made in 1965, while it contains a pin-up
from a 1966 Playboy (don't pretend you didn't see it!) and refers to a
March 1966 Pink Floyd gig (see: Smart
Enjoy). But here we are meddling with muddy Sydiot territory again.
Last, but not least, there is a Barrett Books
entry. Also here it is all in the mind of the webmaster. Needless to say
that the 'classic' biographies in the English language have all been
mentioned, as well as other publications in a pretty arbitrary way.
London Live by Tony Bacon still makes it to the list. Other than the
picture on the front, this book has got no real connection to Syd
Barrett. It contains a history of London Clubs and the bands who played
there. Pink Floyd is mentioned, obviously, but so are a couple of
hundred other bands and artists.
The first two Mick Rock Syd Barrett photo books are included but not the
third one: Syd Barrett – Octopus - The Photography Of Mick Rock, EMI
Records Ltd & Palazzo Editions Ltd, Bath, 2010. There are other things
as well, like the weird way some Italian and French books make it to the
list and others don't, but this review is already messy enough.
Oh, by the way, there is a Links
page as well (that we nearly missed) but we will not spend another word
on it. Just check it for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
But it is a start all right, and one in the good direction. Things can
only get better.
Many thanks to: Anonymous, Paul Belbin, Mary Cosco, Stanislav Grigorev,
Rich Hall, Antonio Jesús, Göran Nyström, Julian Palacios. Untangling
the Octopus (version 3), by Paul Belbin & Julian Palacios can also be
consulted at the Holy Church: Untangling
the Octopus v3 (PDF). ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
This article started as a review of Psychedelic
Celluloid by Simon Matthews but ended up as a long-read about Pink
Floyd at the movies. Sorry, I can't help it. (This article does not
pretend to describe all Pink Floyd related movies.)
I got a mail, a couple of months ago, from Simon Matthews, saying that
he was working on a book that would explore the interaction between
(psychedelic) pop music and British movies, in the golden era that was
Swinging London. Not really coming as a surprise he added that Pink
Floyd would figure in it a couple of times. I made a mental note to
check it out, but like so many things it got lost in the dark corners of
my soul. Call it divine intervention, or just a case of serendipity, but
when Brain
Damage did a short write-up of the publication it all came back to
me and ten minutes later my Kindle was purring with joy.
Matthews starts his book by mentioning George
Melly’s Revolt Into Style, a collection of sixties
essays that has been borrowed from in all self-respecting Swinging
London books in the past forty years. His introduction ends with the
ad-hoc announcement that the most prominent ‘movie’ music performers
between 1965 and '74 were not The Beatles, nor The Rolling Stones, but,
yes, you’ve already guessed it: (The) Pink Floyd.
During my four decades long love/hate relationship with the band I have
trodden many paths, some narrower than others, and so it may not come as
a surprise to you that I have also tried to acquire some information on
the lads in movieland. We all know that several members of the Cambridge
mafia, revolving around the band, were dabbling into film: Nigel
Lesmoir-Gordon, Mick
Rock, Anthony
Stern, Storm
Thorgerson to name just a few.
It happily surprised me that, in the chapter ‘Set the Controls for the
Heart of W1!’, Matthews is casually mentioning that the Floyd’s music
can also be found on two kung
fu flicks: ‘Fist of Fury’ and ‘Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan’.
I am familiar with those as well as my quest into Floyd in filmland has
brought me to the weirdest places. Did you know there is a Syd Barrett
presence in a Freddy
Mandingo movie? Well, let me tell you, you really don't want to know.
唐山大兄 Tang Shan Da Xiong (The
Big Boss) is a (fairly stupid) 1971 Hong Kong movie that put a
fairly unknown martial artist into the spotlight. Bruce
Lee plays a somewhat dorky fellow, revenging the murders on his
relatives, who found out the local ice factory is being used for drugs
smuggling.
When the movie arrived in an American version it was retitled as Fists
Of Fury, creating a mess for generations to come as there would be
another Bruce Lee movie the next year called Fist Of Fury (without the
s). Perhaps it was the other way round, as even Wikipedia isn't really
sure which is which (and neither does Simon Matthews). Most of the world
calls the movie The Big Boss, except for Germany, who like to give the
plot away and baptised it Die Todesfaust des Cheng Li (The deadly
fist of Cheng Li).
Not only the title gives food for confusion. The movie has been issued
in half a dozen of different versions with entirely different
soundtracks.
A first music score was composed by Wang Fu-ling for the (original)
Mandarin release. It is believed Cheng Yung-yo assisted with that
soundtrack, although uncredited. This movie was horribly dubbed into
English for a limited run in the Anglo-Saxon world.
A second soundtrack was made by German composer Peter
Thomas when the movie was re-cut and re-dubbed for the international
market. This 1973 westernised version had several erotic and gory scenes
deleted, including the legendary scene where Bruce Lee cuts an
adversary's head in two halves with a saw.
A third soundtrack, using the international cut, was arranged by Joseph
Koo, for a Japanese release, probably around 1974.
A fourth soundtrack for a Cantonese release in 1983 combines the Joseph
Koo score (#3) with the one of Peter Thomas (#2) and adds incidental
'stock' music. This one includes snippets from Pink Floyd and King
Crimson (Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Two).
Peter Thomas (2016). Picture: courtesy Stanislav Gregorev.
Cut Into Little Pieces
An overview of Pink Floyd music in The
Big Boss, thanks to the Martial
Arts Music Wiki, with (dead) links to the exact sequence. Contains
some minor spoilers.
Obscured by Clouds (1972, Obscured by Clouds) Cheng Chao-an
(Bruce Lee) and his cousin Hsiu are being followed by casino bouncers (13:05). Repeated
when Hsiao Mi (the big boss), his son Chiun and some henchmen are
training (26:35).
Time (1973, The Dark Side of the Moon) Hsiu and his brother
visit the big boss at his mansion, trying to find out why two of their
family members have disappeared (29:05). Chen
Chao-an (Bruce Lee) is invited for a meeting with the ice factory's
manager (47:50). Chen
Chao-an visits the big boss to find out why four of his relatives have
disappeared (01:06:14).
Time / The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (Entertainment)
(1969, Ummagumma) Mixed together this can be heard when Hsiu and his
brother try to escape from Mi's killer squad (31:58).
As far as we know, the Floydian soundtrack was only available on a
Cantonese 1983 re-release, explaining that a 1973 song anachronistically
appears on a 1971 movie. It isn't certain if the Pink Floyd tracks were
properly licensed as they are not mentioned on the end credits. To add
insult to injury other cuts of the movie - with alternative 'hybrid'
soundtracks and extra or longer scenes - have circulated, so it is all
rather messy. For a (partial) comparison of the different versions: Big
Boss @ Movie Censorship.
Update November 2022: a very detailed description of the
different versions of the movie and its soundtracks can be found on
IMDB: The
Big Boss (1971) - Alternate Versions.
Bruceploitation
Bruce Lee died unexpectedly in 1973 and the posthumous documentary The
Man and the Legend (original title: Li Xiao Long di Sheng yu si)
contains next to the King Crimson piece that was already mentioned
above, Pink Floyd's One of These Days (1971, Meddle) and On The Run
(1973, The Dark Side of the Moon).
After 1973, several Bruceploitation movies were made, often with a
conspiracy theme. Tian Huang Ju Xing (Exit
the Dragon, Enter the Tiger) from 1976 is not different and has
actor Bruce
Li (real name: Ho Chung Tao) fighting his way through some shady
drug deals in something that will not be remembered as a great martial
arts movie. Even the soundtrack borrows completely from others and has
next to Isaac Hayes and John Barry, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (1975).
A decade before The Big Boss (1983 cut) another kung fu movie had found
out about the martial strength of Pink Floyd.
愛奴 Ai Nu, awkwardly renamed for the western market as Intimate
Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, is a 1972 Hong Kong movie about
the 18-year old Ai Nu who is kidnapped from her family and brought to
the governor's brothel.
After the default set of humiliations and punishments she apparently
accepts her fate and learns the noble art of self-defence from 'madam'
Chun Yi. Once a kung fu champ she uses her seductive powers to eliminate
her wrongdoers, one by one.
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is a mixture of blood
vengeance, lesbian sensualism (in covert seventies style) and it has
been named as one of the inspirational landmarks for Quentin
Tarantino's Kill
Bill. Every scene looks so artificially crisp it nearly hurts the
eyes and if Walt
Disney ever makes a movie set in a brothel this is certainly how it
will look like. Undoubtedly a seventies classic, director Yuen
Chor (Zhang Baojian) can, without doubt, be placed next to Borowczyk,
Fellini
or Pasolini.
Another one bites the dust
Unfortunately the original soundtrack can't really decide between
traditional Chinese and Tex-Mex western style tunes. Two Pink Floyd
tracks of the 1970 Zabriskie Point soundtrack are prominent in
three decisive scenes. (The links given here point to a very bad copy,
dubbed in English, with terrible sound.)
Come In Nr. 51 (Your Time is Up) Ai Nu has just been tortured
by Chun Yi, who promptly falls in love with her (link). After
the final duel, when Ai Nu kisses her dying lover goodbye (link).
Heart Beat, Pig Meat A few seconds of Heart Beat, Pig Meat at
43 minutes when Ai Nu and her lesbian lover openly discuss the first
murder (not present on the YouTube version). (The DVD has a
documentary about the movie that uses the Zabriskie soundtrack even
more, by the way.)
In Psychedelic Celluloid, Simon Matthews writes that Pink Floyd can be
heard in two kung fu movies, but there is more, much more...
The Kung Fu Magazine forum
has a 47-pages thread with, at the time of writing, 643 verified tracks
(of different composers, bands and artists) that have been used, legally
or illegally, in dozens of films. Sometimes the songs are used in its
entirety, but often snippets of a second or less have been 'sampled'
into the soundscape. Venomous Centipede at shaolinchamber36.com
came up with the following impressive Pink Floyd list. All Hong Kong or
Taiwan movies with a Pink Floyd soundtrack (Updated January 2019):
April Fool
Come in Number 51, Your Time is Up - Zabriskie Point
Bedevilled, The
Echoes - Meddle
Deadly Chase, The *
(aka Zhui sha, Impact 5, Karate Motos - 1973) Mudmen - Obscured
By Clouds (* added by ShawFan17)
Chinatown Capers
The Grand Vizier's Garden Party – Ummagumma When You're In
- Obscured By Clouds
Delinquint, The
The Grand Vizier's Garden Party – Ummagumma Astronomy
Domine - Ummagumma
Fist of Unicorn *
One of These Days - Meddle (* added by: OldPangYau.)
Gambling For Gold
The Grand Vizier's Garden Party - Ummagumma Astronomy Domine -
Ummagumma Atom Heart Mother - Atom Heart Mother
Happenings, The
Echoes - Meddle Absolutely Curtains - Obscured By Clouds
Hunchback, The
One of These Days - Meddle
Kung Fu Inferno
Echoes - Meddle
Legends of Lust
Heart Beat, Pig Meat - Zabriskie Point
Marianna *
(aka Bin Mei, 1982) Obscured By Clouds - Obscured By Clouds (*
added by Panku)
Ninja Warlord *
Echoes - Meddle One Of These Days - Meddle (* added by Dithyrab)
Operation White Shirt
Time - Dark Side of the Moon On the Run - Dark Side of the Moon
Pier, The
Time - Dark Side of the Moon
Roaring Lion, The
One of These Days - Meddle
Tales of Larceny
Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Tiger Jump
Time - Dark Side of the Moon
Training Camp
Atom Heart Mother - Atom Heart Mother
Wits to Wits *
(aka Lang bei wei jian , From China with Death, Con Man and the Kung
Fu Kid) Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun - A Saucerful
of Secrets (* added by Jimbo)
Young Rebel, The
Time - Dark Side of the Moon On the Run - Dark Side of the Moon
So prepare a big bag of popcorn if you want to check these out.
Update November 2022: many thanks to Kung Fu Fandom for
mentioning our blog on their Floyd soundtrack list.
Let’s get back to Simon Matthews’ Psychedelic Celluloid. After the
introduction and a chapter dedicated to Pink Floyd the main bulk of the
book consists of a chronological listing of about 120 movies, starting
with Richard Lester’s The
Knack (1965) and ending with Stuart Cooper’s Little
Malcolm and his struggle against the Eunuchs (1974), described by
some as the most expensive home movie ever made as it could only be seen
at George Harrison’s place.
There is nearly a movie on every page, with a picture, a short
description, some info on the director, the actors and its soundtrack,
but that is exactly where the cookie crumbles, as this information is
almost identical to what you can already find on IMDB
and Wikipedia.
The author could've added more anecdotes or juicy rumours if you ask me.
Take Performance,
for instance, not a word about the orgies and the drugs in front and
behind the camera, as Iggy Rose once testified on this holy place (see: Iggy
& the Stones). But of course, books have already been written
about that movie alone.
Several times when I was at the point of saying 'this is starting to get
interesting' the article ends and makes place for another one, leaving
my hunger unsatisfied. The intriguing story of the (disappeared) movie Popdown
is a perfect example. Starring Zoot
Money, with music of Brian Auger, Blossom Toes, Dantalion's Chariot,
Julie Driscoll, Gary Farr and a couple of others. Its history is so
fascinating that it could easily have taken six pages, but it stops at
two. After reading that entry I spend a good hour browsing the Internet
for more information, reading about a maniacal fan, Peter
Prentice, who nearly spend a fortune trying to locate a surviving
copy. Unfortunately I never found out if he succeeded in his mission, or
failed. Perhaps that is what Simon Matthews really wants as I'm pretty
sure he knows more about these movies than he was allowed to write. And
the beauty of this guide is that it assembles a list of 120 'flower
power' films in the first place.
Two Weeks In September, French-Dutch poster.
The Pink Jungle
Pink Floyd are the uncrowned champions of the 'pop' movies during the
psychedelic heyday, roughly from the mid-sixties till the mid-seventies,
and that despite the fact that they even rejected a soundtrack for
Kubrick. (Even more of a surprise is that Amon
Düül ends second.) I count 26 Pink Floyd entries in the
book and 5 for Syd Barrett. Let's have a nerdy look through our pink
tinted glasses, shall we?
This movie is only mentioned in one of the appendixes of the book.
Starring Brigitte
Bardot it is the story of a model, with a photo shoot assignment in
London, who has to choose between her husband and a much younger
passionate toy boy. This was Bardot's first attempt to excel in a
serious movie, away from the sex kitten romantic comedies she had done
before. Probably that could be the reason why the public didn't want to
see it, but critics say the movie tried to look sophisticated but ended
up pretty dull. Next to BB two English popstars play a small role: Murray
Head and Mike
Sarne, who had a number one hit in 1962 with Come
Outside.
In a 2015 BBC documentary 'Wider Horizons' it was revealed that David
Gilmour sang two tracks for the movie, composed by Michel
Magne: Do
You Want To Marry Me? and I
Must Tell You Why. This was before he joined Pink Floyd and that is
perhaps why Psychedelic Celluloid isn't aware of this.
The Holy Church Tumblr blog has several links to the songs and the movie
itself: À
Coeur Joie.
Simon Matthews throws an ace with the news that The
Touchables has Interstellar Overdrive during one of its scenes,
something that – as far as I know – has never been put in a Floydian
biography before. It is one of those thirteen in a dozen, throwaway, sex
comedies with a plot 'thinner than a paper towel'.
Four good-looking beauties, who like to walk around in their underwear
and who are literally living in a bubble, kidnap a wax sculpture of Michael
Caine and then repeat the act with a popular pop singer, whom they
abuse as a sex slave, not that he resists a lot. After having a go at
the four of them he finally tries to escape but they shoot him down. The
situation looks grim for a minute, but even that can't spoil the fun. It
all looks like one of the less interesting Monkees shows.
Add a subplot with a few gangsters and, for an incomprehensible reason,
some professional wrestlers and you have a product that creates
immediate amnesia after watching it.
The story was written by Donald
Cammell who would later enlarge some of its situations for
Performance.
The
Committee entry has one of Mick Rock's pictures with Syd Barrett
standing in front of his Pontiac
Parisienne - more of that car later (obviously) - which I found a
bit weird, even for a Barrett buff like me.
Then it occurred to me that Barrett had first been asked to compose its
soundtrack, without the Floyd. The reason is not entirely clear, maybe
Barrett was thought to be cheaper than the entire band, maybe Peter
Jenner wanted to give Syd's solo career a boost (although he was
officially still in the band), maybe it was believed that Syd would
better understand the movie's philosophy, inspired by the theories of R.D.
Laing. Whatever...
On the 30th of January 1968, a couple of days after the Floyd – now with
David Gilmour - 'forgot' to pick Syd up for a gig, he arrived one and a
half hour late at Sound Techniques without a guitar and without a band.
A guitar was found, Nice-drummer Brian
'Blinky' Davidson and Barrett-buddy Steve
Peregrin Took were presumably called in and five and a half hours
later a twenty minutes music piece was in the can. Unfortunately Barrett
thought it sounded better backwards so at midnight they called it a day
and all went home.
The collaboration with Barrett was stopped because his studio time was
too expensive and their budget was practically zero. Syd didn't show any
further interest for the project either and when a studio employee tried
to phone him there was 'nobody home'. Roger Waters heard about the
fiasco and agreed to do the soundtrack with the rest of the band, minus
Syd, in an improvised studio for practically nothing. Max Steuer in Sparebricks:
The address was 3, Belsize Square, London NW3, the basement flat of the
painter Michael
Kidner and his wife Marion. (…) It was amazingly professional.
Steuer remembers that Syd's piece was 'jazzy, with a groove' and that
Peter Jenner took the tape with him. In 2014 we asked Jenner about the
whereabouts of this 'holy grail'. Peter Jenner in The Holy Church of
Iggy the Inuit innerview:
As far as I know I am not in possession of these tapes, I might have
been given a copy, but surely not the masters. (…) Many things
disappeared with the sudden collapse of Blackhill. My recollection is
that they were less than amazing. However if I come across anything I
will let you know.
The Committee is now part of Pink Floyd's Early Years box set, without –
of course – the Syd Barrett tape. Unfortunately Psychedelic Celluloid
was already in the can when that set was released and several times the
author states that a Pink Floyd soundtrack has not been officially
released, while some of it can now be found on the luxury box set.
Update 2017: in our next article we dig deeper into The Committee
soundtrack, with a remarkable theory from Simon Matthews: The
Rhamadan – Committee Connection
There is no immediate link with Pink Floyd in The
Magic Christian, but Gretta
Barclay and her boyfriend Rusty Burnhill worked on it. Gretta
Barclay in the interview she gave at the church:
We did some film extra work for The Magic Christian. I have a feeling
Iggy came with us? But I cannot confirm this.
As the movie was shot in March 1969, Iggy could indeed have been around.
It wouldn't be the first time that Iggy was on a film set, nor the last.
Another Syd Barrett friend made it even in front of the camera. One of
Raquel Welsh's topless slave girls in the galleon scene was none other
than Jenny Spires, but she didn't make it to the final cut, so don't
ruin your eyes looking for her.
How could we forget More?
This Barbet Schroeder movie follows the hippie trail to Ibiza, but
instead of sea, sun and illicit sex it adds the deadly ingredient of
heroin. Pink Floyd wrote the soundtrack.
There are some differences between the music on the album and the songs
in the movie. 'Main Theme' lacks some guitar and 'Cymbaline' has
alternate lyrics and is sung with a 'head voice'. The movie also
contains a short instrumental 'Hollywood' that is not on the album. The
Early Years compilation includes an early version of this track, titled
'Song 1'.
The song that has made fans go crazy for almost five decades is
'Seabirds'. It is a pastoral hymn à la Grantchester Meadows, but
unfortunately it can only be heard during a party scene in the film.
When Pink Floyd announced that 'Seabirds' was included in The Early
Years box this was considered as one of those great revelations everyone
was hoping for. Unfortunately the song in the box was not 'Seabirds',
but an alternate take of the instrumental Quicksilver. Apparently the
master tape of the 'real' Seabirds was given to the movie producers who
used it for their final cut and who destroyed the only copy afterwards.
Simon Matthews overzealously implies that Pink Floyd did the soundtrack
for The
Body, although it was a co-operation between Ron
Geesin and Roger Waters (who can be found on 8 tracks of 22). One of
these, Give
Birth To A Smile, was recorded with the entire band, but it was
credited as a Roger Waters solo effort. (Give Birth To A Smile was
considered for inclusion on The Early Years box, but at the end it
didn't happen.)
Psychedelic Celluloid also states that:
The majority of the music was assembled from sounds made by the human
body – burps, farts, coughs, sneezes, heartbeats, human voices, general
stomach noises, etc. (p. 132)
Described by the author as a considerable tour de force of bad taste he
rightfully notes that Georgie Fame wrote the soundtrack, but he fails to
say that the most important actor of the film, a Pontiac
Parisienne with numberplate VYP 74, first belonged to Mickey
Finn and later to Syd Barrett. It would have been a fun anecdote.
During the making of the soundtrack of La
Vallée, so tells us Nick Mason, there was a (financial)
misunderstanding between Pink Floyd and the film company. The band
removed the title from the album and called it Obscured By Clouds
instead. But for once Pink Floyd didn't have the last laugh as the movie
was immediately sub-titled Obscured By Clouds for the English market.
Perhaps the weirdest thing is that Matthews finds La Vallée (Obscured by
Clouds) a well made film with excellent photography. That last one is
certainly true but most of the world is still trying to find out what
the hell the story was all about. La Vallée regularly makes it into
'worst movies of all times' lists.
Throughout Psychedelic Celluloid the author duly notes when a rock or
pop star occupies a (minor) role in a film. However, for La Vallée he
overlooked the fact that Miquette
Giraudy, wife of Steve Hillage, member of Gong and System 7, is
playing the part of Monique.
The last part of the book has several entries that didn't make it to the
central part, for one reason or another. Appendix 1 (fiction)
mentions Zabriskie Point, not a London based movie, and the French À
Coeur Joie (see above). Appendix 2 (documentaries
and concert films) has Pink Floyd in Dope (1968) and Sound Of The City
(1973). Appendix 3 (shorts) lists Peter Whitehead's London '66-'67
with Pink Floyd playing the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream. Appendix 4
(TV specials, documentaries & concerts) mentions the Belgian 'Pink
Floid' special that has been unfortunately released on the Early Years
with the wrong soundtrack.
One category that can't be found in this pretty coherent and detailed
work are the many (perhaps too many) underground and avant-garde movies,
for instance from the London film-makers' co-operative LFMC,
started in 1966 by Stephen
Dwoskin, Bob
Cobbing and others in the legendary Better
Books shop. Carolee
Schneemann's Viet
Flakes (1965) that puts happy pop songs over Vietnam images isn't
there, nor is Malcolm
Le Grice's Berlin
Horse (1970) with a Brian Eno soundtrack and – oblesse oblige -
neither is Iggy, Eskimo Girl from Anthony
Stern that has See Emily Play. But avant-garde art movies probably
belong more in specialised studies for a specialised clientele (and at
special rates, Oxford University wanted me to pay £119 to consult an
article).
On three different occasions Simon Matthews mentions a Spanish movie
that claims to include on its soundtrack a rearrangement by Jorge Pi of
a Pink Floyd arrangement of Richard Strauss' Salome. Somewhat
exasperated he adds 'if anyone ever finds a copy and manages to
investigate'...
Well it is not that the Church didn't try.
In 1970 Rafael
Gassent, the 'father' of indepent Valencian cinema, made a 51
minutes adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play and Richard Strauss opera Salomé.
According to the IMDb movie database the soundtrack is composed by
Richard Strauss, arranged by Pink Floyd and re-arranged by Jorge Pi.
Rafa Gasent, also known as Rafael Gassent and all combinations in
between, is an experimental Spanish movie maker whose 23 and some movies
are even more difficult to track down than those of Anthony Stern.
Salome was allegedly shot in the Sagunto
castle, inspired by the Andy Warhol school of filming and is
apparently a blend of the hippie era and Spanish avant-garde 'grunge'
from the early seventies. No wonder that these experimental directors
weren't liked by general Franco and his Opus Dei cohorts and that these
movies were only shown in underground clubs. Rafael Gasent would later
work for Spanish television and his cinematographic work is now and then
shown on movie festivals.
Obviously the Holy Church tried to find out what this 'arranged by Pink
Floyd' means at the end credits of the Salome movie, but we couldn't
find a copy to check if it is really there or not.
The Church also asked Rafael Gasent Garcia for information, in English
and in Spanish, but unfortunately posting holiday pictures is a more
interesting activity for him than sparing a minute for some quick
comment.
So until somebody clears this up, there is a kind of enigma here.
Unless...
Update 2019 05 18: The reason why this movie can't be found
nowadays is because all copies were seized by the Spanish censorship
administration in the nineteen seventies. For an update, please check: Salome
Unveiled.
Rafael Gasent (2014).
Pinfloy
This doesn't mean that the Church doesn't have a theory. Personally I
think it was nothing but a youthful joke, like the Spanishgrass
hoax, and that Gasent didn't use Pink Floyd as a bandname but 'pinfloy'
as a noun.
Just like the Dutch language had the term 'beatle' in the sixties, for a
long-haired no-good (my mother used it all the time to shout at me), the
term 'pinfloy' was introduced in Andalusia in the seventies as an
equally pejorative term. A 'pinfloy', to paraphrase Antonio Jesús, is
somebody who acts silly, crazy, or who is quite gullible, naive and/or a
bit rare.
In underground and artistic circles however, 'pinfloy' may have been
re-appropriated and stripped from its derogatory meaning although it was
still used for alternative people from the wackier side of the spectrum.
If Jorge Pi (or Jordi Pi) is indeed the musician of the Desde
Santurce a Bilbao Blues Band, as Simon Matthews writes, this all
starts to make sense. The DsaBBB were a satirical band, who weren't from
Bilbao to start with and who didn't play the blues either. The band
mixed rock, charleston, folk, tango and forms of classical music,
combined with humorous lyrics. This was not always appreciated by the
Franco regime and in one case they were even arrested.
So, to get this over with once and for all, the Salome soundtrack may
not contain a Pink Floyd arrangement but a Jorge Pi 'pinfloy' treatment
of Richard Strauss, meaning that the Richard Strauss melody was given a
goofy swing.
Case closed then, unless somebody else comes up with a more coherent
theory.
Salomé 1970 -2017
Around 2015 Gasent revised, re-imagined and reconstructed a new version
of this lost movie, using material that could be traced back in several
archives. The 18 minutes short (14 minutes without credits) was shown on
the Mostra de València - Cinema del Mediterrani festival in October 2018
and has been published on YouTube as well.
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit has written an article about this
version at: Salome
Unveiled.
(Back to contents, top of the page.)
Psychedelic Celluloid (conclusion)
Psychedelic Celluloid is an excellent vade mecum, a quick reference
book, for those that are interested in the interplay of British bands
and movies of the psychedelic years. The description of the individual
titles could have been more detailed at points, but somewhere I have the
feeling that the author wants us, the reader, to move our lazy ass and
go look for it ourselves. As a whole, bringing these 120 titles together
in one volume is already a gargantuan task. Mission accomplished then.
La Marge (1976)aka The Streetwalker, aka Emmanuelle '77,
aka Emanuela '77.
Here is a movie that isn't mentioned in Psychedelic Celluloid, for
obvious reasons. First: the setting takes place in Paris, not in London.
Second: it was made outside the 'swinging London' decade, covered in the
book. Still it is a must-see for people who want to know more about
Floyd in film.
There is a French comedy about a film director who sells his dramatic
script to a movie studio and finds out that he is expected to make a
porn flick instead. This
is exactly what happened to Walerian
Borowczyk whose filmography evolved from art-house avant-garde to
European soft-core, including the almost parodical Emmanuelle
V in 1986.
Borowczyk started with ingenious stop motion and animations and shocked
the public (and the censors) with the live action Immoral
Tales (1974), The
Story of Sin (1975) and The
Beast (1975), movies that acquired a cult status and that placed him
next to contemporary directors as Stanley Kubrick and Roman Polanski.
These directors didn't avoid experiment either but were popular while
Borowczyk was only known to a small circle of critics and movie buffs.
For his next production he wanted to go for something less shocking and
more accessible...
All the necessary ingredients for a successful product were there: •
Andy Warhol superstar and beautiful boy Joe
Dallesandro, hot in France after appearing in Serge Gainsbourg's
movie Je
t'aime moi non plus, was hired for the male lead role. • Sylvia
Kristel was the female lead. Although remembered as a sex-goddess,
she was actually an excellent much-wanted actress and Europe's
box-office queen (thanks to the Emmanuelle franchise). • A top-score
soundtrack was assembled with French songs, old and new, and
international hits by 10CC (I'm Not In Love), Elton John (Saturday
Night's Alright (For Fighting)), Sailor (Glass of Champagne) and Pink
Floyd (Shine On You Crazy Diamond). • Bernard
Daillencourt was the cinematographer and his work for Borowczyk was
so appreciated that David Hamilton hired him for his flimsy but utterly
lucrative erotic trilogy: Bilitis, Laura and Tendres Cousines. Actress
Camille Lariviere would also figure in Bilitis. • The original novel,
from writer André
Pieyre de Mandiargues, had won the Prix
Goncourt for the best novel of 1967. He had also written The
Girl on a Motorcycle, put to film with Alain Delon and a young
Marianne Faithfull.
Joe Dallesandro in La Marge (screenshot).
Warning: spoilers ahead.
La
Marge is a dramatic mixture of love, death, adultery, suicide and
full frontal Euro-chic. A rich and handsome vine-grower, madly in love
with his family, visits a brothel on a business trip to Paris. After the
obligatory nookie he receives a letter that his son has drowned in the
swimming pool and that his wife has taken her own life. Instead of
returning home for the double funeral the widower tries to cope with the
tragedy by visiting the prostitute who feels that something basically
has changed in his, and her, attitude.
About everything was present to make this movie the autumn box-office
hit of 1976 but La Marge sank without a trace. The blowjob scene, with
Shine On You Crazy Diamond on the background, should have been tattooed
in our brains, like Marlon Brando's butter extravaganza in Last Tango In
Paris. To cash in on Kristel's fame the movie was renamed (and
re-dubbed) as Emmanuelle '77 (or Emanuela 77) but that only added to the
confusion. It has been rumoured that new scenes, filmed by another
director without the knowledge of Borowczyk, were added for an American
cut, known as The Streetwalker, but nobody has ever managed to compare
both versions.
The soundtrack, with 10CC, Elton John and Pink Floyd, may have been the
reason why the movie has never became a cult classic in later years.
Pink Floyd's legal stubbornness, so is whispered, has prevented a
general release on DVD. A Japanese version does exist, with several
blurs at strategic places, and there also floats a French Canal+ copy
around, omitting a few (voyeuristic) scenes.
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Tumblr has some pictures: La
Marge.
While I would give the book Psychedelic Celluloid a seven rating (out of
ten) for its contents, I am somewhat disappointed in the Kindle edition.
The book, as a traditional book, is beautifully printed, with a lot of
white-space next to the text to include pictures in a separate column or
to interact with the text as in the 'Magic Christian' example at the
left.
However, the Kindle version does not allow in-text searching, nor adding
notes, nor changing the font size. On my medium sized tablet screen
(10.81 by 6.77 inches / 27.46 × 17.20 cm) the letters are the size of
miniature ants due to the fact that every page can only be shown in its
entirety. The picture legends have golden letters on a white background
and are completely unreadable (you can't change the background colour
either, as in other Kindle books).
Reading the Kindle version of Psychedelic Celluloid is like reading a
badly xeroxed book but with the one difference that on good old
photocopies you could still scribble some notes.
I would like to say to Oldcastle Books and/or Amazon this is a fucking
disgrace and that you only bring the author's reputation down with this
kind of crap.
Still a good book though.
Simon Matthews Psychedelic Celluloid Oldcastle Books, 2016. 224
pages.
The Church wishes to thank: Gretta Barclay, Vanessa Flores, Stanislav
Grigorev, Rich Hall, Peter Jenner, JenS, Antonio Jesús, Göran Nyström,
OldPangYau, Panku, Dylan Roberts, Venomous Centipede. ♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥
Sources (other than the above mentioned links): Jesús,
Antonio: Curiosidades
- Pinfloy, un vocablo del sur, Solo En Las Nubes, 16.09.2011. Mason,
Nick: Inside Out: A personal history of Pink Floyd, Orion Books,
London, 2011 reissue, p. 169. Muños, Abelard: Rafa
Gassent, director de cinema, La Veu, 07.01.2014. Palacios,
Julian: Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, Plexus, London,
2010, p. 320. Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red
Books, London, 2001, p. 119.
Our Tumblr page contains a description of another movie with Pink Floyd
music, that we deliberately didn't include here: Alex De Renzy‘s Little
Sisters (1972).
Holy Church Wordcloud (2018). Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix
Atagong.
The church started as a jokey blog in August 2008, but we had to get
serious when, only a year later, Iggy was found back, thanks to Mark
Blake, from Pigs Might Fly fame. She lived in a village in
West-Sussex, 52 miles from central London in the north and 14 miles from
the south coast, with a population of approximately 5,000.
Those and other stories you can read in the overview of the first two
seasons of The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, a name that Iggy
thoroughly hated, by the way.
In season three the Church had acquired some maturity and because
Iggymania hit us hard there were over 30 articles that year. Here is
what happened a decade ago, a condensed overview of our third season, in
a reader’s digest way.
Metallic Spheres (cover: Simon Ghahary).
Metallic Spheres
Somewhere in the early nineties, the Reverend got aware of the band The
Orb, basically because some lazy journalists had baptised them the
Pink Floyd of ambient house. It has been a love/hate relationship ever
since because The Orb used to spit out songs and or remixes by the
bucket-load, often from uneven quality. (Check their 2020 sixteenth or
seventeenth studio album Abolition of the Royal Familia, that is
really good.)
In August of 2010, the official David
Gilmour blog (that no longer exists) finally confirmed the rumours
that a Floydian Orb partnership was going to take place. You can find
all juicy (and wacky) details in two articles but those aren’t amongst
the Reverend’s bests.
For those fans who might think, what does The Orb has to do with Pink
Floyd, Syd
Barrett or Iggy the Eskimo, there was news about Syd Barrett
compilation number 6 that saw the light of day in October 2010. An
Introduction To Syd Barrett was the first compilation combining solo
and Pink Floyd songs on one single album.
Before you say ‘what the fuck’ this compilation did have some extra bits
and pieces for the Syd Barrett anoraky collector. Four songs had been
remixed, plus one partially re-recorded, by David
Gilmour and for the first time in history, the 20 minutes version of Rhamadan
was offered as a downloadable extra track (for a limited period only).
About a year and a half after Rob
Chapman’s An Irregular Head Julian Palacios’ retaliated
with Dark Globe, a complete re-write of his previous Barrett and
early Pink Floyd biography Lost In The Woods.
Somewhat hermetic and not always the easiest prose to read it still is the
Syd Barrett authoritative biography around, giving credit where credit
is due, a department where Chapman lacked somewhat. Palacios is the kind
of biographer who will give you the brand of the coffee machine that was
used in a bar in Cambridge where Syd used to have an espresso and who is
a bit cross he couldn’t trace back its actual serial number. We have you
warned.
Mojo 207.
Mojo
The Mojo
edition of February 2011 (#207) put on its cover that Iggy the Eskimo
had been found and surprised us with a (small) article. Mark Blake
promised us a more in-depth article later on while Iggy was learning how
to type the right syllables on her portable phone, leaving a bunch of
quasi undecipherable messages at the Mojo website (for the first time
published here, see underneath).
Meanwhile, the Reverend and Iggy tried to connect, de tâtonnement en
tâtonnement as the French so beautifully say, figuring out what
the future should bring if there was a mutual future, to begin with.
The Strange Tale of Iggy the Eskimo was Mark Blake’s full article that
appeared as a Mojo Exclusive on its website. Unfortunately, it was
deleted a couple of years later. It is not even sure any more if it is
still around on Mark Blake’s own website, but a copy has been saved for
eternity at the Holy Church.
Obviously, the Church had quite a few articles about Iggy's reappearance
in season three:
Some of Iggy's comments on the Mojo website. (She had never used a
smartphone before.) Terrapin
9.
False Claims
In January 2011 somebody who appeared to be close to the Barrett
epicentre tried to sell a handwritten poem by Syd Barrett. Only, the
handwriting was not Syd’s, but by Barrett collector Bernard
White, who had published the poem in the fanzine Terrapin.
When the Church tried to investigate we were warned not to dig too deep,
for reasons still unknown, a decade later.
Anno 2020 there is a Syd Barrett lyrics book in the making. Perhaps it
will finally clear the fog around ‘A Rooftop Song In A
Thunderstorm Row Missing The Point’.
Fakes come in all sizes and colours. A Pink Floyd acetate containing Scream
Thy Last Scream and Vegetable Man was analysed by the Yeeshkul
community and proven to be a forgery. It's value dropped from ten
thousand dollars to about zero. Beware for the (many) fake records and
autographed items out there, people!
Fake as well, was an interview with the proprietor and mentor behind the
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, the famous and agile Reverend Felix
Atagong. Originally issued – in Spanish! - on the fantasticoSolo
En Las Nubes Barrett blog, it gave away all its dirty secrets. Ay
caramba! The English version appeared some while later at the
Church. It truly is an article of epic proportions.
Ian Barrett, Iggy Rose and Captain Sensible (picture: Captain Sensible).
Idea Generation
Iggy’s first public appearance in about half a century took place at the Idea
Generation exposition on the 17th of March 2011. A lot of people
were invited and Iggy was pleasantly surprised that she was asked, by
about everyone (minus one), for autographs and pictures.
That she was the star of the evening not only surprised her.
Unfortunately, it also led to a jealous outbreak from someone whom we
will call X. That person had always been high on the Syd Barrett pecking
order and was afraid to lose that spot. Iggy and X would be frenemies
for the rest of their lives, en passant adding the Reverend to
the war zone who was hit by friendly (and less friendly) fire.
In our third season, we also continued our Cromwellian nightclub series
with articles about professional wrestlers Paul Lincoln, Bob 'Anthony'
Archer, Judo Al Hayes and Rebel Ray Hunter who co-owned The Crom and
other clubs in the sixties.
Meanwhile, David Gilmour and Roger Waters are fighting an online battle
to get the most attention of the fans, by releasing home recordings of
Barrett, Floyd and solo songs. Nick Mason (with his Saucerful band) is –
obviously – still the coolest guy around.
See you next year, sistren and brethren!
Many thanks to all collaborators who helped us a decade ago and who are
still helping us today. RIP to those who are no longer around.:
Adenairways, Amy-Louise, Anne, Bob Archer, Emily Archer, Russell
Beecher, Paul Belbin, Mark Blake, Libby Gausden Chisman, Dallasman, Dan,
Dan5482, Dancas, Denis Combet, Dominae & Ela & Violetta (Little
Queenies), Paul Drummond, The Embassy of God, Emmapeelfan, Felixstrange,
Babylemonade Flowers, Gianna, Dark Globe, Griselda, Rich Hall,
Hallucalation, Rod Harrod, JenS, Jimmie James, Mark Jones, Kieren,
Krackers, Lynxolita, Natasha M, Mojo, MOB, Moonwall, Motoriksymphonia,
Natashaa', Giuliano Navarro, Neonknight, Göran Nyström, Julian Palacios,
Alain Pire, PoC (Party of Clowns), Antonio Jesús Reyes, DollyRocker,
Dolly Rocker, Jenny Spires, Vince666, Vintage Groupies, Brian Wernham,
Wrestling Heritage, X, Xpkfloyd, Zag, Zoe and all the beautiful people
at Late
Night and Yeeshkul. ♥
Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
On the 25th of September 2020, Neptune
Pink Floyd came with a scoop
that wasn't known to the two other 'biggies' of Pink Floyd fandom. That
or else they were too preoccupied writing favourable articles about the
redundant re-re-release of the live album Delicate
Sound Of Thunder, that can also be found in The
Later Years box-set. If you already have The Later Years the only
reason to buy Delicate Sound Of Thunder 2020 is to have an extra set of
postcards. They don’t come cheap nowadays.
Neptune Pink Floyd
We are pretty sure Neptune won't mind quoting them:
Pink Floyd collectors will be very excited to learn that a recording,
thought lost forever, featuring Pink Floyd as a backing band, has been
found after many years. It will be available for auction on 16th October
in Wessex, England at 12 pm BST.
The song in question is Early Morning Henry, considered to be one
of those Floydian holy grails. For decades fans thought that it had
disappeared or that it was hidden in the archives of Norman
Smith who took the tape on the 20th of October 1967. The reason why
Smith took it home was that it wasn’t a Floyd original, but a cover of a Billy
Butler song. If you want to know the complete story we can guide you
to our article that appeared in 2019: Singing
A Song In The Morning.
It is not Smith’s ‘plastic spool’ that is for sale, but a 3 minutes and
55 seconds one-sided acetate with the Early Morning Henry song. This may
be of importance while our story develops.
The acetate is part of a very huge collection that was bought by Modboy1,
in 2018.
Myself and my partner bought one of the UK’s biggest Music publishing
company library 2 years ago, over 500,000 items, that included about
50,000+ unreleased Demo Acetates, most only had the track name,
sometimes the publishing company name and if very lucky the writer’s
names and if even more lucky the artist’s name.
The
one-sided acetate didn’t have the artist’s name, only the title of the
song ‘Earley Morning Henry’ and the name of the publishing company
‘Jamarnie Music’.
It was first thought this was an unknown David Bowie track, but when
they did some extra investigations the name Pink Floyd popped up.
From David Parker’s excellent book Random Precision, that
has become a collector’s item by itself, we know a bit more of those
particular October weeks in 1967.
William Henry 'Billy' Butler.
A saucerful of songs
The Floyd had been busy with a couple of new tunes, including Vegetable
Man and Jug
Band (aka Jugband) Blues.
On Friday, 20 October they canned a highly avant-garde 9-part soundtrack
for a John
Latham project and two other tracks: Intremental (aka Reaction In
G?) and the slightly fantastic In
The Beechwoods. Except for Intremental these tracks have been
released, 49 years later, on The
Early Years.
On Monday morning, 23rd of October, the Floyd had a two hours session
with 8 takes for track E66409. It is David Parker’s educated
guess that E66409 stands for Rick Wright’s Paintbox.
If Glenn Povey is right in Echoes they headed for Bath, 115 miles
from London, where they had an afternoon gig at The Pavilion.
In the evening, at 7 o’clock, the boys returned to Abbey Road for a
session on Set
The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. When that was done they
recorded Early Morning Henry, in one take, to end the day. On the EMI
Recording Sheet, the track's Reel Number has been struck through and
there is the message that Norman Smith took the plastic reel with him.
The term ‘plastic reel’ is of importance as well. Shakesomeaction, who
was a studio engineer in the seventies, further explains:
The fact that it says on the Abbey Road Recording Sheet “Taken by Norman
Smith on Plastic Spool” also means this was not recorded for full
release but just as a demo, because if it was recorded for a proper
release they would have used a 2” master tape, not a plastic spool which
is only 1/4” tape and much lesser quality!
According to Modboy1 here is what happened in that late-night session:
Norman “Hurricane” Smith managed William “Billy” Butler who was also in
the studio at the same time and asked Pink Floyd as a favour to record
this track, William wrote so that it can be used as a Demo.
And…
William “Billy” Butler was in Abbey Road studios at the same time (he
was also a sound engineer), so he sang on the track with Syd Barrett
probably supplying harmony vocals and Pink Floyd playing, it was done in
1 take.
It is a plausible theory, especially if we know that Norman Smith was
not only their producer but also a Pink Floyd shareholder. According to
Neil Jefferies, the author of Hurricane’s ‘autobiography’, Smith had a
12,5% part in the company. Years later, in something that must have been
the stupidest financial decision of the century, Smith sold his shares
to finance his solo career. A couple of months later, The
Dark Side Of The Moon hit the shelves.
But before we continue our article let’s have a listen to a snippet of
the Billy Butler – Pink Floyd acetate, found on YouTube.
As the copyrights of the song still belong to Jamarnie Music (although
that is debatable) and the seller wants to give the exclusivity to the
new owner only 50 seconds of the almost four minutes song has been made
public. It has also been confirmed that the track will be removed once
the auction has been finished. (But a good soul managed to upload it
again.)
Early Morning Henry.
First impressions
In the mid-eighties when David Gilmour gave an early version of the A
Momentary Lapse Of Reason album to Columbia executive Stephen
Ralbovsky, the record boss allegedly replied dryly with ‘this music
doesn’t sound a fucking thing like Pink Floyd’.
About the same can be said of Early Morning Henry. It doesn’t sound
Floydian at all. Several fans thought so, including the Reverend of the
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.
Borja Narganes Priego
It doesn't sound like Pink Floyd to my ears. And the guitar is not near
close to Syd's guitar style… a bit of mystery with this…
Ewgeni Reingold
Does not sound to me as PF…
Ulrich Angersbach
I don't think that this track has anything to do with Pink Floyd 1967.
Second thoughts
But after the initial shock, fans and anoraks started to slowly change
their minds. As Hallucalation remarked, Remember
Me from the 1965 sessions doesn't sound a bit like Pink Floyd
either, yet it is canon.
Edgar Ascencio
Correct me if I'm wrong here but the bass does sound like Roger Waters’
playing… I've been listening to it for the good part of an hour
and though I may still be wrong I think I've picked up on Roger's bass
and Rick's backing vocals in the chorus…
Randall Yeager
To me, the drums and piano sound like Nick and Rick, especially playing
it safe on a first take.
Hallucalation
It's obviously Waters playing on bass, by the way.
Jon Charles Newman
I dunno — most of it sounds like it could be anybody, although the bass
could be Roger, and the harmony vocal sounds a little like Rick. It
wouldn't be surprising if Syd didn't take part. I'm reserving judgment
until there's more evidence or verification.
That last comment has a good point. What if this is a recording of Billy
Butler with Roger Waters on bass and Rick Wright on keyboards, but
without Syd Barrett? Who plays the guitar?
Early Morning Henry.
More thoughts
Friend of Squirrels has the following theory.
After listening to it again I completely agree that it does sound like
Roger and has the famous Rickenbacker tone. The guitar sounds
acoustic and pretty certain it is a nylon string guitar. Have never
known Syd to play a nylon string guitar that is usually used for
classical and bossa nova.
I believe Butler has a background in
jazz guitar, sounds like nylon strings...
And Goldenband concludes:
I tend to think it's unlikely Syd would have played on the track, and
agree that it's easier to imagine a scenario in which the other three
backed up BB. Tricky chord changes, by the way!
Billy Butler, late sixties.
Conclusion
Although there is still the theoretical possibility that the ‘plastic
spool’ and the acetate are two different recordings, with different
musicians, there seems to be a growing consensus that at least two
members of Pink Floyd helped Billy Butler out on this demo recording.
David Parker is practically 100% sure:
The fact the recording offered is an acetate doesn't mean it's not the
same recording as the tape taken by Norman Smith; acetates were a common
format for distributing publishing demos at the time.
It is not sure if Syd Barrett was there. The work on Set The Controls
For The Heart Of The Sun was mainly overdubs, by adding vibraphone and
‘voices’. Even if Syd was in the studio, the guitar on the acetate is
probably played by Billy Butler.
Theoretically, Nick Mason wasn’t needed either. Norman Smith was a fine
drummer who replaced Nick Mason a couple of weeks before on Remember
A Day (although some anoraks claim it is See-Saw
instead). It's still open for discussion.
But it seems almost certain that Roger Waters and Rick Wright can be
heard on the record.
At Yeeshkul, Azerty asked Pink Floyd archivist Lana Topham, who passed
the hot potato to Paul Loasby. The reply from the Floyd management was
short and sweet.
It seems to be a fake.
But several Floyd scholars simply refuse to believe this. To quote a
pretty well known überfan whose name we will not give out of
respect:
Lana Topham and Paul Loasby aren't going to know shit. I'd be slightly
surprised if even Nick and Roger could remember the session after all
these years.
So are we back at square one? Not exactly. On the Neptune Pink Floyd
forum Shakesomeaction gave some extra info. He had a look at the
Jarmanie Library files and here is what he found.
The library reference number was D 375 (on the Acetate sleeve), which
complied with the library files of D 375 and they stated: COMPOSER /
VOCALS - William Butler, BACKING BAND - PINK FLOYD, RECORDING DATE
23/10/67, PRODUCER : NORMAN SMITH, COPYRIGHT - JARMANIE MUSIC, UNRELEASED
and “DO NOT REMOVE - NO TAPE AVAILABLE” (which means there was no
master tape in the library).
But you can’t win a fight against Pink Floyd. Paul Loasby, whom we know
as a man who insults and harasses webmasters of ‘independent’ fan-sites
if they write something Paul Loasby doesn’t want them to write, morphed
into his favourite leprechaun character and did what he does best:
threatening people. Shakesomeaction testifies:
The Auction room had to take the name of Pink Floyd down, after a
threatening phone call from the manager. Although there was no
denying this was Pink Floyd backing. Sad that people with so much
money care about some minor demo they have done as a favour back in the
day…
At the auction house the name Pink Floyd has been removed and replaced
with 'big name world renowned group'.
*Following a phonecall from the management of a big name world renowned
group we have decided to remove their name from this listing.
Perhaps it is appropriate here to quote something from a Pink Floyd tune:
For hard cash, we will lie and deceive Even our masters don't know The
webs we weave
Paul Loasby's attitude created something of a mini-Streisand effect. How
does it come he never reacts when people sell fake acetates on the web,
for thousands of dollars, but when someone puts on a genuine one, he
suddenly turns into Floydzilla?
Early Morning Henry Recording Sheet. Bigger version on Tumblr.
Billy
Butler.
What the butler saw
After Paul Loasby so eloquently expressed his master’s voice it was time
for Jumaris to chime in:
This is Juliet, I am William Billy Butler‘s daughter, and I can confirm
that it is my father singing on this recording. Yes, it is a song that
he wrote, and yes Norman Smith did take it to Pink Floyd to record a
demo. However, with that said, I don’t believe that the backing band is
Pink Floyd.
Talking about a drawback. But the next day there was some more exciting
news. Juliet:
I will say that Norman Smith was shopping dad around to different bands
around that time. (…) With Pink Floyd, there was speculation that they
were going to replace Barrett. I think there was some hope that they
would hear dad‘s voice, and Early Morning Henry and see where that
landed, but it was subtle.
Could it be the band was already thinking of replacing Syd Barrett? The
thought alone is heresy, shout some fans, but perhaps the seeds of what
would be inevitable, a few months later, were already subliminally
germinating.
Norman Smith wasn’t an idiot and perhaps he was indeed thinking of an
alternative future for the band, with a new singer/guitarist and new
songs. Like we stated before, Norman was not just a producer, he was a
shareholder in the Pink Floyd company and trying to save his investment.
So, he might have thought, let’s send Syd home after the work on Set the
Controls and bring in this new guy, to “test out” one of the songs he
wrote. Won’t do any harm, will it?
Norman Smith has always been something of a hustler. Back to Juliet
Butler:
We have buckets of reel to reels. And we are currently trying to gather
as much information about his life, and his music for some kind of
project. (...)
But of course, it’s not the only recording of it
[Early Morning Henry]. We have numerous recordings of it on reel to
reel. But nothing on digital yet. We’re working to convert it. We might
be able to compare the different recordings and pinpoint a date to see
if it corresponds to anything in our archives. If we don’t have [the]
tape [from the Pink Floyd session] then Norman Smith’s daughter would
have it.
We are also wondering if there’s a chance that Norman
Smith overdubbed dad‘s voice onto the track, and then cut the vinyl from
that.
Billy Butler.
When Juliet was given the news that the Jamarnie Music Library mentions
Pink Floyd as the backing band on the acetate her earlier opinion
changed completely:
It is a very curious catalogue entry attached to this vinyl that seems
to indicate that this, in fact, was Pink Floyd as the backing band.
You
have to remember most of the musicians working in the scene were
moonlighting around town. My dad might not have recognized the musicians
he played with as being Pink Floyd per se.
And from our previous Billy Butler article (Singing
A Song In The Morning), we know that he moonlighted a lot, singing
on sound-alike records and having a single under the pseudonym Prock
Harson.
Will certainly be continued…
Update October 7, 2020: we received a message from the seller of
this acetate and we quote:
Can I please ask you to remove my name from any mentions on your article
at the Church Of Iggy, as it is personal information and by now it has
come to defamation of character and if not removed I am very sorry but I
will have to contact my solicitors.
His name has been removed from the above article (and it has also
disappeared from the Neptune
Pink Floyd article, BTW, where several forum posts have suddenly
been censored).
PS: at the time of publication of this article the two big ‘independent’
Pink Floyd fansites did not find the time yet to write about this pretty
important discovery. When they are good dogs Pink Floyd sometimes throws
them a bone in.
Auction Result
On the 16th of October the acetate was sold for the surprisingly low sum
of £3,000, but according to the seller that is pretty much what was
expected. If it had been a Billy Butler song, without some of the Pink
Floyd members, it would have stayed in the three digit range.
Early Morning Henry Auction Result.
Meanwhile the seller has removed the YouTube sample video from the web,
as he had promised to do.
Many Thanks to Antonio Jesús Reyes from Solo
En Las Nubes for warning the Church about this news. Many Thanks
to Neptune Pink Floyd for mentioning the Holy Church in their
article. Many Thanks: Ulrich Angersbach, Edgar Ascencio, Azerty,
Juliet Butler, Friend of Squirrels, Goldenband, Hadrian, Hallucalation,
Jumaris, Modboy1, David Parker, Borja Narganes Priego, Jon Charles
Newman, Punk Floyd, Ewgeni Reingold, Shakesomeaction, Mark Sturdy,
Wolfpack, Randall Yeager. Many Thanks to the beautiful people of
Birdie Hop, Late Night, Neptune Pink Floyd & Yeeshkul. ♥ Libby ♥
Iggy ♥
Sources (other than the above mentioned links): Blake, Mark: Pigs
Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013, p. 319. Parker,
David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p.
103-105. Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd,
3C Publishing, 2008, p. 69.
The first post
that appeared on The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit (on 08-08-08)
mentioned Duggie Fields in its second sentence (see that post here: Iggy).
For years he was a privileged witness in the world of Sydiots.
In 1963 Duggie went to the Regent Street Polytechnic, where some of the
Pink Floyd boys were studying at well.
I met Roger Waters in the same group. On Friday afternoon dances, I was
Juliette’s [Gale] dancing partner.
Later he was one of the many people living at 101 Cromwell Road where he
witnessed how the Cambridge gang were ‘real acid proselytisers’. Mick
Rock:
Apart from Duggie’s room, the rest of the place was full of acid
burn-outs.
Syd Barrett used to break into Duggie’s room to read the Dr Strange
comic books Fields had imported from the States. Fields was a fan of
comics creator Stan
Lee. His bedroom wall was covered with Marvel comics. Unfortunately,
people used to borrow those and never bring them back.
Duggie and Jules, 1969.
Around Christmas 1968 Duggie, Syd and a third tenant called Jules moved
to Wetherby Mansions. Jules quickly disappeared. After the sessions for
the Barrett album were completed in July 1970 Syd began to spend
less time at Wetherby Mansions and by 1971 he was living full time in
Cambridge. Duggie would live in the same apartment for the rest of his
life, turning it into a colourful bric-a-brac museum of his art.
Duggie was about the most reliable witness about Iggy, who was known as
the Eskimo girl, and the one who recognised Syd’s car, a Pontiac
Parisienne, in the movie Entertaining Mr Sloane.
The car too has its own mythology. (...) I first saw it at Alice Pollock
and Ossie Clark’s New Year’s Eve party at the Albert Hall – a memorable
event itself where both Amanda Lear and Yes (separately) took to the
stage for the first time. (Taken from: Duggie
Fields)
Julian Palacios interviewed Duggie in 1996 for his Syd Barrett biography.
He was so cool. Reserved and wary at first, then about halfway through
he became super raconteur. (email to FA, 10 February 2010).
Duggie and Iggy, 2011.
For the Mortal Remains exhibition, Duggie painted Syd Barrett leaning
against a pink convertible. It’s a gripping image, loosely based upon
one of Mick Rock’s photographs of the madcap. It shows a headless Syd
who seems to be humming a tune, hence the musical note appearing behind
him.
Duggie Fields' Pink Pontiac with Syd.
Although Fields had a great career of his own, painting in a post-modern
pop-art comic-strip style, he was forever Syd Barrett’s room-mate which
must have been tiring from time to time.
The legend goes that Duggie Fields used to play his records loud. One
day he played some Motown and Iggy, in the other room, started to dance,
much to the amusement of Syd. They’re all reunited now…
He was truly one on the last real English gentlemen and it was an honour
to have known him.
We were also informed of the death of John Davies, one of the hip boys
in Cambridge in the early sixties. As a friend of Syd, he used to trade
guitar licks and hangout in El Patio. See also: The
John Davies Collection
The Church wishes to thank: Antonio Jesús Reyes, Eleonora Siatoni,
Julian Palacios, Rich Hall. ♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥
Sources (others than the links above): Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly,
Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013, p. 81, 82. Chapman, Rob: A Very
Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 79. Palacios,
Julian: Darker Globe: Uncut and Unedited, private publication,
2021, p. 133, 484.
Holy Church Wordcloud (2018). Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix
Atagong.
As I get older, one day closer to death to quote the great bard,
I see all my old chums and chumnettes getting less and less
active on social media, which is a pity but also a bit understandable.
At a certain age, you start to understand that life with a spouse,
children and grandchildren is getting more important than a Facebook
click.
It is nice that Syd Barrett still means something to youngsters
and that the online communities keep on gaining young members, gradually
replacing the old farts. New faces mean new ideas, new insights and new
theories and that can only be encouraged. But that doesn’t want to say
that the crusty old dinosaurs who have been roaming through Pink Floyd
land for decades no longer have valid things to say.
I know the impatience of the young. I once was young myself although
some people will seriously doubt that. But it is not because you
discovered this sensational Pink Floyd singer a month ago that you have
magically turned into a madcap/mad cat specialist.
Salvador Sánchez Narváez, original by Gary Williams.
Syd Sánchez
At the left, you can see one of the more famous Syd Barrett fakes.
Actually, I don’t like the term fake. It is not fake, it is an example
of meticulously crafted appropriation art. My good friend Stanislav,
a digital artist, crafted these during a long and cold Siberian winter.
They were published on his ironic blog ‘Far
further than you could possibly imagine’ or on the once leading Syd
Barrett forum ‘Late
Night’. Not a single soul on there claimed these were real but they
did trigger some heated discussions.
Unfortunately, the pictures started to lead their own life on the
internet when they appeared on popular image sharing platforms like
Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram. Nowadays it is nearly impossible to
find the original picture from Mexican featherweight boxer Salvador
Sánchez Narváez that inspired Stanislav to create his
mashup. Over the years the copy has cannibalised the original. The same
happens with all the digitally colourised Pink Floyd pictures that flood
the net. They are already replacing the original black and whites and in
a couple of years, fans will believe these are originals.
The impertinence of the young was shown in May 2021 when a cover of Have
A Cigar was published on Facebook. A nice elderly gentleman, going
by the name of Roy
Harper, reacted that he had sung the original on the Wish
You Were Here album. It didn’t take long before some self-proclaimed
Pink Floyd specialist accused him of spreading fake news. That’s why it
matters that some old-fashioned sources of information still exist, to
keep the idiots away.
So whether it interests anybody or not, let’s get this overview of what
happened ten years ago, on this ridiculous example of a blog, started.
Solo en las Nubes. Warren
Dosanjh.
2011-2012 - Selfinterview
The Holy Church’s fourth season started with a guest article from the
Spanish Syd Barrett blog Solo
En Las Nubes.
It’s no shame if you don’t know who Warren Dosanjh is, as we enter
proto-Floyd territory here. See? That’s why it’s good there are still
some old people around, remembering things.
Pink Floyd, believe it or not, is a great band, perhaps the greatest
band in the world. The Pink Floyd company, however, is lead by a bunch
of greedy bastards who give the record industry a bad name. If Pink
Floyd (the band) could create a car it would be – on paper – the best
car ever. If Pink Floyd (the company) could build it wheels would be
falling off while driving at 120 km/h on the motorway.
2011 was the year some Immersion
sets saw the light of day. These were deluxe box sets of the big three: Dark
Side Of The Moon, Wish
You Were Here and The
Wall. Soon horror stories were published on several music forums.
The disks were not protected in the box and arrived scratched. Blu-ray
disks were unplayable and Pink Floyd (the company) was very reluctant to
replace those.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t a one time issue. Also, The
Early Years (2016) and The
Later Years (2019) have had these problems. A decade later people
are still complaining on Steve
Hoffman’s Music Corner that bit rot has invaded the disks they
paid a small fortune for. That’s why The Church decided to take the piss
out of Floyd in several satirical articles: Fuck
all that, Pink Floyd Ltd.
Still Life with stereo, tape recorder and pot of paint.
Floorboard Wars
On the most active (and knowledgeable) Syd Barrett forums (i.c. Late
Night) and groups (i.c. Birdie
Hop) there has always been some bickering about some minor details.
One of these recurring discussions are the colours Syd and Iggy painted
the floorboards in, in anticipation of the Storm
Thorgerson and Mick
Rock photoshoot, for The
Madcap Laughs album. (That photoshoot in itself has created several
threads about who took what, with Mick Rock recently suggesting he did
it all by himself.)
In January 2012 I found it a good idea to assemble different testimonies
about the floorboard colours in Syd’s (and Duggie’s) apartment, taken
from recent interviews (some by myself) or quotes from magazine articles
and books. A majority of the witnesses put the colours as orange
(5 votes) and blue (3 votes), but also red
(2 votes), purple, turquoise
and green were mentioned: The
Case of the Painted Floorboards (v 2.012).
What had to be a tongue in cheek article turned into something of a godzillanesque
monster.
Jenny Spires and Iggy Rose had a big fight, fuelling their
mutual hate for each other that would go on for ages. Unfortunately, the
Holy Church, which had an excellent relationship with both of them, was
the subject of some collateral damage. Tired of the constant
pettifoggeries I left the Birdie Hop community where I had been one of
the founding fathers.
Pink Floyd Flamingo. Concept: Felix Atagong.
Spanishgrass
The floorboard fiasco was one thing, Spanishgrass another.
A Mexican fan of the Holy Church asked me if I had ever heard of the
Spanishgrass urban legend. During Syd Barrett’s lost weekend, which
lasted for several decades, he allegedly visited a monastery in Spain,
stayed there for several months and recorded some songs on a cheap
portable cassette deck.
While this hoax did the rounds in the Spanish speaking hemisphere east
and west from the Atlantic ocean it was virtually unknown in English
speaking regions. At least I had never heard of it. In the first article
(from a series that would take two years to complete) I searched for the
origins of the hoax, with the help of Antonio Jesús of Solo En Las
Nubes: Spanishgrass
or Syd Barrett's lost Spanish record.
But there will be probably more on that next year, if we are still
around.
Groovy Hits for Dancing, the Okey Pokey Band & singers. Groovy Hits for
Dancing, the Okey Pokey Band & Singers.
Emily Plays
On French Bastille
Day of 2012, The Church went into another investigation, this time
about the very first Pink Floyd cover versions that have been put on
record. I dug into the foggy history of sound-alike recordings that
could be found on budget records from the sixties and seventies,
recorded by anonymous artists and often released under different names.
The 1967-ish covers of See
Emily Play are no exception. They exist in different versions, in
different mixes and have been issued under different band names. The
full (but still incomplete) story at:The
Rape of Emily (three different ones).
See you next year!
The Holy Church has always been helped by a lot of people. Here is a
list of those who participated to one of our articles of the fourth
season, voluntarily or not: 2braindamage, Anton, Antonio Jesús Reyes,
Babylemonade Flowers, Blah F. Blah, Bloco do Pink Floyd, Camilo Franco,
Charlas Bronson, Chris Jones, Cicodelico, Clowns & Jugglers, Colleen
Hart, Denis Combet, Duggie Fields, Ebronte, Eleonora Siatoni, Eric
Burdon, Ewgeni Reingold, Freqazoidiac, Göran Nyström, Greeneyedbetsy,
Helen Smith, Iggy Rose, I Spy In Cambridge, Jancy, Jenell Kesler, Jenni
Fiire, Jenny Spires, JenS, Joe Perry, John Gordon, Julian Palacios,
KenB, Kiloh Smith, Late Night, Lee Wood, Libby Gausden, Listener Klip,
Little Turtle, Lord Drainlid, Margaretta Barclay, Mark Blake, Mark
Jones, Mate, Matt, Michael Brown, Neptune Pink Floyd, Nina, Nipote, No
Man's Land, Pascal Mascheroni, Rescue Rangers, Peter Gilmour, PF
Chopper, Phil Etheridge, Ramjur, Rockin' Bee, Ron Mann, Simone Saibene,
Streetmouse, Viv Brans, Warren Dosanjh and all those that we have
forgotten! ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
Holy Church Wordcloud (2018). Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix
Atagong.
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit was created on the eighth of August
2008 and is one of the very few Syd Barrett fansites around that are
still alive.
More than a fansite that simply repeats what Gilmour and Mason dictate
the Holy Church tries to have a critical look at all things Floyd. We
can understand that Mr Waters and Mr Mason have got their shows to do.
We can understand that Mr Gilmour has got his chickens to attend to. But
the Pink Floyd company should hire professionals to take care of their
catalogue and not the nincompoops who put the wrong sound on the wrong
video and who bake Blu-rays that turn into bitrot after six months.
Instead of listening to the fans, the Pink Floyd management likes to
keep things secret and as such, they make mistake after mistake. One
example is the BBC tapes Floyd put on The Early Years set. Despite pleas
from top collectors who have first or second-generation tapes of these
concerts, Pink Floyd decided to issue low-quality copies instead. These
are even missing (parts of) songs. Either the Pink Floyd archivists are
completely useless or nobody cares as long as the fans open their
wallets.
There is an excellent book by Ian Preston and Phil Salathé called Pink
Floyd BBC Radio 1967-1971. Unfortunately, it is lying on top of my
unread Pink Floyd books and I fear it will stay there forever. So don't
expect a review soon.
But enough complaining, 10 years ago we started the Church's fifth
season and here is an overview of what happened then.
Iggy @ Windsor.
Pocahontas
August 1967 had the Windsor Jazz & Blues festival but to attract more
people they added some ‘Pop and Ballads’ acts as well. Pink Floyd was
put on the list, but as Syd Barrett was officially overtired they
skipped the gig.
The magazine ‘Music Maker’ had an article about the ‘Flower Power’ that
invaded the festival and published a picture of none other than Iggy The
Eskimo. The article showed the unbelievable teamwork from Iggy fans all
over the world.
The picture was found by PhiPhi Chavana from Hong Kong. A copy was sent
to Belgium from Sydney (Australia). Brooke Steytler from the USA
restored the picture in its original glory. Since then the picture has
been published by fans all over the world and has become truly iconic.
Something slightly less iconic is the Spanishgrass Syd Barrett myth. To
cut a long story short, in 1984 a Spanish underground magazine published
a satirical article about Syd Barrett having a contemplative stay in a
Spanish monastery. It was 'confirmed' that Barrett recorded some
acoustic songs on a portable cassette player, issued on a very limited
vinyl bootleg. Nothing of this was true, but the rumour persisted in
Spanish-speaking countries on both sides of the Atlantic ocean.
Spanish Barrett anorak Antonio Jesus dug deeper and traced back the
original author of the article, interviewing him. The Church was invited
to publish the interview for the English-speaking world. That is exactly
what we did.
June 2013 had the first Birdie Hop meeting in Cambridge, that
unfortunately couldn't be attended by the Reverend. A lot of beautiful
people were there to meet and greet people who did know Syd Barrett.
Jenny Spires was there, Libby Gausden, Viv Brans, Warren Dosanjh, Peter
Gilmour, Vic Singh and the unforgettable Mick Brown, who sadly passed
away in 2022.
The Church wishes to thank: Alexander P. HB, Amy Funstar, Antonio Jesús,
Babylemonade Aleph, Bill's Blah Blah Blah, Birdie Hop, Bob Archer, Brett
Wilson, Brooke Steytler, Christopher Farmer, Dark Globe, Denis Combet,
Dylan Mills, Euryale, Eva Wijkniet, Jimpress, John Cavanagh, Jose Ángel
González, Kirsty Whalley, Libby Gausden, Lori Haines, M. Soledad
Fernandez Arana, Mark Blake, MAY, Pascal Mascheroni, PhiPhi Chavana,
Psych, Rescue Rangers, Retro68special, Rich Hall, Rod Harris, Sharmanka
Kinetic Gallery, Simon Hendy, Solo en las Nubes, Stanislav, Tim
Greenhall, Vic Sing and all the beautiful people we have forgotten. ♥
Libby ♥ Iggy ♥