This page contains all the articles that match the The Orchid-tag, chronologically sorted, from old to new.
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Moviemaker Anthony
Stern, who knew Iggy before she met Syd, has confirmed that the
person at the Granny Takes A Trip boutique on the IN
Gear movie is indeed her. On his turn he will present a home movie
called Iggy, Eskimo Girl at The
City Wakes festival in Cambridge. A short teaser can be found on YouTube.
According to Mick Rock Syd was touched when she left him:
Once I’d developed the film (from The Madcap Laughs photo
session, note by FA), I went round to show Syd the pictures.
He took this one opposite (page 21 in the PR-book, note by FA)
and scratched some lines and his name onto it. I think there was a bit
of negativity directed at Iggy. He just started scratching the print,
with a big grin on his face. (Taken from Psychedelic Renegades.)
It could be that the scratches on the picture were destined at Iggy, but
why did Syd Barrett scratch (more or less) around her figure? Not (and I
hope my shrink will never read this) her face or body, in my garbled
opinion the logical thing to do if one would try to express negative or
revengeful feelings on a photograph. Syd’s body and face is far more
scratched than Iggy’s and Barrett also cut the letters SYD
on the picture... Perhaps he was just trying to make clear to Mick Rock
that he wanted to get rid of his pop-life alter ego.
Mick Rock writes further that he heard from Duggie
Fields, the painter who was Syd Barrett’s roommate and who still
lives in the same apartment today, that ‘she later went off with some
rich guy in Chelsea and lived a very straight life’.
On an old and abandoned blog (and also on the Late Night forum) I wrote
that none of the Pink Floyd biographers have been really looking for
Iggy. Mark Blake, author of Pigs
Might Fly, responded: “I can't speak for all the PF or SB
biographers, but I certainly tried.”
The only bit of new info I found was that there was a chance 'Iggy' may
have gone to school in the South London area, as she was known as one of
the regular teenage girls at the dancehalls around Purley
and Caterham.
This would have been around 1965. Duggie Fields recalls seeing her some
time after the Madcap Laughs photo session and she was looking a lot
more "sloaney". Most of the people I spoke to who knew her believe Iggy
married a rich businessman and doesn't now want to be 'found'. (Taken
from The
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit on Late Night.)
Although scarce the above information is about the most relevant we have
had from a biographer in about 30 years.
The most famous dancehall in Purley was the Orchid Ballroom where The
Who, The Troggs and The Hollies gigged a couple of times. It started as
a regular dance
hall (and concert and sporting events hall) in the Fifties and had a
local house band The
Jackpots in 1963 and 64.
In the mid Sixties (1964 – 1966) the Orchid Ballroom was the meeting
place for the Croydon mods who would assemble every Monday night.
Witnesses remember Mike (?) Morton, Tony Crane, Jeff Dexter and Sammy
Samwell spinning the records. Pete Sanders and Mickey Finn used to be
part of the crowd.
Not all these names ring a bell. I could not trace back Mike Morton, but
Lionel Morton was the singer and lead guitarist from the Four
Pennies who had a hit in 1963 – 1964 with Juliet. Tony
Crane was a member of The Mavericks, a band that became famous when they
changed the name to The
Merseybeats, later The Merseys (David Bowie would cover their Sorrow
on his Pin-Ups album, a tune they had borrowed from The McCoys). Mickey
Finn could be the man who was the drummer of T. Rex and who also
played on the record made by Hapshash
and the Coloured Coat, the people who were behind the Granny Takes A
Trip boutique.
Elizabeth Colclough used to work at the bar in 1968: "It was the place
to go to meet friends old and new, weekday evenings and also at the
weekend. We saw some great bands, some who are still going strong today.”
Another witness recalls how Cathy
(Mc Gowan), the queen
of the mods and presenter of the ever popular Ready Steady Go! Show,
came to the Orchid Ballroom to spot for dancers to appear in her show.
Seen the fact that Iggy was present at an RSG!-party,
organised by the show's main choreographer, it is not improbable that
she may have been present at some RSG! television-shows as well, as a
dancer or as a pretty face in the public.
A book about the history of the Orchid Ballroom has been made and the
Church will try to contact its author, there is the (very small) chance
that Iggy is mentioned in it.
Update August 2009: Brian Roote, who studied the history of The
Orchid confirmed later to the Church: 'I have no knowledge of this girl
whatsoever'.
Sources (other than the above internet links): McAleer, Dave: Beatboom!,
Hamlyn, London, 1994, p. 57-59. Rock, Mick: Psychedelic Renegades,
Plexus, London, 2007, p. 20.
On September the 17th the Croydon
Guardian, a weekly free local newspaper covering South London,
devoted an article to Iggy after the Church had revealed that Iggy had
probably been a regular visitor at the Purley dancehall The Orchid. The
article was brought to my attention by Matthew Taylor from Escape
Artists who was so kind to point me to a scan
of the article, neatly hidden in a dark corner from the (long deleted)
City Wakes website.
It all started with a remark on the Late Night forum why no one had ever
tried to locate Iggy. Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake promptly denied
this and added some extra titbits to the Iggy enigma. He had found out
that she was probably a South Londoner who used to go dancing in
dancehalls in or around Purley. More about the Church’s quest to locate
Iggy’s dancing habits can be found on a previous entry on this blog: Shaken
not stirred.
This ended with the promise that the Church would try to find some more
information about the place and the people who visited it. A mail was
send to a historian of the Bourne
Society but without success. The same message however to a
journalist of the Croydon Guardian was immediately replied. Some initial
information was exchanged and journalist Kirsty Walley did an excellent
job by getting testimonies, not only from Anthony Stern, but also from a
DJ who used to spin records at the Orchid, Jeff Dexter, and who still
remembers Iggy.
So, where did she go to, our lovely? By Kirsty Whalley
In the Swinging 60s she was an iconic model who broke the heart of Pink
Floyd's Syd Barrett. Known only as Iggy she is thought to have lived in
Thornton Heath and was a regular at the Orchid Ballroom in Purley
between 1963 and 1967. Then she vanished and for the past three decades
the former 60's in-crowd has wondered where she went?
Former friends, director and artist Anthony Stern and DJ Jeff Dexter,
are both searching for the enigmatic model, who featured naked on the
cover of Barrett's solo album Madcap Laughs. She was nicknamed "the
Eskimo" because it was thought that she was part Inuit. DJ Jeff Dexter,
who regularly played at the Orchid, vividly remembers the beautiful girl
who used to talk to him while he played his set. He first noticed her in
1963. He said: “Iggy was part of a group of very wonderful looking south
London girls. She was unusual because she did not look like anyone else
at the time. Since she disappeared, she has become a bit of an enigma.”
Dexter says that he met the director and artist Anthony Stern in 1967
and that Iggy became involved with him at about the same time. Anthony
took many pictures of the model and also made a film of her, which will
be shown for the first time at the City Wakes festival this October in
Cambridge. Stern said: “Iggy was my muse. I met her at a Hendrix gig at
the Speakeasy. She was a lovely inspiration and free spirit. I never
knew her real name.” “We used to hang out together, occasionally
dropping acid, staying up all night, going for walks at dawn in
Battersea Park.” The artist said he recently discovered photographs that
he took of Iggy on a houseboat near Lots Road in Chelsea. “She entirely
captures the spirit of the Sixties, living for the moment, completely
carefree.”
Photographer Mick Rock remembers turning up at Barrett’s to take
photographs for his solo album cover. At an interview in 199 he said:
“Syd was still in his underpants when he opened the door. He’d totally
forgotten about the session and fell about laughing. Iggy the Eskimo was
naked in the kitchen making coffee. She didn’t mind either. They both
laughed a lot and it was a magical session.” The most iconic images of
her appear on the album, where she poses naked in the background.
After she broke up with Barrett she disappeared. Felix Atagong, who has
set up a website in her honour, said: “According to the painter Duggie
Fields, she got married to a rich guy from Chelsea and led a ‘decent’
life after that.”
Anthony and Jeff both admit they have spent time looking for her. “the
truth is, if she has not come forward by now, she probably doesn’t want
to be found,” said Anthony.
(picture insert: It-crowd icon: Iggy the Eskimo). An online version of
the article can be found here.
An entirely new and previously unreleased picture
of Iggy accompanies the newspaper article. This comes out of the
personal collection of Anthony Stern. It is believed that more pictures
from his collection may be unearthed on a later date.
Ian
‘Sammy’ Samwell had been a member of The Drifters, the
backup band for Harry Webb. They would become a wee bit more successful
when Harry changed his name to Cliff
Richard (it was Samwell’s idea to cut the final S from
Richards to give the pseudonym extra spice). At the same time the
backup band was renamed to The Shadows (as there was already an American
band call The
Drifters). When Hank
Marvin joined the band Ian Samwell stepped aside and concentrated on
composing hits, producing and disk jockeying.
Samwell was probably the first to acquire a star status as a DJ, before
that the DJ had always been the invisible nobody who turned a few
singles when the bands on stage were switching places. For the first
time in history people came to The Lyceum to see the DJ at work
instead of the house band.
As a producer Ian worked with Aynsley Dunbar, Georgie Fame, John Mayall,
The Small Faces and he would also be known as the man 'who discovered America'.
Ian 'Sammy' Samwell passed away March 13, 2003.
Jeff Dexter
As a youngster Jeff Dexter wasn’t into pop music at all, but dancing
with girls was, so he simply gave in. At The Lyceum (1961-ish) he
met DJ Sammy Samwell and they soon became friends. Not long after that
Jeff made quite a name because he was barred from the dance floor for
making an attempt at The
Twist, originally a Hank
Ballard B-side. When a few weeks later The Twist became a Chubby
Checker superhit The Lyceum hired the mod they had banned
before. He became a professional dancer and had to instruct the dance
crazy public the moves of the week.
Around 1962 – 1963 Jeff moved to The Orchid Ballroom, the biggest
ballroom in Europe with four different bars.
Chicken & Chicks, as they called it. Fish bar. Chicken bar. They had
this big ice igloo where they sold ice cream sodas. They had an upstairs
bar. And they had a roundabout which was another bar, a revolving bar,
all in this wonderful huge building. (Taken from DJHistory.)
Iggy was part of a group of very wonderful looking south London girls.
She was unusual because she did not look like anyone else at the time.
Since she disappeared, she has become a bit of an enigma. (taken from
the Croydon
Guardian.)
While Ian Samwell was the main DJ at The Orchid Jeff worked as a dancer
and singer of the house band and as an occasional DJ. This would become
his prime profession and later on he would also spin records at Tiles,
UFO and Middle Earth (where John Peel was another DJ).
As a member of the Underground in-crowd, (the index of Days In The
Life gives him 20 entries), he would witness the raise and fall of
the movement that wasn’t a movement to begin with and the hostile
reaction of the powers that be.
Middle Earth closed after the horrible scenes of the police raid. We had
had a private party that night and somebody had brought along their
children. The police raided, found the children and told the Covent
Garden porters we were crucifying children in there. So they smashed the
place to pieces. (…) Jenny Fabian and I were locked in the box office
while they wrecked the place.
In Jenny
Fabian’s semi-auto-biographical account of her Groupie
days Jeff Dexter appears as Len although Dexter maintains: “I was
the only one she didn’t fuck”.
Sources (other than the above internet links): Bacon, Tony: London
Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 101. Green, Jonathon: Days
In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p.222, p. 283.
Have you ever seen President Sarkozy
on the telly giving a speech? He always thinks he is doing a bloody
Hamlet. His performances, because that is what he thinks they are,
remind me more of Louis
de Funès (or for the non-Francophiles among us: Benny Hill)
than Napoleon Bonaparte, another one of those short short-tempered
little men with a short fuse who think they can rule the world.
This post contains a fairly well hidden review of the Pink Floyd
biography Pigs Might Fly by Mark Blake.
Contents: 1. Flamingoes might fly, about
the very first Pink Floyd biography, written in French, by Jean-Marie
Leduc. 2. Floydstuff, a rant about merchandising
and tribute albums. 3. Pigs Might Fly, review of
the Mark Blake biography. 4. A final word about
Jean-Marie Leduc.
Pink Floyd, Jean-Marie Leduc.
Flamingoes might fly
Eloquence is a French way of speech but that was not what I was thinking
of when I read the following, decades ago:
Je ne sais qui doit le plus à l’autre! La France ou le Pink Floyd? Le
Pink Floyd peut-être. (translation) I don’t know who owes the
other more! France or Pink Floyd? Pink Floyd perhaps.
The above is the start of a French rock biography (1977 edition), called Pink
Floyd, written by Rock & Folk journalist Jean-Marie Leduc
and issued by Albin
Michel. Rock
& Folk was an excellent French music magazine, that started in
1966, hence its name, and that wanted to inform the French public from
the new trends in modern pop music. Jean-Marie Leduc hopped to London
and wrote several articles about the London Underground music scene and
le pouvoir des fleurs. He discovered this incredible band that would
soon be the French progressive student movement’s darling,lePink Floyd.
Although the most common language at London at that time was the
language of love it would’ve helped Jean-Marie Leduc a little bit if he
had actually understood some English. Which he didn’t. Probably the acid
didn’t help either. That didn’t stop him to write a Pink Floyd biography
that was published in October 1973, and that could still be found, a
decade later, in every bookstore and self-respecting newspaper and
magazine shop in France. Selling figures nearly must have achieved the
same height as a regular Pink Floyd album; Leduc’s Pink Floyd was an
instant classic and a steady seller.
It was also full of blunders. At page 19 Leduc wrongly mistakes the Pink Flamingo
club for the band and throughout the book he will name the lads le
Flamant Rose. This (wrong) translation was taken over by all French
rock magazines and it would take Rock & Folk until July 1994 to
officially denounce the rumour that a Pink Floyd is a Phoenicopterus
Roseus. Another botch is on page 49 where Leduc claims that...
...le 2 novembre (1967) (…) un nouveau simple du groupe
“Apologises / Jugband blues” est commercialisé en Angleterre’.
(translation) on the 2nd of November (1967) (...) a new single of the
band is released in England: “Apologises / Jugband blues” .
Pink Floyd, Jean-Marie Leduc. First edition (1973).
This one simple sentence has made French speaking Pink Floyd fans look
for this non-existent track of the band for over a decade. At the end of
the book the mistake is repeated at the discography, Jean-Marie Leduc
keeps on maintaining that the Floyd’s third single was Jugband
blues / Apologies (please note the different orthography and running
order).
Update November 2011: it was later cleared out that once again it
had been Leduc's extended knowledge of the English language that made
him misunderstand 'Apples and Oranges' for 'Apologies' or 'Apologises'.
Jean-Marie Leduc’s biography was probably the very first biography on
the band, as Charles
Beterams wrote in the Echoes, a Dutch fan club magazine, and despite
the mistakes it also contains a stunning revelation about the bands
first recording, forgotten by most of the biographies that would come
next. Leduc interviewed Nick Mason in 1973 and asked if Astronomy
Domine was the Floyd’s first composition. Mason answered (translated
from French back into English):
Not true. Our first composition was titled Lucy Lee in blue tight
or something similar. We recorded it on acetate but it was never
commercialised.
Once again Jean-Marie Leduc’s average knowledge of the English language
made him note the song as Lucy Lee, and not as Lucy
Leave, although Nick Mason’s pronunciation of the song title
may not have been too comprehensible as well. It would take ages for
another journalist to re-discover the truth about the band’s first
recording.
Pigs Might Fly, Mark Blake.
Floydstuff
One bloke who does remember Lucy Leave is Mark Blake. In 2007 he wrote a
Pink Floyd biography entitled Pigs Might Fly but because I am such a
stingy money spender I wanted to wait until the paperback came
sailplaning to me. The last couple of years it is raining Pink Floyd
related books and accessories as if all kind of shady people want to
have their free ride on the gravy train. It is of course a double
feeling, here we are Pink Floyd fans wanting to know everything (and we
mean everything) on the band but on the other hand we feel as if we are
inside an orange squeezer (or to use Gerald
Scarfe’s weird world of Floydian symbolism: a meat
grinder). The last thing I’ve read on Pink Floyd merchandising is
that Converse
will bring out a range of shoes
based on the cover art of three of their albums. Part of me is yelling
yuck!, but another part is jumping up and down, not a pretty sight if
you would catch me on my webcam.
About a decade ago, perhaps a bit longer, small record companies
suddenly discovered the tribute album. I jumped on it as a hungry louce
on a passing German shepherd dog. But when my heap of tribute records,
all made to honestly commemorate the band and not to make a quick buck,
started to become bigger than my genuine Pink Floyd collection I simply
gave up. I think that Babies
Go Pink Floyd was the last tribute album I bought, partially because
the concept attracted me. If you also feel tempted to listen to it. Don’t. Not
only the record is tripe and you wouldn’t want to confront any baby with
it without giving him or her a lifelong phobia for Pink Floyd music but
also it doesn’t actually motivates grown-ups either to start
procreating, normally a quite amusing and satisfactory pastime.
Recently I found this add from Dwell
records that goes something like this:
The biggest names in hard rock and avant-garde metal have come together
to pay tribute to the madcap genius of Syd Barrett. Featuring some of
heavy-metals most influential players, this is a hard-rocking trip
through the music world’s most idiosyncratic minds.
Some of the bands present on the record are the following: Dreg, Giant
Squid, Jarboe, Kylesa and my favourite Stinking Lizaveta. Except in some
distant Norwegian fjordic regions where these bands are probably world
famous amongst the local satanic
black metal scene these bands don’t really merit the eptitheton
‘biggest name in hard rock’ to begin with. I would have written the add
for this album a little bit less triumphant:
Several virtually unknown hard rock and avant-garde metal bands that are
constantly struggling to have a record contract have come together to
rip off the musical heritage of Syd Barrett. Featuring some of
heavy-metals obscurest players, this is a fruitless hard-rocking trip
trying to get a fan-base that exceeds the dozen.
Now that is what I call a more realistic description of the project. You
can listen to the songs at MySpace
and I have to confess they don’t all sound like rubbish to me.
But all the above was merely a long, way too long, way to say that I
quit buying Pink Floyd tribute records a while ago as most were, are and
will be… full of crap. I had the same compulsive buying disorder when it
came to Pink Floyd related music magazines and books. Despite the fact
that I can’t play guitar I have dozens of guitar magazines that promise
you the tablature of the third guitar solo in Comfortably Numb and a
brand new exclusive Pink Floyd interview that was in fact already
published in another guitar magazine from three years before that I
already had in my scrapbook.
I define myself more than the average Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett fan,
but less than an anorak, fanorak suits me fine.. Anoraks have the
tendency to start flame wars because someone has told that Syd Barrett
was wearing green socks on the 7th of August 1967 while every aficionado
knows he was wearing brown socks that day. (To avoid death threats: I’ve
just made this whole sock-thing up, but the 7th of August 1967 was of
course an important day in Floydian history, about the importance of
green socks, just check David Gilmour’s inside sleeve of his About Face
album and shiver.)
So I quit buying Pink Floyd books as well, more or less… the last I
bought was The
Rough Guide To Pink Floyd that can now be found at local lo-price
bookshops for the third of the price I bought it for. That is a very
nice Pink Floyd biography by the way, and if you are in search for one,
well don’t hesitate and get it. It’s cheap and cheerful.
Pigs Might Fly, Mark Blake (2013 reprint).
Pigs Might Fly
But this post was originally intended as a review of Pigs Might Fly, a
Pink Floyd biography by Mark
Blake and all I did until now is take the piss out of:
a) the very first Pink Floyd biography by Jean-Marie Leduc; b) the
various tribute cds that do exist; c) the growing pile of Pink Floyd
biographies…
So I had given up buying Pink Floyd biographies but when I wrote on the
Late Night forum that nobody had ever tried to locate Syd’s girlfriend
we know as Iggy Mark Blake promptly replied
that he certainly had. I more or less apologised and answered that I
would read his biography.
So I did.
Who am I to post a review about a book that Record
Collector choose as book of the year, that Q
magazine described as a ‘detailed, orderly, first-rate read’, while Mojo
praised its ‘heroic research’. It’s excellent, well written, full of
anecdotes and it seems to please the casual and the more ardent fan of
the band, although it still forgets to mention the colour of socks Syd
Barrett was wearing on the 7th of August 1967. Anoraks will always find
something to grumble about. I did. I found a mistake from microscopical
importance about the Publius
affair but only people daft enough to look for the Enigma mystery will
probably realise that.
A while ago I started a side-project called the Holy
Church of Iggy the Inuit. In it I am looking for the whereabouts of
the girl who appeared on the cover of the Syd Barrett album The
Madcap Laughs. It is rather amazing how many bits and pieces can be
found after all these years, but apparently Iggy was quite a character
in those flowery powery days. The time was ripe as other people
suddenly started to reveal their Iggy memories, amongst them Anthony
Stern who made a four-minute movie about her in the Sixties that was
premiered this year.
I wrote some things about Iggy that I thought were revolutionary but
apparently Mark Blake had unravelled these before in his biography, only
he didn’t need as many space to write these things down than I did and
if this review goes on like this it might be longer than the book itself.
On page 140 Mark Blake writes about how Iggy performed The Bend (Church
article: Bend
It!), on the next page he reveals the existence of the Anthony Stern
movie (before it became an item on YouTube)
and how she used to go dancing at The Orchid in Purley (Church article: Shaken
not stirred). And all this a year before the Church was started and
something of an Iggy hype was created. Hats off to Mark Blake.
Mark Blake is not only an accurate but also a beautiful writer (I’m not
speaking about his physical appearance here), reading the bit about the
Live 8 reunion gave me tears in my eyes although I normally only weep
when I read sweet little things about dying puppies. That more or less
sums it up really; Pigs Might Fly moved me and I thank Mark Blake a lot
for that.
(In America the book has been published under the alternative title
Comfortably Numb, this was the working title of the book but as the
cover has a snapshot from Battersea Power Station, including flying pig
balloon, this was changed
for the European market.)
Pink Floyd, Jean-Marie Leduc. 1987 edition (completely rewritten).
A final word about Jean-Marie Leduc
One of the funnier parts of the very first Pink Floyd biography are the
translated song texts. The Floyd’s first album is called Le
joueur de flûte aux grilles de l’aube, but my favourite
still is a song that is called Bonbons et pain aux raisins. And
what to think about the following, I let you guess what song this has
been taken from:
De tortueux signes voltigent. Lueur. Lueur. Lueur. Fla. Pom. Pom. Escaliers
d’épouvante et lois de mort…
And a final word for collectors
If you are looking for a copy of the Pink Floyd book by Jean-Marie Leduc
be sure to buy the Albin Michel / Rock & Folk versions (several editions
from 1973 till 1983). In 1987 another book by Jean-Marie Leduc, also
called Pink Floyd, and in the same mini format, was presented to the
public by Le Club Des Stars / Seghers. Although based upon the previous
versions this book has been completely rewritten and most of the errors
have been edited out.
(More scans of the Jean-Marie Leduc biographies can be found on our
Tumblr: Jean-Marie
Leduc.)
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: Fasten
Your Anoraks (The lyrics above are Leduc's French
translation of Astronomy Domine.)
It has been awfully quiet at the Iggy front. Call it spring fatigue,
problems of the heart or plain laziness but the Reverend was a bit
depressed. When The Holy Church started on eight
eight eight (the number of the beauty) this little blog shook and
stirred like a dry martini ogling in front of Mr. James Bond.
While the quest was new and aloof and thrilling enthusiasm was flowing
through the Reverend’s loins it actually felt that the mission was
leading somewhere, and the Head of the Church felt like Robert Langdon
manoeuvring towards that mythical pyramid in front of the Louvre,
safe-keeper of the holy grail.
The Church did dig something out however, one post evoked an article at
the Croydon
Guardian and the Reverend managed to have chats with entre-autres
Anthony Stern, Barrett-biographers Julian Palacios and Mark Blake,
culminating in the publication of the memoirs of a first-hand witness
who happened to know both Syd and Iggy and who may well have introduced
the one to the other, although she refuses to take credit for that.
There are a lot of unverified rumours around Syd Barrett, the one more
ludicrous than the other; a recent (French) biography
even managed to produce some the Reverend was not aware of, like the
fact that Roger Keith, at one point in his eccentric career, tried to be
an airline pilot. Probably the biographer mixed him up with Bruce
Dickinson or Nick Mason, who used to fly the Maiden’s and Floyd’s
tour planes. Anybody who saw Syd Barrett on a bicycle in and around
Cambridge will testify that a plane was not going to be his most
favourite transportation vehicle.
There are several unverified facts about Iggy as well, some of which
have never been published before and will not be published here until
witnesses willing to approve (or disapprove) are found.
Over the past months the Church contacted (this is just a sample out of
a long list): a British amateur historian, who was going to publish
the definitive history of The
Orchid Ballroom at Purley and who told the Church: 'I have no
knowledge of this girl whatsoever.'; a member of Dusty
Springfield’s backup band (after it had been testified that Ig once went
to an après-gig Dusty party); a surviving organiser of
the decadent party where Syd’s When
Syd met Iggy... (Pt. 2) was raffled off; a few photographers; and
even… a 1966 flatmate of someone who may (not) have been in
contact with Iggy at all…
Most of the time no reply was received at all and if a reply did come it
was a polite thank-you-but...-note, a bit like the hasty apologies one
makes when interrupted on the street by a madman who asks if you can’t
lend him a 7 inch knife for a minute or so.
The Reverend felt like Moses, who guided his people for 40 years in a desert
any sane person on a camel can cross in two weeks time, hence the reason
why Moses is probably the patron saint of all taxi drivers in the world,
but suddenly he, the Reverend - not Moses, found salvation on Walpurgisnacht
by a flickering flame.
What better way to celebrate the coming of the new dawn than to
introduce two new Iggy stills by Anthony Stern, presented to us by
Chimera Arts on a renewed Iggy Eskimo Girl webpage?
The future smiles upon us, dear brethren and sistren, and
will be coloured Iggy… Go in peace, my flock, and don’t do
anything that Iggy wouldn’t have done...
An (updated) image gallery with stills of the movie Iggy, Eskimo Girl
can be found... at
the gallery.
When JenS,
who may well have been the person who introduced Iggy to Syd Barrett,
told the Church that they both went to a Dusty Springfield party the
Reverend was absolutely certain that he had found a solid path to
unravel more about Iggy’s past (see: When
Syd met Iggy).
Iggy was a bit older than the Cantabrigian underground gang and had
already been active in the London club scene for a couple of years. Update:
this is not true, as we would find out later.
DJ Jeff Dexter had already noticed Ig in 1963 in The Orchid at Purley,
where she used to go clubbing until 1967. Kathy McGowan and her
RSG!-team raided the place to ‘spot for dancers to appear in her show’
(see: Where
did she go?).
In 1966 Iggy was spotted on a party at The Cromwellian that was (partly)
organised by the main choreographer of the RSG!-show. We will not go
further into that as this story has already been told on this blog
before (see: Bend
It!).
Dusty Springfield started her solo career in 1963 and was voted the Top
British Female Artist in the New Musical Express reader's poll in 1964,
1965, and 1968. She appeared a couple of times at the RSG!-show as
presenter and would, in total, appear 24 times on the show. In 1965
Springfield hosted a special Motown edition of the RSG!-show and some
while later she had her own Dusty show at the BBC.
The Church found it relevant to investigate if there really had been an
Iggy – Dusty – RSG! connection somewhere and if some witnesses still
remembered her.
The first person to get in touch with the Church was Douggie
Reece, bass player (and singer) of The
Echoes, Dusty Springfield’s backing band (watch him singing Mockingbird
with Dusty). It was Reece who contacted the Reverend after the Church
had asked amongst fan-circles if anyone could remember Ig being in and
around the Dusty Springfield scene.
I don't remember her at all. Or the Dusty Springfield scene. I
spent most of the 60's with Dusty maybe I went out to get some
cigarettes or something and missed the whole occasion!!! LOL Douggie
xx
Although it was suggested that it would be a nice name for a tribute
band there has apparently never been a Dusty Springfield scene to
begin with as far as Douggie Reece remembers, if Ig did ever meet Dusty
it may have been purely coincidental.
Another Dusty connoisseur advised the Church to contact Vicki
Wickham. Vicki and Dusty had been friends
since 1962 and even shared a flat at London's Westbourne Grove. After a
brief stint on the radio (as a secretary) Vicki was hired by Ready
Steady Go! as talent manager and producer. When Dusty told her friend
she had heard a nice Italian song at the SanRemo festival Wickham
(co-)translated the tune into English and named it You Don’t Have To
Say You Love Me. It would become Dusty’s first number one hit (1966)
and was covered quite a few times by other artists, including Elvis
Presley (1970, #1 at Billboard Country & Western and #11 at Billboard
Top 100) and Guys’n Dolls (#5, UK, 1976). In total more than 80 million
copies of the song have been sold worldwide.
After her RSG!-days Wickham moved to America and although she didn’t
have a clue how to do it she successfully managed Patti LaBelle, Nona
Hendrix, Marc Almond, Morrissey, Holly Johnson and of course, her
long-life-friend Dusty Springfield.
It took the Church quite a while to trace Vicki Wickham, and after a
trail of bounced faxes and mails, the Reverend wrote a letter in the
good old-fashioned way. It pleases the Church a great deal that Vicki
Wickham cared to reply:
I am the last person to ask about anything from the 60s 'cos mostly I
don't remember! But definitely do not remember this girl. Can't
help. Best. Vicki Wickham
At least we can now say with a certain certitude that Iggy did not
belong to the inner circle of Ready Steady Go! but this does not mean
that she never has been at the show. The crew of RSG! visited dance
halls to recruit good looking youngsters for the audience and organised
dance and singing contests where the participants could win ‘passports’
to the show. In the few years that the show existed thousands of people
passed through the temple of the mods and Ig may well have been one of
them.
Authorised subsidiaries:
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Youtube
channel The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Facebook Fanpage The
Holy Chuch of Iggy the Inuit on Twitter
As if the world has suddenly been hit by a temporal rift in spacetime
the March 2010 issue of Mojo
music magazine has inundated the stores bearing a big (slightly photoshopped)
portrait of a mister Syd Barrett. The well-written and rather accurate
cover article, by Pat Gilbert, ranges from page 70 to 81 and tells the
story of The Madcap Laughs, Syd Barrett’s first solo album.
Two other articles are of particular interest to the Church as they
describe the mythical presence of a ‘girl whose naked body graced the
back cover of The Madcap Laughs’.
Who’s That Girl (page 76 insert) is written by Mark
Blake, author of the Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly, and
an occasional visitor (and contributor) of the Church. Out of courtesy
(and for copyright reasons) the Church will not publish the article as
long as the magazine is for sale in the shops. Update: Direct
link to the article: Mojo
March 2010 (hosted at the Church as the article was removed from the
official Barrett website in 2016).
People reading magazines with binoculars will find an odd reference to
the Church as the Croydon Guardian article from the 17th September 2008
has been reproduced as well, however in such small print that one needs
to xerox it in blow-up mode to distinguish individual letters. The
article in full can be consulted at the Church (Where
did she go?) but is also still present on the archives of the
Croydon Guardian (Where
did she go to our lovely?).
Mark Blake writes in Mojo:
In 2008, (Jeff) Dexter and (Anthony) Stern tried to trace the elusive
Iggy, and were interviewed in the Croydon Guardian for leads to the
whereabouts of the “carefree girl who captured the spirit of the ‘60s”.
Actually the motor behind this article were not Dexter and Stern but the Holy
Church of Iggy the Inuit, after - truth has to be acknowledged –
Mark Blake had revealed earlier that Iggy ‘was known as one of the
regular teenage girls at the dancehalls around Purley and Caterham’ (see
also: Shaken
not stirred ).
Researching The Orchid dancehall in Purley, the Reverend found two
articles that had appeared in the Croydon Guardian: In
dance hall days (9th August 2006) and We
remember the Orchid (29th August 2006).
The Church tried to contact Brian Roote in September 2008, an amateur
historian writing a book about the Purley dancehall, but this resulted
more than a year later in the simple comment: ‘I have no knowledge of
this girl whatsoever'.
The Reverend had more chance with journalist Kerry McQueeney author of
the two Orchid articles, but no longer working for the Croydon Guardian.
He passed the story to Kirsty Whalley who was now editor of the Heritage
pages of the newspaper. On the 3rd September of 2008 she replied:
We would like to feature this story in the newspaper next week and
hopefully it will prompt a few people to call in.
In the same mail she also asked if the Church could give some leads and
amongst the people to contact the Reverend mentioned the names of Mick
Rock and Anthony Stern. Kirsty Whalley did an excellent job and did not
only interview both men, but also Jeff Dexter who had been a DJ at The
Orchid.
The next sermon at the Church will cover the second Iggy-related article
from Mojo 196. In My Room, written by Paul Drummond, contains
interviews with Duggie Fields, Mick Rock, Storm Thorgerson and Jenny
Spires.
The Madcap Laughs Again (Mojo Tribute CD)
Mojo 196 comes with a Madcap Laughs cover CD as interpreted by (amongst
others): R.E.M., Captain Sensible, Hawkwind, Jennifer Gentle, Marc
Almond and Robyn Hitchcock. Reviews of this CD can be found at Late
Night: The
Madcap Laughs Again, including the one written by the Reverend.
The Mojo website contains a Syd Barrett top 20 jukebox
and three YouTube links to Syd's legendary unreleased material. One of
those fan-made videos (Lucy
Leave) has been created by limpidgreen aka dollyrocker, a much
appreciated Late
Night forum member. Way to go, dollyrocker! (All links dead, we're
afraid.)
Last week The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit published the incredible news that
Iggy had been traced back. This was a world exclusive as no other news
medium had reported this before.
The news that Iggy had been found was, unfortunately, also all there was
to say. Although discreet investigations were done it was soon made
clear that she wanted to stay anonymous and that she didn’t want to blow
her cover. A short interview was out of the question, even for Mojo
magazine and Mark Blake who triggered these latest events.
The Reverend is by all means not a souvenir collector who wanted to ring
at her bell like all those true fans used to do at Syd Barrett’s
door and her wish to be left in peace was immediately and
unconditionally granted.
In September 2008 The Croydon Guardian published an article about Iggy
after the Church had contacted the newspaper to get more information
about The Orchid dancehall in Purley: Where
did she go? This article unearthed some unpublished pictures by
Anthony Stern that were later shown at The City Wakes festival in
Cambridge and was also mentioned in the March issue of Mojo.
Kirsty Whalley, the journalist who brought us the first Iggy article in
The Croydon Guardian, has now managed to interview Iggy, an interview
that can be found in today’s issue of this newspaper.
When Mick turned up to take the photos I helped paint the floor boards
for the shoot, I was covered in paint, I still remember the smell of it.
In the next weeks however the Church will scrutinize the interview, and
comments will be added where appropriate. For the moment all we wish to
say is hip hip hurray to Kirsty Whalley!
Tranquillity is slowly descending upon the Holy Church of Inuit like
smog upon Victorian London. Several brethren and sistren
of the Church, and one-time visitors who entered through the front gate
to study its baroque interior, have passed some valid information to the
Reverend and these will be further investigated in the future. The
Reverend also wants to apologise to the people that have been contacted
(and interviewed) last year, especially those associated with The
Cromwellian club. The articles about The Crom have been postponed due to
the unexpected result the Mojo Syd Barrett article created, but they
will - one day - hopefully appear.
To all our readers: please keep on going on giving the Church
information, how futile it may be, but remember that the Reverend will
not break its own rules that stay unchanged even now that Iggy (Evelyn)
has been found. Especially now that Iggy (Evelyn) has been found.
The Reverend is not a souvenir collector who will ring at her bell like
all those so-called (and in the Reverend's eyes: messed up) true fans
used to do at Syd Barrett’s door. Evelyn's wish to be left in peace is
and will be unconditionally granted. The same goes for other witnesses
of the Barrett era, the Church will send them a nice note from time to
time, as a reminder of its presence, but will not break their privacy.
Some will call this bad journalism but the Church is not dependent from
sold issues and follows a strict deontological code.
Croydon Guardian
On the thirteenth of February of this year The Croydon Guardian
published a short, hastily noted down, interview with (a quite
reluctant) Iggy, titled: Croydon
Guardian tracks down elusive rock star muse. Here it is in full
(with some comments from the Reverend):
Croydon Guardian tracks down elusive rock star muse By Kirsty
Whalley
An iconic model who stole Syd Barrett’s heart in the 1960s has been
found after three decades of anonymity. Known only as Iggy, the
enigmatic woman was immortalised posing naked for the Pink Floyd star’s
solo album, Madcap Laughs. She disappeared in the late 1970s and has
been living in West Sussex, oblivious to her iconic status. In September
2008, the Croydon Guardian appealed for information about the model and,
more than a year later, we managed to track her down.
The story of how the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit convinced The Croydon
Guardian to assign some place in its columns for the Iggy enigma can be
found at Where
did she go? and (I've
got my) Mojo (working...).
She inspired artist Anthony Stern, who filmed her dancing in Battersea
Park and also took striking photographs of her on a houseboat in
Chelsea. They were released at the City Wakes festival – a tribute to
Syd Barrett – in October 2008, in Cambridge.
The above has of course been extendedly covered by the Church as well: Anthony
Stern.
Mr Stern said: “Iggy was my muse. I met her at a Hendrix gig at the
Speakeasy. She entirely captures the spirit of the Sixties, living for
the moment, carefree.”
Jimi
Hendrix gigged quite a few times at The
Speakeasy and was spotted there on other occasions as well, for
instance on the 22nd of February when he attended a press conference for The
Soft Machine.
Jimi Hendrix
The club has been described in the (excellent) London Live book
from Tony Bacon as follows (most information about the club has been
taken from that book).
When The Speakeasy was opened by Roy Flynn around the end of 1966 in
Margaret Street, just north of Soho, the rock elite soon discovered a
handy new watering hole, a prime early-hours jamming post, and an
altogether useful hanging-out kind of place.
By May 1967 the club was part of the London spot-the-celebrity
circle next to - amongst others - the Scotch (of St. James) and of
course the Crom. On a good night you could having a drink next to The
Bee Gees, Jeff
Beck or The
Who, although, keeping up his avant-garde experimental jazz
appearance, Robert
Wyatt from The Soft Machine couldn't care less: "Rock groups meeting
in expensive clubs that are difficult to get into? What's all that crap?"
On the 19th of January 1967 Jimi Hendrix gave the first of 3 concerts at
The Speak. On top of that he would also jam a few times with other
people on stage, including Jose
Feliciano and Georgie
Fame. That night in January he tried to get into Marianne
Faithfull's pants with the seductive remark: "What are you doing
with this jerk, anyway?" The jerk in question was of course Mick Jagger
who wanted to check out the new kid in town.
Yes-fans
will know the club for its owner Roy Flynn. When, on the 13th of
December 1968, Sly
And The Family Stone didn't show up for their gig an impromptu band
was found to take their place. When Roy Flynn saw Yes's performance he
was so thrilled that he became their manager for a while. The band
eagerly agreed, not because he had some managerial skills but because
the restaurant at The Speak had an excellent reputation:
Roy had never managed a band before and he kind of took us on and then
the whole world of the Speakeasy opened up (laugh). It was a great club,
I mean, it was a wonderful club, it used to close at 4 AM and we would
not only rehearse there, we would play there some nights, and of course
after a gig if we were playing within, let's say 150 miles from London,
we would rush and go to the Speakeasy and eat there, and most of the
meals were completely free. So for about a year I ate pretty good. Most
of the evenings I ate there. Because that was the life style, we would
be in the Speakeasy after 3 AM and the kitchen still would be opened and
the food was not fantastic but thanks to Roy Flynn we would get free
food and quite a lot of few drinks as well. (Peter
Banks, who invented the band's name and left the group in 1970)
The extensive Jimi Hendrix gig database
located at Rich Dickinson only mentions 3 genuine Jimi Hendrix
performances in 1967: the aforementioned gig on the 19th of January 1967
and two more in March: 8th March 1967 and 21st March 1967. So Iggy (and
Anthony Stern) must have attended one of these. For the completists
amongst us the Church gives now the complete list of Hendrix sightings
at the Speakeasy (1967): 67-01-19: Gig. 67-02-22: Press
reception for the Soft Machine. 67-03-08: Gig. 67-03-16:
Launching party for Track records (Jimi gives three interviews). 67-03-21:
Gig. 67-04-17: Jam (on bass) with Georgie Fame (on organ) and
Ben E. King (drums). 67-05-08: Brian Auger Trinity Concert. 67-06-04:
Jose Feliciano concert and onstage jam. 67-12-06: Party for The
Foundations. 67-12-22: Musicians from Christmas on Earth and Hendrix
jam until the morning hours. 67-12-31: New Year's Eve Party where
Jimi plays a thirty minute 'Auld Lang Syne'.
London Live
There is quite an intriguing picture
on page 103 of the London Live book, showing co-managers Roy Flynn and
Mike Carey, sitting at the Speakeasy bar, accompanied by two ladies.
According to CowleyMod
one of the women undoubtedly is Ig. Although most of the members of the
Church do not think it is her the Church wants to give Cowleymod the
benefit of the doubt and the visitors of the Church the chance to make
up their own mind (click here
to see the full picture). Update (November 2010): it has been
confirmed to the Church that the person on the picture is NOT Iggy /
Evelyn.
Iggy said: “I cannot believe there is a film of me, that there are
photos of me.”
Iggy spent a brief part of the 60s
living in Croydon with DJ Jeff Dexter, who used to play at the Orchid
Ballroom. She said: “The Orchid Ballroom was the place to be, the
atmosphere was fantastic. I loved going there, I loved to dance. Jeff
wanted to turn me and two other lovely girls into the English version of
the Supremes, but that never happened.”
She does not
like to talk much about Syd Barrett, but admits she lived with him in
Chelsea in the late 1960s. She said: “Syd was so beautiful looking. We
had a relationship, I lived with him for a while.”
Although the Reverend is aware of at least four witnesses who have
confirmed in different biographies (and directly to the Church) that
Iggy and Syd weren't an item this is now contradicted by Evelyn herself.
It was at that time she became known as Iggy the Eskimo. She said: “In
part I made up the nickname. The rest was the photographer Mick Rock,
who asked where I was from. I said ‘my mother is from the Himalayas’ and
he said ‘we will call you Iggy the Eskimo’.”
Update March 2018: Iggy's mother, so was confirmed to us, didn't
live near the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range in
Mizoram, Mizoram, situated at the North-East of India, sharing borders
with Bangladesh and Myanmar.
NME, 25th of November 1966.
The Church will not deny that Mick Rock may have thrown around the 'Iggy
the Eskimo' nickname to describe the mysterious girl on his pictures but
the epithet dates from much earlier. It was first spotted in the NME
magazine from the 25th of November 1966 (more than 2 years earlier)
where Evelyn was described as 'Another Bender - model IGGY, who is
half-Eskimo': Bend
It!
Mick Rock took the pictures for Madcap Laughs. Iggy said: “When Mick
turned up to take the photos I helped paint the floor boards for the
shoot, I was covered in paint, I still remember the smell of it. In the
pictures my hair looks quite funny, I remember hiding my face behind it
because I did not want my mum and dad to see it."
Again other witnesses tell other stories. They claim that Syd (with a
little help from Iggy) painted the floor boards early in the year,
certainly before April 1969. As Syd only started recording mid-April it
is a bit weird that he painted the boards especially for the album
cover, unless - of course - he (and with him Mick Rock) already had the
cover in mind before the recording sessions started. A theory that is
not implausible.
She broke up with Syd Barrett shortly after the photo shoot and moved to
Brighton. She said: “I have just been living very quietly, I left London
in the 70s and I got married in 1978. I met so many people in the 60s –
the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart. I was a free
spirit. I have left that life behind me now.”
The Church would gladly accept to publish her memoires though.
But until that happens, my dear sistren and brethren,
don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't have done…
A new gallery has been uploaded containing the complete Come
with NME for a pic-visit to THE CROMWELLIAN article and pictures
from New Musical Express 1037, 25 November 1966. Photographs by Napier
Russel & Barry Peake. Words by Norrie Drummond. (Just another world
exclusive from the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.)
Sources (other than the above internet links): Bacon, Tony: London
Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 101-104.
Words: Mark Blake. Pictures: Storm Thorgerson, Iggy Rose, Rank
Organisation. Date: 20 January 2011. Previously published on
mojo.com.
If there is one image of Syd Barrett that never ceases to fascinate it's the
back cover of his debut album, The Madcap Laughs. The reason: the
mysterious naked woman perched on a stool with her head thrown back and
face obscured by swathes of long dark hair. Syd's companion was known
only as "Iggy The Eskimo". But as Barrett fans have been
wondering since 1970 - who was Iggy and where did she go?
Photographer Mick
Rock believed that his cover girl had "married a rich guy and moved
off the scene". Barrett's old flatmate, the artist Duggie Fields,
heard that "Iggy had become involved with one of the voguish religious
cults of the time", before adding to the mythology with a story of once
seeing her disembarking from a Number 31 bus in Kensington, wearing a
1940s-era gold lamé dress, and very little else.
In 2002, Mick's coffee-table book Psychedelic
Renegades featured more shots of Syd and Iggy posing outside the
Earls Court mansion block, alongside Barrett's abandoned Pontiac. Rock's
photos found their way onto most Pink Floyd fansites, where Iggy
had acquired cult status. Before long, The
Holy Church Of Iggy The Inuit, a fansite in her honour, had
appeared, its webmaster, Felix Atagong, sifting through ever scrap of
information gleaned from MOJO and elsewhere with a forensic scientist's
attention to detail. Among Felix's discoveries was a
November 1966 issue of NME which featured a photo of "Iggy who is
half eskimo" dancing at South Kensington's Cromwellian club.
While researching my Pink Floyd biography (2007's Pigs
Might Fly: The Inside Story Of Pink Floyd) I quizzed everyone about
Iggy's whereabouts. Anthony Stern, formerly a schoolmate of David
Gilmour's, told me he had met her at a Hendrix gig and had
just discovered photos he had taken of her on a houseboat in Chelsea;
Anthony had also filmed Iggy dancing in Russell Square. Meanwhile,
former Middle Earth club DJ Jeff Dexter recalled meeting "the
mysterious-looking" Iggy in 1963, when she was a "part of a group of
very wonderful looking South London girls" that danced at The Orchid
Ballroom in Purley. Jeff even hatched a plan with his friend, the late
DJ and Shadows songwriter Ian "Sammy" Samwell, to turn
Iggy and two of her friends into "a British version of The
Supremes. We booked a studio but unfortunately none of them could
sing." Believing that Iggy may have gone to school in Thornton Heath,
Jeff and Anthony contacted The Croydon Guardian, who ran an article - So
Where Did She Go To, My Lovely - enquiring after the whereabouts of the
girl "who entirely captured the spirit of the '60s".
Then, in March 2010, MOJO received a letter from ex-Cambridge mod Pete
Brown, who had "shared some wild nights on the town with Iggy in the
1970s". Pete informed us that Iggy had been last heard of in the '80s
"working at a racing stables... and has since been keeping her
whereabouts quiet." Pete sent a copy of the letter to The Croydon
Guardian, whose reporter traced Iggy through the stables and phoned her
out of the blue. Their subsequent article included a handful of quotes
from its reluctant subject, including the words: "I have now left that
life behind me." Which is why it came as a surprise when my mobile rang
late one Saturday night. "It's Iggy!" declared the voice at the other
end, as if I would have known that already. "I've been reading what you
wrote about me in MOJO... about the pictures of my bottom."
Relaxing on Worthing Beach, early '60s.
The local newspaper's call had prompted Iggy to borrow a neighbour's
computer and go online for the first time. She was amazed to discover
MOJO, the fansites, the photos, and the wild speculation and
misinformation about her time with Syd Barrett. Which is why, in October
2010, I found myself stepping off a train at an otherwise deserted
Sussex railway station to be met by the woman that had once graced the
cover of The Madcap Laughs. Three hours in a local gastro-pub and
countless phone calls later, Iggy pieced together her story. Some of it
was printed in MOJO
207, the rest is here...
Firstly, why Iggy? "My real name is Evelyn," she explains. "But when I
was a child, my neighbour's young daughter could never pronounce Evelyn,
and always called me Iggy. Now everyone calls me as Iggy. But 'The
Eskimo' nickname was a joke. That was something I told the photographer
from the NME when he took my picture at The Cromwellian." Iggy's father
was a British army officer, who served alongside Louis Mountbatten, and
attended the official handover ceremony from Great Britain to India's
first Prime Minister, Jawaharial Nehru in 1947. "My father also knew all
about Mountbatten's wife's affair with Nehru," she adds mischievously.
During a spell of leave, he had travelled to a remote village in the
Himalayas "where he met the woman that would become my mother." Iggy was
born in Pakistan, and attended army schools in India and Aden, before
the family moved to England. But not, as believed, Thornton Heath. "I
grew up by the seaside," she reveals. "I went to art school. I became a
mod in Brighton, and saw the fights with the rockers, and I met The
Who when they were on Ready Steady Go! I loved soul music, loved The
Righteous Brothers, and I loved dancing, so I used to go to all the
clubs - The Orchid Ballroom in Purley, where I met lovely Jeff Dexter,
The Cromwellian, The Flamingo, The Roaring Twenties..."
It was at The Cromwellian that Iggy encountered Eric Clapton. "I
didn't know who he was at first," she insists. "He took me to meet Lionel
Bart and to a party at Brian Epstein's place..." By the
mid-'60s Iggy had become a Zelig-like presence on the capital's music
scene, sometimes in the company of Keith Moon, Brian Jones,
Keith Richards.... She saw Hendrix make his UK debut at the Bag
O' Nails in November '66, and in February '67, narrowly avoided the
police raid at Richards' country pile, in West Wittering: "The night
before, I decided not to go, thank God." A year later, still in the
Stones' orbit, she found herself watching the recording sessions for
what became Sympathy For The Devil.
Iggy at Granny Takes A Trip, 1967.
By then, Iggy had made her film debut. In 1967, IN Gear was a short
documentary screened as a supporting film in cinemas around the country.
Its theme was Swinging London, including the chic Kings Road clothes
shop Granny Takes A Trip, a place, according to the breathless narrator
that "conforms to the non-conformist image of the !" A
mini-skirted Iggy can be seen in one silent clip, sifting through a
rack of clothes and chatting with Granny's co-owner Nigel Waymouth.
By 1967, pop music had changed. The summer before, Iggy had met Syd
Barrett's girlfriend Jenny Spires, and drifted into the Floyd's social
clique, showing up at the UFO club nights where Pink Floyd played
regularly: "When I recently watched that Syd Barrett documentary [The
Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett & Story] and saw Syd in the kaftan,
chanting [on Pow R Toc H], the memories came rushing back," she
explains. "I'd been there. I'd seen that." In April '67, Iggy joined the
counter-culture throng in Alexandra Palace for The
14-Hour Technicolor Dream - "all 14 hours of it!" - where Floyd
played a hypnotic set at dawn.
By early 1968, though Barrett had been replaced by David Gilmour, and,
according to many, was on a drug-fuelled downward spiral. Towards the
end of the year, he moved into a new place with his level-headed friend,
the would-be artist Duggie Fields. The pair took over a two-bedroom flat
at 29
Wetherby Mansions in Earls Court. Around January '69, at Jenny
Spires' suggestion, Iggy, needing a place to stay, moved in. She hooked
up with Barrett, but shared a musical bond with Fields: "Duggie and I
were into soul music, and Syd used to laugh at me dancing around to
Motown."
As Iggy told MOJO 207: "I didn't know Syd had been a pop star."
Elaborating further, "I didn't make the connection between him and the
person I had seen at UFO. I knew he was beautiful looking and he had
real presence, but that was all." Once, when she picked up his acoustic
guitar, fooling around, he took it off her and started playing properly.
"I was overwhelmed. The way he played the guitar, the way he moved. He
said, 'Do you think I look good?'," she laughs. "I said, 'You look
amazing. Wow!' He then said, 'Would you listen to this?' And he bought
out this big, old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder, and said, 'Tell
me what you think'." Syd then played her the songs that would end up on
The Madcap Laughs. One track, Terrapin,
made an immediate impression. "I said, 'That's quite catchy', and, of
course, I don't think Syd was really into catchy...It was a long tape,
and he didn't demand any opinion, but just asked if I thought it was OK.
At the end he said 'Someone at EMI - I cannot remember the name - wants
me to make a record. How would you feel about having a rock star
boyfriend?'"
Let's start with what you are all waiting for. At the left you find
another unpublished picture, from the mid Seventies, Iggy was so
friendly to mail us. The recent interviews
at Mojo,
probably the best music magazine in the world, by Mark
Blake, probably the best music journalist in the world, has
triggered a gentle snowfall of friendly reactions all over the web.
At night, before going to sleep, you notice but a few snowflakes falling
down and you think: is this all? But the next morning the garden has
been transformed in a peaceful white blanket only disturbed by the
parallel stepping marks of a passing Lucifer Sam.
The Church has gathered some of these heartwarming reactions. Let's
start with one from the city of light:
I’ve just read Mark Blake’s article
and I am extremely moved to read Iggy’s words about those months with
Syd in 1969 and extremely moved to see her on a brand new photo. She
looks like an attractive lady.
Some elements are quite interesting : the fact that Syd wanted Iggy to
be naked on the photos and the fact he decided not to smile on the
photos are a great new perspective on that shooting.
Also the fact that she confirms she and him were together (which some
people seemed to doubt about these latest years) is a lovely
confirmation. And when she says he wasn't a dark-minded man and used to
laugh a lot with her, this is so cute...
By the way, the article ends with Iggy saying she’s very flattered to
discover she hasn’t been forgotten by everyone: what a pity we have no
(mail) address to write a small message to her, to tell her that not
only many of us hadn’t forgotten her at all but, on the contrary, her
photos and especially the album sleeve have been part of our lives.
(Taken from: The
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit @ Late
Night.)
Questions for Iggy
The past year several questions have been submitted to be asked to Iggy,
for the then unlikely event an interview would take place. Some
of those have been asked by Mark Blake and were (partially) answered in
the Mojo extended
interviews:
I would just ask her what she remembers about Syd... Dear Iggy, do
you have anything of Syd's that I can have? Did you think there was
anything wrong with Syd mentally? Do any particular discussions stand
out for you... were they deep and philosophical, did you discuss current
events or just what you needed at the market... In his song "Dark
Globe" Syd Barrett says: "I'm only a person with Eskimo chain". Do you
think that is/could be a reference to you? Maybe you have some
personal photos/snapshots of Syd. Was Syd violent towards you like he
was with others girlfriends? Were you at the 14
Hour Technicolour Dream at the Alexandra Palace? If yes could you
tell us your impressions about that? What do you think happened to
Syd in 1967/1968? What happened to you after you last saw Syd? Would
you prefer to be called Iggy or Evelyn?
Mark Blake added to this:
Off the top of my head, (…) Iggy doesn't have any snapshots of her and
Syd, or any of his possessions (unfortunately, she no longer has the
photo she had of the two of them, which he tore in half, mentioned in
some of the books). She was at the Technicolour Dream '"all 14 hours of
it!" - and tried but couldn't spot herself in the documentary DVD. She
was also at the Isle Of Wight festival in 1970 (went with Twink of the
Pink Fairies) and the first Glastonbury Fayre. (Taken from Questions
for Iggy @ Late Night.)
People and places
The recent interviews show that Iggy met a lot of people and visited
lots of places in Swingin' London. The Croydon Guardian and Mojo
articles mention Brian Epstein, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix,
Keith Moon, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart & other assorted Beatles, Who
and Rolling Stones. Oh yeah, and of course also a bloke named Syd
Barrett.
The clubs she visited did not only include the Cromwellian, the
Flamingo, the Orchid Ballroom, the Roaring Twenties and the Speakeasy,
but in a mail to the Church Iggy also remembers other places like the
Alexandra & Crystal Palace, Annabel's, Bag O'Nails, Embassy, Garrick &
Hurlingham private clubs, Roundhouse (Chalk Farm), UFO, Marquee, Middle
Earth, Tramps (Tramp Club?) and generally everything that was located in
or around Carnaby Street. Needless to say that we try to look further
into that for the next couple of months.
But after the many pages the Church and Mojo have dedicated to Evelyn,
it is perhaps better to let Ig speak for herself. She send a long mail
to the Church and we hope she doesn't mind that we will publish some of
its heartwarming highlights here. Ig doesn't have an Internet account so
the mail was written and send by a friend. The Church took the liberty
of omitting some names and places.
Iggy wishes to express her thrill and excitement for putting this
factual and honest portrayal of her and is enchanted by your unwavering
interest. She is utterly flabbergasted of the magnitude of it all.
Many thanks to Mark Blake, for his perseverance and the genuine way he
has cared for and protected Iggy.
Many thanks go to Ig's wonderful husband and to her most trusted and
loyal friends [some deletions here by the Church] and Z., who was
there for us right at the beginning by printing hundreds of pages on her
computer.
But some old friends from the past haven't been forgotten either:
Iggy also feels the need to mention the charismatic Jeff Dexter, who has
given so much of his precious time by always welcoming and receiving all
her calls at all hours day and night.
Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock, who created such amazingly
beautiful images. To debonair Nigel Waymouth and the extraordinary
couple Pete and Sue.
Many thanks and good love for the wonderfully exquisite description of
Iggy. She is totally overwhelmed and humbled by the delightful memories
of her.
Much love, Iggy
Vintage groupies
Reading the pages that a good friend had printed for her, Iggy got hold
of the Vintage
Groupies website that also dedicated some space to her. She asked
the Church:
Felix, would you do me a really big favour and contact vintage groupies
(little queenies) to express my gratitude to all the lovely people who
left all the nice comments about me.
Love from Iggy.
Immediately after it had been published several reactions arrived:
Wow, thanks so much Felix for the message, please tell to Iggy thanks so
much from Little Queenies :) This is so great, she is so kind to
think about us :) Warm regards to her and to you Felix Elia &
Violeta, Barcelona, Spain
Its wonderful, to hear from her. Dancas
So amazing! Thank you so much for not only sharing the interviews but
relaying the message to us here at Vintage groupies! So fantastic. Lynxolita
Iggy, 2011 (photo: Chris Lanaway).
Iggy the Eskimo 2011 photoshoot by Chris Lanaway
The Mojo article had a recent Iggy picture,
taken by Chris
Lanaway. A second picture has recently turned up at his Tumblr
account. Chris writes:
Here is a teaser from a recent series which will be viewable soon: Iggy
the Eskimo.
A hi-res version of the picture in question can be found here.
This article has nearly ended, and we pass the word to Anne from Paris
who passed us a letter for Evelyn:
Dear Iggy,
Because you told Mark (Blake) that you were surprised and flattered to
discover that so many persons were interested in you (and I'd even say
that they're your fans!), I want to tell you that many of us have got a
great tenderness for you; you've been part of our lives during decades
and were at the same time a magnificent mystery and a flesh and blood
woman in Syd's life, two good reasons not to be able to forget you!
Of course, the fact that in these latest years, a great deal of
beautiful photos of you appeared just increased the admiration and
fascination about you.
I hope that the affection, admiration and fascination that many of us
have been feeling towards you warm you up and that you'll stay in touch
with us in any way you want ("us" means Felix, Mark, Syd's fans and even
maybe, one day, the organization around Syd's memory in Cambridge).
Needless to say that not only was it a great relief and a great joy that
you were found again last year, but it's also a great joy now to see new
photos of you.
Friendly regards. Anne (Paris, France) (I've got the "Madcap
laughs" since 1988, I was 17 then)
From an entirely different continent comes the following:
It was really nice to know that you are around and OK. My happiness is
enormous! I’ve just loved your recent interviews and pictures. You are
indeed a beautiful person! I hope you share with us some of your views
and stories on those fabled years that influenced the cultural paradigms
in so many ways and in so many countries. I wish you the best with all
my heart.
Peace and Love, Dan, Ottawa, Canada
And...
HI. My name is Griselda. I just wanted to say I am a big fan of Iggy.
When I saw on your website that she was going to be on Mojo Magazine, I
was so excited. I can't imagine how you felt!
You may find it strange that a 19 year old girl is so interested in
Evelyn, but I really think she was a wonderful model. The pictures taken
by Anthony Stern are really beautiful. She was such a free spirit,
living in the moment. I think most models today are so polished up,
their too skinny, or try to change their looks as much as possible to
look like Barbies or something. That's why I love Iggy so much because
she was a natural beauty, and she didn't have to try hard to look
wonderful in pictures.
Take Care. Griselda, USA
Space girl
The Mojo (extended) interview ends with an excited Iggy who phones Mark
Blake out of the blue.
Last week, Iggy called to tell me she had found a poem online written
about her by a professor at a university in Missouri. "And it's in
French," she said, sounding astonished. "'Iggy l’Esquimo, Fille de
l’espace.'...it goes. I never believed anyone would ever write a poem
for me."
Although the professor actually lives in Manitoba,
Canada, where the temperature descended to a blistering minus 41 degrees
in January, the news arrived to him. Probably by sledge-dog express,
driven by – who else? – an Eskimo.
In the summer of 2006 Denis Combet wrote a collection of poems as a
tribute to the musician and painter Roger Keith Barrett who passed away
in Cambridge on the 7th of July 2006. The poems highlight the life of
the young artist as a nonconformist who preferred – or was forced – to
withdraw from the music world for a more humble existence. They were
published (in an English translation) in the online magazine Ecclectica
of February 2007.
The Church got the permission to pick an Iggy dedicated poem out of the
collection, not only in English, but also the original French version,
that had never been published before: From
Quetesh to Bastet / De Quétesh à Bastet .
Unfortunately these poems never went into print, because of the high
cost involved for publishing poetry, that often sells no more than a few
dozen of copies. But miracles sometimes do happen and hopefully we might
read more from Denis Combet in the near future.
Epilogue
In the next post the Church will probably give a detailed analysis of
the latest Iggy interviews, until then, sistren and brethren.
We leave the last word to Anne from Paris:
I don’t think Iggy's mystery will be over from now on; I
do think the mystery that comes out of her photos in the 60’s just
cannot die.
The Church wishes to thank: Anne, Dan, Dancas, Denis, Ela & Violetta
(Little Queenies), Griselda, Jenny, Kieren, Lynxolita, Mark, Zoe, Late
Night, Mojo magazine & Vintage Groupies and all others who commented and
contributed.
Last but not least: ♥ Iggy ♥ and her loyal friends who pass her
messages to and fro.
In January of this year Mojo
published a (way too short) Mark
Blakearticle
about Iggy, who – in the Sixties - was metonymically but erroneously
described as an Eskimo. There is a realistic chance that this blog,
politically correct named the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, would never
have seen the light of day if Iggy had been nicknamed something else.
Titled SYD BARRETT'S ENIGMATIC COVER COMPANION CLEARS UP SOME QUERIES
the article actually added to the mystery, although Mark Blake is, of
course, not to blame: Iggy is just mysterious by nature. And the more we
find out, the more mysterious it gets.
The Church was erected for just that, to reveal the enigma behind an
enigmatic woman but now that Evelyn has stepped into Mark
Zuckerberg's limelight the Church has made a deliberate step
backwards. Let it be known that the Church will be discreet about
present Evelyn. She is not Truman
Burbank and it is none of our business what she had for breakfast
this morning anyway (bacon butties and a steaming hot cup of tea, if you
wanna know, and the Reverend had some croissants and a cup of coffee).
Mark Blake also published an extended 'director's
cut' of his interview and now the time for the Church has come to
comment, amend or append on some of his poignant paragraphs. We will be
cruel and ruthless although the reader should realise that above every
line a virtual 'Well done, Mark Blake!' Church sign is blinking. A bit
like this:
NME 1037
Before long, The Holy Church Of Iggy The Inuit, a fansite in her honour,
had appeared, its webmaster, Felix Atagong, sifting through ever scrap
of information gleaned from MOJO and elsewhere with a forensic
scientist's attention to detail. Among Felix's discoveries was a
November 1966 issue of NME which featured a photo of "Iggy who is half
eskimo" dancing at South Kensington's Cromwellian club. (The Strange
Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 3)
Mark Blake.
Mark gives the Reverend too many credits here. The Church mainly rips
other people's ideas (not an uncommon practice with Churches, although
they mostly prefer to rip other people's wallets) and the November 26,
1966 New Musical Express Iggy picture
was not discovered by the Church. The scan was already floating around
on the web. Neptune
Pink Floyd, for instance, published
it in November 2006, two years before the Church started.
However the Church did trace a copy of that particular NME, hoping there
would be some extra news about Evelyn, but to our regret Iggy is not
mentioned at all in the accompanying text
(several scans of NME 1037 can be found in our gallery).
The Croydon Guardian
Believing that Iggy may have gone to school in Thornton Heath, Jeff and
Anthony contacted The Croydon Guardian, who ran an article - So Where
Did She Go To, My Lovely - enquiring after the whereabouts of the girl
"who entirely captured the spirit of the '60s". (The Strange Tale Of
Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 4)
Time to pull the plug of that 'Well done, Mark Blake!' sign above we're
afraid, as The
Croydon Guardian was informed by none other than the Holy Church of
Iggy the Inuit.
After the Church was informed that Iggy had been a regular visitor of The
Orchid in Purley
the Reverend googled and found two Croydon Guardian articles about the
dance hall: In
dance hall days (9th August 2006) and We
remember the Orchid (29th August 2006).
The Church contacted Brian Roote, a historian from the Bourne
Society who had been researching the history of the Orchid, but
without success. Journalist Kerry McQueeney, author of the Orchid
articles, passed the Church mail to Kirsty Whalley, editor of the
Croydon Guardian Heritage pages. She replied the Church on the third
September of 2008:
We would like to feature this story in the newspaper next week and
hopefully it will prompt a few people to call in.
Kirsty Whalley.
Kirsty Whalley also asked the Church for a decent Iggy picture and here
is what the Reverend answered:
Probably the best way to get an (unpublished) picture of Iggy is to
contact Anthony Stern (former boyfriend of Iggy in 1966) who made a
movie with her that will be shown on The City Wakes festival in
Cambridge, so more than 40 years after it was filmed. (Taken from:
Visitor at Orchid Ballroom - 1965 – 1967, mail to Kirsty Whalley, 3
September 2008 22:04.)
Kirsty Whalley took the information, given by the Holy Church of Iggy
the Inuit, to heart (probably the first time in the Reverend’s entire
career that a woman actually listened to his advice) and interviewed
Anthony Stern who also donated a previous unpublished picture
of Evelyn, just like the Church had predicted. She then did an excellent
job by contacting Jeff Dexter (or perhaps Jeff Dexter contacted her
after having spoken to Anthony Stern) and wrote a damn fine article: Where
did she go?
It took over a year for someone to 'call in', because in February 2010
Kirsty Whalley published the very first Iggy interview in 40 years that
even took the Church by surprise (see: Little
old lady from London-by-the-Sea). What the Reverend doesn't
understand though is why the Croydon Guardian journalist doesn't like to
be reminded that it was the Church who gave her the scoop. So no pretty
blinking Church sign for you, Kirsty!
From Dieppe to Delhi
Iggy's father was a British army officer, who served alongside Louis
Mountbatten, and attended the official handover ceremony from Great
Britain to India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharial Nehru in 1947. (The
Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 7)
Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten.
Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten,
born in 1900 and killed by an IRA
bomb in 1979, was destined to pursue a glorious military career. Like so
many of his aristocratic peers this career was not per se based
on actual military performances but on the amount of names he had been
given at birth. After a military débâcle at Dieppe
in 1942, where 3,623 out of 6,086 soldiers, mostly Canadians, were
either killed, wounded, or captured by the Germans, Mountbatten was
given a new military playground as Supreme Allied Commander South
East Asia Command. The Dieppe raid (unauthorised by the general
staff) provoked a schism between the Canadian and British army leaders
during the second world war and the mistrust would linger on for decades
to come.
In 1947 Mountbatten was nominated Viceroy and Governor-General of
India and his principal task was to lead India (separated from
Pakistan) in a peaceful way towards independence. This lead to one of
the bloodiest massacres the subcontinent has ever seen. Muslims fled
from India to Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan to India and
about 500,000 people lost their lives in the process (death
toll numbers vary from 200,000 to a million).
Up the Khyber
"My father also knew all about Mountbatten's wife's affair with Nehru,"
she adds mischievously. During a spell of leave, he had travelled to a
remote village in the Himalayas "where he met the woman that would
become my mother." Iggy was born in Pakistan, and attended army schools
in India and Aden, before the family moved to England. (The Strange Tale
Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 7)
In the night of 14 to 15 August 1947 India and Pakistan officially
separated from London and because this had been supervised so well by
Mountbatten, he was entitled to another promotion. From now on he could
add the title of Governor-General of India on his business card.
In other words: Mountbatten was now the de facto monarch of the new
state.
Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten.
Lucky there was still his wife, Edwina
Cynthia Annette Mountbatten. Her part-time job was to visit the
refugee camps her husband was so kind to fill up and to hump India's
prime minister Jawaharlal
Nehru, although there are some biographers who maintain that their
relationship was purely platonic.
But enough politics. Around that time Iggy's father, posted in Pakistan,
went for an evening stroll in the Himalaya's where his spell of leave
soon developed in a spell of love. It is believed that in March
1947 the couple did exchange something more than friendly kisses. The
Church always believed that Iggy was somewhat older than Syd Barrett
(see: When
Syd met Iggy), but this new evidence shows she is nearly two years
younger than him (and, should this be of any interest to anyone, both
Syd and Ig were born on a Sunday).
If Ig attended school in Pakistan, the family must have been there until
early 1950. Although the country was independent several hundred of
British officers stayed in Pakistan until the Pakistan army had enough
officers to take care of its own. There was a 1st Battalion Wiltshire
Regiment at Rawalpindi (Pakistan), with Indian bases at Amritsar,
Calcutta, Jhansi, Jullunder (Jalandhar) and Lahore (Pakistan) but the
Church's research couldn't link Ig's father to this battalion.
The Wiltshire Regiment left the Indias in October 1947, but her father
stayed in Pakistan for a couple of years longer.
Update March 2018: Iggy's mother, so was confirmed to us, wasn't
from Pakistan, but from Mizoram, situated at the North-East of India,
sharing borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar. Probably that is where Iggy
was born and went to school. The 'evening stroll' of Iggy's dad did not
take place in the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range
in Mizoram and Tripura, India.
Map of Aden.
The garden of Aden
It is not that weird either that the family was dispatched to Aden.
Before 1937 Aden was an (overseas) part of British India and after that
it became a separate British Crown colony, much to the enjoyment of
philatelists from all over the world. It would stay under British reign
until 1963 and in 1967 it was absorbed by the People's Republic of South
Yemen.
Kids could go to the Khormaksar
primary and secondary school (close to the RAF airport base), but there
was the (Roman-Catholic) Good
Shepherd Convent School for girls as well, the Isthmus
School and the Selim
Girl's School that was badly damaged in the anti-Semitic pogroms from
1947.
There are quite a few blogs and forums
about Aden with hundreds of pictures of the fifties and sixties, but the
Reverend couldn't find Iggy back, yet. The Mojo article has a picture
from Ig at Worthing Beach, in the early Sixties, so around 1963 they may
have returned to England.
London Underground
In January 1969 Iggy met Syd, thanks to their common friend Jenny
Spires. The outside world didn't always realise that Ig and Syd became
an item. Ig was unaware that Syd had been a pop star, but then one day:
He [Syd] then said, 'Would you listen to this?' And he bought out this
big, old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder, and said, 'Tell me what
you think'." Syd then played her the songs that would end up on The
Madcap Laughs. One track, Terrapin, made an immediate impression. "I
said, 'That's quite catchy', and, of course, I don't think Syd was
really into catchy...It was a long tape, and he didn't demand any
opinion, but just asked if I thought it was OK. At the end he said
'Someone at EMI - I cannot remember the name - wants me to make a
record. How would you feel about having a rock star boyfriend?'" (The
Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 12)
This may have happened in the weekend of 12 and 13 April 1969 after
Malcolm Jones and Syd had started working on the new album:
During the tea break we discussed going back to some of the songs
started the previous year, in particular 'Golden Hair', and perhaps
'Late Night' although the original version of that had been destroyed,
it seemed. We returned to the studio and started work on another new
song, 'Terrapin'. In one take Syd laid down a guitar and vocal track
that was to be the master! At my suggestion Syd double tracked his vocal
part, and that was it!
One day Syd Barrett disappeared from the flat and Iggy, in a jealous
mood, fearing he was seeing another woman, tracked down her friend in
David Gilmour's appartment, just a few blocks away.
"I went in, shouting, 'OK, where is she?' thinking there was a woman
hiding in one of the rooms. But, of course, the meeting had been with
Dave about the record they were making together." Barrett left Iggy with
Gilmour, but rather the worse for wear, she knocked the stylus on his
record player accidentally scratching his copy of Pink Floyd's brand new
album. "I have no idea what album it was, only that it was their new
album," Iggy sighs. (The likely candidate seems to be Soundtrack From
The Film More) "So Dave threw me out..." (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The
Eskimo Pt. 2, paragraph 3)
Here is again an excellent opportunity to grab the Church's copies of
Glenn Povey's 'Echoes' and David Parker's 'Random Precision'. According
to David Parker Barrett had his last recording session with Malcolm
Jones on the 3rd and 4th of May, while the David Gilmour sessions
started a month later (see our 1969 calendar).
On the 6th of May however 'a set of rough mixes' of the album was made,
presumably to be handed over to Gilmour (and Waters), who had promised
to finalise the album (it is significant that on that tape Opel, Swan
Lee and Rhamadan are still present).
But probably Barrett, Jones, Gilmour and Waters had been discussing
about all this before. The Church has always believed that Iggy left Syd
somewhere in April and up till now Ig's visit to Gilmour's apartment
fits nicely into that scheme.
Mark Blake wisely deducts the scratched record has to be 'More'.
More was released on Friday, the 13th of June 1969, but of course
Gilmour may have had a copy some weeks before. Another, but more
unlikely, candidate is 'Ummagumma'.
Although only released in November the Floyd had already been recording
some pieces for this album in January and February, together with the
'More' sessions, so perhaps Gilmour and Barrett could've listened to an
acetate instead. And of course the live tracks of that album must have
been circulating amongst the band members as well.
But there is still another possibility. Margaretta Barclay told the
Church she has a postcard sent to her and Ig at Wetherby Mansions in
June 1969 so perhaps Ig's departure took place after More had been
officially released (see: Gretta
Speaks 2).
Notes (other than internet links mentioned above): Parker,
David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p.
139-158. Jones, Malcolm: The Making Of The Madcap Laughs,
Brain Damage, 2003, p. 7. Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete
history of Pink Floyd, 3C Publishing, 2008, p. 104-112.
The Church wishes to thank: Adenairways.com, Mark Blake, Jenny Spires,
Natashaa' and the beautiful people at Late Night. ♥ Iggy ♥
Holy Church Wordcloud. Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix Atagong.
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates its 10th birthday!
Ten years ago the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit started with a (big)
bang, not coincidentally surfing on the waves that were created by the
Cambridge City Wakes festival, later continuing on its own
momentum. On the 8th day of the 8th month of the 8th year a first
article was posted.
A couple of days later it's birth was also announced on the Late
Night forum, the then leading Syd Barrett community:
OK, the old habitants of this forum must have seen it coming and the
forthcoming Iggy the Eskimo movie triggered it a bit.
The Holy
Church of Iggy the Inuit
The first post is just a try-out (to
check parameters etc...). The second Bend
It! is what I would like to achieve, a picture of Iggy and a lot of
information about the who's, where's and abouts...
Let me know
what you think of it... BTW, all information is welcome... (and
errorzzz)... (I hope that the subdomain fully works: https://atagong.com/iggy)
Here is how the first header looked like, created in Xara 3D. (The
'vintage' old-school look was done deliberately.)
First Church header (2008).
In the first year of its existence the Church published 37 articles (for
those who love statistics that is 17% of all Church articles in its
first decade). Those from August 2008 presented and analysed some of the
Iggy material that was already available:
Iggy's presence at the 1966 'Bend' dance contest (Bend
It!); her cameo in the recently discovered IN Gear documentary (IN
Gear) and (obviously) her picture on The Madcap Laughs sleeve (Stormy
Pictures).
For those who love statistics. Holy Church blogposts of the first decade.
The Orchid
After a hint from Mark Blake, author of the Pink Floyd biography Pigs
Might Fly, that Iggy used to go dancing around Purley and Caterham,
the Church contacted (local) newspaper The Croydon Guardian, that
had written a few articles about the dancehall The Orchid.
Journalist Kirsty Walley took the bait, she interviewed Anthony Stern
and Jeff Dexter and officially started Iggymania with her
article: So,
where did she go to, our lovely? (en passant making free
publicity for The City Wakes and The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit).
So, So, So, where did she go to, our lovely? by Kirsty Whalley. Croydon
Guardian, September 17, 2008.
It gave the Holy Church a certain authority it didn't want in the first
place, but it can't be denied that the search for Iggy was taken pretty
seriously by some people (not in the least the Reverend who also started
to believe in it).
The Other Room
In that very first trimester we obviously reported about The City Wakes
festival, especially when it was Iggy-related. The Trashcan Sinatras
commemorated Syd and Iggy in their song Oranges
And Apples and several articles commented on The
Other Room exhibition where Anthony Stern's Iggy triptychs were
exposed for the very first time: Anthony
Stern Photoshoot.
As far as we know, The
Other Room catalogue is still the only official printed publication
where some of Anthony Stern's Iggy pictures have been published.
Anthony Stern - Iggy triptych, taken from The Other Room catalogue. A
mysterious brunette.
Storm and Rock in the Woods, featuring a mysterious brunette
When the City Wakes festival ended the Reverend thought that the rest of
the season would be more at leisure, and that we would have to fill our
blog with book reviews
and the odd obituary
(poor Rick
died in September). But Iggymania had taken its momentum. The snowball
started to roll...
We were informed that Iggy could be found on another Floydian document,
a Syd Barrett Home Movies compilation
that had been shown once (and only once) before a 1990 Pink Floyd
charity concert at Knebworth. The Church (with - again - a lot of help
from Late
Night members) could identify most people in the so-called Lost
In The Woods movie with the exception of 'a mysterious brunette' who
was seen walking with Syd and Iggy (Love
in the Woods (Pt. 1) & (Pt.
2)).
A decade later she still has not been identified.
Daffodils and a paintcan.
JenS
Thanks to Julian Palacios, author of two Syd Barrett biographies
and the administrator of a (now deleted) Syd Barrett highbrow 'research'
forum, the Church was contacted, in January 2009, by the person who
introduced Iggy to Syd Barrett four decades before.
This resulted in a few articles that brought forward some new and
interesting findings, promoting the theory that The Madcap Laughs record
sleeve picture had been taken in the spring of 1969 and not in
autumn, as other witnesses used to declare in Pink Floyd and Barrett
biographies. (See: When Syd met Iggy - Pt.
1 - Pt.
2 - Pt.
3 - Pt.
4.)
It gave the Church the reputation of being contrarious, but now, ten
years later, this theory seems to be generally accepted. That you read
it at the Church first, is thanks to JenS,
our witness who wanted to remain anonymous, despite the fact that every
level 2 Syd anorak knows who (s)he is.
Pontiac Parisienne (Blue).
Pink Pontiac
It would not be the only time the Church had to confront witnesses, who
were high on the Floydian pecking order, with a 'false memory syndrome'.
One of the weirder ones is Mick Rock's theory that Syd Barrett
had a pink convertible parked before his door, while the few coloured
photographs actually show it was 'midnight' blue. A pink car would also
turn light-grey on the various Madcap Laughs BW pictures, but they
invariably show a very dark-grey, almost black, coach.
Also Duggie Fields, who must have passed the car parked in front of his
apartment for months, remembers it as pink and has even painted the car
in that colour, for the artwork that accompanied the Their Mortal
Remains exhibition (2017).
Of course the Pontiac Parisienne, with license plate VYP74, was later
turned into pink for its role in the movie Entertaining Mr. Sloane. This
movie, however, was shot after Syd Barrett seemingly gave it away to a
bystander, although some witnesses still pretend the contrary after all
these years. Others pretend it was a 'chameleon' car that originally was
pink, then painted blue, then painted pink again. You can't win them all.
Update 20181223: Iain Owen Moor (Emo), friend of the Floyd and
the London underground remembers the car, when it was still owned by
Mickey Finn.
Thought it was black. I went in it a few times in 68 (?) with Sue Worth,
Mickey's then girlfriend. The car seems to have had a life of its own
like The
Yellow Rolls-Royce.
Syd Barrett and (pink) Pontiac Parisienne by Duggie Fields.
Words of Hope
In May of the Church's first season, however, the Reverend already fell
into a dip, because of... a lack of Iggy. Luckily there was Dan5482 who
gave the Church a thumb's up, adding:
Despite all that collective amnesia I think that Iggy can still be
found. There are journalists, detectives... who have found more
difficult "targets".
However, an intense and widespread
interest for her is a necessary condition. Your Church is a source of
hope in this sense. It lets many people know that once such a mysterious
woman existed.
His words unknowingly predicted the future, but that is a story we will
keep for August next year, if at least the orange buffoon hasn't pushed
the Armageddon button by then.
The Church wishes to thank all of those who started rolling the ball 10
years ago. Unfortunately, many of them have left the scene. : Alien
Brain, Astral Piper, Sean Beaver, Bell That Rings, Mark Blake, Charley,
Dan5482, Dani, Dark Globe, Bea Day, Dolly Rocker, Ebronte, Eternal
Isolation, Gnome, Juliian Indica, Kim Kastekniv, Little Minute Gong,
Madcap Syd, Metal Mickey, Iain Owen Moor, Music Bailey, Mystic Shining,
Psych 62, Silks (नियत), Stanislav, Jenny Spires, Stars Can Frighten, Syd
Barrett's Mandolin, Anthony Stern, The Syd Barrett Sound... (Sorry to
those we have forgotten to mention.)