The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit

Eskimono

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So Iggy’s ancestors could have come from Greenland.

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

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

Update: the above post is somewhat redundant as Iggy Rose's mother came from the Himalayas: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea
Update March 2018: Iggy's mother did not live in the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range in Mizoram and Tripura, India.

Tattoo You

Le premier Pink Floyd.

In a new Syd Barrett biography that was recently published in France its author, Emmanuel Le Bret, can get quite lyrical from time to time. How this reacts, interferes or enriches the biography is a question that will be further investigated in our review to be published here in a while (see: Barrett: first in space!). But the Church can’t of course not ignore some Iggy statements to be found in a chapter well spend on The Madcap Laughs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(The in-depth review of Le Bret's biography can be found at Barrett: first in space!)

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

Sources (other than internet links mentioned above):

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

Catwoman

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

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

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

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

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

About a year later, part of the collection was published under the title Guitars and Dust Dancing, in the student webzine Ecclectica (site no longer active), together with art work from Lou Visentin and music from Pascal Mascheroni.

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

From Quetesh to Bastet

Quetesh,
Majestic.

Iggy the Eskimo,
Girl of space.

Often very alone,
But always a friend.

Star fallen from the black sky:
Solar, solitary, solstice, soloist.

Pale blue crystal dawn, pearl wine dusk.
A mauve Venus, disrobed on the silk orange milky way.

Magical music, medieval Median, magnetic:
Even in worlds where love is impossible.

Transcended, transparent, translucent, transitory:
Life together unconditionally and forever.

And that black cat caressing him with a glance, the night.
The malefic vision of Lucifer Sam.

© Denis Combet, English translation by Constance Cartmill (2007). Previously published at: Guitars and Dust Dancing (website no longer active).

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

De Quétesh à Bastet

Quétesh,
Impériale.

Iggy l’Esquimo,
Fille de l’espace.

Souvent très seule,
Mais toujours amie.

Étoile tombée du ciel noir:
Solaire, solitaire, solstice, soliste

Aube de cristal bleu pâle, crépuscule de vin de perles.
Une Vénus mauve, dénudée sur voie lactée de soie orangée.

Musique magique, médique médiévale, magnétique:
Même dans des univers où l’amour est impossible.

Transcendée, transparente, translucide, transitoire:
La vie ensemble sans détours et pour toujours.

Et ce chat noir qui le caresse du regard, la nuit.
La vision maléfique de Lucifer Sam.

© Denis Combet, 2006. Previously unpublished.

Originally it was planned to launch a separate website (poemstosydbarrett.com) in 2008 containing the complete works (poems, music and art) and to publish the cycle in book form. But due to the high costs involved to print an art book the author is still looking for a publisher who would be interested. For the time being the Reverend wants to invite you all to read the poems, have a look at the artwork and listen to the music at Ecclectica: Guitars and Dust Dancing (website no longer active).

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

Update 31 12 2013: The original Ecclectica and Poems To Syd Barrett links no longer work. In 2011 Denis Combet allowed the Church to upload his poems and artwork as a Flash 'pageFlip' book: Crystal Blue Postcards.

Update 19 12 2018: As Flash will soon be a thing from the past Crystal Blue Postcards is now available as a PDF flipbook:

Guitars and Dust Dancing by Denis Combet — Crystal Blue Postcards, exclusively for the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

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

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

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

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

Authorised subsidiaries:
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Youtube channel
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Facebook Fanpage

All about Evelyn

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

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

(For your information: the complete Mojo article ~~can~~ could be downloaded quite legally and for free at the official Syd Barrett website: direct link to the scanned pdf document, hosted since 2016 at the Church.)

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

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

One woman,
with many faces

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

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

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

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

I struggle,
you collaborate

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

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

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

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

We are all made of stars

Cambridge Mafia

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

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

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

Pip

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

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

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

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

Ponji

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

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

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

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

Kaleidoscope

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

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

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

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

Thanks to: Iain Moore, Paro नियत (where are you now?)

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

Update 2016: In the 2015 coming of age novel Life Is Just..., Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon describes early sixties Cambridge and the submersion into eastern religions.
Update 2019 08 02: Pip picture added.

Metallic Spheres

In for some space

About - let me count - thirty-four to thirty-five years ago I was seriously investigating the so-called UFO phenomenon. Or whatever serious means for a sixteen years old adolescent who urgently wants to get laid but has found out that the chance to witness an encounter of the third kind is statistically more probable than to have an close encounter with the opposite sex.

I was a member of the Belgian Sobeps association, long before the Belgian UFO wave hit the skies, and as the Internet was still a science-fiction thing we had to rely on their magazine Inforespace and the books, case files and real UFO pictures they sold by mail-order to their members. They also had an electronic UFO detector in their catalogue what made me wonder, already then, if they just weren't a bunch of petty crooks. I must still have a Betty and Barney Hill picture somewhere that I bought through their shop and who were then (and maybe still now) regarded as the proverbial Saul-stroke-Paul of the Holy Church of Ufology.

The nazi dark side of the moon conspiration

After a while opportunity knocked, even for me, and I didn't see the purpose anymore to devote my life to the flying saucer - abducting people for out-of-orbit enemas - enigma. But I am still mildly amused by the phenomenon, especially from a historical perspective. Not that long ago (at least not on the cosmic timescale) I partially read The Coming Race (1871) from Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a (rather tedious) adventure book that apparently inspired Nazi-Germany to start building flying saucers. An internet search lead me to through several dubious websites, some that might even be legally forbidden to consult in my country as they vehemently propagate what I will mildly describe as Aryan beliefs, and only strengthening me in my opinion that for crackpots from all over the world the internet is Ultima Thule indeed.

If I have understood it well American secret services grabbed nazi occult mysteries by the truckload although it is not clear if they could ever restore the phone lines to the Aldebaran star system that became an après-guerre nudist resort for the mystical and mythical Vril Society pin-up girls (see image above and try not to drool). Thanks to these secret nazi inventions the Americans not only landed on the moon (although paradoxically enough conspiracy theory buffs deny this ever happened) but they also tested anti-gravity engines in earth-designed flying saucers and solved the so-called zero-point energy problem.

How do I know all this? Because Gary McKinnon told us so.

Beam me up Scotty

Gary McKinnon is a Glasgow hacker who thought for a while he was a Lone Gunman on a mission against the American government. Wanting to prove the things mentioned above he hacked into 97 United States military and NASA computers over a 13-month period between February 2001 and March 2002, using the name 'Solo'.

Hacking is not really the term one should use here, more trial and error. Consulting a 1985 copy of Hugo Cornwall's The Hacker's Handbook McKinnon copied a Perl script that looked for Windows computers without a password and to his amazement there were still lots of unprotected computers residing in the NASA and military networks 15 years after the book appeared. One can duly wonder what these CIA, FBI and military secret service IT security guys had been doing in the meantime. Playing Pong, probably.

Mostly Harmless

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.", wrote Douglas Adams in the twelfth chapter of Mostly Harmless (1992). That quote may not be entirely his. Nobel price winner and inventor of the H-bomb Edward Teller noted down a couple of years before: "There's no system foolproof enough to defeat a sufficiently great fool." Anyway, in 2002 Gary McKinnon was the fool who undermined the American's pigheaded assumption of safety. Military security thought they had devised this big unsinkable Titanic and all it took was a entrepreneurial nerd with a screwdriver and a sack of sugar to pour inside the gas tank.

Rather than admitting they had done an enormous security cock-up the American powers-that-be turned Gary McKinnon into a terrorist super-hacker whose sole intention it was to metamorphose American secrets to putty and hand them over to Al-Queda, who - as we all know - have been praying a long time for this UFO technology. In consequence Gary could face a 60-years prison sentence if condemned before an American judge. Unfortunately the UK voted the 2003 extradition act making it possible to extradite UK citizens for offences committed against US law, even though the alleged offence may have been committed in the UK by a person living and working in the UK. A review of the extradition act was voted down by British parliament although there is a growing consensus amongst British members of parliament that Gary McKinnon will not stand a fair trial in the US.

Saint Gilmour

Several charities have been raised to help Gary McKinnon in his struggle against the extradition and in August 2009 David Gilmour, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Geldof and Gary McKinnon recorded the Chicago (Change The World) single. The only awareness it ever raised was that extraditing Bob Geldof to Guantanamo Bay would be a benefit for mankind to say the least. Perhaps the US authorities could consider that for a while.

As a Pink Floyd collector for over thirty years now, with over a dozen legit versions of Dark Side Of The Moon, I was obviously offended. Probably I am just being jealous here but I still can't grasp the concept that a lawbreaking idiot with a UFO fixation got a chance to make a record with one of the ten best guitarists of this world while moi who has in his possession the ridiculously shaped Love On The Air (1984) picture disk and Gilmour's lamentable Smile (2006) single will never get the change to meet his idol from less than a 100 meters distance. Phew, nice I have finally got that off my chest.

Metallic Spheres (cover: Simon Ghahary).

Pink Florb

Last year, in the aftermath of the Chicago single, Alex Paterson of the ambient house band The Orb made a strange announcement:

I’ve just started work on an album with David Gilmour from Pink Floyd which I think every Orb and Pink Floyd fan will want to hear.

The news was almost immediately downsized by David Gilmour who acknowledged he had jammed a bit in a studio with Martin 'Youth' Glover but that nothing had been confirmed 'with regards to any structure for the recordings or firm details re: any release plans'.

But this week David Gilmour's blog had the following news:

David's 2009 jam session with ambient collective The Orb has grown into an album, Metallic Spheres, to be released via Columbia/Sony Records in October. David's contribution to the charity song Chicago, in aid of Gary McKinnon, sparked the interest of producer Youth (Martin Glover), who remixed the track and invited David to his studio for a recording session. With additional contributions from Orb co-founder Alex Paterson, the album took shape from 2009 into 2010, eventually becoming Metallic Spheres, to be released by The Orb featuring David Gilmour.

Metallica

The album will be divided into two 25 minutes parts with five movements each, a 'Metallic Side' and a 'Spheres Side'. The Orb will consist of founder Alex Paterson (sound manipulation, keyboards and turntables) and part-time member Youth adding bass, keyboards and handling the production. It is not certain if Thomas Fehlmann (full member of The Orb since 1995, absent on The Dream (2007), but back on Bagdhad Batteries (2009)) and long time Orb and/or Pink Floyd collaborator Guy Pratt will be present or not. For the moment it looks like a three men line-up with David Gilmour contributing guitar, lap steel guitar and some of his Chicago vocals.

Simon Ghahary created the artwork (see image above) and all artist royalties will go to helping Gary McKinnon fight his extradition.

Conclusion

When Gary McKinnon logged in on the military computers he allegedly found proof of extra-terrestrial involvement in the NASA space program, but unfortunately his telephone line did not allow him to download the pictures and documents. The only tangible result of his actions will be a Floydian cooperation that Orb (and some Pink Floyd) fans have been dreaming about for the last two decades.

Long live Gary McKinnon, long live the greys! U.F.FlOrb is finally on its way! And don't worry, I'm sure those pretty Aldebarans will rescue Gary if he ever gets imprisoned in the land of the free.

The Orbian 'Metallic Spheres' posts:
Pink Dreams
Metallic Spheres
The Relic Samples

The Relic Samples

There was a time when I would put in the latest Orb CD and murmur blimey! Blimey because The Orb pleasantly surprised me or blimey because Alex 'LX' Paterson and band utterly frustrated me. They had that effect on me for years from their very first album Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld (1991) until the quite underrated Cydonia (2001). Often the wow! and meh! impression could be witnessed on the same disk, most notably on Orbus Terrarum that probably contains the freakiest ambient track ever (the heavenly Oxbow Lakes) but also some of the worst.

The Millennium Orb

After 2001 Paterson continued to make albums under the Orb banner but the wow! effect has largely disappeared. His most prolific output lays on quite a few (from good to excellent) compilation and/or remix albums: Dr. Alex Paterson's Voyage Into Paradise, Auntie Aubrey's Excursions Beyond The Call Of Duty (containing an Orb remix of Rick Wright's Runaway), Bless You (the best of the Badorb label), Orbsessions I and II (outtakes), Back To Mine, The Art Of Chill and last but not least The BBC Sessions.

For ages The Orb has been called the Pink Floyd of ambient dance but the only fusion between both bands is the use of some Pink Floyd samples on early Orb anthems (the four note Shine On You Crazy Diamond signature tune on A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld) and the presence of Pink Floyd bass player ad interim Guy Pratt on a couple of Orb albums.

Contrary to a stubborn belief the so-called ambient (and illegal) Pink Floyd remix albums from the Nineties are not the work from The Orb, nor from Alex Paterson. Neither will we ever know Pink Floyd's retaliation: when the band worked on their 1994 The Divison Bell album they ended up with so many left-over material that - in the words of Nick Mason - "we considered releasing it as a second album, including a set we dubbed The Big Spliff, the kind of ambient mood music that we were bemused to find being adopted by bands like The Orb".

Update 2015 01 15: Parts of The Big Spliff may have appeared on the latest Pink Floyd album: The Endless River. See our review: While my guitar gently weeps...

Metallic Spheres, The Orb ('deluxe' cover).

Rumours...

Exactly one year ago Alex Paterson, who has always been a bit of a bigmouth, revealed:

I’ve just started work on an album with David Gilmore (sic) from Pink Floyd which I think every Orb and Pink Floyd fan will want to hear.

But that news was hurriedly demoted by David Gilmour.

Recent comments by ambient exponents The Orb's Alex Paterson that they have been collaborating with David Gilmour are true – up to a point. David has done some recording with The Orb and producer Youth, inspired initially by the plight of Gary McKinnon. However, nothing is finalised, and nothing has been confirmed with regards to any structure for the recordings or firm details re: any release plans.

On the 17th of August of this year, however, the David Gilmour blog had the following to reveal:

David is not working with The Orb on a new album, contrary to some reports, but you may remember that he had been in the studio jamming with Martin “Youth” Glover in recent months. (…) Alex Paterson was not involved in the sole jamming session and the only plan initially was for David to play guitar on that one track.

However, as it turns out and as you can see, the result of that jam session has now been spread across the next Orb album, Metallic Spheres, which will be released as ‘The Orb featuring David Gilmour’. So there you have it. He was working on an album with The Orb. Sort of.

Floydian friction

If I may read a bit between the lines I feel some friction here between Sir David and this Orb thingy. But the next day, David Gilmour's official website had the next comment:

David's 2009 jam session with ambient collective The Orb has grown into an album, Metallic Spheres, to be released via Columbia/Sony Records in October. David's contribution to the charity song Chicago, in aid of Gary McKinnon, sparked the interest of producer Youth (Martin Glover), who remixed the track and invited David to his studio for a recording session.

With additional contributions from Orb co-founder Alex Paterson, the album took shape from 2009 into 2010, eventually becoming Metallic Spheres, to be released by The Orb featuring David Gilmour. (underlined by FA.)

Bollocks

Calling LX Paterson an Orb co-founder is technically not untrue, but it feels a little weird when you have just been presenting Martin 'Youth' Glover. It is comparable to describing Syd Barrett as a Pink Floyd co-founder while discussing Bob Klose. Agreed, Youth (from Killing Joke fame) was probably around when The Orb saw the light of day but it is generally acknowledged that the band was formed in 1988 by Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty but not by Youth who only occasionally teamed up with Alex Paterson as a temporary aid. Cauty's primary project however, the Kopyright Liberation Front (with Bill Drummond), pretty soon outgrew The Orb and when - at a certain point in time - some Orb remixes were released in Germany as KLF remixes this provoked a rupture in the co-operation between the duo as Alex and Jimmy started fighting over… copyrights.

After the split between KLF and The Orb Martin 'Youth' Glover helped LX out with two tracks (on two separate albums): Little Fluffy Clouds (on 'Adventures', 1991) and Majestic (on U.F.Orb, 1992), but he never was a member of the band and certainly not a founding member. In 2007 however, Youth replaced Thomas Fehlmann and joined The Orb for a one album project: The Dream.

Update 2018: Youth can also be found on the 2018 'No Sounds Are Out Of Bounds' and on a 2016 live CD and DVD release of the band.

Orb remix from Rick Wrights Runaway — Orb remix from Rick Wright's Runaway.

...and gossip

Together with the announcement on David Gilmour's website, and then we're back on the 18th of August of this year, a promotional video for the Metallic Spheres album is uploaded to YouTube. Depicting only Youth and David Gilmour several Orb fans wonder where LX Paterson, and thus The Orb, fits in.

The first, original movie disappears after a couple of days for so-called 'copyright' reasons and is rapidly replaced with a second version (unfortunately taken down as well, now), containing some hastily inserted images of LX Paterson strolling through the grasslands and recording some outdoor musique concrète.

It feels, once again, as if the Floyd-Orb connection doesn't go down well at the Gilmour camp. Alex Paterson's image, so it seems, has only been included on the promo video after some pressure (from LX himself) took place. But the above is of course all pure speculation and not based upon any fact, so tells you Felix Atagong, who has been closely following The Orb for over two decades.

Gary McKinnon

Bit by bit we learn how the album came into place. It all started with David Gilmour's charity project for Gary McKinnon, an X-Files adhering half-wit who hacked into American military and NASA computers in order to find out about extra-terrestrial conspiracy theories (read some more about that on: Metallic Spheres). Because of this he faces extradition from England to the USA where apparently they take these kind of idiots very seriously, see also the 43rd president who governed the country from 2001 to 2009.

It is not quite clear if Gilmour asked Youth (David Glover) to make a remix of the Chicago charity tune or if Youth got hold of the project and proposed to help (I've come across both explanations). The two may know each other through Guy Pratt who played in Glover's band Brilliant in 1986 (LX Paterson was their roadie for a while). In 1990 Youth founded Blue Pearl with Durga McBroom who had toured with Pink Floyd for the previous three years. Amongst the session musicians on their Naked album are Guy Pratt, David Gilmour and Rick Wright.

This isn't Glover's only connection with the Floyd however. In 1995 he teamed up with Killing Joke colleague Jaz Coleman to arrange and produce a symphonic tribute album: Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd, but only The Old Tree With Winding Roots Behind The Lake Of Dreams remix from Time combines a modern beat with romantic classical music.

Island Jam

To spice up the Chicago remix Youth invited David Gilmour in his home studio and out of it came a twenty minutes guitar jam. Glover soon found out that he could expand the session into an ambient suite and asked old chum LX Paterson for some help. LX flavoured the pieces with typical Orbian drones and samples, rather than turning this into a sheepish Fireman-clone.

The Orb featuring David Gilmour can only be a win/win situation. Orb fans have dreamed about this collaboration for the past two decades and that will add to the sales figures for sure. And although artist royalties go to the support of Gary McKinnon there will always be a spillover effect for the artists involved. That can only be good news for The Orb whose last album Baghdad Batteries sunk faster than the Kursk in the Barents Sea.

Rest us to say that an Orb album is an Orb album when it has got the name Orb on it, whether you like it or not. (In the case of their Okie Dokie album, not a bit).

Metallic Spheres

Metallic Spheres starts with Gilmour's pedal steel guitar over some keyboard drones that makes me think of those good old days when the KLF shattered the world with their ambient masterpiece Chill Out (LX Paterson - as a matter of fact - contributed to that album, although uncredited). But soon after that Gilmour's guitar wanders off in his familiar guitar style with axiomatic nods to The Wall and The Division Bell albums. A welcome intermezzo is Black Graham with acoustic guitar, not from Gilmour but by ragtime busker Marcia Mello. The 'metallic side' flows nicely throughout its 29 minutes and has fulfilled its promise of being 'the ambient event of the year' quite accurately.

The CD is divided into two suites: a 'metallic side' and a 'spheres side' (and each 'side' is subdivided in five - not always discernable - parts). The second suite however, is more of the same, clearly lacks inspiration and ends out of breath at the 20 minutes mark.

So no wow! effect here (but no meh! either)... Youth has done what was expected from him and produced an all-in-all agreeable but quite mainstream product leaving ardent anoraky Orb fans with their hunger, but perhaps winning a few uninitiated souls.

As far as I am concerned this is about the best Orb CD I have heard for the past couple of years, but it is still far from Orblivion, U.F.Orb or Ultraworld. But as this is 2010 already you won't hear me complaining.

Versions

In true Orbian tradition this album exists in different versions. There is the regular UK version (with a 'black' cover) and the deluxe version (with a 'white' cover). That last one has a bonus CD in a 3D60 headphone remix, comparable to the holophonics system on Pink Floyd's 'The Final Cut' album from 1983.

Update 2018: Just like 'holophonics' in the eighties, 3D60 no longer exists. The 'special' effects can only be heard through a headphone, but don't expect anything spectacular.

A Japanese enhanced Blu-spec release has two additional bonus tracks and two videos. One of these extra tracks (remixes, actually) could also be downloaded from The Orb website and from iTunes. One of the videos has been made by Stylorouge, who worked with Storm Thorgerson on several Floydian projects.

Last but not least there is a Columbia promo version, containing a unique identification number to trace unauthorised redistribution (see above picture). To our, but probably not to Gilmour's, amusement this promo-CD is titled The Orb Vs Dave Gilmour (instead of David). According to at least one Orb fan this version has a different mix than the official release.

The Orbian 'Metallic Spheres' posts:
Pink Dreams
Metallic Spheres
The Relic Samples

Reaction time

Iggy, Seventies — Iggy in the Seventies.

Prologue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Questions for 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 now (photo: Chris Lanaway) — Iggy, 2011 (photo: Chris Lanaway).

Iggy the Eskimo 2011 photo shoot
by Chris Lanaway

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

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

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

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

Dear Iggy,

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

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

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

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

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

From an entirely different continent comes the following:

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

Peace and Love,
Dan, Ottawa, Canada

And...

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

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

Take Care.
Griselda, USA

Space girl

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epilogue

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

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

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

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

The Mark Blake Iggy tapes can be found at:
Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home (Mojo 207 article - hosted at the Church)
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo - part 1 (hosted at the ~~Mojo~~ ~~website~~ Church, update August 2013)
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo - part 2 (hosted at the ~~Mojo~~ ~~website~~ Church, update August 2013)

Rockadolly

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

Syd Barrett | Art and Letters

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

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

Barrett, the book

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

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

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

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

La Gazza Ladra

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

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

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

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

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

Miracles do happen from time to time.

Iggy Fandom

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

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

AnthropoLSD

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

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

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

Anthropology of English Psychedelic Rock

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

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

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

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

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

English psychedelic music

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

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

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

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

Phasing / Flanging

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

Backmasking / Musique Concrète

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

Indian instruments

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

Mellotron

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

Love, peace, understanding and lots of pot.

Music Analysis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another mistake that slipped through is this one:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Echoes

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

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

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

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

Update 2020: nowadays this study can be bought as an e-book on Kobo and Kindle, probably these editions can be indexed and searched.

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

Counter Culture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Psychedelic drugs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mudbaths: good for the skin! — Mudbaths: natural skin care.

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cut the Cake

Iggy Rose,April 2011 (picture by Gianna) — Iggy Rose, April 2011 (picture: © Gianna)

Sistren and brethren, behold!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It sparkles and shines

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

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

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

Syd Barrett dot CON

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

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

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

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

Well spotted.

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

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

Syd Barrett in Formentera by Stanislav — Syd Barrett in Formentera, Stanislav artwork.

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

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

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

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

Stanislav's Signature — Stanislav's signature.

When geniuses meet

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

Oh WOWEEEE that is FANTASTIC XXXX

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit poster by Stanislav.

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

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

Immersion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update 2016 11 11: that Piper 'Immersion' set, with the Gyllene Cirkeln gig, has been officially issued in the Early Years box set: Supererog/Ation: skimming The Early Years.

Nick Sedgwick's manuscript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update 2016 12 04: the Sedgwick Floyd biography 'In The Pink' has not been published yet. In a 2015 interview for Prog magazine Roger Waters, however, said that the project was still on.
Update 2017 07 30: The 'In The Pink' journal can now be bought at the Pink Floyd Their Mortal Remains exhibition in London or at a Roger Waters gig: see In The Pink hunt is open!

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

Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!

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

Something to watch: Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

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

Flash link: Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!

Something to read: Crystal Blue Postcards

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

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

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

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

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

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit proudly presents:

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

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

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

Crystal Blue Postcards (Flash pageFlip presentation).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Antonio Jesús Reyes, a new career in a new town

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

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

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

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

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

Antonio Jesús Reyes, a new career in a new town

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope I can tell you in a chronological way:

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

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

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

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

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

With Stephen Pyle — Antonio Jesús with Stephen Pyle.

Wontcha tell us about your blog?

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

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

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

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

1. Have fun.
2. Free subject matters.

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

Why Syd Barrett?

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

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

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

Tell us about your favorite music.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would Barrett have become a second Bowie if only?

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

Best memories of England?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What more can you say?

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

In the meantime, enjoy music.

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

The Sixties Unplugged

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

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

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

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

Ronnie takes a trip

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

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

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

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

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

There's a killer on the road

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

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

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

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

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

Forgive me Chairman Mao. — Forgive me, Chairman Mao.

Love, peace & happiness

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

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

China had a few uprisings in the mid sixties. In 1968 communist government troops killed 200 thousand rebels in the Guanxi province, although the term rebel could mean women, children, babies or someone wearing glasses or the wrong clothes. One of the weirder, perhaps tribe related, rituals in Guanxi was to eat the enemy and over 3000 cannibalistic acts in the name of communism have been documented. Called an orgy of violence by Gerard De Groot the Cultural Revolution would make 2.8 million victims, although these numbers greatly vary from source to source. The amount of people persecuted, imprisoned, beaten, tortured or raped out of love for the Great Helmsman is estimated to at least a tenfold of the previous number.

That not all political violence had a communist signature was proven in Indonesia. In September 1965 and the months to follow between 500 thousand and one million 'communist' sympathisers were killed in Indonesia, with just a little help of the intelligence services of Great Britain and the USA. Joseph Lazarsky, deputy station CIA chief in Jakarta, revealed that the CIA had made a top 5000 hit-list to help the government troops. The list was crossed off as enemies were liquidated and as an extra bonus president Suharto received lucrative contracts with American Express, British American Tobacco, British Leyland, General Motors, Goodyear, ICI, Siemens and US Steel...

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

Parallel lines

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

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

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

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

or, quoting some juicy sixties newspaper article...

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

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

The Hole in the Ozone Layer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Groovy man, really groovy...

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

Formentera Lady

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1963

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

1965

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

1967

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hell O Formentera © Stanislav — Hell O' Formentera © Stanislav Grigorev.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1968

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

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

a smile from a veil — A smile from a veil.

1969

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And in Mind Over Matter:

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

Formentera Lady

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

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

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

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

Updates

Iain Moore

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

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

Iain has, since then, reconfirmed that the Formentera Girl was an American tourist. He has also posted a new picture of Syd and the girl.

Nigel Gordon

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

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

Uschi Obermaier

Update February 2015: Some 'sources' on the web pretend the Formentera girl is none other than German photo-model Uschi Obermaier. Obviously this is not true and if you want to know how the Church came to this conclusion you can read everything at Uschi Obermaier: Proletarian Chic.

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

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2007, p. 90, 131.
Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 228, 341.
Davis, John: Childhood's End, My Generation Cambridge 1946-1965.
De Groot, Gerard: The Sixties Unplugged, Pan Macmillan, London, 2009, p. 27.
Gordon, Nigel: Santmat, email, 18.08.2012.
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p. 286.
Green, Jonathon: All Dressed Up, Pimlico, London, 1999, p. 255.
Mason, Nick, Inside Out, Orion Books, London, 2011 reissue, p. 95-97.
Palacios, Julian: A mile or more in a foreign clime': Syd and Formentera @ Syd Barrett Research Society, 2009 (forum no longer active).
Palacios, Julian: Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, Plexus, London, 2010, p. 265, 353.
Pryor, William: The Survival Of The Coolest, Clear Books, 2003, p. 106.
Scurfield, Matthew: I Could Be Anyone, Monticello Malta 2009, p. 176.
Spires, Jenny: The Syd Barrett Archives, Facebook, 2012.
Thorgerson, Storm: Mind Over Matter, Sanctuary Publishing, London, 2003, p. 80.
Thorgerson, Storm: Walk Away René, Paper Tiger, Limpsfield, 1989, p. 150.
Thorgerson, Storm & Powell, Aubrey: For The Love Of Vinyl, Picturebox, Brooklyn, 2008, p. 104 (essay written by Nick Mason).
Watkinson, Mike & Anderson, Pete: Crazy Diamond, Omnibus Press, London, 1993, p. 90-91.
Willis, Tim, Madcap, Short Books, London, 2002, p. 113-114.

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

Alien coaster, from The Dark Side of the Moon Immersion set.

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

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

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

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

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

Men On The Border

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

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

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

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

Shine!, art by Kajsa-Tuva Henriksson — Shine! cover by Kajsa-Tuva Henriksson.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those Swedish surely have something I can't explain.

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

The Rape of Emily (three different ones)

Groovy Hits for Dancing, the Okey Pokey Band & singers. — Groovy Hits for Dancing, the Okey Pokey Band & Singers.

In 1967 Pink Floyd suddenly had a hit with See Emily Play and their name was all over the music press in England. As such they were spotted across the ocean by the Canadian record company Arc that specialised in so-called low-budget sound-alike greatest hits albums.

Sound-Alike

Before we start making fun of the sound-alike phenomenon we would like to point out that there was still a great musical rift between America and Great Britain and that covers were often the only way for an English audience to hear an American record, and vice versa. In 1965 the proto-Pink Floyd combo Jokers Wild, with David Gilmour, tried to cash in on the Sam & Dave classic You Don’t Know Like I Know, but not fast enough as the original hit the English market before Decca could issue the Jokers Wild version. The rise and fall of David Gilmour's first band had been decided on by bad timing and a stroke of bad luck.

Next to the 'cover' market, where local record companies tried to be the first to issue their cover of an overseas hit, there was the 'sound-alike' market, with a slightly different sense of timing. Once a hit record entered the charts, sound-alike singles were rapidly recorded by session musicians and put in the stores to sell their rip-off versions in the slipstream of the original hit.

While some of these sound-alike versions were deliberately made to confuse the customer ('I Walk The Line' by 'Jonny Cass' comes to mind) most of them ended on low-budget hit or party albums, EPs and singles. Nobody would notice the difference anyway, especially on warm barbecue days with lots of booze and a Dansette portable record player screeching in the garden.

There is a thin line between sixties 'covers' and 'sound-alikes', because the cover bands often did their best to sound as close to the original as was humanly possible, while the sound-alike bands often did their best to sound as close to the original as was humanly possible. Sound-alike labels from different countries and continents traded tracks and identical tracks would often appear under different band names.

Warning: if you are already confused by now, you will even get more confused by what follows next, this will not be easy reading. Most has been pinched from collector's blogs and newsgroups and we will do our best to give credit to the original authors and websites.

Arc Records

One record collector describes Arc records as follows:

Arc Records was Canada's most notorious low-budget label, in the same league as labels like Crown or Alshire in the States. They were famous for taking famous pop songs by one artist and getting some schmo to cover them and giving him a phoney name similar to that of the original artist. (Listener Klip at WMFU blog.)

A slightly more academic description of the label can be found on the Canadian Encyclopedia (page no longer active):

Arc Records, subsidiary of Arc Sound Co Ltd, which was established in Toronto in 1958 by Philip G. Anderson and William R. Gilliland. At first a record distributor, Arc Sound began releasing recordings under its own Arc label in 1959 and purchased the Precision Pressing Co in 1961. Arc Records released a series of pop singles albums under the name "Hit Parade" (1963-64). Arc Sound and its subsidiaries came under the control of a Canadian-owned holding company, the Ahed Music Corp Ltd, Toronto, in 1969 and ceased operations in 1986.

Arc Records in Canada were doing a lot of sound-alike records in the sixties. They had the Hit Parade series and at least two of them are carbon copies of Current Hits albums that appeared on the American Hit Records label.

Arc also apparently got tied in with Embassy Records (Great Britain), the label of the English Woolworth stores. It churned out top hits as well, usually with two different artists on one 45. All of the Embassy recording was done by Oriole Records, with mostly in-house musicians and groups. One of the cover bands on Embassy were The Jaybirds who became famous after Alvin Lee renamed the band to Ten Years After.

Embassy quit the sound-alike business in the late sixties and Oriole was bought by Columbia about the same time. Some of the Embassy/Oriole stuff showed up on American Top Hits albums from Columbia Record Club as well.

Arc Records had at least five LP's of Mersey Beat out in the mid sixties. Some of those list the individual Embassy performers, but most credit the group sounds to The Mersey Beats Of England. Unfortunately there is only a partial list of Arc releases available on the web. (Above text almost literally copied from KenB/Rockin' Bee.)

Three To One

In 1967 the Vancouver band Three To One issued a mono single considered to be the very first cover of a Pink Floyd song: See Emily Play / Give My Love (Arc 1186, most pictures and sound-bits on the web are from a 2008 collector's edition replica of that single, except - perhaps - the picture underneath that could be an original.)

Let's switch over to Kiloh Smith who describes this little gem in his weird enthusiast style...

Check out this rare Canadian psych 45 by Three To One - See Emily Play b/w Give Me Love on the Arc Label. This one’s got two monster tracks from Three To One, including what must to be the very 1st Pink Floyd cover in history. You might’ve heard their creepy cover of See Emily Play on a comp or two before - it’s pretty faithful to the original, at least up until the second chorus, when a little girl suddenly pops her head into the studio to ask “Everyone know how to play?” while someone in the sound effects library drops in a bunch of outer space phaser effects from the albino gorilla episode of the original Star Trek series.

This would have been an interesting titbit for all the Sydiots among us, but there is more going on. Arc was a rather dodgy label to say the least and also with this release they lived up to their expectancies.

See Emily Play was Three to One's only claim for fame. The Canadian Pop Encyclopedia describes them as follows:

Three To One

John Renton, Derek Norris (bass), Brian Russell (guitar), Claudette Skrypnyk

After leaving The Classics, Brian Russell formed Three To One in Vancouver in 1966. The band soon relocated to Yorkville in Toronto to try and catch a break. They soon got signed to Arc Records for one single - a cover of Pink Floyd's See Emily Play.

They also performed on CTV's 'After Four' TV show and appeared on Yorkville's tie-in compilation album to the show. They would later change their name to Raja before calling it quits.

After Four

The After Four (dead link) TV-show compilation album was issued in 1968 on Yorkville, a sub-label of Arc. It has covers from well-known tracks such as You Keep Me Hangin’ On (Teak Wood, dead link) or Winchester Cathedral (The Chain Rattlers Orchestra). Several things are wrongly stated on its cover: Four In The Morning (dead link) from The Scarlet Ribbon is actually a track in disguise from a Canadian band called The Quiet Jungle (more about them later), Changin' Time (dead link) from Patrician-Anne is a cover from Janis Ian's I'll Give You a Stone If You'll Throw It (Changing Tymes) and the second track on the B-side is not I'm A Bad Boy by Bob Francis, but See Emily Play by Three To One. Nobody knows why there is a different track listed on the sleeve notes than there is pressed on vinyl. (Listen to the complete album on Grooveshark.)

So far so good, but here is where things get a bit more complicated. We did warn you.

Flower Power

At about the same time, 1967-1968-ish, another Arc compilation album sees the light of day, featuring the Okey Pokey Band & Singers. The album with number A-735 is called Flower Power and has sound-alike versions of several 1967 hits, including See Emily Play. Here is what the liner notes have to say:

On this recording the zany, irrepressible Okey Pokey band & Singers focus on Flower Power. Resultant is a boss album highlighting the best sounds to blitz your transistor over the past months.

See Emily Play from Okey Pokey uses the same bed track (or background music, if you like) as the Three To One version but has different vocals. Some of the wacky sci-fi sound effects are missing, but the good thing is the track is in magnificent stereo hi-fidelity. The 'everyone know how to play' sample at 1:29 has mysteriously disappeared from this version as well.

In short: we have two versions of the same track, slightly remixed and with different vocalists, as if this had been recorded in a karaoke bar.

The Okey Pokey Band & Singers (logo).

The Okey Pokey Band & Singers

The Okey Pokey Band & Singers released two full albums but were obviously a studio project. According to the liner notes the band and singers:
'have played San Francisco, capital of the hippy world',
'have blown their minds at Fillmore' and
'loved-in at Ashbury Heights',
but the credits show that the tracks were originally 'recorded in England' and not in Canada.

This could make sense as we have already stated that low-budget record companies from different continents used to trade tracks, just to keep the costs low.

The Okey Pokey version has a certain British feel and when Arc got a copy of the master tape they may have removed the British vocals, replacing them with the Canadian singer of One To Three. Of course there is always the possibility that the English tape only contained an instrumental track and that both singing parts were recorded in Canada. A lot of sound-alike songs do exist that share the same bed track, but have different vocalists.

But Jenell Kesler (aka Streetmouse) at Discogs just thinks the record is entirely Canadian:

They also claim that these recordings where prestigiously done in England, when they were actually done in Canada on a low budget. There is speculation that the ‘original’ instrumental tracks, the bedrock tracks for these songs where purchased or lifted, with additional effects and vocals being laid down on top of them to give the feel of the real thing … though why [?]...

The Quiet Jungle

In 2007 Garage Hangover suspected that members of The Quiet Jungle could have been part of the deal.

Toronto based The Quiet Jungle started originally as The Secrets. The band was signed by Arc Records and, next to releases in their own name, some of them hit records, they were used as (anonymous) session musicians on a Monkees sound-alike album and on a children's album called The Story of Snoopy's Christmas. Vocalist Doug Rankine, however, denies any involvement on the Okey Pokey Flower Power album:

We had nothing to do with the "Flower Power" album. There were a couple of TV shows at that time called After Four and High Time that were on CTV. We were on those shows verily often. There was an album produced at the time called "After Four". (…) At the time of the album we recorded a song entitled "Four In the Morning". Without going into a lot of detail, we recorded it under the name of the Scarlet Ribbon.

John Smith

Anton from Freqazoidiac adheres the theory that the Okey Pokey version, including its vocals, is entirely British.

The missing link could be John Smith, who - as John Smith and the New Sound - had several big hits, notably in France and Germany, with Manchester Cathedral, Snoopy vs the Red Baron, Just A Looser and Judy In Disguise.

It has been rumoured that Manchester Cathedral by The Chain Rattlers Orchestra (see the After Four album above) was in fact done by John Smith. You Keep Me Hangin' On from Teak Wood on that same compilation is definitely John Smith's work. He has acknowledged this himself on Garage Hangover.

The only problem is that John Smith (that is his real name, by the way) denies having ever recorded See Emily Play:

In answer to your first question "See Emily Play", I didn't record that song. If my name and my band was used, this is new to me, but I don't think there's much I can do about that is there!

The real John Smith left after the first album but the band continued to record, with different lead-singers as John Smith and the New Sound. None of their three official albums (and singles) have See Emily Play. John Smith and the New Sound (and their alter-ego band The Beat Kings) took a joyride on the wave of British and Canadian pop, but they can't be linked to the Okey Pokey / Three To One See Emily Play versions. This means we are back to square one.

Ben Cash & The Cash-Tons

Probably the John Smith rumour can be traced back to a typo on, where else?, the Internet. In a comment on the Red Telephone 66 (dead link) blog Jancy claims that John Smith and The New Sound recorded See Emily Play for a German compilation (that appeared in 1972).

However, on the record itself, England's Top 14 of Pop (20. Folge) (private link) from Deutsche Vogue, See Emily Play is credited to Ben Cash & The Cash-Tons, and not to John Smith, nor The Beat Kings.

And yes, might you wonder, this third 'German' cover version is exactly the same as the Okey Pokey one. It could be interesting to compare the Ben Cash & The Cash-Tons cover from My Generation with the Arc release (if any) but this would bring us too far in this messy labyrinth.

David Byron

There is an unconfirmed rumour that Ben Cash was none other than David Byron (real name: David Garrick) from Uriah Heep fame. The (more than excellent) David Byron fansite claims that the singer could be present on at least 140 low-budget covers on Avenue Records. They have - so far - identified (and re-issued) 40 tracks sung by Byron, but they don't include See Emily Play on this list.

Multiple versions were recorded of many of the Avenue tracks and sometimes included as many as five different lead vocalists. These tracks were released on various vinyl records under titles such as Top Six, Top Six From England, 12 Top Hits, England’s Top 12 Hits, Chartbusters, Studio 33; and compilations such as Groovin’, The Rock Star Parade, Super Soul Sounds and multiple other titles. David participated on multiple releases under these names but its apparent some of the releases listed false artist names but not the actual participants. David sang under listings such as Dave’s Soul Group, The Beat Kings and the rehashed name John Smith and The New Sound. Multiple other names are known and they overlap by other artists as well but again this can't be listed with accurate results. (Taken from Travellers In Time.)

Update 21 07 2012: Ron Mann from David Byron Net confirmed us that: "David Byron wasn’t part of that [See Emily Play] session", but he doesn't know who the singer is. He was so kind to lead us to some people who do know a lot more about these low budget sessions, so fingers crossed and keep on checking the Church. (February 2012: it needs to be said that we didn't find new information about this release, but we still keep on searching.)

Amongst the other lead singers that have participated on the hundreds of Avenue sound-alike recordings are: Reginald Dwight who was a bit more successful later in his career as Elton John, Tony Steven, Peter Lee Stirling (aka Daniel Boone) and Danny Street.

John Smith (reprise)

The David Byron website continues with the following information.

At one point there was a real John Smith and a real New Sound backing band. In the 60s he signed a solo deal with Parlophone and released singles under the name of Bobby Dean. Being managed by Bill Wellings he ended up at EMI's Top Six label doing discount records cover songs.

These recordings were released in the UK and Germany and had some success. The Vogue record label released these songs under the original band name but also as The Four Kings. By late 1967 John Smith himself had lost interest in the group and moved on.

This left Bill Wellings with a band but no lead-singer but nevertheless he decided to continue the band, without the consent or knowledge of the real John Smith. As Wellings was deep in the discount records business and was interchanging vocalists with Avenue Records at PYE Studios in London he had several people to choose from.

Several tracks were done by the lead vocalist of The Excheckers, Phil Blackman, but also David Byron did vocals on some tracks for the two John Smith and the New Sound albums that followed.

The Golden Ring

But the confusion isn't over yet, because the See Emily Play cover will appear once again under another name. So far we are aware of four releases of this cover:
1. Three To One (1967, Canadian single)
2. Three To One (1968, Canadian album, same as 1)
3. Okey Pokey Band & Singers (1968, Canadian album, same backing track, but other vocalist)
4. Ben Cash & The Cash-Tons (1972, German album, same as 3)

All these versions take about 2 minutes and 50 seconds, but Cicodelico came across a version on an Arc EP that is about a minute shorter: See Emily Play. The EP in question (TS 10) has All You Need Is Love, See Emily Play and With A Little Help From My Friends and is recorded by The Golden Ring. It is just a shortened version of the Okey Pokey original and probably this was done to fit on the seven-inch record with the other songs.

The Golden Ring are another one of these tribute bands on Arc who issued at least 22 albums, EPs and singles: A Man Without Love, A Tribute To Johnny Cash, Love Me Tonight, The Little Drummer Boy, Tribute To Glen Campbell and many others...

Epilogue

If the original See Emily Play sound-alike has been recorded in England, with or without vocals, then the (Canadian) Three To One version is not the first cover of a Pink Floyd song. Unfortunately, we don't know where, when and by who this took place. Okey Pokey, The Golden Ring and The Cash-Tons are all fictitious bands that never existed as such. Three To One, however, did exist as a band and they were probably glad to add their voices to an already existing bed track, coming from the UK. It is pretty weird that nobody has located a British release, but perhaps the Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett were already considered too weird to fit in the low-budget marketing scheme.

(We have another article mentioning sound-alike records and artists, regarding the lost Pink Floyd Early Morning Henry session that apparently was a William Butler cover: Singing A Song In The Morning.)

Links & Stuff

We apologise for this post that is probably the most confusing ever at the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. We have tried contacting a few people and as such there may still be updates to be published. And if someone of you happen to know who really recorded the (probably English) low-budget-version of See Emily Play, let us know!

See Emily Play flowchart

See Emily Play versions @ YouTube

Three To One single version (1967, 2008 re-issue)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpSfgRxz704
(The 1967 version was also re-issued on Pebbles, Volume 14 in 1984.)

Three To One - Give me Love (flip-side)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS8vo34UamU

CTV’s After Four - album version (1968)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq0pKQzaU94

The Okey Pokey Band & Singers - Flower Power (album version, 1968)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4M_qBw2q40

The Golden Ring - All You Need Is Love (EP version, 1968)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJYgzSbb1rw

Ben Cash And The Cash Tones - England's Top 14 of Pop (20. Folge) (album, 1972)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlKubn-hTqs

Links

CTV’s After Four - album (1968)
http://freqazoidiac.blogspot.be/2007/06/ctv-after-four-1967-canada-yorkville.html

John Smith & The New Sound
http://www.myspace.com/johnsmithsound
http://www.garagehangover.com/?q=johnsmith
http://badcatrecords.com/BadCat/SMITHjohn.htm

The Quiet Jungle
http://www.garagehangover.com/?q=QuietJungle

Updated version, July 2017, some rewriting, weeding of dead links, updating of pictures. Many thanks to: Anton (Freqazoidiac), Cicodelico, Greeneyedbetsy, Jancy, KenB / Rockin' Bee, Kiloh Smith, Listener Klip, Ron Mann, Streetmouse (Jenell Kesler)...
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Iggy & the Stones

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

1. Photo shoot

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

Update December 2016: nothing has ever been heard of this photo project.

2. Rolling Stones

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

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

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

Carmen Jimenez, a Beatle and Iggy (picture: Bruce Fleming).

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

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

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

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

Pallenberg & Cammell — Anita Pallenberg & Donald Cammell.

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

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

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

3. Cambridge Summer Meeting 2013

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

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

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

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

Bend It (2013)

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

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

The Holy Igquisition interrupts this post for the following message:

Dear Reverend, please be more careful with the eggnog.

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

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

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

The Band

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bandits

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

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

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

BEND IT! STEP-BY-STEP

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

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

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

Inside Playboy

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

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

Happy New Year!

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

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

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

King's Road Chic(k)

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit lives by the grace of its visitors. Some of them have become friends for life, others see in the Church the coming of the anti-Syd and would like to see it and its Reverend destroyed. Such is life.

But it's always a joy when sudden, out of the blue, a message arrives from someone unknown, that contains a ray of hope, a glimpse of things to come...

From Kathmandu to London

So when the Church's Facebook page received a message from Christopher Farmer, near Kathmandu, Nepal, that there was a possibility that Iggy Rose could be seen on a picture taken in London in 1970 the Reverend's heart skipped a beat or two.

Iggy Pocahontas Rose — Iggy 'Pocahontas' Rose.

We immediately thought of a repetition of the 'Pocahontas' photo at the National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival in 1967 (see: Iggy - a new look in festivals). Iggy had asked us before if we had seen this picture but as long as nobody could tell us the issue, year or even name of the magazine it had been published in this was like looking for a needle in a large field of haystacks. But it was miraculously found by PhiPhi Chavana (aka Chang Yat Fei) in Hong Kong and that made the Church and Iggy Rose, who hadn't seen this picture in over 45 years, tremendously happy. We are pretty sure that there is a realistic chance to find at least one other Iggy picture if someone would have the courage to browse through all issues of Disc and Music Echo, Melody Maker, Music Maker and NME from the years 1965 to 1968. Still a couple of haystacks, but slightly smaller ones.

This new picture, so told us Christopher Farmer, was taken on King's Road in 1970 by John Hendy and depicts a barefoot Asian flower girl with an uncanny resemblance to the person we all know. Immediately the Reverend's mind went on overdrive as all the parts of the puzzle seemed to match.

Although several people claim that Iggy Rose had vanished in the middle of 1969, even going so far as saying she had returned to Asia or had married a rich banker, she was careening through life (to use a Barrett related idiom) less than 2 miles away. The rumour about the banker wasn't that far-fetched as a matter of fact, but due to the Reverend's seal of confession we have to keep this mystery intact.

In our article Syd meets... a lot of people we have compared the underground with the London rapid transit system that listens to the same name:

The counter culture wasn't really an organised movement, but constituted of many, independent stations with tubes going from one station to the other.

The Myers twins by Cecil Beaton, c.1968.

From London to Cadaqués

And like the commuter who takes the same station day after day and year after year, without realising that there could be something interesting going on in a station nearby Iggy disappeared from the Floydian underground ghetto and was not traced back for nearly 40 years. She was, however, spotted (or better said: not spotted until the Church poked with a few sticks) a bit later in the bohemian avant-garde art-house movie world, hanging out with people like John Myers who played one of the Von Meck twins in Ken Russell's controversial biopic The Music Lovers.

Some years later, John Myers, and his brother Dennis, were among the artists and the eccentrics who used to visit Salvador Dalí's villa in Cadaqués, Spain. When the twins arrived at Cadaqués, Dalí immediately adopted them and gave them a distinguished place in his group, baptising them as 'Castor and Pollux'. Since then, for over 35 years, they live in the same village in Spain where they have an olive tree farm.

From King's Road to Earl's Court Square and back

Iggy did attempt to visit Wetherby Mansions some months later. The door was opened by Duggie Fields who said that Syd had returned to Cambridge. In a few months time the Floydian free-for-all oasis had vaporised. Those who had their things together programmed their future by marrying, raising kids, finding regular jobs and living the once despised bourgeois square life. Those who didn't have their things together and were still squatting in Syd's room were ordered by Barrett, by phone from his Cambridge parental house, through Duggie Fields, to pack their bags and leave...

But, to finally get back to topic, it was clear that a picture of Iggy Rose walking on King's Road in the early Seventies was not something that would particularly shock the Reverend. When questioned about his father's photography Simon Hendy told the Church the following:

My dad (John Hendy) was just an amateur photographer. He lived in Northampton and simply visited Kings Road once or twice a year from 1967 to 1975 to take photos. Strangely, it's pretty much the only street photography he did. You may notice a certain emphasis on photos of young ladies, and I think this was the primary reason for the photos! (Mail from Simon Handy to the Reverend, 9 February 2013.)

The pictures of John Hendy can be found on several places, but they were originally published on a blog called My Dad's Photos – John Hendy photography. On the top bar there is a King's Road menu and the third picture of the 1970 's album is the one we are looking for.

At first sight we understood why several people think this is Iggy and for the very first moments we were fooled as well, but at second glance there was something that made us doubt. Obviously the best person to judge was Iggy Rose herself and she immediately denied that it was her. So the case is closed: this is NOT Iggy.

But this doesn't take away that the series of King's Road pictures, taken between 1967 to 1975, is a superb collection and that it shows us a pattern-card of the hip birds that roamed London in the Sixties, it is pretty fun to watch the distinct change in clothes and styles over this period.

Bentleys & Pontiacs

We know this sounds contradictory, but several (black & white) pictures of the 1968 series show a multicoloured 1958 Bentley S1 that belonged to Apple, the Beatles' company. There is an excellent website, dedicated to this car alone, and John Hendy's pictures are also featured there.

Speaking about cars, the John Hendy collection has also been spotted by the Proud Gallery in Chelsea who used some of the pictures in their March 2013 exhibition “Ossie Clark: The King of the King’s Road Reigns Again”.

Visitors of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit may know Ossie Clark from the Pontiac Parisienne that can be seen on the famous Madcap pictures that were taken in April 1969 by Mick Rock (for the purists among us we repeat once again that the pictures on the actual The Madcap Laughs album have been taken or are at least licensed to Storm Thorgerson). The darkblue car that was parked in front of Syd's apartment was given away in a raffle on the 19th of December 1968 in the Royal Albert Hall, one day after the famous Alchemical Wedding from John & Yoko in the same venue.

Duggie Fields has named it the Ossie Clark's New Year's Eve party on his website but the actual show could have been announced with a different title. There is hardly any information about this event, apart from the fact that Yes played a gig and that Amanda Lear was present as well, but she was probably there as a fashion model and not as a singer / performer.

Breaking free of traditional fashion shows, with their calm, measured presentation, Ossie Clark turned his shows into theatrical events. They were held at venues like the Albert Hall and Dingwalls dance hall in Camden. In attendance were rock stars and artists, the rich and the fashionable. (Taken from: V&A.)

And of course everybody knows that Amanda Lear was a muse and protégé of Salvador Dali as well, that she knew the Myers twins in London and Spain and that, perhaps, she has met Iggy Rose as well.

But that is another story we need to be discrete about...

Many thanks to Euryale, Christopher Farmer, Simon Hendy.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Links & Things
Christopher Farmer, who lead us to the Iggy lookalike picture, has a website with photos, taken by his father in 1947 in Palestina: Palestine 1947
Simon Hendy, has different websites with his dad's pictures:
My Dad's Photos – John Hendy photography
John Hendy Photography
My Dad's Photos on Facebook

Further Reading
Pontiac Parisienne: When Syd met Iggy... (Pt. 2)
Myers Twin Interview: Dalí sigue vivo en la memoria (thanks to Euryale for pointing this article out to the Church and translating it to English!)
Ossie Clark, the King Of The Kings Road in Holland Park

Birdie Hop: wasn't it the most amazing meeting?

Picture: Eva Wijkniet — Photo: Eva Wijkniet.

We have just all had the BEST time ever in Cambridge - with the best people in the world - we have laughed and hugged and kissed and talked and none of us wanted to come home! (Libby Gausden Chisman)

Undoubtedly the best, friendliest, most lively and most accurate Syd Barrett group on Facebook is Birdie Hop.

It is the equivalent of Eternal Isolation's Late Night forum that, let's not be fussy about that, has suffered a lot from Facebook's ever-groping octopus tentacles. A person (m/f) with a critical mind could add that Facebook is shallow and volatile, that any post older than three days tends to disappear in a bottomless pit never to be found again and that, to the Reverend's mind, there is continuous repetition and proportionally it can get a bit boring.

But Birdie Hop has an audience. And people who have an audience ought to be heard. There is no point in constantly hammering that Betamax is the better recording system when VHS has conquered the world. Now there's a comparison that seems to be fruitless today and quite opaque for the young people among us.

Birdie Hop is a spirited place and like Late Night at its peak period it is the village pub. People come and go, friendships are made (and sometimes lost) and scarcely hidden love affairs happen, with snogging outside in the garden under the cherry tree.

But all this happens in the relatively safe environment of cyberspace. In September of last year the idea was uttered, among Birdie Hop members, to meet and greet in Cambridge. (The Holy Igquisiton has vainly tried to find that post back on Facebook, while on a forum it would take about a minute, perhaps somebody should call the NSA.)

We all have seen this happen before really, people saying 'let's meet', but when push comes to a shove, nothing happens. But Birdie Hop has an excellent set of administrators, not only they are friendly, beautiful and intelligent but they can be bloody effective as well.

Alexander the Great

Alexander made it his mission to make this happen, immediately a date was pinpointed (14 to 16 June 2013) and Mick Brown was kindly asked to act as Birdie's local liaison officer. The bandwagon started rolling and an I Spy Syd in Cambridge tour (with a bus) was organised through the capable hands of Warren 'Bear' Dosanjh. In March of this year Alexander travelled to Cambridge to tie the loose ends (and test the quality of the local beer) and from then on it was a restless wait for the day to come.

Here we go. (Underneath text largely taken from Alexander & Warren's tour program.)

Friday 14 June 2013

An evening at the Cambridge Blue on Gwydir Street: a totally real ale pub with the best selection of (Belgian!) ales in Cambridge plus pub grub and a large beer garden.

Birdie Hop 2013 Cambridge meeting — Giulio Bonfissuto, Neil Chisman, Jenny Spires, Alexander.

Saturday 15 June 2013

09.30 Meet at Le Gros Franck for breakfast and to buy a take-away lunch from a fantastic choice of international dishes, 57 Hills Road.

10.00 Botanical Gardens, where the actual tour started. Unfortunately they had to chase a bum away who had been sleeping on Syd's bench.

10.30 Pick-up by coach at the main entrance of the Botanical Gardens in Bateman Street.

Stops at:

183 Hills Road, Syd's house.

The Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now the Hills Road Sixth Form College), where Syd, Roger Waters, Bob 'Rado' Klose and Storm Thorgerson studied.

Morley Primary Junior School where Mary Waters taught her son and Syd.

The Friends Meeting House on Hartington Grove, where Geoff Mott & The Mottoes played their one and only gig.

6 St. Margaret's Square, where Syd last lived after moving back to Cambridge.

Cherry Hinton Chalk Pits where some Birdie Hop members did a bizarre reenactment of the Syd's First Trip movie.

Grantchester Meadows: lunch stop with a pint (BYO) from the Blue Ball pub opposite.

Walk on the meadows...

And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees
Laughing as it passes through the endless summer
Making for the sea.

...and back on the bus at David and Peter Gilmour's house, 109 Grantchester Meadows.

City walk (Corn Exchange, Union Cellar, King´s College, Market Square etc..)

18.30: meet at the Geldart for dinner and drinks.

Sunday 16 June 2013

Informal meet and goodbye greet at the Earl of Derby, 129 Hills Road for a full English breakfast from 8.30 in the morning or lunch from 12.00 for those who couldn't get out of bed. Unfortunately nobody seemed fit enough to take any pictures or wanted their pictures to be taken!

Be a part of the legend!

Why don't you join Birdie Hop, not only you'll be able to see all the pictures of this amazing journey, but you'll meet a bunch of friendly, sexy people!

The list of attendees of the 2013 meeting not only had the best Birdies around but also reads like a Cambridge Mafia wet dream: Libby Gausden Chisman, Neil Chisman, Jenny Spires, Viv Brans, Eva Wijkniet, Sven Wijkniet, Dave "Dean" Parker, Mrs. Parker, Vic Singh, Brian Wernham, Mick Brown, Peter Gilmour, Mary Cosco, Antonio (Tio Junior), Mario von Barrett (González), Fernando Lanzilotto, Giulio Bonfissuto, Hazel (Libby´s school-friend), George Marshall (school-friend of Syd and Roger Waters who happened to be drinking in the Blue Ball when the gang arrived), Gary Hill, Stephen Pyle (only Friday afternoon, afterwards he had to run a street fest), Warren Dosanjh (tour guide), Alexander P. Hoffmann (host)...

Eva Wijkniet: Warren was the best tourguide and took us to the best pubs in Cambridge. Great guy to talk to and we have to thank him massively for the effort he made for us.

Brian Wernham: What a great day in Cambridge doing lots of Syd stuff, meeting some of Syd's old friends, Peter Gilmour and meeting some wonderful Syd fans as well!

Warren Dosanjh: I have guided nearly all Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett tours in Cambridge since 2006. But this was the best and most extraordinary ever.

Libby Gausden Chisman: too exhausted to tell you atm - I have lost my voice due to over talking and over laughing and over kissing and hugging - it was just the best time evah!

A 'many thanks' line to end this article would merely repeat the people who are all cited above, but let's have an exception and thank the most extraordinary person who wrote the most peculiar kind of tunes.

Many thanks to Roger Keith 'Syd' Barrett, for making this all happen and for creating friends for a lifetime.

See you in 2015...

Update 03 01 2014: Mick Brown made a video of the event that we forgot all about, so - with over a half year's delay - here it is.
Update 16 06 2014: The copyright gestapo censored Mick Brown's original movie, so a second version was uploaded with an excellent soundtrack by Rich Hall (taken from his Birdie Hop and the Sydiots record).

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

A second Birdie Hop meeting took place in 2015: Iggy Rose in Cambridge.

Reverends and Sydiots

5 years Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit — The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit: 5 years.

(This article contains a much concealed review of the Rich Hall album Birdie Hop and the Sydiots, to immediately access it, click here.)

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates its fifth birthday.

An official statement by the Reverend:

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is five years old. It has always taken an independent road and has maintained an ironic and satirical view on the Syd Barrett phenomenon and its fans.

We will, however, never spit on the fans. We have embraced the term Sydiot as our Geusenwort, meaning that we have reappropriated this derogatory nickname as an honorary title.

While we have the utmost respect for the casual Barrett fans, the cosmic brides (persons [m/f] who claim to have a relationship with Syd of some kind, often crossing spiritual boundaries) and the Sydiots, we intuitively question the official Barrett organisations, record companies and nincompoops who circle around Syd like vultures. We will not automatically endorse their websites, their records and their books... and this has not always been appreciated. It seems that nothing has changed much since those days in 1967 when Norman Smith was reprimanded by his boss:

EMI were ignorant, lazy and paranoid. I'd once been carpeted by Sir Joseph Lockwood, almost fired, told to stay away from courting Pink Floyd. But I took no notice.

If Norman Smith had obeyed we would never have had The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Taking no notice was, is, and will always be the Holy Church's attitude, even if this puts us in the firing line of some of the minor half-gods and makes us wonder if this Church was just a waste of time. But:

This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
It's a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It's in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends
This is my church
(Faithless, God is a DJ, 1998)

All tomfoolery aside, we are proud to have put a thing or two on the Floydian agenda in the past five years that would otherwise have stayed unnoticed. If we may lead you to one paragraph on this blog, that we are particularly fond of, it is this one and we constantly try to live by those standards. So-called social media make witnesses easy accessible nowadays but this doesn't give the Sydiot nor the Reverend a wildcard to constantly harass them with questions about how 'Syd really was'. Remember:

A granddaughter's smile today is of much more importance than the faint remembrance of a dead rock star's smile from over 40 years ago. (Taken from: We are all made of stars.)

And for those who don't agree the Church can only bring solace by citing the following words of that great Cantabrigian band:

So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask could we wipe the slate clean
But they tell me to please go fuck myself
You know you just can't win
(Pink Floyd, Lost For Words, 1994)

But this speech has been going on for too long, so...

Let's party!

It's a fucking birthday godammit! And we have exactly the right party album for that... and you can have yours too!

Birdie Hop and the Sydiots

Richard Michael John Hall is a self-publishing artist in the 'alternative' or 'indie rock' genre with about a dozen releases on his name. In March 2013 he surprised the world with his songs The Reverend and Uncle Alex and it came to the Church's ears that this was going to be a part of a quintessential concept album. Written in about a month's time the album has been released a couple of weeks ago.

Birdies and Barretts

Birdie Hop and the Sydiots is named after a rather decent Facebook group and its members who range from the wacky to the insane now that an old cricketer has left the crease. Its first song, Birdie Hop, is a pastoral tune about this relatively calm oasis and how it is a reference to all who have enclosed Syd Barrett in their hearts.

I've seen your mother (and she's beautiful) is a track about our most cherished and most hated family member. Rich Hall perfectly catches that ambiguity (see also John Lennon & Roger Waters) but apparently that is not what the song is about. Let's just resume by saying that Barrett fans come in different colours and sizes. Cosmic brides are fans, who declare their unconditional love for Syd and sometimes meet him on a higher esoteric level. It is good that what happens in the spirit world cannot be seen by the naked eye although sometimes weird erotomanic anecdotes drip through. Cosmic brides are usually harmless, although they can be annoying when they start messaging people with important directives from the other side.

With Cheesecake Joe, a catchy hard rock tune built around one of Birdie Hop's most flamboyant members, the Birdie suite lifts off into the higher stratosphere. Cheesecake is the deadhead equivalent of the Floydian fan. He is the UFOnaut who still claims Pink Floyd is a stoner band and that their main message is to turn on, tune in & drop out...

The Reverend is the first highlight of the album, what a psychedelicate song, what a fine realistic description of this genius, what an adoration for Iggy the Eskimo, what a magic looking glass. But even after having heard this song for about 45 times I still don't know if the song really isn't an insult packaged as a gift. But walking the thin line between praise and mockery is what the Holy Church is all about. Great song. It should be a hit. Really.

A high-res Flash clip of this song can be found here.

The Reverend, by Rich Hall — The Reverend. Sound: Rich Hall. Vision: Felix Atagong. Hi-resolution Flash movie.

And for those who prefer a somewhat lighter YouTube version:

Just when you think that it can't get any better there is Uncle Alex, an ear-worm of a song. Not wanting to go too far into details I can only say that some of the apparently throw-away lines are far closer to the truth than you possibly can imagine. Rich Hall is a poignant observer. This should even be a bigger hit.

A videoclip for this song can be found on the Reverend's YouTube channel.

Solo en las Nubes could be the theme song for a Sergio Leone spaghetti western with Antonio Jesús as the vengeful balded bad-ass. On his own this man is responsible for most of the Barrett admiration in the Spanish-speaking world and thus he is, by definition, regarded as a potential danger by the powers that be. Speak out his name in a certain provincial university town, close by the river Cam, in East Anglia and gallows are spontaneously risen again. This is a song that should be played around camp-fires all over the world. This is an urban hymn.

Jenny and Libby makes me think of the Television Personalities for one thing or another. Throughout the song Rich Hall name-drops several Birdie Hop alumni and their doings. I wonder if the artist has amazing powers of observation and if he knew, when he wrote the song in spring 2013, that the refrain was predictive for the shape of things to come.

Jenny and Libby ends, what I call, the birdies section of the album. This is being followed by the madcap suite, a trilogy about the darker side of Barrettism where the weirdness, the madness and the obsessiveness turns into a Stephen King nightmare...

Madcap Laughter & Hammerings

Fuggitaboutit, build around a fifties teenage tragedy song, is based upon the endless laments of certain self-proclaimed Barrett scholars.

Your Significant Other is a track about those weird trolls who infests groups with different aliases, spreading false information and starting discussions, sometimes among themselves, just for the sake of argument. So what's your name today, which identity will you choose?, is the question Rich Hall asks. Based upon a true story.

Yer List Monger. Call it this album's The Trial but with a haunting Twin Peakish atmosphere, a hot burning sun, a mad priest preaching on the telly about sin and redemption, a fat red-neck orating conspiracy theories at the end of the bar, suddenly spitting out the venomous question: are you real Syd Barrett fans? Dwarfs are passing by, walking backwards and speaking in tongues. Meet the Hannibal Lecter of the Syd Barrett world.

A Cry From The Outside

Birdie Hop and the Sydiots has its coda with a rather alienated version of Barrett's Feel that leaves me with a bitter-sweet taste in the mouth. It's puzzling, it's not nice. It's all dark, as a matter of fact.

At times Rich Hall's way of words makes me think of Jason Lytle and Lee Clayton, his music is a kaleidoscope of sounds that reminds my fragile memory of T-Rex, neo-psych or garage rock. But of course Rich Hall is at first Rich Hall and nobody else.

Throughout this article I have dispersed some quotes from Pink Floyd and I did catch some resemblances here and there with themes from The Wall, but that is probably because I've recently watched a Mr. Roger Waters show. Let's hope this album will never grow into a monster and that a 69 years-old Rich Hall will not be obliged to lip-synch next to a 130 metres long plastic wall with hi-tech projections and a ridiculous flying cactus balloon in the air.

You don't need to be a Birdie Hop member to enjoy this album as all songs stand by themselves, but if you grab this and listen to it why don't you let the birdies know what you think of it.

Birdie Hop and the Sydiots
July 2013
Instruments & vocals by Rich Hall.
Mixed by Rich Hall and Ron Bay.
Mastered by Ron Bay.

Streaming & digital download (name your own price system, 0.00 is an option as well).

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Jefferies, Neil, Dartford's Finest Band, Record Collector 417, August 2013, p. 54-55.

Website: Richard Michael John Hall
BandCamp channel: RichMFHall
SoundCloud channel: RichMFHall
YouTube channel: RichFMHall

♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Thanks: Anonymous • Freqazoidiac • Solo En Las Nubes • Psych62 • Anni • Bill • Euryale • Brooke • Jeff • Prydwyn • Chris • Helen • Sean • JenniFire • Sadia • Herman • JenS • Vince666 • Nipote • Gretta • Viv • Adenairways • Giuliano • Dolly • John • Babylemonade • Duggie • Synofsound • Mark • Xpkfloyd • Rich • Brett • Krackers • Peter • Phil • Zag • Warren • Listener • Bob • MOB • Nina • Dark Globe • Emily • Retro68special • Natashaa' • Vic • Jenny • Neonknight • Lord Drainlid • Ebronte • Simon • Ian • Will • Motoriksymphonia • NPF • Greeneyedbetsy • Anton • Hallucalation • PF Chopper • Lee • Felixstrange • Michael • PhiPhi • Eva • Cicodelico • Julian (Gian) • Denis • Dallasman • Emmapeelfan • Paro नियत • Ewgeni • Matt • Kiloh • Elizabeth • Alexander • Kirsty • Paul • Mohammed (Twink) • Nigel • Rusty • Braindamage • Pascal • Mark • Stanislav • Anthony • I Spy In Cambridge • Mick • Alain • Wrestling Heritage • Bloco do Pink Floyd • Moonwall • Rod • Charley • Amy • Joe • Griselda • Eternal • Dominae • Russell • Beate • KenB • Dan5482 • Tim • Antonio • Party of Clowns • Anne • Late Night • Lori • Colleen • Brian • Christopher • Jose • Göran • Jancy • Banjer and Sax • Ron • Vicky • ...and all those we have forgotten to mention!

Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!

One

There is a story how Iggy the Eskimo, Syd Barrett and a bunch of other musicians gatecrashed a Speakeasy gig from a band that would become rather famous in prog, rock, jazz and even techno circles. It is a hilarious anecdote, with rumours of mandrax-champagne cocktails and a lot of twist and shouts. We can imagine how Iggy's roaring laugh echoed through the club, once you have heard that laugh, it is imprinted in your memory forever.

The Church is still trying to get some information, tie some loose ends, interview some people, especially as this happened in the mid-summer of 1969, when everyone thought Iggy had disappeared from Syd's life. Perhaps she did, perhaps they just met by accident that day. But that is for later.

Little things that matter.

Two

Birdie Hopper Manzano Meza Cota posted a Mick Rock picture a couple of days ago, it is a new one of Syd and Iggy, which makes us think that this old geezer still has got some hidden gems in his archive.

Iggy and Syd, Mick Rock — Iggy & Syd. Picture: Mick Rock.

Three

In a couple of hours it will be Iggy's birthday. As usual we were too late posting our card as we only did it this afternoon...

Should you not know it by now, it is Iggy's birthday! So this is the time and place to shout:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

Four

LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of visual extravaganza that comes straight out of the hidden vaults of the Church. Swedish band Men On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from their latest album Jumpstart. Thanks guys, you rock!

Men On The Border
Let's Party (yeah yeah)
Jumpstart © 2013

Five

And now for the classics:

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card (2011) contains a few seconds from a super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy Birthday Iggy Rose! or YouTube:

Crystal Blue Postcards

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

Crystal Blue Postcards (Flash pageFlip presentation, 2011).

Guitars and Dust Dancing by Rescue Rangers

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

WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

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

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

The Church wishes to thank Men On The Border (Phil Etheridge & Goeran Nystroem), Bruce Fleming, Mick Rock, Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson, Iggy Rose, unknown & anonymous..., Denis Combet, Pascal Mascheroni (Rescue Rangers), Manzano Meza Cota, Christopher Farmer & the nice people at Birdie Hop, Late Night and all the others that we seem to have forgotten...

Men On The Border
http://menontheborder.com/
http://www.facebook.com/MenOnTheBorder

Birdie Hop
http://www.facebook.com/groups/birdiehop

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!

Magical Iggy

A couple of weeks ago Iggy and the Reverend browsed through a stash of mid-seventies photos and selected nearly 60. They have been (and will still be for quite a while) simultaneously published at Iggy's Facebook page and at the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Tumblr site under the Magical Iggy flag.

How, you didn't know that existed? Here it is again, you ignorant people:
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Tumblr blog, its Magical Iggy section and the Archive.

Magnetic Iggy

Have you seen our latest post about the Syd & Iggy magnet: The perfect Xmas gift: put Iggy on your fridge! To get one, please email anthony@anthonysternglass.com. We assure you that, for once, the money will be well spent.

Birthday Iggy -14th of December 2014

In less than an hour it will be Iggy's birthday. The Reverend fought blizzards, storms and packs of hungry wolves to go to Louvain's postal station to find out, then, that he had forgotten Iggy's birthday card at home.

Should you not know it by now, it is Iggy's birthday! So this is the time and place to shout:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

Partytime Iggy

LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of tracks that have been made the past few years to celebrate our goddess. Swedish band Men On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from their latest album Jumpstart. Thanks guys, you rock!

Men On The Border
Let's Party (yeah yeah)
Jumpstart © 2013

Reverends & Eskimos

In 2013 Rich hall made a concept album that has this fine pearl... (click on the image below for the hi-res Flash version)

The Reverend by Rich Hall (hi-res, Flash).

For those who haven't got a Flash-enabled webbrowser, let's try it another way. Here is a, somewhat downgraded, version on Youtube, but don't let that spoil the fun.

Rich Hall
The Reverend
Birdie Hop © 2013.

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

Crystal Blue Postcards

Guitars and Dust Dancing by Rescue Rangers

In 2011, Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers donated the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars and Dust Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at iTunes: Guitars and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the smashing artwork from Jean Vouillon.

WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

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

The Church wishes to thank Constance Cartmill, Denis Combet, Phil Etheridge, Amy Funstar, Rich Hall, Pascal Mascheroni, MAY, Goeran Nystroem, Allison Star, Anthony Stern, Jean Vouillon, Brett Wilson and all the others that we seem to have forgotten...
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Of Promises Broken

Happy New Year, sistren and brethren of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. 2014 is gone and again what a long strange trip it has been, to quote – once again - musician, lyricist and poet Robert Hunter. Syd Barrett is dead all right and unfortunately his legacy hasn't been ageing gratefully at all last year. An enlightened visionary once said that if you put two Barrett fans together they will start a group and if you'll put three they will start a fight. This is past year's history in a nutshell and enough reason for the Reverend to say adieu to all Facebook Syd Barrett groups, without exception, even the ones he co-founded. 2014 showed they are as unique as Pepsi is to to Coca Cola, perfect clones and excelling in superfluous and sickly sweet mediocrity. This crusty dinosaur needed to get rid of the bickering, the hijacking of each other's members, the shouting to and fro, the arrogant standpoint of people who never heard of Syd Barrett three months before but who feel it their constitutional right to surpass their ignorance and insult the old farts for the only reason they can.

Luckily there are still some free minds around who do the things they do, unburdened, in all artistic freedom and who we can call our friends. Rich Hall comes to mind, over the years this multi-instrumentalist has acquired an impressive back catalogue of indie records, with of course the impressive Birdie Hop & The Sydiots that appeared in 2013.

This year he surprised the lethargic Syd Barrett world with an enhanced version of the Barrett track Opel. Opal, as some people claim it should be, is a haunting tune and has some of Barrett's finest verse (crisp flax squeaks tall reeds) but it only exists as a demo. Hall added additional layers of guitar, thus creating something that could be close to the definitive Opel / Opal version.

Opel (upgrade) by Rich Hall. Opens in a separate window.

Link: Opel (Rich Hall upgrade)

Roger Keith Barrett Superstar

In the privacy of the confessional Rich had already whispered into the Reverend's ears that he was of the opinion that Barrett's seminal 1974 sessions could be turned into something more coherent and because nobody believed him, the Reverend included, he decided to give these tapes the Opel treatment as well.

The Dark Side of the Moon had made Pink Floyd a supergroup and their record companies decided to earn some quick cash, surfing on the success of the million seller. The first budget release was A Nice Pair (1973) that combined the Floyd's first two records, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and A Saucerful Of Secrets, although American copies had some alternative mixes of some of the tracks. Actually this was not such a bad idea, because in America Pink Floyd had been a relatively unknown band till then. The compilation hit the Billboard top 40.

For the first time American kids heard of Syd Barrett and his two solo albums, that had never crossed the ocean, were re-packaged in 1974 as a double album with a 'founder member of Pink Floyd' sticker on the front. The album rose to position 163 in the American charts, which was an unexpected success and made the record executives hunger for more at both sides of the Atlantic.

Bryan Morrison, who was still Barrett's agent, convinced Syd to get back in the studio with Peter Jenner (who we interviewed this year: An innerview with Peter Jenner) to start a third studio project, but it only resulted in some hastily shambolic recordings. But now, in 2014, Rich Hall took the 1974 demos, added extra guitar, bass, drums and sleigh bells (where would rock music be without sleigh bells?) and here is how it sounds. The result is still best described as your drunk uncle torturing his guitar on Christmas eve after his fourth coffee cognac, but kudos to Hall for enriching the demos. At least we hear now where it could have led into if only Barrett would have had the balls...

Tracklisting:	Start
Boogie #1 (with a trace of Bo Diddley’s ‘Pretty Thing’)	0'00
Boogie #2	1'28
Boogie #3	2'58
If You Go #1	4'24
If You Go #2	6'38
Untitled	8'25
Slow Boogie	9'40
Fast Boogie	12'22
Ballad	13'30
John Lee Hooker (actually Lighting' Hopkins' Mojo Hand)	15'20
Chooka-Chooka Chug Chug	18'18

Endless Insults

Opposed to a band called Pink Floyd there is a company with the same name that seems to have other interests than to serve the band it represents, even going as far as insulting and legally threatening webmasters and active forum members (read: über-fans) because they dare to write something that doesn't fit into saint David's money scheme, who thinks he is the caretaker of all things Syd Barrett, which – in reality – means buying all possible Barrett-related items, movies and recordings and hiding them in a storage place, out of sight of the public and the fans. Ted Shuttleworth about his Crazy Diamond movie script in 2011:

Presently, the script is with a guy who has been placed in charge of the Syd Barrett estate. He is also David Gilmour's manager, and ostensibly Pink Floyd's manager as well. I have no idea if he's ever read it. I imagine he hasn't. But if a movie about Syd is ever going to seriously happen, he is the man who is going to give the first OK. Maybe one of these days he'll call me back. (Taken from: Ted Shuttleworth and the "Crazy Diamond" Movie)

Well, in the case of the Crazy Diamond movie, that was equally trashed down by Roger Waters and by David Gilmour, this might have been a good thing.

The Last Minute Never Mentioned Boogie Band

Not that the webmasters of the Pink Floyd fan sites are any better. The three big Pink Floyd fan-sites, two of them serious and a third who copies all from the others, wet their trousers whenever a Floyd member or Floyd collaborator does a 'thing' however trivial that 'thing' might be. The Igquisition made a nice table about some recent Floydian events, counting the times they have been mentioned.

Event	Person	AFG	BDA	NPF
Goldtop 1957 auction	Snowy White	2	1	0
Bombay Bicycle Club	David Gilmour	1	1	1
Kirsty Bertarelli	Nick Mason	1	1	1
Signal To Noise	Andy Jackson	2	3	0
The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band	Syd Barrett	0	1	0

Of course we don't mind that Snowy White selling his 1957 Goldtop Standard Les Paul guitar gets a mention, it can be heard on the 8-track version of Animal's Pigs On The Wing (this track was later re-issued on Snowy's Goldtop compilation).

It is not more than normal that Nick Mason, sitting in on drums on a (frankly dreadful) Kirsty Bertarelli Christmas single (The Ghosts Of Christmas Past), or David Gilmour, joining Bombay Bicycle Club at the last gig ever on Earls Court, is documented on the fan-sites, that is what fan-sites are for.

But that Andy Jackson's solo album gets mentioned 5 times more by the fan-sites than the The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band, with Syd Barrett guesting on 3 tracks, is frankly unbelievable. The original tape of this concert was confiscated in 1985, in a rather NSA-shaped way, by a Pink Floyd black suit and then hurled into the maelström they call their archive (see: The Last Minute Put Together Reel Story). Luckily a second copy of this tape was found back in 2005 and issued by Easy Action records after nearly a decade of legal struggle.

When I am A Good Dog They Sometimes Throw Me A Bone In

That Neptune Pink Floyd is not aware of this release is probably just a sign of their overall ignorance. However it is more problematic for A Fleeting Glimpse not mentioning it. Col Turner, by his own words a fan of Pink Floyd since 1966, should be well aware of Syd Barrett's importance and legacy. His website, that has attracted over 50 million visitors and whose forum has over 13000 members, brags that it is the most accurate, the most informed and the first to come out with officially confirmed news. Not mentioning the Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band could be a sign that Col T only publishes what his One Fifteen puppet master allows him to publish, as the Endless River incident has clearly proven past year (see: The loathful Mr. Loasby and other stories...).

Update 2015 08 02: Browsing through the Late Night forum we came across a post from Lee Wood who made the Syd's Cambridge DVD Box Set, limited to 100 copies, in 2009. He send a copy of the box to one of the leading Pink Floyd fan-sites but was informed by the webmaster that they would not review the release. Lee Wood:

"The Management" of PF seems to like total control. I sent a review copy of the box set to Brain Damage whom I always thought were a good source of information but they couldn't run a review until they got permission from official sources. Needless to say it's been several months and nothing has appeared. So perhaps its not worth looking to them for unbiased information or any form of news of interest to fans. (Source: Syd's Cambridge Box Set.)

Oh by the way, the official Syd Barrett website never mentioned the Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band release either. But they are a One Fifteen product as well, and as such only interested in selling t-shirts, some of those are quite nice even.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit published several articles about this record, with interviews of Carlton Sandercock, Mohammed Abdullah John Alder (Twink for short) and Fred Frith. Pearls for the swine, one might say, because even the self-proclaimed Syd Barrett fans largely ignored this release and were openly shouting for the tracks to be illegally published on YouTube.

Caca Del Toro

When a Mexican Syd Barrett fan asked the Church, in May 2012, if we knew anything about a third solo album, allegedly recorded in a Spanish monastery, we didn't know this old urban legend would rip the Barrett community open like zombies with their entrails gushing out of their bellies.

All the Church did was looking into this (obvious) myth and reporting about it. The research was taken a step further by Antonio Jesús from the phantasmagorical blog Solo En Las Nubes who not only tracked down the rumour to its source, an article in a satirical magazine, but also managed to interview the person who started this hoax. What we thought was a fine piece of investigative journalism, taking months of research (the last articles were published in 2013), was considered inappropriate by those people who fill their time by studying the hair-length of Barrett (see: Hairy Mess) on coloured photographs that were once published in magazines back home.

However, the myth was far from over. In August of this year, four reel-to-reel tapes were sent in a luxury 'immersion' box to 4 people on 3 continents containing a 2014 re-imagination of the record. Two of them were the people who had published the Spanishgrass files on their blogs: Antonio Jesús & the Reverend. The two others were Rick Barnes, record collector, music investigator, administrator of the Facebook Syd Barrett group Birdie Hop and Stanislav Grigorev, whose Floydian con-artistic artwork even fooled the professionals that are Barrett's management.

Obviously the Church reported and commented about this (quite intriguing and musically excellent) record and published a review when it was streamed on Bandcamp (see: Spanishgrass by Spanishgrass, a review of the 2014 album). Useless to say that it was mostly disregarded by those fans who squawk orgasmically over photoshopped Barrett images where it looks as if someone has just vomited a bowl of three-coloured pasta all over him.

The general disinterest and the continuous backstabbing was a sign o' the times, so thought the Reverend, to seek up new pastures and to say goodbye with a cheerful bless you all.

Welcome to 2015.

♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Uschi Obermaier: Proletarian Chic

Uschi Obermaier? Not! — Not Uschi Obermaier.

Do a combined Syd Barrett Uschi Obermaier search on Google and you get approximate 4600 results tying both celebrities together, the first results being 'who's dating who' (now called Famousfix) related finds. On the fifth place, although this result will change from computer to computer is an entry from the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, but not the regular one.

Iggy's church can be found on various places on the interweb, most of the time just to gather some dust. One branch office though, is alive and kicking, and operates more or less independently from its headquarters. It is on the microblogging Tumblr platform, is aptly called The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and can be found at the following address: http://iggyinuit.tumblr.com.

The first image that is presented, also on the Famousfix platform, is the one of Syd Barrett on a Formentera beach, standing behind a woman who hides her nudity behind a red veil. That picture is actually copyrighted ~~and belongs to John Davies who took the picture when he went to the island in summer 1969~~.

Update 2015 02 25: John Davies contacted us to get some facts right.

The photo of the naked girl behind the red scarf was taken by Imo (Ian Moore) and not by me although I used it in an article I wrote about Cambridge, and credited Imo. Secondly, I went to Formentera first in 1963, with some friends from Cambridge, including Richard Eyre. We raved about the island so much that other friends started going there in the mid-sixties, including dear Syd. I still spend a lot of time there and one or two of those Cambridge "hipsters" still live there.

The article from John Davies can be found at A Fleeting Glimpse: The John Davies Collection. In another Church post (from 2012, time flies!) we have highlighted the yearly trek from the Cambridge hipsters to the island of Formentera: Formentera Lady.

John Davies

John Davies was one of those Cambridge hipsters who, between 1963 and 1965:

...made the transformation from schoolboys to aspiring beatniks’, swapping school uniforms for black polo necks and leather jackets, listening to Miles Davis, riding Vespas and smoking dope purchased from American GIs on the neighbouring airforce bases at Lakenheath and Mildenhall.

He was, with Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon, one of the people who mastered the Gaggia espresso machine in the coffee-house El Patio and who (probably) had his hand in the till when the boss wasn't around, as noted down by Nick Sedgwick in his roman à clef Light Blue with Bulges:

Lunch times, just keep the till open, ring up only half of the orders, keep a check on the rest, then pocket the difference.

Nick Sedgwick

Nick Sedgwick, who sadly passed away in 2011, wrote a Pink Floyd 'on tour' biography in the mid-seventies, but this was never published because none of the characters came out very well, with the exception of Roger Waters, who had commissioned the book. In August 2011 Waters promised to respect his friend's dying wish and release the manuscript as 'a simple PDF, a hardback version, and a super de-luxe illustrated limited edition' (see: Immersion). Transferring a typoscript to PDF literally takes a few minutes, but nothing has moved three and a half years later and the Church fears that this is just another case of the ongoing Waters vs Gilmour feud still lurking behind their smiling faces and fat wallets.

Update March 2018: meanwhile the book was (finally) published in 2017, see In The Pink hunt is open!

The Church has dedicated some space to the above picture before on the post Formentera Lady throwing the hypothesis around that the woman was one of Syd Barrett's girlfriends nicknamed Sarah Sky. This explanation was given to the Church by a Barrett fan who quoted her grandmother, but communication was interrupted before we could get more into details.

According to Emo (Iain Moore) however, the girl was an American tourist who was visiting Formentera for a day and had arrived at the house they all rented, close to a nude beach.

Famous Groupies

In December 2013 The Groupie Blog claimed the woman on the picture is German photo-model Uschi Obermaier. This was followed by another post in January 2014 where the author pretends Syd Barrett used to hit Obermaier when he had hysteria attacks.

Obviously the Church wanted to get further into this as none of the biographies mention any kind of romantic (nor aggressive) involvement between the two of them. As the (anonymous) author of the groupies blog was not contactable Uschi's autobiography High Times / Mein Wildes Leben was bought and searched for any Syd Barrett entries.

Mein Wildes Leben - Uschi Obermaier — Mein Wildes Leben, Uschi Obermaier.

Wild Thing

First things first: Obermaier's autobiography is a fine read, a three to three and a half star rating out of five.

Born in 1946 Uschi escapes the German conservative square society in the mid-sixties by clubbing at the Big Apple and PN in Munich where she is rapidly adopted by the in-crowd because of:
a) her good looks,
b) her dancing abilities and
c) her free spirit attitude.

She meets with Reinhard 'Dicky' Tarrach from The Rattles, who will have an international hit with The Witch, and soon promotes to international bands like The Kinks, whose Dave Davies is such an arrogant male chauvinist pig he deserves a separate entry. She is discovered by a photographer and a career as photo-model is launched.

Around 1967 Neil Landon from the hastily assembled The Flower Pot Men has a more than casual interest and he invites her to swinging London but she leaves as soon as she finds out about his jealous streaks. Back in Germany she doesn't fit in everyday society any more. She joins the alternative Amon Düül commune, following drummer Peter Leopold, and she makes it on a few of their jam-session albums as a maracas player.

Commune Love — Rainer Langhans & Uschi Obermaier, November 1969.

Through Amon Düül she falls in love with Rainer Langhans from Kommune 1 (K1). The Berlin communards live by a strict Marxism-Leninism doctrine where everything belongs to the group and everyday family life is forbidden. Individualism is totally annihilated at a point that even the toilet has its doors removed and telephone conversations need to be done with the speaker on. Good-looking Rainer and cover-girl Uschi become a media-hyped alternative couple, the German John and Yoko avant la lettre. She is by then Germany's most wanted, and some say: best paid, photo-model and as such not accepted by the community hardliners. Drinking cola or smoking menthol cigarettes is considered counter-revolutionary.

In January 1969 Uschi hears that Jimi Hendrix is in town and they meet for some quality time (short clip on YouTube). He visits the commune which gives it another popularity boost. Despite its utopian rules the communards have their intrigues, jealousies and hidden agendas, it becomes a heroin den and when one of the more extremist inhabitants hides a bomb in the house the place is raided by the police. Later that year the commune disbands. (It was also found out that the bomb was planted by an infiltrator, spying for the police.)

The couple moves for a while into the Munich Frauenkommune (women's commune), where their bourgeois manners and star allures aren't appreciated either, but you won't read that in Obermaier's memories. Movie director Katrin Seybold:

Do you remember when Uschi Meier and Rainer Langhans stayed with us? They really moved in at our place, like residents. And while the person who happened to have money normally bought twenty yoghurts for all of us, they bought the double for themselves and hid it in their room. They were a narrow-minded philistine couple within our community. They were not a bit generous. (Katrin Seybold and Mona Winter in Frauenkommune: Angstlust der Männer. Translation by FA.)

Leaving the all-women group in 1970 the couple starts the High-Fish (a pun on German Haifisch, or shark) commune, this time not a communist but a hedonistic group where sex, drugs and rock'n roll are combined into art happenings and/or sold as porn movies. The mansion may well have been the German equivalent of London's 101 Cromwell Road, which was some kind of LSD temple and the place where Syd Barrett used to live with some 'heavy, loony, messianic acid freaks', to quote Pete Jenner. (See also: An innerview with Peter Jenner )

The Munich Incident

In March 1970 the High-Fish commune was the centre of a rock'n roll tragedy if we may believe some accounts. In vintage Fleetwood Mac circles the event is better known as the Munich Incident. Ultimate Classic Rock:

“It was a hippie commune sort of thing,” said Fleetwood Mac guitarist Jeremy Spencer. “We arrived there, and [road manager] Dennis Keane comes up to me shaking and says, “It’s so weird, don’t go down there. Pete [Green] is weirding out big time and the vibes are just horrible.” Green was already set to leave the band, but this was, as [Mick] Fleetwood put it, “the final nail in the coffin.” Friends say Green was never the same after the Munich incident. (Taken from: 38 Years Ago: Fleetwood Mac Founder Peter Green Arrested for Pulling Shotgun on His Accountant.)

Jeremy Spencer, at Fleetwood Mac community The Ledge, continues:

It's true that we, or more accurately, Pete [Green] was met at Munich airport by a very beautiful girl [Uschi Obermaier] and a strange guy in a black cape [Rainer Langhans]. Their focus was definitely Pete for some reason. The rest of us didn't get it, but we discussed the weird vibes. We were invited to their mansion in the Munich forest that night. Pete was already jamming down in the basement (…) when I arrived with Mick [Fleetwood]. Dennis Keane [road manager] met us in the driveway, ashen faced and freaking out over the bad vibes and how weird Pete was going. I don't think Dennis was stoned, he just wanted to get out. (…) Anyway the house (more like a mansion) was a rich hippy crash pad. And it was spooky. There was some weird stuff going on in the different rooms. (Taken from: The Munich accident.)

Road manager Dennis Keane maintains they were spiked:

When we went inside there was a party of about 20 people sat around, we were offered a glass of wine, and the next thing I knew all hell broke loose in my head - we'd been drugged. Nobody had offered us any tablets; they just went and spiked us. (Taken from: Celmins, Martin: Peter Green: The Authorised Biography, Sanctuary, 2003)

Over the years the Munich Incident may have been exaggerated and Rainer Langhans, in his (free) autobiography, tries to bring the incident back to its true proportions:

After the performance of Fleetwood Mac in Munich, at the Deutsche Museum, the band went to the hotel. Peter Green came along with us, with the High-Fish people. (...) I quickly befriended him but he did not talk much. We were both, in a way, soul mates. A soft, vulnerable and loving man. Uschi had no special connection with him. She did not find him physically attractive. He was too hairy, she said, and also the music of Fleetwood Mac was too soft and not 'rocky' enough, while I found it very beautiful. We spent the night together with him, tripping, jamming and floating through the rooms on LSD. (...)

We met him twice in London in the next couple of weeks. It was him who brought us in contact with the Stones and Uschi was able to fulfill her dream of finally starting an affair with Jagger. With Fleetwood Mac everything seemed to be fine, but then Peter Green suddenly dropped out of the band. We heard he was so disgusted with the music business that he no longer wanted to be there. Much later the band put the responsibility on the night he was with us in Munich and claimed his trip with us had completely changed him. (Translated from German to English by FA.)

Peter Green's decline and retreat from the music industry is often compared to Syd Barrett's 1967 breakdown and although his descend into madness can't be linked to one single event, just as in the Barrett case, the gargantuan trip at the High-Fish community may have pushed him closer to the edge.

Conveniently Uschi Obermaier's excellent memory suddenly fails her when it comes to the Munich Incident. There is not a single word about it in her autobiography, but the Frauenkommune testimony from above already shows she can be rather discrete if she wants to.

Uschi Obermaier on the road. — Uschi Obermaier & Dieter Bockhorn.

Reeperbahn Prince

With their days of Marxist collectivism gone, she and Langhans are thinking of organising a German Woodstock festival. Peter Green does what is asked of him and a few days later the couple is standing in a London studio where Mick Jagger is working on Sticky Fingers. It is satisfaction at first sight and a treat for the paparazzi.

But German Woodstock never happens, the relation with Rainer Langhans comes to an end and Uschi, now an international photo-model, jumps back into the Munich nightlife, replacing the diet of Champagne and Quaaludes with the trendier heroin. In Hamburg she meets Dieter Bockhorn, who is officially an eccentric Reeperbahn strip-club owner and they start a turbulent relationship. When the Rolling Stones are in Germany for some recordings she gradually replaces Mick Jagger for Keith Richards, following them on a European tour and joining them in the USA. Bockhorn is not amused.

From then on she will have a bizarre love triangle: everyday life with Dieter and meeting Keith whenever his touring schedule allows him. She will always have a soft spot for Richards: “The most honourable bad boy I knew – and I knew some.”

In the mid-seventies Obermaier and Bockhorn, who has made the move to heroin as well, follow the hippie trail to Asia in a converted bus. It will be a trip through Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India that takes 622 days, 55141 kilometres with many weird, unbelievable adventures and a few narrow escapes. German press, as always, is interested in the adventures of Germany's baddest Kultpaar (cult couple) and they are regularly interviewed and photographed 'on the road'.

Back in Hamburg Uschi obviously returns to modelling but the couple fails to adapt to the western world and their relationship suffers gravely. She remarks that the hippie days are over and that punks have taken over the street. Bockhorn's business has suffered from the 20 months they were abroad and he struggles with monetary, legal and not quite so legal problems. They make plans to leave for America as soon as they can afford to leave.

In November 1980 they arrive in the USA where they will do a Kerouac, heroine free after an obliged detox boat journey. In summer they roam the continent and for three consecutive winters they stay in an alternative hippies and bikers camp in Baja California (Mexico). It is in Cabo San Lucas that Keith Richards arrives one day, carrying a guitar under the arm and giving a one man campfire gig on the beach, much to the amazement of the stoned onlookers. In the third year money has run out and the dharma bum life, with loads of alcohol, 'grass' and promiscuity, weighs heavily on both of them. On the last day of 1983 a drunk Dieter Bockhorn crashes his motorcycle on a truck ending his wild life.

Das Wilde Leben (movie). Natalia Avelon as Uschi.

Biography

For a while a depressed Uschi Obermaier feels that she has achieved nothing in her life and that she only got there through her pretty face. One of her pastimes is scrimshaw and she starts designing jewellery that she sells through the exclusive Maxfield store in Los Angeles, where Madonna and Jack Nicholson buy their trinkets. While she is certainly not an airhead and may have talent as an artist it can't be denied that her career is a case of, what the Germans amusingly describe as, Hurenglück.

On top of that the Krauts simply can't have enough of her. The story of her life as a groupie, a junkie, a starlet, her relations with a communist rebel, some Rolling Stones and a Reeperbahn crook who thought he was the Hamburg equivalent of Ronnie Kray make her autobiography Mein Wildes Leben (literally: my wild life) a page-turning bestseller.

It is followed by a biopic Das Wilde Leben, a home-country hit, but not abroad where it is baptised Eight Miles High. Reviews vary, but in our opinion it is a pretty average movie, with uneven and often caricatural scenes (check the Mick vs Keith scene for a ROTFL) and frankly Natalia Avelon's gorgeous cleavage has more depth than the script.

Uschi Obermaier. — Uschi Obermaier (1974) in a see-through dress, for comparison purposes only.

Back To Barrett

But to finally get back to the initial subject of this post, because in fine Church tradition we seem to have gone astray for a while.

Did Uschi Obermaier have a love-interest in Syd Barrett?
Did they meet at Formentera?
Did he hit her when he had hysteria attacks?

No.
No.
No.

We're afraid the answer is a triple no.

Doesn't Mein Wildes Lebens mention Syd Barrett at all?

Yes, his name is dropped once. He is mentioned in a comparison between Swinging London and 'its psychedelic music scene from early Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett' and the grey, conservative atmosphere in Germany where girls in miniskirts were insulted on the street.

Could Uschi have met Syd Barrett in Germany?

No. Vintage Pink Floyd, with Barrett in the band, never played Germany. A gig for the TV show Music For Young People in Hamburg, on the first and second of August 1967 was cancelled.

How about Syd hitting her?

The Barrett - Obermaier hysteria attack rumour is probably a mix-up from Syd's alleged violence towards his girlfriends and the tumultuous relationship between Obermaier and Bockhorn, who once pointed a gun at her and pulled the trigger (luckily the weapon jammed).

So how about Uschi Obermaier hiding her precious body behind a red veil on Formentera in the summer of 1969?

She writes that she visited Ibiza (the island next to Formentera) on the day Mick Jagger married Bianca, so that places the event in May 1971, nearly two years after Syd's Formentera picture. When Barrett was strolling on the beach Uschi was either at K1 in Berlin or at the Frauenkommune in Munich.

Well, I'm still not convinced until Uschi Obermaier herself tells us it never happened.

Why didn't you ask before, because we did. We managed to pass Uschi Obermaier the question through a mutual contact and we even got an answer back. Uschi Obermaier on the first of February 2015:

They are right, this is NOT me, they researched right. I was at this time either in Berlin or back in Munich.

Case closed then. Unless Sarah Sky wants to come forward, obviously.

Many thanks to: Bianca Corrodi, John Davies, Little Queenies, Nina, Uschi Obermaier, Jenny Spires.
This is, more or less, an update of a previous article that can be found here: Formentera Lady.

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013, p. 28, 83.
Langhans, Rainer: Ich Bin's, pdf version, 2008, p 39.
Palacios, Julian: Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, Plexus, London, 2010, p. 38.
Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd, 3C Publishing, 2008, p. 67.
Sedgwick, Nick: Light Blue With Bulges, Fourth estate, London, 1989, p. 37.

Videos:
Coffee Bar - YouTube - 8:19, a 1959 Look At Life documentary about the British 'coffee bar boom' in London.
The Munich LSD Party Incident - YouTube - 7:41 (interviews with Mick Fleetwood, Jeremy Spencer, John McVie, Dennis Keane, Peter Green, Clifford Davis).
Von wegen Liebe: Das schoenste Paar der APO - YouTube - 43:50, German documentary from Christa Ritter about Rainer Langhans, Uschi Obermaier and Kommune 1.
Jimi Hendrix with Uschi Obermaier in Berlin, January 1969 - YouTube - 0:35.

Coming Back To Life (David Gilmour, Tienen)

Yesterday I had the privilege of watching David Gilmour perform at the historical marketplace of the small city of Tienen. I'm very glad my LA-girl pushed me to get tickets as I was so disappointed in his solo album I didn't even wanted to go. You can read my review of the Rattle That Lock (RTL) album at: Attack the troll!

First Set

The concert started with three RTL-tunes and although they certainly have more balls in a live rendition, it didn't really help me to get in the mood. Actually I found the ambient-soundscape before the concert way better. Rattle That Lock had lost the annoying sample it was build around but that still doesn't make it a good song. What Do You Want From Me gave the concert a necessary kick-start, but as it was followed by The Blue the flow sank down like a soufflé that has just been taken out of the oven. So far the concert had just been hot air.

There was a second highlight with The Great Gig In The Sky with excellent vocal work by the backing singers, two ladies and a man. David Gilmour used the opportunity to say that the song had been written by Rick Wright, forgetting the little fact this the concert was actually taking place on Rick's birthday, but perhaps he had a valid reason as he also had his wedding anniversary to remember the next day. Understandably Great Gig was followed by A Boat Lies Waiting, Gilmour's musical eulogy to his old friend, but although I appreciate his honest effort to commemorate his friend it still is pretty average.

The set kept yoyoing between classics and RTL. Wish You Were Here, followed by Money, then In Any Tongue, the only song on his latest album that shows a momentarily glimpse of Floydian grandeur. High Hopes finished the first set.

As far as I was concerned, I couldn't call this a good concert by now. The general flow of the music was spoiled by the lesser RTL tracks, dragging the Floydian classics down. I gave it a 65% rating and was getting a bit depressed.

Second Set

But I also remembered my previous David Gilmour concert, in Amsterdam, in 2006, where the public politely applauded after the obligatory bunch of On An Island, but not with much gusto. The second set, however was an eargastic spectacle with Echoes. Of course, in those days, Rick was still moving the Moog, getting a standing ovation from the crowd.

The second set could only be better, I braindamaged myself. Luckily, it was.

Astronomy Domine hit my body like a cocaine snort. Fuck, fuck and triple fuck. This was an entry with a big E. Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Fat Old Sun. Then a drop down with Dancing Right In Front Of Me, one of the unnecessary fillers on RTL. But the upward momentum couldn't be stopped. Coming Back To Life was a treat and On An Island couldn't spoil the good mood I was in (that album is quite an intimate and exquisite jewel compared to Rattle, if you ask me).

The Girl In The Yellow Dress is just a San Tropez throw-it-away kind of song, so I just put my attention on things I could pick in my nose.

It was finally time to work towards an apotheosis. First with the obnoxious floor-filling disco of Today, that I loathed on the record, but that seemed more or less to do its work here. If you have to pick one memorable tune from A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, it is without a doubt Sorrow. Feeling the bass tones tremble in your stomach is a goosebumps experience. Run Like Hell is one of the worst Pink Floyd tracks if you ask me, but as a concert highlight it is.. well, a highlight. This was not a Pink Floyd tribute band, this was the real deal, helped by Mr. Brickman's fabulous light and laser show and an ear-splitting volume that you normally only have at Iron Maiden shows.

The second set also had its deal of yoyoing, but the last quarter made my rating rise to 80%

Encores

The encores started with some ticking clocks, enough for the public to go berserk. A drizzle had started at exactly the moment when Gilmour sang 'outside the rain, fell dark and slow', but now it was pouring. (A proof that this man has some connections at Valhalla.)

Lucky for me because so nobody could see the tears running from my face. Time was given the full treatment with Breathe (Reprise) and that seeded without a break into the song everyone was waiting for: Comfortably Numb.

What can one say about Comfy? Let's say nothing about it as mortal beings have not the words for it. Tongue-tied and twisted this earth-bound misfit rated the encores at a whopping 110%.

Oops, you did it again, Gilmour. See you again in a decade.

Setlist

First set: 5am, Rattle That Lock, Faces Of Stone, What Do You Want From Me, The Blue, The Great Gig In The Sky, A Boat Lies Waiting, Wish You Were Here, Money, In Any Tongue, High Hopes.

Second set: Astronomy Domine, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Fat Old Sun, Dancing Right In Front Of Me, Coming Back To Life, On An Island, The Girl In The Yellow Dress, Today, Sorrow, Run Like Hell.

Encores: Time/Breathe (Reprise), Comfortably Numb.

Pictures

A photo-impression of the show can be found at the Church's Tumblr, this page will be daily updated for about a week, so keep on visiting: David Gilmour, Tienen.

♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Psychedelic Celluloid

This article started as a review of Psychedelic Celluloid by Simon Matthews but ended up as a long-read about Pink Floyd at the movies. Sorry, I can't help it. (This article does not pretend to describe all Pink Floyd related movies.)

Contents: • Psychedelic Celluloid • The Big Boss • Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan • More Sound Delinquents • Psychedelic Celluloid (reprise) • À Coeur Joie • The Touchables • The Committee • The Magic Christian • More • The Body • Entertaining Mr. Sloane • La Vallée • Psychedelic Celluloid (listomania) • Salome • Psychedelic Celluloid (conclusion) • La Marge • Kindle rant •

Psychedelic Celluloid

I got a mail, a couple of months ago, from Simon Matthews, saying that he was working on a book that would explore the interaction between (psychedelic) pop music and British movies, in the golden era that was Swinging London. Not really coming as a surprise he added that Pink Floyd would figure in it a couple of times. I made a mental note to check it out, but like so many things it got lost in the dark corners of my soul. Call it divine intervention, or just a case of serendipity, but when Brain Damage did a short write-up of the publication it all came back to me and ten minutes later my Kindle was purring with joy.

Matthews starts his book by mentioning George Melly’s Revolt Into Style, a collection of sixties essays that has been borrowed from in all self-respecting Swinging London books in the past forty years. His introduction ends with the ad-hoc announcement that the most prominent ‘movie’ music performers between 1965 and '74 were not The Beatles, nor The Rolling Stones, but, yes, you’ve already guessed it: (The) Pink Floyd.

During my four decades long love/hate relationship with the band I have trodden many paths, some narrower than others, and so it may not come as a surprise to you that I have also tried to acquire some information on the lads in movieland. We all know that several members of the Cambridge mafia, revolving around the band, were dabbling into film: Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon, Mick Rock, Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson to name just a few.

It happily surprised me that, in the chapter ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of W1!’, Matthews is casually mentioning that the Floyd’s music can also be found on two kung fu flicks: ‘Fist of Fury’ and ‘Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan’. I am familiar with those as well as my quest into Floyd in filmland has brought me to the weirdest places. Did you know there is a Syd Barrett presence in a Freddy Mandingo movie? Well, let me tell you, you really don't want to know.

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A fistful of Floyd

唐山大兄 Tang Shan Da Xiong (The Big Boss) is a (fairly stupid) 1971 Hong Kong movie that put a fairly unknown martial artist into the spotlight. Bruce Lee plays a somewhat dorky fellow, revenging the murders on his relatives, who found out the local ice factory is being used for drugs smuggling.

When the movie arrived in an American version it was retitled as Fists Of Fury, creating a mess for generations to come as there would be another Bruce Lee movie the next year called Fist Of Fury (without the s). Perhaps it was the other way round, as even Wikipedia isn't really sure which is which (and neither does Simon Matthews). Most of the world calls the movie The Big Boss, except for Germany, who like to give the plot away and baptised it Die Todesfaust des Cheng Li (The deadly fist of Cheng Li).

Not only the title gives food for confusion. The movie has been issued in half a dozen of different versions with entirely different soundtracks.

A first music score was composed by Wang Fu-ling for the (original) Mandarin release. It is believed Cheng Yung-yo assisted with that soundtrack, although uncredited. This movie was horribly dubbed into English for a limited run in the Anglo-Saxon world.

A second soundtrack was made by German composer Peter Thomas when the movie was re-cut and re-dubbed for the international market. This 1973 westernised version had several erotic and gory scenes deleted, including the legendary scene where Bruce Lee cuts an adversary's head in two halves with a saw.

A third soundtrack, using the international cut, was arranged by Joseph Koo, for a Japanese release, probably around 1974.

A fourth soundtrack for a Cantonese release in 1983 combines the Joseph Koo score (#3) with the one of Peter Thomas (#2) and adds incidental 'stock' music. This one includes snippets from Pink Floyd and King Crimson (Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Two).

Peter Thomas (2016). Picture courtesy Stanislav Gregorev. — Peter Thomas (2016). Picture: courtesy Stanislav Gregorev.

Cut Into Little Pieces

An overview of Pink Floyd music in The Big Boss, thanks to the Martial Arts Music Wiki, with (dead) links to the exact sequence. Contains some minor spoilers.

Obscured by Clouds (1972, Obscured by Clouds)
Cheng Chao-an (Bruce Lee) and his cousin Hsiu are being followed by casino bouncers (13:05).
Repeated when Hsiao Mi (the big boss), his son Chiun and some henchmen are training (26:35).

Time (1973, The Dark Side of the Moon)
Hsiu and his brother visit the big boss at his mansion, trying to find out why two of their family members have disappeared (29:05).
Chen Chao-an (Bruce Lee) is invited for a meeting with the ice factory's manager (47:50).
Chen Chao-an visits the big boss to find out why four of his relatives have disappeared (01:06:14).

Time / The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (Entertainment) (1969, Ummagumma)
Mixed together this can be heard when Hsiu and his brother try to escape from Mi's killer squad (31:58).

As far as we know, the Floydian soundtrack was only available on a Cantonese 1983 re-release, explaining that a 1973 song anachronistically appears on a 1971 movie. It isn't certain if the Pink Floyd tracks were properly licensed as they are not mentioned on the end credits. To add insult to injury other cuts of the movie - with alternative 'hybrid' soundtracks and extra or longer scenes - have circulated, so it is all rather messy. For a (partial) comparison of the different versions: Big Boss @ Movie Censorship.

Update November 2022: a very detailed description of the different versions of the movie and its soundtracks can be found on IMDB: The Big Boss (1971) - Alternate Versions.

Bruceploitation

Bruce Lee died unexpectedly in 1973 and the posthumous documentary The Man and the Legend (original title: Li Xiao Long di Sheng yu si) contains next to the King Crimson piece that was already mentioned above, Pink Floyd's One of These Days (1971, Meddle) and On The Run (1973, The Dark Side of the Moon).

After 1973, several Bruceploitation movies were made, often with a conspiracy theme. Tian Huang Ju Xing (Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger) from 1976 is not different and has actor Bruce Li (real name: Ho Chung Tao) fighting his way through some shady drug deals in something that will not be remembered as a great martial arts movie. Even the soundtrack borrows completely from others and has next to Isaac Hayes and John Barry, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (1975).

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Trouble in the brothel

A decade before The Big Boss (1983 cut) another kung fu movie had found out about the martial strength of Pink Floyd.

愛奴 Ai Nu, awkwardly renamed for the western market as Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, is a 1972 Hong Kong movie about the 18-year old Ai Nu who is kidnapped from her family and brought to the governor's brothel.

After the default set of humiliations and punishments she apparently accepts her fate and learns the noble art of self-defence from 'madam' Chun Yi. Once a kung fu champ she uses her seductive powers to eliminate her wrongdoers, one by one.

Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is a mixture of blood vengeance, lesbian sensualism (in covert seventies style) and it has been named as one of the inspirational landmarks for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Every scene looks so artificially crisp it nearly hurts the eyes and if Walt Disney ever makes a movie set in a brothel this is certainly how it will look like. Undoubtedly a seventies classic, director Yuen Chor (Zhang Baojian) can, without doubt, be placed next to Borowczyk, Fellini or Pasolini.

Another one bites the dust

Unfortunately the original soundtrack can't really decide between traditional Chinese and Tex-Mex western style tunes. Two Pink Floyd tracks of the 1970 Zabriskie Point soundtrack are prominent in three decisive scenes. (The links given here point to a very bad copy, dubbed in English, with terrible sound.)

Come In Nr. 51 (Your Time is Up)
Ai Nu has just been tortured by Chun Yi, who promptly falls in love with her (link).
After the final duel, when Ai Nu kisses her dying lover goodbye (link).

Heart Beat, Pig Meat
A few seconds of Heart Beat, Pig Meat at 43 minutes when Ai Nu and her lesbian lover openly discuss the first murder (not present on the YouTube version).
(The DVD has a documentary about the movie that uses the Zabriskie soundtrack even more, by the way.)

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Fen Nu Qing Nian (Street Gangs of Hong Kong or The Delinquent) — Scene from The Delinquent.

More Sound Delinquents

In Psychedelic Celluloid, Simon Matthews writes that Pink Floyd can be heard in two kung fu movies, but there is more, much more...

The Kung Fu Magazine forum has a 47-pages thread with, at the time of writing, 643 verified tracks (of different composers, bands and artists) that have been used, legally or illegally, in dozens of films. Sometimes the songs are used in its entirety, but often snippets of a second or less have been 'sampled' into the soundscape. Venomous Centipede at shaolinchamber36.com came up with the following impressive Pink Floyd list. All Hong Kong or Taiwan movies with a Pink Floyd soundtrack (Updated January 2019):

April Fool	Come in Number 51, Your Time is Up - Zabriskie Point
Bedevilled, The	Echoes - Meddle
Deadly Chase, The *	(aka Zhui sha, Impact 5, Karate Motos - 1973) Mudmen - Obscured By Clouds (* added by ShawFan17)
Chinatown Capers	The Grand Vizier's Garden Party – Ummagumma When You're In - Obscured By Clouds
Delinquint, The	The Grand Vizier's Garden Party – Ummagumma Astronomy Domine - Ummagumma
Fist of Unicorn *	One of These Days - Meddle (* added by: OldPangYau.)
Gambling For Gold	The Grand Vizier's Garden Party - Ummagumma Astronomy Domine - Ummagumma Atom Heart Mother - Atom Heart Mother
Happenings, The	Echoes - Meddle Absolutely Curtains - Obscured By Clouds
Hunchback, The	One of These Days - Meddle
Kung Fu Inferno	Echoes - Meddle
Legends of Lust	Heart Beat, Pig Meat - Zabriskie Point
Marianna *	(aka Bin Mei, 1982) Obscured By Clouds - Obscured By Clouds (* added by Panku)
Ninja Warlord *	Echoes - Meddle One Of These Days - Meddle (* added by Dithyrab)
Operation White Shirt	Time - Dark Side of the Moon On the Run - Dark Side of the Moon
Pier, The	Time - Dark Side of the Moon
Roaring Lion, The	One of These Days - Meddle
Tales of Larceny	Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Tiger Jump	Time - Dark Side of the Moon
Training Camp	Atom Heart Mother - Atom Heart Mother
Wits to Wits *	(aka Lang bei wei jian , From China with Death, Con Man and the Kung Fu Kid) Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun - A Saucerful of Secrets (* added by Jimbo)
Young Rebel, The	Time - Dark Side of the Moon On the Run - Dark Side of the Moon

So prepare a big bag of popcorn if you want to check these out.

Update November 2022: many thanks to Kung Fu Fandom for mentioning our blog on their Floyd soundtrack list.

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Psychedelic Celluloid (reprise)

Let’s get back to Simon Matthews’ Psychedelic Celluloid. After the introduction and a chapter dedicated to Pink Floyd the main bulk of the book consists of a chronological listing of about 120 movies, starting with Richard Lester’s The Knack (1965) and ending with Stuart Cooper’s Little Malcolm and his struggle against the Eunuchs (1974), described by some as the most expensive home movie ever made as it could only be seen at George Harrison’s place.

There is nearly a movie on every page, with a picture, a short description, some info on the director, the actors and its soundtrack, but that is exactly where the cookie crumbles, as this information is almost identical to what you can already find on IMDB and Wikipedia. The author could've added more anecdotes or juicy rumours if you ask me. Take Performance, for instance, not a word about the orgies and the drugs in front and behind the camera, as Iggy Rose once testified on this holy place (see: Iggy & the Stones). But of course, books have already been written about that movie alone.

Several times when I was at the point of saying 'this is starting to get interesting' the article ends and makes place for another one, leaving my hunger unsatisfied. The intriguing story of the (disappeared) movie Popdown is a perfect example. Starring Zoot Money, with music of Brian Auger, Blossom Toes, Dantalion's Chariot, Julie Driscoll, Gary Farr and a couple of others. Its history is so fascinating that it could easily have taken six pages, but it stops at two. After reading that entry I spend a good hour browsing the Internet for more information, reading about a maniacal fan, Peter Prentice, who nearly spend a fortune trying to locate a surviving copy. Unfortunately I never found out if he succeeded in his mission, or failed. Perhaps that is what Simon Matthews really wants as I'm pretty sure he knows more about these movies than he was allowed to write. And the beauty of this guide is that it assembles a list of 120 'flower power' films in the first place.

Two Weeks In September, French-Dutch poster.

The Pink Jungle

Pink Floyd are the uncrowned champions of the 'pop' movies during the psychedelic heyday, roughly from the mid-sixties till the mid-seventies, and that despite the fact that they even rejected a soundtrack for Kubrick. (Even more of a surprise is that Amon Düül ends second.) I count 26 Pink Floyd entries in the book and 5 for Syd Barrett. Let's have a nerdy look through our pink tinted glasses, shall we?

À Coeur Joie (1967), aka Two Weeks in September

This movie is only mentioned in one of the appendixes of the book. Starring Brigitte Bardot it is the story of a model, with a photo shoot assignment in London, who has to choose between her husband and a much younger passionate toy boy. This was Bardot's first attempt to excel in a serious movie, away from the sex kitten romantic comedies she had done before. Probably that could be the reason why the public didn't want to see it, but critics say the movie tried to look sophisticated but ended up pretty dull. Next to BB two English popstars play a small role: Murray Head and Mike Sarne, who had a number one hit in 1962 with Come Outside.

In a 2015 BBC documentary 'Wider Horizons' it was revealed that David Gilmour sang two tracks for the movie, composed by Michel Magne: Do You Want To Marry Me? and I Must Tell You Why. This was before he joined Pink Floyd and that is perhaps why Psychedelic Celluloid isn't aware of this.

The Holy Church Tumblr blog has several links to the songs and the movie itself: À Coeur Joie.

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The Touchables (1968)

Simon Matthews throws an ace with the news that The Touchables has Interstellar Overdrive during one of its scenes, something that – as far as I know – has never been put in a Floydian biography before. It is one of those thirteen in a dozen, throwaway, sex comedies with a plot 'thinner than a paper towel'.

Four good-looking beauties, who like to walk around in their underwear and who are literally living in a bubble, kidnap a wax sculpture of Michael Caine and then repeat the act with a popular pop singer, whom they abuse as a sex slave, not that he resists a lot. After having a go at the four of them he finally tries to escape but they shoot him down. The situation looks grim for a minute, but even that can't spoil the fun. It all looks like one of the less interesting Monkees shows.

Add a subplot with a few gangsters and, for an incomprehensible reason, some professional wrestlers and you have a product that creates immediate amnesia after watching it.

The story was written by Donald Cammell who would later enlarge some of its situations for Performance.

Dumb movie. Great find.

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The Committee (1968)

The Committee entry has one of Mick Rock's pictures with Syd Barrett standing in front of his Pontiac Parisienne - more of that car later (obviously) - which I found a bit weird, even for a Barrett buff like me.

Then it occurred to me that Barrett had first been asked to compose its soundtrack, without the Floyd. The reason is not entirely clear, maybe Barrett was thought to be cheaper than the entire band, maybe Peter Jenner wanted to give Syd's solo career a boost (although he was officially still in the band), maybe it was believed that Syd would better understand the movie's philosophy, inspired by the theories of R.D. Laing. Whatever...

On the 30th of January 1968, a couple of days after the Floyd – now with David Gilmour - 'forgot' to pick Syd up for a gig, he arrived one and a half hour late at Sound Techniques without a guitar and without a band. A guitar was found, Nice-drummer Brian 'Blinky' Davidson and Barrett-buddy Steve Peregrin Took were presumably called in and five and a half hours later a twenty minutes music piece was in the can. Unfortunately Barrett thought it sounded better backwards so at midnight they called it a day and all went home.

The collaboration with Barrett was stopped because his studio time was too expensive and their budget was practically zero. Syd didn't show any further interest for the project either and when a studio employee tried to phone him there was 'nobody home'. Roger Waters heard about the fiasco and agreed to do the soundtrack with the rest of the band, minus Syd, in an improvised studio for practically nothing. Max Steuer in Sparebricks:

The address was 3, Belsize Square, London NW3, the basement flat of the painter Michael Kidner and his wife Marion. (…) It was amazingly professional.

Steuer remembers that Syd's piece was 'jazzy, with a groove' and that Peter Jenner took the tape with him. In 2014 we asked Jenner about the whereabouts of this 'holy grail'. Peter Jenner in The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit innerview:

As far as I know I am not in possession of these tapes, I might have been given a copy, but surely not the masters. (…) Many things disappeared with the sudden collapse of Blackhill. My recollection is that they were less than amazing. However if I come across anything I will let you know.

The Committee is now part of Pink Floyd's Early Years box set, without – of course – the Syd Barrett tape. Unfortunately Psychedelic Celluloid was already in the can when that set was released and several times the author states that a Pink Floyd soundtrack has not been officially released, while some of it can now be found on the luxury box set.

Update 2017: in our next article we dig deeper into The Committee soundtrack, with a remarkable theory from Simon Matthews: The Rhamadan – Committee Connection

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The Magic Christian (1969)

There is no immediate link with Pink Floyd in The Magic Christian, but Gretta Barclay and her boyfriend Rusty Burnhill worked on it. Gretta Barclay in the interview she gave at the church:

We did some film extra work for The Magic Christian. I have a feeling Iggy came with us? But I cannot confirm this.

As the movie was shot in March 1969, Iggy could indeed have been around. It wouldn't be the first time that Iggy was on a film set, nor the last. Another Syd Barrett friend made it even in front of the camera. One of Raquel Welsh's topless slave girls in the galleon scene was none other than Jenny Spires, but she didn't make it to the final cut, so don't ruin your eyes looking for her.

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More (1969)

How could we forget More? This Barbet Schroeder movie follows the hippie trail to Ibiza, but instead of sea, sun and illicit sex it adds the deadly ingredient of heroin. Pink Floyd wrote the soundtrack.

There are some differences between the music on the album and the songs in the movie. 'Main Theme' lacks some guitar and 'Cymbaline' has alternate lyrics and is sung with a 'head voice'. The movie also contains a short instrumental 'Hollywood' that is not on the album. The Early Years compilation includes an early version of this track, titled 'Song 1'.

The song that has made fans go crazy for almost five decades is 'Seabirds'. It is a pastoral hymn à la Grantchester Meadows, but unfortunately it can only be heard during a party scene in the film. When Pink Floyd announced that 'Seabirds' was included in The Early Years box this was considered as one of those great revelations everyone was hoping for. Unfortunately the song in the box was not 'Seabirds', but an alternate take of the instrumental Quicksilver. Apparently the master tape of the 'real' Seabirds was given to the movie producers who used it for their final cut and who destroyed the only copy afterwards.

Seabirds is probably lost forever. (For our critical review of The Early Years compilation, see: Supererog/Ation: skimming The Early Years.)

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The Body (1970)

Simon Matthews overzealously implies that Pink Floyd did the soundtrack for The Body, although it was a co-operation between Ron Geesin and Roger Waters (who can be found on 8 tracks of 22). One of these, Give Birth To A Smile, was recorded with the entire band, but it was credited as a Roger Waters solo effort. (Give Birth To A Smile was considered for inclusion on The Early Years box, but at the end it didn't happen.)

Psychedelic Celluloid also states that:

The majority of the music was assembled from sounds made by the human body – burps, farts, coughs, sneezes, heartbeats, human voices, general stomach noises, etc. (p. 132)

This is only the case on two numbers (from 22), Our Song and Body Transport.

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Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970)

Described by the author as a considerable tour de force of bad taste he rightfully notes that Georgie Fame wrote the soundtrack, but he fails to say that the most important actor of the film, a Pontiac Parisienne with numberplate VYP 74, first belonged to Mickey Finn and later to Syd Barrett. It would have been a fun anecdote.

Check some pictures of the movie on our Tumblr page: Entertaining Mr. Sloane.

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Miquette Giraudy (2016). — Miquette Giraudy, with The Orb (2016).

La Vallée (1972)

During the making of the soundtrack of La Vallée, so tells us Nick Mason, there was a (financial) misunderstanding between Pink Floyd and the film company. The band removed the title from the album and called it Obscured By Clouds instead. But for once Pink Floyd didn't have the last laugh as the movie was immediately sub-titled Obscured By Clouds for the English market.

Perhaps the weirdest thing is that Matthews finds La Vallée (Obscured by Clouds) a well made film with excellent photography. That last one is certainly true but most of the world is still trying to find out what the hell the story was all about. La Vallée regularly makes it into 'worst movies of all times' lists.

Throughout Psychedelic Celluloid the author duly notes when a rock or pop star occupies a (minor) role in a film. However, for La Vallée he overlooked the fact that Miquette Giraudy, wife of Steve Hillage, member of Gong and System 7, is playing the part of Monique.

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Listomania

The last part of the book has several entries that didn't make it to the central part, for one reason or another.
Appendix 1 (fiction) mentions Zabriskie Point, not a London based movie, and the French À Coeur Joie (see above).
Appendix 2 (documentaries and concert films) has Pink Floyd in Dope (1968) and Sound Of The City (1973).
Appendix 3 (shorts) lists Peter Whitehead's London '66-'67 with Pink Floyd playing the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream.
Appendix 4 (TV specials, documentaries & concerts) mentions the Belgian 'Pink Floid' special that has been unfortunately released on the Early Years with the wrong soundtrack.

One category that can't be found in this pretty coherent and detailed work are the many (perhaps too many) underground and avant-garde movies, for instance from the London film-makers' co-operative LFMC, started in 1966 by Stephen Dwoskin, Bob Cobbing and others in the legendary Better Books shop. Carolee Schneemann's Viet Flakes (1965) that puts happy pop songs over Vietnam images isn't there, nor is Malcolm Le Grice's Berlin Horse (1970) with a Brian Eno soundtrack and – oblesse oblige - neither is Iggy, Eskimo Girl from Anthony Stern that has See Emily Play. But avant-garde art movies probably belong more in specialised studies for a specialised clientele (and at special rates, Oxford University wanted me to pay £119 to consult an article).

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Salome (1970)

On three different occasions Simon Matthews mentions a Spanish movie that claims to include on its soundtrack a rearrangement by Jorge Pi of a Pink Floyd arrangement of Richard Strauss' Salome. Somewhat exasperated he adds 'if anyone ever finds a copy and manages to investigate'...

Well it is not that the Church didn't try.

In 1970 Rafael Gassent, the 'father' of indepent Valencian cinema, made a 51 minutes adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play and Richard Strauss opera Salomé. According to the IMDb movie database the soundtrack is composed by Richard Strauss, arranged by Pink Floyd and re-arranged by Jorge Pi.

Rafa Gasent, also known as Rafael Gassent and all combinations in between, is an experimental Spanish movie maker whose 23 and some movies are even more difficult to track down than those of Anthony Stern. Salome was allegedly shot in the Sagunto castle, inspired by the Andy Warhol school of filming and is apparently a blend of the hippie era and Spanish avant-garde 'grunge' from the early seventies. No wonder that these experimental directors weren't liked by general Franco and his Opus Dei cohorts and that these movies were only shown in underground clubs. Rafael Gasent would later work for Spanish television and his cinematographic work is now and then shown on movie festivals.

Obviously the Holy Church tried to find out what this 'arranged by Pink Floyd' means at the end credits of the Salome movie, but we couldn't find a copy to check if it is really there or not.

The Church also asked Rafael Gasent Garcia for information, in English and in Spanish, but unfortunately posting holiday pictures is a more interesting activity for him than sparing a minute for some quick comment.

So until somebody clears this up, there is a kind of enigma here. Unless...

Update 2019 05 18: The reason why this movie can't be found nowadays is because all copies were seized by the Spanish censorship administration in the nineteen seventies. For an update, please check: Salome Unveiled.

Pinfloy

This doesn't mean that the Church doesn't have a theory. Personally I think it was nothing but a youthful joke, like the Spanishgrass hoax, and that Gasent didn't use Pink Floyd as a bandname but 'pinfloy' as a noun.

Just like the Dutch language had the term 'beatle' in the sixties, for a long-haired no-good (my mother used it all the time to shout at me), the term 'pinfloy' was introduced in Andalusia in the seventies as an equally pejorative term. A 'pinfloy', to paraphrase Antonio Jesús, is somebody who acts silly, crazy, or who is quite gullible, naive and/or a bit rare.

In underground and artistic circles however, 'pinfloy' may have been re-appropriated and stripped from its derogatory meaning although it was still used for alternative people from the wackier side of the spectrum.

If Jorge Pi (or Jordi Pi) is indeed the musician of the Desde Santurce a Bilbao Blues Band, as Simon Matthews writes, this all starts to make sense. The DsaBBB were a satirical band, who weren't from Bilbao to start with and who didn't play the blues either. The band mixed rock, charleston, folk, tango and forms of classical music, combined with humorous lyrics. This was not always appreciated by the Franco regime and in one case they were even arrested.

So, to get this over with once and for all, the Salome soundtrack may not contain a Pink Floyd arrangement but a Jorge Pi 'pinfloy' treatment of Richard Strauss, meaning that the Richard Strauss melody was given a goofy swing.

Case closed then, unless somebody else comes up with a more coherent theory.

Salomé 1970 -2017

Around 2015 Gasent revised, re-imagined and reconstructed a new version of this lost movie, using material that could be traced back in several archives. The 18 minutes short (14 minutes without credits) was shown on the Mostra de València - Cinema del Mediterrani festival in October 2018 and has been published on YouTube as well.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit has written an article about this version at: Salome Unveiled.

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Psychedelic Celluloid (conclusion)

Psychedelic Celluloid is an excellent vade mecum, a quick reference book, for those that are interested in the interplay of British bands and movies of the psychedelic years. The description of the individual titles could have been more detailed at points, but somewhere I have the feeling that the author wants us, the reader, to move our lazy ass and go look for it ourselves. As a whole, bringing these 120 titles together in one volume is already a gargantuan task. Mission accomplished then.

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La Marge (1976) aka The Streetwalker, aka Emmanuelle '77, aka Emanuela '77.

Here is a movie that isn't mentioned in Psychedelic Celluloid, for obvious reasons. First: the setting takes place in Paris, not in London. Second: it was made outside the 'swinging London' decade, covered in the book. Still it is a must-see for people who want to know more about Floyd in film.

There is a French comedy about a film director who sells his dramatic script to a movie studio and finds out that he is expected to make a porn flick instead. This is exactly what happened to Walerian Borowczyk whose filmography evolved from art-house avant-garde to European soft-core, including the almost parodical Emmanuelle V in 1986.

Borowczyk started with ingenious stop motion and animations and shocked the public (and the censors) with the live action Immoral Tales (1974), The Story of Sin (1975) and The Beast (1975), movies that acquired a cult status and that placed him next to contemporary directors as Stanley Kubrick and Roman Polanski. These directors didn't avoid experiment either but were popular while Borowczyk was only known to a small circle of critics and movie buffs. For his next production he wanted to go for something less shocking and more accessible...

All the necessary ingredients for a successful product were there:
• Andy Warhol superstar and beautiful boy Joe Dallesandro, hot in France after appearing in Serge Gainsbourg's movie Je t'aime moi non plus, was hired for the male lead role.
• Sylvia Kristel was the female lead. Although remembered as a sex-goddess, she was actually an excellent much-wanted actress and Europe's box-office queen (thanks to the Emmanuelle franchise).
• A top-score soundtrack was assembled with French songs, old and new, and international hits by 10CC (I'm Not In Love), Elton John (Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)), Sailor (Glass of Champagne) and Pink Floyd (Shine On You Crazy Diamond).
• Bernard Daillencourt was the cinematographer and his work for Borowczyk was so appreciated that David Hamilton hired him for his flimsy but utterly lucrative erotic trilogy: Bilitis, Laura and Tendres Cousines. Actress Camille Lariviere would also figure in Bilitis.
• The original novel, from writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues, had won the Prix Goncourt for the best novel of 1967. He had also written The Girl on a Motorcycle, put to film with Alain Delon and a young Marianne Faithfull.

Joe Dallesandro in La Marge. — Joe Dallesandro in La Marge (screenshot).

Warning: spoilers ahead.

La Marge is a dramatic mixture of love, death, adultery, suicide and full frontal Euro-chic. A rich and handsome vine-grower, madly in love with his family, visits a brothel on a business trip to Paris. After the obligatory nookie he receives a letter that his son has drowned in the swimming pool and that his wife has taken her own life. Instead of returning home for the double funeral the widower tries to cope with the tragedy by visiting the prostitute who feels that something basically has changed in his, and her, attitude.

About everything was present to make this movie the autumn box-office hit of 1976 but La Marge sank without a trace. The blowjob scene, with Shine On You Crazy Diamond on the background, should have been tattooed in our brains, like Marlon Brando's butter extravaganza in Last Tango In Paris. To cash in on Kristel's fame the movie was renamed (and re-dubbed) as Emmanuelle '77 (or Emanuela 77) but that only added to the confusion. It has been rumoured that new scenes, filmed by another director without the knowledge of Borowczyk, were added for an American cut, known as The Streetwalker, but nobody has ever managed to compare both versions.

The soundtrack, with 10CC, Elton John and Pink Floyd, may have been the reason why the movie has never became a cult classic in later years. Pink Floyd's legal stubbornness, so is whispered, has prevented a general release on DVD. A Japanese version does exist, with several blurs at strategic places, and there also floats a French Canal+ copy around, omitting a few (voyeuristic) scenes.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Tumblr has some pictures: La Marge.

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The Magic Christian in Psychedelic Celluloid.

Kindle rant

While I would give the book Psychedelic Celluloid a seven rating (out of ten) for its contents, I am somewhat disappointed in the Kindle edition.

The book, as a traditional book, is beautifully printed, with a lot of white-space next to the text to include pictures in a separate column or to interact with the text as in the 'Magic Christian' example at the left.

However, the Kindle version does not allow in-text searching, nor adding notes, nor changing the font size. On my medium sized tablet screen (10.81 by 6.77 inches / 27.46 × 17.20 cm) the letters are the size of miniature ants due to the fact that every page can only be shown in its entirety. The picture legends have golden letters on a white background and are completely unreadable (you can't change the background colour either, as in other Kindle books).

Reading the Kindle version of Psychedelic Celluloid is like reading a badly xeroxed book but with the one difference that on good old photocopies you could still scribble some notes.

I would like to say to Oldcastle Books and/or Amazon this is a fucking disgrace and that you only bring the author's reputation down with this kind of crap.

Still a good book though.

Simon Matthews
Psychedelic Celluloid
Oldcastle Books, 2016.
224 pages.

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The Church wishes to thank: Gretta Barclay, Vanessa Flores, Stanislav Grigorev, Rich Hall, Peter Jenner, JenS, Antonio Jesús, Göran Nyström, OldPangYau, Panku, Dylan Roberts, Venomous Centipede.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (other than the above mentioned links):
Jesús, Antonio: Curiosidades - Pinfloy, un vocablo del sur, Solo En Las Nubes, 16.09.2011.
Mason, Nick: Inside Out: A personal history of Pink Floyd, Orion Books, London, 2011 reissue, p. 169.
Muños, Abelard: Rafa Gassent, director de cinema, La Veu, 07.01.2014.
Palacios, Julian: Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, Plexus, London, 2010, p. 320.
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 119.

Our Tumblr page contains a description of another movie with Pink Floyd music, that we deliberately didn't include here: Alex De Renzy‘s Little Sisters (1972).

Think Pink

Then

In September 2017 the Church was contacted by Robert Treadway who informed us that he was involved in a movie project for which Paula Christy and Marsha Allen had written a script.

That last name was the only one that rang a bell, Marsha Allen is a long time member of the Birdie Hop group and we may (or may not) have virtually encountered before on other Barrett meeting places, like the now pretty comatose Late Night. She also happens to be one of Iggy’s (many) followers.

By then Iggy had disappeared from the net for reasons we couldn’t divulge, but we passed her a message from the movie makers. We know for certain she was aware of it, that she was thrilled about the project and that she was even willing to advise them.

Unfortunately, time ran short and communication between Iggy and the movie team was lost forever on that dreary December day.

Now

Robert Treadway, after hearing the sad news of Iggy's passing, confirmed us that they would move forward with the project and now, nearly a year later, a teaser has been released for Pinked – a Syd Barrett Film, on YouTube.

The movie makers enlisted the help of Jim Prues, of Panoptic Media, who directed a number of campaign videos for Bernie Sanders and others. The initial plan was to make a short promo movie to generate financial backing and that is the version that was released now.

The actors were, according to our inside source, incredible, rising above the material. Anthony Dain and Samantha Roman studied Syd and Iggy in depth before starting their scenes. The lighting director tried to get the feel and colour of The Madcap Laughs cover shoot.

And, obviously, the floorboards had to be recreated as well.

Filmed in July 2018 it seems that an ‘angel investor’ hasn’t showed up yet. The plan to turn the 8 minutes trailer into a twenty to thirty minutes short has, we fear, been postponed although there are rumours that they would like to start a crowdfunding campaign.

Pinked

Pinked - A Syd Barrett Film, Panoptic Media, 2018. Directed by Jim Prues.

Anthony Dain: Syd Barrett
Samantha Roman: Iggy the Eskimo

Paula Christy: screenplay, executive producer
Marsha Allen : screenplay, executive producer

Length: 8 minutes 33 seconds.

Hear it and see it first and we'll talk about it afterwards...

Update:2018 12 08: the movie has been removed from YouTube to correct the 'David Gilmore' error in the introduction, so we were informed.

Syds Out - Gilmore In. — Syd's Out - Gilmore In.

Introduction

An off-screen voice telling us that Syd Barrett, co-founder of Pink Floyd, has left the band and is planning to make a solo album. A fake newspaper article shows us how a certain David Gilmore (sic) has replaced Syd. We’re not certain if this error has been put in deliberately or not, although newspapers (and record sleeves) have misspelled his name before.

Scene 1a

A jealous Iggy complains that she saw Syd over at Gilmour’s den. Syd explains that he was there because David (and Roger Waters) will produce his first solo album. This scene is based upon Iggy’s story that she once had a row with Syd at Gilmour’s flat, ruining the new Pink Floyd album that was playing on a turntable. Notice the use of some of Barrett’s lyrics in the dialogue.

Scene 1b

Syd gets angry at the fact that his band doesn’t want him any more and that he has to go solo. Iggy seems to be unaware of the fact that Syd started The Pink Floyd.

Scene 2

Syd painting and explaining to Iggy he can see colour and sound.

Scene 3

Syd proposing to paint on Iggy and wishing to make a child with her (a true story, based upon the Mark Blake article about Iggy: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2).

The movie-set. — The movie-set with painted floorboards & all.

Reception

Initial reactions from the fans are quite negative to say the least:

The bad script. The bad acting. The fact that Ig looks like a two-bit Bollywood starlet. A lot of bad can be packed into 8 minutes.

What bothers most Sydiots is that the actors don’t move, talk and act like their real-life counterparts.

Well, perhaps that is because it is a movie and a movie is the joined vision of the director, the authors and the actors. And in true Floydian tradition these visions may sometimes clash, compromises will have to be made, budget problems will arise, etcetera... etcetera...

The Reverend's Idea

Time for the Reverend to leave his pulpit and descend to the masses.

As one of those few privileged people who have spoken to Iggy (for dozens of hours) I immediately remarked that the girl who plays her doesn’t speak, doesn’t articulate, doesn’t react like the real Iggy does/did. But that is not the point, this is not a documentary.

The plan is to make a movie about a Syd and an Iggy and that is all that counts, even if it isn’t perfect and doesn’t fit with the image we have from them.

I can vividly imagine how an excited Iggy would have reacted, in that loud voice of her that could render any train horn useless.

“FELIX, THEY’RE MAKING A MOVIE ABOUT ME!”

And that’s all that matters.

Our Tumblr page has got some 30+ pictures, some slightly NSFW: Pinked.

Many thanks to: Marsha Allen, Pasquale Muzzupappa, Psych62, Antonio Jesús Reyes, Robert Treadway, The Iggy Rose Archives. All pictures: © Marsha Allen / Panoptic Media, 2018.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Happy New Year 2019

A Nice (censored) Pair. Harvest (Spain) ‎
1J 278-05.510.

Happy New Year, sistren and brethren of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Past year was not entirely uneventful.

January had Iggy’s fan-base still mourning about her passing. We have always been discreet about it, but may we thank the many people who have supported Iggy, also financially, over the years? This in shrill contrast with those extraordinary gifted sixties ‘I’m a good friend of Syd’ photographers who immortalised Iggy in their endless collection of coffee table books but always refused to give her one single penny. Nuff said.

Truth is that Syd Barrett is a pretty small, but nicely cultivated, niche market in the great Pink Floyd ocean and that Iggy fandom is an even smaller part of that. The Syd Barrett legacy has been artificially hyped in the past, not that we complain about that, but it seems to have lost some of its value recently.

While the Holy Church blog only publishes articles at an irregular basis, most of the time due to the Reverend’s continuous state of procrastination, its micro-blog counterpart at Tumblr thrives pretty well, with daily submissions. That is because the iggyinuit.tumblr.com page mostly reblogs content from others, which is nice and easy and also very unimaginative, resulting in continuous repetition of the same songs and pictures. But sometimes something interesting sees the light of day and that is what we will present you hereafter.

Syd @ Formentera. Picture: Iain Emo Moore. — Syd at Formentera, 1969. Pictures: Iain 'Emo' Moore. Considered porn and removed by the Tumblr gestapo.

Tumblrrefugee

A last (and serious) word before the fun starts. Except when you have been living in a micro-bubble, you may have heard that Tumblr recently deleted thousands of blogs, because they contained female nipples (and other physical attributes), for heaven’s sake. This is not the time nor the place to discuss Tumblr’s incompetence (and - frankly - unwillingness) to delete illegal content for the past decade, but we may not stay silent either.

Tumblr's panic reaction consisted of throwing out the baby with the bathwater (pun certainly not intended). December 2018 gave us a new word, a new hashtag, that can now be found on social media that are still - more or less - progressive minded: #Tumblrrefugee. (But even those websites are pretty reluctant, Ello silently adjusted (read: tightened) their community guidelines anti-dating the addendum to make us believe it was changed mid-2017.)

Tumblr's censoring machine however went into frantic overdrive and deleted many pictures that weren't 'porn', not even in their ludicrous definition of that term. Mairabarrett, whose wonderful Tumblr-blog we have shamelessly plundered for the last few months, not only had the above pictures from Syd Barrett at Formentera deleted, but also pictures of her... cat.

It’s a sign of the times but it is weird and confusing that publishing the top middle picture of the Pink Floyd album ‘A Nice Pair’, other than censored, may now be a thing of the past. O tempora, o mores!

Tumblr Overview 2018

Here is a wink and a nod at good old 2018.

Cambridge fed up with Syd. — January 2018: is Cambridge fed up with Syd? No not really, just stop adding Syd's name to your petty gigs, events and projects, hoping it will attract fans and their fat wallets.

Zoe Reviews Pink Floyd. — February 2018: 3 year old Zoe reviews Pink Floyd. Probably more accurate than all those professionals have ever done.

Nick Mason declared dead. — March 2018: (Nick Mason) Recent reports of my passing have been greatly exaggerated... I think?

Nick Mason is alive and kicking allright. — April 2018: Nick Mason is alive and kicking allright and presents a new Floydian incarnation that will baffle fans in Europe and America.

May 2018: Syd Barrett answers a fan's question in Melody Maker of 7 June 1969. (Thanks to Swanlee for finding and uploading this.)

The original Sid. — July 2018: Sid Barrett, one of Cambridgeshire's best-known musicians. Cambridge Evening News, 30 November 1990.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates its tenth birthday. — August 2018: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit celebrates ten years of throwing diamonds to you, pigs. Read more about it at: 10 Mind-blowing facts and Bang A Gong.

Maggie Matthews buys a Syd Barrett painting for 50£. — August 2018: Maggie Matthews buys a Syd Barrett painting, that has been missing since 1994, for 50£ at a Dublin clearance sale. It was later auctioned at Bonhams and sold for £6,500 to - yet again - an unknown buyer. Read all about it at: Missing Person found.

Pink Floyd Meme — September 2018: Pink Floyd meme, created by Felix Atagong. Thanks for your enthusiasm.

New (old) Iggy the Eskimo movie unearthed. — October 2018: Nigel Young discovers a new (old) Iggy the Eskimo movie from 1968 and the Church unravels the mystery around it in another of its magnificent articles: Paint Your Wagon.

Syd and Gretta at the Isle of Wight festival, 1969. — November 2018: Syd and Gretta Barclay at the Isle of Wight festival, 1969. The Church is still the only place in the world where you can read her story: Gretta Barclay.

The origins of Pink Floyd @ Their Mortal Remains, Dortmund — December 2018: The origins of Pink Floyd at Their Mortal Remains, Dortmund. Picture: nullrecord.

The Church wishes to thank: Marsha Allen, Azerty, Charles Beterams, Birdie Hop, Constance Cartmill, Mary Cosco, CCE338, Denis Combet, Jeff Dexter, Ebronte, Seamus Enright, Eternal Isolation, Jenni Fiire, Libby Gausden, Gid Giddoni, Stanislav G. Grigorev, Rich Hall, Hallucalation, Alex Peter Hoffmann, Jay Jeer, Penny Hyrons, Mark Jones, Clay Jordan, London in the 60s & 70s, Mairabarrett, Maggie Matthews, Paul McCann, Iain 'Emo' Moore, Pasquale Muzzupappa, Neonknight, The Nest, Nullrecord, Göran Nyström, David Parker, Peudent, Psych62, Rare Pink Floyd, Porthos (he's the dog), Antonio Jesús Reyes, The Iggy Rose Archives, Mim Scala, Mark Schofield, Allison Star, Swanlee, Robert Treadway, Jean Vouillon, Elizabeth Refna Warner, Nigel Young, Zoe...

The Church was founded ten years ago and the following people helped and inspired us with that: Alien Brain, Astral Piper, Sean Beaver, Bell That Rings, Mark Blake, Charley, Dani, Dark Globe, Bea Day, DollyRocker, Dolly Rocker, Ebronte, Eternal Isolation, Gnome, Juliian Indica (aka Julian Palacios), Kim Kastekniv, Little Minute Gong, Madcap Syd, Metal Mickey, Music Bailey, Mystic Shining, Psych62, Silks (नियत), Stanislav, Stars Can Frighten, Syd Barrett's Mandolin, Anthony Stern, The Syd Barrett Sound...

How could we forget all the others we have forgotten...

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥ Paula ♥

Singing A Song In The Morning

William 'Early Morning Henry' Butler

William Henry Butler (18 December 1940), also known as Billy Butler, is a British-Canadian musician, composer, sound designer, record producer and recording engineer.

In the early sixties William was a singer and guitarist of several South Coast rock outfits. His own bands, The Blue Chords and The Federals, were regularly hired to back-up visiting U.S. singers touring Britain. William also played guitar as a side-man for local dance orchestras where he learned to arrange and play big band jazz and swing styles.

Gullivers People

In 1965 he joined Gullivers People, a six piece harmony group appearing at the Tiffanys nightclub in Piccadily Circus. It was at this club that Norman Smith discovered and offered them a contract, not only to record as a band, but also as session musicians for others. William Butler and Norman Smith both had an army background and had their musical roots in jazz and big bands, so it is no wonder they liked each other.

Gullivers People recorded at least 4 singles on Parlophone, from 1966 till 1969, and several of them were produced by Norman Smith. William Henry left the band in 1969. They continued to perform without him and with regularly changing personnel till deep in the seventies.

(According to IMDB Billy Butler also recorded music for the 1967 movie The Sky Bike, although uncredited. BFI, however, doesn’t include his name.)

Eternal Triangle

In the aftermath of psychedelia Butler started (or joined) Eternal Triangle who had two singles on Decca in 1969 and 70. Eternal Triangle, not to be confused with a Canadian band with the same name, were Sally Kemp, Billy Butler and Bill Thacker. Unfortunately their records sounded dated in 1969, so it was not that unexpected that they failed to chart.

In the early seventies Bill changed place from the recording studio to the mixing console. He became an engineer and producer, still under the wings of Norman Smith.

In 1973 he went to Vancouver, BC to teach sound production at Capilano University. Later he turned to TV and movie sound production, in Canada and the USA, for over 70 films and TV series, winning an Emmy and 2 Juno Awards.

But what does this have to do with early Pink Floyd? Read on, we'll get there...

Avant-Garde Dabbling

October 1967 was a relatively relaxed month for Pink Floyd. There were only 8 or 9 concerts and the free time was used to record a follow-up for The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. But as we know, all was not well with Syd Barrett.

The new songs they tried to can were Vegetable Man, Remember A Day, Jugband Blues and they dabbled on that for about the first three weeks, including the ‘Salvation Army Band’ session where a disinterested Barrett told producer Norman Smith they could play anything they wanted. (See our article on Jugband Blues & Norman Smith at: Hurricane over London.)

All in all a quite disappointing result as in those days you were still supposed to record at least a song in an afternoon.

Perhaps in a move to appease the muses they visited the BBC Radiophonic Workshop but their encounter with Delia Derbyshire did not lead to some kind of cooperation. Delia Derbyshire remembered that Rick Wright was aware of contemporaneous avant-garde composer Jani Christou and his Praxis For 12 composition. Roger Waters however was of the opinion that avant-garde was absolute nonsense, although he may have hidden that opinion that particular afternoon.

That same day they all took a cab to Putney to visit the studio of Peter Zinovieff who was working on an early version of the voltage controlled synthesizer. Apparently this was more interesting. The third incarnation of that instrument, the VCS3, would of course magically appear on Dark Side Of The Moon.

Nonsense or not, the Floyd had their go at avant-garde on the 20th of October when they recorded the directionless 30 minutes of John Latham, now available on The Early Years set. Two other instrumentals were recorded that day: the still unreleased Intremental (believed to be a studio version of Reaction In G) and the surprisingly attractive In The Beechwoods.

Set The Controls

On Monday morning, the 23rd, Pink Floyd had two studio sessions. In the morning they recorded Untitled E66409, believed to be Paintbox. In the evening they had a go at Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun and a demo recording that mysteriously disappeared from the studio afterwards: Early Morning Henry.

In David Parker’s excellent book Random Precision the recording sheet of that particular session can be found. We learn that ‘Early Morning Henry’ only had one take, that it was a complete demo and that it had been ‘taken by Mr. N Smith on on (a) plastic spool’.

The reason why it had been taken home by Norman Smith is simple. Early Morning Henry was not a Pink Floyd original, but a tune written and composed by William Henry Butler, at least that is what his family claims.

So for now we seem to have a valid reason why Norman Smith decided to take the spool with him.

Early Morning Henry Recording Sheet. Bigger version on Tumblr.

Norman vs Kiloh Smith

The song Early Morning Henry was mentioned in a 2009 article on the sydbarrettpinkfloyd.com (dead link) blog of our good friend and colleague Kiloh Smith. In 2013 a mysterious comment was put on there by ‘anonymous’. It read:

The song Early Morning Henry was written by Billy Butler who was with the studio during those years in his band Gullivers People. Norman Smith was their recording engineer as well. I am surprised to see that Pink Floyd recorded the song. Norman might have been shopping the song [to] other bands, unless it is a different song entirely... but I am pretty sure my dad wrote it. Google Gullivers People and you will find a few obscure recordings that were also engineered by Smith.

Intriguing, is it not?

The Early Morning Henry Blog

Somewhere between 2013 and 2016 a blog with the name Early Morning Henri was found by several Sydiots and Pink Floyd scholars who wanted to find out more about this mythical lost song.

Written (so is believed) by one of Billy Butler’s children it contained several pages about Butler’s musical past as a member of the bands Gullivers People and Eternal Triangle. One day, supposedly in 2017, a new page was announced that would tell the story of Early Morning Henry, a William Butler song, recorded by Pink Floyd during a Norman Smith session on the 23rd October of 1967 (Pink Floyd Trivia).

~~Unfortunately the blog was set to private immediately after (and before that particular page was published) and thus its pages can’t be consulted any more.~~

Our multiple attempts to contact the webmaster have been in vain. We can only hope that the blog will be reopened one day and that the many secrets that hide behind this song will be revealed.

And obviously, we all want to know: where is that fucking tape!

Early Morning Henry acetate found

Update June 2020: the Early Morning Henry blog is back online and Juliet Butler is in contact with us. In October 2020 a one-sided acetate, containing a 3 minutes 55 seconds version of Early Morning Henry was been found in the archives of Jamarnie music. It is believed to be the version with Pink Floyd as a backing band, although the Floydian management contests this. Meanwhile, Billy Butler's daughter has joined several forums, answering questions about her father's songs. She is also in contact with us. Read our follow-up article at: Singing it again at night...

The Prock Harson Mystery

But that is not the only enigma in William Butler’s life as a sixties musician.

Under the pseudonym Prock Harson, Butler recorded A Whiter Shade Of Pale in 1967. It is a shameless knock-off on the German Cornet label, deliberately trying to confuse the record buying public with a name that sounds vaguely familiar. It was a cheap trick these soundalike record companies often did.

Now it needs to be said that 1967 had thirteen Whiter Shade covers in a dozen. Here is a non exhaustive list of famous and not so famous bands and people covering it, in 1967 alone: Alton Ellis, Bobby Johnson and The Atoms, Dave Antony's Moods, Noel Harrison, Pro Cromagnum, The Box Tops, The Everly Brothers, The Peter Knight Singers, The Telstars, Trudy Pitts, Wess…

The B-side of A Whiter Shade Of Pale, I Wanna Live, a keyboard driven freakbeat tune far better than the A-side, is credited to J. Smith, probably from John Smith and The New Sound. This puts Prock Harson in the Bill Wellings stable, a famous low-budget producer for MFP (Music For Pleasure).

Norman vs John Smith

John Smith and The New Sound can be found on numerous budget soundalike records, using different aliases, such as Teak Wood and The Beat Kings. We have previously written about him in a superfantadelic article from 2012: The Rape of Emily (three different ones).

The thing with these budget releases is: even when the label says that there is a Prock Harson singing on the record, it is not always the same Prock Harson singing, if you follow our drift. As such it is highly uncertain that Billy Butler does the vocals on the B-side of his own single. Probably it is one of the half dozen John Smiths instead.

Update October 2020: Juliet Butler, Billy's daughter, has confirmed to us that it is her father, singing on the B-side of A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

A Whiter Shade Of Pale sold enough copies in Germany to make another single under that name, but Butler wasn’t invited this time, although his picture can be found on the sleeve. The A-side, “Bit By Bit”, was written by Rudi Lindt, a pseudonym for Rudi von der Dovenmühle, who was a German schlager-composer. According to a soundalike record connoisseur the single, with “I Put A Spell On You” on the flip side, used the hired voice of a certain Fred E. Thompson instead (source: Prock Harson).

Smash Hits. All Time Smash Hits. Bigger images on Tumblr.

Smash Hits & Others

Two collectors have confirmed that the Prock Harson single appeared on a Music For Pleasure Smash Hits album from 1967 (MFP 1194, picture above left), but without mentioning the artist (source: Prock Harson).

Another low-budget buff claims that Bill Butler sings on at least 4 tracks of the Smash Hits album:

Lead vocalist on both Beatles covers is in fact William (Billy) Butler, at the time a member of the group Gullivers People, recording for EMI's Parlophone label (with another Beatles connection - their producer was Norman (Hurricane) Smith who had engineered several Beatles albums). Butler also takes lead on "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and "Alternate Title".

The two Beatles covers Butler sings are When I'm 64 and All You need Is Love, ~~but unfortunately we couldn't find these versions on the web~~. Alternate Title is Butler's cover of a Monkees song. That these low-budget albums were successful can be proven by the fact that the 1967 MFP Smash Hits album exists in three, slightly different, sleeves for the UK alone, each with a different selling price printed on its sleeve.

Update March 2019: Meanwhile a kind reader from this article has made the above tracks available, thanks! You can find the links at the end of this article (for as long as they stay alive).

A Whiter Shade Of Pale also landed on a couple of other MFP albums, for instance on 48 Great Hits (1968), All-Time Smash Hits (MFP 5010, above right) from 1970, on Million Seller Hits (MFP 5203, left underneath), from 1971. It can also be found on Gloria Schlager-Volltreffer (SMGL 14 098, right underneath), a German budget and cover versions label. Some of these albums had regional editions, with slightly different sleeves such as the German 'Die Bekannstesten Schlager Aller Zeiten', a copy of All-Time Smash Hits.

Million Seller Hits. Schlager Volltreffer. Bigger images on Tumblr.

Million Seller Hits. Schlager Volltreffer. Bigger images on Tumblr.

See Emily Play

MFP was a low cost label that started in 1965 as a joint venture between Hamlyn and EMI Records, with EMI providing the music. It has been established by now that Bill Butler wasn’t afraid of a little moonlighting and neither – so has been rumoured – was Norman Smith.

Who could have been better to record some soundalike Beatles tunes than the man who sat behind the Beatles’ console from 1962 to 1965?

William Butler could have been on other soundalike tracks than the four we know.

Our heart skips a beat if we think of the possibility that he, together with Norman Smith, might have been the ones behind The Okey Pokey Band’s See Emily Play.

But that is – of course – pure speculation. (You can read about the different budget See Emily Play covers at: The Rape of Emily.)

Update March 2019: unfortunately the version of A Whiter Shade of Pale on Flower Power, from The Okey Pokey Band And Singers, is not the Billy Butler version.

Early Morning Henry acetate found

In October 2020 an acetate of Early Morning Henry was found in the archives of the Jamarnie publishing company. It is believed to be a version, sung by Billy Butler, with Pink Floyd as a backing band. Full article at: Singing it again at night...

Many thanks to: Esfera04, Freqazoidiac, Jumaris CS, Peudent, TopPopper, Waelz
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Image Gallery: an image gallery with pictures of the different 'Billy Butler' bands and Prock Harson record sleeves can be found at Tumblr:
Billy Butler
Gullivers People
Eternal Triangle
Prock Harson

The above article has stolen most of its biographical information from an archived copy of the (~~now private~~) blog Early Morning Henry, believed to be written by William Henry Butler’s daughter.

Sources (other than the above mentioned links):
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 103-105.
Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd, 3C Publishing, 2008, p. 68-69.

Discography and Youtube links

Gullivers People

1966 Splendor In The Grass / Took This Land

https://youtu.be/yAv75iM7nbc

https://youtu.be/-dxH3OUp2-Q

1966 Fi-Fo-Fum / Over The Hills

1968 On A Day Like This / My Life
A-side co-written by Butler, produced by Norman Smith.

https://youtu.be/CJcUKlNKJKA

https://youtu.be/2hE3S_w3A6E

1969 Somehow, Somewhere / I Found Love
Produced by Norman Smith

https://youtu.be/MVIo8oTOCZk

???? Horizontal (Bee Gees track on a sixties compilation)

Eternal Triangle

1969 I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City / Perfumed Candle
B-side written by Butler.

https://youtu.be/l2BzOZ9WeiA

https://youtu.be/WZCsxtGHJlU (22 seconds excerpt)

1969 Turn To Me / Windows

Prock Harson

1967 A Whiter Shade Of Pale / I Wanna Live

https://youtu.be/Q_q2XwSYOD0

https://youtu.be/WHqjXrHxXmM

1968 Bit By Bit / I Put A Spell On You
(Butler is not on this record.)

Billy Butler (uncredited)

3 songs from MFP Smash Hits that could be sung by Billy Butler:

All You Need Is Love

When I'm Sixty Four

Randy Scouse Git (Alternate Title)

Plus, Penny Lane from another MFP album called Hits '67 (MFP 1089), which could be the same Mr. Butler (with hilarious out of sync trumpet overdub at the end).

Salome Unveiled

(This text is a follow-up article from Psychedelic Celluloid from 2017.)

Movie-oh-la-la

Years ago the Reverend of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wanted to write the definitive article on Pink Floyd at the movies and stumbled – literally – on hundreds of films and television series that have used Pink Floyd tunes in one way or another.

Even for the 60-70’s era there were dozens of movies to be checked out and several of those were a bit too much in the flesh.

Perhaps one day we will publish that ultimate review of Alex De Renzy’s social realistic hippie masterpiece Little Sisters (1972) that has been sitting in our archives for years. It is known for its excellent use of three different Pink Floyd tracks (and a handful of others by Philip Glass, Carole King, Elvis Presley, Santana,…) and has a psychedelic grimble grumblish gnome popping out of nowhere, because you know… magic mushrooms. And that’s only the SFW part.

Psychedelic Celluloid

The Reverend wasn’t the only one with this idea. In 2017 Simon Matthews wrote a pretty decent film encyclopedia called ‘Psychedelic Celluloid’ that lists 120 ‘sixties’ British movies with a pop or rock connection. Needless to say that Pink Floyd shows up several times. Currently Simon Matthews is working on a follow up of that book. (Read our review here: Psychedelic Celluloid.)

Psychedelic Celluloid only investigated ‘regular’ British movies and not those underground flicks often made by the Cambridge Mafia that surrounded the Pink Floyd. There are home or avant-garde movies by Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon, Mick Rock, Anthony Stern and Storm Thorgerson and it seems only avid hardcore Floyd-fans have been collecting and discussing these. (Look for a DVD anthology called Wondering & Dreaming if you want to get started. We even have an interview on here with the man who created this collection: Wondering and Dreaming (a self-interview with Ewgeni Reingold).)

Salome opening screen — Salomé opening screen. Illustration: Aubrey Beardsley.

Salomé

During his research Simon Matthews stumbled upon a Spanish underground movie, allegedly using a Pink Floyd soundtrack, that he was unable to locate: Salomé (see: Salomé at Psychedelic Celluloid). The Holy Church also tried to unearth this movie and even contacted its maker several times but unfortunately our pathetic pleas were ignored with Spanish (or is that Valencian?) arrogance. Or perhaps the maker was just timid. Or doesn’t speak English.

Let’s first find out something about him.

In 1970, so tells us IMDB, Rafael Gasent, the 'father' of independent Valencian cinema, made a 51 minutes adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play (1891) and Richard Strauss opera (1905) Salomé. According to the movie database the soundtrack is composed by Richard Strauss, arranged by Pink Floyd and re-arranged by Jorge Pi.

Rafael Gasent

Rafa Gasent, also known as Rafael Gassent and all permutations in between, is an experimental Spanish movie maker whose 23 and some movies are even more difficult to track down than those of Anthony Stern. Salomé was allegedly shot in the Sagunto castle, inspired by the Andy Warhol school of filming and is apparently a blend of the hippie era and Spanish avant-garde 'grunge' from the early seventies, whatever that may be.

Flavius Josephus

According to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, Salomé was a historical figure, daughter of Herodias, the second wife of Herod Antipas, who was the Roman tetrarch (ruler) of Galilee (Palestine) from 4 BC to 39 AD. She gets a cameo appearance in the Bible for asking the head of John the Baptist on a platter, as a reward for a dance she did on her stepfather’s birthday. Before his many guests, high officials and military commanders, so it has been written in the Gospel of Mark (6:14-29), king Herod couldn’t refuse her demand and he had John the Baptist promptly executed.

Dance of the Seven Veils

In Christian tradition Salomé became the prototype of the lascivious woman, seducing those poor defenceless men with her erotic Dance of the Seven Veils, although that name was only invented by Oscar Wilde about 18 centuries after the facts.

Oscar Wilde does not describe the dance itself, but others – before and after him – did and as such Salomé became a role model for striptease dancers around the world.

Salomé, as represented in Oscar Wilde’s play from 1891, ‘has been perceived as much as a proto-feminist as the exemplary personification of a devilish woman’ notes Tristan Grünberg in Salomé On Screen:

As such, the 1970s underground European cinema, characterized by its rebellion against sexual repression and academic cinema, welcomed her with open arms. From Germany (...) to Spain (Rafael Gassent and Pedro Almodovar), from France (…) to England (…), Oscar Wilde’s play and main character became an ethical and aesthetic emblem of avant-garde cinema.

Francisco Franco

In 1966, at 18 years old, Rafael Gasent was still a promising award-winning scenographer and poster designer but at the turn of the decade he wasn’t particularly liked any more by the general Franco regime and his Opus Dei cohorts.

After a brief run in some underground clubs his movie Salomé was seized by the Spanish Tribunal de Orden Público, a court created in Francoist Spain to deal with political crimes. The movie, in its original form, hasn’t been seen since.

Gasent wrote the script, based upon the interpretation of Oscar Wilde and the operatic adaption of Richard Strauss. The story begins when Herodias, the wife of Herod Antipas, is accused by John the Baptist of committing adultery. On the occasion of his birthday, Herod asks Herodias's daughter, Salomé, to dance for his guests. As a reward, Herod decides to grant Salomé a wish and she wishes for John the Baptist’s head. Those were the days!

Salomé 2015

Around 2015 Gasent revised, re-imagined and reconstructed a new version of the seventies movie, using material that could be traced back in several archives, filmed in Super 8 and 16 millimetres. The 18 minutes short (14 minutes without credits) was shown on the Mostra de València - Cinema del Mediterrani festival in October 2018 and has been published on YouTube as well.

Apparently the new version is more a meta-drama about a lost movie than the movie itself. It breaks the fourth wall quite often by showing the camera team and shots from behind the scenes. There is no real story, scenes are explained by an off-screen voice and are interrupted by the Aubrey Beardsley prints, that illustrated the first English edition of Oscar Wilde’s play.

If the IMDB information that the original movie took 51 minutes is correct then this revised version is about two thirds shorter than the original. As such this is a very truncated and tinkered version, necessary to expose the often silly – and at the same time, damaging – censorship of the Franco regime.

Censorship

Under Franco movies could be censored if they went against the Spanish traditional ‘cultural morality’ and Gasent’s production was at least provocative on two different levels: it had some scarce female nudity and it was having some mildly homo-erotic scenes.

Salomé 1970-2015 can be seen as a starting point for a discussion about Spain’s painful past that some would like to see return in one form or another.

Set The Controls

Now for the Pink Floyd content. At seven minutes into the movie Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun sets in for something that appears to be the Dance of the Seven Veils.

The same song is used a second time, shortly before the 14 minutes mark, to show John the Baptist’s head, lying in the sand. But once again, as the original movie is probably lost, we can’t be sure how that Pink Floyd track was used in 1971.

Conclusion

If we may have learned a lesson about it all it is perhaps that it is better to show movies than to hide them. If Pink Floyd Ltd and the Cambridge Underground movie makers prefer to hide them in closets they are not much better than the Franco censoring squads.

At least they still have the choice. Rafael Gasent didn't have that.

Salomé 1970 - 2015 by Rafael Gasent

Many thanks to: Rafael Gasent, Simon Matthews, Poliphemo.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (other than the links above):
Grünberg, Tristan : Salome On Screen: Sensuality and Censorship, taken from: Performing Salome, Revealing Stories (edited by Clair Rowden), Routledge, New York, 2016, p.172.

10 years ago - season 2 (2009-2010)

Holy Church Wordcloud. Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix Atagong. — Holy Church Wordcloud (2018). Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix Atagong.

Last year we celebrated the first decade of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit that officially started on the 8 August of 2008. You can reread that story in two parts at:
10 Mind-blowing facts you didn't know about the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and
Bang A Gong (10 Years of Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit)

We ended the first season on a low note because it seemed that the entire Iggy story had been told in a handful of articles. It seemed that she had disappeared and that she would not be found back.

How wrong we were, but we were not the only ones. Duggie Fields (to Mark Blake):

I have no idea who Iggy was or even what her real name was. (…)
I saw her not long after Syd left the flat and she was looking more like a Sloane Ranger.
I heard she’d become involved with one of the voguish religious cults at the time.

(As a matter of fact, this was not that far from the truth, but of course we didn’t know that in 2009. For a while Iggy was signaled in Scientology circles, one of those incredible stories we might tell you one day.)

Here is an overview of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit’s tumultuous second season (August 2009 -July 2010).

Fille de l’espace

We celebrated our first birthday with the publication of a brilliant poem written by Dr. Denis Combet, professor at Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada, who specialises in French literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, but he has also written lyrics for the pretty awesome stoner rock band Rescue Rangers. In 2006 – 2007 he published a Syd Barrett inspired multimedia project under the title Guitars and Dust Dancing (that is unfortunately no longer online, but archive.org has a partially saved backup: Guitars and Dust Dancing).

The Church could exclusively issue the French version of the poem ‘De Quétesh à Bastet’, dedicated to Iggy the Eskimo, and would later publish Crystal Blue Postcards, a digital booklet with (mostly) new poems, dedicated to Syd and Iggy. It can still be found here:

Iggy was moved to tears when she found out that someone in Canada had written a poem for her and she kept on repeating that on our weekly phone-calls. Thanks Denis!

Original article (2009): Catwoman

Cromwellian Shenanigans

The Iggy story, so we thought, was a dead end street or at least a slow lane. In absence of our subject of adoration we started a series about the legendary Cromwellian club, bar and casino. We also looked deeper into The Bend dance craze, a clever marketing scheme started to twist a Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich single into a genre.

You don’t have to believe us but we think these are still the best articles about this nightclub on the web, with several interviews from people who were there.
The complete Cromwellian & The Bend series (running from 2008 till 2015): The Cromwellian

The Madcap’s Mojo

2010 started with a bang. Rock magazine Mojo had a Madcap Laughs 40 years anniversary special, annex tribute CD, and it was undoubtedly clear that some writers had found inspiration at the Church, but without mentioning where they had found the information. (It needs to be said that our secret informant in those days, Mark Blake, who also wrote for the special, was not amongst those.)

We ended our review of the Mojo special with the prophetic words:

Ig’s story as published in Mojo may be the butterfly effect that will cause the storm at the other side of the world.
So perhaps, thanks to Mojo, the Church will be one day able to fulfil its quest.

Original articles (2009):
(I've got my) Mojo (working...)
Goofer Dust [(I've got my) Mojo (working)... Part 2]
The Mojo March 2010 special can be consulted here: The Madcap Laughs.

Iggy!

On the fifth of February 2010 Mark Blake informed us that Iggy was alive and well and living in a small village in Southern England. The Church were the first to publish this news on this entire planet. World Exclusive: Ig has been found!

Initially Iggy wanted to anonymously live her life in her little village in South-England, but her cover was blown by The Croydon Guardian. (Here was another journalist suffering from amnesia. She didn’t find it necessary to give a nod to the Church, although it was us who had informed her about Iggy.)

Iggy's first interview (with our comments): Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea

Gretta & Rusty

Timing couldn’t have been better. Iggy was found just when we were going to publish an interview with Gretta Barclay, who – with her friend Rusty Burnhill – was a regular visitor at Wetherby Mansions in 1969.

A decade later this is still Margaretta’s one and only interview in the Barrett-sphere.

We also tracked down Rusty Burnhill, living in a small town in Northern Germany and sent him a polite letter where we asked if we could ask him some questions. To our amazement he called us a few months later, started swearing and shouting, threatened to call the police and smashed down the phone. Needless to say that we didn’t pursue our plans to have him interviewed.

The Gretta Barclay interview:
Gretta Speaks
Gretta Speaks (Pt. 2)

Floorboards

Iggy had been located (by a few journalists) but wasn’t communicating to the outer world (yet). A decision we obviously accepted. The Church has never been into trophy hunting.

The Holy Church had already published the intriguing theory that the painted floorboards at Syd’s flat didn’t date from autumn 1969, but from spring 1969. This was contradicting all witness reports and all biographies and obviously it was clear evidence that the Holy Church was lead by a raving lunatic.

But our anonymous witness JenS had said so, Gretta Barclay and Iggy confirmed it and more ‘proof’ for this was found by Barrett enthusiast Dark Globe, a member of the Late Night Syd Barrett forum and one of the people helping the Church with valid information.

Rob Chapman didn’t update this information in his Syd Barrett biography, but Julian Palacios did, just before the printing deadline, making him one of the believers. What was a wacky theory at first, laughed at by several people, has now become the gospel.

Original article (2010): The Case of the Painted Floorboards

Rob Chapman

Our review of Rob Chapman’s Syd Barrett biography A Very Irregular Head was quite polemic (and made us persona non grata in top level Barrett circles). We did conclude it was one of the better biographies around but there was of course the Octopus – Clowns & Jugglers controversy.

Rather than stirring up a dying fire and prejudicing you we suggest you read the review first and we’ll talk about it afterwards.

Original article (2010): The Big Barrett Conspiracy Theory

Meic Stevens 2010

An intriguing anecdote was told to us by Gretta Barclay. One that also couldn’t be found in any biography. Syd Barrett and his Welsh counterpart Meic Stevens, who also suffered from a few psychological drawbacks, met each other at different occasions.

Prydwyn read Steven’s autobiograpy (in Welsh) and translated the relevant bits into English for generations to come. One pretty exiting bit is that the two musicians were filmed by a BBC camera-team, but apparently the movie has been destroyed, unless it still is hiding in a BBC archive somewhere.

Original articles (2010):
Meic meets Syd
Syd meets... a lot of people

Meic Stevens 2019

2019 sees Meic Stevens gigging again in Britain (although he immediately started with some controversial statements). Men On The Border singer Göran Nyström published an excellent follow-up to our Solva Blues article just a few days ago, with a few new discoveries. Or how an article from a decade ago inspires people today to further investigate in all matters Syd.

Summer of 69 (Facebook-links)

Part 1: Moon Landing
Part 2: Kevin Whitney & Formentera
Part 3: Isle of Wight
Part 4: Syd & Meic Stevens
Part 5: Geraint Jarman and his song about Barrett
Part 6 (final): Syd's studio vérité session

See ya next year!

The Church wishes to thank all of those who helped us 10 years ago. Unfortunately, many of them have already left the scene. : Anonymous, Banjer and Sax, Margaretta Barclay, Paul Belbin, Mark Blake, Rusty Burnhill, Constance Cartmill, Rob Chapman, Denis Combet, Duggie Fields, Dark Globe, Rod Harrod, JenS, Pascal Mascheroni, Kerry McQueeney, David Moore, Julian Palacios, Paro नियत, Prydwyn, Douggie Reece, Lynn Annette Ripley (Twinkle), Brian Roote, Beate S., Jenny Spires, Allison Star, Jean Vouillon, Kirsty Whalley, Vicky Wickham and the Dutch Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich fan community (not online any more)… (Sorry to those we have forgotten to mention.)
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

The Later Years: Hot Air & Co

Pink Floyd Recycling. Artwork: Felix Atagong.

21st Century Schizoid Man

Musicians, rockers, pop artists,... - name them like you want – live in a bi-focused, nearly schizophrenic world and need to cultivate dissociative identities if they want to survive and stay successful. Just like there are two distinct forms of copyright there are two quasi contradictory sides representing the same artist. Alfa and omega, yin and yang, art and product, band and brand.

Let's get to the point because the above intro sounds like one of those oriental religions that were so popular in the psychedelic sixties.

What I am writing about is the difference between rock music as 'art' and rock music as 'product'. While an artist regards his latest release as 'art', his or her record company invariably defines it as 'product'. For record company executives it makes no difference if they are selling The Dark Side Of The Moon or a singing trout, as long as it keeps on paying for their daily dose of chemical stimulants.

Pink Floyd is so big nowadays, despite being mainly in the recycling business since the end of the last century, that it has evolved from a band into a brand. They are now their own record label, reducing the EMI's and CBS's of this world to mere distributors of their product. When David Gilmour was asked by MTV (in 1987) why the Roger Waters album and tour (Radio KAOS) was not as successful as the Pink Floyd one (A Momentary Lapse of Reason) he came up with the following business-mogul explanation...

The reason is that we’ve all spent... well he [Nick Mason] spent over 20 years. I spent nearly 20 years working on, building up, the Pink Floyd name. I mean, if you liken it to basic crass of advertising… You know if someone left Coca Cola and started up his own soft-drink company with the same recipe it wouldn’t sell as many. It’s very simple.

Direct link for recalcitrant browsers: Pink Floyd & Coca Cola. Full interview (30 minutes) hosted at the Pink Floyd HD channel: A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour [MTV Interview].

Spontaneous Apple Creation

Unfortunately, protecting the brand can have a few disadvantages. Sometimes these are unintentionally funny, like that one time the Pink Floyd company deleted a video from the official David Gilmour website for 'copyright' infringements. There is a less savoury side as well. To fully monetise on the release of 'The Early Years' box the Pink Floyd copyright police deleted dozens of YouTube movies, including 'Nightmare' of psychedelic curiosity Arthur Brown – on his own YouTube channel – just because they legally could. Can Mr. Gilmour and his leprechaun Paul Loasby please explain us how this marginally known performer was a financial threat to the multi-million dollar machine that is Pink Floyd?

For the last couple of decades Pink Floyd has been recycling old stuff, sometimes adding unreleased material to the default product. Just a quick list of compilations and live albums since the late eighties: Delicate Sound of Thunder (1988), Shine On (1992), Pulse (1995), The First Three Singles (1997), Is There Anybody Out There (2000), Echoes (2001), Oh, By The Way (2007), Discovery (2011), Dark Side Of The Moon Immersion & Experience (2011), Wish You Were Here Immersion & Experience (2011), A Foot in the Door (2011), The Wall Immersion & Experience (2012), Their First Recordings (2015),…

There were also 30 and 40 years anniversary editions of The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and The Early Years box-set with its 33 discs, although I have never counted them.

These editions are all of the original or classic line-up and it may have itched a bit at the Gilmour camp that the third and final incarnation of the band, the one without Roger Waters, has never had a separate compilation. Well, that is soon going to change.

Coming Back To Life

Diet Floyd has existed from 1987 with the release of A Momentary Lapse of Reason, until 2014 with the release of The Endless River. That is a total of 27 years or nearly the double in time than the classic line-up that existed from 1968 with the release of the second album A Saucerful of Secrets until 1983 with Waters’ swansong The Final Cut.

Alright, alright, I hear you coming. It is not that the band was very productive in their third incarnation. The classic line-up of Floyd made eleven albums in fifteen years, Diet Floyd just three in 27, not counting the two live ones. On top of that The Endless River could be considered as just another compilation or out-takes album. Basically, Diet Pink Floyd has been in a state of hibernation after 1995 and for nearly two decades only recycled material from the classic heydays has been re-released. The box-sets Oh, By The Way (2007) and Discovery (2011) for instance contain the same 14 albums, and only people with a high-end stereo installation will pretend to hear the difference. How many times can you remaster an album, anyway? It’s not bloody washing powder.

Back to basics. It doesn’t matter if Diet Floyd existed for 8 (1995, Pulse), 19 (2006, On An Island) or 27 years. What does matter is that David Gilmour wants to replenish his pension fund now that he has given a small fortune away by selling his guitars for charity.

What is more of importance, what is still lying in the vaults that hasn’t already been (officially) leaked, one way or another.

Let’s have a small history lesson, shall we?

Pink Floyd duo, later trio. (Later editions of 'Lapse' have Wright photoshopped next to the two others.) Tinkering: Felix Atagong.

A New Machine

Around 1985 David Gilmour was thinking of resuscitating Pink Floyd with Nick Mason. There are two main reasons for this, one was the public’s disinterest in Gilmour’s solo-career, a second reason was that contractually Pink Floyd still had to make an album with important financial consequences if they didn’t.

As Waters refused to work any longer with the two others he was – legally and financially – obliged to hand over the Pink Floyd brand to the drummer and the new boy, although it took a while for this bad news to sip in.

Previously Gilmour had been jamming with Jon Carin for a third solo album but when the call for Floyd product became louder, he contacted Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) and super-producer Bob Ezrin. Not all collaborators brought in suitable material, Eric Stewart (10CC) and writer and poet Roger McGough, who had worked on the Yellow Submarine movie with The Beatles, were invited, but their input didn’t lead to a valid concept (although some demos do exist).

Record executives weren’t that happy either and when David Gilmour sent four tracks over to CBS he was informed that ‘this music doesn’t sound a fucking thing like Pink Floyd’, something that made Roger Waters chuckle. Apparently, Gilmour’s New Coke didn’t taste at all like Waters’ Classic Coca Cola.

Avoid Freud

David Gilmour understood the message and he and his collaborators had the difficult task to give the existent material a much needed Floydian treatment. One possibility was to forcibly turn these tracks into a concept. Carole Pope (from the somewhat underrated band Rough Trade) was flown over from Canada and at least one song was tried out, Peace Be With You, ‘a nice, mid-tempo thing about Roger Waters’. When this experiment failed (again) David Gilmour gave up looking for a portmanteau. It would be a regular album without a storyline, like in the pre-Dark Side Of The Moon days. Anthony Moore (Slapp Happy, Henry Cow) was called in, co-writing the lyrics on three songs. One of those, Learning To Fly, was the much needed turning point. The sound effects, provided by Nick Mason, the guitar, keyboards and vocals felt like a real Pink Floyd song (although one set in the eighties and still without Rick Wright).

A Momentary Lapse of Reason was the Diet Floyd’s showcase that they could exist without Roger Waters, although – in retrospect – it wasn’t a band’s album at all. Co-director Nick Mason had given the drum parts to Carmine Appice and Jim Keltner and the list of keyboard players shows that Rick Wright’s name had been added for legal and public relations reasons, not for his musical input. David Gilmour, talking about Lapse in a 1994 Mojo:

We went out last time with the intention of showing the world. ‘Look we’re still here’, which is why we were so loud and crash-bangy. Echoes, p. 260

Crash-bangy indeed. The Lapse-album suffered from a digital eighties production, David Gilmour admitted. Nick Mason was unhappy that he had been made redundant by a drum computer and a couple of session players and planned to re-record the drum parts. The same can be said about Rick Wright’s input, who only entered the studio when the album was nearly finished and after his wife's plea to take him back aboard. Keyboard parts from live shows were inserted to replace the 80’s synths.

Although the above rumours started in 2011 the revised album was never released, but this will change in November 2019 when it will be an exclusive part of The Later Years boxset.

A Day At The Races

David Gilmour was a busy bee in the early nineties, he made four (unreleased) soundtracks, with or without the help of Rick and Nick: Ruby Takes A Trip (1991), The Art Of Tripping (1993), Colours of Infinity (1995) and La Carrera Panamericana (1992). That last one contained the first Rick Wright and Nick Mason co-compositions since Dark Side Of The Moon / Wish You Were Here. The Colours of Infinity soundtrack has the complete band jamming, lends several themes from Ruby and Art of Tripping and has been partially recycled for The Endless River.

La Carrera Panamericana is an oddball in the Pink Floyd canon. It has been well documented that Nick Mason and the Pink Floyd manager Steve O’Rourke were (are) historic car racing enthusiasts, a hobby for multimillionaires with too much time and money on their hands. In 1991 they could cajole David Gilmour into entering the 7-day Carrera Panamericana race that ran over 2800 km in Mexico. (Rick Wright, according to Nick, was asked as well but preferred sailing the seven seas.)

Not only did they plan to have some fun racing cars, but an inventive Steve O’Rourke, always the hustler, managed to pre-sell the rights for a documentary about the race, with Pink Floyd music, recouping the costs of the expedition. (A side effect is that Gilmour, Mason and O'Rourke look like walking billboards, pretending to be cool.)

Disaster struck on the third day when the C-type Jaguar of the Gilmour / O’Rourke team missed a bend near the city of San Luis Potisi. Gilmour was relatively unharmed but O’Rourke had broken his legs and their race was over. Both were extremely lucky, the band could have literally died that day. But, business is business and the promised movie had to be made with two protagonists out of the race and only the least flamboyant member left to save the furniture.

Steve O'Rourke completely confident in David Gilmour's driving skills.

The movie is not one that will be remembered for its ingenuity, but if you like vintage cars and flimsy interviews it might be worth checking it out, once. The (new) music isn’t that spectacular either, but as one of only four original products Pink Floyd produced in their later career many fans feel this should be a required item in the box set. Yet it will not be included, not as a DVD / Blu-ray, nor as audio.

Keleven at Yeeshkul put it this way:

Omitting La Carrera Panamericana is really disappointing because this seemed like the absolute last opportunity ever to get that music out, and there are some really nice tunes on it unavailable in any format that doesn't have people talking over it from the movie. And this is a set covering a 30-year period that had a total of four releases of new material, yet they decided to skip one of them.

Probably Gilmour is afraid that we will all laugh with his driving skills, nearly killing his manager in the process. A scenario even Roger Waters didn't dare to dream of.

Video killed the radio stars

But what is in this ruddy box then? It will be mainly focused on video material and live concerts, claiming to have six hours of unreleased audio and seven hours of unreleased video, including the mythical Venice 1990 concert. Also included is the Knebworth Silver Clef show with guest star Candy Dulfer. Those two shows are nice to have obviously, but they are not particularly rare amongst collectors. I have them both in legal and less legal releases.

It’s all a bit random actually. There will be a revised Pulse movie, with added and re-edited content, but not the Pulse CD. For that other live album Delicate Sound Of Thunder, both movie and audio versions will be present, remixed and with added material. But, and I will try not to be too overtly cynical, it will not have Welcome To The Machine (on video) for the only reason that this would give more copyrights to… Roger Waters. I kid you not, the Gilmour Waters feud is still alive and kicking. Just imagine these two slightly demented rock stars mud wrestling about a song about being nobody’s fool.

Calling it an 18-disc set is of course not wrong, but it needs to be said that the 5 DVDs in the set duplicate the videos on the Blu-rays, and those Blu-rays more or less duplicate the audio that are on the CDs. Weird as well is that there is no regular Division Bell CD, but the 2014 5.1 mix will be included on Blu-ray. The same goes for The Endless River that has been turned into a movie experience, like The Wall or The Final Cut video EP. I seriously wonder what will be the added value of that.

Love In The Woods

There is also a bunch of music and ‘mister screen’ movies included, but as far as I can remember the Pink Floyd phenomenon mainly turned around music, not around video clips. One thing I would like to see is the Pink Floyd documentary that was shown before the Knebworth concert, containing the Syd Barrett and Iggy the Eskimo home movies that have been reviewed here over a decade ago. I can only hope these will turn up, in one form or another. (See: Love in the Woods (Pt. 1) & Love In The Woods (Pt. 2))

The Endle$$ River, fanart by Rocco Moliterno.

Outtakes, demos and alternative versions

Probably there was a plan to include a CD with ‘later years’ outtakes, demos and alternative versions, but this has been reduced to 6 tracks (4 ‘new’ ones and early versions of Marooned and Nervana). Several tracks that were originally intended to be in the box have been removed at a later stage, presumably by Mr. Gilmour himself, including the already mentioned Peace Be With You and early versions of One Slip and Signs Of Life. And unless something drastically changes the ambient suite The Big Spliff will forever reside in one of the Pink Floyd dungeons.

Giving none away

That some product is missing in this box is one thing. That the initial selling price is well over 500 dollar another. This means that each disc in the set, not counting the doubles, costs over 40 dollar. I wouldn’t mind paying 40 dollar for the revised Momentary Lapse Of Reason record, but in this case you have to come up with 500 dollars for the one record you really want and some extra discs that each contain 80% of easy obtainable material. It is like selling yesterday’s lunch at a higher price than the day before. Or if we may use David Gilmour's comparison: it is like selling New Coke at double the price than the classic one.

Of course Pink Floyd may ask whatever it wants for its music. At least they have always released product of the highest quality, right?

Wrong.

Bit Rot

Recently it has been found out that Blu-rays from The Early Years suffer from bit rot. Bubbles appear on its surface making them unplayable. People who were trying to have them replaced, as a matter of fact this box set only dates from 2016, have been politely advised by the record company to go fuck themselves. I'm lost for words.

This is not the first time that Pink Floyd doesn’t deliver. Many Immersion sets had quality problems, the Shine On box had a book that ended its last page in mid-sentence and a few decades ago Pink Floyd even issued 'remastered' CDs that weren't remastered at all. That was – to use another Floydian term – a pretty fair forgery.

As a Floyd fan since the mid seventies a part of me screams, take my money and give me the box, but – and that is a first for me - another part is sincerely doubting if it is really worth it. Perhaps this is the time to seriously reconsider my lifelong relationship with the Floyd.

To quote RonToon, that Jedi master of all things pink:

Gilmour is very generous when it comes to charities but there is no charity for his fans.

Pink Floyd may be a great band, but has turned into an unreliable brand.

Some pros and cons of The Later Years:

PROS: A Momentary Lapse of Reason remix (stereo and 5.1) - Delicate Sound of Thunder concert on audio and video, remixed and complete - A few Division Bell demos and outtakes - Knebworth 1990, full concert, on audio and video - Previously unreleased documentaries and other material - Previously unreleased Venice 1989 on video - Restored Pulse on video - Screen films, music videos. Arnold Layne, live at The Barbican on 10 May 2007, the Floyd's last performance ever (not on CD unfortunately).

CONS: The price per disc is outrageous, plus there are a lot of doubles. Missing: Live 8, remember Live8? - The Knebworth pre-show documentary, starring Langley Iddens and Iggy the Eskimo - A Momentary Lapse of Reason demos (present on ‘early’ track listings, but removed afterwards) - Alternate single and promo mixes, from A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell (enough to fill a CD on its own) - Echoes (and a few other songs performed live) - La Carrera Panamericana - Peace Be With You - Pre-show Soundscape track (issued as a 22 minutes extra track on the Pulse audio cassette) - Professionally filmed Omni shows in Atlanta, 3-5 November 1987 (although, who needs another live performance by the Floyd?) - The Big Spliff - The Division Bell stereo remix or remaster - Venice 1989 on CD - Welcome To The Machine on Delicate Sound of Thunder video.

The Church wishes to thank: Keleven, Rocco Moliterno, RonToon, the many collaborators on Steve Hoffman Music Forums and Yeeshkul.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (other than the above mentioned links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013, p. 311-321.
Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd, 3C Publishing, 2008, p. 260.
Steve Hoffman Forum Thread: Pink Floyd The Later Years Box Set
Yeeshkul Forum Thread: Pink Floyd - The Later Years

Happy New Year 2020

I visited the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land, dear sistren and brethren, followers of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. But before we shall dwell on that we want to wish you a Happy New Year. So here it is. Happy New Year!

The Later Year$

The ending of past year saw the release of The Later Years, a pretty expensive luxury set of the Diet Floyd. Basically it is David Gilmour’s scientific method to find out where you fans really stand.

The set contains about three times the same product, in different formats, and – although its selling price has descended with about 40% to 50% - it is still fucking expensive for what it’s really worth. If you want you can read our article about it here: The Later Years: Hot Air & Co.

Just a normal day in the studio. Art: Monkiponken.

Caught in a cauldron of hate

But that is just economics. What preoccupies us more is that in 2020 the Waters – Gilmour feud has still not been settled. While in the past it was Roger Waters who has been designated as the baddy, it is apparently now David Gilmour’s turn to be the cantankerous one.

In a recent interview, Waters claims that he offered a peace plan to Gilmour, that was promptly rejected. Polly Samson, from her side, twittered that it was not her hubby who rejected the peace plan, but the other guy.

Sigh.

Two bald men fighting over a comb. A golden comb, embellished with crazy diamonds, obviously. Decades ago Nick Mason had the following to say about the ongoing Floyd-war: ”If our children behaved this way, we would have been very cross.” Seems that the 'children' still haven't learned anything.

Caring about Carin

The Later Years box-set has not only divided fans. There has also been some grumbling from Jon Carin, one of the Floyd’s session musicians, who co-wrote Learning To Fly. It first started with Carin complaining on Facebook that the Floyd didn’t wish him a happy birthday. We know the Church has been accused before from inventing stories, but this stuff is so unbelievable you really can’t make it up.

According to Jon Carin he played the bulk of the piano and keyboards on The Division Bell (and quite a few on The Endless River) and not Rick Wright as is generally believed. Why he has waited a quarter of a century to complain about this is something of a mystery, unless you mention that magical word that will turn the meekest lamb into a dog of war: copyrights.

The lost art of conversation

To promote The Later Years David Gilmour has published a 4-part podcast where he carefully reinterprets the past. Unfortunately what has been written about Pink Floyd before - by journalists and biographers - can still be read today, so almost nobody takes the propaganda from Gilmour seriously, unless you weren’t born yet when he turned a solo album into a Floyd one.

And where is Nick Mason, I hear you say? While he used to be the thriving force behind Floydian publicity in the past he is now totally absent.

Weird.

It’s almost as if there is a saucerful of secrets. Or a true enigma, this time.

The best of Tumblr 2019

But let’s finally start with our traditional annual overview of our sister blog on Tumblr that is daily updated with pictures you all have seen before. Have fun!

Relics ad — Januari 2019: Flashback to the days that politically correctness was still a science-fiction thing.

February 2019: Syd Barrett taking the naughty Clockwork Orange pose. Got any vellocet left?

Freak Out Floyd — March 2019: Freak Out, le freak c'est chic. Picture: Irene Winsby.

April 2019: Flowery fanart by 74retromantra74, based upon an Anthony Stern picture.

May 2019: 250£ for a Pink Floyd gig. Not the price for a ticket, but to hire the band. That's Entertainment.

Zee - Identity - 2019 edition. — June 2019: Another controversial Holy Church review, another shit show. The Reverend will never learn. Read that review at: Are friends Zeelectric?

Picture & Art: Duggie Fields. — July 2019: Packaging the madcap, wrapped in bubbles. Art & Picture: Duggie Fields.

Magical Iggy — August 2019: In August we started to publish a daily Iggy picture on Tumblr. It will end when we are out of photos, probably somewhere in 2020.

Colourisation by Brett Wilson — September 2019: This photograph can be found all over the web, but nobody seems to remember it was Brett Wilson who did the colouring. Luckily the Holy Church has some memory left.

John Hoppy Hopkins and Iggy — October 2019: John 'Hoppy' Hopkins and Iggy. Picture: Jimmie James. Barrett book exhibition, 17 March 2011. Read more at: Iggy at the Exhibition.

Mick Rock signature. — November 2019: Mick Rock signature besides a Storm Thorgerson picture, or isn’t it? Read (a bit) more at A Bay of Hope.

Syd & Iggy — December 2019: Iggy the Eskimo: 'I don’t care if you want to take your pictures or not. I need my cigs!' Picture: Mick Rock.

The Church wishes to thank: Steve Bassett (Madcapsyd), Steve Bennett, Jumaris CS, Joanna Curwood, Maya Deren, Esfera04, Jenni Fiire, Freqazoidiac, Rafael Gasent, Nino Gatti, Rich Hall, Harlequin, Dave Harris, Jabanette, Dion Johnson, Keleven, Simon Matthews, Joanne Milne (Charley), Rocco Moliterno, Peudent, Poliphemo, RonToon, TopPopper, Waelz, Wolfpack, Franka Wright and the many collaborators on Steve Hoffman Music Forums, Yeeshkul and Birdie Hop.

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Oh! Wot A Dream

NSFW warning: although heavily pixelated this article contains a small picture of naked b⊚⊚bs which may result in temporary blindness for minors.

Het Vrije Volk. Wednesday, 29th of July 1970.

The Soft Machine @ Hoepla — The Soft Machine, Hoepla, 1967.

Barrett & The Whole World

Imagine a super session with Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, David Bedford, Lol Coxhill, Mike Oldfield, Bridget St. John and Robert Wyatt, all in the same band. Well, it nearly happened, sort of, if we may believe the ‘SHOW’ entertainment gossip column of Dutch newspaper Het Vrije Volk (The Free People) from the 29th of July 1970.

This blog entry was suggested (and then promptly forgotten) to us by David De Vries who traced back the newspaper article on an online archive.

VPRO

Dutch broadcaster VPRO (Vrijzinnig Protestantse Radio Omroep / Liberal Protestant Radio Broadcasting Corporation) was, as the name suggests, a religious radio at first, but transformed into a progressive TV-station, deliberately exploring the boundaries of Dutch television. In the late-sixties, so it seems, there was a ‘coup’ when progressive minds managed to kick the conservative vicars out of the organisation.

Suddenly flower power television makers shocked the public with Fluxus happenings and other avant-garde, alternative humour and a pretty weird taste in music. Legendary was the short-lived Hoepla show that started in July 1967 and that confronted Dutch teenagers with Hapshash and the Coloured Coat and gigs from Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa (ripping one of his albums to pieces) and The Soft Machine (Soft Machine performing We Know What You Mean at Hoepla).

Hoepla

Hoepla ignored the current conventions on almost all points. Instead of making emotionless, polished, risk-free programs using Victorian standards (…) Hoepla opposed the rules of television craftsmanship.

They had nifty sets, loud music that was drowning out the interviews, jerky camera work and shots that sometimes took way too long.

This apparent amateurism was their method to try to realize an open and direct way of communication.

Video material that was usually thrown in the garbage bin ended up on the screen, making it a thousand times more relevant. (Het Open Blote Medium (The Open Naked Medium) by Igor Teuwen & Ivo van Leeuwen, 1986. Quote at approx. 16'15". Freely translated / adapted from Dutch by FA.)

The second Hoepla show created a row in Dutch parliament because the progressive VPRO beatniks had dared to display a topless woman, Fluxus performer Phil Bloom, for about fifteen seconds. A third show was only broadcast after the VPRO board of directors censored the naughty bits and that was the end of it.

Jimi Hendrix, Hoepla, 1967. Picture: Nico van der Stam.

Hoepla was history but its influence was enormous and the seeds of controversy couldn’t be stopped. VPRO continued with other mind-bending programs, not always in good taste and not always watchable either. But if you pretended to be a leftist progressive intellectual in the seventies, the VPRO Sunday night was obligatory stuff, also for people in dreary Belgium... especially for people in dreary Belgium where national TV was still something from the Christian minded fifties.

Musical Treasures

In 1997 music journalist Oscar Smit started to inventory the hundreds of audio- and video tapes that were lying on attics, in cupboards and dusty corners of the VPRO headquarters.

He found back the Piknik tapes, live registrations of gigs in the seventies and other ‘interesting’ stuff.

Some bands weren’t always happy with the recovered material. In the summer of 1969 Pink Floyd gave a concert at Paradiso Amsterdam. Unfortunately the electricity failed and the concert was postponed for a couple of hours. When the band finally started around 1 AM David Gilmour got an electric shock and the gig was again delayed for about 30 minutes. Because of the electricity problems the PA was partially disabled, the Floyd had to play without stereo effects, with less instruments and without microphones. That night they only played instrumentals and 4 out of 5 were captured by VPRO.

Pink Floyd in Paradiso. Picture: Gijsbert Hanekroot. Taken from 'Pink Floyd in Nederland'.

Roger Waters made a deal with VPRO that the Paradiso tapes would not be broadcast, but he had to promise that the band would return for another taped concert. That one became one of their most famous gigs, recorded by VPRO, bootlegged multiple times and cherished by fans for decades.

When Oscar Smit found back the Paradiso tape (in 1997) he promptly received a letter from the Floyd’s men in black with the message that the recording was still a no-go zone. But in 2016 they were finally released on The Early Years, together with the mythical The Man And The Journey (17 September 1969) from a couple of weeks later.

Piknik

Piknik was a 1970 VPRO radio- en TV-show that had live gigs from Canned Heat, Dr. John, Sly & The Family Stone and Frank Zappa.

For a ‘secret’ gig that would take place on 30 July 1970 Kevin Ayers and The Whole World were announced. Posters and publicity mentioned they would bring in a more than special guest: Syd Barrett.

This was not the first time Syd Barrett had to play The Netherlands. In his excellent Floydian biography ‘Pink Floyd In Nederland’ Charles Beterams writes that Barrett was scheduled to premiere The Madcap Laughs at De Melkweg (The Milky Way) in Amsterdam, on the third of January 1970, the day after the album was officially released. Support Act: Kevin Ayers. This gig – sorry, we can’t give you more information – was presumably cancelled at the last moment.

That Kevin Ayers would join Syd Barrett is not that weird. A couple of weeks earlier Syd had joined Kevin at EMI to guest on Religious Experience, that would later be re-baptised Singing A Song In The Morning.

But perhaps the summer of 1970 was a better moment for Syd Barrett ‘to revitalise his reputation on a truly progressive festival circuit’, to quote Julian Palacios in Dark Globe.

Piknik ad, mentioning Syd Barrett. Taken from Random Precision.

In February Barrett had started working on the successor of The Madcap Laughs (after a ‘live’ session for BBC’s Top Gear) and by the end of July 1970 the Barrett album was basically ready. A first master had been assembled by David Gilmour and Peter Bown. (In September a second and final master was made with remixed versions of Maisie and Waving My Arms In The Air.)

June 1970 had seen the first real Syd Barrett concert since January 68 (just before the Floyd ‘forgot’ to pick him up). It was the fairly shambolic Olympia show in London, with David Gilmour and Jerry Shirley, that only went on for 4 numbers. According to Rob Chapman in A Very Irregular Head the band itself was not that bad, but the gig was destroyed by PA problems that made the singing inaudible. Syd Barrett brought the show to a halt by leaving at the end of Octopus, while that number was actually the first where the PA more or less started to sound OK.

It has to be said that Barrett was fairly nervous for this gig and that he had to be persuaded by his bandmates to go on stage. In an interview with Giovanni Dadomo however, Syd sounded pretty eager to go back on the road:

I’ve got this Wembley gig [Olympia, FA] and then another thing in summer [Piknik, FA]. I’ll be getting something together for the Wembley thing and then just see what happens.

Jerry Shirley, however, tells another thing:

He was going to do it, he wasn’t going to do it. Finally we said, Look, Syd, come on, man, you can do it!

The Syd Barrett gig, with Kevin Ayers & The Whole World show was going to take place at the Gemeentecentrum (communal centre) of Driebergen, near Utrecht. But an article, the day before the gig, in Het Vrije Volk already hinted that Barrett would probably not 'show' up.

WEDNESDAY 29 JULY 1970
Problems concerning fourth Piknik
Will Syd Barret sing or will he not sing?
From our reporter ALE VAN DIJK

HILVERSUM - VPRO television is uncertain about the course of the fourth Piknik show, that will be live transmitted from the province of Utrecht on Nederland 1 on Thursday evening.

Kevin Ayers @ Driebergen. Picture: Ron de Bruijn.

Part One – Beaujolais

The first problem, according to reporter Ale Van Dijk was that the band had to be bribed with wine:

Director Roelof Kiers has six bottles of Beaujolais from 1969 ready. The bottles will be on stage on Thursday evening where pop singer Kevin Ayers (ex-Soft Machine) and the group The Whole World will perform.

Kevin's manager has ordered three bottles with the message that the boys will perform better if they see the bottles with the wine they love. They also always take a sip of it during their performance. And the wine must be from 1969, according to Kevin and his men, an excellent year.

Part Two – Syd Barrett

A second problem is Syd Barrett, former Pink Floyd singer-composer and arranger. Syd Barrett is a close friend of Kevin Ayers. That is why the VPRO also invited him to come to Piknik. But the strangest stories are circulating about Syd Barrett in the pop world. One of Syd's peculiarities is that he always refuses to sign a contract that binds him to perform.

Dance company 'Kunst baart Kracht' @ Hoepla.

Although this is coming from an entertainment gossip page it is pretty revealing. Syd may have been mad, but not mad enough to be willing to sign contracts. Ale Van Dijk continues:

He is against it. It sometimes happens that he is present, but if he does not like the atmosphere or if he thinks he is not in the right shape, he simply does not enter the stage. It is already certain that Syd Barrett will only fly to the Netherlands on Thursday if a taxi picks him up at his house, drives him to the plane and if another taxi is waiting at Schiphol to take him to the "secret" venue of Piknik in the province of Utrecht (somewhere on the border with two other provinces).

Fair enough. Apparently the VPRO didn’t mind organising Syd’s trip to Holland. There must have been quite a few Syd Barrett fans among those avant-garde television freaks. But the reporter from Het Vrije Volk isn’t finished yet. Now it’s really time to gossip:

The possibility is also great that the first taxi will not find Barrett because something has gotten out of hand between Wednesday and Thursday. Moreover, he may feel "too sick" to go. And the VPRO cannot wave with a contract. Syd Barrett, however, has been informed about the Dutch Piknik event and he liked what he heard about it, according to the VPRO.

So far for the Syd Barrett rumours. Did you catch the ironic “too sick” line? Gossip or not, Ale van Dijk got it right. We will never be certain if a taxi really waited in front of Syd’s door but if there was one Syd never made it to The Netherlands.

Kevin Ayers @ Piknik — Kevin Ayers @ Driebergen.

Part Three – The Whole World

The rest of the article has some idle chit chat about The Whole World.

The group The Whole World is a pop group that differs from the usual electronic bands. A few members of the group have been found on street corners by Kevin Ayers. They were buskers. There is even a middle-aged musician in the group who allegedly creates "cheerful superpop".

We are not sure who the journalist meant with ‘buskers’ but the middle-aged musician must have been sax-player Lol Coxhill who, at 38, was 12 years older than Kevin Ayers. Mike Oldfield, with 17, was the youngest in the band..

Zingt Syd Barret wel of zingt hij niet? — Zingt Syd Barret (*sic*) wél of zingt hij niet? (Will Syd Barret sing or will he not sing?), Het Vrije Volk, 29th of July 1970.

The Concert

The Piknik concert of Kevin Ayers & The Whole World that, according to one reviewer is ‘as oddly disconcerting as any live Ayers experience ought to be’ can be found at YouTube, thanks to the VPRO.

This live broadcast from 1970 catches the Whole Wide World at their most maddening, a collection of songs that veers deliberately between the whimsical and the obtuse, with little middle ground in between.

If only they could’ve had Syd Barrett with them. He would not have been misplaced in that band of loonies.

The Dutch Het Vrije Volk article can be consulted at our Tumblr: Zingt Syd Barret wél of zingt hij niet?

The Kevin Ayers & The Whole World concert, without Syd Barrett, can be found at:
One hour 'pristine' version, music only: https://youtu.be/kDvhSIwKr6I
One hour and 45 minutes version: https://youtu.be/HpytiwOKtWI

The Church wishes to thank Charles Beterams, Ron de Bruijn, Gijsbert Hanekroot, David De Vries, Julian Palacios.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Several pictures have been removed on this post, due to a (false?) copyright claim.

Sources (other than the above mentioned links):
Beterams, Charles: Pink Floyd in Nederland, Permafrost Publishers, Rotterdam, 2017, p 102-104, 125.
⚛ Pink Floyd in Paradiso picture: Gijsbert Hanekroot.
Carvalho, Hester: VPRO's Muzikale Goudschat, NRC.nl, 25/04/1998 (paywalled).
Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 270.
Dadomo, Giovanni: The Madcap Speaks, Terrapin #9/10, Jul 1974 (interview dating from 1970).
Palacios, Julian: Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, Plexus, London, 2010, p. 371, 377.
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 157-158, 188-189.
⚛ Syd Barrett Piknik ad: Ron de Bruijn.
Teuwen, Igor & van Leeuwen, Ivo: Het Open Blote Medium, 1986.

A Tale of Two Henriettas

This is a follow-up article to Paint Your Wagon: Iggy movie unearthed!
To watch the BFI movie: Hippies St Germans (geoblocked outside Great Britain).
To watch some excerpts on the Felix Atagong YouTube channel: Iggy at Port Eliot (1968).

Iggy at Port Eliot. — Iggy at Port Eliot

Carmen Jimenez, John Lennon, Iggy Picture: Bruce Fleming. — Carmen Jimenez, John Lennon & Iggy. Picture: Bruce Fleming.

Zeliggy

A talented journalist will write great lines. Mark Blake was spot on when he described Iggy the Eskimo as a Zelig-like presence on the capital's music scene of the mid-sixties.

For those who aren't familiar with 20th century symbolism, Zelig is a 1983 bittersweet satire, from Woody Allen, about a somewhat colourless man who inexplicably appears on cinema newsreels of the twenties and thirties (the nineteen-hundred twenties and thirties, obviously).

The same goes for Iggy although ‘colourless’ is about the last adjective we think of to describe her. The Brighton Mod & Rockers War: Iggy was there. Hendrix’s first concert in London: Iggy was there, sitting on the stage. The Sympathy For The Devil sessions: Iggy was there, but she is nowhere to be found in the Jean-Luc Godard movie. Performance: Iggy was there, refusing a role as an extra. Pictures of her ‘backstage’ still have to emerge and if we may believe her own words there must have been photographic evidence with Eric Clapton, Roger Daltrey, George Harrison, Brian Jones, Anita Pallenberg, 'Keef' Richards and 'lovely' Keith Moon...

Iggy’s most Zelig-like presence is on a picture taken by Bruce Fleming on a party on the 8th of January 1967, attended by three different Beatles. Carmen Jimenez was Georgie Fame’s girlfriend and for her 21st birthday a fancy dress event was organised at The Cromwellian. The picture has Carmen playing peek-a-boo behind John Lennon, who is dressed like a priest, but at the right hand side of the picture a glimpse of Iggy can be spotted.

And, my dear sistren and brethren, let us not forget, she was one of the first persons to listen to the early tapes of The Madcap Laughs. She was there, with Syd Barrett, Zelig-like, seamlessly blending in the background, while Storm Thorgerson and Mick Rock took their legendary pictures.

Unfortunately another rock star, probably Steve Peregrin Took (or Tookie, as Iggy used to say) from Tyrannosaurus Rex fame, tossed her suitcase overboard containing most of her pictures when crossing the Channel, heading for (or returning from) Spain. Iggy’s relationships have always been somewhat tumultuous and she went through some rough times with some less disciplined rockers.

Henrietta Moraes

In a previous article (Paint Your Wagon) we wrote how Iggy joined a bunch of aristocratic would-be hippies who were looking for the Holy Grail, travelling in a horse-drawn wagon, following ley lines and UFO sightings all over Devon and Wales. They were caught in a documentary at the Port Eliot castle, where they could stay from Peregrine Eliot, 10th Earl of St Germans.

Iggy told the Church that the notorious junkie muse Henrietta Moraes was one of the people joining the Port Eliot convoy. In 1968 she was already 37 years old, Iggy only 21, but she was still an underground society figure to be reckoned with.

Perhaps they felt they had something in common. Henrietta (real name: Audrey Wendy Abbott) was born in India – just like Iggy – and their fathers had been military men. Moraes’ had been a free spirit in the fifties, roaming through the Soho subculture and being a model for Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

When the Sixties hit the streets Henrietta traded Soho for the psychedelic underground, taking every drug imaginable and continuing her eccentric and promiscuous lifestyle.

Henrietta Moraes can not be seen in the Port Eliot documentary, but in her autobiography Henrietta, that appeared in 1994, she describes her life on the road with Mark Palmer. There isn’t a single trace of Iggy in that book, which seems weird at first, but there could be a logical explanation.

Henrietta Garnett

Recently a new person was identified on the Port Eliot film. One of the horse carriage hippies is Henrietta Garnett, an acclaimed author who published several biographies and a novel.

Henrietta Garnett (1945 – 2019) was a third generation member of the Bloomsbury Group, a loose assembly of artists, intellectuals, philosophers and writers, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes and E.M. Forster. Her father, David Garnett, was an author and publisher. Her mother Angelica was a writer, painter and artist.

It has been said from the Bloomsbury’s that ‘they were living in squares, painting in circles and loving in triangles’.

Henrietta’s mother – for instance – Angelica Bell, was not the daughter of her legal father, but the product of some extramarital gymnastics with painter Duncan Grant. Her father was a bi-sexual serial libertine, who once had a gay fling with that same man.

At 17 a pregnant Henrietta married Lytton Burgo Partridge, author of A History of Orgies, but she was almost immediately widowed when he died three weeks after the birth of their daughter.

Henrietta, obviously shocked, opted out raising her daughter and fled into the London underground, living the gypsy life and enjoying the swinging sixties at full extent. Five years later, in 1968, she joined the band of aristocratic dropouts who visited Port Eliot, together with Iggy the Eskimo.

Although she followed the travelling aristos, she wasn’t really impressed with them, calling them ‘chequebook hippies’. Something she had in common with Iggy, who only found out later that the people she had joined were hippie millionaires.

But not all travellers were as we will now see in a not so short detour.

Vashti Bunyan

In Rob Young’s excellent ‘Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music’ he describes how a fifty years old Austin ran out of fuel, somewhere in 1967.

Three people (and a dog, Blue) were in the vehicle. Robert Lewis and folk musician John James started to push the vehicle, towards the next village and petrol station, while Vashti Bunyan took the steering wheel. It was then they saw an old baker’s delivery cart, belonging to a Romany, who sold them the caravan and its horse, Bess.

Vashti had already released a couple of singles, some under the guidance of Andrew Loog Oldham, but the plan to make her a second Marianne Faithfull had failed. Robert Lewis and Vashti were a couple, living the hippie life in the woods of Chislehurt, until they were evicted by the police.

The money to buy the cart was lent to them by Donovan Philips Leitch, who was some kind of a guru and benefactor of the hippie movement. With the money of his first three albums (and one compilation) Donovan had bought three Scottish islands where he wanted to set up an idyllic hippie commune. That is were Vashti and her boyfriend were now heading to. Their plan was to (slowly) drive from Kent to the Scottish Highlands, along the mythical ley lines, a journey that would take them a year and a half.

The rural communities of England were not known for its hospitality towards strangers. The plan of earning some pounds by singing songs at market places and other events was often interrupted by the police, who chased them away. In several villages people were afraid that the Lewis-Bunyan couple would kidnap children or steal chickens, whatever came first. But somehow they managed to survive, often by harvesting scrap metal and selling it, and luckily there were other travellers around willing to help the couple on the road.

While the horse and carriage was parked in the Lake District, during the winter of 1968-69, Vashti made a small tour around pubs and bars in the Netherlands and Belgium. Above a bar in Ghent she met American folk player Derroll Adams, who was a friend of Donovan as well, and he encouraged her to record the songs she had written on her journey so far. She contacted Joe Boyd, who had already tried to record her when she was under contract with Andrew Loog Oldham, and plans were made for an album, although her (far from) idyllic trek through England and Scotland still came at first place.

Vashti Bunyan, children and dog. — Vashti Bunyan, children & dog.

In summer 1969 they finally reached Skye, but Donovan had permanently left rainy Scotland for Los Angeles, leaving the commune on its own. Some hippies were still there, others had already left and newcomers were not encouraged to stay.

Vashti and friend settled on the island of Berneray, where they were not welcome by the local population either, with the exception of an eighty-three-year-old neighbour, who could sing old Gaelic folk songs.

Vashti finally booked some recording sessions at Sound Techniques and in November 1969 Christopher Sykes picked her (and Robert) up for the long drive to London. It took her three days to record the fourteen songs of Just Another Diamond Day. They are incredibly frail and intimate, lullabies for the unborn child she was carrying. Christopher Sykes and John James, who also painted the sleeve, helped her out. Joe Boyd added extra musicians from The Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Nick Drake's backing band, which was - at the time - not appreciated by Bunyan at all.

Just Another Diamond Day finally came out in December 1970, a year after it had been recorded. By then Vashti had to take care of her baby and a rock’n’roll style of life – promoting, touring and recording – was out of the question.

Settling down in Berneray had failed as well. After a brief stay in London and at the farm of The Incredible String Band the couple left for Ireland, still on a wagon and with their horse Bess.

We kept travelling by horse and wagon, which was entirely stupid. By the time we got there, of course, the price would go up beyond our reach. That kept happening. We walked across Ireland. We stayed there a year, with a bigger wagon that did have a stove in it.

Only a couple hundred Vashti Bunyan records survived (the cheapest copies sell for around £1500) and it became a cult-record in the last decade of the past century, thanks to the power of the internet and bootleg versions of the album. In 2000 the album was officially released on CD.

Since then it has been described as one of the finest British folk albums ever. Vashti Bunyan briefly re-entered the music business after a 35-years hiatus, releasing a second album in 2005.

Mark Palmer’s Convoy

Henrietta Moraes, who had been a dropout in the mid-fifties, was already 35 when she tumbled in the upper-class psychedelic underground where she met Christopher Sykes, an English author, musician, BBC Radio collaborator and a friend of Vashti Bunyan. Other alternative minds of the psychedelic cultural elite were antique dealer Christopher Gibbs, interior decorator David ‘Monster’ Mlinaric, Michael Rainey & Jane (née: Ormsby-Gore), Victor & Julian Ormsby-Gore, Beatrix, Rose & Anne Lambton, Catherine Tennant and of course: Mark Palmer. It was a fairly small world, inhabited by mostly well to do people.

Mark Palmer sat in Hyde Park with Martin Wilkinson and Maldwyn Thomas. (…) An idea came. Why don’t we drop out? Why don’t we leave London and go to the country? Why don’t we buy a horse and cart and travel all over the place, all over England in fact, like gypsies and be free? So that is what they did, and they travelled down to Port Eliot in Cornwall.

Martin Wilkinson and Maldwyn Thomas were English Boy models, the company owned by Mark Palmer. Thomas was (or would be) married to Jenny Fabian one day.

English Boys. Picture taken from Emma Peel Pants.

Henrietta Moraes places this event after the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park, on the fifth of July 1969, while the BFI claims the documentary made at Port Eliot (with Iggy and Henrietta Garnett) dates from the year before. According to Moraes a gypsy barrel-top wagon was bought, together with Rizla, a brown and white-coloured horse and Fly, a brindled lurcher dog.

Henrietta joined the band of wanderers a couple of months later, around Easter of 1970.

Dating problems.

It is practically 100% certain that Iggy was living with Syd Barrett in April 1969, so either she went on her wagon trip the year before (1968 is the date given by BFI) or the year after (1970 is the date given by Henrietta Moraes).

Probably Mark Palmer organised different treks over the years, a first one to Port Eliot with Iggy and Henrietta Garnett in 1968 and a second one with Henrietta Moraes in 1970, and that is the one that would take him 4 years to reach his destination. This explains the absence of Henrietta Moraes in the BFI documentary and the absence of Iggy (and Henrietta Garnett) in the Moraes autobiography.

The confusing thing is that Iggy claimed to have visited Port Eliot, with Henrietta Moraes, to celebrate Mayday where ‘Peregrine's beautiful ladies were sitting astride the horses that were adorned with flower garlands, dressed as dames from King Arthur's Court.’ Perhaps she mistook the one Henrietta for the other. Perhaps, as we have suggested before, she visited Port Eliot more than once.

In her memoirs Henrietta Moraes remembers riding Sagittarius, an Arab stallion, bareback as the aristo-hippie guru didn’t believe in saddles. Not believing in saddles is one thing, but Mark Palmer was also convinced that real travellers and people on the road didn’t need baths either, as he pointed out to Henrietta Moraes one day.

Maldwyn Thomas had about the same to say:

Somebody said quite innocently, “Would you like to have a bath?” and without thinking I said, “It’s alright. I had one two months ago.”

Mark Palmer may have been an aristocrat but he really was very serious about living the alternative life. On the first leg of their journey the travellers passed through Hungerford, Frome, Trecarrel Mill and Launceston, where they caused a huge stir. Henrietta Moraes:

A lot of people taught we were the circus and tried to buy tickets from us.

John Michell

Visits were made to Arthurian places like Boscastle, Camelot and Tintagel. It was at one of those they allegedly spotted a flying saucer. It only convinced them even more they were on the good path for whatever they were looking for.

One of the travellers was none other than John Michell, who was jokingly (and not so jokingly) described as the counter-culture new Merlin. He was an esotericist involved in the London Free School and had written the book 'The Flying Saucer Vision: The Holy Grail Restored'. He firmly believed that UFOs were somehow connected to ancient British myths like those of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, although (according to his critics) he could never explain exactly how.

For Michell flying saucers were not necessarily alien. They could be seen as 'emanations of the human psyche, archetypes in Jungian terms, observed at sites with ancient religious significance'. UFOs were not alien, but earthly machines - from Atlantis perhaps - intimately intertwined with forces derived from the alignment of the British landscape. There are those ley lines again! He as well, was convinced of the importance of the times they were living in:

The strange lights and other phenomena of the post-war period were portents of a radical change in human consciousness coinciding with the dawn of the Aquarian Age.

Michell witnessed strange lights in the sky, experienced new 'psychedelic' music, took a lot of LSD and was convinced that 'the world was about to flip over on its axis so that heresy would become orthodoxy and an entirely new world order would shortly be revealed'.

Trip to Port Eliot — The trip to Port Eliot.

Psychedelic Pilgrims

According to Henrietta Moraes eight persons could travel in the horse-driven cart. But the caravan was also accompanied by cars and motorcycles, especially at the weekends when would-be hippies travelled from London to wherever the convoy was. It's not that they were moving very fast.

When they left London the band of travellers included a fine batch of (pretty well-doing) alternative thinkers and a little yellow mongrel bitch, Chloe. Moraes identifies the following beautiful people:

Derek Fitzgerald, member of London’s flower power intelligentsia and a friend of Nick Drake.
Greg Ridley, bass player, member of Spooky Tooth and Humble Pie.
John Michell, esotericist, author of ‘The Flying Saucer Vision’ and International Times contributor.
John Pearse, tailor and Granny Takes A Trip collaborator.
Kelvin Webb, English Boy model agency co-owner.
Maldwyn Thomas, English Boy model and boyfriend, later husband, of Jenny Fabian.
Nicky Kramer (or Cramer), the Kings Road Flower Child, a dandy dope head who was regarded by the aristos as a penniless ‘hanger on’. (Read more about him at the Redlands Bust blog.)
Nigel Waymouth, designer, partner in Granny Takes a Trip and co-artist in Hapshash and the Coloured Coat.

You have to admit the above list reads like a who-is-who of Swingin' London. On the road they met other travellers with wagons and sometimes they decided to go the same way. There was Penny Cuthberson and her coloured mare, Lily. Angus Wood, aka The Colonel, his wife Debora and a horse called Jacob joined them as well, later on.

Mark and Catherine Palmer, 2017. Picture: Sunday Times.

From Stargroves to Mill Hill farm

Their first winter was spent at Stargroves in Berkshire, an estate belonging to Mick Jagger (sold to him by John Michell), where Mark Palmer had to be medically treated, malnourished as he was from living an unbalanced macrobiotic life. He first refused to see a doctor though, as he was convinced his body was just getting rid of the poison of modern life. Like we told before, he was taking this trip through England and Wales as a real Arthurian quest.

Mark Palmer and friends wandered around the country for about four years, at an average speed of 4 miles a day. After having roamed around Wales, staying at places like Hay-On-Wye, Llandysul, Welshpool and Montgomery they went up further north to Wiseton (Doncaster) and Retford (Nottinghamshire).

Henrietta Moraes left the convoy after a couple of years to become Marianne Faithfull’s secretary. Mark Palmer finally settled on Mill Hill farm at Sherborne, Gloucestershire, where he specialised in the horse-breeding business.

Hippie or not that farm (and its surroundings) is now estimated at over 3 million pounds. Seems that he found that Holy Grail after all.

The Church wishes to thank Emma Peel Pants, Sophie Partridge.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (other than the above mentioned links):
Artlark: The Model-Mistress-Muse Paradigm: Henrietta Moraes, Artlark, 22 May 2019.
Beechey, James: Henrietta Garnett obituary, The Guardian, 19 September 2019.
Boyd, Joe: White Bicycles, Serpent's Tail, London, 2009, p. 358 (eBook version).
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p. 216.
Higham, Nick: Meet the Author: Henrietta Garnett, BBC, 30 Augustus 2012.
Martin, Douglas: John Michell, Counterculture Author Who Cherished Idiosyncrasy, Dies at 76, New York Times, 2 May 2009.
Moraes, Henrietta: Henrietta, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1994, p. 97, 101, 105, 108 - 109, 111.
Nicholson, Virginia: HENRIETTA GARNETT (1945-2019), Charleston, (no date).
Telegraph Obituaries: Henrietta Garnett, scion of the Bloomsbury set who overcame a troubled childhood to become an acclaimed biographer, The Telegraph, 20 September 2019 (paywalled).
Telegraph Obituaries: John Michell, The Telegraph, 8 May 2009.
Williamson Marcus: John Michell: Expert on ancient knowledge and pioneer of the New Age, The Independent, 21 May 2009.
Young, Rob: Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music, Faber And Faber, London, 2010 (ePub version, chapter: The Inward Exodus, no page numbers).

10 years ago - season 3 (2010-2011)

Holy Church Wordcloud (2018). Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix Atagong.

The church started as a jokey blog in August 2008, but we had to get serious when, only a year later, Iggy was found back, thanks to Mark Blake, from Pigs Might Fly fame. She lived in a village in West-Sussex, 52 miles from central London in the north and 14 miles from the south coast, with a population of approximately 5,000.

Those and other stories you can read in the overview of the first two seasons of The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, a name that Iggy thoroughly hated, by the way.

10 Mind-blowing facts you didn't know about the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit
Bang A Gong (10 Years of Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit)
10 years ago - season 2 (2009-2010)

The Third Season

In season three the Church had acquired some maturity and because Iggymania hit us hard there were over 30 articles that year. Here is what happened a decade ago, a condensed overview of our third season, in a reader’s digest way.

Metallic Spheres

Somewhere in the early nineties, the Reverend got aware of the band The Orb, basically because some lazy journalists had baptised them the Pink Floyd of ambient house. It has been a love/hate relationship ever since because The Orb used to spit out songs and or remixes by the bucket-load, often from uneven quality. (Check their 2020 sixteenth or seventeenth studio album Abolition of the Royal Familia, that is really good.)

In August of 2010, the official David Gilmour blog (that no longer exists) finally confirmed the rumours that a Floydian Orb partnership was going to take place. You can find all juicy (and wacky) details in two articles but those aren’t amongst the Reverend’s bests.

Metallic Spheres
The Relic Samples

Introduction

For those fans who might think, what does The Orb has to do with Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett or Iggy the Eskimo, there was news about Syd Barrett compilation number 6 that saw the light of day in October 2010. An Introduction To Syd Barrett was the first compilation combining solo and Pink Floyd songs on one single album.

Before you say ‘what the fuck’ this compilation did have some extra bits and pieces for the Syd Barrett anoraky collector. Four songs had been remixed, plus one partially re-recorded, by David Gilmour and for the first time in history, the 20 minutes version of Rhamadan was offered as a downloadable extra track (for a limited period only).

Gravy Train To Cambridge

Dark Globe

About a year and a half after Rob Chapman’s An Irregular Head Julian Palacios’ retaliated with Dark Globe, a complete re-write of his previous Barrett and early Pink Floyd biography Lost In The Woods.

Somewhat hermetic and not always the easiest prose to read it still is the Syd Barrett authoritative biography around, giving credit where credit is due, a department where Chapman lacked somewhat. Palacios is the kind of biographer who will give you the brand of the coffee machine that was used in a bar in Cambridge where Syd used to have an espresso and who is a bit cross he couldn’t trace back its actual serial number. We have you warned.

Mojo

The Mojo edition of February 2011 (#207) put on its cover that Iggy the Eskimo had been found and surprised us with a (small) article. Mark Blake promised us a more in-depth article later on while Iggy was learning how to type the right syllables on her portable phone, leaving a bunch of quasi undecipherable messages at the Mojo website (for the first time published here, see underneath).

Meanwhile, the Reverend and Iggy tried to connect, de tâtonnement en tâtonnement as the French so beautifully say, figuring out what the future should bring if there was a mutual future, to begin with.

The Strange Tale of Iggy the Eskimo was Mark Blake’s full article that appeared as a Mojo Exclusive on its website. Unfortunately, it was deleted a couple of years later. It is not even sure any more if it is still around on Mark Blake’s own website, but a copy has been saved for eternity at the Holy Church.

Obviously, the Church had quite a few articles about Iggy's reappearance in season three:

Iggy’s second interview in 40 years
Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home
Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home (2)
EXCLUSIVE: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo
Mojo Exclusive: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2
Reaction time
Give birth to a smile...
The Mighty Queen

Some of Iggy's comments on the Mojo website. (She had never used a smartphone before.)

False Claims

In January 2011 somebody who appeared to be close to the Barrett epicentre tried to sell a handwritten poem by Syd Barrett. Only, the handwriting was not Syd’s, but by Barrett collector Bernard White, who had published the poem in the fanzine Terrapin. When the Church tried to investigate we were warned not to dig too deep, for reasons still unknown, a decade later.

Anno 2020 there is a Syd Barrett lyrics book in the making. Perhaps it will finally clear the fog around ‘A Rooftop Song In A Thunderstorm Row Missing The Point’.

Fakes come in all sizes and colours. A Pink Floyd acetate containing Scream Thy Last Scream and Vegetable Man was analysed by the Yeeshkul community and proven to be a forgery. It's value dropped from ten thousand dollars to about zero. Beware for the (many) fake records and autographed items out there, people!

Bonhams Sells Fake Barrett Poem
Scream Thy False Scream
EMI blackmails Pink Floyd fans!

¡Entrevista!

Fake as well, was an interview with the proprietor and mentor behind the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, the famous and agile Reverend Felix Atagong. Originally issued – in Spanish! - on the fantastico Solo En Las Nubes Barrett blog, it gave away all its dirty secrets. Ay caramba! The English version appeared some while later at the Church. It truly is an article of epic proportions.

Felix Atagong: an honest man

Ian, Iggy, Captain Sensible. — Ian Barrett, Iggy Rose and Captain Sensible (picture: Captain Sensible).

Idea Generation

Iggy’s first public appearance in about half a century took place at the Idea Generation exposition on the 17th of March 2011. A lot of people were invited and Iggy was pleasantly surprised that she was asked, by about everyone (minus one), for autographs and pictures.

That she was the star of the evening not only surprised her. Unfortunately, it also led to a jealous outbreak from someone whom we will call X. That person had always been high on the Syd Barrett pecking order and was afraid to lose that spot. Iggy and X would be frenemies for the rest of their lives, en passant adding the Reverend to the war zone who was hit by friendly (and less friendly) fire.

Iggy at the Exhibition
Barrett: come on you painter!

The Cromwellian

In our third season, we also continued our Cromwellian nightclub series with articles about professional wrestlers Paul Lincoln, Bob 'Anthony' Archer, Judo Al Hayes and Rebel Ray Hunter who co-owned The Crom and other clubs in the sixties.

Dr Death and other assorted figures...
RIP Paul Lincoln
The Wrestling Beatle
Cromwellian blog launched!

2020

Meanwhile, David Gilmour and Roger Waters are fighting an online battle to get the most attention of the fans, by releasing home recordings of Barrett, Floyd and solo songs. Nick Mason (with his Saucerful band) is – obviously – still the coolest guy around.

See you next year, sistren and brethren!

Many thanks to all collaborators who helped us a decade ago and who are still helping us today. RIP to those who are no longer around.: Adenairways, Amy-Louise, Anne, Bob Archer, Emily Archer, Russell Beecher, Paul Belbin, Mark Blake, Libby Gausden Chisman, Dallasman, Dan, Dan5482, Dancas, Denis Combet, Dominae & Ela & Violetta (Little Queenies), Paul Drummond, The Embassy of God, Emmapeelfan, Felixstrange, Babylemonade Flowers, Gianna, Dark Globe, Griselda, Rich Hall, Hallucalation, Rod Harrod, JenS, Jimmie James, Mark Jones, Kieren, Krackers, Lynxolita, Natasha M, Mojo, MOB, Moonwall, Motoriksymphonia, Natashaa', Giuliano Navarro, Neonknight, Göran Nyström, Julian Palacios, Alain Pire, PoC (Party of Clowns), Antonio Jesús Reyes, DollyRocker, Dolly Rocker, Jenny Spires, Vince666, Vintage Groupies, Brian Wernham, Wrestling Heritage, X, Xpkfloyd, Zag, Zoe and all the beautiful people at Late Night and Yeeshkul.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Sons of Lucifer

Animal Magic, Graded Grains, 1968 (enhanced picture).

Rieks Korte is a Syd Barrett fan and a lover of rarities as his Dutch blogs De Platenkoffer and De Platenkoldershow show. Unfortunately these blogs haven’t been updated since 2016 as he also succumbed to the Venus flytrap that is Facebook.

As such he is a valid contributor to Birdie Hop, that eclectic mixture of Sydiots (good!) and idiots (not so good!) who think that publishing the same pictures from Syd Barrett over and over again is a splendid thing. But who am I to blame others, next to slightly fantastic The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit (the blog you are reading now), there is a pretty redundant Tumblr, a superfluous Facebook page and a forgettable Twitter with the same name, that only add to the general obfuscation of the interweb.

So far for my introduction that, as the gentle reader knows, mostly has nothing to do with the rest of the article. This is no exception.

Lucifer Sam

A couple of days ago Rieks Korte wrote about a Lucifer Sam cover from the band The Graded Grains, allegedly from 1967, that he described as (possibly) the first Pink Floyd cover ever. You can listen to it hereafter, before we continue with our lament. Thank you.

Link for recalcitrant browsers: Lucifer Sam.

The Graded Grains

The Graded Grains, named after a successful advertisement slogan from Homepride, are so obscure that their name isn’t even mentioned in Rob Chapman’s Psychedelia and Other Colours, but to my amazement I happen to have one of their tracks in my collection, Animal Magic on The Looking At The Pictures In The Sky box from Grapefruit Records. (That same compilation also has a track from The Spartans, an early incarnation.)

Looking At The Picture In The Sky, compilation.

There is a very detailed – official – website of the band and from there we learn that they were originally based at Exeter and started in 1964 as The Spartans. They morphed into Clockwork Orange and finally they settled as The Graded Grains in 1967.

The band went on until 1971, had a bus-load of personnel changes, and had over 300 gigs in Germany alone. They acted as a warm-up band for quite a few rock legends: Amen Corner, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Cream, Family, Free, Long John Baldry, The Move, The Pretty Things, The Searchers, The Swinging Blue Jeans, Traffic and The Who.

A Graded Grains Mk2 was reformed in 1974. That band went on for about a decade with over a thousand gigs on their list.

Despite these many gigs there are only about 30 recorded tracks of them, available in collectors circles and never officially released, with the odd exception here and there.

The Graded Grains Mk1. LTR: Cliff Andrews, John Gregory & Bud Street. Picture: http://www.gradedgrains.co.uk.

Lucifer Sam

The first Graded Grains tracks were made at Swan Street Studio, Torquay, in 1968, engineered by Tony Waldron. It had Cliff Andrews on drums, John Gregory on guitar and Ian “Bud” Street on bass and vocals.

This session has survived on acetate. Side A has an early version of Animal Magic (misspelled as Animal Majic), side B has a track that has been noted down as Lucifer Son but that is a (pretty average) cover of the Floyd’s Lucifer Sam, probably to repeat the animal theme on the record's B-side.

Dating

While Modbeat66 at YouTube claims this is a 1967 track the Graded Grains site confirms several times that this session dates from 1968. That is the date we will work with.

So, is this really the first Pink Floyd cover as has been claimed?
No, it probably isn’t.

As usual, when things involve Syd Barrett and early Pink Floyd, the Reverend thinks he can give the answers.

Explanation 1

First of all, the Lucifer Sam version of The Graded Grains exists only as an acetate disc and was never issued as a single. A collector found it in a London shop and put the track on a 1983 Chocolate Soup For Diabetics compilation (still as Lucifer Son, by the way). One source told the Church that the song could be found on an earlier bootleg, where it was described as a track from an unknown band, but we didn't find a trace of that album.

Dr Doom, on 45Cat, claims that there are two known acetates of this record. One was auctioned in 2004 on eBay and on the third of September 2017 a second one was sold for £821 on Popsike (where it was confirmed this was the second known copy of that acetate).

Although recorded in 1968, Lucifer Sam by The Graded Grains has only been officially released in the mid eighties, so it simply isn't the Floyd’s first cover version. Some readers might find that we are stretching the rules a bit...

...but we have an even better argument.

Explanation 2

There is a Pink Floyd cover from a Canadian band that dates from 1967, a couple of months before Graded Grains recorded Lucifer Sam. Three To One recorded See Emily Play on the Arc label in 1967 and a year later that same track appeared on the CTV After Four compilation.

A second See Emily Play cover on Arc, using new vocals, but with the same musical track, was released by the Okey Pokey Band & Singers on their 1968 Flower Power album. A shorter version of exactly the same song was put on an 1968 EP from the band The Golden Ring, unfortunately that version seems to have disappeared from YouTube.

The Okey Pokey Band and The Golden Ring never existed as such, but were just fake band names to put on so-called sound-alike records. We have dedicated a very detailed article about these Canadian Pink Floyd covers: The Rape of Emily (three different ones).

Conclusion

Graded Grains were one of the very first bands to cover a Pink Floyd tune, only nobody ever heard it before the eighties. They were preceded by a couple of months by Canadian band Three To One who covered See Emily Play. Perhaps Graded Grains were the first British band to have covered a Pink Floyd song, although that is open for discussion.

It makes a good story though.

Many thanks: British Music Archive, Dr Doom, Graded Grains, John Gregory, Rieks Korte, Modbeat66 and the friendly people of Birdie Hop. Some pictures and stuff at our Tumblr: Graded Grains.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Singing it again at night...

Cash Cows

On the 25th of September 2020, Neptune Pink Floyd came with a scoop that wasn't known to the two other 'biggies' of Pink Floyd fandom. That or else they were too preoccupied writing favourable articles about the redundant re-re-release of the live album Delicate Sound Of Thunder, that can also be found in The Later Years box-set. If you already have The Later Years the only reason to buy Delicate Sound Of Thunder 2020 is to have an extra set of postcards. They don’t come cheap nowadays.

Neptune Pink Floyd

We are pretty sure Neptune won't mind quoting them:

Pink Floyd collectors will be very excited to learn that a recording, thought lost forever, featuring Pink Floyd as a backing band, has been found after many years. It will be available for auction on 16th October in Wessex, England at 12 pm BST.

The song in question is Early Morning Henry, considered to be one of those Floydian holy grails. For decades fans thought that it had disappeared or that it was hidden in the archives of Norman Smith who took the tape on the 20th of October 1967. The reason why Smith took it home was that it wasn’t a Floyd original, but a cover of a Billy Butler song. If you want to know the complete story we can guide you to our article that appeared in 2019: Singing A Song In The Morning.

It is not Smith’s ‘plastic spool’ that is for sale, but a 3 minutes and 55 seconds one-sided acetate with the Early Morning Henry song. This may be of importance while our story develops.

The acetate is part of a very huge collection that was bought by Modboy1, in 2018.

Myself and my partner bought one of the UK’s biggest Music publishing company library 2 years ago, over 500,000 items, that included about 50,000+ unreleased Demo Acetates, most only had the track name, sometimes the publishing company name and if very lucky the writer’s names and if even more lucky the artist’s name.

The one-sided acetate didn’t have the artist’s name, only the title of the song ‘Earley Morning Henry’ and the name of the publishing company ‘Jamarnie Music’.

It was first thought this was an unknown David Bowie track, but when they did some extra investigations the name Pink Floyd popped up.

From David Parker’s excellent book Random Precision, that has become a collector’s item by itself, we know a bit more of those particular October weeks in 1967.

William Henry Billy Butler — William Henry 'Billy' Butler.

A saucerful of songs

The Floyd had been busy with a couple of new tunes, including Vegetable Man and Jug Band (aka Jugband) Blues. On Friday, 20 October they canned a highly avant-garde 9-part soundtrack for a John Latham project and two other tracks: Intremental (aka Reaction In G?) and the slightly fantastic In The Beechwoods. Except for Intremental these tracks have been released, 49 years later, on The Early Years.

On Monday morning, 23rd of October, the Floyd had a two hours session with 8 takes for track E66409. It is David Parker’s educated guess that E66409 stands for Rick Wright’s Paintbox.

If Glenn Povey is right in Echoes they headed for Bath, 115 miles from London, where they had an afternoon gig at The Pavilion.

In the evening, at 7 o’clock, the boys returned to Abbey Road for a session on Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. When that was done they recorded Early Morning Henry, in one take, to end the day. On the EMI Recording Sheet, the track's Reel Number has been struck through and there is the message that Norman Smith took the plastic reel with him.

The term ‘plastic reel’ is of importance as well. Shakesomeaction, who was a studio engineer in the seventies, further explains:

The fact that it says on the Abbey Road Recording Sheet “Taken by Norman Smith on Plastic Spool” also means this was not recorded for full release but just as a demo, because if it was recorded for a proper release they would have used a 2” master tape, not a plastic spool which is only 1/4” tape and much lesser quality!

According to Modboy1 here is what happened in that late-night session:

Norman “Hurricane” Smith managed William “Billy” Butler who was also in the studio at the same time and asked Pink Floyd as a favour to record this track, William wrote so that it can be used as a Demo.

And…

William “Billy” Butler was in Abbey Road studios at the same time (he was also a sound engineer), so he sang on the track with Syd Barrett probably supplying harmony vocals and Pink Floyd playing, it was done in 1 take.

It is a plausible theory, especially if we know that Norman Smith was not only their producer but also a Pink Floyd shareholder. According to Neil Jefferies, the author of Hurricane’s ‘autobiography’, Smith had a 12,5% part in the company. Years later, in something that must have been the stupidest financial decision of the century, Smith sold his shares to finance his solo career. A couple of months later, The Dark Side Of The Moon hit the shelves.

But before we continue our article let’s have a listen to a snippet of the Billy Butler – Pink Floyd acetate, found on YouTube. As the copyrights of the song still belong to Jamarnie Music (although that is debatable) and the seller wants to give the exclusivity to the new owner only 50 seconds of the almost four minutes song has been made public. It has also been confirmed that the track will be removed once the auction has been finished. (But a good soul managed to upload it again.)

First impressions

In the mid-eighties when David Gilmour gave an early version of the A Momentary Lapse Of Reason album to Columbia executive Stephen Ralbovsky, the record boss allegedly replied dryly with ‘this music doesn’t sound a fucking thing like Pink Floyd’.

About the same can be said of Early Morning Henry. It doesn’t sound Floydian at all. Several fans thought so, including the Reverend of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

Borja Narganes Priego

It doesn't sound like Pink Floyd to my ears. And the guitar is not near close to Syd's guitar style… a bit of mystery with this…

Ewgeni Reingold

Does not sound to me as PF…

Ulrich Angersbach

I don't think that this track has anything to do with Pink Floyd 1967.

Second thoughts

But after the initial shock, fans and anoraks started to slowly change their minds. As Hallucalation remarked, Remember Me from the 1965 sessions doesn't sound a bit like Pink Floyd either, yet it is canon.

Edgar Ascencio

Correct me if I'm wrong here but the bass does sound like Roger Waters’ playing…
I've been listening to it for the good part of an hour and though I may still be wrong I think I've picked up on Roger's bass and Rick's backing vocals in the chorus…

Randall Yeager

To me, the drums and piano sound like Nick and Rick, especially playing it safe on a first take.

Hallucalation

It's obviously Waters playing on bass, by the way.

Jon Charles Newman

I dunno — most of it sounds like it could be anybody, although the bass could be Roger, and the harmony vocal sounds a little like Rick. It wouldn't be surprising if Syd didn't take part. I'm reserving judgment until there's more evidence or verification.

That last comment has a good point. What if this is a recording of Billy Butler with Roger Waters on bass and Rick Wright on keyboards, but without Syd Barrett? Who plays the guitar?

More thoughts

Friend of Squirrels has the following theory.

After listening to it again I completely agree that it does sound like Roger and has the famous Rickenbacker tone. The guitar sounds acoustic and pretty certain it is a nylon string guitar. Have never known Syd to play a nylon string guitar that is usually used for classical and bossa nova.

I believe Butler has a background in jazz guitar, sounds like nylon strings...

And Goldenband concludes:

I tend to think it's unlikely Syd would have played on the track, and agree that it's easier to imagine a scenario in which the other three backed up BB.
Tricky chord changes, by the way!

Conclusion

Although there is still the theoretical possibility that the ‘plastic spool’ and the acetate are two different recordings, with different musicians, there seems to be a growing consensus that at least two members of Pink Floyd helped Billy Butler out on this demo recording.

David Parker is practically 100% sure:

The fact the recording offered is an acetate doesn't mean it's not the same recording as the tape taken by Norman Smith; acetates were a common format for distributing publishing demos at the time.

It is not sure if Syd Barrett was there. The work on Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun was mainly overdubs, by adding vibraphone and ‘voices’. Even if Syd was in the studio, the guitar on the acetate is probably played by Billy Butler.

Theoretically, Nick Mason wasn’t needed either. Norman Smith was a fine drummer who replaced Nick Mason a couple of weeks before on Remember A Day (although some anoraks claim it is See-Saw instead). It's still open for discussion.

But it seems almost certain that Roger Waters and Rick Wright can be heard on the record.

The value of this acetate is estimated between 3,000 to 5,000 GBP. Unless Billy Butler and Pink Floyd start bidding against each other. You can have a go as well, if you'd like at: William "Billy" Butler (William "Henry" Butler) - "EARLY MORNING HENRY", 1967.

You gotta be crazy

At Yeeshkul, Azerty asked Pink Floyd archivist Lana Topham, who passed the hot potato to Paul Loasby. The reply from the Floyd management was short and sweet.

It seems to be a fake.

But several Floyd scholars simply refuse to believe this. To quote a pretty well known überfan whose name we will not give out of respect:

Lana Topham and Paul Loasby aren't going to know shit. I'd be slightly surprised if even Nick and Roger could remember the session after all these years.

So are we back at square one? Not exactly. On the Neptune Pink Floyd forum Shakesomeaction gave some extra info. He had a look at the Jarmanie Library files and here is what he found.

The library reference number was D 375 (on the Acetate sleeve), which complied with the library files of D 375 and they stated:
COMPOSER / VOCALS - William Butler,
BACKING BAND - PINK FLOYD,
RECORDING DATE 23/10/67,
PRODUCER : NORMAN SMITH,
COPYRIGHT - JARMANIE MUSIC,
UNRELEASED and
“DO NOT REMOVE - NO TAPE AVAILABLE” (which means there was no master tape in the library).

But you can’t win a fight against Pink Floyd. Paul Loasby, whom we know as a man who insults and harasses webmasters of ‘independent’ fan-sites if they write something Paul Loasby doesn’t want them to write, morphed into his favourite leprechaun character and did what he does best: threatening people. Shakesomeaction testifies:

The Auction room had to take the name of Pink Floyd down, after a threatening phone call from the manager.
Although there was no denying this was Pink Floyd backing.
Sad that people with so much money care about some minor demo they have done as a favour back in the day…

At the auction house the name Pink Floyd has been removed and replaced with 'big name world renowned group'.

*Following a phonecall from the management of a big name world renowned group we have decided to remove their name from this listing.

Perhaps it is appropriate here to quote something from a Pink Floyd tune:

For hard cash, we will lie and deceive
Even our masters don't know
The webs we weave

Paul Loasby's attitude created something of a mini-Streisand effect. How does it come he never reacts when people sell fake acetates on the web, for thousands of dollars, but when someone puts on a genuine one, he suddenly turns into Floydzilla?

What the butler saw

After Paul Loasby so eloquently expressed his master’s voice it was time for Jumaris to chime in:

This is Juliet, I am William Billy Butler‘s daughter, and I can confirm that it is my father singing on this recording. Yes, it is a song that he wrote, and yes Norman Smith did take it to Pink Floyd to record a demo. However, with that said, I don’t believe that the backing band is Pink Floyd.

Talking about a drawback. But the next day there was some more exciting news. Juliet:

I will say that Norman Smith was shopping dad around to different bands around that time. (…) With Pink Floyd, there was speculation that they were going to replace Barrett. I think there was some hope that they would hear dad‘s voice, and Early Morning Henry and see where that landed, but it was subtle.

Could it be the band was already thinking of replacing Syd Barrett? The thought alone is heresy, shout some fans, but perhaps the seeds of what would be inevitable, a few months later, were already subliminally germinating.

Norman Smith wasn’t an idiot and perhaps he was indeed thinking of an alternative future for the band, with a new singer/guitarist and new songs. Like we stated before, Norman was not just a producer, he was a shareholder in the Pink Floyd company and trying to save his investment.

So, he might have thought, let’s send Syd home after the work on Set the Controls and bring in this new guy, to “test out” one of the songs he wrote. Won’t do any harm, will it?

Norman Smith has always been something of a hustler. Back to Juliet Butler:

We have buckets of reel to reels. And we are currently trying to gather as much information about his life, and his music for some kind of project. (...)

But of course, it’s not the only recording of it [Early Morning Henry]. We have numerous recordings of it on reel to reel. But nothing on digital yet. We’re working to convert it. We might be able to compare the different recordings and pinpoint a date to see if it corresponds to anything in our archives. If we don’t have [the] tape [from the Pink Floyd session] then Norman Smith’s daughter would have it.

We are also wondering if there’s a chance that Norman Smith overdubbed dad‘s voice onto the track, and then cut the vinyl from that.

When Juliet was given the news that the Jamarnie Music Library mentions Pink Floyd as the backing band on the acetate her earlier opinion changed completely:

It is a very curious catalogue entry attached to this vinyl that seems to indicate that this, in fact, was Pink Floyd as the backing band.

You have to remember most of the musicians working in the scene were moonlighting around town. My dad might not have recognized the musicians he played with as being Pink Floyd per se.

And from our previous Billy Butler article (Singing A Song In The Morning), we know that he moonlighted a lot, singing on sound-alike records and having a single under the pseudonym Prock Harson.

Will certainly be continued…

Update October 7, 2020: we received a message from the seller of this acetate and we quote:

Can I please ask you to remove my name from any mentions on your article at the Church Of Iggy, as it is personal information and by now it has come to defamation of character and if not removed I am very sorry but I will have to contact my solicitors.

His name has been removed from the above article (and it has also disappeared from the Neptune Pink Floyd article, BTW, where several forum posts have suddenly been censored).

PS: at the time of publication of this article the two big ‘independent’ Pink Floyd fansites did not find the time yet to write about this pretty important discovery. When they are good dogs Pink Floyd sometimes throws them a bone in.

Auction Result

On the 16th of October the acetate was sold for the surprisingly low sum of £3,000, but according to the seller that is pretty much what was expected. If it had been a Billy Butler song, without some of the Pink Floyd members, it would have stayed in the three digit range.

Meanwhile the seller has removed the YouTube sample video from the web, as he had promised to do.

Many Thanks to Antonio Jesús Reyes from Solo En Las Nubes for warning the Church about this news.
Many Thanks to Neptune Pink Floyd for mentioning the Holy Church in their article.
Many Thanks: Ulrich Angersbach, Edgar Ascencio, Azerty, Juliet Butler, Friend of Squirrels, Goldenband, Hadrian, Hallucalation, Jumaris, Modboy1, David Parker, Borja Narganes Priego, Jon Charles Newman, Punk Floyd, Ewgeni Reingold, Shakesomeaction, Mark Sturdy, Wolfpack, Randall Yeager.
Many Thanks to the beautiful people of Birdie Hop, Late Night, Neptune Pink Floyd & Yeeshkul.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

This article is a follow-up of: Singing A Song In The Morning. More and better images at our Tumblr: Billy Butler.

Links:
Neptune Pink Floyd: Early Morning Henry featuring Pink Floyd Found – Listen Now!
YouTube: Pink Floyd & William Billy Butler Early Morning Henry Unreleased UK 1967 Demo Acetate, Psych !!!
Wessex Auction Rooms: VINYL - PINK FLOYD & William Billy Butler (William Henry Butler) - EARLY MORNING HENRY, 1967

Forum Posts:
Birdie Hop: Early Morning Henry
Steve Hoffman Music Corner: Pink Floyd - Fictional Second Album with Syd Barrett
Late Night: Early Morning Henry found!
Neptune Pink Floyd: Listen to Early Morning Henry featuring Pink Floyd
Yeeshkul: Listen to Early Morning Henry featuring Pink Floyd

Sources (other than the above mentioned links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013, p. 319.
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 103-105.
Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd, 3C Publishing, 2008, p. 69.

Happy New Year 2021

Mojo 327

The most recent Mojo has, next to a John Lennon special, an eight pages article about the ongoing feud between Roger Waters and David Gilmour. It is titled Burning Bridges and has been written by Pink Floyd informant Mark Blake.

As usual, knowing the Mojo standards, it is a highly readable and informative article, but it’s all a bit of déjà vu, especially for members of the Pink Floyd obsessed dinosaur pack. We have been following that extraordinary band for about forty-five years and actually, we didn’t need to be reminded of something that happened thirty-five years ago.

The starting point of the article is the Roger Waters rant of May of last year (2020) where he was visibly annoyed that the official Pink Floyd website was actively plugging Polly Samson’s latest novel, but refused to mention the Roger Waters Us + Them live release. (For our review of that album or video, please consult: Them Secrets)

The Odd Couple

We will not get into the fruitless discussion who is right and who is wrong. There are pros and cons to both sides. Mark Blake quotes Polly Samson who once said that ‘Roger and David were like a bickering old divorced couple’. The only error in that quote is the use of the past tense, because, if the rumour mill is correct, the gap between the ‘genius’ and the ‘voice and guitar’ of Pink Floyd is still there and is – after a period of apparent reconciliation – again very wide and very deep.

Unfortunately, the Mojo article doesn’t mention the recent quarrels that have had consequences for the Pink Floyd fan and collector. But don’t worry, that’s where we – The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit: the thorn in the flesh of all things Pink – come in.

One of the juicier stories is that the advertised Early Years set (2016) was different than what finally could be found in the stores. 5.1 Mixes were promised of Meddle and Obscured By Clouds but had to be removed due to an ongoing copyrights war between the Waters and Gilmour camp. Much of the printed material had already been done and booklets were (allegedly) replaced at the last minute. (To read the full story: Supererog/Ation: skimming The Early Years.)

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others

The 5.1 remixing war is not a thing of the past. While a 5.1 version of The Wall is (apparently) in the pipeline, the 5.1 release of Animals is not, although it has been finished a while ago. All it is waiting for is Gilmour’s blessing. And that will not happen soon if our information is correct.

One reason could be that David Gilmour is still pissed about the fact that he only received one songwriting credit for his work on Dogs, while Roger Waters got four (not counting the copyrights for the lyrics). Waters added Pigs On The Wing (Part 1 and 2) at the last minute and got 1 extra credit for each part. David Gilmour didn't like, and may still not like, that his 17 minutes song was valued less than the 3 minutes Roger Waters throwaway.

Peace Be With You

In a 2019 interview Waters claimed that he offered a peace plan to Gilmour, but that it was rejected. Polly Samson, from her side, twittered that it was not her perfect lover boy who rejected the peace plan, but the bad guy. Us and them.

As usual Nick Mason is the coolest of them all. He once said that ”if our children behaved this way, we would have been very cross.” (Read more about the Pink Floyd wars at: Happy New Year 2020)

Probably inspired by the Mojo article Far Out magazine has published an online article covering the same ground: Why are Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Roger Waters feuding?

And now...

...for something completely different. Here is our yearly overview of what we have published on our Tumblr ‘sister’ page in 2020.

January 2020: RIP Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon. Review: Life Is Just.

February 2020: Iggy and Henrietta Garnett at Port Eliot. See also: A Tale of Two Henriettas.

March 2020: New Iggy picture found! See also: Amateur Photographer.

A Syd Barrett Facemask. Model: Eleonora Siatoni.

April 2020: Two Rogers, 1965. Taken from the Nick Sedgwick book ‘In The Pink’, annotated by Roger Waters. Review: Roger is always right.

May 2020: What are you staring at, pervert!

June 2020: Blackbird, Men On The Border. Review: Fly Into The Light.

A Pink Floyd Facemask. Model: Libby Gausden.

July 2020: Iggy having some fun with paparazzi. See: Iggy at the Exhibition.

August 2020: Jean-Marie Leduc, Pink Floyd 1973. Review: Si les cochons pourraient voler.

September 2020: Early Morning Henry found. See: Singing it again at night.

A Duggie Fields Facemask. Model: Felix Atagong.

Young David Gilmour biography. — November 2020: High Hopes: young David Gilmour biography. Review: Guitar Hero.

Jurassic Jewellery (Ian Barrett) Iggy remembrance jewelry. — December 2020: Iggy remembrance jewelry, made by Jurassic Jewellery (Ian Barrett).

The Church wishes to thank: Ulrich Angersbach, Edgar Ascencio, Azerty, Bafupo, Charles Beterams, Birdie Hop, Mark Blake, Brainysod, British Music Archive, Juliet Butler, CBGB, Rob Chapman, Ron de Bruijn, David De Vries, Dr Doom, Drosophila, Ebronte, Vita Filippova, Friend of Squirrels, Ginger Gilmour, Goldenband, Graded Grains, John Gregory, Hadrian, Hallucalation, Gijsbert Hanekroot, Sara Harp, Hipgnosis Covers, Alexander Peter Hoffmann, Steve Hoffman Music Forums, Elizabeth Joyce, Jumaris, Rieks Korte, Mojo, Late Night, Bob Martin, Men On The Border, Modbeat66, Modboy1, Iain ‘Emo’ Moore, Neptune Pink Floyd, Lisa Newman, Jon Charles Newman, Göran Nyström, Old Man Peace, Julian Palacios, Emma Peel Pants, David Parker, Joe Perry, Brynn Petty, Borja Narganes Priego, Catherine Provenzano, Sophie Partridge. Punk Floyd, Antonio Jesús Reyes, Ewgeni Reingold, Shakesomeaction, Solo En Las Nubes, Mark Sturdy, Ken Sutera Jnr, Swanlee, Tomhinde, Wolfpack, Syd Wonder, Randall Yeager, Yeeshkul,

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Orange Dahlias in a Vase

Big news for Syd Barrett art collectors. Cheffins will auction a painting that - until now - was unknown.

Orange Dahlias in a Vase is a 58 x 44 cm watercolour and pastel painting, dating from October 1961. It is signed and dated ‘R. Barrett / Oct. 1961’ (at the lower left side).

Syd painted it at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys, also known as the County, at the age of fifteen. He gave the painting as a parting gift to his art teacher Gerald Arthur Clement Harden, before entering the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (where he would meet David Gilmour).

The County is described in Mark Blake’s Pigs Might Fly as ‘a grammar school that thought it was a public school, with masters, mortarboards and sadism’. It was hated by a rebellious Roger Waters who later ventilated his frustration in The Wall.

The regime at school was a very oppressive one. It was being run on pre-war lines, where you bloody well did as you were told, and there was nothing to do for us but to rebel against it. (…) Most of the teachers were absolute swine.

Syd Barrett, who was a pretty average student, had a more positive impression of the school and was liked by his art teacher. He believed that ‘Barrett was a conspicuous and prodigious talent’. Rob Chapman:

Syd was a fantastic artist and was the pride and joy of the art teacher, G.A.C. Harden, or “Gach” as he was known,’ remembers classmate Chris Rayner. ‘Gach used to leave Syd’s stuff out on display all the time for everyone to see. He did some superb stuff in oils. Most of us weren’t allowed anywhere near the oil paints. You had to be really good before Gach would allow you to work in oils.

Gach’s son, Philip Harden, remembers the Floydian Maffia well (taken from the Planet Radio website: School days painting Syd Barrett gifted to his art teacher goes to auction):

I used to go and visit Roger on a regular basis and I even remember playing cowboys and Indians and watching the first Doctor Who shows with him and Roger Waters back in the 1960s. They both went off to art college and disappeared from my life and the next time I saw them they were Pink Floyd.

Roger Barrett was a kind and thoughtful person, with a joyful and almost childlike wit and humour. He was a great fun person to be around in those early days and he was incredibly creative, and would often be seen painting for hours on end.

I remember my father bringing this picture back home after Roger had given it to him, it had been put up on the wall in the classroom and my father kept it as part of his portfolio. It has something incredibly special about it and I would recognise it immediately as his style at the time, he was a very gifted artist.

The auction takes place on May 27th at the Cheffins Art & Design Sale. Orange Dahlias in a Vase has an estimated value of around £3000 - £5000.

Meanwhile, Syd Barrett fans all over the world are wondering if the vase on the painting contains a deliberately drawn human face or if this is just a case of pareidolia. Much bigger picture of the painting at our Tumblr: Orange Dahlias in a Vase.

Update 27.05.2021

Cheffins confirmed today that the painting was sold for a whopping £22,000 ($31,258 or €25,615) or £28,270 with taxes and stuff. Apparently some collectors really wanted this piece and it appears that an Italian fan got the final bid.

Philip Harden, who sold the picture, says on Planet Radio:

We couldn’t be more thrilled with this result. The picture has always been incredibly special to me and has an energy to it which is quite unlike anything else.

I am sure that Roger would be completely amazed if he knew a picture from his schooldays could have made this type of money. He was a great friend when we were children, a kind and thoughtful person and I am so pleased that there is a buyer out there who will treasure this picture as he stood for so many things in different people’s minds.

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

More to read about this painting:
Cheffins : Cheffins Auction Page
Clash Music : Rare Syd Barrett Painting To Go Up For Auction
Neptune Pink Floyd: Unseen Syd Barrett Painting up for Auction
Planet Radio: School days painting Syd Barrett gifted to his art teacher goes to auction
The Guardian: Hey teacher … how Syd Barrett’s artistic genius flowered at school

Auction Result:
Planet Radio: Rare painting Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett created aged 15 smashes auction estimate

Sources (others than the links above):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013, p. 15-16.
Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 13.

Other posts on this blog about Syd Barrett's art:
Portrait of a Girl (1964)
Fart Enjoy (1966)
Barrett: art book (review)

I call him Garrard

November 2009

In 2009, so many years ago! — we published an article titled A Bay of Hope. 4 The Madcap Laughs pictures, allegedly taken by Mick Rock, were auctioned, although that was not entirely canon. The pictures belonged to the Hipgnosis archives, so they were – officially – Storm Thorgerson’s. But we won’t dabble in those muddy waters again, as we have already dedicated many pages to the Rock vs Storm controversy. (See, for instance: Rock of Ages )

The pictures sold for a mere 127 pounds. We are still angry for not getting them as they have disappeared into the deep pockets of a collector. All we have are small, grainy copies, taken from the eBay auction page.

The (pretty boring) 2009 article is nothing more than a catalogue, listing the Madcap pictures that were taken in Syd’s flat.

April 1969

Iggy was present during the week of April 14–21, 1969. This is now widely accepted, but it was frowned upon a decade ago.

Syd and turntable. Arrow pointing at the round logo on top.

Round SP25 logo on top.

Garrard SP.25 MK2

One famous picture by Mick Rock is the one with Syd sitting next to his record player. En passant, we mentioned the type and brand: a Garrard SP.25 MK2. The record on the player was from the soul label Direction, a subsidiary of CBS.

As usual, we didn’t find this on our own. The Syd Barrett Late Night forum had a post from Mr Limbo, written on May 31, 2007, who claimed it was a Garrard SP.25 MK2.

Mr Limbo identified the record player as a Garrard SP.25 MK2, but this was not immediately accepted by all forum members. SteveM claimed it was a Garrard AT60.

Pretty sure the turntable in the picture is a Garrard AT60. Not an SP25. It had a silver stripe along the front edge.

Garrard AT60 with a second arm (technical manual).

The problem is that these record players all look alike. Eternal Isolation enlightened us with his wisdom:

I think there are photos of both models with and without the stripe. The biggest problem I'm having with the AT60 idea is that it looks like it only came with the automatic record changer arm, and Syd's does not have that. I don't know how difficult it would be to remove that part, but I'm guessing it would not just pull right out like the spindle does.

In one photo found in the Psychedelic Renegades book, you can see a rectangular silver plaque on the front left of the cabinet. Not a lot of the Garrards seem to have that.

Another detail to look out for is that Syd's player has one of these little round Garrard logo plaques on the top. Searching through turntable photos on the internet, it looks like some SP25s and some AT60s have it and some do not.

Syds Record Player — Syd's Record Player (Garrard logo on front left.)

The problem is that the Internet is not the most reliable source, except for https://atagong.com/iggy, and often Garrard pictures are wrongly labelled. It is not even sure how to spell Garrard SP.25 MK2. The technical manual puts a dot (".") between the SP and 25, most internet articles do not.

Garrard SP25 button — Garrard SP.25 button.

MK 1 or 2?

After a 15-year gap, Birdie Hop's Vincenzo Gambino decided to have a new look at Syd’s record player. (You need to join the group to see his post: Garrard SP25 MK 1)

I would like to re-open an old discussion regarding Syd's turntable in Mick's photos.
It has been recognised as Garrard SP25 MK2, but I think it's an MK1.
The round tag was present in that position on the MK1 and later removed from MK2.

You want some pictures, I'll give you some pictures:

Syds Garrard SP.25 — Syd's Garrard SP.25

So an MK1 and not an MK2? I am glad that this has finally been settled for another decade.

Pink Floyd bootlegs at HDTracks — Pink Floyd 'official' bootlegs at HDTracks.

pink floyd 1972 carnegie hall — Pink Floyd 1972 Carnegie Hall.

Historical Accuracy

One can laugh at the average Syd Barrett fan's eye for detail, which sometimes borders on the absurd. There’s a great contrast with the Pink Floyd management, who fuck up, Every-Single-Time they release something from their archives.

In what is again a copyright extension scheme, Pink Floyd has released 18 live performances from the early seventies through streaming services. Do not be too enthusiastic. These are all well-known bootlegs that have been weeded out for decades by Yeeshkul and the large community of Pink Floyd ROIO traders. The sound hasn’t been enhanced at all, and some tracks feature ‘a few genuine vinyl scratches to enhance its digital master credentials’, as Ffrenchmullen ironically remarks at Yeeshkul.

Pink Floyd even managed to get some dates wrong. The Carnegie Hall gig dates from May 2, 1972, not February 5, 1972. It is, to quote MOB, due to the famous inverted American convention for dates (2/5/1972 vs. 5/2/1972).

Another comment, this time from DenjiDen:

Zurich is missing a majority of the songs, Tokyo is mislabeled (…) and Brussels is completely out of order and has incorrect track names.
This would be humorous if it wasn't so depressing. I wish Management would get their shit together or just sell it off to someone who cares.
This is embarrassing.

MOB, again:

Southampton is actually the BBC recording of Wembley 16 November 1974.

The list of errors goes on and on. Moomoomoomoo at Hoffman’s music forum is a bit overdramatic and describes the set as follows:

I think it's safe to call this "set" the scam of the decade; possibly of the century.

If there is a general opinion about these releases, it is to keep your money in your pockets (they sell at 20$ a piece) and to start looking for the free, and often better, copies at the usual places on the internet. One soundboard recording, for instance, has been taken from a vinyl copy, with the pops and crackles included, instead of taking it directly from the soundboard. That’s how professionally the Pink Floyd Archival Team works.

‘Incompetence and avarice‘ seems to be the motto of Pink Floyd Ltd., as Aphexj comments, but others see this just as another copyright dump and not as a general release to the public.

Dark Side

The seminal album The Dark Side Of The Moon will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, in 2023. As far as we know now there will be some kind of anniversary release containing the following:
- 2023 Atmos Mix
- 2023 Remaster
- Live at Wembley 1974, 2023 Master

Another remaster: what do they think Dark Side is, washing powder? All in all, this will be quite underwhelming and overpriced, unless they add some marbles, of course.

Many thanks to: Aphexj, DenjiDen, Eternal Isolation, Ffrenchmullen, Vincenzo Gambino, Antonio Jesús, Mr Limbo, Steve M, MOB, Moomoomoomoo, Göran Nyström.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Links, used for this article:
Syd's Record Player ! @ Late Night
Garrard SP25 MK 1 @ Birdie Hop
Garrard SP 25 Mk1 SP 25 Mk2 Service Manual @ Audio Service Manuals
Garrard SP25 Review @ Vintage Sonics
Garrard SP25 Mk II @ Stereonomono
18 new pink floyd releases @ Yeeshkul
Pink Floyd releases 17 concerts from 1972 for download and streaming @ Steve Hoffman Music Forums
Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon 50th anniversary wish list @ Steve Hoffman Music Forums