Syd Barrett / Brian Wilson

[Wild-Honey]

Cool answer.  Think this might deserve a thread of its own..

[the captain]

Pretty sure there was one here at some point on that very topic.

[stack-o-tracks]

What's everybody's favorite Syd song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmW17QvUhRM Makes me happy when I hear it.

[Dead Parrot]

i checked out his debut i wonder exactly what year it was when he lost complete control of his mind and wasn't able to function as a human being.

Syd's breakdown, or at least his point of no return, was probably the last week of July 1967. He'd been building towards it for a while though.
On July 27th, Pink Floyd were supposed to perform "See Emily Play" on Top of the Pops, but Syd never showed up for the rehersal. When he was eventually found he was in a pretty bad state, and when the band did the performance Syd was literaly unable to stand up. The following day Syd stormed out of a BBC radio session before any tracks were recorded, and at Pink Floyd's performance at the Love In festival at Alexandra Palace on the 29th, Syd was, according to at least one reliable source, found in the dressing room before the show in a catatonic state. This resulted in all of Pink Floyd's gigs for August being cancelled. But the damage had pretty much been done.

[Newguy562]

i checked out his debut i wonder exactly what year it was when he lost complete control of his mind and wasn't able to function as a human being.

Syd's breakdown, or at least his point of no return, was probably the last week of July 1967. He'd been building towards it for a while though.
On July 27th, Pink Floyd were supposed to perform "See Emily Play" on Top of the Pops, but Syd never showed up for the rehersal. When he was eventually found he was in a pretty bad state, and when the band did the performance Syd was literaly unable to stand up. The following day Syd stormed out of a BBC radio session before any tracks were recorded, and at Pink Floyd's performance at the Love In festival at Alexandra Palace on the 29th, Syd was, according to at least one reliable source, found in the dressing room before the show in a catatonic state. This resulted in all of Pink Floyd's gigs for August being cancelled. But the damage had pretty much been done.

f*** syd created pink floyd (well partially) but damn he was almost gonna ruin them too :/ thank goodness for roger waters foreals. lol

[MBE]

What's everybody's favorite Syd song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmW17QvUhRM Makes me happy when I hear it.

Gigolo Aunt is great but I like almost everything he did.

[pixletwin]

i checked out his debut i wonder exactly what year it was when he lost complete control of his mind and wasn't able to function as a human being.

Syd's breakdown, or at least his point of no return, was probably the last week of July 1967. He'd been building towards it for a while though.
On July 27th, Pink Floyd were supposed to perform "See Emily Play" on Top of the Pops, but Syd never showed up for the rehersal. When he was eventually found he was in a pretty bad state, and when the band did the performance Syd was literaly unable to stand up. The following day Syd stormed out of a BBC radio session before any tracks were recorded, and at Pink Floyd's performance at the Love In festival at Alexandra Palace on the 29th, Syd was, according to at least one reliable source, found in the dressing room before the show in a catatonic state. This resulted in all of Pink Floyd's gigs for August being cancelled. But the damage had pretty much been done.

Dark Globe is my favorite solo Syd song, but I really love Effervescing Elephant and Wine and Dined too.

[Dead Parrot]

Favourite Syd Pink Floyd song: Vegetable Man

Favourite solo song: Dominoes

[runnersdialzero]

I was just watching the vh1 documentary on Pink Floyd and it saddened me to see how drugs ruined Syd's mind completely :/
Knowing that could've happened to Brian as well :/ they even mentioned that they would go on tour and have Syd do the "Brian Wilson" thing and just stay in and focus on the music but he wasn't able to..
it makes me wonder how would their albums after piper would've sounded. i like Syd's simple/magical wordplay on the early Floyd songs
Their story reminds me of the Beach Boys story in a way...

Syd stopped caring about music and wanted to keep to himself. There's a world of difference.

He never "lost complete control of his mind and wasn't able to function as a human being", he just didn't want to be a musician anymore and wanted people to leave him alone. As someone else here said, Syd did more across three albums than most people do in their entire career, something he probably realized.

[Dead Parrot]

Syd stopped caring about music and wanted to keep to himself. There's a world of difference.

He never "lost complete control of his mind and wasn't able to function as a human being", he just didn't want to be a musician anymore and wanted people to leave him alone. As someone else here said, Syd did more across three albums than most people do in their entire career, something he probably realized.

I think to a great extent this is true.
He still played guitar in his later years, but for his own enjoyement rather than anybody else's. He'd had some bad experiences with the music buisness, and was perfectly happy to stay well away from it after the early 70's.
It's interesting that he really didn't understand why people were still interested in him after he's been out of the public eye. His sister Rosemary tells a story of being with him at his house one day, when a fan knocked on his door. Syd's reaction was to turn to Rosemary and say "What do they want from me?"

[pixletwin]

What makes you say Syd wasn't supported by his friends and relatives?

[cablegeddon]

Wait a second did VH1 do like a complete Pink Floyd behind the music? I wathed one but they only talked about The Wall.

[pixletwin]

Well you can't compare Syd's familial/friendships to Brian's. Brian was treated as the hitmaker and bread winner, both within his family and within his group entourage. The labels demanded him and without Brian, the Beach Boys were a very hard sell. So I guess the motive to keep Brian going and going and going was always there.

Not so with Syd. When it became clear he was no longer interested in the group, they had the confidence (and more importantly the EMI had the confidence) to go on without him... Which was rather callously done, I agree. But they always made sure Syd's bank account was always taken care of (sometimes David Gilmour personally would oversee that Syd's share was always doled out).

Syd's family was never anything but extremely supportive of him (in the ways that matter). True; they weren't pushing him onto stage and making him write songs and attempting to shoulder him with a burden he longer wanted. But they did their best to get him the help he needed and gave him an environment where he was always taken care of.

[Dead Parrot]

The period when Syd probably had the least amount of contact with his family was during the period when he was living at Chelsea Cloisters, from about 1973-1978. Both his mother Winifred, and sister Rosemary tried to stay in contact with him as best they could, but he didn't want to have much to do with anyone, even his own family.

[pixletwin]

The period when Syd probably had the least amount of contact with his family was during the period when he was living at Chelsea Cloisters, from about 1973-1978. Both his mother Winifred, and sister Rosemary tried to stay in contact with him as best they could, but he didn't want to have much to do with anyone, even his own family.

True and in that respect Syd, at his worst, was still far more independent than Brian.

[Dead Parrot]

True and in that respect Syd, at his worst, was still far more independent than Brian.

It's also worth pointing out that even during the periods when he was seen to be the most reclusive, he got out and about quite a lot. His former roommate Duggie Fields bumped into Syd at the Speakeasy Club in London sometime around late 1974, at the point when Syd was just stating to put on a lot of weight. And he was seen quite often wandering the streets of London, by people who knew him when he was younger.

I know for a fact, he was quite a well known figure on the streets of Cambridge, even to those who weren't familar with his past. And if in the right mood, you could have a fairly good conversation with him, just as long as you didn't mention his music. That said there is a story, apparently true, of Syd walking past 2 teenagers on the streets of Cherry Hinton, one of which was wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt, and saying to them, "Oh, you like my band then do you?"

[pixletwin]

Haha. I had never heard that story before. That would give me a squee to remember for life. 

[MBE]

I've seen the Brian Wilson story reflected in Syd's and I think about it a lot. If Brian hadn't had all the money he has, if The Beach Boys weren't his family, what would have happened to him? Would he have been fired by the mid seventies, made a few more cool recordings, and disappeared? Would his decline have happened quicker? I am glad Brian didn't have to go through what Syd did, yet Brian differs in two ways. First he loved music more than anything, Syd lost all interest in it. In 1982, at his worst, Brian was recording every so often and performing on stage almost half the touring year. Second, despite the self destruction he engaged in during the decade after Murry died, Brian had more fight in him, and ultimately more confidence. That could be that before his breakdown Brian had had a three year run of hits, that would continue fairly regularly through the next three years (five if you count his success in Europe) where he became a worldwide hit maker.  Syd only had one hit album and two hit singles, and those didn't cross over to the U.S. I point this put because Brian already had proven himself before he went downhill, Syd was just starting. One may think of Syd as not wanting traditional success, but that he basically quit music (with only one more session and show) after a bad review of his 1972 band Stars tells me a lot.

[pixletwin]

I think with Syd, it was more a matter of no one being really all that willing to work with him. Brian still had an entire company hanging from his coattails depending on him for their paycheck. Basically it was in everyone's best interest within the Beach Boys organization to keep him in the circle as much as they could for as long as they could.

With Syd it was a completely different matter. He became a dead weight that was dropped before it became too much of a problem.

[MBE]

Well of course they are different situations, but I wonder if Syd could have recovered had he been in Brian's circumstances? Or I wonder if Brian would have recovered in Syd's.

[pixletwin]

Oh ok. I misunderstood you.

It's hard to separate the men from their environment and try to switch them. There are so many variables in place.

Ultimately I think leaving music is what kept Syd alive. Had he been surrounded by BB-type support system I think he probably would have done a few more albums and would eventually either killed himself or left of his own accord (instead of being forced out).

Vice versa, I think had the Beach Boys just dropped Brian the way PF did, I think he would have been destroyed and likely would have ended up killing himself.

[MBE]

Interesting theories. I think you may be sadly right.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Very good point with that last paragraph, pix.

[leggo of my ego]

Arnold Layne

that one was brilliant.

Poor Syd - he might have reached his peak when he went off into the nether world but we will never really know.

[Sheriff John Stone]

Syd stopped caring about music and wanted to keep to himself. There's a world of difference.

He never "lost complete control of his mind and wasn't able to function as a human being", he just didn't want to be a musician anymore and wanted people to leave him alone. As someone else here said, Syd did more across three albums than most people do in their entire career, something he probably realized.

I think to a great extent this is true.
He still played guitar in his later years, but for his own enjoyement rather than anybody else's. He'd had some bad experiences with the music buisness, and was perfectly happy to stay well away from it after the early 70's.
It's interesting that he really didn't understand why people were still interested in him after he's been out of the public eye. His sister Rosemary tells a story of being with him at his house one day, when a fan knocked on his door. Syd's reaction was to turn to Rosemary and say "What do they want from me?"

I think Syd's leaving or retreat from the music business is sometimes over-glorified and romanticized. He really didn't have much of a choice. He got to the point where he couldn't function as a musician anymore. He certainly couldn't perform live in a band; his post-Floyd attempts were embarrassing. There was an attempt at a third solo album after The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, but Syd didn't have the material and there were a few sessions that went very badly. There are stories of Syd barely able to sit on a stool and strum chords on his guitar.

It's not that nobody could or would no longer work with Syd post 1974; he was too far gone. I think much like Brian Wilson - if Syd has anything left and wanted to record, people would've lined up to work with him. I think that quote from Syd upon opening his door, "What do they want from me?" tells you a lot. He must've of really lost touch with reality and who he was. What did he think the fans knocking at the door of a reclusive ex-rock and roll (genius?) wanted?