The Smiley Smile Message Board

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...

I haven't seen it,  what is it's actual title?    And by the way I admire how you just flat out speak your mind,     Keep the posts coming I enjoy them!

this is part of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Qj2_wrZw0&feature=related :)
thanks many people on this message board get pissed when i do but i can't help it i'm out-spoken.

I don't think anyone cares when anyone speaks his or her mind, as long as it is informed, intelligent, or interesting. Ideally some combination thereof.

Case example  ::)
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,12229.0.html

In my youth I was somewhat Syd-obsessed and always kept the beach Boys at arms length. It was hearing the NPR story about BWPS and they made the comparison between Syd and Brian which opened my mind up, just a crack - to check out the Beach Boys.

So I guess you could say Syd was the gateway drug that lead me to Brian and the beach Boys.  :smokin

wow that's interesting :) ..i feel so bad for syd..he had so much potential..thank goodness brian didnt lose it completely.

Syd Barrett did what he was meant to do, then got out. Others work a whole career to get results like Syd got on just three albums, and no one talks about potential. He found it, and quit before he killed himself chasing diminishing returns. I admire that.

syd is really only aknowledged for 1 album and a few singles that's about it..unless u count his solo's which are :/

His two solo albums are among the two greatest albums ever recorded.

Yes I've read that before and most of his others and like I said I enjoy them.  He just seems enthusiastic and at least he is contributing, sometimes nothing gets posted and I really love reading this board, it's a nice break from my studies, so he keeps it active.   IMO  some posters (only a small few) are overly sarcastic, jump on someones comment at the least provocation and have delusions of grandeur and importance.  It doesn't always have to be about who likes them the most, who has liked them the longest or who knows every technical detail of every song.  I am not a musician, so for me it's about how the music makes me feel and also the human side via the members of the band, I find them utterly, utterly fascinating.  No one I know feels the way I do about them,  I can not talk to anyone about it, so on here I come.   Sometimes I feel slightly intimidated to ask what I want to ask or discuss.  There are mostly males on here too, wish there were more females.

I agree with this.

Roger said in some interview that the performing didn't interest Syd (like Brian) and he also wasn't convinced Syd was that fulfilled by creating music (unlike Brian.)

I hope his painting made him happy.

I love Madcap Laughs but I never got into Barrett.

thanks :) i can't liven things up on here without being bashed lol...everything has to be so precise...if i'm kidding or saying something in a joking matter they become so serious and try to attack me for it lol..

I also like both of them very much in a different way than his great Pink Floyd work.

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.

I've heard he wasn't actually "fried" or whatever, he was just sort of reclusive and didn't like to be reminded of his old life. Spent his time painting and gardening, his sister says he wrote a book even.

Also this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smVYvnnqewA

If he would have lost complete control of his mind and wasn't able to function as a human, he would have been dead much earlier. However, his darkest time was generally in the 73-76 era.

[/quote]There are mostly males on here too, wish there were more females.
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Same here!   ;D

There are mostly males on here too, wish there were more females.
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Same here!   ;D
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There are websites for that you know  ;)

Same here!   ;D
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There are websites for that you know  ;)
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 :lol

There are websites for that you know  ;)
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 :lol

Ahhhh, reduced to a stereotype..... :violin
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  :lol

Ahhhh, reduced to a stereotype..... :violin
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I would never presume!   All in fun  :)

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I would never presume!   All in fun  :)

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Of course all in fun, Wild Honey (my favorite BB album btw).  Fact of the matter is -- we love women!  And all male dominated arenas could use a good dose of yin to chill the yang, whether it's world politics or a BB message board!

I would never presume!   All in fun  :)

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Of course all in fun, Wild Honey (my favorite BB album btw).  Fact of the matter is -- we love women!  And all male dominated arenas could use a good dose of yin to chill the yang, whether it's world politics or a BB message board!
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Don't even get me started on women in politics!  :)     I do think it's odd that there aren't more females on here though...

Of course all in fun, Wild Honey (my favorite BB album btw).  Fact of the matter is -- we love women!  And all male dominated arenas could use a good dose of yin to chill the yang, whether it's world politics or a BB message board!
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Don't even get me started on women in politics!  :)     I do think it's odd that there aren't more females on here though...
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I guess we are getting pretty off topic here , but even though you would see a lot of women at Beach Boys shows (in their hey day and beyond), the hard core  fansters tend to be dudes.  Though it is at least refreshing they are not just baby boomers -- people really into their musical innovation, personalities and stories, what have you.  But I suppose being hard core is generally a "guy" type of thing, like being into cars or sports or history and talking about it all the time.  But the music of the Beach Boys certainly has a "feminine" aspect, and I don't mean songs about girls in bikinis.  But the sensitivity, and emotional and healing aspect.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Favourite Syd Pink Floyd song: Vegetable Man

Favourite solo song: Dominoes

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?"

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

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

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.

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.

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?"

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Interesting theories. I think you may be sadly right.

Very good point with that last paragraph, pix.

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.

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?

I'll go with "Arnold Layne". I also like "See Emily Play". I wish those two songs would've been included on The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.

I guess I like just about everything Syd did. Two solo songs I like are "Late Night" and "Wined And Dined".

Brian and Syd are also similar to Brian Jones as well if you think about it, all three took acid and had terrible demons. BW didn't bother recording for a while (maybe about the 20/20 sessions?), Brian Jones didn't even bother coming to recording sessions as well as Syd only playing on a few songs and theres a few more things similar to the three but i can't remember what it was.

I am a big fan of Pink Floyd's first album. It is so unique and imaginative. I don't know Syd Barrett's solo work, so i will have to look into it. I think Syd was living next to his sister when he died. I think he found the balance he needed to function by going back to Cambridge. His condition is unfamiliar to me, but he certainly sounds like he might have had some paralyzing social anxiety that would have made performing live almost unthinkable. I am gratified to hear that he enjoyed painting and reading in his later years. If I recall, he had some diabetes later in life. That would be hard to manage.

TBH, i'm not 100% sure what they wanted from him. To quote Syd's nephew Ian Barrett "What did they think was going to happen? That he'd invite them in and say 'Hey, do you want to drop some acid?'"

Although there are numerous chapters/stories about Syd's routine walks and bike rides to his favorite downtown stores, there is obviously some degree of stalking involved in fans arriving at Syd's doorstep. However, to answer what the fans might want? Maybe an autograph, a photograph, to say "thank you", a brief conversation, just to be able to say they met Syd Barrett. I don't want to appear too naive, I mean, I don't think they would've asked Syd to debut any new songs! :-D

Peter you will love Syd's albums. Madcap and Barrett are just full of lovely songs, some actually quite fun.

Syd made a choice not to be a public figure. He went by his real name of Roger and his family had told fans for many years that he wished to be left alone. "Syd" so to speak died in 1975 after he last visited with Pink Floyd. He was so very and sadly gone by then.

Thing I always wanted to know is what really stopped his recording career. He was relatively active the first three years after the Floyd. Though some of the compositions for the solo albums were old, he did write some new ones that were brilliant. He needed a good degree of help, but the melodies and his vocals are consistently interesting. He even was able to perform very good bbc sessions in 1970 and 1971 and play a live gig.

I think the turning point may be Stars, the band Syd formed in early 1972.  It seems that at least the drummer Twink thinks Syd was playing well most of the time. Sadly it is well known that the press came to what all agree was their worst show. They played one more concert that was considered far better, but once Syd read a bad review he quit and smashed his head in to his ceiling soon after,  He never seems to have been the same again, only playing once impromptu at a Jack Bruce gig in 1973, and a having rather elementary sounding (if not as horrible as legend makes it) few days in the studio in 1974. Between then and 1975 he gained 100 pounds and shaved all his body hair. That's when Syd died and Roger thereafter attempted to live a quiet life and regain some of his sanity.

Agreed. They all have that in common, one time or another. Not to mention some of the Fleetwood Mac members.

Anyway, I'd say Syd's story is by far the most tragic in all of Rock. And I don't care what anyone else says, Syd IS Pink Floyd and he is by far my favourite member. And Piper is Floyd's best album, not Dark Side or The Wall (as great as they are).
His solo albums rule too! A must-listen to anyone who's into early Pink Floyd!

Syd's solo albums are really amazing, I agree.  I was especially taken with Barrett.  The way it was produced, it just has this wonderfully warm, peaceful, removed yet brightly aware, perspective.  It's a beautiful, sublime record.  Madcap was always a little more "troubling" and psychological.

To answer the OP question, I think Barrett is exactly what Floyd would have sounded like had Syd stayed on.  At the time, Floyd was still spaced out, earthy, overly trippy and all the rest.  But on Barrett, we get a much more musical, melodic, lyrical, poetic, fluid, dreamy and frankly flat-out beautiful, sound.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Sydbarrett-barrett.jpg)

Imagine if instead of "BARRETT" at the top, it said "Pink Floyd."  :)

That applies to a lot of the Barrett album, but then again "I Never Lied To You" and "Rats" are pretty troubled-sounding songs. "Wined And Dined," as beautiful as any of his songs, and "Effervescing Elephant" were written before he came to London and started the Floyd, according to a couple of the books about him. It may be that it has a more Floyd-like sound because Rick Wright was playing on it, as hadn't been the case with Madcap. 

The surest indication of where Syd might have gone from his second album would be those live tapes made when he was in the band Stars in 1972, which have vanished and still never resurfaced. But the thing is, in that group he was playing no new material according to Twink and Jack Monk who were in the band with him.

To anyone and everyone who loves early Floyd and Syd Barrett I highly suggest taking a listen to soniclovenoize's "what if" album reconstructions. They are imaginative and of high quality. 100% recommended.

Pink Floyd - The Shape of the Questions to Heaven http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2013/02/pink-floyd-shape-of-questions-to-heaven.html

Pink Floyd - Vantage Point http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2013/02/pink-floyd-vantage-point-1969.html

PInk Floyd - Themes From an Imaginary Western http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2013/03/pink-floyd-themes-from-imaginary_15.html

Awesome!  Thanks Pixletwin.   :hat :hat :hat :hat

I am interested to know your thoughts on it after you hear them.  ;D

Will do, I can't wait to listen.  Just from reading the excellent descriptions, I can tell I'm gonna dig this.  I've never really thought about it... but, if it had been in the contract that Syd be "a major contributor" (similar to how Brian was with the post-Capitol albums) -- it's easy to imagine something like this having happened.

Scream Thy Last Scream.  Vegetable Man.  Apple and Oranges.  Those really should have been on the follow up to Piper.  It's also reasonable to believe that Syd would have gravitated towards the Madcap/Barrett style for the remaining "new albums."  Most artists create based on where their head's at, at a given time -- so I don't think he would have done something terribly different.  They may have sounded different if they were Floyd Songs... ie; more confident.  But still.  Clowns & Jugglers could have easily been another Floyd single.  

Since Syd wasn't "playing well with others" at this time -- the more serene solo-setting could have certainly been a solution.  Being so sporadic and difficult, they would have let him do his thing, get a few good numbers on tape -- and move on.  It would have been a matter of cherry picking whatever seemed the most logical for the album.

Given Roger's "drive" and the fact that they had hired a very competent Dave -- they were obviously ready to move on, if need be.  So, I think they would have quickly abandoned the idea of trying to copy Syd.  It's more likely that they would have begun to pursue their own career/artistic goals as much as possible.  Again, not unlike what Denny and the Boys had to do in the early 70s.

Realizing that they weren't likely to remain Syd's band for much longer than the contract, it seems believable to me that these two departing worlds could have coexisted, as depicted, for this brief period.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Pink_Floyd_-_all_members.jpg)

Got to spend some time with the aforementioned Syd/Floyd reconstructions.  I really dig them.  Very nicely done, excellent sound and well executed on all fronts.  I was surprised by how well a lot of the material fit together, especially the Atom Heart stuff.  That's of course where the Floyd genes really started to pull together -- the "embryo" develop, so to speak.

But I shouldn't be surprised either.  From Dark Side on, they really started to reference Syd with reverence and mystique.  Embracing their past -- and literally "mining" Syd.  For example, the chords to Brain Damage mirror Bike, and pull heavily from the same tortured mindset.  But the material on these sets does predate much of that... so I guess that's why I was surprised.

The first album, that re-imagines Saucerful is the most obvious "could have been."  There were in fact two Floyds at this time -- the Syd Floyd and the Non-Syd Floyd, and something in between.  And they were very different.  Syd's final Floyd stuff was intense.  Vegetable Man, Scream Thy Last Scream, and Apples and Oranges are frighteningly vivid depictions of an astonishingly brilliant artist's unraveling -- put to tune.  There's just no way around it.  There's a horrid tightness to it all -- an anxiety that is unsettling.  But they're some of the most shockingly, brilliant things I've ever heard.  They do frighten and delight.

By comparison, the Floyd stuff without Syd is oh, so flat.  Darker -- hazy and sleepy, soft and tame.  We have to assume this is why they just cut ties at this point and didn't bother including Syd's material -- save Jugband.  It's unfortunate, but there was little chance they were going to match the intensity of Syd's finality.  We know there were other tunes from around this time, but likely weren't finished.  So Pink Floyd just hit reboot.

This collection puts Syd back -- front and center and gives the other Floyd's their "plug" -- rather than the other way around (which is the way they chose to do it on the released Saucerful of Sucrets).  One could argue that something like Point Me At The Sky, or perhaps even, Corporal Clegg are attempts at Syd's style and intensity -- but Paint Box and Remember A Day (used here) are just better examples of their nature.  And more satisfying as a result.

To buttress the shifts in intensity, using Late Night and Golden Hair to cool things down, does work well.  The music Syd started on after he left the band, is like a breath of fresh air.  You know, not too wash over the troubled times he had, but I maintain he was quite well and lucid by this point.  He was most broken by being booted, and more shamed into retirement than anything.  Isolation and embarrassment further beat him up.  But I think he was fine.  He morphed into a sensitive, quiet and brilliant artist... with a disgust for the rock business.

But I digress... Good stuff.

I'm gonna have to agree with your assessment on Barrett, although I would like Madcap more if it wasn't for the questionable song choice in the second half. As it stands, Baby Lemonade, Dominoes, It Is Obvious, and Wolfpack have some of the most striking and beautiful lyrics he ever wrote.

   I've imagined "Baby Lemonade" as a side 1 MEDDLE track, but maybe it "belongs" on ATOM HEART MOTHER.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Bean Bag. It was great to read. I agree that it is really strange and wonderful how the Syd material slips seamlessly into the Atom Heart Mother tracks.