Guide to British Music of the 1960s
March 2006
DVD Review
The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story
The early Pink Floyd was quite different to the multi-million selling, stadium group of the 1970s. This DVD tells the story of the band and focuses on Roger "Syd" Barrett, writer of many of the early songs.
The interviews are with people who crossed the path of the band in the early years as well as with all members of Pink Floyd, Syd excepted. An early demo with Bob Clows is Syd's Lucy Leave which is heard as the background and is reminiscent of The Pretty Things. This was very different to the known Pink Floyd sound but it is excellent nonetheless. Bob Clows then left the band and the sound and look of Pink Floyd started to evolve. It would have been good to hear more of the Pink Floyd ion its blues phase.
Producer Joe Boyd talks about the release of Arnold Layne and other early tracks such as Bike. An interesting note,as supplied by Nick Mason is that Pink Floyd had to run two parallel careers, the avant-garde material such as Interstellar Overdrive in the club of London but they had to play the more accessible material in the provinces.
Early footage of Pink Floyd includes the BBC programme where a classical music artist is astonished by the loudness of Astronomy Domine. However, by this stage, Syd had been experimenting with drugs, notably LSD, to a greater degree. Dave Gilmour, an old friend from Cambridge, remarked after having not seen Syd for some time, that he had greatly changed and did not recognise him. There is a brief extract of the demo Jug Band Blues before a description of a US trip where Syd was clearly in a different world. His behaviour on the Pat Boone show was a clear indication of something very wrong. At the Fillmore West he remained still on stage and detuned his guitar.
One of the highlights of the DVD is the brief extracts from lesser-known tracks, some of which are not commercially available: Jug Band Blues, Lucy Leave, Vegetable Man.
Dave Gilmour was now brought into the group to fill the gaps that Syd was leaving both for vocals and guitar. However, Barrett left the band in 1968. He carried on writing though intermittently. His flat is visited in the next stage of the film with a description of how he painted the floor and lived his life. He started as a solo artist. Jerry Shirley of Humble Pie played drums on The Madcap Laughs and he says that Syd did not appear as "mad" as he was made out. Maybe there was an element of "faking it" going on. Gilmour was also involved in producing the album. He describes the "nightmare" of producing a record in the short time available.
However, the Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett story does not end with his leaving the band. Walters tells of how the main character in The Wall is based on Barrett. Furthermore, the epic Wish You Were Here is very much about Syd. The title track is obvious but the song which evokes Barrett is Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Rick Wright describes how he saw a man he did not recognise in the studio production room. Someone else said that it was Syd. Gilmour noted that he had put on weight and had a shaved head. Walters also did not know who he was. Nick Mason identified the eyes but said that everything else had changed. Wright: "Seven years of no contact and then he walked in while we were doing that track."
Syd Barrett went back to Cambridge from London in 1978 and has been a virtual recluse there ever since.
A second CD has the full interviews with the band members, except the Roger Water interview, as well as an interview with Robyn Hitchcock in his garden. Picking up an acoustic guitar, he plays Dominoes, Dark Globe, It is Obvious, etc. Former Blur guitarist plays a solo version of Love You. Also present are a Timeline, Discography, Biography and a quiz.
One thing that is clear is the fact that Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd will always be linked even though Barrett was only a member of the band for a small segment of their overall career. The spirit of Barrett was very present at Live8 in 2005