Media Reports on RKBs Death

All discussion related to Roger Keith (Syd) Barrett.
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Keith Jordan
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Post by Keith Jordan »

A great insight into RKB done by Tim Willis interviewing RKB's sister Rosemary!!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 41,00.html
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Post by PublicImage »

Keith Jordan wrote:A great insight into RKB done by Tim Willis interviewing RKB's sister Rosemary!!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 41,00.html
Thanks for that link, that is a brilliant article!
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Post by db_intheflesh »

Yup, excellent article in the Times. Thanks for the link.
I'm just glad to hear he lived a happy life doing what he loved doing.
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Post by Tenniru »

TIME Magazine has a small bit on Syd in it's "Notebook" section. (Of course it probably would be bigger if Israel hadn't invaded Lebanon... damn middle-eastern warmongers bumping into poor Syd's posthumous limelight.) It just mentions his death of "undisclosed causes" and features a 1968 image. A very short, to-the-point, accurate paragraph.
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Post by FloydCouncil »

You forgot to mention it was written by Nick Mason.
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Post by jambo »

Appreciation [Syd Barrett, 1946-2006] - Nick Mason
Nick Mason has payed tribute to Syd Barrett in the Asian edition of TIME Magazine.
There :D
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chuckmein
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Post by chuckmein »

thanks for sharing all the links y'all


chuck
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India Pays Tribute To Syd Barrett...

Post by AsydWaters »

I've tried to cover all and some relatively little known "NewsPapers/Broadcasters/Mags/Indian Fan Sites" who paid Tribute to Syd via news sections/articles etc.Hope these don't dissapoint or deviate from the topic of this thread. ps I shall post/update asap I find any more articles on Syd.
Also I wish to thank all NPF members who have posted here.It just makes me feel being part of a group of Honest,Sincere,Polite and Enlightened Friends,...hope we stay the same.
IHere are the articles from "INDIA".-

Wouldn't you miss me?-by MANOJ NAIR ,
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SUNDAY, JULY 16, 2006 12:00:00 AM]I can't tell you how sad I feel. Syd was a major inspiration for me. The few times I saw him perform in London at UFO and the Marquee clubs during the sixties will forever be etched in my mind. He was so charismatic and such a startlingly original songwriter. His impact on my thinking was enormous. A major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed. Those were words of remembrance from the man who sold the world: David Bowie. He like many others got the courage to tread where they might not have otherwise from the only crazy diamond, the prince of psychedelia, Syd Barrett.
Born in Cambridge on January 6, 1946, Roger Keith Barrett, the son of a renowned pathologist, was given his ?Syd? sobriquet while attending the city?s high school, where his friends included Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour. Syd later went to the London?s Camberwell School of Art, but played in various ensembles. Waters, who was studying architecture at Regent Street Polytechnic invited Barrett to join his group. Syd brought his version of mysticism, pop and hallucinogenics to the band. When 1965 was coming to a close, Barrett, Waters, Wright and Mason formed The Pink Floyd Sound, a name Syd had coined as a tribute to Georgia blues musicians Pink Anderson, and Floyd Council. Barret became the group?s primary songwriter composing both of their first hits: Arnold Layne and See Emily Play. In 1967, the group, which had by then become a regular at London?s UFO, mentioned by Bowie above, released their path-breaking album The Pipers at the Gates of Dawn. Syd had composed 10 of the album?s 11 songs.But the wayward star was losing himself in inner space aided by heavy doses of LSD. And soon after a tour with Jimi Hendrix, Syd had to be eased out, to the chagrin of his loving friends, from the band in 1968. After two solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, which had enough indications of his mentally disturbed state, as described by Brit folk producer Joe Boyd when he went to meet him: ?I looked right in his eye and there was no twinkle, no glint. You know, nobody home.? Syd?s last contribution to the band was Jugband Blues in A Saucerful of Secrets.
It was this disturbing state of Syd?s mind that Roger Waters wrote of in the song, Shine On Crazy Diamond, from their 1975 album, Wish You Were Here, in tribute to Syd Barrett: Now there?s a look in your eye/Like black holes in the sky. Their friend?s sad absence also inspired The Wall. After an unsuccessful stint with a band called Stars, Barrett retreated from public life and went to live in the basement of his mother?s house where he took up painting. ?I?m sorry,? he told the Rolling Stone magazine in 1971, ?I can?t speak coherently. It?s rather difficult to think of anybody being really interested in me. But you know man, I am totally together.?
And he almost was. His painting of insects on the album cover of Barrett was a reflection of his freewheeling music, a complete lack of consciousness. It was this unconsciousness in songwriting that inspired the likes of Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and several others much later like Blur and Pulp and continues to be even now. You can see his conspicuous presence in as recently as The Flaming Lips? At War With the Mystics. Who knows?/Maybe there isn?t a vein of stars calling out my name/No glow from above our heads. That?s Vein of Stars. Even My Autumn Cosmic Rebellion is so Pink Floydish.
The rebel in Syd was acerbic. He had even composed a song lampooning Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan Blues, a 1970 composition on Wouldn?t You Miss Me, declares sardonically: Got the Bob Dylan blues/And the Bob Dylan shoes/And my clothes and my hair?s a mess/But you know/I just couldn?t care less. Syd had complete disdain for the society and always longed for his childhood happiness. Both Waters and Gilmour thought he had lost his state of bliss when he lost his father at age 16. His lyrics were inspired by the fairytales he read during his childhood, Edward Lear, Alice in Wonderland, Lord of the Rings and some French symbolist poetry.
You can see traces of Hillaire Belloc?s Cautionary Tales in Arnold Layne. The title Piper at the Gates of Dawn has its roots in chapter 7 of Kenneth Graham?s children?s novel, The Wind in The Willows. Syd Barrett was the eternal astral voyager with an interstellar overdrive.
In the same interview he says: ?I don?t think I?m easy to talk about. I?ve got a very irregular head.? But generations to come would talk about him. Like all troubled geniuses, his meanderings were inexplicable and drugs pushed him into a corner from which he never returned. Yet, this ?black hole? is now immortally astronomical. For without him, there would have been no Pink Floyd.
So beautiful and strange and new! Since it was to end all too soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. Nothing seems worthwhile but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to forever. ?No! There it is again!? he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound. From The Wind in the Willows.
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Post by AsydWaters »

TAAQ,Indian Rock band also paid tribute.
Visit this link.
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Post by J Ed »

I'm on the official mailing list for Patti Smith
in the email she sent out today, she mentions hearing about Syds death
youll notice she mentions a lot of dead folks!
I highlighted the bit about Syd
Patti Smith wrote:Musings

August 9 full moon. This is the day Jerry Garcia died.
He was born on the first of August and passed away on
the ninth, so it's nice to think of that span as Jerry
week. It certainly seems that he well deserves a 9 day
week. So it's winding to a close. I lit him a candle,
listened to him singing Palm Sunday, and looked
at his paintings in a big Jerry book.

August 2, the birthday of my sister Kimberly,
was the anniversary of William Burroughs' passing.
While in my old house in Michigan I found my seventy
year old bottle of Chartreuse squirreled away. I
bought it in the eighties with him in mind. We promised
each other we'd share a drink one day, but we never got around
to it. I reread his Port of Saints and looked at a catalogue of
his gun shot paintings. I traced my son and daughter's names
written in his hand on an old Christmas card.
Then I cracked open the Chartreuse and poured us
each a shot. The green sugary liquid put me in mind
of nineteenth century absinthe, so while I had my
ritual drink with William, I kept in mind the likes of Paul Verlaine,
Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud.

August 3, on the birthday of Beverly Lee, a member of the wondrous Shirelles, Arthur Lee passed away. I met him a long time ago. He was just a little older than me. He was soft spoken with a vague criminal air. Forever Changes left its mark. I was in Michigan when he died and I walked down to the end of my dead end street and sat on a bench beneath a weeping willow. It was at least one hundred degrees but I still had my trusty black coffee, steaming fresh from Seven Eleven. I played back Amoreagain and Orange Skies in my mind. These songs of Love are so deeply rooted I can hear them as clear as if they were wafting from a turntable.

My son's birthday rolled around. August 6 was the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Over one hundred thousand people were massacred in that drop. Too many candles for one to light. I was back at my post on the bench looking out at Lake St. Clair. A huge Monarch brushed my cheek. I figured the butterfly, symbol of immortality, served to evoke them.

A few weeks ago I was in London. I visited a small bar painted green and lit with a green light. William used to frequent this joint some years ago. You can only enter through private subscription. I wasn't drinking. I was just visiting. It was three in the afternoon. There were a few old-school characters nursing their whiskies. Suddenly, in the center of the friendly yet oppressive silence, one of them cried out "Syd Barrett is dead." This took me off guard. But the fellows spontaneously raised their glasses, issued a " here! here! Syd!" and then retreated into their private worlds. For that one moment they were of one mind. And I was with them, saluting someone I never knew. Someone who made music. Someone who loved Arthur Lee.

Today is my friend Betsy Lerner's birthday. It's the day the United States dropped an Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki. It's the day Hermann Hesse died. The day Jerry died. I have returned to the city. Children are racing up and down my street. We humans keep in mind. That's what we do. Tonight is a full moon. Guess when it sets, I will get me a cup of black coffee, sit on the stoop, and contemplate the bombing of Qana, the miracle of love and Dark Star.

Patti Smith