http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/ ... ink_floyd/
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/ ... nk_floyd/2
or as reprinted below from in one easy page instead of the 2 above - your choice.
http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/syd-barre ... azine.html
Interview with Mick Rock
If you tend to believe what you hear, rather than what is, Syd Barrett is either dead, behind bars, or a vegetable. He is in fact alive
and as confusing as ever,in the town where he was born, Cambridge.
In 1966-67, Barrett was playing lead guitar with Pink Floyd. He'd named the band and was writing most of their music, including the
only two hit singles they ever had. His eerie electronic guitar style and gnome-like stage presence made him an authentic
cult figure for the nascent London underground, then just beginning to gather at the UFO club and the Roundhouse.
The Floyd were a house band and the music went on into the wee hours. Cambridge is an hour's train ride
from London. Syd doesn't see many people these days. Visiting him is like intruding into a very private world.
"I'm disappearing", he says, "avoiding most things." He seems very tense, ill at ease. Hollow-cheeked and pale, his eyes
reflect a permanent state of shock. He has a ghostly beauty which one normally associates with poets of old.
His hair is short now, uncombed, the wavy locks gone. The velvet pants and new green snake skin boots show
some attachment to the way it used to be. "I'm treading the backward path," he smiles. "Mostly, I just waste
my time." He walks a lot. "Eight miles a day," he says. "It's bound to show. But I don't know how."
"I'm sorry I can't speak very coherently," he says, "It's rather difficult to think of anybody being really
interested in me. But you know, man, I am totally together. I even think I should be."
Occasionally, Syd responds directly to a question. Mostly his answers are fragmented, a stream of
consciousness (the words of James Joyce's poem 'Golden Hair' are in one of his songs). "I'm full of dust
and guitars," he says. "The only work I've done the last two years is interviews. I'm very good at it."
In fact, Syd has made three albums in that time, produced by the Floyd.
"The Madcap Laughs", his second, he says, was pretty good: "Like a painting as big as the cellar." Before the
Floyd got off the ground, Barrett attended art school. He still paints. Sometimes crazy jungles of
thick blobs. Sometimes simple linear pieces. His favourite is a white semi-circle on a white canvas.
In a cellar where he spends much of his time, he sits surrounded by paintings and records, his amps
and guitars. He feels safe there, under the ground. Like a character out of one of his own songs.
Syd says his favourite musician is Hendrix.
"I toured with him you know, Lindsay (an old girl-friend) and I used to sit on the back of the bus,
with him up front; he would film us. But we never spoke
really. It was like this. Very polite.
He was better than people really knew. But very self-conscious about his consciousness.
He'd lock himself in the dressing room with a TV and wouldn't let anyone in."
Syd himself has been known to sit behind locked doors, refusing to see anyone for days
at a time. Frequently in his last months with the Floyd, he'd go on stage and play no more than
two notes in a whole set.
"Hendrix was a perfect guitarist. And that's all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and
jump around. But too many people got in the way. It's always been too slow for me. Playing.
The pace of things. I mean, I'm a fast sprinter. The trouble was, after playing in the group for a few months, I
couldn't reach that point."
"I may seem to get hung-up, that's because I am frustrated work-wise, terribly. The fact is
I haven't done anything this year, I've probably been
chattering, explaining that away like anything.
But the other bit about not working is
that you do get to think theoretically."
He'd like to get another band together. "But I can't find anybody. That's the problem. I don't know
where they are. I mean, I've got an idea that there must be someone to play with. If I was going
to play properly, I should need some really good people."
Syd leaves the cellar and goes up to a sedate little room full of pictures of himself with his family.
He was a pretty child. English tea, cake and biscuits,
arrives. Like many innovators,
Barrett seems to have missed the recognition due to him, while others have cleaned up.
"I'd like to be rich. I'd like a lot of money to put into my physicals and to buy food for all my friends."
"I'll show you a book of all my songs before you go. I think it's so exciting. I'm glad you're here."
He produces a folder containing all his recorded songs to date, neatly typed, with no music.
Most of them stand alone as written pieces. Sometimes simple,
lyrical, though never
without some touch of irony.
Sometimes surreal, images weaving dreamily, echoes of a mindscape that defies traditional analysis.
Syd's present favourite is 'Wolfpack,' a taut threatening, claustrophobic number. It finishes with:
Mild the reflecting electricity eyes
The life that was ours grew sharper
and stronger away and beyond
short wheeling fresh spring
gripped with blanched bones
moaned Magnesium proverbs and sobs.
Syd thinks people who sing their own songs are boring. He has never recorded anyone else's.
He produces a guitar and begins to strum out a new version of
'Love You,' from Madcap.
"I worked this out yesterday. I think it's much better. It's my new 12-string guitar. I'm just
getting used to it. I polished it yesterday."
It's a Yamaha. He stops and eases it into a regular tuning, shaking his head.
"I never felt so close to a guitar as that silver one with mirrors that I used on stage all the time.
I swapped it for the black one, but I've never played it."
Syd is 25 now, and worried about getting old. "I wasn't always this introverted,' he says,
'I think young people should have a lot of fun. But I
never seem to have any."
Suddenly he points out the window. "Have you seen the roses? There's a whole lot of colors."
Syd says he doesn't take acid anymore, but he doesn't
want to talk about it... "There's really nothing to say."
He goes into the garden and stretches out on an old wooden seat. "Once you're into something..."
he says, looking very puzzled. He stops. "I don't
think I'm easy to talk about.
I've got a very irregular head. And I'm not anything that you think I am anyway."
_________________________________________________________________
Seems the photos are commonly dated March 71 and the Interview came out in Issue 98 of Rolling Stone December 23, 1971.
AND THANKS TO JULIAN for UNEDITED INTERVIEW
julianindica wrote:Unedited draft of Mick Rock interview (from 'Psychedelic Renegades')
MICK ROCK 1971: ‘I’m full of mothballs of the world.’ Syd Barrett in his home town of Cambridge, where he is, ‘Disappearing. Avoiding, you know, most things. Not doing a thing. I’ve been thinking luckily that everything’s very simple.’ His manner belies his comments. He seems tense, suspended.
He treads through time and space very gingerly. Thin and pale, with eyes still shocked by it all, he looks like a poet of old. The wasted ephemeral beauty of a Keats. The hair is short, uncombed, the wavy locks gone. The satin pants and the new green snakeskin boots show some attachment to the old shell.
‘I’m treading the backward path,’ he chuckles. A gesture hard to identify follows.
‘I just waste my time.’ Not quite. He walks a lot.
‘Eight miles a day. It’s bound to show. I don’t know how.’ It doesn’t seem to. He flickers in and out of focus with no discernible pattern. At times he is coherent, responding directly to the questions. Other times he slips out on his own, spinning fragmented webs punctuated with highly esoteric images.
‘I’m full of dust and guitars.’ It is a warm day.
He is aware of the problems of communicating with him.
‘I’m sorry I can’t speak very coherently. It’s rather difficult to think of anybody being really interested in me.’ But the contradictions proliferate throughout. It’s impossible to tie him down.
‘You know, man, I am totally together. I even think I should be.’ And in his own terms maybe he is. Verbal coherency has nothing to do with togetherness. He’s a jigsaw. If one could arrange the pieces, the whole might amaze. But only Syd can do that.
‘I don’t have a sense of humour,’ sadly. But he does.
‘The only work I’ve done the last two years is interviews. And I’m very good at it,’ he twinkles. Not quite true. He made an album last year, Barrett, his third. His first was with the Pink Floyd in the early days of psychedelia, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. At the time he almost was the Floyd. He wrote most of their material, played lead guitar, and sang. He even named them.
The Floyd began to move up and into the open around the same time as Hendrix, autumn of 1966. In those days there were strong affinities between Barrett and Hendrix. They both spread the guitar right out, loosened the strings and let them ride before anyone else understood the possibilities of electronic magic. Pete Townshend has often said how Syd amazed him, as he did all of us. Syd remembers Hendrix.
‘I toured with him. Lindsay (an old girlfriend) and I used to sit in the back of the bus, with him up front, he would film us. But we never spoke really. It was like this. Very polite. He was better than people really know. But very self-conscious about his consciousness. Locked himself in the dressing room with a TV and wouldn’t let anyone in.’
Syd recognizes the freak in others. He himself is known to cut off all communication and lock out the world for days at a time. In his last days with the Floyd, he would go on stage and hardly play a note. He continues, ‘Hendrix was a perfect guitarist. And that’s all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and jump around. But too many people got in the way. It’s always been too slow for me. Playing. The pace of things. I mean, I’m a fast sprinter. The trouble was, after playing in the group for a few months, I couldn’t reach that point.’
Unfortunately, there’s none of the really wild stuff on record. They didn’t record live performances as frequently as they do now. The first album gave a taste. But the producers of those times weren’t expanded enough to capture the special Floyd brew. What comes through stronger is the whimsical, gnomey quality prevalent on Barrett’s two individual albums. He doesn’t like to talk about the Floyd.
‘I don’t have anything to do with them. Apart from the fact that they did produce my albums, which was very useful.’ But he is not pleased with the results.
‘I’ve made three LPs and two of them haven’t been very interesting. The last two have been so dusty. And unnecessarily so. What can you do? I’d love to get it together.’ He blames the mix. ‘It’s everything.’
He explains. ‘If you get two strings, it sounds better than one. Most people say just put one, because they don’t know about the two. Once people know about the two, they’re different people.’
He slides deep within, ponders, and returns with, ‘Madcap was pretty good. Like a painting as big as the cellar.’ Syd was at art school before the Floyd got off the ground. He still paints. Sometimes crazy jungles of thick blobs. Sometimes simple linear pieces. His favourite is a white semi-circle on a white canvas.
What about the present and the future? Doesn’t he feel the need to produce, to press on? ‘I do. But I’m not asked. So I don’t feel there’s any reason to go ahead.’ He holds up a record.
‘Look what I found in the hit parade.’ Relics. A collection of Pink Floyd oldies.
‘Ninth is quite high isn’t it? For me, it’s five tracks that I haven’t thought about.’ He seems pleased. He lapses into a bout of self-examination.
‘I may seem to get hung-up, that’s because I am frustrated work-wise, terribly. I really don’t agree with any wasted years. And the fact is I haven’t done anything this year. I’ve probably been shattering, explaining that away like anything. But the other bit about not working is that you do get to think theoretically.’ Syd’s theory is unique, like his records. They are difficult to get into, cryptic and tantalizing. Their format is simple, with a frustrating unfinished quality. He doesn’t actually play the guitar nowadays. He prefers to merely strum.
He’d like to get another band together. But it’s not so easy. ‘I never find anybody. That’s the problem.’ He’s like a small boy. ‘I don’t know where they are. I mean, I’ve got an idea that there must be someone to play with. If I was going to play properly I should need some really good people.’ And Syd has a hard time with people. His points of reference are uncommon. He admits, ‘I don’t know what I’m talking about. Trouble is, talking on this level is a waste of time ’cause no one benefits. I mean, we’re not getting anywhere. It’s not that you’re put there to say anything.’
We are in a cellar. A womb in which he surrounds himself with his paintings and records, his amps and guitars. There he is safe. Under the ground. Like a character out of one of his own songs. He spends a lot of time in bed. He has time to think of his roots, to reassure himself.
‘Everything’s been very simple. You know, I had a very straightforward life. I went to a school just over the road.’
We leave the cellar and move up to a sedate little room full of pictures of Syd and his family. He was a pretty child. An English tea with cake and biscuits arrives. Very unexpected. Loosened by a piece of iced sponge, his horizons expand. He talks of love and money.
‘I’ve often been in love. The last time it lasted only a few months and at the end of it I almost broke down.’ He relates this as if remembering from a script pedantically, but with that typical touch of whimsy.
‘I used to be in love and have loved many girls. Early on it was more of a necessity. Now it’s more of an involvement. Having forgotten about it, I don’t worry. It’s something that occurs to me when I feel a bit blue-jeaned, which I don’t always feel.’ His face goes blank. He pours another cup of tea and confides flatly.
‘I love girls, you know. I wanna get married and have kids.’
It’s hard to know how to take this, as it is the rest of what he says. He doesn’t stay long enough to be defined. He is not unaffected by the heavy pop star vibes. Maybe he feels cheated out of the wealth and fame accorded to the Floyd and to other contemporary musical acquaintances. He can be to the point.
‘I’d like to be rich. I’d like a lot of money to put into my physicals and buy food for all my friends.’
The game he plays goes deep. He hasn’t told anyone else the rules. He is very polite. He wants to show one things. He’d like to share, but he is too far in to receive.
‘I’ll show you a book of all my songs before you go. I think it’s so exciting. I’m glad you’re here.’ He produces a folder containing all his recorded songs to date, neatly typed, with no music. Most of them stand alone as written pieces. Sometimes simple, lyrical, though never without a nudge of irony. Sometimes surreal, runalong pieces, images weaving and fading dreamily, echoes of a mindscape which defies any traditional analysis. They are reticent evocations of a mood. And they are good. Syd’s present favourite is ‘Wolfpack,’ a taut, threatening, claustrophobic number. It finishes with a shudder:
With blanched bones moaned
Magnesium proverbs and sobs
He thinks people who sing their own songs are boring. He has never recorded anyone else’s. He produces a guitar and begins to strum out a new version of ‘Love You’ from Madcap.
‘I worked this out yesterday. I think it’s much better.’ It is, in a way. It moves much quicker.
‘It’s my new twelve-string guitar. I’m just getting used to it. I polished it yesterday.’ It’s a Yamaha. He stops and eases it into a regular tuning. He shakes his head. His reflecting electricity eyes gleam momentarily, flooded with a fond memory.
‘I never felt so close to a guitar as that silver one with mirrors. I used it on stage. I swapped it for a black one, but I’ve never played it.’
At twenty-five he is worried about getting old. He would like to enjoy, to open up, but has forgotten how to.
‘I wasn’t always this introverted.’ At college he was extrovert, friendly, they say.
‘I think young people should have a lot of fun. But I never seem to have any.’ He points out the window.
‘Have you seen the roses? There’s a whole lot of colours.’ A great sea of them washes over the eyes. The simple pleasures satisfy. Syd is in retirement. He’s seeking new levels, new strengths. He doesn’t take acid anymore. He doesn’t want to talk about it. There’s nothing really to say.
In the garden there is an old wooden seat. Syd stretches out on it.
‘It’s getting it together. Once you’re into something…I was fabulous on stage. But I can’t get to another one readily. It was so easy.’ He looks very puzzled.
‘I don’t think I’m easy to talk about. I’ve got a very irregular head. And I’m not anything that you think I am anyway.”
