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 ggg                   "What I Know About Syd Barrett"                 ggg
 $$                             by -> AIDS                            $$
 $$                                                                   $$
 $$        [ HOE E-Zine #956 -- 12/14/99 -- http://www.hoe.nu ]     .,$$
 `"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'

        I've spent countless hours filling my head with enough information
 on Syd Barrett that it would make his old boyhood friend, Roger Waters
 sick. I've visited every website possible related to Syd Barrett, read
 articles, and even started this file over half a dozen unsuccessful
 times. But here it is, my very own personal thoughts on him, the one and
 only, Syd Barrett.

        OK, here's what I know about Syd: Uhm, he was in Pink Floyd and I
 guess he was friends with the guys in Pink Floyd and he wrote some really
 fucked up shit that sounds nothing like the celestial majesty that came
 with later Floyd releases like WISH YOU WERE HERE or DARK SIDE OF THE
 MOON or THE WALL. Instead Barrett worked on the insipid PIPER AT THE
 GATES OF DAWN, its desultory style mostly the result of his chronic LSD
 abuse. Unlike the other guys in the band, Barrett was really into drug
 use and it shows, his stuff is FUCKED UP and it sounds all crazy. It's
 too chaotic and silly and just sounds like a bunch of fairy tales and
 it's not anything like the stunningingly complex and in-depth things that
 later Roger Waters would accomplish.

        Eventually the guys in Pink Floyd decided they'd like to be a real
 band, so they kicked him out. He went on to do two solo albums; THE
 MADCAP LAUGHS and BARRETT. Both of these albums would SUCK! if it weren't
 for the fact that his replacement in Pink Floyd, Dave Gilmoure, produced
 them with the help of Roger Waters and uh the other guy. You KNOW that
 they did all the work and all Syd did was babble some shit about the
 faeires and elves in Elfland.

        so, ok, you gotta understand, SYD BARRETT took a lot of drugs,
 right? He took acid in his coffee and acid in his tea and acid in his
 food and fed acid to his cats and he dunked his head in buckets of liquid
 acid and try to go on stage and when he was on stage he'd be taking acid!
 He took acid 15 times a day for a year straight! And he wasn't the most
 sane guy to begin with, so you know, the acid FUCKED HIM UP. He went
 crazy and started being totally useless to the band, so they kicked him
 out, because they wanted to make MUSIC and not some fancy schmancy faery
 tales about the elven queen and her minions in hell.

        Syd went crazy as hell. It's that simple. He went totally nuts.
 Now he lives in Cambridge and rides a bike and it's a very nice bike, and
 he doesn't know anything that's going on at all. OK, even though I sort
 of hate Syd Barrett, I like one song called OCTOPUS (also known as CLOWNS
 AND JUGGLERS) and  here are some of the lyrics:

    "Trip to heave and ho, up down, to and fro'
    you have no word
    trip, trip to a dream dragon
    hide your wings in a ghost tower
    sails cackling at every plate we break
    cracked by scattered needles
    the little minute gong
    coughs and clears his throat
    madam you see before you stand
    hey ho, never be still
    the old original favorite grand
    grasshoppers green Herbarian band
    and the tune they play is "In Us Confide"
    so trip to heave and ho, up down, to and fro'
    you have no word
    Please leave us here
    close our eyes to the octopus ride!
    Isn't it good to be lost in the wood
    isn't it bad so quiet there, in the wood
    meant even less to me than I thought
    with a honey plough of yellow prickly seeds
    clover honey pots and mystic shining feed...
    well, the madcap laughed at the man on the border
    hey ho, huff the Talbot
    "Cheat" he cried shouting kangaroo
    it's true in their tree they cried
    Please leave us here
    close our eyes to the octopus ride!
    The madcap laughed at the man on the border
    hey ho, huff the Talbot
    the winds they blew and the leaves did wag
    they'll never put me in their bag
    the seas will reach and always seep
    so high you go, so low you creep
    the wind it blows in tropical heat
    the drones they throng on mossy seats
    the squeaking door will always squeak
    two up, two down we'll never meet
    so merrily trip forgo my side
    Please leave us here
    close our eyes to the octopus ride!"

        It describes my life, just switch the just switch the Talbots and
 woods. It is very moving and I connect with it very well.

        With Syd Barrett's unique, musical ways, and his fucked up drug
 brain, he brought a whole level of stupidity to Pink Floyd that the band
 spent several years trying to escape. If you want to hear some wicked
 good guitar though, check out "Interstellar Overdrive" on PIPER AT THE
 GATES OF DAWN. Wonderful fuzz box distortion, I promise. From "sucking
 down more acid than chemical waste" and realizing "life is pointless and
 despair is my only friend," Barrett has taught us that "its a blessing to
 get fucked up beyond belief and destroy your mind" and that it is okay
 to be a "dreamer".

        It's also ok to love one another, I guess.

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[ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS!               HOE #956, BY AIDS - 12/14/99 ]