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Probably not our Final Thoughts about Syd Barrett Syd Barrett founded a supergroup called Pink Floyd and went home.

Probably not our Final Thoughts about Syd Barrett

Syd Barrett founded a supergroup called Pink Floyd and went home.

by Alex V. Cook, Music Editor
first published: July, 2006

approximate reading time: minutes

an excellent and fitting tribute to the man

11:14 AM lamont You heard that Syd Barrett died?
11:15 AM Alex V. Cook I did, though I wasn't sure he was actually still biking around Cambridge or wherever his mom's house was. He seemed to handle post-career infamy in a rather dignified manner dropping out of sight in full view like that.
11:16 AM lamont Shall we cobble together a word or 300 for him? I just interviewed Ultraviolet Eye and they name checked him, before he even had a chance to die, although I think Shine On You Crazy Diamond killed him years ago.
11:17 AM Alex V. Cook I can do one this evening if you like.
lamont Or we could write it here in five minutes. So you can work on your book...
Alex V. Cook for me, its reassuring that he died a normal death, instead of some messy suicide like so many others. Arguably, he died of an LSD overdose about 40 years ago.
11:20 AM lamont I was never much of a fan at all, pre or post Syd, Pink Floyd... Post was particularly unpalatable... I guess I was way too schooled by Johnny Rotten's I hate Pink Floyd shirt to listen to it.
Alex V. Cook I think Syd barrett wore a similar psychic shirt. Gates of Dawn has its moments, but overall, Pink Floyd worship is best contained during ones freshman year in college. I am however, a big fan of The Madcap laughs.

11:22 AM lamont Didn't he help invent stadium rock, moving Floyd from dance halls
Alex V. Cook sort of, but he had the foresight to drug his way out of the band before it took hold
11:23 AM lamont the solo albums. Oh it all seems so long ago. Have we gotten to three hundred words yet?
11:24 AM Alex V. Cook not quite. I'd say his catalog is really the one record, being rediscovered over and over. Kinda like when each generation hears Pink Moon or Astral Weeks for the first time.

you keep logging in and out

kinda like the subject in question

lamont something freaked out here with this machine...

11:26 AM Still this is going to be an excellent and fitting tribute to the man
When I came in, in 1975, Pink Floyd were the band your teachers liked and their girlfriends admitted falling asleep to at Coventry Theatre
Alex V. Cook cool
11:27 AM lamont The were already loathed by the 'kids'. So what's with todays kids and I mean, why not Ronnie Lane?
Alex V. Cook
They had doubled back and become edgy during my formative years. Countless reviewings of "The Wall" on Night Flight.
you mean, why Pink Floyd, and not some other band?
11:29 AM lamont THAT'S IT. I am incensed now. We are crafting a new top 12 of the reasons to loathe the most esteemed fucking snoringly talked about songs OF ALL TIME
Alex V. Cook Pink Floyd is the easy path to pretension. Its "Weirdness for Dummies"
11:30 AM lamont When I came here to the US I was aghast to find that it's okay to go to the planetarium and listen to dark side of the moon
its got to stop
its madness
Alex V. Cook LOL its even caught on at our new planetarium here in the nether regions
lamont OMG! When Spock gets our house reopened in Feb 07, the Observatory you'll have to come back.
Alex V. Cook So what songs are we talking about in particular? lamont We'll start a list. It will be the most argued about ever.
All the HOLY COWS
And why lazy thinkers overrate them
Alex V. Cook ok, 12 bands?
11:33 AM lamont 12 Songs...
10 Songs.
12 songs.
Alex V. Cook all pink floyd, or 12 egregious songs from any band
11:34 AM lamont songs I love to hate from any band and any era Like - they don't even have to have a video, so its a little less like a VH1 list or a History channel list
Alex V. Cook lets see.....
lamont Let's ponder it
11:35 AM Alex V. Cook Steely Dan - "Hey nineteen"
lamont Good one. For now though, Syd Barrett died, did you hear about that?
11:36 AM Alex V. Cook I did. Poor guy, but he did seem to go out on his own terms, both professionally and physically, so that's not such a bad scorecard.
11:37 AM lamont That'll do it. I want to have more of these rocknroll conversations!!! I've gotta get over to Pupuseria Del Valle now though, $1 Wednesday Pupusa's...
Alex V. Cook Roger Waters WISHES he'd really gone mad.
lamont Who's Roger Waters?

Alex V. Cook
Music Editor

Alex V. Cook listens to everything and writes about most of it. His latest book, the snappily titled Louisiana Saturday Night: Looking for a Good Time in South Louisiana's Juke Joints, Honky-Tonks, and Dance Halls is an odyssey from the backwoods bars and small-town dives to the swampside dance halls and converted clapboard barns of a Louisiana Saturday Night. Don't leave Heathrow without it. His first book Darkness Racket and Twang is available from SideCartel. The full effect can be had at alex v cook.com
about Alex V. Cook »»

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