ASTRAL PIPER Redux 2013 THE NEW SYD BARRETT APPRECIATION SOCIETY

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French Magazine Article - ACTUEL

In 1982 a couple of French Journalists tried tracking Syd Barrett down for aninterview. They called in at his last known residence in London, ( The ChelseaCloisters Apartments) to find the only thing left behind by Barrett was a bag ofold laundry. The French magazine article in ACTUEL tells of their full story and

meeting with Syd Barrett.

I managed to buy a copy of the Actuel magazine from Ebay a few months ago,but unfortunately my French was a little rusty. Parts of the article had been

translated before, but never in FULL. Thankfully one of our ASTRALPIPER members living in France, is brilliant at the French to English transaltionprocess, so now for the first time ever, the full article is available for everyone

to read in English.

Although I certainly do not agree with some of the things said by this article onSyd Barrett, (and there are many incorrect details), I still feel this magazine

article was extremely interesting, certainly more so than many of the re-hashed articles appearing frequently these days on the news shelf. Of

particular interest is the association and mention of long time Barrett expertBernard White.

A big "thank you" must go to our Astral Piper member, Piper_0108 - Jaak Geertsfrom France for the time consuming translation.

(abov e) Front cov er of ACTUEL magazine

LINKS

GuestbookBEHIND THE WALL OF PINK FLOYD,

THE GHOST OF SYD BARRETT

By Michka Assayas and Thomas Johnson – Translated by Jaak Geerts

At the age of twenty, the visionary Syd Barrett founded The Pink Floyd. Then hedisappeared, people saying he had turned completely schizophrenic. Where didhe go? The Wall was released, and the hero of the film resembled him just a tadtoo much: just take a look at the pictures. We have found the real Syd Barrett in

London. And even if a man has been a true genius, he still has the right tovegetate in a kitchen garden.

(above) French Journalist with Syd Barrett in Cambridge.

Phew! I really must look a sight, standing here in the middle of this Cambridge

suburb street, with this bloomin’ laundry bag under my arm!A pair of navy blue velvet trousers, some striped pyjamas, a pair of white

socks and a blue pullover: these are the clothes Syd forgot in the London flathe lived in a month ago.

I had been trying to track Barrett down for several days when finally I wasbrought to a London estate agency. The girl cried out:

“Mister Barrett? You mean the sick bloke? The one who locked himself up inhis flat all day? He’s gone. He had some health problems; I think he went back

to Cambridge to live with his mother.”So the girl from the agency gave me the laundry bag. What an unexpected

stroke of luck … Not one single journalist had managed to get close to Barrettsince 1971, not a single picture had been taken of him. And all of a sudden, I

am given the perfect excuse to meet him!Now, here in Cambridge, I’m less happy with myself. I’m a bit ashamed of the

stratagem, and I’m nervous when I think about meeting rock music’s greatvisionary, the founder of Pink Floyd, the man who left his mark on the band’sexceptional first album; Barrett who is said to be locked up, beyond the point

of no return, inside schizophrenia. And now that I am confronted with thisnarrow street, these hundreds of perfectly identical houses, this caricature of

Britain’s suburban cruelty, I feel heavy-hearted.I enter a chemist’s shop to ask my way.

“First street to your right, Sir.- Do you know Mrs. Barrett?

- Yes, of course, she comes here often to buy medication for her poorson. He has a nervous problem, you know. I think he’s taken too many

drugs. It’s horrible, you know.- Does he go outside from time to time?

- Oh yes, he often does. He goes shopping for his mother. He’s a verynice person, but he hasn’t always been that way. Nowadays, everybody

likes him around here.”Half past four. I’m in front of the Barrett house, and I’m not the only one there.There’s a young hippie who paces up and down in front of the house, a bottle

of milk in his hand, kind of a weird look in his eyes. He glances stealthily,hesitates. His hero is there and he doesn’t know how to go near him.

I ring the door bell.Syd Barrett … who remembers him? Apparently, Pink Floyd’s leader, RogerWaters does. He has just conceived a trying metaphysical play in the form of

the film The Wall, inspired by the eponymous double concept album.A guy called Pink, who plays in a successful rock band, is depressed after anAmerican tour and, more generally speaking, with the pangs of life itself. Tocap it all, his wife cheats on him with a peace activist. When he becomes aprey to a raging metaphysical crisis, Pink loses his self-control, destroys his

furniture, shaves off all his hair, has apocalyptic visions, thinks he’s AdolfHitler and ends up being completely obsessed with the idea of building a wall.

In short, Pink goes mad.This pathetic character is a paranoid projection conjured up by Roger Waters,

Pink Floyd’s “mastermind” and a man who suffers from acute misanthropy.But it’s also, by means of very precise details, the story of Syd Barrett, the

founder of the band.A visionary genius at twenty, labelled schizophrenic at twenty-two, perhaps

for the rest of his life. Rock history is paved with dazzling, tragic destinies likethis one: Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac’s prodigious guitarist, went on to

become a gravedigger for several years; Roky Erickson, whom no one daresto approach anymore; or Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ sublime composer,who has practically sunk into his second childhood. Not to mention the long-

term depressions of Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, or the suicides, e.g. Ian Curtis ofJoy Division, the most mythicized of them all. Let alone all those Romantic

junkies …

Syd Barrett remains the most enigmatic of all of rock music’s shooting stars.There is a hazy shade of mystery and rumours that clouds his life’s story. Hisinfluence regularly manifests itself where one would least expect it. During the

Sex Pistols’ early days, Malcolm McLaren wanted to turn them into apsychedelic band covering Syd Barrett’s songs.

English rock never really got over Barrett’s sudden disappearing act.American psychedelia – acid rock – was actually basic rhythm’n’blues, onlylouder and more insane. The early Pink Floyd made British psychedelia slidemuch further, somewhere between 2001 A Space Oddity and Lewis Carroll,into greater emotional audacity, more caustic musical forms and agonizingpatterns of tenderness. This was the time when people did everything they

possibly could in order to delve into their own depths. Bob Dylan,hallucinating, moved some puppets around in a completely schizoid manner

during a press conference. People dropped acid so as to blow up allboundaries, draw creative energy from madness, build bridges between

painting, rock music, architecture, cinema and poetry.First of all, we tried to make contact through professional channels. But SydBarrett doesn’t have any record company, manager or publishing company

anymore. So I called Bryan Morrison, his former manager.“I have nothing to say to you.

- You mean you’ve lost all contact with him? You’re not interestedanymore?

- That’s right.”A couple more phone calls, all to no avail. There have been several rumours

circulating for the past ten years. Syd’s in a mental hospital. Not at all! Helives all alone on the top floor of the Hilton Hotel in London, in a suite the bandhas offered him for the rest of his life. No, no, that’s not it either – he resides

with his mother in Cambridge, never leaving the house, living in the cellarwhere he grows mushrooms …

I guess we’re lucky, just before we’re off to London, a bit blindly really, there isa short notice in the New Musical Express: ‘Terrapin’, the fanzine oncepublished by the “Syd Barrett Appreciation Society”, has been reissued.

Bernard White, the fanzine’s editor, tells us over the phone in a poised andsolemn voice: “I don’t want to get involved in anything before I know who youare. You must understand that the press has spoken badly of him too often in

the past, and I want to know what your intentions are.” We accept the test.White lives all by himself in Hampstead, the north London “artistic” and

peaceful neighbourhood, in a tiny maid’s room. Its walls are covered withpsychedelic posters, all collector’s items, and on a rickety chest of drawersstands an immense wooden chest, covered in some kind of Indian cloth, inwhich White keeps all the fanzines he photocopies at his own expense, and

all kinds of documents concerning Syd Barrett. White never parts with the keyto his chest. Mounted under glass is one of the earliest pictures of The Pink

Floyd, with a ruffled looking Barrett amongst them, a modern day Rimbaud ofsorts. It’s pretty obvious that we are in a sanctuary.

White, somewhere about thirty years old, is a strange creature. He’s short,sickly, his hair cropped like a cosmonaut’s, he has a sweaty handshake andis dreadfully awkward and shy. He has devoted his life to Syd Barrett for ten

years now. In civilian life, he is an unemployed record shop employee.He informs us solemnly: “You’ll have to present this man as an artist.” Thiswill be his leitmotiv throughout. Clearly alarmed by the lies and obscenities

that have been printed on Barrett – e.g. he eats grass and tops his head withcream -, White tries to justify himself: “I try to protect him.”

He shows us his most precious items: a promotional film for “Scarecrow”,one of the Floyd’s earliest songs, copied onto a VHS cassette. And even

rarer: another film that looks like it dates back to the brothers Lumière era,shot in super-8 by a friend of Barrett’s at Cambridge when he was seventeen.

Then it’s time to listen to three previously unreleased songs, “Opel”, “BirdyHop” and “Word Song”.

The contemplative meeting reaches its highest point. White brings out two

huge binders filled with press clippings.“I’m the most important authority on the subject of Syd Barrett”, White

explains. “I can understand him. Just like him, I have been called a madman. Ispent one year in a psychiatric hospital, and six years locked up in this room.”An eerie feeling takes hold of the sanctuary. We imagine White all on his own,

on a winter’s night, staring into the void, listening over and over again toBarrett’s tortured voice reciting his fragile and impassive poems one after the

other.Finally, White produces a rough picture, drawn in colour pencil with sinewy

lines all over it, just like a bunch of naïve approximations of geometricalpatterns. The picture is signed Roger Barrett 1979. Roger Barrett is Syd’sreal name. And White informs us that that’s how Barrett wants to be called

nowadays.Where did White get this drawing? What does he know about Barrett from1972 until now? White refuses to reply. If we want to gain access to Barrett

Wisdom, we have to be “prepared” and follow some kind of initiatory path. Heprefers to show us his weekly mail: some thirty odd letters, in which people

eagerly lay claim to information concerning Syd Barrett.He has never ceased to be worshipped. Around 1974, so the story goes,

everybody wants to resuscitate Barrett. Jimmy Page gets someone to lookinto the case. David Bowie, who has just covered “See Emily Play” on an

album, tries to get him back into the studio. Eno has the same idea. It’s all invain.

And now there are all these letters, practically all of them written by veryyoung people, from all over England.

It’s 1966. Londoners passionately indulge in psychedelia, imported from SanFrancisco, and ingest huge quantities of LSD. The three other members ofPink Floyd, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright, met a year before

when they were studying at the same school of architecture on RegentStreet. Barrett came to London from Cambridge to study painting in an art-school. He is nineteen years old and apparently is much more drawn to the

trinity ‘sex and drugs and rock’n’roll’ than his three partners, of whom heinitially says they are “not really very exciting people”. Of course, Barrett is the

first of the quartet to drop acid.The first genuine concerts of The Pink Floyd take place early 1966, duringsome highly experimental parties. On these nights, eccentric musicians,poets or just plain nutters take to the stage one after the other – the term

“performances” is already used.Nick Kent, a rock journalist, remembers a Pink Floyd gig near the end of

1966, before their first record was released.“They had no qualification whatsoever, but they had one thing going for them:they were hip. They played, just like every other band did at the time, classic

rhythm’n’blues songs, like ‘Louie Louie’ and ‘Road Runner’. But they had readsome stuff about the West Coast and psychedelia. So instead of playingthese songs in two minute versions, they made them last ten minutes …

complete improvisation, dissonant and inventive.”That’s when destiny rears its head in the form of Peter Jenner and Andrew

King. Jenner is a professor in sociology and King is a cybernetics engineer onthe dole. They’ve started an independent company and are eager to get theunderground sounds out. They know strictly nothing about rock music, but

their instinct made them track down the band of the century, so as to enablethem to make a fortune.

Their initial choice was The Velvet Underground, but Andy Warhol beat themto it. What follows is a burlesque situation: Jenner heads off to meet the

members of The Pink Floyd and explains to them that they “could becomebigger than the Beatles”; they are amused, but in a sceptical way. Waters,

Mason and Wright consider The Pink Floyd as some sort of hobby, whereasBarrett takes his music very serious. Jenner takes him aside and says: “Why

don’t you start writing songs?”

So Syd starts writing, just when the band thinks about splitting up: Waters

and the two other band members attend to their architecture studies. This isthe era when The Beatles and The Stones digress “artistically” for the firsttime, with Revolver and Between The Buttons respectively. On the West

Coast, two of psychedelic rock’s masterpieces are released: 5th Dimensionby The Byrds and Love’s first album. Barrett listens to these four albums

continually.The songs Barrett writes, the ones the band will record a couple of monthslater, are very much linked to the themes that are in at that time: mysticism,

the Yi-King, science fiction and the extremely British fantasy world of Tolkien,elves, gnomes and magicians.

Early 1967, Pink Floyd means big business. The national press discoversunderground culture and things get rolling. The band signs a recording deal,heads off on a tour across the country, releases a 45, records an album andtours America: a whirlwind that lasts six months, a pure frenzy during which

something happens to Syd Barrett.In June 1967, the band makes a television appearance to promote “See EmilyPlay”, their first hit record. Barrett wears a pop star’s outfit: a satin shirt and apair of flowery trousers. For the second show, he hasn’t shaved and wears

creased clothes. For the third show, he shows up in a princely outfit, butwhen it’s time to go on, he changes into a set of rags.

In October, when they’re touring the States, Barrett refuses to lip-sync whenthey appear on a television show. During an interview on the “Pat Boone

Show”, he remains mute and stares at the show’s host as if he sees throughhim. The manager prefers to cancel the rest of the tour instead of taking the

risk of being confronted with a suicide.The downfall sets in.

Everyone who was there at the time agrees: something awkward, almosttangible, appears in the look in Barrett’s eyes. Joe Boyd, who produced their

first 45, and who hasn’t seen the band in a couple of months, notices itpractically straightaway:

“If there was one thing that had struck me about Syd, it was the glimmer ofmischievousness he had in his eyes. When I saw him again, it had

completely disappeared. It was as if someone had drawn the blinds. Nobodyhome.”

Nick Kent recalls one of the last gigs the Floyd did with Syd Barrett: “It wasclear that the band couldn’t function anymore. Barrett remained isolated at theback of the stage; he didn’t tune his guitar at all. He looked fabulous, though:his long hair, his ghostly face with black eyeliner around the eyes … On thisenormous stage, he seemed physically cut off from the rest of the band …

There was one roadie who was solely in charge of switching off the sound ofhis guitar when he lost control.”

Nick Kent knows better than anyone else what happened next. In 1974, heconducted the first in-depth inquiry into the Barrett case. Illustrating his articlein the New Musical Express was a huge picture of the artist aged nineteen,

the word “cancelled” stamped over it.Kent, it has to be said, is a real case himself. A legendary critic whose

existentialist devotion to rock’n’roll and devastating sense of humour havebeen copied a thousand times, without ever being equalled. Nick Kent is the

first rock journalist to have signed autographs. A tall and spindly person with areptilian look about him, dressed in his typical and inimitable hobo-like chic,Kent talks about Barrett as if he were one of his personal obsessions. We

retreat into the minuscule listening booth he has at his disposal in the office ofhis magazine and Kent launches into a monologue that will last over an hour,

hypnotized by his subject, staring into space.“When I was working on my article, I heard at least three hundred stories

about Syd Barrett. The most widely spread was the one of him living with acouple, ‘Mad Jock and Mad Sue’, who put acid in his coffee every morning.

That way, he is supposed to have been on one long trip for two or threemonths without even being aware of it.”

After he’d been sacked from the Floyd, Barrett throws one final message in abottle into the ocean: he puts out two erratic, unsettling solo records, onwhich he can be heard fighting against his own demons with wavering

energy, his voice raving and frightened. These are two underground classics,two gems that some start nagging about to the members of Pink Floyd.There is even a mythical third album. Peter Jenner, the Floyd’s former

manager, was present at the recording sessions late 1974 or early 1975.“It was a distressing experience, because something was still present inside

him, but I was under the impression he didn’t want to bring together all thepieces of that ‘something’. During takes, he would just go out and vanish. Thesound engineer used to say to me: ‘If he goes out and turns to the right, he’llbe back; if he turns left, we’re not going to see him again for the rest of the

day.’ He never got it wrong.”Recordings do exist, and it goes without saying Bernard White has them in

his possession. They are unstructured guitar solos who were meant to be thebasis of songs Barrett has never sung. Apparently, he did write some lyrics to

them, though. He is said to have had a song lyric typed out on a typewriterand handed over to him, after which he imagined someone was going to

make him pay for it. Things never went any further.A couple of years prior to that, Syd Barrett had shared a flat with a painter by

the name of Duggie Fields. Syd’s room can be seen on the cover of TheMadcap Laughs, his first album, the parquet painted in orange and blue, with

a bedazzled Syd in the foreground, eyes black with eyeliner, a nakedwoman’s back pictured in the background …

Let’s go and talk to Duggie Fields. The painter still lives in the same flat, inEarl’s Court, one of London’s fancy neighbourhoods. The decoration is notthe same anymore: huge paintings with contrasting colours cover the walls.

Everything is clean, beginning with Duggie himself. He is dressed in red satin,has his hair combed back, a little curl dangling down his front. Syd Barrett is

long gone. Duggie describes what Syd’s room looked like in those days:“There was a mattress on the floor, a dirty carpet, some pictures he was

painting, a record player and some records – his own and some blues -, aguitar, the Yi-King and a wire-and-paper structure hanging from the ceiling.

That was it.“He had painted the parquet without cleaning it or moving the furniture. Fag

ends, matches, dog hair … it all got stuck into the paint. The windows,covered in hessian, couldn’t be opened anymore. There was a stench in theroom that was unbearable. As soon as he went out, I’d take advantage of the

occasion to clean up, but he hardly ever went out.- What did he do all day?

- He could stay in bed for days on end, without getting up. And nobodywas able to anticipate when he would finally get up.”

The flat was swarming with people. Mandrax and LSD were being dealt. Quitea number of young girls would try and chat up Syd, they would stay in front ofhis door for hours, drumming with their fingers, sobbing away … they literally

had to be thrown out.“He had a girlfriend, but it didn’t work out. One day, he opened the door and

threw her into the other room, like he would have done with an old bag,without a word. I had to part them more and more often.”

There was only one way to gain access to his room: get him a supply ofMandrax, one of the few things that he was still interested in.

“I would always check up on things after he had been in the kitchen. Once,the corridor was filled with smoke. He’d fried some chips, and then when the

oil had completely evaporated, the pan had melted and the curtains hadcaught fire. Syd had put out the fire and had calmly returned to his room,

without saying anything.”“He had an old Cadillac with a sun roof, and one day, he just gave it away tosome guy he met in the street … a perfect stranger. Sometimes, I would find

him covered in blood. He had smashed the door to a cupboard in the kitchenbecause he hadn’t been able to open it.”

In the end, Duggie can’t take it any longer and moves out.Syd invites two other people to come stay with him. Then he has a suddenchange of heart: he decides he wants to go back to his family, talks about

taking care of his health again, about getting married to his girlfriend,becoming a doctor, …

The girl follows him, but doesn’t stay around for a long time: she’ll soon getsick and tired of the blows.

One day, when his mother comes home, she finds the whole placedevastated. Syd has smashed all the furniture, the television set and the

dishes to pieces. He’s lying on the floor, not moving. Shortly afterwards, theambulance arrives. He’ll spend several years in a psychiatric hospital.

So what goes on these days? Nothing has seeped through for a number ofyears now. And now I’m disclosing part of the secret thanks to this strange

and derisory magic key: a laundry bag.The estate agency doesn’t know where he lives, but they’ve given us his

sister’s telephone number.I ask her how he’s doing.

“Yes, he has been very ill. He had a stomach operation. Besides, he is still‘sick in his mind’.

- But what does he do nowadays?- Oh, nothing much. He lives a bit of a solitary life, with my mother. You

know, he’s very sick. I think it’s innate. It’s all over for him.- But this must be hard on your mother!

- Yes, it’s a real strain on her, especially given her advanced age. Butshe’s a mother. He lives a peaceful life now, and he doesn’t want to seeanybody. He doesn’t even recognize his friends from London. You know,

the time he spent in London didn’t do him a lot of good. I think he’s ashappy as he possibly can be now.”

And so I finally stand in front of this Cambridge house, trying not to blush toomuch while waiting for someone to answer the door.

No reply. I ring again and push the door open. In the small garden, an old ladyis cutting the rose-bushes. A shadow appears at the end of the corridor and

moves slowly towards me.“Hello!” We’re equally surprised, our voices coincide.

“I brought you this. I think it’s your laundry.- Oh, yes! From Chelsea! Yes …”

He’s a tired and older man. His hair is very short, going a bit bald at thetemples. His features are haggard, his look is glazed, and his arms are

dangling. He is thin and his skin is flabby. His mother didn’t hear me arriveand stays in the back of the garden. From time to time, he looks at her,

stealthily.“I’ve been trying to contact you; I went up to Chelsea, so they told me they had

this bag of laundry for you, and that you were living with your mother.- Thank you very much! Do I owe you something? Did they make you pay

for anything?- No, no, it’s ok! What are you up to these days? Do you paint?

- No … I had an operation recently, but it’s nothing really serious. I’vebeen meaning to go back there. But I’ll have to wait. There is a train

strike at the moment.- But that ended a couple of weeks ago already …

- Ah, ok! Thank you …- What do you do in your London apartment? Do you play guitar?

- No … no, I watch television, that’s all …- Don’t you feel like playing anymore?

- No. Not really. I don’t really have the time to do a lot of things. I’ll have tofind an apartment in London. But it’s not easy. I’ll have to wait …”

From time to time, he looks at his laundry and fiddles around with it. Hesmiles.

“I didn’t think I was going to get these things back. And I know I couldn’t write. Icouldn’t bring myself to go and fetch them … Take the train and all that … But… Yeah … I didn’t even write them … Mom told me she’d call them from the

office … Thank you anyway …”He is constantly trying to put an end to the conversation. He never stops

glancing in the direction of the garden, where his mother is.“Do you remember Duggie?

- Eh … Yes … I never saw him again … I didn’t visit anyone in London.- All of your friends say hello.

- Ah … Thanks … That’s nice …”He speaks and reacts exactly like all the other people I’ve known that were

undergoing psychiatric treatment. Waiting seems to have become his primaryoccupation, and the television helps to see time pass by.

“Can I take a picture of you?- Yes, of course.”

He smiles, tenses up, and buttons up his collar.“Ok, that’s enough! This is distressing for me … Thank you.”

He looks at the tree in front of the house. I don’t know what to say anymore.“That’s a beautiful tree.

- Yes, but not any longer … They cut it a little while ago … I used to like it…”

From the house, his mother’s voice is heard:“Roger! Come and have a cup of tea and say hello to my friends!”

Roger Barrett looks back at me, in a start:“Ok … Well … Perhaps we’ll meet again in London … Bye …

- Yes, see you soon … Bye …”When I leave, I come across the mad hippie again. He is leaning against a

wall in front of the house, hiding behind a newspaper. I feel unbelievablydrained.

There you are. That’s it.But where can I find an explanation, or a justification for such a waste? What

has happened in this crushed existence?Theories abound.

Someone mentions a certain Ozzie, a fan who went to see Barrett sixmonths ago to offer him a picture that represented him. She promises to write

something down, and she keeps her promise.“No way Syd Barrett is a lunatic. I don’t even go for the theory about him beingschizophrenic. I’m sure that he has every control over his mind and uses it at

will. He’s certainly unlike everyone else I’ve met up till now, but there isnothing insane, zombie- or acid casualty-like about him. He’s just taking a restfrom mankind, a species he obviously deems useless and that he looks uponfrom an entirely different spiritual level. It’s hard to tell whether he is happy or

not, but I’m pretty sure that he has organized his world as he intended, that hehas excluded all the rest and lives inside his mind.”

According to White, the fanzine editor, “he could have become a guru andpeople would come to see him from all over the world.” Sure. But why didn’the aspire to that? Why didn’t he aspire to anything at all? Barrett refrainedfrom having a career and becoming a pop star. In spite of that, for several

years, every time he mentioned Pink Floyd, he referred to them as “his band”.In a way, Barrett locked himself up in a state of indecisiveness and became a

paralytic of determination. Why?Everyone who knew him at the time agrees: in Cambridge, Syd Barrett was a

cheerful, brilliant, extrovert young man. Storm Thorgerson, nowadays incharge of Hipgnosis, the graphics design agency that’s specialized in the

design of record sleeves, was his best friend back then. Here’s how he seesit:

“People made Syd into the centrepiece of a cult that went way beyond hiscontrol. He went on a trip inside himself and ventured into musical

explorations the other band members were unable to follow. After Richmond(the acid-spiked coffee), he wasn’t the same man anymore. But all of that

would not have occurred had there not been some kind of predisposition …Syd had no discipline whatsoever. He had lost his father at a very early age,

and he was way too mothered.”When he was nineteen years old, like so many of the Cambridge friends he

hung out with, Barrett got passionately interested in Indian mysticism. He triedto become a disciple of a guru who was originally from the north of India and

taught the mysterious teachings of “Sant Saji”. His application was notwithheld because the guru considered him to be too young. StormThorgerson: “It was another father figure turning his back on him.”

Roger Barrett was the youngest child in a family of eight. Nick Kent: “Hismother always considered her son to be a genius. She made him live in an

imaginary world. Dave Gilmour, of Pink Floyd, thinks it all started there.Needless to say, Mrs Barrett has always refused to accept the fact that her

son wasn’t a normal person.”So this would rather be a case of slow erosion than chain reaction. The originof which would be, so to speak, a manufacturing defect. And the brutality of

Pink Floyd’s success, together with all the excesses of that era, would finallyget the better of a fragile structure.

“There are people who walked down acid lane and managed to pull through”,says Kent.

What is most fascinating about Syd Barrett is the fact that he succeededhimself in diagnosing the catalepsy that got hold of him. The lyrics to ‘JugbandBlues’, the only song on Pink Floyd’s second album (A Saucerful Of Secrets)

that bears his signature, a song the band included as a charitable favour,already echo from beyond the grave:

“It’s awfully considerate of you to think of me here. And I’m much obliged toyou for making it clear that I’m not here. And I’m wondering who could be

writing this song.”His two solo albums are two impassive accounts, delivered by a man who

precisely wants to “make it clear that he’s not here” anymore. “When Barrettlived in the cellar at his mother’s place in Cambridge, he had an aquarium.

And the records strike me in pretty much the same way: there’s nothingemotional about them. It floats and it’s extremely lunatic. There is something

very English about it all. Like Lewis Carroll.”Barrett is an English myth, as serious as he is frivolous – the England of

nonsense and all those extravagant little clubs. The exact counterpart to theFrench romantic madman, morbid, arms riddled with holes, a victim of his

own disorganised genius.Even Bernard White, for all his mystic awe and respect, recognizes there is a

certain degree of humour in the character. And even if the story of Barrett’slife is sad, it is by no means dark or sinister. One has to admit there is a

certain amount of choice in his itinerary.Nick Kent remembers: “When I was investigating the Barrett case, it

reminded me of ‘Chinatown’. It’s a classic theme Dashiell Hammett used: the‘gumshoe’, the private detective who wants to get to the bottom of things. He

ends up being so obsessed with the whole thing, it all blows up in his ownface. You try to understand what goes on inside a man’s mind – you try and

approach in a logical way things that are completely devoid of all logic.”There remains one man to be questioned. Who never knew Syd Barrett? Anoff chance, an intuition. Ronald Laing, the tortured ‘anti-psychiatry’ prophet,who does not consider lunacy to be a ‘mental illness’, but rather an inward

journey, during which a person tries to find himself. A journey madenecessary by the absurdity and the masked violence that can be present in a

family. A journey that is cut off by the psychiatric treatments and thusbecomes a never-ending series of wanderings. Laing’s lyrical and painful

books were written at the same time psychedelia triumphed. And today, Lainghas also disappeared …

On the phone, a voice, his secretary or his wife:“No, Mr Laing does not speak to journalists. What you can do is make an

appointment and pay, like any other patient, twenty-five pounds for a visit of

half an hour. That’s the way it goes.”A young, barefoot lady leads me into his practice and leaves me there by

myself.Laing enters. He huddles up in an armchair and his eyes avoid mine. I tell himBarrett’s story. He dozes off in his armchair, closing his eyes. Then, slowly,he starts mumbling something with a Scottish accent, which makes it hardly

possible for me to understand him.“I … I … I think I met him once or twice at some parties, at the time. Hereminds me of Artaud, Rimbaud, Marcuse, Nietzsche, people heading

towards thirty with all that passion and vision and genius and spark of theirs.And then there’s Mayakovsky, who killed himself, leaving a suicide note which

read: ‘The love boat has crashed against the everyday.’ You feelprogrammed, conditioned, automated, and then you take some acid and all of

a sudden, you discover Shiva’s dance and lots of other things in the samevein … But there is nothing that can help the visionary express his vision.

People buy what he produces and think of him as some kind of merchandise.He thinks he can find love and understanding, that’s all. Then the songs seem

to be getting emptier all the time. And everything becomes nothingness.”Laing talks as if he’s been through it all himself. “In the end, there is no moreenergy left. And the visionary ends up resembling a washed-out floorcloth.

The only thing he can do is sit down and do nothing. Or get on stage and playone single note. But that means nothing at all. The one who hears it, the

listener, thinks of that note as nothing more than just noise, a ‘ploop’ playedon a guitar chord.” Laing sinks deeper into his armchair, into his past, into his

ancient concepts. Then suddenly, he ends the monotony. “Everythingbecomes ugly, uglier and uglier, ugly. Then, the person turns to other ways ofthinking, alternative realities, suicide puts on another face. It’s only a breathing

pause, a start: ‘I’m tired of it all, I’m off, thanks!’ A lot of people of hisgeneration just said: ‘That’s it, bye!’ Or: ‘Do you want to see my body? Here it

is.’”Then, after a long silence:

“How old is he now?- Thirty-six.

- Well! You never know. He might have another stroke of genius.”I show him the photographs. He looks at them closely.

- He must be on some kind of treatment. It’s … a sad story. You neverknow. After all, he hasn’t been tortured or physically damaged. He’s still in onepiece. That might give him some hope again. But there is nothing we can do

for him … not anymore.”That same evening, at the Notre-Dame, a London club, we’re supposed tomeet Dave Gilmour, Syd’s replacement in Pink Floyd. He goes there everyThursday to listen to some sixties records. Gilmour sits in a corner of the

room with some friends. They all look old, or perhaps old-fashioned rather …“Syd Barrett? I don’t have the time to talk about him. Your article has to be the

last one about him. It’s not Romantic. It’s a sad story. Now it’s over.”

By Michka Assayas, Thomas Johnson (France)

(above) more pictures taken from the ACTUEL magazine article.

Copyright © Astral Piper 2005

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