Couldn't agree more. Piper still gets dragged out at least once a year and still sounds great every time.

Piper was revolutionary stuff. Barrett was a massive influence on many musicians and songwriters, I'm sure, but I'll always have a problem with banding the tern 'genius' around, with regard to most rock stars from any era, living or dead.

It's not clear to me, even as a Floyd fan, exactly what the nature of Barretts genius was. As much as I enjoy Piper, Barretts departure from the band was the best thing that could have happened imo.

If the aeroplane situation counts, does that mean you like Gary Numan as well?

Actually he sold the company, Intrepid Aviation, and then the collection which included  a lot of classic fighters was sold off. Apparently he wasn`t too crazy about the business aspect  which was necessary in maintaining the costs of keeping the planes in the air. I think he still has one or two left that he keeps as toys to go barnstorming around the English countryside every now and then. I don`t know much about Numan except that he owned a Harvard and at one point flew it as part of some civilian demonstration team.

Blacksword wrote: Vibrationbaby wrote: Genius ? I`m not going to copy out the definition of the word from the Oxford Dictionary because I wouldn`t apply it to any rock star. But if anyone was the "genius" behind Floyd it was Gilmour, creative, modest and he has a collection of old aeroplanes that I would like to have for myself I agree. ..about Gilmour...not the aeroplanes... Dont get wrong, I love them, but I guess they're pretty high maintenance.

  Not to mention the insurance on a Spitfire, Vampire or Hawker Hunter. Some ex-US marine pilot turned businessman just got the c/a for a Sea Harrier FSR I he purchased a few years ago for $ 1 million sans engines !

Rocktopus wrote: The T wrote:   Was he really a genius? Was he a talented guy that people adore only, as with many rock stars, because he died young? Answers would be appreciated.  Hey! He died two years ago. I hope I live to be older than 60, but its not considered dying young.

Syd Barrett was a man who led the way in his era, and it's impossible to understand early Floyd without understanding the time and the scene. First of all, Barrett took the other Floyds away from doing R&B stuff and led them into the "underground" scene of swinging London where Pink Floyd became the "house" band of UFO, the hippest underground club of that era. This was the setting for happenings, the Beatles came to see them play, the Beat poets came to London, and the whole San Francisco Haight-Ashbury scene was transplanted to London, which briefly became one of the hippest places in the world. Along with the Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, led by Syd, were instrumental in developing psychedelic music, out of which progressive rock grew. But unlike the Softs, Syd also knew how to write commercial songs, with Arnold Layne and See Emily Play being relatively big hits, and putting psychedelia into the mainstream. However, Piper gave little indication of what they were like in their "home" of UFO - Interstellar Overdrive only giving a shadowy hint. Floyd made movie soundtracks at this time for key movies set in London, they were one of the first to present innovative light shows, and to present music in England that intended to recreate the sensation of an acid trip. Without Syd, the whole psychedelic scene might have died without leaving much of a trace. With Syd, Pink Floyd became a successful widely known band, "A Saucerful of Secrets" was created as an attempt to reproduce the sound without the main man, and prog rock replaced the long-form improv of that era with long-form compositions. Without the example of Interstellar Overdrive, prog might never have happened.

Someone once said that if Syd had stayed on in Pink Floyd they would all be playing banjo's and jews harps. 

Syd Barrett... what makes him a legend?

Some did mention the fact his dead, right?
Instant legend status for dying.














Edited by HughesJB4 - October 16 2008 at 05:40

Valdez wrote: Someone once said that if Syd had stayed on in Pink Floyd they would all be playing banjo's and jews harps.

Yeah. Good point  "what if" ? his solo material wasn`t anything to write home about. I think he enjoyed gardening more than music after he lost his head. And you have to also wonder "what if" Syd wasn`t taking lethal doses of LSD when he wrote all that "legendary" music. Don`t get me wrong I really dig that first album but Floyd created enough "legendary" music without him. They could have been singing about a head of cabbage or Gimour`s dog that died when he was 7 years old on Wish You Were Here. I`m not bashing Syd at all here but I`m sure that whatever was left of his brain when Wish You Were Here came out it probably was wondering why all the bru ha ha?


Edited by Vibrationbaby - October 16 2008 at 10:29