Atomictumor

Getting frontage on CNN (who seems to be having a slow news day) is sad news for the Atomictumor bunch and music in general… kinda.

LONDON, England (CNN) — Syd Barrett, the eccentric guitarist who founded Pink Floyd but later left the music business to live quietly and somewhat reclusively, has died at the age of 60, according to a spokeswoman for the band.

Syd was the classic rock excess story, but turned out some endearingly deranged songs after getting booted from the Floyd. Unlike many of the Barrett fans, I believe the band put out its best work after his departure, simply because I don’t think Roger Waters would have been able to keep up with Barrett.  Wikipedia has a few free songs to listen to, the first two with Pink Floyd, and the final off of Madcap Laughs (I think, tho it could be Barrett).
His death comes as no shock, but what is a bit of a large shock is the press that it has received. This guy dropped out of the public eye 30 years ago to live with his mother, and is still billed as a rock star when he goes. Is that fitting? I’m of the thinking that, in some cases, dying might not be too bad a thing for all concerned, and I hope he had a chance to live a life that made him as contented as possible since dropping out of the public eye. If Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain had managed that, maybe there would have been happier endings for their families.
Its also interesting that this bookends what I was saying earlier about the psilocybe study, in that there really are people who were burned out and messed up by psychosomatic drugs. While undoubtedly possessing some serious problems, the drugs had to have made it worse.

Furthermore, what else is interesting is that GACs announcement of our upcoming re-nuptials (all secretly designed to take the wind out of KnoxJon’s sails) is bookended by these two postings. What is being implied here?

Were drugs involved in our getting married? Does that explain these strange burns and markings on my body, or the months of time lost in 1996?

I’m going to spend the rest of today listening to some of his music, particularly one of my favorite songs, Bob Dylan’s Blues, which was his last hurrah when it was ‘unearthed’ a few years ago for a compliation (although he had nothing to do with it, and was probably unaware of the hubbub), and ponder the strange twists that life puts on people.
A world that can turn a psychedelic rock god into a reclusive, troubled gardener with stomach ulcers and a world that can make a weirdo like me marry a goddess in some kind of weird (imaginary) haze is a world that needs pondering.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Freaky, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.