The death of a 60-year-old man, the inhabitant of an unremarkable house on a quiet suburban street in Cambridge, brings to an end one of the most enduring legends of the psychedelic era. Few musicians embodied the possibilities and perils of the 1960s as clearly as Syd Barrett, whose decision to abandon public life more than three decades ago precipitated a growing interest not just in his brief career as a rock music pioneer but in the curious story of his decision to renounce music altogether.
Barrett had nothing at all to do with the later recordings, such as Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, that turned his former bandmates into multimillionaires. For the last 35 years of his life he produced not a note of music. Without him, however, Pink Floyd could not have built the platform from which its members launched themselves to worldwide stardom. And so striking a figure was he, his fate so dramatically illustrating the places to which unfettered experiments with hallucinatory drugs could lead, that in his absence he grew more famous than any of his former colleagues.
It was Barrett's melodic instinct and whimsical lyrics that transformed a band into acid-rock innovators. He wrote and sang their early hits, Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, and he was widely assumed to be the group's frontman, thanks not least to the charisma imparted by his long curly hair, pretty features, kohl-shadowed eyes and wardrobe of hippie silks and satins.
The group's first album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, followed their singles into the charts in the summer of 1967.
A heavy intake of LSD undoubtedly fuelled the visions that took shape in Barrett's songs, but it also rendered his behavior so erratic that, after a series of embarrassing live performances on their first US tour, his exasperated colleagues took the decision to replace him. “If drugs were going, he'd take them by the shovelful,” said David Gilmour, who replaced him in the line-up in the early weeks of 1968. Six years later, still half-ashamed of their youthful callousness, the band wrote and recorded Shine On, You Crazy Diamond, perhaps the tenderest and most touching elegy ever written for a living musician.
Barrett released two solo albums in 1970 but was unable to take his career any further. He returned to Cambridge, resolutely refusing to acknowledge his past. Accosted on his doorstep by one would-be interviewer, he produced the reply that summed up the whole story: “Syd can't talk to you now.”
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not