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Pink Floyd: Acid Overload, a Psychotic Breakdown, and a Crazy Diamond · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:15
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd are insane. Their original frontman, Sid Barrett, did
0:20
Speaker 1: so much LSD that he experienced a mental breakdown just
0:24
Speaker 1: as the group began to achieve mainstream appeal. Sid's drug
0:29
Speaker 1: use began as a mind altering inspiration for his art,
0:32
Speaker 1: but quickly became a coping mechanism for the demands of
0:35
Speaker 1: commercial success. Sid became paralyzed in front of television cameras.
0:40
Speaker 1: He detuned his guitar and so it was literally unplayable
0:43
Speaker 1: and refused to perform alongside his band, and then he
0:47
Speaker 1: stopped showing up at all. And even though Pink Floyd's
0:51
Speaker 1: legacy largely focuses on the years after Sid Barrett left,
0:55
Speaker 1: Sid Barrett made great music with Pink Floyd, some of
0:59
Speaker 1: the trippest, most expansive, mind altering music of all time.
1:04
Speaker 1: Unlike that music I played for you at the top
1:06
Speaker 1: of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a
1:10
Speaker 1: preset loop from my mellotron called Clandestine Procession MK. One.
1:17
Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
1:19
Speaker 1: rights to light my fire by the doors, and why
1:23
Speaker 1: would I play you that specific slice of Funeral pyed Cheese.
1:27
Speaker 1: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
1:31
Speaker 1: song in America on August fifth, nineteen sixty seven, and
1:35
Speaker 1: that was the day that Pink Floyd released their debut album,
1:38
Speaker 1: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, a moment that
1:41
Speaker 1: would have an immediate impact on its front man, Sid
1:44
Speaker 1: Barrett and changed the trajectory of the band forever. On
1:49
Speaker 1: this episode LSD Mental Breakdowns, Funeral Pired Cheese, Sid Barrett
1:56
Speaker 1: in Pink Floyd, I'm Jake Brennan in This Is Disgraceland.
2:33
Speaker 1: It was around one in the morning when the house
2:34
Speaker 1: lights went down. The sound of a heartbeat throbbed in
2:38
Speaker 1: the darkness in the capacity crowd at Radio City Music Hall,
2:42
Speaker 1: basted and quadraphonic sound. A clock began to tick from
2:46
Speaker 1: the stage, another from the back of the room, and
2:50
Speaker 1: then more stage left and stage right, all of them
2:53
Speaker 1: clacking out of sync. The clock suddenly rang out in
2:57
Speaker 1: ear splitting dissonance. Kids in the audience tripping on Blue
3:01
Speaker 1: Sunshine already knew the sound colages from Pink Floyd's brand
3:05
Speaker 1: new album Dark Side of the Moon by Heart. This
3:09
Speaker 1: was better than listening to the LP on headphones in
3:12
Speaker 1: a dank bedroom, louder, more immersive. A sphere dangled from
3:17
Speaker 1: the ceiling. Its mirrored exterior sent flashes of light into
3:20
Speaker 1: the audience. It shot red lasers, It oozed incandescent smoke.
3:25
Speaker 1: A mechanical platform on the stage began to rise. It
3:28
Speaker 1: got higher and higher, until it finally revealed the four
3:32
Speaker 1: figures standing on it. Four skiny psychedelic messiahs, prog prophets,
3:38
Speaker 1: clad and warned jeans and tight t shirts. Roger Waters,
3:42
Speaker 1: David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Nick Mason. It was March seventeenth,
3:47
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, and Pink Floyd had arrived. They had
3:54
Speaker 1: literally arrived in New York City as part of this
3:57
Speaker 1: massive tour, but they'd also arrived as a massive force
4:01
Speaker 1: on the charts. Dark Side of the Moon was only
4:04
Speaker 1: a few weeks old, but was already approaching gold in
4:07
Speaker 1: the United States. They didn't know it yet, but Dark
4:10
Speaker 1: Side of the Moon would go on to enjoy a
4:13
Speaker 1: historic run of nine hundred and fifty nine weeks on
4:16
Speaker 1: the US charts, go fourteen times platinum in the UK,
4:21
Speaker 1: and sell upwards of forty five million copies in counting
4:26
Speaker 1: But in nineteen seventy three, the band previously known as
4:30
Speaker 1: the Pink Floyd Sound or simply The Floyd were taking
4:33
Speaker 1: their first step towards becoming an honest to God worldwide phenomenon.
4:39
Speaker 1: It had taken them a decade to get there, eight
4:41
Speaker 1: albums into their career, but they got there without someone.
4:45
Speaker 1: A crucial piece of the Floyd's DNA was missing. The
4:49
Speaker 1: four on stage all new they had lost him forever,
4:52
Speaker 1: and they didn't know if they'd ever seen him again.
4:55
Speaker 1: As they looked out at the stoned audience, all four
4:58
Speaker 1: of them thought the same thing they wished Sid was here. London,
5:11
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, Pete Townsend was tripping his balls off
5:15
Speaker 1: the shamrocks painted on the walls spun like a kaleidoscope.
5:19
Speaker 1: The colors coming from the liquor projections were so vibrant
5:22
Speaker 1: they were nauseating, and the people dancing next to Pete
5:25
Speaker 1: cascaded into infinite people every time they opped into the air,
5:29
Speaker 1: like the plane cards spilling out from a shaken deck.
5:33
Speaker 1: He wondered if they were all as high as he was.
5:35
Speaker 1: Probably LSD was easy enough to score down here in
5:39
Speaker 1: the basement of thirty one Tottenham Court Road, but only
5:42
Speaker 1: once a week. When the pedestrian Blurney Club was transformed
5:45
Speaker 1: to the way hib Upoux Club, it was spelled like
5:48
Speaker 1: the Flying Saucers UFO, but if you pronounced it that way,
5:52
Speaker 1: you weren't in the know, and if you were in
5:54
Speaker 1: the know, the bouncers might slip you a tab at
5:56
Speaker 1: the door. Pete Townsend brought his own LSD like a
6:00
Speaker 1: proper London rock star, but now he was regretting dropping
6:04
Speaker 1: acid at all because every time he locked eyes with
6:08
Speaker 1: Roger Waters wielding his Brickenbocker bass up on a UFO's
6:11
Speaker 1: stage with the Floyd, Pete freaked out. He knew the
6:15
Speaker 1: handsome and charming bass player had a thing for his girlfriend,
6:18
Speaker 1: that the LSD had rendered Pete defenseless, and that now
6:22
Speaker 1: Roger Waters, a guy who was staunchly anti acid even
6:25
Speaker 1: though his band repped the psychedelic scene, stood there with
6:29
Speaker 1: that shit eating grin of his, the one that said
6:31
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna steal your girlfriend, Happy Jack. It wasn't
6:35
Speaker 1: just his love that Pete Townshend worried about. It was
6:38
Speaker 1: his professional life too. Pete was a guitarist and the
6:45
Speaker 1: loudest band in London, the Bloody Who, but Tonight Pink
6:48
Speaker 1: Floyd were loud as the fuck. Their instrumental song, Interstellar Overdrive,
6:54
Speaker 1: was past the twenty minute mark. It put the Who's
6:57
Speaker 1: ear shattering fourteen minute live version of My General to shame.
7:01
Speaker 1: The song opened with the descending guitar riff before descending
7:04
Speaker 1: into utter madness. The far Fisa organ whined and was
7:08
Speaker 1: not a cigarette lighter. The guitarist was running up and
7:10
Speaker 1: down his strings, as if the eerie sounds coming from
7:13
Speaker 1: his fender weren't enough. The guitarist in glued small metal
7:16
Speaker 1: discs in the instrument's body, which absorbed every beam of
7:19
Speaker 1: light and shot it back out to the audience. Pete
7:23
Speaker 1: now had this psychedelic stage to contend with the guy
7:26
Speaker 1: with a reflective and refractive guitar, Sid Barret, the Floyd's
7:30
Speaker 1: de facto leader and primary songwriter, who was the most
7:33
Speaker 1: popular guy in any given room and to the Floyd's
7:36
Speaker 1: female fans, the dreamiest. Sid wore velvet trousers, yellow shoes,
7:41
Speaker 1: paisley shirts in a turquoise waistcoat. He stood on his tiptoes,
7:46
Speaker 1: hovering in mid air whists. His wild, long curly hair
7:49
Speaker 1: suspended as well. Like the heavens had begun hoovering him up.
7:53
Speaker 1: Alike Roger and the other members of the Floyd, Sid
7:56
Speaker 1: was the one who talked the talk and walked the walk,
7:59
Speaker 1: the talk being the creation of songs that defined the
8:02
Speaker 1: far out vibe of London circu Early nineteen sixty seven,
8:06
Speaker 1: in the walk being a steady diet of LSD. There
8:12
Speaker 1: was a sound that only Sid heard, and he chased it,
8:16
Speaker 1: and the rest of the band they followed him. When
8:19
Speaker 1: he was on stage at the UFO singing about kings,
8:22
Speaker 1: unicorns and dandelions, with the primitive light show conjuring hallucinations
8:27
Speaker 1: all around him, Sid Barrett was in his element. Sid
8:31
Speaker 1: closed his eyes and found himself in the middle of
8:33
Speaker 1: one of his favorite books, Kenneth Graham's The Wind in
8:36
Speaker 1: the Willows. Never had Sid noticed the roses so vivid,
8:40
Speaker 1: the willow of herbs so riotous, the meadows sweet, so
8:43
Speaker 1: odorous and pervading. In his element, surrounded by the elements
8:48
Speaker 1: of sound and vision, Sid was transported back to a
8:52
Speaker 1: time of childlike wonder. Songs like The Gnome, the Scarecrow
8:56
Speaker 1: and c Emily Play were candy coated funhouse mixing pastoral
9:01
Speaker 1: englishness with an acid expanded consciousness. Even Arnold Lane, a
9:06
Speaker 1: song about a creep of the fetish for stealing women's underwear,
9:09
Speaker 1: was less creepy and more catchy in Sid's hands. Sid
9:13
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one tripping on fairy tales and fantasy
9:15
Speaker 1: in London circa nineteen sixty seven. The Beatles got back
9:19
Speaker 1: to Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, the Stones got their
9:22
Speaker 1: nurse fery rhyme on with Dandelion. Even the Hollies sang
9:25
Speaker 1: about riding on a flying horse and Pegasus. But Sid
9:29
Speaker 1: was better than most of tapping into his inner child.
9:33
Speaker 1: The acid helped one door of perception leading to another,
9:36
Speaker 1: and all that and pretty soon the doors of the
9:39
Speaker 1: band found themselves walking through were bigger than ever before.
9:43
Speaker 1: They outgrew the underground, seeing that you fought that they
9:45
Speaker 1: had helped to foster and next they signed at Emi Records.
9:50
Speaker 1: Sid was beside himself. He had practically worn out his
9:52
Speaker 1: copy of Revolver. Sid and the band had to pinch
9:55
Speaker 1: themselves while they recorded their debut album in Abbey Roads
9:58
Speaker 1: Studio three, knowing the whole time that John, Paul George
10:01
Speaker 1: and Ringo were rapping Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts club band
10:04
Speaker 1: in the adjacent room. For Sid, However, the experience at
10:10
Speaker 1: abbey Road didn't have a fairy tale ending. Annie Kenneth
10:13
Speaker 1: graham vibes at the start gave way to grim brothers fatalism.
10:16
Speaker 1: At the end, he watched as his artistic vision went pop.
10:21
Speaker 1: The band was assigned one of Abbey Road's white Coats,
10:23
Speaker 1: Norman Smith, as their producer. Smith had experience as an
10:27
Speaker 1: engineer on the Beatles' recordings, but he was as pragmatic
10:30
Speaker 1: as Sid was idealistic. Smith new to the group's twenty
10:34
Speaker 1: minute plus interstellar overdrive down to under ten minutes in
10:38
Speaker 1: Sid's eyes. Smith watered down their single c Emily Play
10:41
Speaker 1: in the commercial track the debut full length album that
10:45
Speaker 1: followed in August of nineteen sixty seven. The Piper at
10:48
Speaker 1: the Gates of Dawn bore no resemblance to the loud,
10:51
Speaker 1: dynamic band that had been rattling ear drums around London
10:54
Speaker 1: for the better part of a year. The crowd back
10:58
Speaker 1: at the Upho agreed. Someone scribbled Pink Fink's in the
11:02
Speaker 1: Underground club's bathroom. The venue's former house band were sellouts.
11:07
Speaker 1: Even worse they were accused of turning their backs on
11:10
Speaker 1: the psychedelic scene. When the UFO's co founder, John Hobby
11:14
Speaker 1: Hopkins was nabbed at a drug bust and sent to
11:16
Speaker 1: jail on the day Sergeant Pepper's hit Shells, London's underground
11:20
Speaker 1: drug scene huddled, but Pink Floyd simply distanced themselves from
11:24
Speaker 1: the drama. Meanwhile, Pete Townsend grew a pair big enough
11:28
Speaker 1: to say what he really felt about The Piper at
11:30
Speaker 1: the Gates of Don his review, I thought it was
11:33
Speaker 1: fucking awful. Sid couldn't blame him. The record wasn't what
11:39
Speaker 1: he imagined. It wasn't that sound he heard in his head.
11:43
Speaker 1: And maybe they were right. Maybe he was a sellout,
11:46
Speaker 1: a shill of Pink Fink. The Piper at the Gates
11:48
Speaker 1: of Don It was too polished, too polite, too pop.
11:53
Speaker 1: Even worse than the selling of his artistic vision. However,
11:56
Speaker 1: was he increased attention he was now receiving the concerts,
12:00
Speaker 1: television appearances. The expectation at Emi that' Sid in the
12:03
Speaker 1: band go right back into the studio and do it again.
12:07
Speaker 1: But Sid Barrett, just twenty one years old and with
12:10
Speaker 1: his debut album at number six on the UK charts.
12:13
Speaker 1: Didn't think he could do it again, any of it.
12:45
Speaker 1: The mode of transportation wasn't the issue. Albert Hofman knew
12:50
Speaker 1: what he was going to use to get himself back home,
12:52
Speaker 1: his bicycle. This was April of nineteen forty three in Switzerland,
12:57
Speaker 1: after all, and due to wartime vehicle restrictions and his
13:00
Speaker 1: personal cars were forbidden from driving on the roads. The
13:04
Speaker 1: problem was how he was going to navigate his way
13:06
Speaker 1: to his house on his bicycle given his current condition.
13:10
Speaker 1: He was dizzy, anxious. The horizon quivered in a rainbow
13:14
Speaker 1: of colors. He couldn't move his arms. He felt like laughing.
13:18
Speaker 1: For the next twelve years, Albert Hoffman was a chemist
13:23
Speaker 1: at Sando's laboratories. In the mid thirties, Hoffmann began work
13:28
Speaker 1: on synthesizing compounds and medicinal plants to suss out their
13:31
Speaker 1: benefits for the pharmaceutical industry. In the process, he unintentionally
13:36
Speaker 1: created numerous lysurgic acid compounds, and he named his twenty
13:41
Speaker 1: fifth attempt LSD twenty five and put it on a shelf.
13:45
Speaker 1: It sat there for five years until now April nineteenth,
13:49
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three. Just days earlier, Hoffman had resynthesized the
13:54
Speaker 1: long dormic compound and hopes that it could provide some
13:57
Speaker 1: benefit in his ongoing research. He acted up get a
14:00
Speaker 1: little of it on his skin, and what he experienced
14:04
Speaker 1: was indescribable. But he knew he wanted to experience it again,
14:10
Speaker 1: and so on April nineteenth, that yes four twenty, in
14:14
Speaker 1: the afternoon, Albert Hoffman diluted two hundred and fifty micrograms
14:18
Speaker 1: of LSD twenty five and ten cc of water and
14:22
Speaker 1: drink it. At first, he felt nothing, and then the
14:27
Speaker 1: dizziness set in. He felt strange. It was late in
14:32
Speaker 1: time to go home, but he wasn't sure he could
14:34
Speaker 1: find his way. He looked out at the road and
14:37
Speaker 1: all he saw were circles and spirals, rotating fountains of
14:41
Speaker 1: color exploding from the vortex of rotating shapes. He called
14:45
Speaker 1: out for his assistant, who helped to get on his
14:47
Speaker 1: bicycle see that. He was immediately struck by how he
14:50
Speaker 1: didn't hear the sound of the pedals and of the
14:52
Speaker 1: bicycles spitting tires. He saw the sound of the petals
14:56
Speaker 1: and the tires. How was he seeing sounds? It didn't
15:00
Speaker 1: make any sense. No matter the dizziness had subsided, and
15:04
Speaker 1: the wind on his face was a religious experience. When
15:08
Speaker 1: he arrived at his home, Hoffman couldn't remember the path
15:11
Speaker 1: he took to get there, but he'd never forget his trip.
15:18
Speaker 1: Twenty years after Albert Hoffman dosed himself for the first time,
15:22
Speaker 1: the drug he created was still legal and plentiful. An
15:25
Speaker 1: intellectual stronghold like Cambridge, as city on the River cam
15:29
Speaker 1: north of London, known for its universities, centuries old architecture
15:33
Speaker 1: and Bucolic scenery, was ripe for psychedelic exploration. In the
15:38
Speaker 1: early nineteen sixties, middle class Cambridge teens were reading on
15:41
Speaker 1: the road by Jack Kerouac, listening to Bee Bob and
15:44
Speaker 1: jamming in R and B bands. Intellectualism was sexy, and
15:49
Speaker 1: so were nonconformists and anti authoritarians. They couldn't open their
15:53
Speaker 1: minds wide enough. It's like LSD was made for them.
15:58
Speaker 1: Not that every kid in Cambridge was dropping acid in
16:00
Speaker 1: the sixties. Roger Waters famously took only one trip because
16:05
Speaker 1: Roger Waters was less of an artist seeking transcendence and
16:08
Speaker 1: more of a career oriented task master. But that's a
16:11
Speaker 1: whole other story. Similarly, fellow Cambridge kid and guitarist David
16:15
Speaker 1: Gilmour took LSD only a few times, but found that
16:19
Speaker 1: he too wanted more control over his mind than the
16:21
Speaker 1: drug would allow when he joined Jokers, while the band
16:25
Speaker 1: he played in from nineteen sixty three to nineteen sixty seven.
16:29
Speaker 1: Gilmore approached the gig as a gig, not an outlet
16:32
Speaker 1: for stoned artistry, and he knew that art didn't pay
16:35
Speaker 1: the bills, so he picked up side jobs to supplement
16:38
Speaker 1: his income. He delivered wine, worked a hot dog stand,
16:42
Speaker 1: carried sheet metal and, thanks to his Adonnis good looks
16:45
Speaker 1: modeled for photographers. Gilmore's Cambridge friend Roger Keith Barrett, couldn't
16:52
Speaker 1: have been more different. He lived the artist's lifestyle. Sleep
16:56
Speaker 1: until noon, don't hold down a real job, Chase the muse,
16:58
Speaker 1: chase that sound always create, nothing else matters. His sister
17:02
Speaker 1: claimed that he cried NonStop as a baby until around
17:05
Speaker 1: eighteen months, when he learned how to hold a pen
17:06
Speaker 1: and draw. He continued to live the restless artist lifestyle
17:10
Speaker 1: as an adult, but when he moved to London at
17:13
Speaker 1: age eighteen for art school. It was at this point,
17:16
Speaker 1: around nineteen sixty four, that he stopped going by his
17:19
Speaker 1: given name Roger, it was calling himself Sid. Accounts differ
17:23
Speaker 1: as to exactly why he settled on the name, but
17:26
Speaker 1: some suggest that it gave him the air of a
17:28
Speaker 1: working class beatnik. Accounts also vary when it comes to
17:33
Speaker 1: just how much acid Sid consumed, first in Cambridge and
17:37
Speaker 1: then in London, but what was clear was that he
17:41
Speaker 1: was the only blotter carrying member of Pink Floyd, the
17:44
Speaker 1: band he joined, named and begrudgingly led after Roger Waters
17:47
Speaker 1: first met Richard Wright and Nick Mason in London. The
17:51
Speaker 1: band went through a few lineup and name changes before
17:53
Speaker 1: Sid joined. Sid mashed up the names of American bluesman
17:57
Speaker 1: Pink Anderson and Floyd Council and steered the group away
18:00
Speaker 1: from R and B covers and into a psychedelic forest.
18:03
Speaker 1: It suited the band just fine. To be honest, they
18:06
Speaker 1: were remedio musicians, and they caught flak from other bands
18:10
Speaker 1: for not being able to play well, for not paying
18:12
Speaker 1: their dues on the road. Under Sid, Pink Floyd used
18:16
Speaker 1: these weaknesses to their advantage. Instead of virtuosic guitar sol
18:20
Speaker 1: those like those that Hendrix and Clapton pedaled, the Floyd
18:23
Speaker 1: leaned into reaverb echo and distortion, sonic sleight of hand,
18:28
Speaker 1: and the music sparkled with childlike wonder and they had
18:31
Speaker 1: Sid Barrett to thank for that. But once Emi commercialized
18:36
Speaker 1: his artistic vision, Sid felt like a little kid being
18:39
Speaker 1: taken to task by an adult, an artist demoted to
18:43
Speaker 1: a commodity. He continued taking LSD, but now he did
18:47
Speaker 1: it to cope with the anxiety. Anxiety around the fear
18:51
Speaker 1: that Emi was dumbing down his vision, an anxiety over
18:54
Speaker 1: having to repeat the commercial success of their first recordings.
18:58
Speaker 1: Audiences at the Floyd's Life shows didn't offer much relief.
19:02
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking about the UFO or when the
19:04
Speaker 1: band tore it out of town or promote the piper
19:06
Speaker 1: at the Gates of Dawn. Fans expected the condensed pop
19:09
Speaker 1: nuggets they knew from the album, not the twenty minute
19:13
Speaker 1: space rock epics that they received, and they responded by
19:16
Speaker 1: pelting the band with beer bottles. Sid soon moved into
19:21
Speaker 1: a flat at one oh one Cromwell Road in London,
19:24
Speaker 1: an address that, according to photographer and friend Mick Rock,
19:28
Speaker 1: was a major burnout giant acid overload central and the
19:32
Speaker 1: Cromwell Road flat. Sid wrote he drew he strommed his
19:36
Speaker 1: Fender guitar with the reflective metal discs, and he chased
19:39
Speaker 1: the sound amuse He'd rather do that alone, and to
19:43
Speaker 1: appear on the BBC's Top of the Pops again. The
19:46
Speaker 1: band had done it twice at this point, two times
19:48
Speaker 1: too many in his opinion, and they didn't even play
19:51
Speaker 1: their instruments or sing on the show. They lip synced
19:54
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Mine belonged to the recording and it
19:57
Speaker 1: was bullshit. It was all a lie, and they were like,
19:59
Speaker 1: fucking our salesman, what was the point to sell more records?
20:03
Speaker 1: And that wasn't art. Left alone in his flat, Sid
20:07
Speaker 1: could focus on art pure, synthesized art as pure as
20:11
Speaker 1: the lsd Albert Hoffman synthesized in his Swiss lab. Sid
20:15
Speaker 1: chased it like Mole and Rat chased the sounds of
20:18
Speaker 1: Pan's pipes in the children's story that gave the Floyd's
20:21
Speaker 1: debut album its name. But in The Piper at the
20:24
Speaker 1: Gates of Dawn, one of the many stories in Kenneth
20:27
Speaker 1: Graham's book The Wind and the Willows, Mole and Rat
20:30
Speaker 1: don't just find the mythical piper. They also find Little Portly,
20:35
Speaker 1: the missing member of the Otter Family, Safe and Sound.
20:39
Speaker 1: Sid may have fancied himself like mol Or Rat, a
20:42
Speaker 1: searcher of the sound, but as nineteen sixty seven wore on,
20:46
Speaker 1: he became more like little Portly. He was the one
20:49
Speaker 1: who went missing. He was the one that others struggled
20:53
Speaker 1: to find. First his heart wasn't in it, then his head,
20:58
Speaker 1: and then Sid Barrett. Just stop showing up altogether. We'll
21:04
Speaker 1: be right back. After this word, word word, Sue Kingsford
21:16
Speaker 1: barely recognized her friend. Syd Barrett stood in the doorway
21:20
Speaker 1: of Sue's South Kensington flat. His bare feet were bleeding.
21:25
Speaker 1: He wasn't talking, He wasn't standing up on the tips
21:27
Speaker 1: of his toes in his usual way. His feet were
21:30
Speaker 1: flat on the floor, grounded. Sue guided Sid inside, where
21:35
Speaker 1: she gave him sugar puffs and coffee. It was the
21:39
Speaker 1: same greeting that David Gilmour had received earlier in nineteen
21:42
Speaker 1: sixty seven when he dropped in to visit the Floyd
21:44
Speaker 1: during the recording session for c Emily Play. David wasn't
21:48
Speaker 1: town to buy equipment for a residency with his band
21:51
Speaker 1: Jokers Wild in Paris. Sid didn't acknowledge that his Old
21:55
Speaker 1: Cambridge made it stop by to say hello. He didn't
21:58
Speaker 1: even seem to recognize him. Now in South Kensington, if
22:02
Speaker 1: Sid knew that he was at a friend's house, he
22:04
Speaker 1: didn't show it. He sat at the table in silence
22:08
Speaker 1: and sipped his coffee. An hour went by. It then
22:12
Speaker 1: came another knock at Seu's store. It was then the Floyd.
22:18
Speaker 1: They'd searched for Sid for hours, and they were booked
22:21
Speaker 1: to perform on Top of the Pops for a third
22:23
Speaker 1: time that afternoon. But Sid had gone a wall. He
22:27
Speaker 1: was over it. Roger Waters and the others didn't give
22:30
Speaker 1: a shit when he was over. Sid was going with
22:32
Speaker 1: them now, and they dragged him back to the BBC's studio,
22:36
Speaker 1: where he sat on a cushion and struggled to get
22:38
Speaker 1: through his third appearance on British television. So fucked up
22:41
Speaker 1: that he couldn't even stand on his own two feet,
22:44
Speaker 1: uncomfortably numb. The Floyd thought their inaugural toward the United
22:48
Speaker 1: States in the fall of nineteen sixty seven were fair better.
22:51
Speaker 1: A change of scenery would do Sid some good, but
22:54
Speaker 1: the Omens were bad from the start. Their work visas
22:58
Speaker 1: were late, their US label Capital felt secure instruments, so
23:02
Speaker 1: they had a beg and plead with local music shops
23:04
Speaker 1: to loan them gear. The California grass was high test,
23:08
Speaker 1: not cut with tobacco like it was back home. One
23:11
Speaker 1: Toke sent Sid in the Interstellar Overdrive, and there's a
23:16
Speaker 1: long standing story, likely apocrypho, that at a show in California,
23:21
Speaker 1: Sid rubbed crushed up Mandrick's tranquilizer tablets and brill cream
23:25
Speaker 1: and his hair on stage. In reality, Sid did very
23:29
Speaker 1: little on stage that night. He detuned his guitar until
23:32
Speaker 1: the strings wabbled like wet spaghetti, and then he just
23:35
Speaker 1: stood there like if he didn't make a move, perhaps
23:38
Speaker 1: he would cease to exist. But he couldn't miss him.
23:41
Speaker 1: He loomed like a cautionary tale. His fender hung from
23:45
Speaker 1: the strap around his neck like a concrete block. Roger
23:48
Speaker 1: Waters looked over at his bandmate and felt the anger
23:51
Speaker 1: bubble up again, the anger he felt when Sid bailed
23:54
Speaker 1: on the top of the Pops. He wanted to punch
23:56
Speaker 1: a Sid in the face and maybe that would wake
23:58
Speaker 1: the stupid kit. Instead, he took it out of his base.
24:02
Speaker 1: He gripped his left hand tight around the neck and
24:04
Speaker 1: imagined it was Sid's neck. He dug the fingers of
24:07
Speaker 1: his right hand into the nickel plated strings harder, and
24:10
Speaker 1: he slapped the strings with his thumb, and the more
24:13
Speaker 1: Sid did nothing, the more Roger attacked his instrument. Suddenly
24:17
Speaker 1: his fingers ached in intense pain. He looked down and
24:21
Speaker 1: blood was everywhere. Fuck this, Roger thought, he doesn't want
24:26
Speaker 1: to play. He doesn't want to have to play. Sid
24:28
Speaker 1: Barreck can fuck right off and do whatever he wants
24:30
Speaker 1: to do. The remaining US tour dates were canceled. The
24:34
Speaker 1: band knew they couldn't carry on like this with Sid.
24:37
Speaker 1: Something in him had changed for good. He wasn't the
24:39
Speaker 1: person they once knew. Whether LSD was solely to blame,
24:43
Speaker 1: and they had their suspicions but couldn't be sure. Roger,
24:46
Speaker 1: for one, began to suspect that perhaps the drug had
24:49
Speaker 1: awakened the long dorm a mental illness. What they were
24:52
Speaker 1: sure of was that the band needed someone dependable if
24:54
Speaker 1: they were going to last, someone who wasn't afraid of
24:57
Speaker 1: commercial success, someone who treated the gig like what it was,
25:01
Speaker 1: a bloody gig. This wasn't a fairy tale, this was
25:05
Speaker 1: real life, and so Roger Richard and Nick nodded in
25:09
Speaker 1: agreement it had to be done. They picked up the
25:12
Speaker 1: phone and called the one guy who was the exact
25:14
Speaker 1: opposite of Sid Barrett in every way. Sid flashed back
25:24
Speaker 1: and forth. The camera captured shots of him in and
25:27
Speaker 1: out of understanding his reality. In one shot, it looks
25:30
Speaker 1: like he can actually see those heavens trying to hoover
25:33
Speaker 1: him up, his eyes set somewhere else from those of
25:36
Speaker 1: his bandmates. In another, Sid is barely visible in the background,
25:40
Speaker 1: peeking out behind the shoulders of Nick and Roger. And
25:44
Speaker 1: in perhaps the saddest shot, Richard is wearing flying ace goggle,
25:48
Speaker 1: seated on a bicycle and sent her frame, perhaps a
25:51
Speaker 1: nod to Sid's song bike. It's a goofy photo, and
25:55
Speaker 1: the other band members stifle smiles, but Sid doesn't have
25:58
Speaker 1: to try. He looks a good twenty years older than
26:01
Speaker 1: everyone else in the band. His dark eyes looked like
26:04
Speaker 1: he's having a grim realization. Was he actually standing next
26:08
Speaker 1: to his old mate from Cambridge, David Gilmour? Was this
26:11
Speaker 1: another hallucination? It was January nineteen sixty eight. The piper
26:17
Speaker 1: was at the gates of a dawn of a new
26:18
Speaker 1: year and the piper was about to call a different tune.
26:22
Speaker 1: Sid glanced over at David, the long Haired to Donna's,
26:25
Speaker 1: who was as much a clean cup preppy as Sid
26:28
Speaker 1: was a burnt out hippie, and it all came back
26:30
Speaker 1: to him. This was no bad trip, this was reality.
26:35
Speaker 1: He remembered everything he'd forgotten about all over again. The
26:39
Speaker 1: band had hired David as a second guitarist after that
26:42
Speaker 1: disastrous US tour. Months later, after recording their sophomore album,
26:47
Speaker 1: A Saucer Full of Secrets, and after they had stopped
26:50
Speaker 1: picking up Sid on the way to gigs, Pink Floyd
26:52
Speaker 1: made it official in April nineteen sixty eight. Sid Barrett
26:57
Speaker 1: was no longer in the band. Sid understood he didn't
27:02
Speaker 1: want to be there, and if he didn't want to
27:04
Speaker 1: be there, why would the others want him to be there.
27:06
Speaker 1: But just because Sid was done with Floyd didn't mean
27:09
Speaker 1: he was done chasing the sound in his head. He
27:12
Speaker 1: convinced DMI to allowing to return to Abbey Roads Studios
27:15
Speaker 1: to make a solo record. The new songs were scatterbrained,
27:19
Speaker 1: the sessions were all starts and stops, and the resulting album,
27:23
Speaker 1: The Mad Cap Laughs, was released in January nineteen seventy,
27:28
Speaker 1: Alternately inviting and impenetrable. The album's fractured psychedelia would eventually
27:32
Speaker 1: become a Rosetta stone for artists like Robin Hitchcock, Guided
27:36
Speaker 1: by Voices and all the bands in the Elephant six
27:38
Speaker 1: collective of the late nineteen nineties. Sid's second solo album,
27:42
Speaker 1: simply titled Barrett, arrived later in nineteen seventy. Sympathetically produced
27:47
Speaker 1: by David Gilmour and featuring both David and Richard Wright.
27:51
Speaker 1: It felt a bit more cohesive, like Sid was actually
27:54
Speaker 1: getting a shit together. The two solo albums made Sid
27:58
Speaker 1: feel creatively renewed. He returned to his childhood home in Cambridge,
28:02
Speaker 1: where he lived the quasi hermetic life in the windowless cellar,
28:06
Speaker 1: and the isolation helped keep the distractions of the world
28:09
Speaker 1: at bay and helped him focus on one thing, that sound.
28:13
Speaker 1: Soon he was playing in a band again, a trio
28:16
Speaker 1: called Stars. In February nineteen seventy two, Stars announced a
28:23
Speaker 1: show at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge. Word quickly spread
28:27
Speaker 1: that everyone's favorite ex Floyd frontman was once again performing
28:30
Speaker 1: live for the first time in four years. The show
28:34
Speaker 1: quickly sold out. Sid hoped for the best. He even
28:37
Speaker 1: bought a new pair of velvet pants, But as soon
28:40
Speaker 1: as he strummed the night's opening chord, Sid thought about
28:43
Speaker 1: the US tour all over again. The sound in the
28:46
Speaker 1: venue was muddy, he could barely make out what he
28:48
Speaker 1: was singing into the microphone, and the bass player's amp
28:51
Speaker 1: went dead. Sid sliced his finger on a guitar string.
28:55
Speaker 1: Before long, Sid was looking for a quiet spot on
28:59
Speaker 1: stage where he could nurse his wound, and just disappeared.
29:04
Speaker 1: A few days later, Bellody Maker published a less than
29:08
Speaker 1: flattering review of the show. The article confirmed sid suspicions
29:12
Speaker 1: that he was a shill, that he wasn't a true artist,
29:15
Speaker 1: that he was a has been who frankly never was,
29:18
Speaker 1: and he'd never find that fucking sound. He went back
29:22
Speaker 1: to his family house on Hills Road. He descended into
29:25
Speaker 1: the cellar where he could be alone, and the door
29:28
Speaker 1: slammed behind him. What a bloody mess. He looked up
29:32
Speaker 1: at the low ceiling and it hung there flat. A
29:35
Speaker 1: clean slate ridiculed him. Everyone had an opinion, even the
29:40
Speaker 1: fucking ceiling. He stood on a chair and had to
29:43
Speaker 1: scooch down because the ceiling was right there, and then
29:47
Speaker 1: he just did it. He thrust his head into the ceiling.
29:50
Speaker 1: It hurt like hell, and he did it again. The
29:53
Speaker 1: second time. It hurt even worse, and he did it
29:55
Speaker 1: a third time, and then a fourth, over and over again.
30:00
Speaker 1: Soon he felt nothing at all. He knew blood was
30:04
Speaker 1: running down his head now, but he didn't care. He
30:07
Speaker 1: just kept smashing his head into the ceiling. If he
30:10
Speaker 1: hit it hard enough, maybe he'd lose the sound he'd
30:12
Speaker 1: been chasing for good. Just knock it clean out. He
30:16
Speaker 1: opened his eyes wide as he continued to hit his
30:18
Speaker 1: bashed and bloodied head over and over again. He wanted
30:22
Speaker 1: to see it, see it with his own two eyes,
30:25
Speaker 1: the sound, that fucking sound.
30:28
Speaker 2: A fleshy, bashed out piece of him, And when it
30:31
Speaker 2: came tumbling from his brain, he would be ready, ready
30:34
Speaker 2: to pounce on it and kill it once and for all.
31:06
Speaker 1: June fifth, nineteen seventy five, Abbey Roads Studios, London, David
31:13
Speaker 1: Gilmour and Roger Waters were arguing again. David wanted the
31:17
Speaker 1: sound of the new album to be warmer. Roger wanted
31:19
Speaker 1: it to sound raw. David wanted to include the songs
31:23
Speaker 1: that Roger didn't want to include. Pink Floyd were back
31:27
Speaker 1: in the studio recording Wish You Were Here, the follow
31:30
Speaker 1: up to the critical and commercial smash Dark Side of
31:33
Speaker 1: the Moon. Tensions were higher than ever. Tensions between David
31:37
Speaker 1: and Roger have been high ever since Sid Barrett left
31:40
Speaker 1: the group. Maybe Roger just needed someone to battle, they
31:43
Speaker 1: all thought one day at Sid. The next day, It's David.
31:47
Speaker 1: David had proved a major asset for the band. Not
31:49
Speaker 1: only did he coax and molten tone from his stratocaster,
31:53
Speaker 1: but he had the focus in drive that his predecessor lacked.
31:56
Speaker 1: And while Pink Floyd mark Io sounded nothing like the band,
32:00
Speaker 1: that didn't mean the band had stopped thinking about the
32:03
Speaker 1: guy who used to be their leader. Darkseye, at its
32:06
Speaker 1: themes of anxiety, fear and madness, was very much a
32:09
Speaker 1: record consumed with Sid Barrett's absence, and now they were
32:13
Speaker 1: once again making a record that was haunted by his presence.
32:17
Speaker 1: Both Wish You Were Here's titled track and Shine On
32:20
Speaker 1: You Crazy Diamond were hunabashed tributes to Sid songs of sentimentality, reverence,
32:25
Speaker 1: and loss. The band was listening to a rough mix
32:29
Speaker 1: of Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Abbey Road's control
32:32
Speaker 1: room when David noticed a man walking around the studio.
32:36
Speaker 1: He looked out of place, strange. His eyebrows had been
32:39
Speaker 1: shaved off and sowed his hair. He was overweight. He
32:43
Speaker 1: wore a white T shirt that appeared one size too small,
32:46
Speaker 1: and the waistband of his pants was pulled up over
32:48
Speaker 1: his stomach. Plastic shopping bag in his hand. David had
32:53
Speaker 1: to admit the man looked like a crazy person who
32:56
Speaker 1: walked in off the street. The rest of the band
32:58
Speaker 1: now took notice. The playback of Shine on You, Crazy
33:02
Speaker 1: Diamond continued from the monitors in the control room. The
33:05
Speaker 1: strange looking man slowly made his way into the room
33:08
Speaker 1: with the others, where they looked up at him from
33:09
Speaker 1: where they all sat, not exactly sure what to say.
33:13
Speaker 1: Suddenly Roger's face went from confusion to epiphany. He shuddered,
33:18
Speaker 1: his jaw sank. He could hardly believe what he was seeing.
33:22
Speaker 1: Roger felt his eyes well up. He brought a hand
33:25
Speaker 1: up to catch a tear before it had a chance
33:27
Speaker 1: to roll down his face. The man stared back at
33:30
Speaker 1: Roger and did say a word. Gone was the gleam
33:34
Speaker 1: in his dilated eye. Gone was the long hair of
33:37
Speaker 1: the pretty bohemian face that drove many a girl. While
33:39
Speaker 1: back at the U Folk Club. Bald eyebrowless and overweight.
33:44
Speaker 1: Sid Barren, now looked as one of the Floyd's former managers,
33:48
Speaker 1: would later put in like the type of blow who
33:50
Speaker 1: serves you in a Hamburger barer in Kansas City. Sid
33:54
Speaker 1: broke his silence. He asked me he could over dub
33:57
Speaker 1: his guitar part. The band gave him confused looks and response, Sorry, Sid,
34:03
Speaker 1: They told him the guitar is all done. Sid stood
34:06
Speaker 1: still and listened as the song's chorus welled up like
34:10
Speaker 1: the tears in Roger's eyes. David's guitar cut through the mix,
34:14
Speaker 1: so clean and so clear it left no trace of
34:17
Speaker 1: psychedelia in its lucid wake. Shine on You, Crazy Diamond
34:22
Speaker 1: was EON's from c Emily play If Sid realized that
34:26
Speaker 1: he gave no indication and if he knew the song
34:29
Speaker 1: was about him, he made no mention. He simply pulled
34:33
Speaker 1: the toothbrush out of the bag and began to brush
34:36
Speaker 1: his teeth in the middle of Abbey Roads control room.
34:40
Speaker 1: When playback was finished, Sid put the toothbrush back in
34:43
Speaker 1: the bag and left his friends in Pink. Floyd never
34:47
Speaker 1: saw him again. Sid returned to Cambridge. He knew er
34:52
Speaker 1: wrote songs, but he still created. A paintbrush or pen
34:55
Speaker 1: in his hand provided a conduit to creativity and a
34:58
Speaker 1: cure for restlessness, just like when he was a toddler.
35:02
Speaker 1: According to his sister Rosemary, Sid would take a photograph
35:05
Speaker 1: of something, say a flower, and then he would create
35:08
Speaker 1: a large painting of that flower. And when he was finished,
35:10
Speaker 1: he would take a photograph of the painting and then
35:13
Speaker 1: destroy the painting. Once something was over, it was over.
35:17
Speaker 1: His sister said, he felt no need to revisit it.
35:22
Speaker 1: Sid's bandmates, on the other hand, they continued to revisit
35:25
Speaker 1: his descent into madness for inspiration throughout their career. Sure
35:30
Speaker 1: the main character of Floyd's nineteen seventy nine concept album
35:33
Speaker 1: The Wall, features a lot of Roger Waters's biographical details,
35:37
Speaker 1: but the one with the swollen hand, blues and pinhole
35:40
Speaker 1: burns all down the front of his favorite satin shirt.
35:43
Speaker 1: That's pure Sid comfortably numb to the end. When Sid
35:48
Speaker 1: died in two thousand and six at the age of
35:50
Speaker 1: sixty from pancreatic cancer, his former band revisited his music
35:54
Speaker 1: once again, performing Arnold Laine and Bike in tribute to
35:58
Speaker 1: their former leader a year later thousand and seven. To date,
36:02
Speaker 1: this was the final gig billed as Pink Floyd, meaning
36:06
Speaker 1: they began Pink Floyd with Sid songs and ended Pink
36:10
Speaker 1: Floyd with Sid songs. But Sid never got to appreciate
36:16
Speaker 1: how much his old bandmates owed to the Crazy Diamond
36:19
Speaker 1: to inform some of their best work and that this
36:24
Speaker 1: is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in This is Disgraceland.
36:46
Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
36:49
Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
36:52
Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod dot com.
36:56
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36:59
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37:02
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37:40
Speaker 1: Man