Rock Bottom: Dark Moments In Music Babylon Read Online Free

“bigger than the Beatles.” Jenner and Andrew King bought the band new equipment, and Syd embarked on a staggering period of creativity, combining all his far-reaching influences—the I Ching, Tolkien’s Middle Earth tales, Dylan, Chicago blues, the Byrds, English folk ballads, the Beatles, the
Stones, avant-electronics—into a psychedelic stew uniquely his own. He was the group’s leader and inspiration, coming up with bass lines and drum rolls, as well as the motivating vision—a vision that would last for decades. When the Floyd played the Roundhouse in October 1966 in front of a mind-altering light show, it was an “event.” Paul McCartney arrived in white robes and a headdress, and Marianne Faithfull won the “Shortest and Barest” prize for her very naughty nun’s habit. Soon after, Pink Floyd became the house band at UFO, a dark and damp underground den of iniquity where nothing was forbidden and everything was encouraged. The show revolved around Syd, and the rest of the band were hard pressed to keep up with his “No Rules!!” law, keeping their eyes on their whimsical leader at all times. And he looked so cool in his King’s Road popped-out regalia—a disarming, unruly velvet-and-satin showcase.
    Syd lived with an attractive model, Lyndsay Korner, in a flat with a purple door, and his days were spent high and productive. He considered himself a “progressive” artist, taking his inspiration from Handel’s Messiah , William Blake, and acid guru Timothy Leary. With several labels showing interest, Jenner and King chose EMI for Pink Floyd, and when the band’s first single, Syd’s outrageous “Arnold Layne” (about a fellow who enjoyed cross-dressing), was released in March 1967, it was banned on London’s pirate radio. With the help of the ensuing controversy, the single managed to crack the Top Twenty and is now regarded as a classic of megaproportions. “Arnold Layne just happens to dig dressing up in women’s clothing,” said Syd. “A lot of people do, so let’s face up to reality!”
    The original Pink Floyd before Syd Barrett ( second from right ) took the low road (after he took the high road). (MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/ VENICE, CALIF.)
    In that 1967 Spring of Love the original Pink Floyd began their brief period of glory, playing on “Top of the Pops,” headlining huge venues in front of flying-high fans, grabbing rave reviews, creating musical and visual milestones for bands to live up to for years to come.
    The follow-up single, “See Emily Play,” was written by Syd after he “slept under the stars” and encountered a naked girl dancing in the woods. No one knows if this incident truly took place because Syd was almost always in the grip of an intense
acid trip, his eyes glittering from someplace far away and ultimately unreachable. But who wanted to burst the Summer of Love bubble by coming down on somebody’s groovy trip? Already quite eccentric, Syd was starting to show signs of extremely bent behavior—he once fried an egg over a small camp stove in the middle of a Floyd set at the UFO club. It was a sure sign of sad things to come, but I certainly wish I could have been there.
    In the studio, however, Syd was a miracle. Pink Floyd’s album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn— the title of chapter seven in the children’s book The Wind in the Willows (one of Syd’s favorites)—is a stunning accomplishment, full of innocent fairy-tale imagery gone mad (“Lazing in the boggy dew, sitting on a unicorn”), singsong vocals, and trippy-hippie psycho-delic enchantment. We get to meander through Syd’s personal dreamscape, where he was barely balancing on the edge of bewitched, beleaguered reality. Years later Roger Waters told Q magazine, “What enabled Syd to see things the way he did? It’s like why is an artist an artist? Artists simply do, see and feel things in a different way than other people. In a way it’s a blessing but it can also be a terrible curse.” By