In the middle of the eighties, I was a student helping to run the film
society at the local university. I was acquainted with the Pink Floyd,
but I wasn't wise to Barrett's role in the whole shape of things. I now
preferred my tape of A Nice Pair (the two first Pink Floyd
lps sold as a double album) to my tape of The Wall but I
couldn't really see past the psychedelia. I knew I liked Barrett Pink Floyd
stuff, I had Relics too, but I didn't yet know the extent
of Syd's artistry…
A girl, whose name escapes me, had the two Barrett solo lps on tape
and we'd listen to them, among other things, at the numerous parties she
held at her house.
But you know how it is at parties. You drink. You talk. The music is
there as a kind of background and if it's something subtle that takes some
getting into you usually don't notice it. At least, I didn't really notice
it at this time. I'm sad to admit it. I just remember the fragility, the
lonely slow voice, the disharmony at times…
We'd announce a time for the movie at the film society and then basically
wait for the theatre to fill up. Punctuality was low on the priorities
so we'd often wait upwards of a half an hour before we could get the film
rolling. For a brief period we entertained those sitting waiting with some
recorded music. There was a microphone at the bottom of the theatre and
we'd play a primitive "boom box" into it. The girl, whose name I still
can't remember, had brought a few tapes along. We always played the same
ones. The Barrett tape was among them. It was Barrett
that was playing the day that a guy complained. He was quite indignant.
Perhaps this person was a fashion victim, a pure product of what was worst
in the eighties. Whatever, he insisted we switch the thing off. And as
I remember it we probably did. And that was probably the end of us trying
to chill out the movie crowd with some music before the show.
Now, this second encounter should have triggered something off in me.
It should have intrigued me into borrowing the Barrett tape off the girl
whose name I can't remember and listening to it in more detail. But I don't
know, I was probably too busy selling tickets for the movie to pay too
much attention to all this, so once again I didn't take up the hint…
I had to wait about seven years to find out what I'd been missing.
At this point a friend of mine actually sold me the Barrett
cd (cos' it was past lps and tapes by this point…). Why did he want to
sell such a record, you may rightly ask? That's a long story. This was
a person who wanted to own the ultimate record collection. If I remember
it correctly, the guy had stipulated the perfect length of his ideal record,
er sorry cd library, and I think it was something like 300 albums. If he
had this "ultimate" collection he would consider himself to have perfect
taste and distinction or something like that. I'm not even sure he enjoys
listening to music. His collection would range far and wide, including
all genres : I'm not sure he had any preference for anything. One thing
united these records: they all had high critical acclaim. I think he'd
narrowed down his criteria and imposed himself a ten albums per year limit.
And obviously, he had too many albums for 1970, or something like that.
So he sold Barrett to me for a fiver. He'd often do this,
prune his record collection and sell a great number of cds to his mates
in order to buy new ones. And we all thought, "Great! Cheap cds!". So I
acquired Barrett for a fiver and it was one of those records.
One of those too rare sensations. Among an endless succession of merely
"good" or "ok" albums, all of a sudden you stumble upon something truly
exceptional that knocks you off your feet. This happened to me with Barrett.
I even told the friend about this. I reasoned, I used rhetoric, I tried
to explain the thing musically, in the most scientific way possible so
that this person with the Cartesian mind would get my drift. I almost had
him. He was almost regretting having sold the album but after all, what
was my word against some more official source that he had read ? He stuck
to his guns. He'd decided that the Barrett record to have in his collection
was Piper, and that was that. He probably had more room left
in 1967 than in 1970. It was an obsessional thing, for him.
Why am I bitching? The guy put me in touch with Barrett,
after all. Maybe, in selling us all the cds he genuinely intended to turn
us on to some great music, not just get rid of cds he didn't want anymore.
With a twisted bastard like him, there's no knowing…
Whatever, I went straight down the shop and purchased The Madcap
Laughs and slipped even further into Syd Barrett's parallel universe.
Madcap became my survival record while I was undergoing a
rather gruelling teacher-training experience.
As for my buddy, I don't see him anymore. One day, he decided I wasn't
"profound" enough for him and we lost touch. Still, I have his obsessive
project of building the ultimate record collection to thank for opening
my ears to the music of Syd Barrett.