Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

He was 60. Poor soul.

One of the greats of the psychedelic era.

I just heard about this.
The strange thing is that a couple of days ago out of the blue, I found a mono copy of PATGOD on vinyl and I played it for my wife who never heard it, let alone any Syd material. She loved it. So I went on to talk about Syd and his history. Then I went out to buy the The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett history DVD. The last couple of days was just Syd Barrett and we didn't know he passed away.
I think he IS the forgotten hero and absolutely brilliant. Very magical soul.

Thank you Syd for your art.

I love PATGOD
and in 1979

Great pics Jerry.

Yet another great musician/writer/composer leaves us at a fairly young age. Sad.

Wow. That's the first I'd heard. Do you have a link to a story? I did a search but most of the Syd sites don't mention it. He is/was one of my favorites.

To answer my own question...

http://www.mojo4music.com/

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/11/britain.floyd/index.html

I rented a Floyd documentary and was watching it last night. After the "chapter" on Syd I dozed off to sleep. Then heard this news this morning. Total bummer.

I was a big Pink Floyd fan in high school (when The Wall came out). I just had a 14 year old nephew that came to visit from CA. He showed up off the plane in a Pink Floyd t-shirt, so I filled up his iPod with all of my CDs. That got me into them again, and oddly last night (before this news came out) I got a bunch of tabs off of the net, and was playing Shine On You Crazy Diamond (written for Syd) and Sheep (nothing to do with the man) all night. Bit of a coincidence.

RIP Syd.

I understand Sid was a jogger.

There are reports of him running in marathons around his home town as of recent past.

Shine on, Syd. R.I.P.

It’s kind of funny how the press always brands anyone and everyone who retires or semi-retires from show biz “a recluse.”

Sure Syd moved back in with mom. Maybe he had a seriously co-dependent relationship with her. But clearly he was often seen out and about in the places near where he lived, on his own.

It’s not like he was doing the Ted Kozinski thing. They used to call Harrison a recluse, too. And he was traveling and whatnot.

Of course, Syd lived two years longer than George.

Blah.. Piper is one of my favorite Floyd albums too.

I'd do a "Shine On" thing here, but it just seems too silly.

Glenn: I think the press was simply being kind when they referred to Syd as "a recluse". After he retired from music in 1971, he literally spent years in his London apartment watching TV. When he dropped in during the 'Dark Side Of The Moon' sessions, no one in the band recognized him and I once read that he liked to talk about what he currently had in the 'fridge. Later he moved into his mother's basement where he mostly spent his time painting. He may have run errands to the corner store, but he wasn't living a normal life.

That said, nobody really knows whether the drugs caused his problems. From what I've read, he was a very odd from an early age. Although he was a prodigy of sorts, he was also very unbalanced. Obviously, the drugs didn't help, but he may have been doomed from the start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Barrett

Good info on Syd from Wikipedia