Pink Floyd. A Sucerful of Outtakes.

The Syd Barrett estate is putting together a visual history of Syd’s artwork as well as a treasure trove of unpublished photos from his youth and early years in Pink Floyd. The vast majority of these images have never been seen before. If enough people are interested, it will all be published as a large format, cloth-bound, slip-cased, limited edition collector’s book. Right now, though, not enough people have signed up to make it worthwhile for the book to be published. If you think you might like a copy, head over to the Barrett Book website and register your email address. You are not ordering or promising to buy a copy by registering, you’re just letting them know you might want to.

To put you in the mood, here’s a collection of early Floyd recordings, including the extended version of Interstellar Overdrive and Syd’s last songs as part of the band, Vegetable Man and Scream Thy Last Scream.

1. Lucy Leave
2. I’m a Kingbee
3. Interstellar Overdrive
4. Astronomy Domine
5. Experiment
6. Flaming
7. The Gnome
8. Matilda Mother
9. The Scarecrow
10. Vegetable Man
11. Pow R Toc H
12. Scream Thy Last Scream
13. Jugband Blues
14. Silas Lane

Tracks 1 and 2—First Pink Floyd studio session
Track 3—Studio session, 10/31/66
Track 4—Live in London, 5/12/67
Tracks 5 and 14—Studio outtakes, 1967
Tracks 6 through 9—BBC session, 9/30/67
Tracks 10 through 13—BBC session, 12/19/67

Promo video about the book


A video for one of my all-time favorite Syd songs, Bike, that the band shot for Belgian TV


A Saucerful of Outtakes

V/A. Beyond the Wildwood. A Tribute to Syd Barrett.

I picked up a vinyl copy of this many, many years ago in my favorite record store of all-time, East Lansing, Michigan's Flat, Black and Circular.

Tribute albums are nearly always a dicey prospect. You usually get one ringer and a lot of covers by bands no one has ever heard of, with names like Jerry Jimanski's Knockout Socks, or Frud. This one, though, actually works as a pretty great album, as well as a neat collection of pre-grunge, neo-psychedelic/C-86 styled alternative bands. Of course, it helps that Syd wrote some fantastic songs, and the distance from his bare bones (solo) psychedelica to late 80's indie rock isn't that far.

The Mock Turtles turn in the best of the set, with their ripping, trippy version of No Good Trying. Fit and Limo, who I know nothing about, give Long Cold Look a kind of Stone Roses-esque treatment. Opal even turn up with an otherwise unreleased song that never found its way onto their odds and sods collections.

1. The Mock Turtles - No Good Trying
2. Plasticland - Octopus
3. SS-20 - Arnold Layne
4. Paul Roland - Matilda Mother
5. Fit and Limo - Long Cold Look
6. The Shaman - Long Gone
7. Opal - If the Sun Don't Shine (Adaptation of Jugband Blues)
8. The Ashes in the Morning - Baby Lemonade
9. The Lobster Quadrille - Wolfpack
10. The Paint Set - Golden Hair
11. Tropicana Fishtank - No Man's Land
12. Television Personalities - Apples and Oranges
13. The Soup Dragons - Two of a Kind
14. The Green Telescope - Scream Thy Last Scream

Wildwood