Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
(EMI, 1967)
Grantchester, rave on!
Musically cauterised by 1971, the late Syd Barrett lived quietly until his 2006 death, all the while provoking strange legends and doomed hopes. Premier British psych artefact The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn was the cause of all the excitement. Condensing the lifetime of his version of Pink Floyd into 42 mesmeric minutes, it's an exercise in exhilarating whimsy and derangement, with lyrical nods to the I Ching, Kenneth Grahame and interplanetary travel, or as Nick Kent described it, "musical rococo freak-outs underpinning Barrett's sudden ascendancy into the artistic realms of ye olde English whimsical loone..." As such shimmering fantasias as Flaming and Matilda Mother channel Syd's beaming inner six year old - Roger Waters' Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk can only sound stiff in such effervescent company - cosmic rock outs Astronomy Domine and Interstellar Overdrive communicate a more elemental force churning underneath the glowing colours. Certain lyrical cues also suggest an edge of psychosis; like notorious outtake Vegetable Man, Scarecrow depicts an inert figure "resigned to his fate", while Bike's glassy-eyed exit suggests the removed tragi-comedy that would follow. But while there's an inescapable feeling of descending, the ascents are equally dizzying, as are contemporary singles Arnold Layne, See Emily Play and Apples And Oranges, sensibly available on 07's affordable box set incarnation.
Clive Prior
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 8:08 AM GMT 09/09/2009
Syd Barrett– The Madcap Laughs (Harvest, 1970)
13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere (IA, 1967)
Julian Cope – Fried (Mercury, 1984)
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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Syd was a genial, depressed, unhappy boy and man, but PF without or with Syd would have been nothing, at all.
Glory for him and his particular brain, I loved him
diana stelli
Posted by diana stelli at 9:08 AM GMT 16/03/2010 Report Abuse
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