#rob chapman

GLAXO BABIES

"In the Beginning"

(LP. Trio rcds. 1980 / rec. 1978-80) [GB]

Syd's floorboards were officially 'opened' at The Piper bar, Saint Leonards-on-Sea. Guests: Jenny Spires, Ian Barrett, Rob Chapman, Twink,... Pictures: Beata Kruczkowska.

Rob Chapman (@rcscribbler on Twitter), self-descibed 'ex_music journalist & hackademic' & author of many fine books including the wonderful 'Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head' tweeted this today: "Sadly it only seems appropriate to repost my original block erase dub cut up of Nick Kent's Marquee Moon review. It still conveys the album perfectly."

Back Pages Book Review: “Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head” by Rob Chapman (2012)

Author Rob Chapman thought he needed 472 pages to tell the story of Syd Barrett and his editors apparently - and incorrectly - agreed.

To fill them, Chapman writes far too many words to detail the life of an artist whose mystery and myth overshadow his brief recording career, which lasted just three years and comprised two Pink Floyd albums and two solo LPs.

By the time Barrett was 25, his career was over. But his mythology as Floyd’s “Crazy Diamond” was just beginning.

Published in 2012, “Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head” takes its title from Barrett’s own description of himself in Rolling Stone magazine. And while it painstakingly covers Barrett’s pre-, post- and contemporaneous pop-star life, the story could’ve - and should’ve - been told in far fewer pages to prevent it bogging down in tedious details and asides that will lull even the most ardent Barrett heads to boredom.

Credit Chapman for his tenacious shoe-leathering as he tracks down childhood mates, teenage girlfriends, art-school colleagues, fellow psychedelic voyagers and family members to give first-hand accounts of his subject’s most-unusual existence. The Pink Floyd guys - Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Richard Wright and David Gilmour - are represented via previously published interviews but did not speak with the author.

Obviously a partisan and an acolyte, Chapman spends much time arguing Barrett did not actually crack up, as his associates said, and then spends just as much time chronicling said crack up. He debunks some myths, reveals just how much of Barrett’s work was derivative of English writings and makes Gilmour - who replaced Barrett after briefly playing alongside him in the short-lived, five-piece Floyd - smell like a rose for helping Barrett make his solo records (the Madcap Laughs and Barrett, both in 1970) and always ensuring he received his royalties from the Floyd days.

The most revealing aspect of “A Very Irregular Head” comes from the last third of Barrett’s life - he died in 2006 at 60 - as Chapman paints a picture of a disturbed man who sought, and found, a modicum of peace.

Along the way, readers are treated to excerpts from his sporadic interviews; get first-hand accounts of Barrett’s fruitless, final recording sessions in 1974; remember his eerie appearance at his former band’s Wish You Were Here recording sessions; and walk away with a picture of a man rather than a myth.

Better editing could have made “A Very Irregular Head” a page-turner. Instead, it’s a slog - a worthwhile slog, but a slog just the same.

Grade card: “Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head” by Rob Chapman - C

Firefly (Skyhill Cover) - Rob Chapman