Last Laughs For The Madcap

17–18 July 2006

I don’t idolize Rock Stars, or get caught up in nostalgia trips for music made before I was old enough to read, but there was something uniquely cool and tragic about Syd Barrett, and his recent death touched me. I wrote elsewhere that it was a weird combination of pathos and bathos — the inevitable conclusion of a sad story that most of us had forgotten was still going on.

But then again, who are we to say it’s sad? For all I know, Syd Roger led a perfectly nice, ordinary life in the 35 years since he cocooned himself away from the public eye. Meanwhile, other artists were clothing themselves in the butterfly skin he shed, viz.:

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Track List

  1. 00:00 Pink Floyd — “Arnold Layne”
  2. 02:52 Robyn Hitchcock — “Brenda's Iron Sledge”
  3. 05:45 Pink Floyd — “Lucifer Sam”
  4. 08:48 The Dukes Of Stratosphear — “Your Gold Dress”
  5. 13:27 Broadcast — “Pendulum”
  6. 17:35 Deerhoof — “Spirit Ditties Of No Tone”
  7. 20:18 Pink Floyd — “Interstellar Overdrive”
  8. 29:37 Sigur Rós — “Syndir Guos”
  9. 36:59 Pink Floyd — “Astronomy Dominé” (live)
  10. 45:10 Macha — “Visiting The Ruins”
  11. 53:06 Pink Floyd — “Bike” (edit)
  12. 55:00 Tones On Tail — “Slender Fungus”
  13. 58:30 Syd Barrett — “Rats”
  14. 61:21 Robyn Hitchcock — “Satellite”
  15. 63:03 Syd Barrett — “No Man's Land”
  16. 65:53 The Fall — “Bug Day”
  17. 70:45 Sonic Youth — “Schizophrenia”
  18. 74:40 Danielle Dax — “Cutting The Last Sheaf”
  19. 77:42 Pink Floyd — “Bike” (reprise)