I gave a talk at ‘The City Wakes‘ the other day. This is the week of events in tribute to Syd Barrett currently underway in Cambridge. Syd was a founding member of the Pink Floyd who lost his mind, probably due to an excessive intake of LSD, then spent the rest of his life in seclusion in his home town until his death in July 2006. I’ve written here and there about what Syd was like and some of the circumstances of his demise. For this occasion I decided to go wide and try to place him in a context of social aspects of the 60s that might have destabilised him. It’s titled ‘Roger, Syd & the Batman – the Dark Night of Cool’.
02.11.2008