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THE PINK FLOYD AND SYD BARRETT STORY
(Otmoor Productions DVD)
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The story of the original Pink Floyd leader’s descent into weirdness and madness is a rock-and-roll legend. It’s made more tangible here by contemporary interviews with his friends and former band mates (including Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright) as well as archival footage. No words from Barrett, of course, who according to this documentary remains an enigma somewhere in Cambridge, England. The first-hand accounts of his gradual slide are told with a mix of detachment and sorrow. But the DVD also celebrates his brilliance in snatches of early Floyd performances from the days when they ruled the clubs of psychedelic London. There’s a great sequence of Barrett playing slide guitar in a dimly lit room that epitomizes his conceptual instrumental genius. There’s also a short film of his first acid trip; he seems lost in his own body. The DVD concludes with an account of the sessions for "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," Waters’s tribute to his lost friend, sessions that were crashed by a 300-pound, shaven-eyebrowed Barrett, who, we’re told, stood at the back of the control room jumping up and down and brushing his teeth. Robyn Hitchcock, Barrett’s most effective inheritor, adds his insights regarding his idol’s chord constructions and fevered lyrics and plays two Barrett tunes in the "bonus" section, which will please hardcore Floyd fans.
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