Episode #107 | 8.9.22
Pink Floyd: Acid Overload, a Psychotic Breakdown, and a Crazy Diamond
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In this episode
Pink Floyd’s original frontman, Syd Barrett, did so much LSD that he experienced a mental breakdown just as the band began to achieve mainstream success. His drug use began as mind-altering inspiration for his art, but quickly became a coping mechanism for the demands of commercial success. He became paralyzed in front of television cameras. He detuned his guitar until it was literally unplayable and refused to perform alongside his band. Then he stopped showing up at all.
Sources
Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd, by Mark Blake
Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head, by Rob Chapman
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, by John Cavanagh
‘A psychedelic Pied Piper in a land of stoned consciousness’ (The Guardian)
Syd Barrett: the genius who almost was (The Guardian)
The Cracked Ballad of Syd Barrett (NME)
Tripping in LSD’s Birthplace: A Story for “Bicycle Day” (Scientific American)
Flashback: LSD Creator Albert Hoffman Drops Acid for the First Time (Rolling Stone)
Pink Floyd Offers Rock in Music Hall (NY Times)
The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story (2014, dir. John Edginton)
Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend, by Mark Wilkerson
Total Silence or War (Neptune Pink Floyd)
Pink Floyd: The Inside Story (Rolling Stone)
The Madness and Majesty of Pink Floyd (Rolling Stone)
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
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