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EXPLAINED: Syd barrett - The Real Truth

“Greg Lake was a bit of a cabaret singer. Jon Anderson, whatever you think of his lyrics, bloody meant it”: The prog stars who influenced a comedy musician’s career – and made him become a milkman for a while

Graham Fellows, creator of Jilted John and John Shuttleworth, started out with ELP before finding Yes, Focus, The Enid and Pink Floyd (although he has no time for The Dark Side Of The Moon)

Louder

“I got three whacks with the cane for lying and skipping school. So I blame The Beatles for me being in the music business. I also blame them for getting a whacking!” Derek Shulman’s path to Gentle Giant

Singer and future A&R icon recalls what the Fab Four meant to him, why Hendrix made him break up his first big band, and the truck stop where he met Syd Barrett, Eric Clapton and others

Louder

“Roger was a bit resentful of the fact that whenever Eric Clapton got up and played a solo, the place would erupt”: Old colleague of Pink Floyd spills the beans on his relationship with band members

Tim Renwick was school friend of Syd and Roger Waters

MusicRadar

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‘Harder work than almost any album we ever did’: Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here turns 50

As the classic album hits 50, Nick Mason talks about the often difficult process of making it and how it has since fit into their larger catalogue

The Guardian - US

“A caustic David Gilmour guitar attack, with Roger Waters equally venomous in his lyrical delivery”: Pink Floyd’s 10 heaviest songs

They may be known for soundscapes and atmospheres, but when the moment took them, they cranked it up to 11 – sometimes reflecting the darkness and tension between the members

Louder

"The music is perfectly in sync with the visuals!" Noel Fielding opens up on his love for Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here

Noel Fielding has created several paintings of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett to help promote the upcoming reissue of Wish You Were Here

Louder

Pink Floyd share new stereo mix of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, presented for the first time as a single continuous piece of music

Pink Floyd will reissue their ninth studio album, Wish You Were Here, on various formats on December 12

Louder

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“He’s full of warmth for those they befriended on their rise, and full of ire for those who crossed them”: Derek Shulman takes aim at Syd Barrett, the Beach Boys, the Eagles and others in his not-very-gentle memoir Giant Steps

Former Gentle Giant vocalist who became an A&R bigwig provides an refreshingly undiplomatic account of his career on stage and off it

Louder

“Bacchanalian, primal, subversive, translucent… like what might happen if Robert Fripp’s drink had been spiked with acid”: 10 great psychedelic songs that’ll shake any prog fan’s tree (but aren't by Pink Floyd)

Revolutionary music from Yes, John McLaughlin, Pretty Things, Tangerine Dream, Strawbs and more, including a song that was prog even before prog was prog

Louder

6 Iconic Albums I'd Love To See Get The Biopic Treatment Next

Like the albums, these biopics would be instant hits!

Cinemablend

Poem released in honour of Pink Floyd's seminal LP Wish You Were Here by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage

The new poem pays tribute to the "creativity" of late frontman Syd Barrett.

BANG Premier

“I remember sitting down with Roger and saying, ‘Roger, this is insane!’”: The strange lost album that Pink Floyd abandoned in 1975

Only two tracks have ever been heard from what could have been Pink Floyd's most divisive record

MusicRadar

“There was a sense of humour. We were taken very seriously by the world at large, but there was always an edge of fun”: The grimness of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here may have been overstated

1975 album remains a fan favourite – and despite their struggle to make it, the band insist the spirit of love shines through the grief and anger amid the theme of absence and their feelings about Syd Barrett

Louder

“It’s pretty rancid! That brain mulching sound they put on vocals makes me feel slightly sick”: The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon isn’t a fan of modern pop music

He recorded his new album Abbey Road, but says that "I don’t believe that Syd Barrett’s hand is on your shoulder or John Lennon is guiding your fingers across the piano"

MusicRadar

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The Guardian - UK

Dad’s part in Pink Floyd’s free-form mayhem on Jugband Blues

Brief letters: Salvation Army ensemble | Giving way | Cornish conundrum | Nuclear fast-track fears | Rejects UK

The Guardian - UK

And if your head explodes: Pink Floyd’s 20 best songs – ranked!

Fifty years after the release of Wish You Were Here, we count down the best of the band’s Syd Barrett years, their difficult recovery and later reunion

Louder

"I felt out of place. That group didn't have much musical merit and I thought it was crap": The oddball career of Kevin Ayers, quintessential English songwriter

Kevin Ayers co-founded Soft Machine, influenced Bowie, shared acid trips and girlfriends with Hendrix, and knew Syd Barrett better than most

Louder

“It’s for the ‘big spliff’ crowd, who frankly get terrified by Dogs or The Wall”: The Pink Floyd songs that influenced final Pink Floyd album The Endless River

The biggest influence on The Endless River? Pink Floyd themselves. Here are the sounds from the band’s past that informed their 2014 release

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Louder

“Nothing I do is ironic. Irony is the last refuge of the scoundrel”: When Julian Cope immersed himself in the prog-pop world of Syd Barrett, 13th Floor Elevators and Love

After leaving The Teardrop Explodes, he was on a mission – but on seeing him wearing nothing but a turtle shell on the cover of Fried, the world needed some convincing

Louder

“I had a terrible habit of playing bits of songs by other people”: The Pink Floyd classic that Roger Waters was worried David Gilmour had stolen from someone else

The story behind one of Pink Floyd’s most iconic songs

Louder

“We’d smoke a little dope then wander round Heathrow Airport at night. All these hums, knocks, and noises coming from behind locked doors – the whole airport was a musical instrument”: Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s prog credentials

Simon Jeffes described his musical pursuit of the precious irrational as “imaginary folklore.” His work intrigued Brian Eno and has lasted long beyond his lifetime. But was it prog?

MusicRadar

“Did he expect to find us as we had been seven years earlier, ready to start to work with him again?”: The strange, sad day that Syd Barrett unexpectedly showed up in the studio when Pink Floyd were making Wish You Were Here

The making of Pink Floyd’s 1975 masterpiece was partly a tribute to their former frontman - but when Syd Barrett himself appeared at the studio, his former bandmates took a while to realise it was actually him

Louder

New Pink Floyd book celebrates the band's career with unpublished interviews and Syd Barrett's letters of the time

Pink Floyd Shine On: Definitive Oral History by author Mark Blake, will be published in October

Louder

“I became a punk – I hid my Pink Floyd records and I now had an uneasy relationship with the music”: Siobhan Fahey’s lifelong passion for prog is only hinted at in Bananarama’s name

A Frank Zappa show bored her to sleep, but the Shakespeare’s Sister masterming has remained in love with Roxy Music, Hawkwind and Syd Barrett

Louder

“Working with Nick Mason built my confidence. People recognised me as the guitarist I am”: How Gary Kemp came back from his post-pop wilderness to join the Pink Floyd family, and what Saucerful Of Secrets might do next

Ex Spandau Ballet member and movie star discusses being inspired by David Gilmour, Syd Barrett and Mick Ronson, the attitude-crushing mid-90s experience that derailed his career, and what drummer Mason is really like

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