Leslie Tate Author PoetLeslie Tate

Hoffman & Syd Barrett - Destroyed by Drugs

At Woodstock in 1969, Hoffman interrupted The Who's performance to speak in protest against the jailing of John Sinclair of the White Panther Party. Grabbing a microphone, he yelled, "I think this is a pile of shit! While John Sinclair rots in prison..." The Who's guitarist, Pete Townshend, cut Hoffman off mid-sentence, yelling, "Fuck off! Fuck off my fucking stage!" He then guitar-clubbed Hoffman offstage, to the approving roar of the crowd, saying later that though he actually agreed with Hoffman, he’d knock him offstage any day because he’d violated the "sanctity of the stage.”

   ... BUT, according to Hoffman’s autobiography, Townshend, who had been tuning up, simply turned around and bumped into him. He admitted later to being on a bad LSD trip at the time.

Syd Barrett was another LSD victim. A key member of Pink Floyd 1964 – 68 he moved from leading and writing most of their material to one chord strumming on stage, sometimes detuning his guitar or not playing at all.

Before a 1967 performance Barrett crushed an entire tube of Brylcreem into his hair, which then melted down his face under the heat of the stage lighting, making him look like "a guttered candle". There were stories of Syd locking up his girlfriend for three days, occasionally shoving biscuits under the door. An eyewitness described going to his flat, where: “There was this terrible noise. It sounded like heating pipes shaking. I said, 'What's up?' and someone giggled and said, 'That's Syd having a bad trip. We put him in the linen cupboard’.”

What was fashionable in the turned on 60s?

Earl Grey tea

Powdered milk

Wearing jeans in the bath to shrink them to the body

The Magic Roundabout

D H Lawrence (Ken Russell filmed Women in Love 1969)

At the band’s last practice session Syd produced a new song he called "Have You Got It, Yet?". The song seemed simple enough, but when they attempted to learn it, Barrett kept repeatedly changing the arrangement, singing out "Have you got it yet?" Eventually they realised they never would and that they’d become victims of Syd's bizarre sense of humour.   

In 1975 Barrett attended the Abbey Road studio unannounced to watch Pink Floyd record "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" — a moving elegy to the star he’d once been. He was overweight and had shaved off all of his hair (including his eyebrows). When his ex-band mates eventually recognised him they were moved to tears. Barrett's behaviour at the session was erratic, jumping up and down while brushing his teeth. He returned afterwards to his  semi-comatose life as a gardener and painter with occasional spells in psychiatric hospital.

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