- Paperback: 344 pages
- Publisher: Boxtree Ltd (19 Jun 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0752223283
- ISBN-13: 978-0752223285
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
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- #51 in Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Styles > Rock & Pop > Singers & Groups > Pink Floyd
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Soon after creating the experimental pop group, Pink Floyd, in 1966, Syd Barrett took to using hallucinogenic drugs, which led to schizophrenia. He has now abandoned his past. Through interviews with Barrett's family and friends, this book provides an account of the man and his illness.
From the Author
Lost in the Woods - now in it's second printing
Born in 1946 in Cambridge, England, Roger 'Syd' Barrett was an English composer and purveyor of some of the most intriguing music ever written. Famous before his 20th birthday, Barrett led the charge of psychedelia onstage at London's famed UFO club. With a Fender Telecaster and a primitive Binson echo unit, Barrett liberated the guitar from being, in critic Simon Reynold's words, 'a riff machine, and turned it into a texture and timbre generator.' His inspired celestial flights of improvisation, and his more structured whimsical short songs indicated a mind of unusual inventiveness. Chief in Barrett's mind was a Zen-like insistence on spontaneity; each performance had to be unique. Taking his cues from experimental guitarist Keith Rowe of AMM, Barrett strived to push his music farther and farther out into the zone of complete abstr! action. Sadly, the pressures of fame, ingestion of LSD and the machinations of the record industry all conspired to bring Syd to a nervous breakdown. After July 1967, his startling green eyes would never more waver from an all consuming inner dialogue. To his legion admirers, he remains a genius; one who captured the essence of the farthest reaches of interstellar overdrive, the claustrophobia of childhood, and turned the guitar into a dream generator. Syd Barrett disappeared one night into the woods, but the man who created him, Roger Keith Barrett, remains still, preferring to live alone and far from the machinations of the world. As he walks down deserted Cambridge roads, Barrett must think of the thunder and lightning that was his music, and smile at how he passed it all by.......
Born in 1946 in Cambridge, England, Roger 'Syd' Barrett was an English composer and purveyor of some of the most intriguing music ever written. Famous before his 20th birthday, Barrett led the charge of psychedelia onstage at London's famed UFO club. With a Fender Telecaster and a primitive Binson echo unit, Barrett liberated the guitar from being, in critic Simon Reynold's words, 'a riff machine, and turned it into a texture and timbre generator.' His inspired celestial flights of improvisation, and his more structured whimsical short songs indicated a mind of unusual inventiveness. Chief in Barrett's mind was a Zen-like insistence on spontaneity; each performance had to be unique. Taking his cues from experimental guitarist Keith Rowe of AMM, Barrett strived to push his music farther and farther out into the zone of complete abstr! action. Sadly, the pressures of fame, ingestion of LSD and the machinations of the record industry all conspired to bring Syd to a nervous breakdown. After July 1967, his startling green eyes would never more waver from an all consuming inner dialogue. To his legion admirers, he remains a genius; one who captured the essence of the farthest reaches of interstellar overdrive, the claustrophobia of childhood, and turned the guitar into a dream generator. Syd Barrett disappeared one night into the woods, but the man who created him, Roger Keith Barrett, remains still, preferring to live alone and far from the machinations of the world. As he walks down deserted Cambridge roads, Barrett must think of the thunder and lightning that was his music, and smile at how he passed it all by.......
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have been fascinated by Syd and most importantly by Syd's lyrics for years and always look forward to reading about him. This book is basically essential reading for anyone with an interest (incidentally I read it nearly 2 years ago) in Syd but I was appalled by the number of grammatical errors, spelling mistakes etc which I assume are down to poor editing. The ones that niggled me the most were the continual spelling of Tolkien as Tolkein, the word "along" kept appearing when "a long" was actually intended.........quite frankly it drove me to distraction.........I feel that the publishers, proof readers, editors or whatever have done Mr. Palacios a disservice.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Lost in the Woods is a really sad story. Not just for Floyd fans who lost all of the potential that Syd's music held, but for his family and close friends who lost a genuinely unique, loving person. The book is fascinating, delving deep into the life of Roger "Syd" Barrett while chronicaling his rapid descent into madness due to a combination of the pressures of being a "pop" star and the consumption of mass quantities of LSD. "Syd blew his mind", a line from this book is probably the easiest way to sum up his tragedy, but that is way too easy to swallow. The author examines various external pressures Syd faced such as the having to come up with new "hit" 45's for radio play and dealing with a record business which he loathed. Syd's first love was art, he began as an artist and remains an artist to this day. Music took hold of Syd's life in the early sixties, stole his mind and left him by the mid 70's. Always putting the aspect of music as art first Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd broke new ground in music. As Syd to this day remains a recluse, I found it very refreshing that the author as well as Barrett's nephew URGE all fans to not try to contact Syd in any way, as he goes into deep depressions when reminded of the Floyd in anyway. Syd Barrett made spontaneous music in the sixties that was groundbreaking, he rarely if ever played the same song in the same way twice. It is somewhat fitting that now Roger Barrett still in someways is the same person, as he destroys every piece of art that he produces once it is finished. Syd is still in the body of Roger Barrett but his mind remains lost in the woods.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Lost in the Woods' delves deep into the who, what, why's and wherefore's of the sixties underground. From Beat crazed townies in Cambridge, through to Bartok-blasting painters, Notting Hill dope dealer/journalists, Highbury bedsits with Stones riffs playing, down to UFO's psychedelic cauldron. Famous blanks with TV personalities and a tour of America where everything that could have gone wrong, did. Acid blisters in Formentera, porridge on ley lines, skylarking in Welsh cottages, and two floors of mayhem in the Cromwell Road. Ginsberg, the King's Road and the splintering of the brightest lights into darkness. A cautionary tale, maybe, but a wild and rollicking Octopus ride, certainly. A legendary book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
It gets Lost In The Woods (Geddit?)
This is the first book on Syd that I've read. I often fail to finish books, but I managed to finish this one - which must indicate something. Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2010 by Roger
"Isn't it good to be lost in the woods?"
LOST IN THE WOODS is Julian Palacios' exploration of the life and career of Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd founder member and one of the Sixties' most celebrated and tragic British acid... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 2007 by Lost in the Woods
Still lost...
Julian Palacios' book "Lost In The Woods" is a comprehensive tale of a talented and troubled young man. Read more
Published on 25 Sep 2002 by Thomas Peracchio
Badly-written cut and paste job ruins excellent research
This well-researched collection of contemporary interviews gives a detailed chronological description of the rise and fall of Syd Barrett. Read more
Published on 27 Jan 2002
on shelves full of rock bios some stand out
If biographers are the grave pickers of literature, as Wilde said, then rock bio writers must be the necrophiliacs. Read more
Published on 4 Aug 2000
well researched, not so well written
This is the sort of book which is a necessity to those into Syd and/or the 60s psychedelic scene, but may be a bit dreary to the casual reader. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2000 by MR ROBERT TUBB
Hugely disappointing
I found this book incredibly hard going, so much so I had to give up on it.I must confess I am not a die hard Pink Floyd fan, so I struggled with the many names and dates that... Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2000
Well researched,highly readable, makes subject human again.
Congrats to Julian Palcios for producing a beautifully researched and highly readable account of one of the lost geniuses and talents of our times. Read more
Published on 10 Jun 1999
fascinating
having been a barrett fan since student days, i was pleased to find 'lost in the woods' by chance in a stockholm bookshop. Read more
Published on 20 Jan 1999
A multi-faceted diamond.....
A fascinating book. Having read the previous Barrett book, the title of which escapes me, I wasn't counting on much more than a rehash of the old myths of 'crazy Syd', the chap... Read more
Published on 14 Jan 1999
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