Dear Friends,
This goes out today to my friend, Mark Evertz. He unexpectedly passed away last Friday, and I just got the news yesterday. It’s another heartbreaking moment in a year of them.
I met “Ev” as he was called by those that loved him most around 2014, I think. It might have been 2015. I don’t know, really. We connected because he was working for Televerde and saw on LinkedIn that I had worked there, too.
We met for a beer because he wanted to hear the straight scoop about some of the folks that worked there, and I was happy to give him that. I instantly liked him, and we started building a little friendship. We had a lot in common with work and musical tastes and just our overall view of life.
We got to hang at least one more time when he was in town, and we went and did some record shopping. Other than that, our whole interaction was on Facebook and a couple of phone calls, but he made an impression. It was a big impression.
This summer, I noticed that he mentioned not drinking anymore, so I instantly reached out to him to talk about SoberBeerSnob.com and see if he wanted in. He did. Our last phone call was all about it and I wish I had recorded it. He had so many good ideas.
I wanted to do that project with him so badly. I’m crushed that he won’t be here to see it launch in 2025, but I am also renewed now in a way, too. I have to see it through as a way to honor my friend.
He was a dad and had a lot of family and friends that he clearly loved dearly. I feel for them all today. This stupid year sucks.
*****
I got nothing else in the tank at the moment.
*****
As an interested fan of Pink Floyd from a relatively early age (10 or so), the name Syd Barrett would come up in conversations and such. DJs on the radio, that sort of thing, would talk about him and over time, I started to learn of the former member of the band that had lost his mind. It was a fascinating story.
In high school, someone turned me on to The Madcap Laughs, or at least the idea of it, and eventually I got a copy of my own. It’s hard to pinpoint an exact time, probably 1986 I’m guessing, when I really started to get into Barrett’s solo stuff. This was around the same time that I started really getting interested in LSD and the culture around it historically. Syd Barrett is definitely a player in that story, too.
You can easily get lost in The Madcap Laughs.
It’s kind of a perfect record for teenage boys. It’s got a lot of longing on it, for example, and as a teenage boy, I felt that way a lot. “Terrapin” was recorded when I was in my mom’s belly. It’s a song, at least from where I sit, about being in love with someone who might not be feeling the same way.
It’s also kind of a perfect record for anyone who is thinking that maybe they want to write songs. It is totally stripped down and often just Syd Barrett and either an electric or acoustic guitar. You can almost hear him working his way through the songs. It’s awesome.
Not all of the songs are so stripped down, but even a song like “No Good Trying” that has a much fuller production, still sounds like a mad genius rockin’ out in a garage somewhere. Fans of Pink Floyd’s early stuff with Barrett will like a song like this a bit more, maybe, but to me, it’s all just good stuff.
I like this record as much now as I did when I was a teenager. Like many of the records I have held onto for this long, it’s like a time machine. I can see my bedroom on North 22nd Street, the Casa Bravo Apartments, where I listened to this a lot when I am in the record’s loving clutches. I can also see myself in a car with some of my high school friends out driving around with tracers bouncing around in every direction.
And I’m not talking about bullets.
“Love You” is a fun little song, but I love “No Man’s Land” so much more. It’s got some rad bass on it from a guy named Willie Wilson. I’m guessing it is not the same Willie Wilson who played for the Kansas City Royals back in the day. It’s probably my second favorite song from this collection because of the fuzzy brilliance and the way Barrett delivered the words. It epitomizes a late 60s hipness in a way that very few could pull off.
I love “Dark Globe,” too.
“Please lift a hand/I’m only a person/with Eskimo chain/I tattooed my brain all the way/Won’t your miss me? Wouldn’t you miss me at all?”
I’ve always loved the lyrics on “Dark Globe” so much. It really brought home to me the way that people described Barrett when I would read about him or see an interview with someone that knew him. They always kind of talked about him as being kind of fractured mentally and “Dark Globe” definitely feels a bit unhinged.
“Here I Go” is another one that is just sweet and lovely. It kind of reminds me of a song that Thurston Howell III would have used to woo Lovey. It’s just nice and makes you feel.
“She’s kind of cute, don’t you know?”
Side two kicks off with “Octopus” and that is one of my all-time favorite songs. I love singing along with it and it always puts a smile on my face. I listened to it a lot when I lived in Berkeley. Both KJ and I enjoyed this record a lot and it was one that I could put on and not get that “too much punk rock look” that she would occasionally make.
“Octopus” was recorded in June of 1969. I was doing flip flops in Mom’s belly, and we were close to Stanley Kubrick faking the moon landing for all the world to see. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever get tired of this song and if somebody is still around that loves me when I die, they should listen to it and think of me.
“Golden Hair” is trippy. That’s all I can say about it. I think it was meant to be kind of ‘far out’ and it is. “Long Gone” is killer, though. I love the guitar riff and it is another one that I love to sing along with when I hear it. Lord knows I have sung it at the top of my lungs when alone in the car many times.
And no, you really don’t ever want to hear it. Neither Syd Barrett nor I can hit the necessary notes.
“She Took a Long Cold Look” is another one that I love.
Oh, fuck. I love them all.
But that one is pretty darn special, too. It meanders in the best way. I love it when you can hear him turn the page on his lyrics. I wonder who had the idea to leave that bit in there. Kudos to them.
“Feel” is perfectly imperfect. “If It’s in You” is also perfectly imperfect. It’s so perfectly imperfect that it makes you feel okay about your own creative foibles. When he goes through that vocal bit near the beginning and then holds those parts throughout the song, it’s so fucking brilliant.
It probably sounds like this record is a mess by the way I am espousing on it, but it is anything but. It is messy, but in the best way. When it concludes with “Late Night” just a little over 35 minutes or so in, maybe less, I feel so refreshed and ready to do whatever I need to do. The record has always felt like renewal to me and I’m just realizing this now. I put it on when I need a perk up, yet it is not what people might typically think of as perky.
“The way you kiss will always be a very special thing to me” is a great line. The Madcap Laughs is full of great lines, great riffs, and well-crafted songs. Viva Syd Barrett and one more thing:
The Madcap Laughs is sofa king rock and roll.
*****
See you tomorrow.
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