Talks at Borders in Cambridge
Syd’s friends Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock, David Gale, Iain Owen Moore, William Pryor, Andrew Rawlinson, Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon and Matthew Scurfield, give a series of talks and book signings at Borders in Cambridge City Centre. Talks from the authors of several well-regarded Syd biographies – including the new forthcoming Faber and Faber biography A Very Irregular Head by Rob Chapman – are also scheduled.
STOP PRESS: Borders in London will be hosting a series of talks at their Charing Cross branch in the run-up to and during The City Wakes events in Cambridge. The London talks start on October 8th and include talks and book signings by Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock and David Gale. More information on the Borders website.
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
Saturday 25th October
11am – Panel Discussion - Rosie Marteau, Julian Palacios, David Parker and Barry Miles
  
A number of authors discuss the research they have done into Syd Barrett. (Details to follow)
Julian Palacios is the author of Syd Barrett: Lost in the Woods. The revised second edition is published 15 November 2008 by Plexus Books. Palacios will discuss Barrett's revolutionary contribution to English poetics, his wide-ranging influence on popular music, and his role in the London psychedelic underground.
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
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3pm - An interview with Emo (Iain Owen Moore) by Matthew Scurfield, actor/writer
 
If anyone was at the centre of the beat movement in sixties Cambridge, Emo was.
At age fifteen, when Emo was working in the coal yard, he became good friends with David Gilmour from chance encounters on the bus home each Saturday. It was a friendship that would last. Latterly Syd Barrett saw Emo as a confidant as well as a mate and they too became extremely close.
“Emo and Pip had made it up to London and were tagging along with Syd, basking in the light of his rising star. They may have come from opposite ends of the social spectrum to Syd and indeed my good self, but this divide didn’t stop them from giving as good as they got. Syd loved their fearless humour and cool dress sense, but most importantly, at this ambiguous time, he needed their kindred support”.
Matthew Scurfield I Could Be Anyone
This talk/interview offers a unique insight into Cambridge in the fifties and sixties
4 pm: "Following on from the interview with Emo, I will read a couple of extracts from my book, I Could Be Anyone, touching on early days with Syd and other poetic mortals from that influential time in Cambridge, when the sixties took seed." Matthew Scurfield
Those Who Knew - Matthew Scurfield Iain Owen Moore
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
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Sunday 26th October
12pm - William Pryor – Pyschofugal Creativity - Drugs & Inspiration
The surrealists consulted their dreams for inspiration, Virginia Woolf her Moments of Being, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi and Jean Cocteau their opiate reveries while Syd Barrett’s acid let him be “alone in the clouds all blue, lying on an eiderdown. Yippee! You can't see me; but I can you.”
Despite their advocates’ strong defences of the differences in their drugs, all of them, whether narcotic, stimulant or hallucinogenic, offer an escape ladder from ordinary consciousness. As did Virginia Woolf’s bipolar condition. It is on the rungs of those ladders that some of the more reckless artists, film makers, musicians and writers find their creativity; for on those steps to heaven, concentration is found and the will to create is loosened from the constraints of emotion and circumstance; a psychofugal creativity that throws these drug and madness induced visions out into the world.
George Bernard Shaw said: “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” Everyone seeks to make the world bearable. If creating art does it for you and you find your creativity by putting some psychosomatic substance in your body, then you are sorely tempted to choose that as your preferred “reality”. Syd Barrett seems to have made that choice. He never came back.
William Pryor, who grew up in Cambridge along with Syd, also made that choice while he was up at Trinity reading, irony of ironies, Moral Sciences, but for him it was NHS-prescribed heroin and cocaine. With a good clean fix he could be a full-on Dada-istic Beat Poet and subscriber to Alexander Trocchi’s extreme Situationist outlook on life, art and purpose.
The Director of Unhooked Thinking, a conference that explores the philosophical, cultural and creative sides of addiction, William has been straight now for 34 years. Grandson of Gwen Raverat, great great grandson of Charles Darwin, he is beginning to escape the millstone of such a weighty Cambridge dynasty, in part by developing a feature film that he has adapted from his memoir of addiction and beatnikery, The Survival of the Coolest.
“I want the concentration and the romance, and the worlds all glued together, fused, glowing,” said Virginia Woolf. William Pryor will be suggesting that this concentration is the real key, that we need psychopetal creativity, not psychofugal; a true, integrated originality that comes from focus, not intoxication.
Those Who Knew - William Pryor
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
William will also be talking at Borders Charing Cross branch in London on October 14th at 6.30pm. More...
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2pm - David Gale – Syd, Roger and the Batman: the Dark Night of Cool
Cambridge in the 60s was a beacon town for the cultural uprising. The ferment was feverish. New ideas lifted up dozens of young hotheads and coolheads and deposited them on the far side shaken, stirred and transformed. Some did not complete the journey, however. Syd Barrett, of course, was among them. What was it about the 60s that was so elating yet carried undercurrents of destruction that would snare the unwary?
I will talk about my experiences of passing through my teens and early twenties as a friend of Syd who saw him fly up, cruise then crash. I will attempt to place this in a context of some of the contradictory ideas that intoxicated us all.
Those Who Knew - David Gale
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
David will also be talking at Borders Charing Cross branch in London on October 17th at 6.30pm. More...
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3.45pm – Symon Vegro – All That You Touch - Book Reading
Symon Vegro has recently finished writing All That You Touch, a short book describing how the music of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett has been the soundtrack of his life. It’s an autobiographical rambling that covers, amongst other things, the poet John Keats, the whereabouts of electrons, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence and his love of Essex. It’s about passion. He’ll be covering what inspired him to write the book and reading some extracts.
Symon Vegro
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
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Monday 27th October
7pm - A Counter Cambridge Culture – William Pryor and Nigel Lesmoir Gordon.
A discussion between the some Original Happeners about their experience of the sixties and Syd in Cambridge
Those Who Knew - William Pryor Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
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Wednesday 29th October
7pm - Nigel Lesmoir Gordon - The Cambridge Poetry, Jazz and Happenings Scene in the 60’s
Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon grew up in Cambridge with Storm Thorgerson, David Gale, Andrew Rawlinson, William Pryor, Anthony Stern, Nick Sedgwick, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, David Henderson and David Gilmour. He began writing while still a student and published poems and short stories in the UK, the USA and France. He toured the UK performing at poetry readings with the New Departures Group. He then set up a series of readings in Cambridge with this group, which developed into poetry and jazz concerts featuring Lionel Grigson, Art Theman and Dick Heckstall-Smith, evolving into happenings and culminating in Multiverse at the Cambridge Union.
Those Who Knew - Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
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8pm - Matthew Scurfield - Navigating the Sixties from the Thick Side of the Fence
TV,film and theatre actor Matthew Scurfield will be reading extracts from his book I Could Be Anyone. Traversing Cambridge in the 50s and 60s from the thick side of the fence -- soirees with Syd Barrett and other poetic mortals from that time.
"I came from the posh, scholarly, side of Cambridge. However, I was a miserable academic failure who ended up going to a tough secondary school for boys, far out, in the nether regions of the city. I believe now that the combination of my background and this education, or lack of, gave me a unique handle on the tool of knowledge and how it is so often the perpetrator of a deep and cantankerous divide.”
Those Who Knew - Matthew Scurfield
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
Matthew will also be talking at Borders Charing Cross branch in London on November 6th at 6.30pm. More...
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Friday 31st October
7pm - Rob Chapman - Researching Syd
A life long fan, Rob was one of the 30 or so people who witnessed the legendary 'Stars at Cambridge Corn Exchange gig in 1972. He has written extensively about Syd, mostly for Mojo Magazine and penned the magazines 6,000 word obituary piece when he died. Last year he was commissioned by Faber and Faber to write a new biography about Syd. Entitled 'A Very Irregular Head' the book promises to throw fresh light on his artistic and musical influences, and to examine the working methods and thought processes behind those extra-ordinary songs. Rob does not subscribe to many of the dominant myths about Syd’s life. Nor does he accept the received wisdom that Syd’s creativity had burned out by the summer of 1967. He thinks that the solo albums are a more honest testimony of Syd’s talent than the Pink Floyd songs are. His talk at Borders Books promises to be "spiky".
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
Rob will also be talking at Borders Charing Cross branch in London on October 8th at 6.30pm. More...
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8pm - David Parker - A Train-Spotter’s Guide to the Recordings of Syd Barrett
David Parker has been a Syd Barrett fan since the 1970’s, when a friend’s copy of ‘A Nice Pair’introduced him to the first Pink Floyd album.
Ponderings on the session details for Syd’s released recordings and speculation as to what unissued material might remain in the record company archives featured frequently in the Syd Barrett fanzine ‘Chapter 24’ produced by John Kelly and David during the 1990’s. Determined to obtain a definite answer to all of these questions David approached EMI with a request to research Syd Barrett’s recording sessions. The result, after much correspondence, photocopying, heartache, more photocopying and mind-numbing cross-referencing, was the book ‘Random Precision – A Guide to the Recordings of Syd Barrett’ issued in 2001 by Cherry Red Books.
For his talk at Borders David will draw on his researches to present a potted guide to some of the
more interesting of Syd Barrett’s recording sessions. Having retrieved the cobwebbed files from the darker recesses of his loft David will be illustrating his presentation with documentation from the recording archives of EMI and Abbey Road Studios.
An hour, illustrated with magic lantern slides, for that more serious kind of Syd Barrett fan who revels in Take details, false start timings and RM/RS numbers.
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
David will also be talking at Borders Charing Cross branch in London on October 8th at 6.30pm. More...
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Saturday 1st November
11am - Andrew Rawlinson – The Hit
Reality makes us like itself. It does so by means of the hit, which comes and gets us - and then we go after it.
But in that very moment, we're displaced. And I mean that in both senses: we find ourselves somewhere else, and we become someone else. We enter another world with its own time, its own scale and frontiers. The ultimate frontier is between reality and illusion, true and false.
But these do not exist in themselves with a frontier between them; the frontier creates them.
It can be narrow or wide, dangerous and invisible. And it moves. The hit is the source of all secrets, riddles and jokes, the wellspring of love and death. Knowledge and music and all the arts are forms of it. Things are not what they seem: they're both more and less. And so are we.
Those Who Knew - Andrew Rawlinson
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
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1pm - Storm Thorgerson – Book Signing
Formed Hipgnosis in 1968 with Aubrey Powell (Po), a graphic design studio specialising in creative photography and working mainly in the music business designing album covers for many rock 'n' roll bands including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, 10cc, Yes, Peter Gabriel, Black Sabbath, Paul McCartney, Syd Barrett and Styx, amongst others. Started a series of books on album cover art with Roger Dean called Album Cover Album, and with Hipgnosis wrote and designed Walk Away Rene 1978 and The Goodbye Look 1982 about their own stuff.
Storm will be signing copies of his books, including Mind Over Matter: The Images of Pink Floyd.
Those Who Knew - Storm Thorgerson
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
Storm will also be signing books at Borders Charing Cross branch in London on October 15th at 6.30pm. More...
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3pm Mick Rock – Book Signing and Reading
"Syd Barrett was a friend of mine. I hadn't seen him in 33 years when he died, but in my mind he remained my friend. He proved that he still also considered me a friend when he co-signed 320 copies of the original publication of ''Psychedelic Renegades' (the total addition was 950 copies; the other 630 were signed by me alone), a beautiful slipcased limited edition published by Genesis Publications in 2002.
photo copyright Mick Rock 1969, 2008 www.mickrock.com
This was his only public gesture since the 1971 interview I did with him for 'Rolling Stone' magazine. Of course, he only signed them 'Barrett'. 'Syd was a persona he had shaken off in the early Seventies. But he signed them. And in doing so gave his blessing to the book and the images within, which include the photos I made of him in his mother's garden the day of the interview, the last photos he ever posed for. He even took a few of me that day... Thank you, Syd...
Understandably, most people think of Syd as a dark, brooding, inarticulate Prince of Psychedelia gone haywire, but the strongest impression he left on me from the times we spent together, was of his laughter. He liked to laugh. Sometimes he laughed at a shared joke or insight. Sometimes he laughed for the hell of it. This madcap loved to laugh. I recently came across a brief silent 16mm film clip of Syd I shot in 1969. He's laughing for the entire clip. And check out some of the photos in my book. He had one of the best smiles I ever came across, full of fun and mischievousness. That's how I remember Syd. Shine on you crazy diamond.....You are not gone."
Those Who Knew - Mick Rock
Tickets to all talks, panel discussion, and book signings are free. However, it is recommended that you reserve a seat at the talk of your choice by contacting Borders on 01223 306 188.
Mick will also be talking at Borders Charing Cross branch in London on November 3rd at 6.30pm. More...
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Trains to Cambridge
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