Flicker, Flicker, Flicker Blam. Pow, Pow.

I remember clearly the first time that I heard the music of Syd Barrett. I was in highschool, tenth grade I think, so I guess I was 15. It was a very cold winter night. I was at my brand new friend, Jim's, house. I believe it was the first time I was there - although throughout the following years it became a regular spot for me.

Jim's parents had an excellent stereo system with great speakers in the family room. In between the two large speakers was a fireplace. Jim had a fire burning and I believe it was pretty late at night. We were the only ones there.

Earlier, Jim had asked me if I had heard the Pink Floyd albums "Piper at the Gates of Dawns" and "Saucer Full of Secrets". I hadn't. But I was a big fan of "The Wall", "Wish You Were Here", and "The Final Cut" (which was only a couple years old).

So, he invited me over to listen.

That's exactly what we did, we just sat there and listened to these albums. (We also listened to "Atom Heart Mother" but Syd's not on that one).

It's funny, you always hear these stories of people hearing The Beatles or Hendrix for the first time and how they had never heard anything like it, how it changed their whole perception of music. Obviously, I'm too young for that to have happened with those artists - since they were omnipresent my whole life. I've heard also people report the same thing about Nirvana. But I think I was too old for that to happen. They just sounded like a structured Pixies / Replacements to me.

But, I can honestly say, when I heard those two Pink Floyd albums, my ear stood on its ear. The sound of those records was like nothing else, yet it was so perfectly what I had been unknowingly looking for.

I can easily recall watching the tiny orange sparks float up into the chimney, in this new home, with this soundtrack of madness blasting out of the speakers. Beyond the glass sliding doors to my right, the cold winter stretched into darkness amongst the unfamiliar trees.

"Lime and limpid green, a second scene a fight between the blue you once knew..."

How could music that was so huge and shadowy and spacey seem so personal and familiar? How could lyrics that made no real sense to me, seem like they somehow said something important? How could such jagged guitars seem so etherial? It was like the music that you hear in your head while you are just drifting off to sleep. If you are sleeping in a volcano. Cacophanous but lulling.

Brian, you are right about the Barrett influences songs of my past. The most obvious one I can remember writing was called "The Scarecrow and Snowman" (how blatant is that?). It had something or other to do with the snowman melting in the spring and then coming back to join the scarecrow again in the fall. Hey, I was 15.

And, Lord Russ? Forget about it. We recorded a 4-track album of some of his all time best songs in my basement a couple years after my introduction to Syd. They were so Syd, that even Syd would've thought they were Syd. "I'm the Giraffe, I am I am. I'm the floam flabber man." Delicious.

Maybe tonight on the Fawns's trip to Boston, we'll listen to those Floyd albums. Afterall this, I'm dying to hear them.

And, now that I am inspired, I'm gonna bring back my song "The Last American Elf" and this time Brian, I'll finish writing it and we'll make it an SFTD staple. Awesome.