The Purple Gang: Syd Barrett’s secret side project
The tale of Pink Floyd is one of the most complex and oscillating of the classic rock era. Yet, although their expansive tale contains many notable chapters, the most highly mythologised is that of the Syd Barrett-led era and his ensuing fall from grace and withdrawal into obscurity.
It was Barrett who allowed the Floyd to stand out from the nascent psychedelic movement in the late 1960s. His raw guitar playing, surreal imagery – plucked straight out of the world of opium-huffing Victorian dandies – and his distinctly English delivery created a unique listening experience fuelled by imagination and talent. It’s on his shoulders that almost all of the genre’s fantastical trappings are placed upon. He was a fearless sonic wanderer in every sense.
However, after the success of the quartet’s 1967 debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the frontman’s mental health struggles would become more all-encompassing, debilitating him throughout the recording of the follow-up A Saucerful of Secrets. Resultantly, in April 1968, he was out of the band for good, and the group found themselves at their first of several major crossroads. For Barrett, two strange solo albums followed until he retired from music in 1972 and gradually withdrew from society. It was with this retreat that much of his famous mythology was built; it was mysterious, perplexing, and perhaps most importantly, left much room for embellishment.
A naturally enigmatic character, Barrett’s life was fascinating even before his somewhat trivialised mental health issues started to take their toll, with the tales from his younger days equally as storied, such as busking with David Gilmour on the continent in their heady pre-success years and acting as the driver and assistant for influential ‘Swinging Sixties’ fashion designer Ossie Clark. Yet, chapters such as these are only the start of it, and over the years, more aspects of Barrett’s journey have emerged.
Richie Unterberger once revealed a fascinating one. This is that the late rocker had a practically unknown side-project called The Purple Gang when he was leading Pink Floyd. Sadly, the band’s beginnings remain enveloped in mystery as their demo tape has been lost for decades. However, the scarce information he uncovered offers some insight into Barrett’s being an artist who fully embodied his craft and could not stop experimenting with and developing his sound, despite his success with Floyd. It, combined with his future solo work, perhaps even suggests that Barrett might have tried his hands at other projects outside of the ‘Astronomy Domine’ group if his mental health hadn’t taken such a terrible hit.
When making the revelation, Unterberger used a 1996 comment from Pink Floyd’s ‘Arnold Layne’ producer Joe Boyd, who discussed The Purple Gang demo tape from circa 1967, confirming it has been missing for years. He also compared it to Barrett’s solo material, which often varied in terms of quality.
He said: “One of the great sorrows in my collection is that I don’t have the demo tape that Syd gave me of six or eight songs that he hadn’t recorded. I was recording a band called the Purple Gang and we were looking for material, and Syd gave us this tape. There were some terrific songs, very different from [what he ended up putting on his solo albums]. Strong, melodic, good songs.”
This account expands the stylistic spectrum of Barrett’s work and makes me rue the fact that his life took such a tragic turn, just like other terrible casualties of his generation, such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, the Cambridge native had a lot to give, as evidence by the passion for painting he threw himself into when a recluse.
According to Unterberger, The Purple Gang’s music was “vaudevillian”, which makes sense given Barrett’s spiritual connection to the 19th century, and it was far from the sound of early Pink Floyd and even that of rock music in general. This makes it such a fascinating prospect; it might well have been the most distilled version of Barrett as a songwriter, but as it is lost, we will likely never hear it. I think all fans of the late artist won’t find it hard to imagine their own version of what it might have sounded like.
