THAT CAT’S SOMETHING I CAN’T EXPLAIN: Syd Barrett Love Letter Sketches Surface 40 Years Later

[Via THE FIRST POST] As everyone should know by now, the late Roger “Syd” Barrett started Pink Floyd in 1965 and left the group in 1968, eventually finding a reclusive peace in his native Cambridge. But while he will be remembered as the founder of the British psychedelic sound, who foundered on the rocks of mental illness, he would probably have preferred to be known as a visual artist. From entering polytechnic at 16, to leaving Camberwell Art School after his foundation course, he painted big, abstract oils – a vocation he resumed in his forties, when he became a […]

HEAR YE: A Minute By Minute Review Of New Wilco

[NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO: SKY BLUE SKY THE NEW ALBUM BY WILCO] Yesterday over at Rock Town Hall, Ed King ‘live blogged’ the new Wilco album, instantaneously reviewing it as he listened to our stream. WARNING: We do not recommend you try this at home — or even over PW, after all Mr. King is a trained professional and a hardened veteran of many unpopular rock wars. (RTH also has this nifty YouTube for fans of horticulture.) Here’s what he wrote: BY ED KING If you don’t have it yet or haven’t found another place to check out Wilco’s […]

WHEN THE SHIT HITS THE FANS

What it Feels Like When The Band You Love Hates You BY JONATHAN VALANIA We all have bands we hate, really hate-you know, with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. You hate REM, I still hate Journey. There’s a lot of that going around. But how many people can say a band hates them? Tin-eared soundmen, people who jack the gear out of their van while they sleep, and the tiresome jokesters who still yell “Freebird!”–and that’s about it. And when you narrow it down to people who are hated by their favorite bands, well, it’s a very elite […]