HAVE YOU GOT IT YET? THE STORY OF SYD BARRETT AND PINK FLOYD (B+) - There's nothing really flashy about this documentary about one of the all-time lost souls of the classic-rock era, but it is thorough and comprehensive, so much so that you feel like you've gotten your money's worth.
Writer-director Roddy Bogawa watches over the early work of co-director Storm Thorgerson -- Pink Floyd historian, Hipgnosis (album art) founder, and Barrett's childhood friend -- as they track down just about every person connected to Barrett you can imagine. That includes his former bandmates, notably Roger Waters and David Gilmour, Barrett's sister, and seemingly every former classmate and anyone who bumped into him in the late '60s. It's exhaustive but never exhausting.
Barrett's story will always be fascinating. He founded Pink Floyd with Waters and others and wrote their songs, including their first hit, "See Emily Play," a foundational track in pop-psychedelia. He was smart, handsome and charming. But after daily mega-doses of LSD during the band's first two years, he started to exhibit odd behavior, freezing on stage and turning catatonic at random times. Whether it was the drugs or some combination of causes, Barrett lost his mind. By 1968, he was kicked out of the band and replaced by his former art-school chum, Gilmour. Barrett lived out his final three decades with his mom in his hometown of Cambridge. Neither Gilmour nor Waters ever went out there to visit Barrett; they try to hide their shame over that snub, telling themselves that Barrett didn't want to see them all those years anyway.
But before he disowned his music career, he gave it a go as a solo act. Gilmour and Waters produced the solo album "The Madcap Laughs." That and a self-titled album were released in 1970. They are both under-appreciated gems. He shares a simplicity of songwriting and recording with American outsider Daniel Johnston. (This documentary has a gravitas that brings to mind both "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" and "We Jam Econo," the wistful reverie about the snakebit Minutemen.)
Thorgerson (who died 10 years ago) has the inside track on all the key sources who piece together about as comprehensive a biography as you can get. It's an intimate tribute to a recluse. Barrett's bandmates tell grand tales. The beginning of the end was when Barrett, still in the band, toyed with his mates while showing them the chords of a song he had just written but repeatedly changing the chord structure whenever they thought they had gotten it down. (That is the source of the movie's title.) They also tell the story from a few years after that, when Barrett visited their recording studio but was unrecognizable, having gained weight and shaved his head (including eyebrows). Pink Floyd recorded the song suite "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" as a tribute to their fallen mate.
As one talking head intones, "It's a very, very sad story." It's impossible to know what went through Barrett's mind all those years. But this is a valiant, touching attempt to understand the man and the artist.
BONUS TRACKS
"Terrapin," the opening track on his first solo album:
"Octopus":
"Gigolo Aunt," from the second solo album, a song that inspired the band of the same name:
An old soft-shoe, "Here I Go":
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