1 December 2021

Nigel Gordon's Syd Barrett's First Trip (1967)



Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon was a film student in London and a friend of Syd Barrett. He filmed this in the summer of 1966 on a return visit to Cambridge, the pair's home town. They are with friends in the nearby Gog Magog hills and this is Syd's first trip on psychedelic mushrooms: in the jerky eleven-minute film Syd holds a bunch of mushrooms, and mushroom caps adorn his face on the reverse of the DVD. The director says that it is his wife Jenny in the yellow mac 'talking to a tree'.

The second half of the film shows Nigel on the balcony of 101 Cromwell Road, London SW7: it was shot by Lucy. It also shows Pink Floyd outside Abbey Road Studios in April 1967 after signing their first studio contract with EMI. Syd Barrett (1946-2006), co-founder of the band in 1965, is said to have developed psychosis after taking too much acid. He was officially removed from the band in April 1968.

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