oh klosterpaws

the first paragraph is a trainwreck of logical fallacy and unsupported assertion.

conflating Ozzy (socially dysfunctional person w/ennablers) and Daniel Johnston (diagnosed mentally ill person) doesn't hold up if you think about it for a minute or two.

I'd say Courtney Love has surely paid a cultural price for mentally unstable behavior.

his [Syd Barrett]disaffected, hyper-British vocal delivery has influenced singers who’ve never even heard his records

how does this work? sounds nice, but it doesn't make sense.

And I agree with Scott, K's characterization of Barrett's downward spiral is offensive. The implication is that he just spaced out. While there is disagreement among those who knew him about the nature and cause of Syd's condition, anyone who's known a schizophrenic or deeply disturbed person will recognize Syd.

and if the main thing he's remember for is being crazy, if he's been in effect dead for 35 years how could he be so influential?

and the Landy stuff is just too simplistic and glib, a reductive take on a complex situation. Landy's methods were creepy and controlling -- he deserved to lose his license -- but I bet even Brian Wilson would acknowledge that some good came from it. he got off drugs and started on the path to the better place he's in now.

Brian Wilson broke, too (several times). Unlike Barrett, he did get fixed; unfortunately, that process made things worse.

It's serviceable, but I'd rather the article actually came at Landy from the opposite angle, as a controversial therapist who ended up changing the course of a musician's life rather than introducing Brian Wilson first and trying to use him as a parallel to Syd Barrett. It seems a little too reductive and leaves out the meat of Landy's story. And makes it sound like it's about Brian Wilson.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/magazine/31naked.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The Naked Guy obit is incredibly sad.

someone was still high on crack when he pushed the publish button.

Which might be why some of the picking-on here is to totally off-base: Coleman, do you seriously not understand how someone's vocal style can be a secondhand influence people who never heard him? I mean, if that doesn't make sense to you, you should blame your grade-school teachers, not Klosterman. (The good news is that if you think about it long enough, you will suddenly realize why so many American punk bands since Green Day have singers who sound like they're about to cover "Alternative Ulster.")

In-thread comparison to the wonderful obit for Naked Guy isn't doing the piece any favors, either...

xpost It's fairly banal, in the way that his stuff is often banal, but at least the conclusion he's pushing here -- that contrary to popular imagination (and don't kid yourself that this isn't the popular imagination), craziness is a hindrance to the craft of making art -- is one that seems true and useful, if not exactly revelatory. I mean, usually his stuff is banal in a way that seems actively wrong to me.

during the thread, we have piling on, ILM...the question will be placed 15 posts from the spot of the foul...we will repeat first post...

Worst People Who Will Not Be Missed:
Augusto Pinochet, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Markus Wolf, P.W. Botha (gets the gasface!), Ta Mok, Ken Lay, Eugene Landy

except for the fact that his examples are people who made great music when they WEREN'T FEELING SO GOOD.

OK seriously, this is the second time this has been said, and it still mystifies me. What on earth are you guys having trouble with in that statement? The claim is that Barrett is the starting point for that whole whimsical-English-psych voice, a commonplace that's spread far beyond the pool of people who ever much listened to Syd Barrett: I think that's absolutely inarguably true. (I know I personally could have recognized "whimsical-English-psych voice," in parody or imitation, well before I ever knew who Syd Barrett was.) So, like ... WTF is the problem with that line?

this is bullshit too. jesus, they dragged him to holland to help them record. seems like some people still felt he was pretty meaningful. granted, he was a mess and no mastermind anymore, but he contributes to every album they make in the early 70's with singing, old songs, new songs, crazy-ass radio plays(!!), etc. i don't think any "sane" person would write off brian+beachboyz circa 1970-1976.

I really don't think people romanticize mental illness. There is a sort of psychological journey that is a meaningful aspect of the music of Brian Wilson and Syd Barrett, but mental illness and suffering were not necessary components of the journey.

This I'm not sure about. Do you hear "Help Me Rhonda" or "I Get Around" and think about an insane genius? The Beach Boys that 95% of America likes and cares about sounds like the work of a sane man, I reckon. Only indie rockers have trouble separating Wilson's madness from his Brilliance.

also: speeeed to roam OTM

Yeah see this may be one of those general-impression things that we could go back and forth on, but good lord do I think people do when it comes to artists (and dead ones in particular) -- maybe less so in the case of full-on visibly debilitating mental illness (though god knows Johnston and even Willis have had their romanticizers), but definitely in the case of low-level maybe-so-maybe-not illness. (Half the time it's just an extension of the quite-similar "suffering makes better artists" romanticizing.) Like I said, this was run a page or two over from another article teasing at the same thing (and for the record I hate the tendency displayed in the other, this thing where we look at century-old oil paintings and diagnose the painters' psychiatric ailments like they're abused children being given the "draw a person" test), which kind of nuzzled around the same issue, and also brought up Woolf in those terms. (Its subject's somewhat lame conclusion was something like "well you know the experience of depression can bring someone face to face with certain existential questions in a really vivid way that's probably a helpful perspective when making art.")

That's like something an art critic in a Woody Allen movie would say.

crediting /= "writing off"

and the work of someone who probably isn't a fan. it would have been nice if they had gotten someone who was interested in his work to write the thing.

yes, only REAL TRUE FANBOYS can write about musicians. what a bunch of bullshit.

cuz for a lot of people, "going crazy" ISN'T what he is best remembered for.

and for even more, it is.

and as far as Landy goes, fuck him, they shouldn't have wasted the ink.

yes, Eugene Landy didn't play a significant role in the life and career of a significant musician. let's ignore him entirely.

Damn, you're right, I'd forgotten about that! Something to catch up on.

That's all.

Okay, I'm coming in late, but WTF? Of course it's about his tone and not his points. KLOSTERMAN is about his tone and not his points!

In the rare cases when he has any... Reading him can be mildly pleasant, in the way that having a VH1 list show on in the background while doing other things can be mildly pleasant, or intensely aggravating, in the way that a VH1 list show inspires atavistic blood-fury if you actually pay attention to anything the talking heads say.

Joan Didion wept.