SYD BARRETT, SILAS LANG &
SUNSHINE
OR: THE PROS AND CONS OF NIT
PICKING
By Jon
Allan, Publisher of Late Night Magazine
The two Swan Lee/Silas Lang
instrumentals and the short (1:24) instrumental often called Sunshine (its
also been called, at various times Experiment, The Madcaps
Embrace, Class Act & In The Beechwoods) are,
hands down, the most confusing Syd Barrett tracks currently in circulation. Nobody
knows exactly when they were recorded, or who, apart from Syd, plays on them. Everybody
has their own theory, though, and many of them point the finger at... Pink
Floyd!
But are these really leftovers from
Piper or the final 67 sessions? And if not, what are they? Solo sessions,
perhaps? In an effort to clear up some of these mysteries, Ive spent a great
deal of time pouring over the dozens of books, articles, session notes and
other related materials on Pink Floyd that Ive collected since the mid-80s,
and come up with... Well, read on and see for yourself. It may get confusing
(OK, it will get confusing) at times, but I think youll ultimately find it
rewarding, too!
Id like to first start out by
addressing two theories that just wont die: the Peter Jenner
theory and the 1966 theory. Jenner first:
Peter Jenner,
as most Floydfans know, was one of the bands two
original co-managers (Andrew King was his partner, and together they formed the
management portion of Blackhill Enterprises). Blackhill was a six way partnership between Pink Floyd,
Andrew King and Jenner, which lasted roughly from
late 1966 until early March 1968, at which point Syd left the band under
circumstances that even today are unclear. Jenner and
King then chose to continue managing Syd (Jenner
became his first producer), while Floyd signed with the Bryan Morrison Agency.
The Jenner
Theory advanced by Sydfan Chris Mawson
in the late 1980s, goes like this: Sometime before Syds
first solo session in May of 1968, either he or Peter Jenner
began reviewing old, unused Pink Floyd tapes that they had in their possession,
with the idea of crafting them into new Barrett material. For evidence he cites
the fact that three Floyd tapes containing Barrett-era material were logged
with EMI on May 5th (Tape 68409-4T In The Beechwoods,
No Title; Tape 68410-4T Vegetable Man, Instrumental & a second take
of Beechwoods); and May 6th (Tape 68411-4T
Untitled) Syds first solo sessions took place at
Abbey Road on May 6th (or 13th, sources differ), and Swan Lee (then known as
Silas Lang) appears in the session notes as published in the Late Malcolm
Jones booklet The Making Of The Madcap Laughs. So the closeness between the
dates that Floyd logged Barrett-era tapes and Syd began working on his first
album would stand to make Silas Lang a carry over (possibly No Title,
Instrumental or Untitled) from the Floyd days, right?
Wrong. While its entirely possible
that the instrumental piece which eventually became Swan Lee dates from his
Floyd days, the recording(s) of it are solo tracks. Even if a Floyd version
existed and Syd or Jenner had a copy of it, they
would have been unable to continue working on it or release it to the public. Syd
was no longer a member of Pink Floyd and Peter Jenner
no longer managed them. This being the case, neither had any legal (vs. artistic)
right to review, work on or release any material dating from tenure with the
band. And I doubt that the Floyd camp and Bryan Morrison would have let him do
so out of friendship, either, since one of the strongest points of their
re-negotiated EMI contract relates to the bands sole ownership of all
unreleased material recorded during their professional career. Even EMI
couldnt release an outtake collection (or something a la Beatles Anthology)
without the expressed permission of Pink Floyd, something which they aint givin!
To further illustrate my point,
consider this: In January of 1969 the Beatles recorded nearly 30 hours of
material for the project which eventually became Let It Be, an album which
clocks in at just over thirty-four minutes. That leaves a lot of useable stuff
in the can. Now what if, say Paul, had decided to dust some of those unreleased
songs off and put them on one of his solo albums? He wouldnt have been able to
- even the songs that hed written - because they are the property of The
Beatles, a (business) entity of which he was only one-fourth. What he could
(and like John and George, did) do would be to re-record the songs he wanted,
in effect covering himself and bypassing any legal problems. If Swan Lee does
indeed date from his Floyd days, this is almost certainly what Syd did. And
just why, if he had no right to be working with them, would Peter Jenner have logged material with EMI as Pink Floyd, rather
than Syd Barrett tapes? Im pretty sure the tapes were being reviewed and
logged by the Floyd themselves while they were selecting material for A Saucerful Of Secrets.
The second theory relates to the
three tracks in question coming from a 1966 Thompsons Private Recording
Company session. I dont believe this to be true, and wont believe it until
Floyd says it is or somebody shows me a vintage 1966 reel-to-reel tape and
corresponding paperwork to prove it! For one thing, sound quality wise (all
Thompsons had was a simple 2-track mono recording setup) and stylistically
they sound nothing like the existing 1966 material that we do have... What I
think has happened is tape traders began listing these tracks as being from
1966 because they could then trade them to other collectors who wrongly
thought they were getting something that they didnt have. The more people who
did this, or who got material without knowing what it really was and passed it
around, the more legitimacy the 1966 date got. Eventually it ended up in at
least one book and on several boot CDs, so therell always be some fans who believe it, but remember, caveat emptor: know what
youre getting before you buy or trade!
OK, so what about Swan Lee/Silas
Lang, anyway? If these two instrumentals arent Floyd tracks, just what are
they? Well, heres what the published paperwork tells us:
Early in May of 1968 (the 6th or
13th) Syd and Peter Jenner entered Abbey Road Studios
with the intention of recording songs for a solo album. This first session
produced a version (or versions) of Silas Lang (as Swan Lee was alternately
known) and a version of Late Night which appears to have been erased.
Work would continue on Silas at
sessions held May 21st, 28th (this is the recording date listed for Take 5 in
the Opel liner notes, and the first time the song
appears as Swan Lee), June 8th and June 20th. These Jenner
sessions were ultimately unable to produce close to an albums worth of
material, and only one more (July 20th) was held before the project was
abandoned. When work started up again in April 1969, Syd and new producer
Malcolm Jones (who was also the head of Harvest Records at the time) were still
interested in the song. It was worked on during the first Jones session (April
10th), and I believe its from this date that we get Jones spoken intro Silas
Lang. This is RM1, from 4-Track; Take 1 found on the Flaming And Screaming LP. Take 1 in this case would refer to new
overdubs, since its a stated copy from a 4-Track master.
It would appear that the song was
completed (if indeed the version on Opel is how Syd
intended it to be) at Barrett-produced sessions held on April 24th. Jones was
too ill to attend, so Syd took this opportunity to transfer eight songs (No
Good Trying, Terrapin, Opel, Clowns And
Jugglers, Love You, Golden Hair, Late Night and Swan Lee) from 4 to
8-Track, for the purpose of further overdubbing. He also worked on Swan Lee
and possibly Late Night (As a side note, its very interesting to see what
songs Syd had intended to put on The Madcap Laughs). This would be the last
time Swan Lee/Silas Lang appeared in Abbey Road paperwork until 1974. When it
came time for Dave Gilmour and Roger Waters to mix and assemble Madcap, Swan
Lee was not among the songs used. Later Dave said that they most likely thought
that Opel was a working title of a song which Syd
later re-recorded. This is probably what happened to Swan Lee as well.
Now before we move on, Ive got a
little more to say about Swan Lee/Silas Lang. I believe that at least two (and
possibly three) of the five takes known to have been done currently circulate. The
best known, obviously, is the 3:09 vocal version (Take 5) found on Opel. The two bootleg instrumentals are 2:34 (Early
Instrumental) and 2:36 (Banjo/Sax Instrumental) respectively, so its
possible that one is simply an overdubbed version of the other, or even that
all three versions utilize the same guitar track. Opel
and Crazy Diamond co-compiler Phil Smee believes
the Banjo and Saxophone part to be the result of copying the unmixed track onto
a poorly wiped (erased) mastertape, but I disagree. Heres
why: In 1973 Roger Waters told Zig Zag magazine that towards the end of his time with Pink
Floyd, Syd had a great plan...to expand the group, get in two geezers, some
two freaks that hed met someplace or other. One of them played banjo and the
other played saxophone. We werent into that at all, and it was obvious that
the crunch had finally come.
Now consider this: Abbey Road
paperwork fails to record the several (to this day anonymous) musicians who are
known to have played on some of Syds 1968 solo
sessions. The backing track to Late Night almost certainly features outside
musicians, and when Opel and Crazy Diamond
co-compilers Phil Smee and Brian Hogg tracked down
the original engineer of the Rhamadan sessions, he
told them that some weird friends (of Syds) came
along to the session. Now since work began on Swan Lee only a few months after
the time when Syd is supposed to have wanted to add two banjo and saxophone
playing freaks to Pink Floyds ranks, I think its very possible that he may
have still been interested in working with those same two freaks once hed gone
solo. Something to think about, at least.
Confused yet? No? Well get ready to
be! Silas Lang shows up again not once but twice in 1974, as part of two very
different projects. Since its still unclear which one came first, Ive chosen
to cover them in the following order for claritys sake.
Towards the end of 1974 Peter Jenner again managed to get Syd into Abbey Road for the
purpose of cutting a new album. By all accounts the sessions, which lasted for
three or four days, were pretty dire. For one thing, Syd showed up with no
material prepared and no strings on his guitar. He also was prone to wander
away, not returning, and may even have bit an Abbey Road employee! The end
result was three reels of mostly unfinished, untitled instrumentals, the most
complete of which featured bass and drum overdubs done by Syd himself. When
these tapes were reviewed during the making of the Crazy Diamond box set,
they were found to contain no vocal tracks apart from the odd bit of studio chatter.
Whats interesting, though, is that
the recording sheets for these reels (as reproduced in Chapter 24 magazine #4)
contain the title Silas Lang! Its listed towards the end of the third and
final reel, and runs from 20:48 to 23:30 (making it 2:42 long). Notes indicate
that there was no bass on this track. Now heres what I think happened: as
the already disastrous sessions wound to a close, Peter Jenner
was probably getting increasingly desperate to get something useable down on
tape. Remembering Silas from his 1968 sessions, and being aware that it
didnt appear on Syds previous two solo albums, Jenner may have suggested that they try re-recording it. Since
Syd didnt even bother to do any overdubs on this version, its safe to say
that he wasnt terribly interested in it. I also strongly doubt that either one
of the circulating instros date from 1974. Theyre
much closer to finished tracks than the other 74 bits weve so far heard,
and appeared on the collectors market almost 10 years before those bits did!
Now 1974 also saw a very mysterious
stereo mixing session take place at Abbey Road. The songs mixed down were:
Silas Lang, Scream Thy Last Scream, Vegetable Man, Milky Way, Wouldnt You Miss Me? (Dark Globe),
Untitled (67), Opel, Birdy
Hop and The Word Song. This information comes from Michael Wests
article Two More Of A Kind, which appeared in issue
12 of the 1980s Sydzine Opel.
Wests session information came from phone conversations he had with archivists
at Abbey Road. Amazingly, this potentially explosive information remained
largely buried for nearly 15 years!
It would seem that someone at EMI
attempted to put together a pre-Opel rarities album
way back in 74. If this was the case, the very fact that three Floyd-era songs
were included probably insured that it never saw the light of day. However, by
1985 almost all, if not all of the above songs were circulating amongst
collectors; could this mean that a copy of the tape found its
way into someones hands? And more importantly, since Silas Lang was included
on it, would that make Sunshine really Untitled (67)? I for one dont
think so. But dont start e-mailing me yet! Weve still got a way to go...
By the early 1980s, demand for new
Barrett product of any kind was high and getting higher all the time. True,
previously unknown material was beginning to turn up on bootleg, but fans still
hungered for an official outtakes album. Around this time, Sydfan
Phil Smee began collecting tapes in the hopes of
releasing a licensed multi-LP rarities set on his Bam Carouso
label. Ultimately this proved to be impossible, but Smee
continued to make a name for himself in the music
industry with his anthology style collections for other 60s artists.
By 1987 EMI had finally decided that
there was enough interest in Syd Barrett and his music to merit their releasing
a rarities collection, and brought in Syds second
producer, Malcolm Jones (himself a collector of unreleased Barrett material),
to oversee the project. Ill health prevented him from doing more than spending
a day compiling a tape of unmixed outtakes and trying out rough mixes of Swan
Lee, Opel, and a few other songs. The whole thing was
then turned over to Phil Smee and Brian Hogg, who
compiled the Opel album from the best of Syds unissued material. In 1996 Smee gave an extensive interview in the pages of Chapter 24
magazine, and the following is drawn exclusively from it.
During the initial meeting with EMI,
Smee and Hogg were played a tape of a 1967 Pink Floyd
instrumental which was, they were told, an unfinished backing track cut at the
bands first EMI session. Smee described it as being
about four minutes (long) and sound(ing) a bit like
the middle section of See Emily Play. It was part of a cassette which
circulated within EMI containing unreleased Barrett and Pink Floyd material
being considered for possible release. Early on the duo were even allowed to
review Floyd tapes of Vegetable Man, but quickly found out that all Floyd-era
material was out of bounds thanks to the bands contract.
Was the tape Smee
and Hogg were played the same as the one compiled at the 1974 stereo mixing
session? Probably. But it would also appear that there
was at least one other tape of Barrett outtakes then in existence. Specifically
the one containing rough mixes of solo material which Malcolm Jones put
together in 1987. Phil Smee
told Chapter 24s David Parker that this tape contained not only the two Swan
Lee/Silas Lang instrumentals, but also the first version of the 1:24 Sunshine
instrumental that hed heard. This is important...
Important because Jones knew from
firsthand experience that Syds Floyd -or any other
unreleased Floyd material- was off limits. He learned the hard way in 1970
when, as head of Harvest Records, he released the sampler album Picnic: A
Breath Of Fresh Air. This 2 LP set not only contained
Syds Terrapin, but also an unfinished demo of
Floyds Embryo. The latter was included without the bands knowledge or
consent, and consequently Picnic had to be withdrawn. Would Jones have added
a Floyd-era track to a rough tape of potential Barrett releases knowing full
well that the band would block it?
So what does that leave us with? Well,
heres what I think is the most likely scenario: by 1974 EMI had decided that a
third Barrett album stood a good chance of being successful and had someone
compile a stereo tape of nine songs from their Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett
archives. For whatever reason, this project died an early death and was replaced
by the November 1974 Syd Barrett repackaged double album. The stereo tape
continued to circulate among EMI employees until eventually a copy was leaked
to a collector. By the mid-80s this collector made some, but not all, of the
material available to fans. I think that they may have held on to the three
Floyd songs (Vegetable Man, Scream Thy Last Scream and Untitled (67))
and possibly the vocal take of Swan Lee/Silas Lang as well.
Keep in mind that Peter Jenner admitted in the pages of Nicholas Shaffners book A Saucerful of
Secrets to letting his copies of Scream and Vegetable (presumably the more
common mono versions in circulation since at least the mid-70s) get out. The
stereo versions of those songs (and remember that the 74 mixdown
was to stereo) only recently surfaced on the Flaming And
Screaming LP, suggesting that there are at least two different master sources
for them. Also, since only one take of Silas Lang was listed on the 74 tape,
Im assuming that it was the vocal take, a track that wouldnt see the light of
day again until Opel appeared in 1988.
Also by the late-80s (at least by
1987) a copy of Malcolm Jones hastily assembled tape found its
way out to fans. Many of these unmixed versions still circulate, mislabeled as
outtakes. Jones is known to have been in possession of unreleased Barrett solo
tracks before 1987 (including Rhamadan and Lanky
Part 2), and probably had rough dubs of much of the 1968-69 material in his
collection. [NOTE: the tape Jones played Ivo Trueman in 1984 of a 1968 Pink Floyd backing track seems
to have been a post-Syd recording given to him by Roy Featherstone, his boss at
EMI. Even Trueman noted that No, it didnt sound at
all like Syd. So this is probably not the same thing as
Sunshine/Experiment.] This could also explain some of the unmixed outtakes
that appeared before 87. Anyway, my point is, I doubt that Jones had any
Floyd-era material to work with, and he appears to be the original source of
the Sunshine instrumental. But almost more importantly, if the tape EMI
played Smee and Hogg was the same as the one
assembled in 1974 (and again, I think it was), Untitled (67) is different
from the 1:24 Sunshine instro. When talking with
Chapter 24s David Parker in 1996, he described hearing both the Sunshine
/Experiment instro and the 1967 Floyd Backing track,
which could only mean that they were two separate pieces.
Now even if Im wrong here, and the
1:24 instro is an edited or incomplete Pink Floyd
backing track, it would almost certainly be Untitled (67) and not the track
Sunshine logged with EMI during the Piper sessions. In fact, at least four
Pink Floyd master tapes were logged with EMI simply as Untitled in 1967 (and
one more was logged as No Title), and EMI claimed that the backing track
they played Smee and Hogg was from Floyds first EMI
session. No mention of it appears in the published paperwork for that session,
which would seem to point to more material existing than ever was listed. Now
if its the same thing that was mixed down to stereo in 1974, it would really
have been an untitled piece from 1967. Whatever the case may be, the
Sunshine logged on June 29th, 1967 definitely had a title, so why would it be
listed as an untitled track if it had been worked with at a later date?
And lets take a second to review
what we do know about the real Sunshine. Its only going to take a second,
because we dont know much! It was logged with EMI on June 29th, 1967 (tape
number 65094), as part of a mixdown tape (as opposed
to a master tape -no master for this tape appears in the published paperwork)
that contained six titles. Those titles were The Bike Song (sic.), Flaming, Matilda Mother, Wondering And
Dreaming, Sunshine and Lucifer Sam. These songs were probably recorded at
an earlier Abbey Road session, but mixed and logged on a later date. Wondering
And Dreaming is thought to be a version or segment of Matilda Mother since
its a phrase from that songs lyrics. Nothing more is known about Sunshine
beyond the date and tape that it was logged on with EMI. And since no
verifiable outtakes from the Piper sessions have yet surfaced, Id really
doubt that weve heard any part of Sunshine.
What I think makes more sense is
that the 1:24 Sunshine/Experiment instro is
something that Syd recorded in 1968 with one or more unknown musicians. Either
Malcolm Jones had a copy in his own collection or he came across it in 1987
while poking around in the Barrett tapes held at Abbey Road. It was unmixed,
and most likely untitled, but he decided to add it to his quickly assembled
rough tape anyway. Smee and Hogg failed to include
it on Opel and the Crazy Diamond box because at
1:24 it was too short to be very interesting. They probably left the two Swan
Lee/Silas Lang instros off for a similar reason; they
already had the more interesting vocal take. Thats why they chose to leave
Lanky (Part 2) and Rhamadan; they didnt think
two long drum tracks were very interesting, even to diehard fans.
Of course, I could be wrong. Its
happened before! But if Ive done anything, I think Ive traced the history of
Swan Lee, stated my case on Sunshine, and given fans a lot to think about. I
know this will generate a lot of mail, so when writing keep in mind that Im
not trying to present myself as an unquestionable expert. If you disagree or
have a theory that I havent covered, let me know. I love hearing from people!
But please understand that Im not about to get in a pissing match with anyone
out there. This is all supposed to be fun, right? Right!
Special thanks to Daniel van Eijmeren for his help in the editing of this article.