Syd Barrett

Latest Articles

Autolux | Transit Transit

TBD Records (2010)
As much fun as it is to be iconoclastic, it's tough for the art-rockers of today to escape the bones of the past when trying to break new ground.
By JONATHAN DONALDSON | July 28, 2010

Talking ’bout a revolution

The Gamm’s life-affirming Rock ’n’ Roll
It takes a theatrical genius like Tom Stoppard to come up with Rock ’n’ Roll, which merges the pulsing spirit of both until they feel like one. And it takes a theater of the caliber of the Gamm to make history feel like a Stones concert that becomes a political rally.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 05, 2010

Tech Support

Stereo equipment is so passé. This year's unnecessarily awesome gadgets will stir coffee and turn T-shirts into guitars.
"Lo! Men have become the tools of their tools." So wrote Henry David Thoreau, a long time ago, in Walden .
By MIKE MILIARD | December 08, 2009

Echo and the Bunnymen | The Fountain

Ocean Rain (2009)
Less dour than the Cure but more somber than New Order, with a thorny mix of sadness and sunshine, Liverpudlian gloom-pop masters Echo & the Bunnymen were far weirder than they get credit for being.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | November 10, 2009

Blackbird at SpeakEasy

A play about a confrontation between two desperate nobodies.
The year 2007 was a banner one for British theater.
By ED SIEGEL | February 25, 2009

Sympathy for the Devil

Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll at the Huntington; McPherson's The Seafarer at SpeakEasy
Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll at the Huntington; McPherson's The Seafarer at SpeakEasy
By CAROLYN CLAY | November 24, 2008

A history of violins

The bigger, better sound of Dungen
To paraphrase (very loosely) Ben Franklin, wherever you go in this world of ours — and that includes Sweden, native land of Dungen mastermind Gustav Ejstes — nothing is certain but death, taxes, and being picked on mercilessly if you’re a kid who plays the violin.
By MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG | October 23, 2008

Fall on the boards

From A Chorus Line to Tennessee Williams and the Grinch
There are tours to the former Czechoslovakia, Romania, Italy, Iraq, the Aran Islands, and even the Underworld on area stages this fall.
By CAROLYN CLAY | September 11, 2008

The (other) British invasion

Five great bands from UK blues’ back pages
Five great bands from UK blues’ back pages
By TED DROZDOWSKI | August 19, 2008

J.P. to the rescue!

The Milky Way reaches out to China
This Tuesday, June 24, the musical mayor of JP, Rick Berlin, hosts a benefit for the victims of the earthquake in China.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | June 17, 2008

Sound Czech

Tom Stoppard fuses the history and the music in Rock ’n’ Roll
Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll begins in 1968 in an English garden, where a piper perched atop an ivied wall is serenading a stretched-out blonde flower child.
By CAROLYN CLAY | November 13, 2007

Ween

La Cucaracha | Rounder
Ween come out flapping and squawking on La Cucaracha .
By PATRICK CATES | October 22, 2007

Boston music news: May 4, 2007

Notes on Chris Mascara and Berklee's new internet radio presence
Chris Mascara has been thinking about musical genres and labeling.
By JIM SULLIVAN | May 01, 2007

Who’s your daddy?

Eggbot gets paternal, grows up a bit
Eggbot has always delighted in irony.
By SAM PFEIFLE | February 14, 2007

Oh ... uh, wow ... thanks?

The Internet is a vast trove of very strange gifts
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, holiday shopping was a fairly straightforward enterprise.
By MIKE MILIARD | December 07, 2006

Timothy Leary's dead

The psychedelic revival
This article originally appeared in the March 17, 1981 issue of the Boston Phoenix .
By MARK MOSES | October 25, 2006

Roger Waters

Elegy for Syd
With Pink Floyd resting like Monty Python’s ex-parrot, it is once again Roger Waters’s job to assume the Floydian mantle, and he’s assembled a crack octet to take with him on the road.
By JIM SULLIVAN | September 12, 2006

Slick Weave, the Ruler

The Raging Main are a late-night party
Have you heard that new(ish) Raconteurs album? Wow.
By SAM PFEIFLE | August 09, 2006

Syd Barrett

1946-2006
Without meaning to, Barrett invented one of rock’s enduring archetypes: the visionary who burns brightly just long enough to become a bona fide star before plummeting into introversion and, in this case, a silence lasting more than 30 years.
By FRANKLIN BRUNO | July 21, 2006