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Originally Posted by becca
I've read about Syd getting burned out from playing the same songs too many times under pressure to make it sound the same each time, and also burned by audiences who only wanted to hear some hit singles and nothing more, particularly outside of London. The Madcap Laughs is a great album although it took him awhile and a lot of help to get it together. Like Peter I think he was just artistic rather than doing a job and increasingly allergic to the 'industry', and who is to say they aren't right when you look at what happened to The Iveys/Badfinger? Nico too sabotaged her appearance after being one of the top lookers earlier; the worst thing you can do is to be less marketable or commercial right?.
I sometimes wonder with Syd, Brain Wilson and guys like them if they weren't highly functioning autistics, as in Asberger's Syndrome. Diagnosis in the '60s and '70s was pretty iffy. Multiple personalities is such a rare thing yet was over-diagnosed following some movies and publicity.
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Great points, becca! However, there are three musicians who suffered the same fate within a matter of months. 1) Roky Erickson from the 13th Floor Elevators...2) Skip Spence from Moby Grape, and 3) Syd Barrett.
Peter Green did not suffer the above, it was a much slower process. Peter Green was acting normal the day he left FM 5/70. In fact I think PG just wanted to leave FM as early as 1969. Mick Fleetwood uses "Munich" as a myth. Peter Green wanted out six months prior. Yet PG did suffer from mental illness only after he did the FM winter/spring US tour 1971. Logic says you don't ask Syd Barrett back for a US tour if he's already changed by drugs.
I can't say that Brian Wilson has Asbergers. I know that according to Brian Wilson his first LSD experience was writing "California Girls". Brian Wilson suffered from child abuse, not mental illness, until drugs came along. Murray Wilson was the Beach Boys version of Joe Jackson, if not worse.