This is not an objective review. It’s not even a review. Forget the objectivity of the reporter, if you are preparing to read this article about the latest literary effort by Luca Ferrari. Let’s be clear, I read the book and practically witnessed her birth. The fact is that Luca and I have been friends – with a capital “A” – for, alas, decades and Luca “Chino” Ferrari knows well how much I respect him, as a person first and foremost, as a thinking head, as a music lover, as a writer and author of musical lyrics. As a rebel against the System, above all. Like a “black sheep” in a city that neglects his talents, the real ones, not at all inclined to compromise. The “hard” talents, who throw reality in your face and don’t give a damn what the local pseudo-cultural elite thinks. And who, despite all this, proceed as quickly as trains on their way, consolidating their talent page after page, book after book. For over 40 years.
Yes, because we must consider a fact: when Luca Ferrari began – the first in Italy – to deal with the figure of Syd Barrett, the legendary founder of Pink Floyd, he was something like 20-21 years old. There was no internet, there were no cell phones, smartphones, social media, e-mail. But this did not prevent that twenty-year-old from Cremona from boarding multiple flights to London, wearing out the soles of his shoes in the streets of the British capital, consulting telephone diaries, contacting from telephone booths – he, a perfect stranger with an English still not as perfect as today, with an uncommon determination and chutzpah – managers, producers, artists. Meet them, ask for and get interviews. Getting as far as Barrett himself. Knocking on the artist’s door, finding him in front of you, drafting a few questions and accepting the reticence of the artist who has now retired to private life, shaking his hand and leaving without having interviewed him. Because for Luca, before research, before work, before journalism, before the artist, comes the person and respect for the person.
Of course, “fanzines” existed in those days. Luca had invented one of these: he wrote about Barrett, mimeographed it, sent it around Italy. And if Italy has begun to scratch the surface of masterpieces such as The Dark Side Of The Moon, Atom Heart Mother, The Wall and the many Floyd albums that have made the history of rock, great credit must be given to Luca. The first to understand that behind what the national and international press dismissed as “Barrett’s madness”, there was something else. There was perhaps a “political” reason, a desire to distance himself, after having touched the sky with a finger, from that music business which is not for everyone. It certainly didn’t do it for Barrett, just as it didn’t do it for Nick Drake, another artist on whom Ferrari carried out counter-trend analyses, always inspired by that single beacon which was the search for truth, the search for man and his torments behind the ‘artist.
Since the mid-1980s, there have been countless publications by Luca Chino Ferrari (including those for the legendary Arcana) on the so-called “losers” of rock. Artists who are anything but losers, artists perhaps lost, but who with brilliant intuitions have revolutionized contemporary music. People with too thin skin, to whom Luca wanted to dedicate time and passion. Love.
And here we are today, at the release of “Written on Brambles”, Luca’s latest book dedicated to the figure of Barrett, published by the Italian Zona Music Books. The Genoese publisher, having learned of Ferrari’s research and publications – not a prophet in his homeland – commissioned him to write a volume on Barrett.
“It’s the story of an obsession. Mine for Barrett”, Luca confided to me when he was still working on the opera. Yes, because Ferrari wanted to give the volume an original slant, bringing together in the work many of his writings from the 1980s up to the present day, many unpublished, interviews (the ones with Barrett’s sister are touching and wonderful, as is the one with his time collected by Storm Thorgherson, founder of the Hipgnosis studio: so to speak, the man who created the best Floyd covers), extracts from speeches written by Luca at conferences, interviews given by Luca himself to Italian and foreign magazines.
So don’t expect a canonical biography from this “Writing on Brambles”: Luca has written plenty of those. From this work expect a lifelong journey in search of the truth. A journey that has become, in fact, the obsession of a lifetime. An obsession far from that which nourishes the simple fan. Luca doesn’t give a damn about fetishes, shreds of Barrett’s underwear, autographs, stolen photos. Luca shies away from all this. What Luca is interested in is understanding. Understand why Barrett’s genius, after just one album (very few of his songs ended up on Floyd’s second LP) and after having laid the foundations of a new rock trend that even the Beatles themselves caressed and praised, decided to stop shining (other than Shine on…). Why Barrett distanced himself from everything and, above all, from that self.
Here, this is the fulcrum of Ferrari’s research, of his obsession. And maybe the time has come (I know Luca, I know: I can imagine your laughter, your “who cares!”) for Cremona (re) to meet one of his best sons. A man who has dedicated his life to social work (Luca is a municipal employee, for many years highly appreciated for his work in Social Services) and the “clippings” of that life to research and study. The desire to go beyond the covers of the thousands of vinyls, CDs, books that crowd his private studio, his Sancta Sanctorum which I had the privilege of accessing.
I was honest from the beginning: I premised that this would not be a review. This is a “letter” to a true friend, to a free thinker, to a loose cannon of the system. A splinter as shiny and sharp as obsidian. And it’s time for Cremona to give Luca what is Luca’s. The gratitude that should be paid to an intellectual of his time. One of the most brilliant minds of this sad fiefdom, a fiefdom that on rare cultural occasions celebrates only salons and vassals and forgets those who with dedication, acumen, passion and yes, of course, no propensity to compromise, can give prestige to this provincial and self-referential assembly.
THE VOLUME – Luca Chino Ferrari “SYD BARRETT. WRITTEN ON BRACKETS”, ZONA Music Books 2024 (book 300 pages illustrated b/w – Euro 24 e-book Euro 13.99). On the cover a photo of Storm Thorgerson. The volume is available through the publishing house website or at bookshops.
SYD BARRETT – Syd Barrett was the founder and first frontman of Pink Floyd, a leading exponent of the British psychedelic movement: in 1972 he unexpectedly left the scene, leaving behind many questions and the pain of his fans. This book – the result of years of study, research and meetings in his footsteps – investigates the life dimension of a rock star derailed in the confrontation with the business and the laws of the record market, who decided to retire into an anonymous existence, away from the spotlight , made of peace, painting and gardening. With exclusive interviews with managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King, the super-collecting fan Bernard White, the painter roommate Duggie Fields, the photographer and designer friend Storm Thorgherson, founder of the Hipgnosis studio, the producer and EMI manager Malcolm Jones and Barrett’s sister , Rosemary Breen, the only person who, together with his mother, took care of him for the last twenty-five years. And with six stories about Syd that few know.
LUCA FERRARI: Luca Chino Ferrari (Cremona, 1963) is an Italian musical writer and lyricist. Author of the world’s first biography of the artist – Tattooed on the Wall. The Enigma of Syd Barrett (Gammalibri, 1986) ‒ met him in 1986 and contributed to the reunion of the Third Ear Band in the 1980s. He has managed Italian fanzines on Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett since 1979. He has also written books on Third Ear Band, Pink Floyd, Robyn Hitchcock, Captain Beefheart, Tim Buckley, Mike Taylor, as well as articles and reviews for magazines such as Ciao 2001, Vinile , Buscadero and Rockerilla. His numerous translations and editing of books, booklets and catalogues. He created, with Francesco Paolo Paladino, the band His Majesty The Baby and, with Dorothy Moskowitz, the band Dorothy Moskowitz & The United States Of Alchemy, for which he wrote the lyrics for two albums.
