Police in St. Cloud, Minnesota are investigating Phillip Michael Schaeffer, 53, an uninsured man who claimed to be Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour as he was running up medical bills in the low six figures at a local hospital. Schaeffer was booked on April 24 at the Stearns County Jail for investigation of felony theft by swindle.

Arbroath has the details:

Schaeffer went to St. Cloud Hospital on April 20 for treatment and gave the name David Gilmour when he checked in. He claimed to not have any health insurance and was treated and released. After he left, hospital employees had suspicions that he wasn’t really the Pink Floyd singer-guitarist. That suspicion led to the hospital flagging his patient chart in case he returned, hospital spokeswoman Jeanine Nistler said. The next day, “there was some discussion among security staff leading people to believe that he really wasn’t David Gilmour,” Nistler said.

“So our security supervisor pulled up the security camera shots of when this man entered the hospital and compared them to pictures on the Internet of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and determined he was not David Gilmour.”

Schaeffer came back to the hospital on April 24, told hospital staff he was David Gilmour and presented information that showed he had health insurance from Lloyd’s of London. He told hospital staff that Pink Floyd was on tour in Canada and that he stopped in St. Cloud during a break to get medical treatment.

He was seen by Dr. David Covington, an emergency room physician who works for Central Minnesota Emergency Physicians. Covington doubted that Schaeffer’s accent was one that he would expect from Gilmour. A security supervisor then went to the emergency room and saw a police officer who was there on an unrelated manner. The security supervisor told the officer about the Gilmour impersonator and the officer confronted Schaeffer. He then admitted he wasn’t Gilmour and was taken to jail. Schaeffer was later released from jail while police gather evidence to present to the county attorney’s office for possible charges.

I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone who doesn’t have health insurance, and who needs medical treatment, but this is ridiculous on the face of it. Why pick DAVID GILMOUR?

Couldn’t Schaeffer have claimed to be another member of the rock pantheon who he’d be less likely to be caught impersonating? Ringo Starr? Neil Young, maybe? The lead singer from Canned Heat? Billy Joel? Billy Idol??? Or AT LEAST he could have tried a freakin’ British accent?

Shine on you batshit diamond!

 
Taken at UK’s Knebworth Fair in 1976, The Rolling Stones headlined—Paul, Linda, and David probably remembered none of it. Totally worth it for the most epic druggy picture in the universe!

 
In his essential book of collected rock music essays and profiles, The Dark Stuff, writer Nick Kent recounts how famed psychiatrist, R. D. Laing watched an interview tape of Pink Floyd’s genius and drug-addled leader, Syd Barrett and claimed the singer was incurable. Not long after, Kent saw the evidence for himself:

Less than five years earlier, I’d stood transfixed, watching [Syd] in all his retina scorching, dandified splendor as he’d performed with his group the Pink Floyd, silently praying that one day I might be just like him. Now, as he stood before me with his haunted eyes and fractured countenance, I was having second thoughts. I asked him about his current musical project (a short-lived trio called Stars…) as his eyes burned a hole through one of the four walls surrounding us with a stare so ominous it could strip the paint off the bonnet of a brand new car. ‘I had eggs and bacon for breakfast,’ he then intoned solemnly, as if reciting a distantly remembered mantra. I repeated my original question. ‘I’m sorry! I don’t speak French,’ he finally replied.

Perhaps Barrett just wanted to avoid the dandified Kent. Then again, when Kent “rubbed up against the likes of Syd Barrett” he astutley realized:

...these were people who’d gotten what they actually wanted, only to find out it was the last thing on earth they actually needed…

This isn’t to dismiss Barrett’s immense talent or achievements - for one, he took an average band and turned them into something quite incredible. And his importance was such that when he left, his bandmates went on to make music inspired by his absence.

The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story was originally screened in 2001, as part of the BBC’s Omnibus strand as Syd Barrett - Crazy Diamond. The documentary gives a fascinating portrait of Barrett’s brilliant rise and tragic fall through a drug-induced breakdown. Contributions come from Roger Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour, artist Duggie Fields (who describes sharing an apartment with the Crazy Diamond), Robyn Hitchcock, and, of course, archive of Syd Barrett - who, incidentally, watched the doc, when it was first broadcast and enjoyed seeing the archive, though found the music “too loud”.
 

 
Charlie Gilmour, the adopted son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, admitted violent disorder in court today in London, after joining thousands of students demonstrating in London’s Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square last year.

During the riots, Gilmour was seen hanging from a Union Jack flag on the Cenotaph memorial for Britain’s war dead. He was also seen leaping on to the hood of a Jaguar that formed part of a royal escort convoy and throwing a garbage can at the car. Gilmour was one of approximately 100 students who attacked a convoy escorting the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall during last year’s student riots. The Prince and his wife were on their way to the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium theater when the mob surrounded their car shouting “off with their heads,” “Tory scum” and “give us some money.”

The Royal vehicle’s back window was smashed and lime green paint was thrown on the car, although there is no evidence that Gilmour had anything to do with that. He was, however, also photographed attempting to start a fire outside the Supreme Court by lighting a bunch of newspapers on fire.

Gilmour, a 21-year-old Cambridge University student, was told he must serve half of his 16-month jail term behind bars. From The Telegraph:

Shouting slogans such as “you broke the moral law, we are going to break all the laws”, the 21-year-old son of the multi-millionaire pop star went on the rampage during a day of extreme violence in central London.

Video captured by police officers outside the Houses of Parliament showed Gilmour, from Billingshurst, West Sussex, waving a red flag and shouting political slogans. The judge watched one clip in which he was shouted: “Let them eat cake, let them eat cake, they say. We won’t eat cake, we will eat fire, ice and destruction, because we are angry, very f———angry.”

As the clip was shown in court on Thursday, Gilmour sat in the dock giggling and covering his face with his hands in embarrassment.

On another occasion he could be seen urging the crowd to “storm Parliament” and shouting “arson”.

In addition to attacking the Royal cars, he was also part of a mob that smashed the windows at Oxford Street’s Top Shop as staff and customers cowered inside.

What most of the reporting on this matter wants to remind you is that young Mr. Gilmour is the son of a multi-millionaire pop star. Fair enough, we wouldn’t be reading about him if he wasn’t, but from reading this article and some of the others—his swinging from the Cenotaph aside—I couldn’t help feel that his actions a) took guts and b) the students were right.

I don’t think Gilmour should feel like he has to hang his head in shame at all. It’s the job of intelligent young people to behave this way from time to time, if you ask me!

Something that’s often getting left out of this story is that Gilmour’s biological father is none other than anarchist poet, actor, playwright and graffiti polemicist, Heathcote Williams. Williams, who once served as the anarchist “Albion free state” of Frestonia’s ambassador to the UK, is a rabble-rouser of the first rank. His grandmother was a Major in Mao’s Red Army. Rebellion is in this kid’s DNA. Although he and his son are supposed to be estranged, given his own past, surely Williams must feel some paternal pride in his son’s anti-establishment hijinks?

This really happened!

“It was fantastic to be thinking that we were in there making up a piece of music, while the astronauts were standing on the moon. It doesn’t seem conceivable that that would happen on the BBC nowadays.” —David Gilmour of Pink Floyd

No shit! This is amazing!

My moon-landing jam session by David Gilmour

Thank you Chris Campion!