Jennifer Gentle

You're a couple of scruffy long-haired guys growing up in the laid-back northeastern city of Padova, Italy. Restless and bored, you drink lots of red wine, but the intoxicating grapes fail to transport you to the fairyland of your dreams until the day you come across some old Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett records in the local music shop. The swirly, kaleidoscopic sounds are the swift kick in the head you've been longing for. You see stars and you genuflect. Leaving the mundane world behind, you imagine acid, Ecstasy, and hashish as the body and blood of Syd. You go to church every day. A vision tells you to buy every cool instrument you can get your hands on -- secondhand acoustic guitars, trippy keyboards, a cheapie drum set, toy pianos, xylophones -- and you begin to channel divine pop songs about "Tiny Holes," "Golden Drawings," and "Liquid Coffee." You record your homages to St. Syd in your own home studio. You realize you're beautiful, and you're born again as Jennifer Gentle. And we fall in love with you.