Thank you for the invite and opportunity to collaborate with you, Brad. I know the Pretty Things aren't your cup of tea, but your willingness to listen and dive in to do a post is greatly appreciated. I also thank you for your enthusiasm, positivity, and genuine support.
In the age of the Internet, YouTube, eBay, Discogs, etc. where everything is easily attainable, it is easy to forget or not realize just how hard it was in 1986 to find rare videos, live shows, obscure albums, unreleased tracks/LPs, and even BBC sessions. In 1986, to trade across the country with somebody who had their finger on the pulse of a less familiar '60s British band was privileged gold to me. The videos you link in the post were amongst those rarities I was once sent on a VHS tape. While my friends were into more well-known classic rock, I was boring them with my enthusiasm for The Pretty Things. A couple of them may have seen the light. Most of them just thought I was their weird art friend!
Great collaboration, you two. I love how honest and eloquent you both were (are). This also shows one doesn’t have to agree 100% on everything in order to appreciate what the other is saying. Clearly the band “caught” you two at different times (not just age/background-wise, but just the intricacies of life), so it was interesting to see how the same tunes can provoke such different reactions depending on the specific memories from a certain era and/or the diverging paths your lives may have taken. Great job!
Beautifully done. As May himself said: "We were the only band to get Rolling Stone's "Album of the Year" and NOT sell a million records." To my ears they're the greatest unsung band of the '60s, maybe ever, and were so consistently ahead of their time. For what it's worth, I first heard them through a cover: Plasticland's scorching version of "Alexander." Clearly, they were Electric Banana fans too....
Damn hitting Brad with "Defecting Grey" practicallyright out of the gate? Such an incredible track, but I remember being a Pretties fan for maybe 2-3 years before ever hearing it – and had heard ABOUT it many times before actually finding the song on a Rubble comp – and I kind of feel like I needed that extensive grounding in the band's music and history (thanks from me as well, Mike Stax!) in order to really wrap my own grey matter around what they were doing on that song and why they were doing it.
In related news, I recently found a pretty decent condition US 45 of "Come See Me" for just two bucks, which totally made my day/week/month.
In any case, reading this was a very fun way to begin the day - thanks for cooking it up, gents! Brad, I hope you'll go back to the first Pretty Things LP, where they basically sound like a dirtier and moodier early Stones, and start again from there. They were a band that went through a LOT of changes in just a few years; and even though I love all of Michael's picks here, trying to grok the Pretties from just five songs is kinda like trying to get a bead on Fellini's filmography from a few selected La Dolce Vita and Amarcord scenes.
S.F. Sorrow is certainly one of the best albums of the 60s and blew my mind when a friend gave me a CD reissue a couple of decades ago. Of course, like many others I first heard tell of the Pretties when I got Bowie's Pinups around 1982 - he covers two of their songs. But I never really followed up, except for buying a beat up copy of Silk Torpedo, their rather disappointing 1974 album on Swan Song. The cover was in all those album art anthologies, which is a big part of why I bought it. I still have it and pull it out from time to time, but I think Dick Taylor was sorely missed by then!
Brad, total tangent here, but I'd love to hear a bit more about those tape-trading days! I traded VHS tapes in a similar vein in order to see MMA fights back during the late 90s, and I bet there are a lot of similarities. Maybe Michael could chime in a bit there, too. This would be a really fun piece, I think! (for me, anyway)
Thank you for the invite and opportunity to collaborate with you, Brad. I know the Pretty Things aren't your cup of tea, but your willingness to listen and dive in to do a post is greatly appreciated. I also thank you for your enthusiasm, positivity, and genuine support.
In the age of the Internet, YouTube, eBay, Discogs, etc. where everything is easily attainable, it is easy to forget or not realize just how hard it was in 1986 to find rare videos, live shows, obscure albums, unreleased tracks/LPs, and even BBC sessions. In 1986, to trade across the country with somebody who had their finger on the pulse of a less familiar '60s British band was privileged gold to me. The videos you link in the post were amongst those rarities I was once sent on a VHS tape. While my friends were into more well-known classic rock, I was boring them with my enthusiasm for The Pretty Things. A couple of them may have seen the light. Most of them just thought I was their weird art friend!
Great collaboration, you two. I love how honest and eloquent you both were (are). This also shows one doesn’t have to agree 100% on everything in order to appreciate what the other is saying. Clearly the band “caught” you two at different times (not just age/background-wise, but just the intricacies of life), so it was interesting to see how the same tunes can provoke such different reactions depending on the specific memories from a certain era and/or the diverging paths your lives may have taken. Great job!
Beautifully done. As May himself said: "We were the only band to get Rolling Stone's "Album of the Year" and NOT sell a million records." To my ears they're the greatest unsung band of the '60s, maybe ever, and were so consistently ahead of their time. For what it's worth, I first heard them through a cover: Plasticland's scorching version of "Alexander." Clearly, they were Electric Banana fans too....
Damn hitting Brad with "Defecting Grey" practicallyright out of the gate? Such an incredible track, but I remember being a Pretties fan for maybe 2-3 years before ever hearing it – and had heard ABOUT it many times before actually finding the song on a Rubble comp – and I kind of feel like I needed that extensive grounding in the band's music and history (thanks from me as well, Mike Stax!) in order to really wrap my own grey matter around what they were doing on that song and why they were doing it.
In related news, I recently found a pretty decent condition US 45 of "Come See Me" for just two bucks, which totally made my day/week/month.
In any case, reading this was a very fun way to begin the day - thanks for cooking it up, gents! Brad, I hope you'll go back to the first Pretty Things LP, where they basically sound like a dirtier and moodier early Stones, and start again from there. They were a band that went through a LOT of changes in just a few years; and even though I love all of Michael's picks here, trying to grok the Pretties from just five songs is kinda like trying to get a bead on Fellini's filmography from a few selected La Dolce Vita and Amarcord scenes.
S.F. Sorrow is certainly one of the best albums of the 60s and blew my mind when a friend gave me a CD reissue a couple of decades ago. Of course, like many others I first heard tell of the Pretties when I got Bowie's Pinups around 1982 - he covers two of their songs. But I never really followed up, except for buying a beat up copy of Silk Torpedo, their rather disappointing 1974 album on Swan Song. The cover was in all those album art anthologies, which is a big part of why I bought it. I still have it and pull it out from time to time, but I think Dick Taylor was sorely missed by then!
Brad, total tangent here, but I'd love to hear a bit more about those tape-trading days! I traded VHS tapes in a similar vein in order to see MMA fights back during the late 90s, and I bet there are a lot of similarities. Maybe Michael could chime in a bit there, too. This would be a really fun piece, I think! (for me, anyway)