Heard this the other day, and it was a revelation. I had forgotten how wonderfully loose and fluid the Pretty Things were circa Parachute (1970; Rolling Stone's record of the year). It's also a great curio from a particular time and place: Notting Hill, late 60s. The Pretties were hanging with the new hippie bands in the 'hood: with the Pink Fairies, the E. Broughton Band, the Deviants, and Hawkwind. the hippie dream was still alive, but just barely: it was altogether an edgier, angrier, aggressively anti-social crew. But as you can hear here, the Rock was doing just fine. Something in the water or the dope seemed to have made for wonderfully loose, effortlessly expressive playing. This track percolates nicely all the way through: no mean feat, for a seven minute song (I never realized the length till now, which tells you something):
What a great sound! A real amalgam. Jammy, jazzy, punky psychadelic. I can't help but to imagine that this was looted and scavenged from numerous used record stores throughout Seattle in the late eighties. Thank you for the post.
ReplyDeleteyou're welcome, Chazz! I agree; the musical palette here is extremely broad, perhaps more so than on SF Sorrow, the previous record.
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