Still So Pretty

While The Beatles took British pop to the top of the US charts in the '60s, and The Rolling Stones reintroduced Americans to the blues, it was a band called The Pretty Things whose uncompromising stance eventually spawned a whole other stream – garage rock – that inspired everyone from Iggy & The Stooges and The MC5 in the US; The Purple Hearts, The Wild Cherries and The Missing Links here in Australia; right through to the Sex Pistols in the UK. David Bowie covered two Pretty Things songs on his Pin-Ups album, and the band can fairly claim to have recorded the very first, and most credible, concept album, 1967's SF Sorrow. Not bad for a group formed by a guy who actually walked out on the chance of being a Rolling Stone back in 1962 because they were getting too commercial. So here's another UK rock institution celebrating its 50th anniversary.

“Obviously, it's Phil [May, singer and harmonica player] and myself who are the originals in it,” that guitarist, Dick Taylor explains, on the line from his unseasonably rainy home on the Isle Of Wight, “and I'm really delighted to still be doing it because I can't think of anything that is more fun to do,” he laughs. And with lead guitarist Frank Holland, bass player George Perez and drummer Jack Greenwood filling out the line-up, The Pretty Things are still recording, their last studio album being 2007's Balboa Island, and a live record more recently they're releasing on vinyl.

“What we did was we went to the 100 Club in London,” Taylor explains about that live album, “which is where we first had a residency, in 1964, and we played our first [self-titled] album live and used as near as we could original equipment and what have you and recorded it on analogue two-inch tape, so we had to stop halfway though,” he chuckles, “while they changed the reel. Then we're talking about a new studio album. We've done some recording with our current rhythm section who've been with us four or five years now and it's very easy recording with them somehow – they're a very lively pair of lads because they're both, what, 22 now, which is great.”

As to their influence on so many bands then and later, (their first three singles, Rosalyn, Don't Bring Me Down and Honey I Need are all garage rock gems) obviously had no idea of their impact across the pond in the US. “That garage thing in the States, we didn't know we were actually influencing them. We thought, 'Oh yeah, there's some interesting stuff coming out from America.' It was only later we found out that we were kind of one of the favourite influences of people like The MC5 and The Sonics and those type of people.”

While they may have begun as a defiantly purist blues/old school R&B band, The Pretty Things' sound, as did the sound of so many bands at the time, evolved very quickly into something much more original. “Yes, I think so,” Taylor agrees, “although when we play the SF Sorrow stuff, you actually start realising that it does all kind of tie together pretty well. I mean you can try and do different things but you're the same player inside. Certainly for me, I can only play the way I play, and you know, it all kind of fits together more than maybe you or we realised at the time.”