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ratio. Welcome

0:43

to the Ugly Things Podcast. I'm

0:45

your host, Mike Stacks, the editor

0:47

and publisher of Ugly Things Magazine.

0:50

In this episode, we're going to examine

0:52

another musical chapter in the story of

0:54

the pretty things. My

0:56

guest is bass player and songwriter

0:58

Wally Waller, who joined the Pretty

1:00

Things in 1967 and was

1:03

with them through 1971, rejoining in the late 70s and

1:05

again in the 1990s. Today

1:09

though, we're going to focus on just

1:11

one album, Parachute, recorded and

1:13

released in 1970. Their

1:16

psychedelic masterpiece, S.F. Sorrow, had been

1:19

released at the end of 1968,

1:21

but sales had been disappointing. So

1:24

1969 turned out to be a transitional year for

1:26

the band. Founding member Dick

1:29

Taylor left and their only recording

1:31

project that year was an album

1:33

of original songs backing a French

1:35

friend, Philippe Duvage, which was unreleased

1:37

at the time. With Dick

1:39

out of the picture, Wally and singer Phil

1:42

May bonded as the band's primary

1:44

songwriting team. Living together

1:46

at a communal house in Westbourne

1:49

Terrace, London, they wrote the songs

1:51

for Parachute, which, like S.F. Sorrow,

1:53

was recorded at Abbey Road with

1:55

producer Norman Smith. I

1:58

Hope you enjoy our conversation. So

2:17

we're going to start the story and Nineteen Sixty

2:19

Nine And I think it's fair to say this

2:21

is very much a year of transition for the

2:23

pretty Thanks So. Detail. On

2:25

leaves a band that founding member along with

2:27

Phil. And. Twinkly

2:30

The band. So. Tell.

2:32

Me a little bit about these changes and have

2:34

that change things for the pretty things. That.

2:36

I'm he didn't list of a lot of these

2:38

things. He'd been there right for the beginning and

2:40

I think. It. Will earn

2:42

a sex is so greatly. His

2:45

business partner. In

2:48

this. Pretty. Things venture right

2:50

for the beginning. when didn't buy

2:52

a rally was gonna. He

2:54

was in very they badly

2:57

affected us and so. We

3:00

can. We. Got big unit

3:02

in. And the. We.

3:04

Didn't do. Any gym, any

3:07

most recording and sixty nine except.

3:10

The. For Eat the Bugs

3:12

album was. We. Know we

3:14

were. That's when we

3:16

got Synovate Vet was made his

3:18

debut on the on the device

3:21

recordings and he seemed to be

3:23

pretty good. Okay, and I'm. So.

3:26

When. Parachute. Came around we

3:28

were lined up but then. Is

3:31

is a twinkie departure was was

3:33

exactly planned. Sweet. Has other.

3:36

Memories. But this is my. Memories

3:38

of we have: we're on the Isle

3:40

of Wight We did the festival and

3:43

we either assume okay to play on

3:45

the island. Arrow on a one of

3:47

the digs to Ain't Got. A

3:49

set at a few drinks only

3:51

have a was a concern. is

3:53

it all out he was he

3:55

couldn't play as so jones I

3:58

don't sit. On. the ground

4:00

So my recollection is the

4:02

next day Phil fired him. But

4:05

Twink's recollection is that he found out

4:07

because he went off to Portugal for

4:10

a holiday, he found out when he

4:12

came back. But I

4:14

don't know. Well, that's what I recall

4:17

anyway. Skip,

4:19

who'd been kind of AWOL with

4:22

his French girlfriend, he

4:24

was anxious. When

4:26

he heard the drum still was

4:29

vacant, he

4:32

made it pretty clear that he'd like to fill it

4:34

again. So when we started recording

4:36

again, it was like, there's nothing new.

4:41

We were all there like a family that

4:43

we'd been before. We recorded

4:45

all the stuff before with Norman

4:48

and stuff. Skip

4:50

actually started at Sesora

4:53

but bailed out halfway through. Not

4:56

halfway after one or two trucks.

4:59

And it was kind of, we

5:01

were ready there. But what we weren't ready

5:03

for, we didn't have any

5:05

material. All our songs that we had sort

5:10

of lying around were

5:12

used up on the demand thing.

5:15

And we got, as I was saying, we walked

5:17

back into the, almost as we walked back to

5:19

the phone rang and it's Norman saying, they want

5:21

another album. So

5:24

we had to do

5:26

something. I said, well,

5:28

I've booked the studio, I think we had about

5:31

a week before the first session. Norman,

5:34

assuming that we'd be getting, we're all

5:36

revved up, ready to go. But

5:38

we weren't in fact, so Phil and I spent

5:41

quite a lot of time

5:43

together. We didn't know, we wanted to

5:45

do something themed, but not

5:49

so strictly storified

5:51

like Sesora. But

5:53

we didn't want to go completely back to just

5:55

12 A sides and 12 B sides. you

6:00

know, on a record. So we

6:02

started off with the famous

6:05

story now, but Phil was

6:07

saying, what

6:10

you got? I know what you got. So we were

6:12

asking, what are we going

6:14

to do now? So because,

6:16

you know, SF Sorrow

6:19

hadn't actually, thanks

6:21

to EMI, really not

6:24

doing much at all, it

6:26

was one of the best kept secrets in the

6:28

music business. So there was

6:31

no massive sales in

6:33

the beginning. There are some very

6:35

decent figures now eventually, but in the

6:37

beginning, it was pretty, so we never

6:40

thought at any stage, you know, wow, you know,

6:43

how are we going to follow that? So

6:45

anyway, Phil said, I'm writing this

6:47

sort of short story about this

6:50

guy, the hermit, who lives in the city

6:53

of the hermit life, and

6:56

he keeps scrapbooks. And, you

6:58

know, so, and

7:00

he said, I'm thinking about calling

7:03

him the good Mr. Square. So,

7:07

being I mean, I thought I took what a

7:09

great, you know, what a great title, and I

7:11

kind of heard a melody, I rushed back to

7:14

my room in Westbourne, so

7:16

he came running back. And I

7:18

had, you know, we

7:20

had the whole thing down in about 20 minutes,

7:23

the whole thing with not every lyric tied

7:25

up, but kind of everything was, you know,

7:27

it was, it was great. We never really

7:30

usually worked that way. So we

7:32

were we were going, we didn't know where we were going to,

7:34

on parachute, we hadn't

7:36

really, you know, sorted

7:39

out what what we were doing. But we

7:41

come back to each other with bits

7:44

and pieces of songs. And it seemed it seemed

7:46

obvious that we were talking, a, you

7:49

know, about we're writing songs about the

7:51

city and b, about the

7:53

country that was kind of, you know, coming to

7:56

the end of the 60s was a

7:58

lot of burnout, you know, in the 60s. And anecdotally,

8:00

anyway, a lot of people seem

8:03

to be going to the country, getting

8:05

a place in the country to chill out

8:07

a bit, because it was pretty intense. The

8:10

60s in London was, I mean,

8:12

people here were just going cooling down

8:14

a bit. And

8:18

it became obvious that we were writing

8:20

songs either about the country or the

8:22

city. So we decided to have one

8:26

side about city songs and

8:28

another side basically about country

8:30

songs. So not

8:33

country music, but songs

8:35

about the countryside. Well,

8:39

that's how we got

8:41

started, anyway. And the Good Bitter Square was

8:44

a good place. We put our markers on, but

8:46

we were still, at that time,

8:48

we didn't know what we were going to do, really. Right.

8:51

Oh, my God. Let's

8:54

set the scene a

8:57

little bit. You

9:05

mentioned Westbourne Terrace. This was

9:07

where you and Phil were living

9:09

in this sort of big communal

9:11

house. Could

9:14

you sort of describe the place? I know Phil

9:16

was living there with Gala, Gala

9:18

Mitchell, an

9:20

amazing woman. So

9:22

tell me about Westbourne Terrace. Westbourne

9:25

Terrace was a very

9:28

grand terrace of houses

9:31

all on both sides of the road. I

9:34

suppose they were built in the Victorian

9:36

era, maybe before. But they were very,

9:38

very, it was a really nice street

9:41

to live in. And it had parking,

9:44

off-road parking. And they

9:47

were enormous buildings. We had the

9:49

whole of the ground floor and

9:51

basement in Westbourne

9:54

Terrace. And there were

9:56

lots of people, artists and

9:58

people from all. walks of

10:01

life, the actual guy

10:03

who owned the lease was Chike,

10:05

Michael Shafft, I know you've met,

10:09

or maybe you

10:11

didn't meet him anyway. But he had

10:14

a great deal to do with the

10:16

renovation of Covent Garden, which was a

10:20

very grand scheme to get

10:22

involved in, and he did. And

10:26

there were people from TV, people

10:28

from all kinds of, or

10:30

everything somewhere, the arts

10:33

were involved all the time. There was John

10:36

Pierce, who was

10:38

a big mover

10:40

and shaker within, he'd take the trip. He used

10:42

to tailor a lot of that stuff. And

10:45

the people from, I know John Head,

10:48

well, Saturday Night Live,

10:50

I think, was a big show in

10:52

America. Yeah, so

10:56

he was, I don't know how he worked

10:58

from London, but he was doing something for

11:00

them anyway. So, and

11:03

there were lots of, you know, gala of Phil,

11:06

and when a room became available, Phil said,

11:08

you know, why don't you move

11:10

over here? Because, yeah, it was perfect

11:13

for us. We could,

11:15

you know, we could spend

11:17

a lot of time from writing and

11:19

getting, you know, talking about stuff, so

11:22

that's what happened. So

11:24

that was where you started putting together

11:27

the songs for S.S.Sora, I mean, for

11:29

a parachute. And I know

11:31

a big factor in this was that Brian

11:33

Morrison, your manager, had bought a

11:35

Revox tape recorder for you. Yeah,

11:38

he bought two Revoxes, in

11:40

fact, and he gave one to

11:43

the Pink Floyd, and he gave one to us. So,

11:46

I mean, he was a smart guy, you know. He

11:49

realised that's what we needed. I

11:51

didn't, I hadn't realised that's what

11:53

we needed. I mean, it's very

11:55

rudimentary recording. It's a two-track machine,

11:58

so you record. something on

12:00

the first, the left track

12:02

maybe, and then while you're bouncing over

12:04

to the right track, you're recording again,

12:07

something else. And

12:09

then when you've got, so you've

12:11

got two things on the

12:13

right channel, but then if you want to bounce

12:15

those two things back to the

12:17

track one again, I mean,

12:19

every time you do it, it's a critical mix because

12:21

there's no undo. This is, every

12:24

time you go, you can't go

12:26

back. So it's

12:28

terrifying in a way. But then

12:30

you take those two things over the

12:32

track to add something else, those three things

12:34

over to add something else. So it's

12:36

a very, it's not

12:38

like, not what we're used to today, but

12:40

to me it was a miracle. A

12:43

miracle to, I could actually, we

12:46

could make demos. We

12:49

could record more than one thing. I

12:51

mean Phil had a little cassette

12:55

recorder and he liked that. So

12:59

he used to get one thing down and he got an

13:01

idea, he'd put it on his cassette recorder and then we'd

13:04

go to the Reeboks and we'd work through it

13:06

and do stuff. And mostly we,

13:10

the seeds of the ideas came

13:12

independently. Yeah, sometimes we

13:14

work together like Good

13:17

Mr. Square, but usually the seed would start with

13:19

either one of us and we would come back

13:21

into this. And I

13:24

had most of it, what

13:27

technical knowledge there was, was

13:29

mine. But it was

13:31

a bit like the blind leading the blind in the beginning. I

14:02

was pretty rough demoing but

14:05

they had a kind of something about

14:07

them that was, it lacked a good

14:10

dynamic range but it gave

14:12

you a chance to really show what the

14:14

song was and your

14:17

ideas for it. Then you

14:19

would take those into the studio and play those for

14:21

Norman I assume and decide how to complete from there.

14:24

That's it, yeah Norman would listen to

14:26

them and he would pretty much, I

14:28

mean pretty much he

14:30

would, how we'd arranged them,

14:33

this is how they went sometimes he'd make changes.

14:36

But when we got to the studio, Zélie Phil

14:38

and I really knew any of these songs at

14:40

all for the rest of the guys it was

14:42

just, they were walking in you just

14:44

like session men. But

14:47

I mean everybody was really, really

14:49

happy with the material and

14:51

things were sounding really

14:53

great. We're on 8-track now

14:55

which is, wow, I'm

15:00

told Richard to have an 8-track machine because

15:02

everything else we've done before had been on

15:04

4-track. But even

15:06

so on some of the stuff, some of

15:08

the songs we did

15:10

like an 8-track to an 8-track mix into

15:12

the stuff, making some space to put some

15:15

more stuff on. Which room

15:17

were you in at Abbey Road, which studio? Mostly

15:20

in studio 2, occasionally studio 3, but

15:22

mostly studio 2, to me that's the

15:24

holy grail.

15:28

You're walking down the walls to talk

15:30

with you. You can

15:32

feel the vibrations, the stuff that's

15:34

gone on in there, it's just

15:37

unbelievable. You

15:40

can feel it, it has a kind of presence

15:43

in the walls. You

15:45

understand, you've got to

15:47

do something good in there. Yeah, right, it's like

15:49

going into a church or something. Maybe

15:52

we can go through the album track by

15:55

track and tell me what you remember about

15:57

how each of these was created or recorded,

15:59

any particular. memory. The first

16:01

song on the album is Scene 1. Scene

16:54

1. It's a... We

16:56

actually... It was Norman's idea. It's

16:59

our music. He said, look, what you

17:01

want... We all have this. This is

17:03

the city. We all have a

17:06

musical version of a

17:08

city coming to life, waking up in

17:10

the morning. So he said, you

17:13

want to... Why don't you just play a

17:15

riff and we'll... So,

17:18

they all said to me, one of

17:20

the things we'd done a few months

17:22

before was a dual session. We

17:25

did something called... We

17:28

called it Graves of Grey. Graves of Grey,

17:30

yes. Yeah, and there's a riff

17:32

on the... So I said, let's do

17:36

that then. So

17:41

we started playing that then and it just...

17:43

It worked. Everything worked fine. We

17:46

invented new melodies and things

17:48

to sing and the guys

17:50

played along and it was just... It

17:52

was great. So that's Scene 1

17:54

was... That was a great idea to

17:56

have this kind of scene setter. kind

18:00

of prelude to, you know, this is

18:02

a city coming to life. And

18:04

so then the Good Mr

18:07

Square comes after that, I believe. Yeah,

18:09

that kicks into the Good Mr Square.

18:11

So then you're introducing some characters. Yeah.

18:14

You know, then we, the Good

18:16

Mr Square, goes into, she was tall,

18:18

she was high. She

18:30

was tall, but I

18:33

loved you most of the night.

18:38

She was deep, I'm

18:41

the king. She

18:44

was tall, but I loved you

18:47

most of the night. I

18:49

know this guy. They

18:51

were all pretty much the way we had it.

18:54

Or our diamond. Right,

19:01

yeah, these songs were kind of segueing into each

19:03

other. Like, they were all of a piece, you

19:05

know, so it was not separate

19:07

songs. So, you know, we talked

19:09

about the Good Mr Square, let's talk a little bit about,

19:11

she was tall, she was high. And I,

19:13

you know, I think the woman that

19:16

Bill is describing in the lyrics is probably Gala.

19:19

Because, you know, she's FREE and I can't think

19:21

of, you know, she was one of the ultimate

19:24

sort of free-spirited women,

19:26

independent women of that era.

19:29

That describes Gala to a few. Yeah,

19:32

actually, I mean, the lyric, she was tall,

19:34

she was high, that was mine. But

19:36

he took it from there, I mean, there

19:38

was a lot of this stuff. He'd hear

19:40

me sing something and then he'd take it.

19:43

He'd like to take the bat off and

19:45

he'd take it somewhere I'd never thought he

19:47

was going to go to. But, yeah,

19:51

that was, yeah, I'm sure it was Gala.

19:54

A lot of this album, I

19:56

think, is about Gala. She

20:03

was great. She

20:06

was an amazing looking girl.

20:08

She was very unusual. Her beauty was very

20:12

unique and I

20:15

liked her a lot. We got on

20:17

fine. And I think, well,

20:19

a lot of it, there's so

20:21

much all through the album.

20:24

There is this thread of kind of

20:26

tragic romance. I think

20:29

it got drawn that way. It kind of, and not

20:31

so many of the songs repeat the

20:33

same theme. And

20:36

I don't think it gets boring. I

20:39

think we get the

20:41

theme. The theme is there. Phil's

20:43

not one for, he doesn't

20:45

like to make anything too obvious. Unless

20:48

you really knew quite a lot about him,

20:50

you wouldn't have understood maybe some

20:52

of the nuance

20:55

that was in there in the story and the

20:57

lyric, well, not the story. But I

20:59

think Phil and I, we worked

21:02

very intensively together

21:05

and probably, this

21:07

is probably our

21:09

most intensive period of work and we really

21:11

kind of, we're on a roll. And

21:15

then, and then you might pull the

21:18

plug. Well,

21:21

let's move on to the next track or actually it's

21:23

sort of a suite of tracks. One

21:26

of the, really one of the highlights of the

21:28

album of many, In

21:30

the Square, The Lesser and Rain.

21:55

In the Square was the

21:58

room I lived in in Westbourne, When

22:00

I moved in, there was a

22:02

few kind of watercolours and things hanging on the

22:04

wall. One of them

22:07

was, there was a kind of an

22:09

impressionist kind of watercolour

22:12

hanging on the wall. And

22:15

it was of a girl. It

22:18

seemed like a girl running into

22:20

some kind of piazza or

22:23

square or something. It was very,

22:25

a few lines kind of

22:27

give you that. It wasn't really like,

22:29

it wasn't a photographic thing. It was,

22:31

you know, it suggests power of suggestion.

22:33

And she was running in with a

22:35

hoop and bowling it along

22:37

with a stick, the way kids used to

22:40

many, many years ago. So

22:44

I don't know. I started

22:46

singing in the

22:49

square. She came running. I was

22:51

lucky to be there. It

22:54

grew from that. It was

22:56

a small song that didn't want to be, I

22:58

didn't want to expand it. I didn't want to

23:01

look for a middle eight or a chorus

23:05

or, I don't know, it

23:07

was just a small piazza.

23:10

But I ought to take something

23:13

else onto it. So instead of developing

23:15

the song and stretching it out, we

23:17

came up with the letter. She

23:20

wrote me a letter. She

23:28

wrote me a letter.

23:32

All in the sky. My

23:36

living can be saved. I was playing

23:39

artistic guitar most of the time. And

23:41

you couldn't play loud electric stuff were

23:44

you? And so

23:46

it was all current. I was playing, you

23:49

know, Fingers-Dales that

24:00

went down and I didn't

24:03

want to expand that either. So

24:05

I suggested to Phil that we want to

24:08

be a rocker out of the end, you

24:10

know, go into something really and that was rain.

24:12

I mean rain was, you know,

24:15

that was kind of the release coming

24:17

out of a quite controlled, you

24:19

know, pretty little sounds. So a

24:22

bit of rock and roll on the end, so why not?

24:30

Three very different songs. I

24:32

mean the first part in

24:36

the square, I mean it

24:40

sounds very

24:54

much like you've been listening to a lot for the West Coast,

24:57

how many stuff that was happening. Obviously, you know,

25:00

Buffalo Springfield and Crosby Stills and Nash, maybe

25:02

the Beach Boys, you know, that

25:04

with you and Phil and John

25:07

Povey, just your voice is beautifully

25:09

blending on that. It's funny, you

25:11

know, it's great though. I mean

25:13

we're so different.

25:17

John the Angelic Choir boy,

25:19

they've got the best full seto I've

25:22

ever heard and Phil,

25:25

you know, he's a blue singer and

25:29

I don't know, I'm underneath

25:31

that with a bit of usually quite

25:34

rough sounding stuff, you

25:37

know, because Phil would sing

25:39

the line and then John

25:41

would hit the attractive kind of deskant

25:43

on top of that and

25:45

then I've gone left

25:48

there from, you know, ramage around and

25:50

see what hasn't been hit in the

25:52

triads, you know. So what I sing,

25:57

most of the time, is not a very attractive line.

26:00

But when you put it all together, it makes

26:02

up the chords. And

26:05

somehow, it's

26:07

funny how voices blend. It's

26:10

the timbre of the

26:12

voices are very,

26:15

very important. But you can't,

26:17

I mean, there's no way of working it out.

26:20

When people sing together, sometimes it's

26:22

OK. But

26:24

sometimes, for no reason, for no

26:27

apparent reason, it's great. And

26:30

I always felt that I loved

26:32

the sound of our three voices

26:34

singing together. Yeah. It was

26:36

great. I mean, I think it became

26:38

a big feature. Well, it did before.

26:40

And it was already. We had this

26:42

kind of understanding. By the time we

26:45

got to Parachute, it was... Yeah,

26:47

it was all aggressive sorrow, too.

26:49

But Parachute is a huge

26:51

part of that album, as well. So

27:15

from there, the next song is

27:17

his favorite, Grest. This

27:20

is a witch's a rocker, and it's

27:22

about, I guess, a faded movie

27:25

goddess, you know, of the

27:27

silver screen of old, you know, that's on

27:29

the way down. I mean, what are your

27:31

memories of how that song evolved? Well,

27:34

there was one one day we were

27:36

working in the studio, as normal with

27:38

Norman, and he said, listen, I've got

27:40

to go somewhere tomorrow. I'm

27:42

not going to be here, but the studio is booked. So

27:45

why don't you come in and just do

27:48

a bit of rock and roll? Just, you know, just rock

27:51

out. And so, so

27:55

we did feel like we didn't have anything like

27:57

that. Ready. So

27:59

we went up. that night when we got to West

28:30

baby Jane, that's

28:32

the kind of character that was in his

28:34

mind. So we didn't have

28:37

long term

28:41

because, well I don't know,

28:44

maybe we could try no.

28:46

The first idea is every

28:48

time we had

28:50

no time to do anything except get this

28:52

song done because we're playing it in the

28:55

studio. I

29:00

think it's great, everybody chipped in and

29:04

Norman said, look, you just do a bit of rock

29:06

and roll, I'm not going to, I won't over produce

29:08

it or do anything, just a bit of

29:11

raw rock and roll. So we went

29:13

for it, that's it. So

29:15

Norman wasn't even there, so it was just

29:18

you and the engineer? Yeah,

29:20

Tony Clark's brilliant engineer, I

29:22

think the best. I

29:25

think Norman and Tony Clark

29:27

were the A team, as far as I'm

29:29

concerned. When I went on to

29:31

work at Abbey Road, I always

29:33

used to use Tony Clark if ever he was

29:36

available before I booked a session to do something.

29:39

So I very, very

29:41

great regard for him and magic

29:43

with drums. And the drums

29:45

were one of my big things. I

29:47

mean, even on my bass player, I mean, I

29:50

think it's such a

29:52

central part of every rock and

29:54

roll band and the recording. If

29:56

the drums sound right, you're halfway

30:00

Yeah, exactly. So that's

30:02

amazing. The Nisfeh

30:04

regrets, like, you know, one day it didn't

30:06

exist. Within 24

30:08

hours, you created and put down the version

30:10

that we hear today. That's it. That was

30:13

it. That's amazing when that happens, you

30:15

know, that something that didn't exist, and then it

30:17

does. That's

30:20

the case in point. So the next

30:22

song on the album, which is the one that

30:24

closes side one, and I think, you know, a

30:26

really big one in the Pretty Things, Annan,

30:30

is Christ from the Midnight Circus. I

30:33

think that's one, lyrically, that fulfill, you

30:35

know, that's one of his

30:37

greatest lyrics, and I

30:40

know it was one he really liked a lot. I

31:06

think it's fair to say he had a fascination for

31:09

the nightlife and

31:12

stuff that goes on in those red

31:15

light districts. I remember going

31:19

out with Phil once, and we went down to

31:21

the, he chucked me down to the

31:23

docks in Herberg, and we,

31:26

I mean, we were, this is after we played a

31:29

gig, and we had a, we were feeling quite merry,

31:32

had a few beers, and he

31:34

took me into this bar, which he knew, and it

31:36

was, it was such a weird

31:38

place. The

31:41

waitress came up with a stubble

31:44

on her chin, and

31:48

hot nail boots and

31:51

a miniskirt. So it was,

31:53

and Phil said,

31:56

you know, I

31:59

love these places, man. look, he's

32:01

so much going on

32:03

here. He said, listen,

32:06

we're no different from it from these

32:09

people. We sell ourselves every night on

32:12

the stage when

32:14

we perform. He

32:16

said, these people are exactly

32:18

like us. I'm

32:21

not surprised. He

32:23

had a real empathy and

32:26

a fascination with the

32:28

people who lived their life in

32:31

that way. I'm

32:33

not surprised he wrote such a brilliant

32:35

lyric for that. Yeah.

32:38

He really captures the excitement

32:40

but also the danger of

32:43

the night and the sex workers

32:46

and the Johns. The ugliness

32:48

of it and the beauty

32:50

of it is great. The

32:53

music, of course, is complemented. That riff of

32:55

yours, that bass riff that the song goes

32:58

on, is so good. Well,

33:01

I don't know how it

33:04

came out. I

33:06

started playing it and I

33:08

wasn't writing about Bridge Light

33:11

District. But I did say

33:13

when I played it to Phil, one

33:15

of the lines was, hear me, can

33:18

you hear me? I'm telling you

33:20

again. Phil

33:23

heard that and straight

33:25

away you could see he knew

33:27

where to take it. He

33:30

knew what the song was going to be about. I didn't

33:33

mean that. That's all I meant.

33:35

I didn't know what I meant. Nothing. But

33:37

he made it something anyway.

33:41

Yeah. Just an extraordinary song.

33:45

You did it so many different ways over the years. The

33:48

live versions that you did, especially after

33:50

Tolson joined, you

33:53

fired up that song and made it more

33:55

high energy. It was really

33:57

amazing. Yeah. I like it.

34:00

I like

34:02

it and I hear

34:04

you've done a version on Uloons album.

34:07

I can't wait to hear that. I

34:09

thought I'd give you a plug anyway. Thanks

34:11

for that. And

34:14

then Side 2 opens with my

34:17

other favourite song on this album and I know

34:19

the favourite song of a lot of people and

34:21

that's... I

34:33

get more mail about

34:36

Gharath. I

34:59

get more people saying, this

35:02

is my favourite song ever and I

35:05

get more positive vibes all

35:07

the time. People just...

35:09

I love the song, I'm very proud of

35:11

it. And

35:14

Phil once called it... what

35:17

did he call it? Pastoral

35:19

Hymn. Pastoral

35:21

Hymn, that's exactly what he called it. And

35:23

I think, yeah, that just sums it up.

35:28

It was... we're going back to this,

35:30

going to the country again. It's

35:32

kind of a recurring

35:35

theme through Parachute. There's

35:38

some brilliant lines in that too. Yeah,

35:41

yeah, beautiful. And you know, you

35:43

play that acoustic guitar on that

35:45

and that's... Tell us about that

35:47

guitar. That guitar is kind of

35:49

legendary in Pretty Things history.

35:53

Well, in fact, it

35:56

was a very old guitar that I bought

35:58

in Hamburg years ago when I was... playing

36:00

in the Fenman probably. And

36:02

it was beaten up. The

36:04

neck was a bit warped. But

36:07

I had a framus

36:09

pickup, really crappy

36:12

crud pickup that had

36:14

screwed on there with the wire

36:16

hanging down that you put the

36:18

jack plug into. Nothing fancy. It

36:21

wasn't fitted or anything. But

36:24

I wanted to try. We had a

36:26

box 30. And

36:29

so when I started playing this really

36:33

crappy old piece of guitar and

36:35

the crappy old pickup going into the box 30,

36:39

then Tony Clark was hovering around like

36:41

a seer. And he'd just

36:43

chain-putting mics in and out. And

36:48

what he made of that sound was

36:50

incredible. I tried

36:52

on several occasions to get anything something like

36:54

it. As you know, we re-recorded

36:58

the whole of Parachute 4

37:01

XPTs. But the

37:03

sound of that guitar was

37:05

really a unique sound. That

37:09

did do something else. You couldn't match

37:11

it. Well,

37:13

yeah. It's an amazing sound.

37:15

It's so warm and woody

37:17

and just perfect. Yeah.

37:21

I think I owe so much of

37:23

that to Tony Clark. He's

37:25

a brilliant engineer. He did a brilliant

37:28

job on Parachute, a whole of Parachute. But

37:31

that guitar stands up. He

37:34

was fiddling about putting the mic here,

37:36

putting it there, a

37:39

room mic there. He

37:42

got it to sound just perfect. And

37:45

the guitar was so awful. I

37:48

don't know. It was really hard to keep it

37:50

in tune. When you

37:52

started going up the fretboard,

37:54

you winced a bit sometimes. But anyway,

37:56

I don't know. It sounds brilliant. and

38:00

you've still got it? No, unfortunately

38:03

not. That one bit the

38:05

dust. I've got my original

38:07

guitar that

38:10

I did so much, which I actually

38:12

put that song parachute in places as

38:14

well. That's my,

38:17

wait I'll show you. This

38:23

is the original. This is my original

38:28

guitar. My father bought me when I was

38:31

about 13. I

38:36

won't try to play you anything. That's

38:39

the guitar that we've seen in

38:41

pictures of you and Bill when

38:44

you're still teenagers. Yeah, yeah, that's

38:46

the one. Yeah, I still

38:48

have that. It's been

38:50

beaten up and I dragged it

38:52

around various abodes

38:54

of mine. Finally,

38:59

by the time I got to parachute,

39:02

I thought, actually you see something quite

39:04

precious. It's not a loud guitar, but

39:06

when you're recording, you mic things up

39:08

properly, you can make them sound good.

39:11

That was on in the square,

39:14

that guitar. It's

39:20

actually on Defectin Grey as

39:22

well. There's a drone at the

39:25

beginning. Yeah.

39:31

Well, I tuned every, I think we

39:33

played it in B, I think. Then

39:35

I tuned every string down to B, and

39:39

then I put a bit of tape

39:41

around the top of the nut so

39:43

that when I knocked it against

39:46

the wall, and it was a

39:48

really nice mic close to it, you've got

39:50

this enormous booming sound. And

39:54

yeah, that was that. So that was my

39:56

little baby. Yeah. The

39:59

next song on the album is... is one that you sing lead

40:01

on. You sing lead on several songs on this

40:03

album and you know obviously there

40:05

was no ego involved

40:07

with you know Phil that sometimes just say

40:10

you sing this one Wally right? Is that kind of

40:12

how it worked? Yeah that is.

40:14

I mean you know he maybe try

40:17

it but maybe it's not my song

40:19

man just

40:21

joining you do it. So

40:24

I mean there was no egos with

40:26

Phil. He's always very generous.

40:30

I mean I like singing but you

40:32

know I'm not the lead singer in the

40:34

band and that's his job and I have

40:37

I wouldn't say that I'm gonna sing this

40:39

one. I'd have to be invited and

40:43

he did. Skip Allen

40:46

always wanted to have his voice

40:48

on a record but you

40:51

know so he found a way of

40:53

counting in and letting

40:57

it stretch right over the first bar

40:59

of the song so it couldn't be

41:01

erased. That was it. He finally got

41:04

his wish to have his

41:07

voice on a

41:09

record. It's

41:16

a part of the song now I love that.

41:19

Yeah it is. So

41:21

we couldn't be try to keep it up there. One,

41:24

two, three. It's

41:27

Always Been You. You're

41:33

amazing. Tell

41:39

me about Sickle

41:41

Clouds. This

41:52

was inspired by the

41:54

movie Easy Rider. Do you remember when you

41:57

saw that movie? Did you see that with Phil?

42:00

I think I saw it with Phil, we both

42:02

saw it about the same time. This

42:05

is 1969, this is late

42:07

69, coming up and we're

42:09

working on parachute and

42:11

this seems like Phil

42:14

says, let's write it. I

42:17

started, I think the first lyric I had

42:19

was, down by the river, by

42:23

didn't say, then he said,

42:27

okay, this is going to be great for an

42:30

easy rider. About

42:33

the easy rider, so easy rider

42:35

was kind of the movie of

42:38

the day of the year. A

42:41

lot of people, of our

42:43

generation anyway, thought it was

42:45

a great movie. So it was

42:47

kind of a weird format and

42:51

it was basically

42:53

just lots of

42:55

rhythm breaks. And

42:57

Phil did some good interesting stuff on

43:00

their teeth. There's

43:03

Knightry Frane that he

43:05

plays and some

43:08

good solo work too. Is

43:11

that the one where Norman did

43:13

a thing for, no, maybe

43:16

that was Christ from the Midnight Circus where

43:18

he does a kind of a, he

43:20

sings through a Leslie covenant. Oh

43:23

no, that's Christ from the Midnight

43:25

Circus. Oh right, okay. Yeah,

43:28

that's a scary sound.

43:38

I think Norman and Tony

43:41

Clark and the others, they got together and we

43:44

tried to get charged out of it but it wasn't

43:46

kind of, it wasn't

43:48

dirty enough, it didn't feel right, it wasn't quite

43:52

sitting. So Norman said, what

43:55

about if I do a voice solo? put

44:00

it through a Leslie cabinet and disguise it.

44:03

So he had a quick chat with Tony

44:05

Clarke and they set up this thing

44:08

and so Norman did

44:10

it. So that's Norman. It's

44:13

a strange, strange sound. Very

44:15

unsettling. So

44:18

after Sickle Clowes, the next song on the

44:20

album is She's a Lover. Do

44:30

you remember I? We're

44:42

going back to the same

44:44

thing of unrequited love for

44:46

what it is. It's,

44:49

you know, I think there was

44:51

some very traumatic

44:54

dramas, fulfill and

44:57

we didn't, I don't know, I

44:59

didn't go to, I didn't discuss it within much.

45:01

It was, it was kind

45:04

of, you know, it's

45:06

very personal and I, not something I really

45:08

wanted to ask him of it. But I

45:10

kind of, I kind of knew it, that

45:12

happens quite a lot of the time. I, I

45:15

knew what was going on

45:17

in Fells Life most of the time and

45:20

quite a few times we would songs

45:23

right from the beginning, you know,

45:26

and that was the first song we

45:28

wrote. That was a love song and

45:32

I kind of knew who it was about. We

45:34

never talked about it and we, you know, that's just

45:36

the way we, I mean, you know,

45:38

we understood that people needed space. So

45:42

I, I

45:44

knew I was very sympathetic and I was, I

45:47

was right in there with him. And,

45:51

but we didn't ever discuss things like that. No

45:54

personal stuff. Yeah, I found

45:56

that talking to everybody that we never talked, you

45:58

know, everyone says the same thing. John Povey told

46:01

me the same thing and Dick too. Never

46:03

really talked about the personal

46:05

stuff. Now we know that this

46:08

was, Gail and

46:10

Phil were partying and a lot

46:12

of that is in parachute. A

46:16

lot of it. Those emotions can produce

46:18

great work. The breakups seem to

46:26

produce some of the best love songs. Yeah,

46:29

it's true. If everything is drama and tragedy

46:33

which actually pulls out

46:36

the music and the lyric, the

46:40

music is very, it's important

46:42

that it's in the

46:44

right area. The music says

46:47

what the words are saying

46:49

anyway. So it's not

46:51

just, no, they're from lyrics. It's

46:53

kind of a whole, a very

46:56

integrated thing. All the stuff

46:58

Phil and I was very,

47:01

it was quite involved. There was a lot of

47:03

emotion and we

47:05

never set out with an idea of kind

47:08

of doing something that we thought might be popular.

47:12

We just had

47:14

a film in particular, an

47:16

artistic event when

47:18

he would, I could almost see him

47:21

shrink, visibly shrink if anybody

47:23

suggested doing anything popular.

47:26

Give me the garlic.

47:28

Yeah, so if ever

47:39

I chod into

47:42

that area, he'd still move me along.

47:45

Yeah, that might

47:47

fail. Whatever was that. No, I

47:52

mean, I think one of

47:54

the reasons that we are

47:56

remembered so much by so

47:58

many people now After

48:01

all, this time, it's because we

48:03

didn't have any big anthemic hits. People

48:08

have got to dig to find it. Most

48:13

people, you say, could you hum

48:15

grass or something? What?

48:21

No, of course not. It's

48:24

very quirky, odd

48:27

stuff. And that's, I

48:29

think, something Phil picked up in

48:32

art school. And he didn't

48:34

want to – he wanted

48:37

to be admired for his art, but he didn't

48:39

want it to be too – I don't

48:42

know what's the word – popular, I guess.

48:45

He wanted to be on the esoteric side

48:47

of everything. He didn't want to be –

48:49

so, in fact, that's why I think we have had such a cult issue.

48:57

A cult-ish kind of following.

49:02

Many people who may have heard –

49:04

quite a lot of people have heard about these pretty things, but

49:07

not many people could hum one of our songs. You

49:11

can't see a guy walking along

49:13

your road quietly whistling

49:15

tries from the midnight shelter. Maybe

49:18

me. I

49:24

remember there was an occasion

49:26

when we did

49:30

one of the original – not podcast

49:33

– over

49:35

the internet, netcast. And

49:39

we were doing it from Abbey

49:41

Road in 1998. And

49:45

because somebody was in its infancy,

49:47

and nobody knew how whatsoever, lots

49:49

of people came in and it was the whole

49:51

thing. It overloaded

49:54

all – any kind of system, the whole

49:56

thing froze. Nobody saw

49:58

anything. We all

50:00

terribly disappointed that nobody saw the

50:02

thing. I

50:05

thought some of it before

50:07

it all kind of crashed. Oh,

50:10

right. Well, that's good.

50:12

But anyway, so I was walking out and

50:15

the guy on the door, the

50:18

doorman, the security guy, I

50:20

walked out and he

50:24

was humming something like, she said

50:26

good morning or something. And

50:28

I thought, yeah,

50:32

I don't mind the

50:34

internet. I'm

50:36

settled for that. This

50:40

guy sits at the front taking

50:43

care of nobody strange comes in

50:45

who shouldn't. And

50:47

he was singing. He'd heard that on the

50:49

broadcast, I guess, and he was humming it.

50:51

So there you go. That's

50:56

not better than the internet. Well,

50:59

I think like what you were saying earlier, what

51:02

was good that you didn't have

51:04

really any huge hits was

51:06

that you didn't become a prisoner of that

51:08

where a lot of the bands from that

51:10

era, they kind of ended up

51:13

as an oldies act where they had to perform

51:15

their hits. That

51:18

never happened to the pretty things. You had that

51:20

longevity and it enabled the band to keep

51:22

changing and growing. They

51:24

weren't shackled to one thing. No,

51:27

I mean, it's,

51:30

you know, it must be awful to be

51:32

a kind of a jukebox

51:34

for people wanting to hear the old

51:36

stuff. And I can perfectly understand why

51:39

people want to hear the old hits

51:41

from bands that have had, you know,

51:44

I've been there as an audience

51:47

member and thought, well, why don't they play, you

51:49

know, but it

51:52

didn't happen really. Nobody was shouting

51:54

out during our gigs, you know,

51:56

play Rosalind. Nobody

52:02

said anything like that. So

52:05

they expected us to be, we were

52:07

always bringing new material in.

52:09

You know, even once

52:12

we'd recorded something, we'd want to get

52:14

it in as soon as possible. You

52:16

know, because people like things when they've

52:18

heard it on a record and it's kind of

52:21

settled into the, they can imbibe it

52:23

properly. But when

52:25

you just hit them, bang, out

52:29

of the blue and they've never heard it before,

52:32

that's a good test. That's a

52:34

pretty good litmus for, you know,

52:36

if it's a good song or not. Going

53:06

back to the album, the last couple of

53:08

tracks, What's the Use? It's a

53:11

really beautiful song and I hear a lot

53:13

of the birds in this,

53:15

you know, it's got, it's a 12 string,

53:17

right? I'm assuming. I think

53:19

so, yeah, I do. I

53:21

can't, my memory's a bit... It's got

53:24

this chime in kind of 12 string

53:26

sound and then the beautiful three

53:28

part harmonies. Yeah, I always

53:31

thought the song was over

53:33

too quickly. I always thought it was a much better

53:35

song that we should have been longer. But

53:38

you know, it's just, I tried

53:41

it in various great guises since

53:43

then and expanded it tremendously. But

53:45

it was, to be short and

53:48

sweet like that was quite a

53:50

nice piano intro by Feng Chion.

53:54

The harmonies, it's just great to

53:56

sing with the guys, Feng Chion, Al

54:00

famous three parts, just the one part now,

54:02

I'm afraid. But

54:05

I remember them with such fondness,

54:08

such incredible guys. I mean, Phil,

54:10

as you know, I grew up,

54:13

obviously, Phil, since the age before,

54:15

in the same street. And

54:17

John lived maybe 200 yards

54:20

away. So this is, I mean,

54:23

it's an incredible thing to, you know,

54:25

that we could

54:27

comb the country, you know,

54:30

with auditions of thousands of

54:32

people beating the door down,

54:34

trying to, you know, this is the real,

54:36

this is the organic band

54:39

that, and Dick was just up the

54:41

road, not too far away, with Marla,

54:44

so it was a

54:46

really kind of organic thing.

54:48

And John Stax was

54:50

my friend before he was Phil's

54:53

friend. I introduced him to Phil,

54:55

and he used

54:58

to sit in classes at art

55:00

school, I think. And

55:02

so anyway, he got the gig as a bass

55:04

player, because I was already in a band.

55:06

Right. But

55:08

anyway, we finally got it

55:11

back together. And we didn't, you

55:13

know, run auditions. It's always

55:16

been a very strange thing when we've had to

55:18

replace somebody, and you've got an audition, it's

55:21

kind of, the

55:23

musical ability sort

55:25

of comes second. When we're, you

55:27

know, it's like, do we

55:29

like this person? Does he

55:31

feel like, you know, that was, obviously,

55:35

it had to have some musical

55:37

ability, but that wasn't kind of,

55:39

that wasn't the paramount thing that

55:41

we were looking for. We wanted

55:44

it to feel like, you

55:46

know, a family. Yeah, Phil always talked

55:48

about that. And yeah, that's what he

55:51

always did. Yeah. And

55:54

it's a very wise move, because you've got to spend

55:56

a lot of time with people when

55:58

you're in a band. So you better. life

56:00

being around. Yeah, we're all

56:03

wasn't sweetness and light all the

56:05

time but this is

56:07

a rock and roll band remember. But

56:10

at the end of the day I mean we

56:12

had what we have with unbelievable

56:16

humor and camaraderie

56:18

and rapport is

56:22

unmatchable. I

56:25

can't describe it but I can't imagine how I

56:28

mean we were such a kind of disparate

56:30

bunch of characters but somehow you know

56:32

it all works you know. I

56:35

was talking to somebody the other day you know and

56:37

I think one of one of the things

56:40

that I think is unique about the pretty

56:42

things none of us had a brother.

56:45

Maybe we're all looking for the brother. I

56:47

mean I'm talking you know

56:49

even you're

56:52

part of the family Mike you haven't got

56:55

a brother. Mark hasn't got a brother. Frank

56:57

hasn't got a brother. John hasn't

56:59

got a brother. I haven't got a brother. Dick

57:02

hasn't got a brother. You can go right through.

57:04

I mean it's got to be

57:06

more than a coincidence. I

57:08

mean but maybe we're looking for

57:10

this brotherhood that we never had. But

57:17

anyway it's just a weird thought

57:19

I had the other day and it seems

57:21

to you and Brian Morrison didn't have a

57:23

brother. I mean you

57:26

can Norman Smith didn't have a brother. I

57:28

mean come on it's just too weird.

57:30

Wow yeah

57:34

you've given me something to work with in the book there now

57:36

I got a whole other theme. ...the

58:01

song made with a

58:04

hesitate and two

58:07

hearts that sing...

58:15

Finishing up the album, I mean, you

58:17

know, here's another, I think, you could

58:20

describe this as a pastoral hymn...

58:23

...Parachute, the title track of the

58:25

album. Which is a very, very

58:27

different... ...you know, it's not even

58:29

really, you know, rock

58:32

music per se... ...it's almost sort

58:34

of a classical vocal group piece.

58:38

It's a piece of art. It's wonderful. What's

58:52

your memory of that? I'm

58:54

not quite sure how it came

58:57

about, but it's Norman's song. Norman's

58:59

not song, but it's music.

59:01

Rumour has it that he offered it

59:04

to the Beatles when he was an

59:06

engineer. And there

59:08

was some kind of... I

59:11

mean, I think they almost did it, but then they

59:14

said that somebody had to... ...they

59:16

had another... a Ringo song

59:18

had to go in there. I

59:21

mean, somebody had forgotten to give Ringo a

59:23

song. So anyway,

59:25

it didn't get done. This is what I

59:27

hear. And I heard it from

59:29

John. And John used to spend... He

59:32

used to go off playing

59:34

golf with Norman. So

59:36

they, you know, this is what he told

59:39

to John anyway. So

59:42

he had this piece of music which

59:46

had been kind of... He

59:48

regurgitated it in a way that Phil

59:50

could write some lyrics to. And

59:53

Phil wrote some brilliant lyrics

59:56

about the Spires, Rides,

59:58

Harbins... sky, lacerate

1:00:03

warmer skies. It's

1:00:06

so film-made. Describing

1:00:09

a city again. Yeah, that

1:00:11

was actually the scene one. The

1:00:15

parachute is the white ice towers

1:00:17

slow dissolving. The sea. The

1:00:19

sea. The savage moon. Iron

1:00:22

cities soon to rust. Yeah, and it's

1:00:24

all about the cities kind of crumbling

1:00:26

and the population leaning towards

1:00:28

the oceans. Oh, yeah. Yes, it's

1:00:32

really, it's like a

1:00:34

painting, you know, come to life, you

1:00:36

know, and it's really something. And

1:00:38

those harmonies, oh my God, and is that all I think

1:00:41

John Bobi did? Yeah, we were doing

1:00:43

it as a three piece, but

1:00:46

Norman thought that

1:00:49

it appeared with just one voice, and

1:00:51

Bobi had the range. So

1:00:54

I think pretty, because there was a lot of tracks and

1:00:57

vocals, and we were only working on each track. I'm

1:00:59

not sure how we did it. But I

1:01:01

think it was John. I think it

1:01:03

was John. I don't

1:01:06

believe we, Phil and I, did anything

1:01:08

on that. When we were doing it,

1:01:10

when we were in the studio, we were all

1:01:12

trying it as a three piece. It

1:01:14

wasn't really happening. And

1:01:18

John was itching. He

1:01:21

liked the idea of him

1:01:23

singing it all. Anyway,

1:01:25

there's never been any kind of big ego

1:01:27

stuff with us. It's just,

1:01:30

if that works, it works. And

1:01:32

it does. I'm very happy. And

1:01:36

the piano on that, is that Norman or is that

1:01:38

John, do you remember? I think

1:01:40

that's Norman. It's a very

1:01:42

jazzy thing. It's very jazzy. It

1:01:45

sounds different from John's style. Gudily

1:01:48

dang, gudily dang, and all that kind of. Yeah,

1:01:50

I think it was Norman. And

1:01:52

it's a very beautiful chord

1:01:54

progression. And you think that

1:01:57

you've come to the end of it, and it goes on. developing.

1:02:01

I think it was

1:02:04

a fishing end to

1:02:06

the album. They couldn't

1:02:08

find an oscillator. They couldn't

1:02:10

find an oscillator that would do the whole

1:02:13

range. Probably so they had to get two

1:02:15

oscillators when they do

1:02:17

it. It goes halfway and you can listen.

1:02:20

The other one takes over. It's

1:02:23

got it on two

1:02:25

faders. If you listen

1:02:28

hard, you can hear when the

1:02:30

first oscillator takes it so far,

1:02:34

another oscillator takes over. It

1:02:37

took a lot of doing swapping it just the right

1:02:39

time with the faders. There

1:02:41

are real bits of EMI kit. Everything

1:02:44

they make is like a brick watch

1:02:46

it out. When

1:02:49

they build a desk, it's like

1:02:51

a Sherman tank. These

1:02:57

oscillators are saying huge boxes like this

1:02:59

and a great big dial on the

1:03:01

top. All

1:03:06

the boffins, they were great. I

1:03:08

loved them. Within

1:03:10

all their downtime, they're always inventing

1:03:12

some weird thing that will make

1:03:14

some incredible sound. Yeah,

1:03:18

I know they were doing that a lot with SF-SARRA. They

1:03:20

had to do this for the end of the

1:03:22

parachute album. Let's talk about the

1:03:25

B-side of Good Mr. Square was a

1:03:27

single and the B-side was not

1:03:30

on parachute but it's another fabulous song

1:03:32

called Blue Surge Blues. That

1:03:36

was basically that with John's. He

1:03:39

came in with the idea anyway. I

1:04:02

always thought it was a good time. I liked it. We didn't

1:04:05

play it much but I thought we should have done it. Yeah,

1:04:07

I mean I don't think it wouldn't have fit

1:04:10

into the narrative of Parachute because it was a

1:04:12

separate story altogether. Yeah,

1:04:15

I think I can say it

1:04:19

now. One Christmas, Phil

1:04:22

bought a Christmas present for John

1:04:24

Povey. It was wrapped

1:04:27

up in silver paper. Well,

1:04:30

you can guess what it was. Oh yeah,

1:04:32

John told me about that. I think

1:04:35

John was an obvious target for the

1:04:37

police walking down the street. Yeah, yeah.

1:04:40

Six foot five with like this bushy

1:04:42

afro and bright yellow trousers or whatever

1:04:45

and lovely around his neck. So they

1:04:47

pulled him over and of course he

1:04:49

had a big lump of hash. Yeah,

1:04:52

Phil had just given him a Christmas

1:04:55

present. So I

1:04:57

think that's where

1:04:59

that song sprang

1:05:02

from. He got a song

1:05:04

out of it. I think he got fined but he

1:05:06

actually got a great song out of it. Yeah. Right

1:05:11

when the album was completed, Vic Unit

1:05:13

left the group. What

1:05:15

was the circumstances of that? I

1:05:18

had my head so deeply into what was

1:05:20

going on with Alan.

1:05:23

Vic was obviously quite a

1:05:26

needy character. You know,

1:05:28

sometimes I wake up in West

1:05:32

Bontorest and I'd kind

1:05:34

of raise my head and look in the armchair.

1:05:36

On one side of the room,

1:05:39

there was Vic sitting there. And

1:05:41

this happened more than once. I don't

1:05:44

know what he needed but it was

1:05:46

quite strange for me. And

1:05:49

he didn't know. Out

1:05:51

of nowhere, he said that

1:05:54

I'm leaving the band. I

1:05:56

guess he'd had the problems

1:05:58

that I hadn't seen. My

1:06:02

focus was so deeply

1:06:04

into what we were doing on Parachute that

1:06:06

I hadn't seen anything. I

1:06:10

was there on almost

1:06:12

everything. I played a

1:06:14

lot of the guitar parts on

1:06:16

Parachute because I knew exactly how I, you know, what

1:06:19

do I do, teach Vic? And

1:06:21

maybe, I don't know. But there didn't seem to

1:06:23

be any point. I mean, I was, you know,

1:06:25

I could do that. What

1:06:28

I needed, what we needed from Vic was kind

1:06:30

of the filigree, the stuff on top, the kind

1:06:32

of stuff. So

1:06:34

he was sitting around quite often, not doing

1:06:36

a lot. And maybe,

1:06:38

I don't know, I don't know what happened.

1:06:41

But I've never seen him since

1:06:43

he left the band. And...

1:06:47

He never became family. Well,

1:06:51

no, I think we all

1:06:53

felt that he was okay. We were

1:06:56

family, but he didn't know. He didn't kind

1:06:58

of... When

1:07:01

he left, it seems obvious that it

1:07:03

wasn't that. It

1:07:06

was something else. And

1:07:08

I just feel that maybe if I'd been a

1:07:11

little more sensitive, a little more

1:07:14

attentive, maybe that wouldn't have

1:07:16

happened. But if that hadn't happened,

1:07:19

there's so much we

1:07:21

would have missed anyway. So I

1:07:23

love Vic, brilliant guitar player. But,

1:07:26

you know, same I can say about Pete.

1:07:28

And if Vic hadn't left,

1:07:30

we wouldn't have had, you know, Tolson's

1:07:32

amazing contribution to the

1:07:34

Pretty Things. So,

1:07:36

you know, when Pete joined, you

1:07:38

had these two fabulous

1:07:41

singles that came after Parachute.

1:07:44

And before the band kind of... before you

1:07:46

left the band. So let's just go through

1:07:48

those real quick. The first one was October

1:07:50

26. And again,

1:07:52

you sing the lead vocal on this one. I'm

1:08:01

not a human being.

1:08:08

I'm a human being.

1:08:13

I'm

1:08:17

a human being. I'm

1:08:23

a human being. Yeah,

1:08:31

it was a bad time for Phil Vigo, I think.

1:08:36

I think Norman wasn't

1:08:38

very... He liked what I say. It

1:08:47

was kind of mostly my song anyway. And

1:08:50

Phil didn't want to sing it anyway. But

1:08:54

we had the harmonies there.

1:08:57

I think that's the first time

1:08:59

Pete had been in

1:09:01

a proper recording studio. And

1:09:05

you'd never get it from... What

1:09:09

a solo, yeah. He

1:09:12

never, ever overawed.

1:09:16

He was 18, 19 then. He

1:09:20

played with the maturity of 50, 60 year old

1:09:22

man. And

1:09:25

of course the B-side was Summertime,

1:09:27

was that? The B-side of that one was

1:09:29

Cold Stone. Oh, Cold Stone, that

1:09:31

was a great... That was a lot of Pete's songs.

1:09:46

I'm sorry.

1:09:51

I'm sorry. When

1:09:53

the walls are falling, I

1:09:56

bet you are free. That

1:10:02

was a really good, a great

1:10:04

rip and way it all fits together. Yeah.

1:10:07

It was great. I've got a

1:10:09

demo we made of that somewhere

1:10:12

which was pretty good. I

1:10:14

had a Philippe

1:10:17

de Barge when he came over once.

1:10:20

He bought Phil and I presents all the time and

1:10:22

he bought this big kind of silver

1:10:24

ash tray with it. It had a lid and

1:10:29

when I made my demo on the Reeboks

1:10:31

I was doing this for an eye. When

1:10:36

we, at Abbey Road, Norman

1:10:38

loved the sound of it. He said, but

1:10:41

we couldn't get the same sound out of the high hat. It was supposed

1:10:43

to be a high hat. The roadie

1:10:45

was dispatched down to

1:10:48

Westbourne Terrace to pick up my tin

1:10:50

ash tray and we came back

1:10:53

and that's what's gone on to the

1:10:56

final recording because

1:10:59

he liked it so much on our demo. It was

1:11:01

one of those ones with the sort of spring-loaded top

1:11:04

where you pushed it down and it

1:11:06

kind of,

1:11:08

yeah, a little lid opened and all the ash dropped.

1:11:12

It was probably

1:11:14

about this round and

1:11:18

there was a circular just with a hole in

1:11:20

the middle and inside there was another piece that

1:11:22

came out which was like a kind of a

1:11:24

funnel. I

1:11:27

think you put your cigarette down in

1:11:30

the middle at the end. It

1:11:32

smelled horrible in that sense. I

1:11:35

felt like it anyway. I'm

1:11:38

sure he got a lot of use out of it. The

1:11:44

roadie was dispatched and came

1:11:46

back with my tin ash tray. It

1:11:49

wasn't tin, it was chrome

1:11:51

plated, something or other. But

1:11:53

it was on the record. single

1:12:00

which I think was a thing that was happening in

1:12:02

sort of 1970 and 71 when

1:12:05

they put not four not two but

1:12:07

three songs one a side two

1:12:09

on the yeah and this was stone-hearted

1:12:11

mama and again Norman had you

1:12:14

singing yeah

1:12:39

it's one of my most

1:12:42

favorite I hate it

1:12:44

I was trying to I don't know we're

1:12:47

coming to the end S.S.

1:12:49

Sorrow hadn't you know lit up in bright

1:12:51

lights anywhere

1:12:54

a parachute was going the same way we

1:12:58

had very little support for me but

1:13:01

I don't know maybe I was

1:13:03

reaching into some kind of

1:13:05

place which we didn't belong the

1:13:08

kind of place commercial yeah like a

1:13:10

yeah I think this is

1:13:14

this is Phil was I

1:13:17

don't think he was very happy about it and

1:13:19

I wasn't actually but I look but even at

1:13:21

the time it wasn't yeah it's

1:13:23

not really good pretty things so

1:13:26

it's and it didn't do anything we

1:13:28

might even you know didn't do I think the B

1:13:31

side so much I

1:13:33

mean is we spent

1:13:35

like we always did we would book

1:13:37

four days to make a single and

1:13:40

then we spent like the first three

1:13:42

and a half days you know manicuring

1:13:44

the a side doing and then what

1:13:47

about the B side so and

1:13:49

that because you know Norman like

1:13:52

to overlay our things and do it

1:13:54

but we never actually played like a

1:13:56

band on most of our recordings they

1:13:58

were you know put together

1:14:01

in the studio but with Summertime,

1:14:03

you know, there's clocks running down

1:14:05

and we've got to get something. Well,

1:14:08

I've heard Pete and Phil

1:14:11

huddling together around the

1:14:13

studio while we were mixing

1:14:15

the A-side. And the

1:14:18

other guys got down, they skipped

1:14:20

putting his drums up and they were running

1:14:22

through something. And I was

1:14:24

always kind of there with Norman mixing

1:14:26

things. So when I walked down the stairs

1:14:28

to the studio too, they

1:14:31

were already playing. They could hear the

1:14:33

song without a bass. But it sounded

1:14:35

pretty good but it needed

1:14:37

some relief. I said to you, what

1:14:39

we really, it needs a bridge. He

1:14:43

said, Phil said, like what? So

1:14:47

I said, you know,

1:14:49

count the bluebirds. So

1:14:52

I said, that's it, well do that then. He

1:14:55

said, you sing it, you sing

1:14:57

that bit. And so that was

1:14:59

it. That was it. So

1:15:01

that was the whole band

1:15:04

playing. I think

1:15:06

we opened up a few bits and pieces. But

1:15:08

it was basically live in the studio. And

1:15:14

there wasn't a bridge when I was walking

1:15:16

down the stairs and 20 minutes later it

1:15:18

was in the can. Yeah. Yeah.

1:15:21

It's one of my favorites from that era that's

1:15:23

really great. And I think it's John you hear

1:15:25

kind of like whoop, you know, with

1:15:28

joy sort of at the end like yes, you

1:15:30

know. Yeah, it is, yeah. Like

1:15:33

totally, like you know, yeah, this is it.

1:15:36

This is the take and this is a

1:15:38

good one. Yeah, it's good. I mean, we

1:15:41

didn't do very many takes. It was pretty,

1:15:44

perhaps if there had been more time,

1:15:46

people might have found a reason

1:15:48

to do another one. It

1:15:51

sounded okay, everything. Everything sounded

1:15:53

pretty good. So that was it. And then

1:15:55

Phil said, I've got another song. Circus

1:16:00

Mine, another brilliant song.

1:16:03

And so it was just Pete

1:16:05

and Phil. Pete playing the guitar

1:16:08

and Phil singing. I think he

1:16:10

played his guitar through a Leslie cabinet. And

1:16:15

Sean and I chipped him with a few ooze and

1:16:17

aunts. And hey, Presto, then

1:16:19

we can go home. At

1:16:22

the end of about four or five in the morning. As

1:16:34

you burrow, there's

1:16:37

one thing left. With

1:16:41

your serious bias, you

1:16:45

really said no. So

1:16:49

Phil came up with that one

1:16:51

pretty much complete Circus Mine. Yeah,

1:16:53

it seemed to have been... I

1:16:58

didn't do much on that at

1:17:00

all. But I'd

1:17:03

never heard it before until he played it.

1:17:05

They played it in the studio, Phil and

1:17:07

Pete. Phil didn't play much guitar, so he

1:17:09

could just play a few chords. Oh,

1:17:12

I know, yeah. And it's a

1:17:14

very soulful song. It's his farewell

1:17:16

song to Gayla. Yeah, he told

1:17:19

me that. That was all

1:17:21

about Gayla. And it's really

1:17:23

sad you could hear his voice kind of crack in

1:17:26

it when he's singing. It's beautiful. Yeah,

1:17:28

it's the same story I

1:17:30

kind of knew what he

1:17:32

was talking about, but we

1:17:35

never discussed it. And

1:17:37

he wouldn't have expected me to talk about

1:17:39

it. He knew, I knew

1:17:42

anyway, what was going down here.

1:17:45

Probably most of the other guys

1:17:47

didn't, but I knew, you

1:17:50

know, we were still in Westbourne there.

1:17:52

Yeah, that's raw emotion on that song. He

1:17:54

could tell it's just... Probably

1:17:57

wrote it the night before, you know, it's just like... Yeah.

1:18:00

You know, yeah, it's a fine

1:18:02

song and a fine recording.

1:18:05

So basic. Yeah, it's a shame really that you

1:18:07

know, there was just you know, but

1:18:09

you know Cold Stone Summertime at Circus

1:18:12

Mind On October 26

1:18:14

also great. It could

1:18:16

have been another album right there, you know in

1:18:18

that well, you know There's

1:18:21

half an album right there. Yeah. Yeah, I

1:18:23

mean there was you know, Phil and I

1:18:25

were on a roll We were we were

1:18:28

I don't know where where we could you know,

1:18:30

where the third album? Well, what were you doing?

1:18:33

Yeah, I mean it doesn't it just

1:18:35

doesn't bear thinking that the album

1:18:37

the follow was Was kind

1:18:39

of it didn't have that depth and

1:18:42

that at a different time different band.

1:18:44

Yeah different Yeah, this was the chapter

1:18:46

ended with sort of half a half

1:18:48

finished album some B sides and some

1:18:51

singles Yeah, I

1:18:53

think I think they all they're well

1:18:55

regarded And I think they

1:18:57

because they're so esoteric,

1:19:00

you know Of

1:19:02

their own kind only That

1:19:06

they will live for a long time people

1:19:08

will it's not like coming back

1:19:10

to to some the song that

1:19:12

everybody's heard and known Few

1:19:14

people have heard it and like it but

1:19:16

it was never you know, it was

1:19:18

never And I think it

1:19:21

could have been given the right treatment It

1:19:23

could have been a messy fit but but

1:19:25

I but I've been a lot of the stuff, you

1:19:27

know Phil had

1:19:29

a complete aversion to making anything not

1:19:33

my People might actually

1:19:35

want to hear but it was all

1:19:37

great work So it's sort

1:19:39

of but you know since then it's sort of been

1:19:41

passed along like a secret between Friends

1:19:44

and you know gather this, you

1:19:46

know momentum where now, you know

1:19:49

You're one of the most highly regarded bands of that

1:19:51

whole era Because you never Ruined

1:19:54

it you never painted it in that it

1:19:56

was it was it was secret

1:19:58

in the underground. So it made that makes it

1:20:00

more special. Yeah. So, you

1:20:02

know. Yeah, I

1:20:06

think I'm going to be a lot more famous after I'm

1:20:08

gone. Yeah. It

1:20:11

doesn't do you any good, but you know, does it

1:20:13

do you any good, you know, when you're alive? Well,

1:20:18

it was a fantastic

1:20:21

journey going, you know,

1:20:23

when I joined the Pretty

1:20:26

Things. The

1:20:28

fan men were okay, but they were a

1:20:30

very kind of provincial outfit, nobody. And when

1:20:32

we were, when Sean and I joined the

1:20:35

Pretty Things, it was like, you

1:20:37

know, being injected into the

1:20:41

heart and soul of what was happening.

1:20:43

This is the raw nerve endings of

1:20:45

the 60s. We were right

1:20:47

there. In the fan men,

1:20:49

we were just kind of a million miles

1:20:51

away, just bit part players. I

1:20:54

didn't realize quite how amazing

1:20:56

the 60s were. And I

1:20:58

still didn't. You know, and it's

1:21:00

only you're kind of in retrospect. But when you,

1:21:03

when I joined, it was like, it was a real

1:21:05

white knuckle ride. You know, everything

1:21:07

we did was crazy on you.

1:21:11

And I remember we spent, we

1:21:13

spent, John and I spent

1:21:15

ages rehearsing in sick up when we

1:21:18

first joined the band. And

1:21:21

we did our first gig in

1:21:23

a place called Sables de l'Enne,

1:21:25

which is the sounds of du l'Enne in

1:21:29

France. And you know,

1:21:31

so the curtains opened and

1:21:33

you know, one, two,

1:21:36

three, four, four, yeah. And you get,

1:21:38

why did we, it was like just mayhem.

1:21:41

We thought, you know, why did we

1:21:43

spend months rehearsing? And

1:21:45

there was nothing, it was nothing like

1:21:47

anything we played. And it was quite,

1:21:49

it was extraordinary. I mean, you know,

1:21:52

halfway to the second song, Skip was off

1:21:54

the kit, running around in banging cymbals

1:21:57

and nothing. Nobody

1:22:00

told me about this. What's going on? It

1:22:05

was pretty weird stuff. So anyway,

1:22:08

John and I, we got

1:22:10

on with it. We did it. And

1:22:14

it was great to have the fusion of

1:22:17

the pretty things,

1:22:19

wild enthusiasm. And

1:22:21

John and I had a kind

1:22:23

of a background of musical discipline,

1:22:26

which didn't really exist. But

1:22:29

there's a fusion of these two

1:22:31

things. It worked. There was something

1:22:33

quite strange about the mix. It

1:22:37

was good to, being

1:22:39

in the pretty things, make me want to write what I wrote. I

1:22:42

mean, it makes me, I would

1:22:44

never have written the songs I've written if I'd

1:22:47

been in the Fenway. It

1:22:49

was like somebody, you

1:22:51

have a huge injection of adrenaline. And

1:22:54

being there in

1:22:57

the 60s, it was coming at you all

1:22:59

the time, nonstop. It was

1:23:02

just weird. It was like being on a hold

1:23:04

of a skelter. You had

1:23:07

no time to stop. There was no time

1:23:09

to really sit back and think, contemplate

1:23:12

the state of the world, as it was, the state

1:23:15

of our world. It

1:23:18

was really, it was

1:23:21

hard to get to grips with. We

1:23:24

did, finally. And I

1:23:27

felt inspired

1:23:29

by being in

1:23:32

that position. We were

1:23:34

right there, in the very,

1:23:36

the vanguard of what was happening

1:23:39

in the 60s. All

1:23:41

that kind of flower power stuff

1:23:43

and all that. I mean, that's

1:23:45

where Phil wanted to go. He would come

1:23:49

out of the R&B, the

1:23:52

Art School R&B band. And

1:23:54

he wanted, that's

1:23:56

why he got, myself and John.

1:24:00

He wanted to a wanted to

1:24:02

expand. He wanted to go to places

1:24:04

that the hadn't been before and together

1:24:07

we had. We had the ability

1:24:09

to. To. Foods: These. Were.

1:24:12

I think the flight surgery songs that

1:24:14

very unusual most says. That

1:24:16

know they don't count of for

1:24:18

a year and the as the first

1:24:21

course this layer is just is it

1:24:23

still very is a cookie mix of

1:24:25

stuff and of it's completely individual and

1:24:28

and it's completely the pretty things and

1:24:30

that's what makes it so special. In.

1:24:33

He weren't trying to be like anybody else.

1:24:35

you which is creating these things went over

1:24:38

thinking and I don't think he would just

1:24:40

doing it. Now. You are allowed to

1:24:42

be. You are allowed to do that. In those days it was

1:24:44

kind. It was a time when. Everybody

1:24:46

was kind of. The. Good every

1:24:48

direction you can imagine. We.

1:24:51

Found our direction which which I

1:24:53

don't know, that's. How other

1:24:55

people? So we we were very. Insular.

1:24:59

I think is the word feather. the. And

1:25:03

we I I I didn't listen. I didn't

1:25:05

need this into a lot of other music.

1:25:07

In. The ceases. Others can say

1:25:09

though with what we were doing for

1:25:12

more of us with a was quite

1:25:14

an original thought former so. Yeah.

1:25:17

Well it's survey shows you have is nothing

1:25:19

derivative about at all at all. it's it's

1:25:21

is your personalities, all of you. Are

1:25:24

so it was a fantastic bend to

1:25:26

be is. Through. And things

1:25:29

I mentioned before them into

1:25:31

coverage reason, the humor, the.

1:25:33

The. Uniqueness of the I think I

1:25:35

think I realized. That. The same

1:25:38

have a nice in This was

1:25:40

a unique and. And. Super

1:25:42

was great to be in a band

1:25:44

like that at that time. In

1:25:47

That place. Yeah. I mean a we are

1:25:49

I know of the over fifty years later with though trying

1:25:51

to. figure out what what

1:25:53

happened to be their heads slices avocet

1:25:56

imagine it so out of an amazing

1:25:58

music get me but and who were

1:26:00

these people yeah it's timeless you know

1:26:02

that that's it that music's

1:26:04

gonna be around long after we're

1:26:07

gone well I feel that it

1:26:09

gives me a sense

1:26:12

of great comfort to know that

1:26:14

I've kind of left I think I've left a marker

1:26:17

there that people will will be

1:26:19

listening to you for some time and

1:26:24

I've got no thoughts about

1:26:26

you know departing at the moment

1:26:28

in fact I'm full of beans so

1:26:31

and I'm really I'm

1:26:33

always you know doing new stuff and

1:26:35

thinking about new ideas and

1:26:38

it's it's it's such a shame they're

1:26:41

my the two greatest friends of my life no

1:26:44

longer with us and without any

1:26:46

shadow without John Bailey and most of

1:26:48

all Phil May were thy

1:26:51

gracious friendships and who will ever

1:26:53

be is

1:27:12

the ugly things podcast was produced

1:27:14

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1:27:17

Mike Stacks that's me ugly

1:27:20

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Easton. Thank you all of

1:28:24

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1:28:26

you for listening. music

1:28:31

and more. She's

1:28:36

a little bit brief, she's

1:28:39

flying. She waits

1:28:41

for you. They're

1:28:46

on a hill, and you're

1:28:49

gone. She's

1:28:52

flying. I love this

1:28:54

woman. She's

1:28:56

flying from you. And

1:29:00

so you please help. Your hair no

1:29:02

longer.