Deakin, Rich (2008) ABSURD! OUTRAGE! GROTESQUE! POOT! Shindig! Quarterly, 2 (5)
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This is a pre peer-reviewed, pre-print (draft pre-refereeing) version of the following published document: Deakin, Rich (2008) ABSURD! OUTRAGE! GROTESQUE! POOT! Shindig! Quarterly, 2 (5). pp. 40-41. Official URL: http://www.volcanopublishing.co.uk/shindig-magazine.html EPrint URI: http://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/3706 Disclaimer The University of Gloucestershire has obtained warranties from all depositors as to their title in the material deposited and as to their right to deposit such material. The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation or warranties of commercial utility, title, or fitness for a particular purpose or any other warranty, express or implied in respect of any material deposited. The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation that the use of the materials will not infringe any patent, copyright, trademark or other property or proprietary rights. The University of Gloucestershire accepts no liability for any infringement of intellectual property rights in any material deposited but will remove such material from public view pending investigation in the event of an allegation of any such infringement. PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR TEXT. pink fairies extract.qxp 10/6/08 12:35 Page 40 ABSURD!ABSURD! OUTRAGE!OUTRAGE! GROTESQUE!GROTESQUE! POOT!POOT! THETHE PINKPINK FAIRIESFAIRIES were were nevernever friendsfriends withwith thethe establishment.establishment. PlayingPlaying forfor free,free, playingplaying fuckedfucked upup andand oftenoften naked,naked, theythey epitomisedepitomised thethe politicallypolitically charged,charged, angry,angry, post-hippypost-hippy spiritspirit ofof thethe earlyearly ’70s.’70s. RICHRICH DEAKINDEAKIN chronicles chronicles thethe group’sgroup’s earlyearly days.days. HE PINK FAIRIES EVOLVED summer of ’70. Most notably, stripping naked a letter back from the office of Bag out of The Deviants following an ill- at the Phun City festival, and playing for free Productions, the company set up by Lennon fated trip to Canada in the autumn outside the Bath and Isle of Wight festivals. to deal with public relations and finance, T of 1969, during which Deviants’ They also quickly earned themselves a saying that the Lennon-Onos were too busy, singer Mick Farren was unceremoniously reputation for being a “people’s band” and Twink was suitably piqued to write a song ejected from his own band. On their return to had begun to generate interest from a himself. Thus ‘Do It!’ was born. the UK in February ’70, the remaining number of record companies. Deviants hooked up with erstwhile Pretty There were some differences of opinion over Things drummer, John ‘Twink’ Alder and Having signed to Polydor in the autumn of songwriting credits and individual renamed themselves The Pink Fairies. ’70, The Pink Fairies were booked into contributions to ‘Do It!’ Whatever the Recorded Sound Studios in early December circumstances surrounding its exact The Deviants had been something of an ’70 to record a single. Head of PR for Polydor conception, with its overtly anti-authoritarian anomaly, even in the ’60s. When many of was Peter Knight Jr. and, despite having his lyrics that espoused taking matters into your their contemporaries were espousing the producing days supposedly behind him, he own hands, ‘Do It!’ perfectly encapsulated the ethos of love, peace and flower power, they agreed to the band’s request to produce them. mood of the times. The peace and love released a trio of underground LPs, including optimism of the late ’60s faded as the decade the experimental Ptooff!, that addressed Knight was the son of the renowned gave way to the escalating troubles in social issues such as the evils of composer and arranger Peter Knight, famous Northern Ireland, as well as the bombs of The consumerism, looting supermarkets, and for scoring the orchestral work on The Moody Angry Brigade, whilst the war in Vietnam inner city riots. Following Farren’s departure, Blues’ Days Of Future Passed and virtually dragged on amidst an atmosphere of growing the remaining Deviants were given a freer all of The Carpenters’ work in the ’70s. global political foment. Peter Knight rein to pursue their musical aspirations, and Following in his father’s footsteps, Knight remembers the session vividly: “We took Paul Rudolph’s guitar and the dual percussive was more accustomed to dealing with, and them into the studios to do the songs, and onslaught of Russell Hunter and Twink came producing, easy listening fodder like The they were so loud we could hear them to typify The Pink Fairies sound. James Last Orchestra. Nevertheless he through the glass without turning the mics donned his producer’s hat and gamely tackled up. It was guitar, bass and two drummers.” They began to place as much emphasis on what would become two of The Pink Fairies’ providing a good time through their music, as most enduring and endearing anthems: ‘The Because he usually dealt with completely they did getting the underground spirit across Snake’ and ‘Do It!’ With its rampant lyrical different types of artists, Knight found to audiences. But, despite a shift towards imagery, ‘The Snake’ is fairly self explanatory; working with The Pink Fairies an interesting more serious musicianship, the new Pink ‘Do It!’, the flipside of the single, is a little and enjoyable experience. Joly McFie related Fairies retained a social conscience, and were more political. to Seth Wimpfheimer how “[Knight] kept far too steeped in the ethos of the saying it was the most exciting session he’d counterculture to abandon their underground Legend has it the lyrics to ‘Do It!’ were done,” and if Twink had a reputation for credentials entirely. Along with fellow written in roadie Joly McFie’s Morris Minor being difficult in recording studios, Knight Ladbroke Grove contemporaries Hawkwind, on the way to the studio. Although it took its remembers he was completely motivated. they were just as likely to be found name from the revolutionary tract by supporting worthwhile community benefits, American yippie activist Jerry Rubin, further With regard to Sandy’s prominent bass sound such as White Panther Party free food lyrical inspiration for the song came from on the single, Joly infers that Paul might have programmes, as they were playing for free on John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In an interview overdubbed it himself. Peter Knight refutes the back of a lorry outside the perimeter on Milwaukee Radio in ’88, Twink said: “We this idea and has said: “I would have fences of mainstream commercial festivals. kind of figured because [John and Yoko] were remembered that. They all played live – that’s This was a stance that justifiably earned them doing what we were doing they would jump at why it was so bloody loud! We did lay tracks the reputation of being one of the foremost the chance to write a song for us, because it down live and did the vocals afterwards.” underground bands in Britain. was all like Power To The People, you know? We were all doing it together.” Twink wrote a Sandy says that he can’t really remember The Pink Fairies had earned themselves a letter to John and Yoko asking them to write Knight contributing much, but if the finished sizeable grass-roots following throughout the a song for The Pink Fairies. When he received single, ‘The Snake’, slightly lacks the 40 pink fairies extract.qxp 10/6/08 12:35 Page 41 immediate raw energy of an earlier version then Rudolph, ‘OK. Who’s the fucking recorded for Top Gear, also recorded live in Commie Red?’ and holds up a Chairman Mao Rich Deakin speaks with the studio, it remains a creditable first outing badge, and I went ‘What?’ He goes, ‘Who’s Duncan ‘Sandy’ Sanderson! nevertheless. Peter Knight Jr. made a the fucking Commie Red?’ and I went ‘You promotional film to showcase a number of are joking, right?’” SHINDIG!: Why were ‘The Snake’ and ‘Do It!’ chosen as cuts for Polydor artists, of which The Pink Fairies and the first single? their single ‘The Snake’ were a part. It was But they weren’t joking, and the main filmed on the set of Oliver! at Shepperton “Commie Red” was being given the third SANDY: Peter Knight Jr. thought they were really exciting songs, and it had something to do with the twin-spangled Ludwig drum Studios, and originally shown at a sales degree in the other bedroom. Evidence kits that cost a bloody fortune, as paid for by Polydor with their convention at Polydor’s Hamburg linking Mick to The Angry Brigade bombings advance. Plus we didn’t have too many of our own songs at that headquarters. Knight can only remember the was what the Special Branch hoped to find, point! name of one other band he filmed, an act but according to Mick, “all they came up with from the Midlands that he handled called The was Boss’s Chairman Mao button, most of SD: Like The Clash at CBS some years later, The Pink Fairies Love Machine. Introducing the film was a our drugs and reams of mildly subversive were criticised by some fans for signing to Polydor. Did you feel then unknown Olivia Newton John. literature and documentation.” Mick was you had to justify yourselves to anyone when you signed to ordered to flush all the pills and cannabis Polydor in late 1970? Knight thinks it quite possible that only an down the toilet, because, as Mick relates in DS: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think anybody really gave a fuck. abridged version of each act made the final his autobiography Give The Anarchist A No one was interested enough that we’d signed with a major, cut, as the film was edited down to forty Cigarette, the Special Branch wanted to avoid because in those days there weren’t any minors – there were no minutes for the presentation.