Remembrances Of Prolerockers Past

Remembrances Of Prolerockers Past

PRETTY THINGS The Vintage Years (Sire)

TROGGS The Vintage Years (Sire)

With Capitol's repackaged Beatlemania having established the past summer as the authorized re-issue of the golden season of 1964, we're now well into the second winter of the recycled British Invasion, far enough along to realize just how inefficient an artistic determinism ground out our faves during the original Invasion.

The Pretty Things are a rather extreme case in point, as, until this reissue, their early sides have never been readily available in the U.S. Founded by one-time Rolling Stone Dick Taylor, a trimly-bearded art student whose appearance would suggest a blues-priggishness more acute than John Mayall's, the Pretty Things nevertheless thrashed out a raucous R&B even less reverent of its sources than that of the liberated Stones.

The Pretty Things played their R&Bjhard and loud and ragged, much as the Kinks did before Ray Davies turned to topical satire. Phil May bawled out the Pretties" vocals with classic Anglo-Negroid authority, with the dapper Taylor's gutwrenching guitar* smashes hot in pursuit. Besides the usual covers of the Chess catalogue, the Pretty Things cut a number of strong original sides including their earliest hits,, "Rosalyn" and'"Don't Bring Me Down" (both erf which were retroactively popularized in the States by David Bowie's 1973 versions on Pin-Ups), the speaker-shredding

"Come See Me," and the amazing "Midnight to Six Man." ■

by Richard Riegel

Actually, there's not one weak cut on this album, which is all the more astounding since all 28 selections are from the Pretties" 1964-66 Fontana sides; nothing from the group's subsequent Rare Earth or Swan Song incarnations is included. This set demonstrates that the Pretty Things were easily musical equals of the Stones or Animals as English R&B~gods. And who knows but that the subsequent history of pop might have read differently if the Pretty Things had gotten proper exposure and consequent influence in their own time?

At least historical revisionism isn't necessary in the case of the Troggs, who made quite a splash in the U.S. their first time around. Even if the Troggs have never yet achieved a popularity commensurate with their abilities, the two U.S. Fontana albums of their early sides glutted domestic bargain bins for years, and most American rockfans are already familiar with "Wild Thing," "Love Is All Around," "Give It To Me," "66-5-4-3-2-1," and many of the other cuts on the first three sides of this repackage.

But Vintage Years also includes odd Troggs" recordings from as late as 1972 (the Black Sabbath-like, "Feels Like a Woman"), selections which are not anachronistic for this grouping, as the same Troggsnucleus of Reg Presley and Ronnie Bond has been grimly assaulting the U.S. charts for more than ten years, and there is definitely a stylistic continuum at work.

The Troggs" peculiarly manic magic has been well-documented in numerous fanzine articles (and you young punks thought that Lou Reed inspired Lester Bangs" most intense Coltrane-runs of eloquence), but suffice to say that-the Troggs are absolutely the strangest group ever to come out of England, bar none of the avant-glitterglam experiments. In The Troggs" music, heavy metal and bubblegum elements have Always been perfectly compatible (only their fellow prolerockers in Sweet have attempted such a transcendent synthesis), while the Troggs" customary lyrics have exhibited a direct honesty toward sexual being that is almost an embarassment to our prurient age. These guys -are throwbacks to the Elizabethan era.

Both of these Vintage Years sets continue the high quality of the Sire re-issue series, with 28 full cuts per album, non-reprocessed sound, comprehensively entertaining liner notes (Ken Barnes on the Troggs, and Greg Shaw on the Pretties), appropriate group photos, and thorough but uncluttered discographies. Either album would be a bargain at twice the price in this rocker's inflationary decade.