The Pretty Things - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1968-1970

On May 15, 2020, Phil May, the long-time lead vocalist of the Pretty Things, died at the age of 75 due to complications from a cycling accident. May he rest in peace. His death reminded me that I'd lost track of my posting of Pretty Things albums. I posted the first of three BBC albums in November 2019. Here's the second one. Hopefully, the third one will follow soon.

This continues my long-standing ambition to erase the vocals of Brian Matthew and the other BBC DJs from whenever they'd talked over the music. For this album, out of the ten songs, four of them needed edits to erase or patch over such vocals.

It's actually more like four out of seven songs that needed fixing, because only those seven are actual BBC performances. Six of them come from an official BBC compilation for the band. The seventh is from a various artists compilation consisting entirely of BBC performances. The remaining three songs - "Alexander," "Renaissance Fair," and "Talkin' about the Good Times" - all come from a concert in Amsterdam in 1969. Two of those have been officially released on a rarities album. The third sounds just as good. For all the live tracks, I've removed the vocals. If you didn't read this paragraph, you'd assume they were more BBC performances, because the sound quality is just as good.

The Pretty Things existed from 1963 all the way until 2018. During their many years together, they often had a Spinal Tap-ian existence where they had to suffer indignities of unpopularity, despite being very talented. Even in the late 1960s, which was one of their more popular eras, they had to resort to performing songs under an assumed name (The Electric Banana), only to find those songs often added to porn film soundtracks.

That said, this was a very strong time for them musically. Their 1968 album "S.F. Sorrow" was a definite highlight. Even though it was complicated psychedelic music, four of the songs here are from that album. The rest generally have that psychedelic vibe.

Note that I've only included songs here that I didn't put on my stray tracks albums. There are three songs - "Send You with Loving," "Spring," and "Marilyn" - in which their BBC performances are the only decent surviving recording, or maybe the only recording at all. So all three of those have gone on the 1969 stray tracks album "Eagle's Son."

01 Balloon Burning [Edit] (Pretty Things)
02 S.F. Sorrow Is Born (Pretty Things)
03 She Says Good Morning [Edit] (Pretty Things)
04 Alexander (Pretty Things)
05 Renaissance Fair (Pretty Things)
06 Talkin' about the Good Times (Pretty Things)
07 Old Man Going (Pretty Things)
08 Sickle Clowns [Edit] (Pretty Things)
09 She's a Lover (Pretty Things)
10 Cries from the Midnight Circus [Edit] (Pretty Things)

https://www.imagenetz.de/eNiDb

I wish there were lots of good color photos of the band on stage in the late 1960s. If there were, I'd use one here. But since I couldn't find one, I've used a publicity photo. At least I'm glad they're wearing outlandish outfits that show them at the height of their psychedelic phase.