The Pretty Things - Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky (2015) Re-up

It is a hefty box in every sense: 13 CDs, supplemented with two DVDs, accompanied by a gorgeous hardcover book and a variety of tchotchkes, including a poster that traces the twisted family trees and time lines of the band and, just as helpfully, replicas of legal documents that explain why the group didn't retain rights to its recordings for years. Such explicatory details are necessary because the Pretty Things do indeed have a long, convoluted story, a story that is told in its entirety on Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky, released to commemorate the band's 50th Anniversary. Every one of the band's studio albums is here, beginning with 1965's brutal eponymous debut and ending with 2007's surprisingly sturdy Balboa Island, all presented in good remasters dating from the late '90s and supplemented with bonus tracks that have been in circulation on previous reissues. The only major things missing are the complete sessions they recorded with French bon vivant Philippe DeBarge and the trippy film library music they recorded under the name the Electric Banana, although both are sampled on the two discs of rarities included as enticing collector bait.

These two CDs function as footnotes to the main text, offering a handful of raw and furious early cuts – BBC sessions, rough mixes, and demos that underscore the Pretty Things' early savagery – and then filling out the latter years with introspective demos, the odd stray song ("Spider Woman," a 1972 song that never made it to an album but probably should have; a new wave reggae piss-take called "Monster Club" from a mock horror film of the same name from 1980; "Cause and Effect," the lone studio song from 1988's live reunion Out of the Island), and some cuts from the '90s pre-reunion project the Pretty Things & the Yardbirds Blues Band. Much of this is interesting, at times even riveting, and helps bring to life the narrative told well in the hardcover book and DVD documentary, but there's a compelling arc told in the main discography this box set so lovingly preserves.

Like so many British rock bands of the '60s, the Pretty Things both anticipated and followed trends. They were at ground zero for the British blues explosion and wound up with trailblazing concept albums like 1968's S.F. Sorrow, but they usually seemed a year or two behind the times, arriving a hair too late to ride the zeitgeist. This is best seen with 1970's Parachute, a piece of lush psychedelia accomplished enough to earn legendary status, and named Album of the Year by Rolling Stone, but it sounded as if it belonged to a year or two earlier, which also could be said of the Baroque middlebrow pop of 1967's Emotions or the massive arena rock of 1976's Savage Eye. Such a flair for delayed fashion certainly hurt the Pretty Things commercially but looking at their career as a body of work, it's rich and restless, one that continually evolved. The acknowledged high points still shine brightly – the debut is as nasty as rock & roll got in the '60s, while Get the Picture? adds some style to that swing; S.F. Sorrow is a gorgeous yet tense psychedelic masterwork but it may be trumped by the expansive Parachute – but the revelations arise in the neglected corners of their discography. Emotions may have been heavily tweaked by the record label but it's an effective hybrid of the Kinks and Beatles; Freeway Madness has pastoral touches that belie its title; the two albums for Swan Song – Silk Torpedo and Savage Eye – feel assured in their road-conquering heaviosity; the New Wave reunion Cross Talk is shockingly sharp, and the latter day comeback records are no-nonsense affirmations of the deep rock & roll roots of Dick Taylor and Phil May. By the time of their last album in 2007, the Pretty Things had come nearly full circle and the great thing about Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky is that it vividly illustrates what a wild ride those 50 years were.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG

The Pretty Things' debut LP was a legendary exercise in anarchy – 30 minutes into the two days' worth of sessions, their original producer, Jack Baverstock (the head of the label, no less), walked out, and was eventually replaced by a slightly more sympathetic personality in the hopes of salvaging something from the efforts of the band, who, whatever their shortcomings in decorum or sobriety, were on their third successive charting single. The resulting album, made under the coordination (if not control) of drummer-turned-producer Bobby Graham, made the early work of the Rolling Stones – rivals and one-time bandmates to The Pretty Things' Dick Taylor – sound more like the work of the Beatles: very calculated, lightweight, and…genteel. The Pretty Things is recorded with practically every song and instrument pushing the needle into the red (i.e., overload). Normally, that would be a problem, except for the fact that a third of the repertory was written by Bo Diddley and most of the other two-thirds was inspired by him (even their version of Chuck Berry's "Oh Baby Doll" sounds like it was lifted from the Two Great Guitars sessions where the two legends crossed swords) – and Bo spent most of his career with his amplifiers set on "11" in a world where ten was the max.

"Roadrunner" is about as raw and loud as British rock & roll ever got up to that time, and it's just the beginning – "Judgement Day" has a lead guitar buried somewhere in there, beneath rhythm instruments that sound like metal being ground up, and "13 Chester Street" is, strangely enough, an homage to the house the band once shared with the Stones' Brian Jones; appropriately enough, it mixes the band's crunchy rhythm guitar-centered sound with a Slim Harpo-style lead (all of the stuff that Jones was identified with musically), in a group "composition" that shimmers and pulses around Phil May's dissolute vocals. "Big City" takes them back to Chess Records territory, from which they never stray – "Mama, Keep Your Big Mouth Shut" even sounds like a Chess outtake, what Leonard Chess would've said needed one more pass to get right (and he'd have been wrong). And just to show that there is some justice in the world, The Pretty Things did reach number ten on the U.K. charts, bewildering all of the more "professional" hands at Fontana Records by grabbing the ears of that harder, more intense part of the Stones' larger audience and throwing them the sonic equivalent of raw meat to chew on. Phil May reveals himself as a fairly powerful singer, though lacking some of the charisma that Mick Jagger projected, but the group's own raw power made for quirky appeal all of its own that would carry them for many years beyond this roaring start. And in the meantime, records like this would point the way not only toward the work of such American garage band icons as the MC5, but blast a path through the wilderness that the likes of Billy Childish and his band the Milkshakes and their successors would traverse.

by Bruce Eder, AMG

Tracklist:

01. Roadrunner 03:11
02. Judgement Day 02:46
03. 13 Chester Street 02:22
04. Big City 02:01
05. Unknown Blues 03:48
06. Mama, Keep Your Big Mouth Shut 03:04
07. Honey, I Need 01:59
08. Oh Baby Doll 03:01
09. She`s Fine She’s Mine 04:24
10. Don’t Lie To Me 03:53
11. The Moon Is Rising 02:33
12. Pretty Thing 01:38

Bonus Tracks:
13. Rosalyn 02:20
14. Big Boss Man 02:38
15. Don’t Bring Me Down 02:10
16. We’ll Be Together 02:10
17. I Can Never Say 02:36
18. Get Yourself Home 02:14

The Pretty Things' second album, Get the Picture? (released December 1965), has not only been remastered from original session tapes so the group sounds like their amps are practically right in your lap, but it's also been expanded to 18 songs with the addition of tracks cut for singles and EP releases from the same sessions. That's enough to recommend it even to casual fans – this is now a record that's just a few notches short of Rolling Stones level in the charisma department, and pretty tough any way you want to look at it. On "Rainin' in My Heart," they sound exactly like the Stones from the same era, missing only the little harmonica flourish that might have been added on the break. The liner notes go into the history of the group during this period in delightful detail, and the histories of various songs, most particularly "L.S.D.," which, amazingly, was cut as a demo and never redone for release, but just put out the way it was. In their good moments here, the Pretty Things approach Rolling Stones' territory, and even in their off moments, they're flying at the same level as the Kinks' album tracks.

by Bruce Eder, AMG

Tracklist:

01. You Don’t Believe Me 02:22
02. Buzz The Jerk 01:54
03. Get The Picture? 01:55
04. Can’t Stand The Pain 02:41
05. Rainin’ In My Heart 02:30
06. We’ll Play House 02:33
07. You`ll Never Do It Baby 02:26
08. I Had A Dream 02:58
09. I Want Your Love 02:16
10. London Town 02:26
11. Cry To Me 02:51
12. Gonna Find Me A Substitute 02:57

Bonus Tracks:
13. Get A Buzz 04:01
14. Sittin’ All Alone 02:47
15. Midnight To Six Man 02:19
16. Me Needing You 01:58
17. Come See Me 02:38
18. L. S. D. 02:24

In accordance with their label's (and not the band's) wishes, the Pretties were teamed with a middle-aged orchestra directed by Reg Tilsley on this album, which saw the Phil May-Dick Taylor songwriting team making an effort to move beyond R&B knockoffs into more sophisticated territory. Sometimes the arrangements (dubbed onto tracks without much involvement from the group) worked; more often, they were an unnecessary hindrance. An interesting failure, it contained some genuinely top-rank originals that saw the group expanding their vision into social observation and tentative psychedelia, including "My Time," "The Sun," and especially the moody, folk-rock-ish "Death of a Socialite."

by Richie Unterberger, AMG

Tracklist:

01. Death Of A Socialite 02:43
02. Children 03:05
03. The Sun 03:06
04. There Will Never Be Another Day 02:22
05. House Of Ten 02:54
06. Out In The Night 02:44
07. One Long Glance 02:54
08. Growing In My Mind 02:21
09. Photographer 02:07
10. Bright Lights Of The City 03;02
11. Tripping 03:26
12. My Time 03:09

Bonus Tracks:
13. A House In The Country 03:00
14. Progress 02:42
15. Photographer 02:14
16. There Will Never Be Another Day 02:25
17. My Time 03:10
18. The Sun 03:09
19. Progress 02:55

Who could ever have thought, going back to the Pretty Things' first recording session in 1965 – which started out so disastrously that their original producer quit in frustration – that it would come to this? the Pretty Things' early history in the studio featured the band with its amps seemingly turned up to 11, but for much of S.F. Sorrow the band is turned down to seven or four, or even two, or not amplified at all (except for Wally Allen's bass – natch), and they're doing all kinds of folkish things here that are still bluesy enough so you never forget who they are, amid weird little digressions on percussion and chorus; harmony vocals that are spooky, trippy, strange, and delightful; sitars included in the array of stringed instruments; and an organ trying hard to sound like a Mellotron. Sometimes one gets an echo of Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn or A Saucerful of Secrets, and it all straddles the worlds of British blues and British psychedelia better than almost any record you can name. The album, for those unfamiliar, tells the story of "S.F. Sorrow," a sort of British Everyman – think of a working-class, luckless equivalent to the Kinks' Arthur, from cradle to grave. The tale and the songs are a bit downbeat and no amount of scrutiny can disguise the fact that the rock opera S.F. Sorrow is ultimately a bit of a confusing effort – these boys were musicians, not authors or dramatists. Although it may have helped inspire Tommy, it is, simply, not nearly as good. That said, it was first and has quite a few nifty ideas and production touches. And it does show a pathway between blues and psychedelia that the Rolling Stones, somewhere between Satanic Majesties, "We Love You," "Child of the Moon," and Beggars Banquet, missed entirely.

by Richie Unterberger, AMG

Tracklist:

01. S.F. Sorrow Is Born 03:12
02. Bracelets Of Fingers 03:41
03. She Says Good Morning 03:23
04. Private Sorrow 03:51
05. Balloon Burning 03:51
06. Death 03:05
07. Baron Saturday 04:01
08. The Journey 02:45
09. I See You 03:56
10. Well Of Destiny 01:46
11. Trust 02:49
12. Old Man Going 03:09
13. Loneliest Person 01:30

Bonus Tracks:
14. Defecting Grey 04:31
15. Mr. Evasion 03:30
16. Talkin’ About The Good Times 03:46
17. Walking Through My Dreams 03:36

If S.F. Sorrow is the Pretty Things' Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine wrapped in one, then Parachute is their more succinct White Album and Abbey Road. It's not just a time line comparison. The Pretties made this fascinating LP in the same studio as the Fab Four, London's Abbey Road, with Beatles engineer Norman Smith producing. "The Good Mr. Square" replicates the three-part harmony the Beatles were so proud of on "Because." Two songs later, the group assembles a brief, interconnected three-song suite like the famous ones on side two of Abbey Road. Bassist Wally Allen's vocals on tracks such as "Sickle Clowns" have the same throaty, mad anguish that John Lennon exhibited on "Yer Blues" and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." If S.F. Sorrow is hard rock grandeur, then Parachute is its more bitter twist, the dream dying and the witching hour upon us. Yet, if this isn't as much of a triumph, the creative neurons are still firing throughout a multi-varied, cohesive LP. Like S.F. Sorrow, it's a surprisingly palatable concept LP. This time the topic is a generation caught between the conflicting calls of (rural) peace, love, and boredom, and (urban) sophistication, sex, and squalor in a harsh world. Somehow the departure of the band's main creative force, Dick Taylor, didn't diminish the writing and inspired variety. Allen stepped up big time into the collaborator role with singer Phil May. The harmonies remain a strong point on an otherwise rock-inclined record, and the nasty edge of perfectly balanced bombast in the best songs have been a lost art ever since.

by Jack Rabid, AMG

Tracklist:

01. Scene One 01:49
02. The Good Mr. Square 01:26
03. She Was Tall, She Was High 01:35
04. In The Square 01:54
05. The Letter 01:38
06. Rain 02:28
07. Miss Fay Regrets 03:27
08. Cries From The Midnight Circus 06:28
09. Grass 04:20
10. Sickle Clowns 06:36
11. She`s A Lover 03:32
12. What`s The Use 01:45
13. Parachute 03:52

Bonus Tracks:
14. Blue Serge Blues 03:54
15. October 26 04:56
16. Cold Stone 03:12
17. Stone-Hearted Mama 03:29
18. Summer Time 04:28
19. Circus Mind 01:59

After raging through R&B early in their career, then exploring the limits of psychedelia, the Pretty Things changed their direction with Freeway Madness, which in retrospect seems like the first part of a musical trilogy (along with Silk Torpedo and Savage Eye). With a huge change in personnel and the team of Phil May and Pete Tolson doing most of the writing, the sound featured John Povey's keyboards, while the lush harmonies that had buoyed Parachute became a mainstay of the sound, which turned decidedly more American radio-friendly. They could rock as hard as ever, but the softer side was decidedly mushier (as on "Love Is Good"), with harmonies so tight you could bounce a quarter off them ("Peter"). Decidedly less original than the work they'd done on Parachute, it still had its moments, such as the delicious "Havana Bound" or the rock boisterousness of "Rip off Train," and while their alliance with Warner Bros. only lasted for this album, it pointed the way to their mid-'70s future.

by Chris Nickson, AMG

Tracklist:

01. Love Is Good 06:53
02. Havana Bound 03:56
03. Peter 01:26
04. Rip Off Train 03:19
05. Over The Moon 04:31
06. Religion’s Dead 04:13
07. Country Road 04:48
08. Allnight Sailor 01:55
09. Onion Soup 03:48
10. Another Bowl? 02:55

Bonus Tracks / Live Lyceum 1973:
11. Religion’s Dead 04:47
12. Havana Bound 04:20
13. Love Is Good 06:43
14. Onion Soup 08:18







Tracklist:

01. Dream / Joey 06:51
02. Maybe You Tried 04:23
03. Atlanta 02:40
04. L. A. N. T. A. 02:27
05. Is It Only Love 05:09
06. Come Home Momma 03:43
07. Bridge Of God 04:59
08. Singapore Silk Torpedo 05:12
09. Belfast Cowboys 06:57

Bonus Tracks:
10. Singapore Silk Torpedo (Live Santa Monica 1974) 07:06
11. Dream / Joey (Live Santa Monica 1974) 07:21

The last album recorded by the Pretty Things before Phil May left; within months of this recording, the band split for a few years. Even more than Silk Torpedo, Savage Eye seemed to have been cannily devised with an eye toward picking up FM airplay in the U.S. There were hard rock, glam rock, and AOR rock influences from David Bowie, Queen, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney to be heard at various points, and while this album wasn't explicitly derivative of any of them, it didn't have much of a personality of its own, either. It certainly didn't sound like the Pretty Things, for gosh sakes. And although it went to number 163 on the charts and was one of only two records by the band to chart in the States, it was one of their least memorable.

by Richie Unterberger, AMG

Tracklist:

01. Under The Volcano 06:01
02. My Song 05:09
03. Sad Eye 04:31
04. Remember That Boy 05:05
05. It Isn’t Rock ‘N’ Roll 03:58
06. I’m Keeping 04:00
07. It’s Been So Long 05:07
08. Drowned Man 04:23
09. Theme For Michelle 01:50

Bonus Tracks:
10. Tonight 03:09
11. Love Me A Little 03:13
12. Dance All Night 02:53

Who would have thought it? Reunited after splitting in the mid-'70s, the Pretty Things return with a new wave album. It's not what anyone might have expected, but it's very far from a disaster. The stop-on-a-dime arrangements and natural power show them to be well-seasoned, and Phil May, with an extremely mannered voice, comes across as a taunting frontman. In fact, you tend to feel that if Thin Lizzy had eased up on the metal, they might have made an album very much like this – great, catchy songs based in R&B and old rock & roll ("Lost That Girl") – but with the tongue firmly in cheek (check the Sting imitation on "No Future") while pandering to fashion. But when the results are as good as the jangly "Office Love" or "I'm Calling," you really don't care where the tongue's residing. There's a sense of history about the '50s drums on "Falling Again" that no young bucks could ever match, nor could they come close to the band's overall professionalism or stinging guitar work of Peter Tolson. Any of these ten tracks would have made a great single and by rights should have returned the band to major-name status. But justice is thin on the ground in music and instead it became one of the lost Pretties albums – a shame, since in its own lighter way, it's every bit as good as their classic albums of a decade earlier. Some reunions don't work; this one just roars.

by Chris Nickson, AMG

Tracklist:

01. I’m Calling 04:05
02. Edge Of The Night 03:19
03. Sea Of Blue 03:13
04. Lost That Girl 02:50
05. Bitter End 03:16
06. Office Love 04:12
07. Falling Again 03:20
08. It’s So Hard 03:14
09. She Don’t 04:08
10. No Future 04:28
11. Wish Fulfillment 03:05
12. Sea About Me 03:22
13. The Young Pretenders 04:05

The key to the success of the Pretty Things first studio recording in 19 years is that most of it sounds as if it were made during their mid-'60s heyday rather than at the time of their early '80s demise. It's downfall is overwrought, out-of-style songs like "Love Keeps Hanging On," which sounds like something the fictional band, Strange Fruit, would've come up with. Cover songs like "Eve of Destruction" and "Play with Fire" are completely redundant, yet the openers, the jangly guitar workout, "Passion of Love," and the Bo Diddley-beat tribute to an old bandmate, "Vivian Prince," make the disc worthwhile.

by Denise Sullivan, AMG

Tracklist:

01. Passion Of Love 03:21
02. Vivian Prince 05:15
03. Everlasting Flame 03:46
04. Love Keeps Hanging On 08:55
05. Eve Of Destruction 03:02
06. Not Givin’ In 04:01
07. Pure Cold Stone 05:46
08. Blue Turns To Red 04:00
09. Goodbye, Goodbye 02:45
10. Goin’ Downhill 04:11
11. Play With Fire 04:07
12. Fly Away 04:30
13. Mony Mony 04:44
14. God Give Me The Strength (To Carry On) 06:02

A problem with bands that have been on the scene for over 40 years (count 'em) is that they can sometimes still write songs with titles like "The Beat Goes On" and "Buried Alive," as if those tropes hadn't lost their edge several decades ago. On the other hand, when a band has played together for four decades its members have often learned one of rock & roll's great lessons: how to create maximum groove with minimal ingredients. So when the Pretty Things lay down a song as thunderous as "Livin' in My Skin," they do so with the ponderous grace and inexorable momentum of an elephant walking to water. They've also been around long enough to have heard some of their source material at the source, which means that they can deliver an ancient Delta blues like "Feel Like Going Home" with a certain arch authority. (And if you want more cowbell, these guys can deliver that with authority as well – check out the raunchy period piece "Mimi.") On the downside, they sometimes abuse their elder-statesmen status to impose eight minutes of two-chord vamp on their hapless listeners ("[Blues For] Robert Johnson"), and the title track, which closes the album, does so with much more of a whimper than a bang. Not bad at all, but unless you're a die-hard fan you'll want to be a little selective.

by Rick Anderson, AMG

Tracklist:

01. The Beat Goes On 04:13
02. Buried Alive 03:34
03. Livin’ In My Skin 03:59
04. (Blues For) Robert Johnson 08:00
05. Pretty Beat 02:51
06. In The Beginning 04:41
07. Mimi 02:34
08. Feel Like Goin’ Home 02:42
09. The Ballad Of Hollis Brown 06:27
10. Freedom Song 04:45
11. Dearly Beloved 04:59
12. All Light Up 04:29
13. Balboa Island 04:40







Tracklist CD12 - Rarities 1:

01. Don’t Bring Me Down (Live On The Beat Room 1964) 02:15
02. Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut (Live On The Beat Room 1964) 03:25
03. Johnny B. Goode (Live On The Beat Room 1964) 01:42
04. Cry To Me (Alternate Version) 02:43
05. Photographer (Rough Mix From Acetate) 02:11
06. Bright Lights Of The City (Demo) 02:59
07. Out In The Night (Demo) 02:39
08. One Long Glance (Demo) 02:54
09. Children (Alternate Version) 03:01
10. Defecting Grey (Alternate Mix) 03:11
11. Why (Live In Hyde Park) 06:16
12. She Says Good Morning (Live At The Paradiso, Amsterdam) 03:41
13. Alexander (Live At The Paradiso, Amsterdam) 03:28
14. Renaissance Fair (Live At The Paradiso, Amsterdam) 02:12
15. S.F. Sorrow Is Born (Live At The Paradiso, Amsterdam) 03:33
16. You Might Even Say (Philippe Debarge Sessions) 03:59
17. Eagle’s Son (Philippe Debarge Sessions) 02:59
18. Graves Of Grey (Philippe Debarge Sessions) 00:49
19. It`ll Never Be (Philippe Debarge Sessions) 04:33
20. Scene One (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 01:14
21. The Good Mr. Square (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 04:33
22. She Was Tall, She Was High (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 00:55
23. In The Square / The Letter (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 03:43
24. Rain (Westbourbe Terrace Demo) 03:19
25. Cries From The Midnight Circus (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 03:53




Tracklist CD13 - Rarities 2:

01. I’d Love Her If I Knew What To Do (Version 1 / Westbourne Terrace Demo) 02:18
02. Seen Her Face Before (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 01:26
03. Everything You Do Is Fine (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 04:09
04. Cold Stone (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 03:30
05. You Never Told Me Lies (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 02:06
06. Take A Look At Me (Westbourne Terrace Demo) 04:14
07. Wild And Free (Demo) 03:44
08. I’d Love Her If I Knew What To Do (Version 2 / Demo) 01:41
09. Spider Woman (BBC Radio Session) 04:34
10. Route 66 (Live At The Hippodrome) 02:54
11. Joey (Mono US Single Mix) 03:04
12. Monster Club (Movie Soundtrack, 1980) 03:53
13. Cause And Effect (Out Of The Island, 1987) 03:11
14. Holding Onto Love (Outtake) 06:09
15. You Can`t Judge A Book (Pretty Thigs-Yardbird Blues Band, 1991) 03:03
16. Chain Of Fools (Pretty Thigs-Yardbird Blues Band, 1991) 04:55
17. No Questions (Pretty Thigs-Yardbird Blues Band, 1993) 04:22
18. It’s All Over Now Baby Blue (Outtake) 04:05
19. Hoochie Coochie Man (Outtake) 05:46
20. Look Away Now (Outtake) 05:17
21. Helter Skelter (The White EP, Fruits Der Mer, 2012) 04:54






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