PINK FAIRIES APPRECIATION DAY

THE PINK FAIRIES were a British heavy/progressive/alternative group active in the London underground and psychedelic scene of the early 70s. They promoted free music, drug taking and anarchy, and often performed impromptu gigs and other agitprop stunts, such as playing for free outside the gates at the Isle of Wight pop festival. The band, led by Paul Rudolph on guitar; Duncan (Sandy) Sanderson on bass; and two drummers - Twink and Russell Hunter, toured North America before launching their first album, Neverneverland. They went through several different lineups of band members over the years, although the core was always the aforementioned supplemented by ex-UFO Larry Wallis. The iconoclastic "Do It" was the band's call to arms until Wallis invoked the more urban "City Kids" anthem as the new lead. THE PINK FAIRIES occupy a unique position in British rock history, as defining pioneers of psychedelic hard rock, post-"hippy", pre-punk and pre-metal, influencing many bands of the latter categories. They stayed outside the mainstream rock scene of the 70s, although they later regretted their lack of commercialism. They have always been sustained by a hard core niche fan base of "hippies, hells angels and other psychedelic rebel rockers" who prefer the live music "rowdy get togethers" to buying albums/CDs.

NEVERNEVERLAND (1971)

Neverneverland readily takes its place among the era's most crucial debuts, a hard-rocking, free-flowing, and, above all, anarchic monster that opens with the definitive statement of yippie intent, "Do It," and doesn't look back. Titled for radical Jerry Rubin's book of the same name, "Do It" remains a manifesto for the revolution that never quite got off the ground, a gutsy affirmation that the Pink Fairies were never to eclipse.

1. Do It
2. Heavenly Man
3. Say You Love Me
4. War Girl
5. Never Never Land
6. Track One, Side Two
7. Thor
8. Teenage Rebel
9. Uncle Harry's Last Freakout
10. The Dream Is Just Beginning

DOWNLOAD



WHAT A BUNCH OF SWEETIES (1972)

The best-loved of the original PINK FAIRIES' three albums is also, contrarily, the lesser of them all. Recorded in 1972 at a time when the band's own reputation as hippie hellraisers was being eclipsed by the soaring HAWKWIND, What a Bunch of Sweeties found the band realigning themselves with the twisted Americana rock sensibilities of the latter-day MC5 - high on noise but, sadly, low on the blistering commitment that was the hallmark of their debut album. The loss of founding member Twink may or may not have contributed further to the collapse, although there is no denying that, in full instrumental overdrive, the three-piece incarnation of the group was at least as dramatic as its predecessor. A nine-minute assault on THE VENTURES' "Walk Don't Run" rates among the finest PINK FAIRIES recordings of all time. There's also a hot version of THE BEATLES' "I Saw Her Standing There".

1. Prologue
2. Right On, Fight On
3. Portobello Shuffle
4. Marilyn
5. The Pigs of Uranus
6. Walk Don't Run
7. I Went Up, I Went Down
8. X-Ray
9. I Saw Her Standing There

DOWNLOAD


KINGS OF OBLIVION (1973)

The third and final PINK FAIRIES studio album, Kings of Oblivion, welcomed guitarist Larry Wallis to the brew, bringing with him some of the band's most remarkable -- and concise -- material yet. The opening "City Kids," famously recut by MOTORHEAD during Wallis' sojourn with that band, is as dynamic an opener as the PINK FAIRIES ever had, while the album's two epics, "I Wish I Was a Girl" and "Street Urchin," similarly catch the band as they made a sharp turn away from the rockin' riff jam basics that scarred their second LP and moved instead into the affirmative guttercat stance that so effectively predicted the rudiments of punk rock. Indeed, if any album could be said to have been born ahead of its time, Kings of Oblivion, conceived in 1973 but sounding just like 1977, is it.

1. City Kids
2. I Wish I Was a Girl
3. When's the Fun Begin
4. Chromium Plating
5. Raceway
6. Chambermaid
7. Street Urchin

DOWNLOAD