I was introduced to the Pretty Things by David Bowie on his "Pin Ups" album when he covered two of their songs. This one and Rosalyn. At the time I thought the Bowie versions were fantastic. But then apart from the Kinks and Easybeats songs I'd never really heard any of the other stuff.
A few years later I started hanging around second-hand records shops searching for sixties records. I picked up a few of the early Pretty Things singles and was just knocked by their rawness. kinda like a cross between The Stones and the Yardbirds who I was really into at the time. That sixties garage rock r'n'b that would inform the bands I was trying to form in the mid-seventies. Miles away from the pomp of the big bands of the time like ELO and Queen. Unknowingly we were building ourselves our own culture listening to the Pretty Things and Dr. Feelgood. Early sixties stuff like The Easybeats and the Nuggets compilations. Raiding second-hand shops for clothes or heading down to a Carlton shoe shop because we heard there were winkle pickers in the back room. I would make mixtapes and try to get them played at parties we went to. It was a crusade that would feed naturally into Year Zero and the punk explosion of 77 in Melbourne.
A few years later I started hanging around second-hand records shops searching for sixties records. I picked up a few of the early Pretty Things singles and was just knocked by their rawness. kinda like a cross between The Stones and the Yardbirds who I was really into at the time. That sixties garage rock r'n'b that would inform the bands I was trying to form in the mid-seventies. Miles away from the pomp of the big bands of the time like ELO and Queen. Unknowingly we were building ourselves our own culture listening to the Pretty Things and Dr. Feelgood. Early sixties stuff like The Easybeats and the Nuggets compilations. Raiding second-hand shops for clothes or heading down to a Carlton shoe shop because we heard there were winkle pickers in the back room. I would make mixtapes and try to get them played at parties we went to. It was a crusade that would feed naturally into Year Zero and the punk explosion of 77 in Melbourne.
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