I've come to the conclusion that my favourite group of all time are the pretty things,how did i come to this?......been playing the pretty things all day,from the self titled debut up to and including "parachute",all excellent albums no matter what genre they are.But my fave period has to be their psych period recordings and man did they not record a lot of stuff.Am i the only prettiies fan to enjoy "Emotions" with its dubbed orchestration?I love the orchestrated version of "the sun" among others.And what can you say about "sf sorrow" thats not already been said?Just that in my opinion it beats floyds "piper" and the fabs "sgt pepper"which i love too!!Ive not even mentioned the run of singles around this time,the likes of "Defecting Grey"and "Talkin about the good times"with excellent b sides like"Mr Evasion"and "Walking through my dreams"are all top psych recordings.I must mention the recordings they did as Electric Banana,the redordings for the De Wolfe label,tracks like"Alexander","Eagles Son" and"It'll never be me"are again top notch pieces of psych.They even recorded an album in "69 with a French guy named Phillipe De Barge,this hidden gem is well worth hearing and got a legit cd release by Ugly THings mag a few year back.Finally i wanted to mention that excellent album"Parachute"from "70,the arrangements particularly the vocals are tremendous on this recording,a trully great album that at the time was basically ignored by the masses,its a real puzzle to me how this album never made a bigger dent in the charts/Ace stuff!!Well theres my reasons for the pretties being my all time fave group,anyone feel the same?Anyone else out there have a fave all time group?

"Talkin about the good times"/"Walking through my dreams"
is perhaps my fave UK 6ts 2-sider and "Defecting grey"/"Mr Evasion" coming close.

To move forward as the easiest thing in the world from their fab tuff RnB to the above recordings is simply stunning!

WHAT AN AMAZING BAND!

They are great, but I don't know if they eclipse the Kinks, Stones, Beatles, or Pink Floyd. But I can see liking "S.F. Sorrow" more than the more famous psych albums of the era, but if you take the whole band, I'm not sure that the Pretty Things are quite where those other bands are for overall output. Their R&B doesn't do much for me. I do like "Emotions" but it's a record in transition.
I agree that "S.F. Sorrow" may be the ultimate sixties psych album. That or The Small Faces "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" seem to beat out the more famous ones like "Axis:Bold as Love", "Sgt. Pepper", or "Piper At the Gates of Dawn" if you're talking about the merging of quality and feel. "Ogden's" and "S.F. Sorrow" combine great songs and a psych feel almost perfectly. And of course while there are good songs on "Satanic Majesties Request", there is some filler too.
I'm a fan of the Pretty Things, but I think I'd grab my Kinks albums first in a fire.

s.f. sorrow is a grat album. parachute is good but not quite as good in my opinion. pity they did not carry on in that vein though.

Gotta agree with most things you said Stuart, although I do find Emotions harder to take.
SF Sorrow, the singles you mentioned and a lot of the Electric Banana stuff is the best psych going.
I know most people dismiss them after Parachute, but if you listen to Silk Torpedo as it is-a rock album, it's not too bad.

Hi Greg,never heard "Silk Torpedo"im afraid,maybe my delusional thinking concerning the greatness of them has stopped me from hearing this,i dont want to be disappointed,i have read not so good things about the albums after "parachute" which stupidly has stopped me from giving them a listen,but i will bite the bullet and get "Silk Torpedo"as its going for a good price on Amazon!Thanks for mentioning it Greg!

I agree those are bits of genius as well. "Talkin' About the Good Times" has great mellotron! It's a must hear for sure. I have their singles on a Harvest compilation l.p of A's and B's and they're good mostly. "Summertime" is a rollicking number.
I think I remember liking the original single version of "Defecting Grey" more than the extended version I have as an extra track on a copy of the S.F. Sorrow CD.

i have to say I"ve also kept away from Silk Torpedo or that one with the fingernail pulling on the eye (I can't remember the title) because I've heard people describe them as truly awful, but I guess that isn't necessarily the case. I do like Parachute a lot and the Philippe De Barge album and the Electric Banana stuff, although they aren't quite up to S.F. Sorrow for me.

Don't expect any psych or prog or anything groundbreaking on Silk Torpedo. IMO it's not as bad as people say, it's just that it is so different from their other material. It's as if they went through three stages in their career-r&b,psych,rock.
By this stage they were on Led Zeps Swan Song label and trying to make it in the U.S. It would have been interesting to see how it would have been received if it was by a different band and not carrying the Pretty Things name.
Oh,and the other album you mentioned Joe, is Savage Eye.

That's the one. Savage Eye. I have to admit I was kind of curious about them just because I know that Jimmy Page was a big fan of the band if he signed them to Swan Song, but maybe that kind of association hurt more than helped. There's plenty of bands who made the transition from a more psych or sixties sound to a seventies rock sound, but maybe going on what I've heard, or read in the unreliable Rolling Stone Record Guide, I've never given either of those albums a listen. But I'm a fan of Boxer, who are more straight-ahead rock than Patto, who are in turn more progressive than Timebox, so maybe I should approach with open ears...
In my pursuit of more Ollie Halsall stuff I've even given some Tempest a try, although it's a bit out of my style for the most part. Still, there are some good songs there as well.

Love the Pretties too, from their R&B beginnings up to the Abbey Road influenced "Parachute", a masterpiece of an album in my opinion. "Emotions" is a fave as well and I like both versions, with and without orchestral arrangements. Cheers.

I will put the Pretties near the top of the heap though they're not my very faves.I'll have to be the dissenting voice and say that "Emotions" is one of the most disappointing albums of the sixties,IMO, especially considering when it was released, as the transition from freakbeat to psych was taking place. Very uninspired songwriting and the strings are often cringeworthy. Compare it to,say,Hollies "Evolution" and it isn't in the same league. Still, at their best(Midnight to Six,the pre-S.F. Sorrow singles, Sorrow, and some of the Electric Banana and Parachute stuff)they were a great band and deserved more success than they got.

Totally agree Omar regarding the "Emotions" LP, such a letdown.
Perhaps they just wanted to get away from Fontana asap but were under contract to make one more LP i don´t know but there must be a reason.

Savage Eye was the one with the fingernail

My faves too- was lucky enough to be at the Festival Hall when they did Sorrow live in its entirety- a magic night.

Still on the Pretties, is there any word about a DVD release of their Reelin In The Years 'British Invasion' documentary. I gather it was screened in some places a year or so ago, but RITY were looking for a DVD distributor. Given that this series has been uniformly excellent to date (just been watching The Hollies' one), it seems criminal that this one hasn't been released.

Yeah, I don't understand this distribution thing.
The first series of Small Faces, Dusty Springfield and Gerry and The Pacemakers all came out at the same time from the same distributor I presume.
This second series of the Pretty Things, Hollies and Manfred Mann is about a year overdue.
Why do the Hollies have a distributor and not the others?

So good to see The Pretties in action here in Sydney on Friday. Still a great band. Played a good mix of early R&B and psych incl. 'LSD', a few tracks from 'SF Sorrow' and even 'Defecting Grey'. Brilliant.

Hi Stuart.

My tuppence worth on the Pretties...deffo a contender for my fave, but it's such a hard call, fave band, albums and all that kind of thing.
Most bands I love usually have some portion of their output that I like less than others.

First two. Brilliant, no quibble.

Emotions - I think it gets a bad press, If it was made by a different band it might be viewed differently.Some beltin' tunes on there - "My Time " one of my fave all time songs - WITH the orchestration.
I love this album, sure it"s different, but so what....

Sorrow - Needs no words from a mere mortal like me!

Phillipe de barges - An EXCELLENT thing of beauty!! What kind of quality of a band could leave something like this unreleased I ask you...?
One of the best UK 60's albums IMO

Electric banana - Best bits, same opinion as Phillipe de Barges, not quite S.F. Sorrow but bloody brilliant.

Not trying to be willfully obscure here but easily making my fave top 5 Pretties songs and one of the best songs by ANYONE,EVER....."Turn My Head"
from the BBC sessions

Lastly I have to confess that I just can't seem to appreciate Parachutes the way a lot of other people do, I know it's regarded very highly by not just Pretties fans but it marks a change in style that I'm just not too keen on,sorry.
Maybe I'll change my mind with time,it took me a long time to get Led Zep but I did eventually.

must say PRETTY THINGS-THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS is a fav of mine got all my fav pretties psyche tracks on great stuff and cheap to get hold of

Though PTs are not my fave band, Sorrow is certainly one of my fave albums. I have the vinyl and 3 different versions of the cd. Fantastic clip from French TV on YouTube. Twink is parading around like a Twit.

lol a lotta folk on here think Twink is a twit!!