GBlog

Robert Zimmermann was right - "To live outside the law, you must be honest" (- aus den Linernotes der umwerfenden DVD "The Pretty Things' 40th Anniversary - Live in Brighton"! - Habe ich mir zu Weihnachten geschenkt ...)

And now, in this - their 11th studio album - The Pretties have opened their deepest vein. The power, intensity, depth and passion of this record is unmatched by any of their contemporaries. The Stones, Van, The Who - none of the class of '64 has enough gas left in the tank to make a record like this. (Mark St John, und recht hat der Mann: Die Pretty Things waren seit ihren ersten beiden Alben nicht mehr so ehrlich und wahr wie auf diesem, - das allerdings nur in kleiner Auflage in den USA erschienen ist.)


“The road to “Balboa Island” has been a long and eventful journey... Littered with car crashes and catastrophe, and taking us all way back to the very beginnings of the band... En route, precious blood has definitely been spilt and the long years of friendship we shared, have been seriously tested. The record we started recording 3 years ago was train-wrecked 13 months into the project. We watched it crash & burn in eruptions of wounded pride and volcanic egos in torment... dark déjà vu: it always ends like this.

Confused casualties reeled away from the wreckage, sensing that this indeed could finally be terminal - with myself amongst them. But, of course, it wasn’t... Just another self-inflicted wound in the battered body of “The Pretty Things”.

When the smoke finally cleared, those of us left standing found ourselves back at the Station Hotel, Dartford, 1963 - our first paid gig... back at Sidcup Art School - cloakroom jamming with Keith Richards... back in Dick’s mum’s sitting room - first rehearsals (fed by the Jaffa cakes that Mick & Keith had sampled the previous year)... All sharp flashbacks that served as signposts.

So, for the next few months we soaked up hours and hours of the raw early archive blues, that had shaped our raucous beginnings...Slowly the rehab started to work. We took the time out to faithfully record a complete set of traditional delta blues tracks for possible future release - scratchy, scruffy, littered with mistakes, but dripping with truth & commitment.

And, somewhere in there, the blues found us again, and, more importantly, we found ourselves in the blues; the new material started to flow, and an old, deep vein was re-opened… the tapes were rolling again. The Boys from The Dartford Delta were back in town, back together & back in the studio, older, non the wiser, very bloody, but (still) unbowed. Eventually we put it to bed and, out of nowhere, finished this tortured record, which may just be the best thing we’ve ever done... Or maybe it’s not... Who knows any more? Not me, that’s for sure.

And when the night-train rolled to a dead stop at the end of the line - the destination board read: Balboa Island.But we wouldn’t have made it to journey’s end without the engineer and the driver… so, thanks a million Mark, (St John, that is) - Nemesis or Savior - We’ll never know? You too, Ross, new kid on the block, old head on young shoulders… And, last but not least, to all our new, extended family - our fellow Côte Basque artists, musicians & co-conspirators, but especially you, Scarlett, we’ve got a real soft spot for you. You breathed a little of your youthful innocence into our cynical souls – I think we needed that. And lastly, for anyone still listening. We’re very proud of this, it’s still
everything and it’s still the only life for an outlaw to live - even with the invidious cancer of Blair, Bush and reality TV eating away at our freedom... So, till the next time…” Phil May

a propos Blair: Das freut den Papst. Blair ist nun katholisch!

Nachtrag: die beste LP aus der PsychedelicEra der Pretty Things:
Parachute: