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The Pink Fairies
What can I say about this band that hasn't been said before. Relaxed (read "loose"), fun, rocky, irreverant and sometimes downright silly, the Fairies never failed to entertain. They frequently supported Hawkwind and often ended up jamming as Pinkwind - I've never come across any recordings of that collaboration, so if you have any info or, better still, recordings, please let me know.
The original guitarist/vocalist, Paul Rudolph, left the band to pick up bass for Hawkwind following Lemmy's departure. His eventual replacement, Larry Wallis, saw the Pinks becoming tighter and less "trippy". Larry eventually left to join Lemmy in starting Motorhead.
Two main iterations of the band produced three studio albums which have all been re-released within the last couple of years on CD with bonus tracks. Buy them all is my advice.
There are also a number of live albums and EPs around which all seem to post date the three above. Although they were still getting together occasionally during the 80s, the Pinks played a farewell concert at the Roundhouse in 1975 - the resulting album is well worth checking out. Founder member Twink still puts out some material, but I personally haven't managed to get into it.
There's a superb compliation of BBC Sessions plus the two Glastonbury Fayre tracks available under the title Mandies and Mescaline Round at Uncle Harry's which is one of the best buys I've made in recent years. Two extremely well played and recorded tracks are from the BBC In Concert 1971 featuring Trevor Burton (ex The Move) alongside Rudolph on guitar and are introduced by rather amusingly by John Peel (not least because he introduces Uncle Harry's Last Freak Out as Uncle Wally's ....)
Links
Larry Wallis has his own site at: http://www.PinkFairies.co.uk
Info on the link between Steve Took (co-founder of T-Rex with Marc Bolan) and the Pink Fairies ..... http://www.bolan.co.uk/steve-took/pink.html
Official sites for Steve Took, Larry Wallis as well as Judge Trev Thoms ex Inner City Unit (Nik Turner's band) and Ron Tree (ex Hawkwind), courtesy of Fee Mercury Moon who is the proud owner of the tree where Marc Bolan died. http://realfestivalmusic.co.uk or http://www.mercurymoon.co.uk
Check out this interview with Larry Wallis and an excellent intro describing the Fairies. http://www.mercurymoon.co.uk/pinkfairies/nigel-cross-interview.html
An excellent fan site: http://utenti.lycos.it/pigsofuranus/2_biography.html
Sound files
All around 1.5 mins and thus around 1.5Mb so will take a while to download but worth it if you want to find out what the Pinks sounded like ....
If you only have a dialup modem, don't forget to right click then Save Target As .... to get the files. If you've got a broadband connection, you should be able to play them directly from here by left clicking on them.
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