The Pretty Things
S.F. Sorrow (1968)
The album tells the story of Stebastian F Sorrow and was recorded over several months during 1967 at Abbey Road Studios in London. During the same period when The Beatles and Pink Floyd were recording Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn respectively. Norman Smith who had engineered much of The Beatles recordings produced both The Piper... and S.F. Sorrow.
S.F. Sorrow was a commercial failure and by 1970 the band had broken up. Only to reform a couple of years later and existing to this day with people coming and going in various lineups.
By 1998 S.F. Sorrow's cult following had the group playing the whole album live in Abbey Road Studios with David Gilmour on guitar and Arthur "Fire" Brown as a narrator. The whole thing was broadcast live on radio and the Internet and has been released on CD and DVD.
And the album lives on... Plans are for the band to go out and play it live on a short tour of Britain early 2009. Read more about it here.
The Pretty Things were also among the groups that played the Amougies festival in Belgium in October 1969. Frank Zappa was hired as an emcee. He sat in with some of the groups. No one seem to know for sure which ones, but due to the rumours they were Pretty Things, Pink Floyd, Archie Shepp and Aynsley Dunbar.
More:
Wikipedia on The Pretty Things.
A 1998 article on the live performance at Abbey Road Studios.
/Neb & Siggy - December 2008
