PRETTY THINGS

THE PRETTY THINGS is an Enhanced CD containing both a full audio program as well as multimedia computer files including a promotional video of "Rosalyn." The Pretty Things: Phil May (vocals); Dick Taylor, Brian Pendleton (guitar); John Stax (bass); Viv Prince (drums). Includes liner notes by Paul Du Noyer. All tracks digitally remastered from the original master tapes by Mark St. John and Andy Pearce (February 1998, Masterpiece Mastering, London, England). Raucous to the point of making their peers the Rolling Stones look tame, the Pretty Things took the emerging British blues-rock sound of the mid-1960s and injected it with a heavy dose of manic energy. Given guitarist Dick Taylor's initial musical camaraderie with classmates Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (Taylor was in the Stones briefly before bowing out to attend art school), it's no surprise that the lesser-known group had much in common with the soon-to-be superstars. The Pretty Things' self-titled 1965 debut is a restless set of tunes largely made up of Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry covers, with the quartet surging through a feisty take on Diddley's "Roadrunner" and a breakneck-paced rendition of Berry's "Oh Baby Doll," among others. Phil May, the group's hyperactive vocalist, makes Mick seem positively polite, while the rest of the band has clearly borrowed pages from the Keith Moon book of freewheeling musicianship. The resulting album may be too raw for some listeners, but for ardent fans of early Stones, Animals, and Kinks, THE PRETTY THINGS will be a welcome discovery.