Review: 'Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky: The Complete Pretty Things Deluxe Boxset Collection'

Could The Pretty Things have achieved more than cult success in America if their manager didn’t have the lack of vision to book them on a New Zealand tour instead of taking them to the U.S. in the early days of their career? Did this possibly fatal decision allow The Rolling Stones to swoop in and swipe the title of Rock’s dirtiest, nastiest band in the world’s biggest pop market, leaving The Pretty Things doomed to cult act status? I kind of doubt it. Just hold up photos of the two bands circa 1965 side by side. See how relatively short the Stones’ hair is. See how nattily they dressed, even if they weren’t wearing matching suits like those fit-for-grandma Beatles did. See how long and unkempt The Pretty Things’ hair is, and I don’t just mean singer Phil May’s celebrated mane. Dick Taylor’s facial scruff looks like it reeks of beat clubs and pot stench and stage sweat. Had this mob appeared on American shores in 1965, they probably would have been tossed in the nearest zoo.

But could they have made it here if radio played their records more aggressively? I doubt that too. Unlike the Stones, who had good noses for pop hits, the Pretties were too uncompromising in their devotion to the hardest blues. They were so unwilling to bend to the strictures of radio that they not only recorded an obscure R&B song called “Come See Me” as aggressively as possible, they left in the line about laying a girl, and had the sheer madness to put it out as a single. Naturally, U.S. stations refused to play it. By the time The Pretty Things went psychedelic with “Defecting Grey”, a “song” that sounds like it was pieced together from bits of tape during some sort of arts and crafts class at the local mental institution, the possibility that they’d ever hit it big in America had long since gone AWOL. Hell, we didn’t even give them credit for putting out the first LP-length rock opera!

Normally, bands who don’t come within a mile of taking America as assuredly as the Stones did don’t get the kind of treatment The Pretty Things do with their new box set Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky: The Complete Pretty Things Deluxe Boxset Collection. Once again, they have little interest in such rules. This heavy duty set audaciously expects cultists to plunk down some serious coin for all eleven of the band’s studio albums, two extra discs of rarities, a replica acetate disc, two DVDs, and sundry books and posters and artwork. Actually, Bouquets isn’t terrible value if you don’t have all this stuff already. Compare it to another fairly recent box from Snapper records: Small Faces’ Here Come the Nice. That 2013 set only had four CDs and no DVDs and went for about £95.00 on Burning Shed.com compared to the £125.00 they’re asking for Bouquets as of this writing. Granted, that deal is less enticing for anyone who already owns all the Pretties CDs that have been available for years, because they are apparently identical to the ones in this new set. I only received a fifteen-song sampler, but listening to its tracks against the discs already in my collection, I detect no mastering differences. There is no indication otherwise in the pdf of the hardback book I also received (it’s a well-illustrated, critically balanced mini-biography of the band’s fifty years of bad behavior, though it does contain a few minor errors and really just whetted my appetite for the full-blown biography the band really deserves). Snapper’s decision to go with the stereo mix of S.F. Sorrow instead of the far superior mono one is a questionable decision, and the true completist will want to purchase it elsewhere.

Nevertheless, you still have three discs of material unavailable anywhere else. I am unqualified to assess those two CDs of rarities (which do not contain any of the fabulous recordings the band made under the name The Electric Banana, probably because of rights issues) since I didn’t receive it, but I did get to stream Midnight to Six 1965 – 1970, Reelin’ in the Years Productions’ documentary that was supposed to see release back in 2011 but was derailed by clearance and distribution issues. Like other entries in Reelin’ in the Years’ British Invasion series, Midnight to Six features new interviews with band members intercut with vintage song performances in their entireties. The interviews are interesting, though there’s a lot of informational overlap with the book included in this set. Still it’s cool to hear these wild stories right from the guys’ mouths, just as it’s cool to see them perform even when they’re only lip-syncing to recordings. The totally live performance footage, however, is spellbinding. It’s one thing to listen to these albums. It’s another to see 21-year old Phil May flipping his outrageous-for-1965-length hair while dropping to his knees as Viv Prince drums on his spine and an army of Dutch teens go to war with the cops in the audience. You wanna know why Rock & Roll used to scare the shit out of parents? This is why, motherfucker. Even seeing an awful, awful mime mugging while the band lip-syncs to “Private Sorrow” isn’t enough to make this early footage less potent.

The most well known footage of the Pretties from this era is the 14-minute short film “Pretty Things on Film” (sort of a grungier A Hard Day’s Night without all the plot and dialogue bits), which received wide release as a video bonus on Snapper’s Get the Picture CD in 1998. Midnight to Six doesn’t cheat by including this relatively familiar film within its two hours, but “Pretty Things on Film” is conscientiously included as a bonus. Hopefully the whole highly anticipated DVD will receive a stand alone release for the many Pretty Things diehards who already have every other disc in this box set.

Bouquets also throws in the band’s 1998 performance of S.F. Sorrow at Abbey Road, This is another readily available video, but it is an excellent one with the band performing their greatest work impeccably with bonus narration by Arthur Brown and occasional guitar support by Dave Gilmour. The name of this box set’s game is completeness, and it would not be complete without S.F. Sorrow Live at Abbey Road.

Despite having a pretty limited concept of what’s in Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky, I can say that anyone whose Pretty Things collection is currently pretty skimpy and wants to get everything in one swoop—and really, if you have any interest in sixties R&B and psychedelia, why wouldn’t you?—Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky: The Complete Pretty Things Deluxe Boxset Collection would probably be a wise purchase. Hopefully if enough of this limited edition set’s 2,000 pieces sell in the U.S., the Pretties will be a little less underrated here. 

Get Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky on Burning Shed. com here.

20 Things You May Not Have Known About The Pretty Things!

Aficionados of R&B freak-outs and totally freaky psychedelia already know The Pretty Things were the nastiest, longest-haired mob of hooligans Swinging London ever belched up. They know the band was a (sort of) outgrowth of the Rolling Stones, an early form of which counted Pretty Dick Taylor as a member, and that they beat The Who to the shops with the first LP-length rock opera, and that the Pretties will soon be the focus of their very own luxurious career-spanning box set. But even the die-est hardest Pretty-o-phile may learn something new among these 20 Things You May Not Have Known About The Pretty Things!

1. Singer Phil May was raised by his aunt and uncle, and believed them to be his biological parents. Phil was devastated when sent to live with his biological mother and her new husband at the age of nine. Although this meant he became Phil Kattner for a while, he ultimately decided to permanently keep his aunt and uncle’s surname May for himself.

2. Phil May told journalist Richie Unterberger that he learned many of the lyrics to the blues and early R&R the Pretties played from the songbook Mick Jagger personally compiled in a notepad.

3. Brian Jones and Andrew Oldham’s shaky relationship probably didn’t get any better when Jones moved into the same Georgian house as Phil May, Viv Prince, Brian Pendelton, and Jones’s former bandmate, Dick Taylor, in 1964. Rolling Stones manager Oldham supposedly hated the Pretties because he considered them his clients’ direct competition.

November 9, 2009: The Nuggets Record Buying Guide: The Pretty Things

There were a lot of ‘60s bands that huddled in the massive shadow cast by the likes of The Beatles, The Stones, and The Who that were easily in the same league as those groups. There was The Left Banke from New York City and The Move from Birmingham and Procol Harum from London and Love from Los Angeles. But the group that most deserved to be placed in the upper echelon of ‘60s Rock royalty may have been The Pretty Things.

I can go on about the ground they smashed: that they were the first band to release a full-length Rock Opera, that they were the first band to sport truly long hair as opposed to mere collar-length mop tops, that drummer Viv Prince was the first genuine wild man of British Rock, that guitarist Dick Taylor helped birth The Rolling Stones. Those milestones are all worthy of mention, but what really makes the case for The Pretty Things’ greatness and importance is their music. The Pretties dished out R&B as tough as the early Stones, psychedelia as wild as Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, harmonies as rich and gorgeous as The Beatles or The Beach Boys, concepts as inventive and furiously delivered as The Who. Yet—unlike the bands I mentioned at the top of this paragraph—The Pretty Things never made much of an impression locally or abroad. The Left Banke and Procol Harum each had significant international hits. Love and The Move were both big bands on their home turf. The closest The Pretty Things came to making a commercial splash was managing a #10 UK hit in 1964 with “Don’t Bring Me Down”. They seemed to make the biggest impact on their peers. Surely, The Who’s Tommy would have sounded quite a bit different had it not been for The Pretties’ S.F. Sorrow. David Bowie was so fond of them that he covered two of their classics for his 1973 covers album Pin Ups. Led Zeppelin were big enough fans to sign The Pretty Things to their Swan Song Records.

When Rhino Records released Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969 in 2001, The Pretty Things were represented by a substantial three tracks: “Rosalyn”, “Midnight to Six Man” and “Walking Through My Dreams”. This triad is a powerful reminder of what a fine singles band they were, but their long players were equally important. Every L.P. they released between 1965 and 1970 is great, and you certainly couldn’t go wrong starting your Pretty Things collection with any one of them. But one clearly stands above the rest. During previous entries of The Nuggets Record Buying Guide about The Turtles, The Small Faces, and The Move, I selected albums that weren’t necessarily considered to be each band’s definitive release as the best one to hear first. In the case of The Pretty Things, their most celebrated album is the spot to start. Of course, I’m talking about S.F. Sorrow.

S.F. Sorrow (1968)



Yes, it’s neat that S.F. Sorrow was the first rock opera, but without a line-up of ace songs, the record would be nothing more than a historical footnote. Much like Tommy, the plot here is a bit obscure and hazily sketched, tracking the development of a troubled fellow from birth to disillusioned maturation. Unlike Tommy, there is no filler included solely for the purpose of storytelling… well, aside from the ambient track “Well of Destiny”, which is basically 1:47 of weird sound effects. Aside from that brief interlude, every single song on S.F. Sorrow is a stunner, each one bounding into fresh and freaky territory. The two pieces that bookend the album are the most straight-forward: the title track is a folk-rock gem that surfs along on a wave of lush acoustic guitars, sumptuous harmonies, and an incessant beat; the finale, “Loneliest Person”, is a brief, melancholic acoustic number that ends the record on a heart-wrenchingly elliptical note. Everything in between is a carnival of trippy experimentation and impeccable pop songwriting craft. The variety of moods and colors conjured throughout the record is incredible. “Bracelets of Fingers” is swirling, dizzying, intoxicating. “She Says Good Morning” is nightmarish yet beautiful. “Private Sorrow” intense, “Death” punishingly somber, “Baron Saturday” devilishly joyous, “Trust” ethereal and transcendent. “Old Man Going” is as tough an acoustic guitar-driven song as any Pete Townshend ever conceived, and it was clearly an influence on “Pinball Wizard” despite his assertions that Sorrow did not sway Tommy.

Lyrically, the record is more about creating impressions of events rather than establishing specific scenes with characters and dialogue, so it’s actually a lot more similar to Quadrophenia than Tommy in that department. In any event, the lyrics on Sorrow—based on a short story by singer Phil May (who turns 65 today)—are poetic in a way that neither the cartoonish Tommy nor the diary-like Quadrophenia are. Take “Balloon Burning”, a song about the death of Sorrow’s girlfriend in a balloon accident. The lyrics read like a collage of impressions of a tragedy that couldn’t be fully comprehended by the witness: “She throws down / lifeline of kisses / Anchored to the ground / Balloon descending / Then I see balloon is burning / Turning round burning.” It’s stark, evocative stuff.


Once you have absorbed S.F. Sorrow you should probably move on to Parachute, which is nearly as good. Yet again the band uses a loose concept as a blueprint for the record, with Side A offering an Abbey Road-like suite of city songs and Side B ruminating on country life. Yet again the album’s chief strength is the individual songs. Parachute is the Pretties’ album that is most similar to S.F. Sorrow, but their earlier R&B records are fantastic in their own ways, too. Their second album, Get the Picture, is the best of these, because it’s their first to host a string of thumpingly sublime originals— “You Don’t Believe Me”, “Buzz the Jerk”, “Get the Picture”—along with terrific covers of Ray Charles’s “I Had a Dream” and Tim Hardin’s “London Town”. “Can’t Stand the Pain” bears the first traces of the kind of psychedelia that would fully inform S.F. Sorrow. 1967’s folk-rocking Emotions is a very good one, as well, though not as consistent as these other records. But “Death of a Socialite”, “The Sun”, “There Will Never Be Another Day”, and “My Time” and are all essential.