DC Sorrow is born!

Great Vivian Prince's ghost, do my eyes deceive me?

So I was determined to take a stroll during lunch, in honor of the awesome weather (cool, gray, breezy, almost rain)...

Passing the front windows of the Black Cat, paused to scan the board for upcoming shows, and The Pretty Things jumped out at me like a stoned jack-in-the-box on fire, wrapped in glowing, squid-like tentacles...and dammit, you know I can't resist a cosmic squid-like tentacle now and then.

HOLY CRAP: The Pretty Things are coming to town. Friday 11april.


For the unaware: Absolutely essential 60s rock band. Early albums are great blues rock but more popish, and some have unfortunate producer add-ons like studio horn players (as in the Emotions lp, 1967), but with 1968's S.F. Sorrow, these cats became heroes. It was a rocking psychedelic masterpiece. One of the ten best albums of all time. Damn straight.

So this makes the surviving band members a bunch of geezers trying to grasp one last shot before being cast off to die in peace, yeh?

Not so! Their surprise comeback release Rage Before Beauty in 1999 proved they still have some life left, and while it isn't nearly their best work, it had some convincing moments.

There's also the DVD of the Pretty Things playing the SF Sorrow material live at Abbey Road, in 1998. And they did a fantastic job of it. The where-the-hell-did-he-come-from guitar solo by Dave Gilmour wasn't even too distracting: He sort of appeared and vanished like a prankster ghost. But the band was in great form.

So that's the history lesson.


I got back to the office and checked the Black Cat's schedule. And sure enough, it's real. But, what's this? Arthur Brown on the bill as well? Jumping Manatee Beans! This Intangible Head needs to sit down. Too much excitement.

CREDIT: Tour poster courtesy of IDB Booking.