The band has retained a cult following over the years. The new CD should please those fans and also create some new ones, provided it gets a chance to be heard. Its British Invasion-style, blues-influenced pop songs aren't prettied up for a pop audience. Parts of the CD are breathtakingly raw, like "All Light Up" and the rave-up towards the end of the epic "(Blues for) Robert Johnson." The elemental rock anthem "Buried Alive" sounds like a lost collaboration between Cream and T. Rex, the cover of Bob Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown" suits the band fine, and "Freedom Song" wallows in its Fats-Domino-in-Hell piano triplets like a pig in murky water. Set off against those are a handful of lighter pop nuggets like "Mimi" and "Pretty Beat."
The Pretty Things weren't for everybody back in 1964, and they're not for everybody now. But they're still exactly who they are. It's quite remarkable.
Listen to extended clips here and download "All Light Up" (an amazing beast of a song) here.
Larry Bagby, On the Radio (EP)
Larry Bagby's plaintive voice and melodic, heartland-country songs have a polished sound but a rootsy, almost archaic appeal. The hero of the intense title track is a musician playing small bars, dreaming of making it big and getting played on the radio (a primitive music distribution system popular in the 20th century). The acoustically funky "Done Giving Love" rocks unselfconsciously, like music used to do before everything became ironic, and "Player with a Heart" does right by its old-timey rockabilly feel.
"Counting My Lucky Stars" is an old-fashioned love song with imagistic lyrics and a lovely melody. The other two ballads are forgettably prosaic and could have been culled. But this an EP worth checking out if you're a fan of rootsy, Dixie-fried, acoustic-based country rock. If nothing else, it proves that Larry Bagby is a lot more than the bully from Buffy.
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