Cet article de Richard Green est paru dans l’hebdomadaire britannique New Musical Express daté du 30 octobre 1964. Même si les Pretty Things ont dû quitter leur antre du 13, Chester Street, ils auront l’occasion de fêter le succès du single Don’t Bring Me Down chez leurs amis.
Transcription
The Pretty Things (below) used to hold great, raving parties almost every night in a house in Belgravia. Then they got thrown out and all went to live in different places.
Now they hold parties no less raving at other people’s houses. They view their entry into the NME Chart at No. 17 with some pleasure in this respect.
“This means we’ll be able to invite more people and more refreshment,” exclaimed drummer Viv St. John Prince guardedly. Viv often refers to himself as the “Lord Mayor of Belgravia.”
Viv was in the charts once before as part of Carter-Lewis and the Southerners, when he had short hair. Now he has very long hair and is a Pretty Thing as much as Phil May, Dick Taylor, John Stax and Brian Pendleton.
I was invited to lunch with them on Monday. But when I arrived at the appointed time they were half-way to Sheffield. Instead, I ate with their managers, who are equally r-and-b minded and young.
The Pretty Things who, except for Nottingham-born Viv, come from around Dartford, make more noise on stage than most other groups. So do their fans, who fight tooth and nail to protect their idols against the kind of criticism that comes from having long hair, being rather casual about dress and slouching about.
They don’t like being compared to the Rolling Stones, although lead guitarist Dick used to play with them. They object to being called unclean and point out that their bills for hair shampoo are tremendous.
“Loon” is a word you will hear used often if in the company of the Pretty Things. I’m not quite sure what it means, but it has something to do with going places.
So, I suppose we could say that on the showing of “Don’t Bring Me Down,” the Pretty Things are looning.