Keep it together!: Cosmic Boogie with The Deviants and The Pink Fairies - Softcover

Deakin, Rich

Softcover

ISBN 10: 190048661X ISBN 13: 9781900486613

Publisher: Headpress Ltd., 2007

Synopsis

Fueled by amphetamine psychosis and the music of Bob Dylan and the Fugs, a band that was of the people playing for free from flatbed trucks and alternatively on bills with the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Deviants and Pink Fairies were key in shaping a London that was still swinging.

This is the fascinating story of a musical and social movement that left behind psychedelia and preempted punk rock, and it features the likes of the Edgar Broughton Band and Hawkwind.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Leicester, 1965. After leaving school Rich became a full-time wastrel and occasional disc jockey, before he completed a Masters thesis on the British underground press. He now works at his local University and lives in Cheltenham with his girlfriend, and two Persian cats.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From the Introduction by Mick Farren:
I don't know if any of us ever really believed the traditional fantasy. I can almost imagine one or two still do, and feel deprived it never happened for them. The idea was that you acquired a cheap Japanese guitar, graduated to a Fender, then you had a hit, a forty five on the charts with a bullet, and you bought your mum a house, then lived in luxury ever after, drinking Rebel Yell whiskey, and getting laid more than Elvis Presley.
And that was the great dichotomy of rock'n'roll in the time of revolution. Fame, fortune, and the urgent overthrow of Western Civilization could be a highly contradictory, not to say conflicted, triad of goals, especially when the voice of Mr Natural - Robert Crumb's cartoon avatar - was also whispering his famous slogan in your sleeping ear. "Quest into the unknown." And Larry Wallis was walking around in a t-shirt that read "Fuck Art, Let's Dance." The times were not only changing, but also becoming damned confusing, frequently surreal, and, on a bad night, when the stains on the barroom floor were legible hieroglyphics, starting to make terrifying sense.
One tried and true recipe for keeping at least a portion of one's sanity was to approach the vagaries of time, place, and the rock'n'roll profession as one mighty, never ending roll of the dice. Every so often, life and the cosmos might cut a boy a break, and the bones would turn up a natural seven-come-eleven, but on others, the devil himself would wink, just as he'd winked at Gene Vincent and poor Johnny Ace, and you'd find yourself looking at a bad dose of snake eyes. Mercifully, though, the instants of good fortune and the moments of dire catastrophe were the exceptions. Most of one's time was spent trying to roll a four the hard way. Often, it seemed, uphill, and with the tip of one's nose.
The story that you are about to read is neither one of triumph nor tragedy. Some of us who have survived would not even admit that the tale is entirely complete. Maybe the bulk of the drama has been played out, but there is always room for one more round while the boys can hold their cards, and engage in one final and maybe defining scene before we fold and take the ultimate bow. The narrative is one that talks of both inspiration and desperation - and players in the drama soaked in perspiration - the stage sweat that's a given....

Edition details

• Publisher: Headpress Ltd.
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 190048661X
• ISBN 13: 9781900486613
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192