Pretty Things,LP,Parachute,Harvest SHVL774,UK70 1stP "The Good Mr.Square"Rare
£
59
$
78
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Description
Pretty Things
Title and label: Parachute, Harvest Textured Labels SHVL774, UK 1st Press 1970. Please note a short name has been painted out using watercolour paint on Side 2 of the label.
Condition of vinyl: VG+ Due To Some Very Fine Hair-Lines. Please Note: All Plays EX
Matrix Side A: SHVL 774 A-2
STAMPERS O1
Matrix Side B: SHVL 774 B-2
STAMPERS R1
Condition of sleeve: EX Gatefold Laminated To Front & Back + Original Harvest Inner Sleeve EX
All Music Review by Jack Rabid
If S.F. Sorrow is the Pretty Things' Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine wrapped in one, then Parachute is their more succinct White Album and Abbey Road. It's not just a time line comparison. The Pretties made this fascinating LP in the same studio as the Fab Four, London's Abbey Road, with Beatles engineer Norman Smith producing. "The Good Mr. Square" replicates the three-part harmony the Beatles were so proud of on "Because." Two songs later, the group assembles a brief, interconnected three-song suite like the famous ones on side two of Abbey Road. Bassist Wally Allen's vocals on tracks such as "Sickle Clowns" have the same throaty, mad anguish that John Lennon exhibited on "Yer Blues" and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." If S.F. Sorrow is hard rock grandeur, then Parachute is its more bitter twist, the dream dying and the witching hour upon us. Yet, if this isn't as much of a triumph, the creative neurons are still firing throughout a multi-varied, cohesive LP. Like S.F. Sorrow, it's a surprisingly palatable concept LP. This time the topic is a generation caught between the conflicting calls of (rural) peace, love, and boredom, and (urban) sophistication, sex, and squalor in a harsh world. Somehow the departure of the band's main creative force, Dick Taylor, didn't diminish the writing and inspired variety. Allen stepped up big time into the collaborator role with singer Phil May. The harmonies remain a strong point on an otherwise rock-inclined record, and the nasty edge of perfectly balanced bombast in the best songs have been a lost art ever since. (There are 18 minutes of good stuff tacked on the Snapper edition, taken from singles.)
Side 1:
Scene One
The Good Mr. Square
She Was Tall She Was High
In The Square
The Letter / Rain
Miss Fay Regrets
Cries From The Midnight Circus
Side 2:
Grass
Sickle Clowns
She's A Lover
What's The Use
Parachute
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