Kings of Oblivion (Pink Fairies, 1973)

The Pink Fairies were one of those bands that seemed to be everywhere but on the historical record ended up in the shadows of the various collaborators. The band has roots in two distinct sources: a rugged British band called the Deviants, and the various adventures of a drummer named John Alder, better known as Twink.

The Deviants still remain a bit mysterious to me, but Twink is hard to escape. His earliest appearance was in a small-time band called The Fairies (no relation to the Pink ones, except that Twink was in both), but quickly gravitated into the churning British psych scene with Tomorrow (of "My White Bicycle" fame) and then with the Pretty Things, in both cases hitting both bands at their artistic high points. He even laid down the beat for one of the most bizarre supergroups, the Santa Barbara Machine Head, featuring Jon Lord on the organ, Ronnie Wood on guitar, and Kim Gardner on bass. The various members of this group recorded three songs and promptly shot off in all directions, with Twink angling toward the most aggressive and direct style, first with a solo album, then drawing in the charred remains of the Deviants to form the Pink Fairies.

I had previously noted that bands of these breed tend to be highly unstable, and the Pink Fairies were no exception, with no lineup surviving beyond a single album. Twink himself quit the band after the first album, leaving a unstable trio of ex-Deviants, who then replaced guitarist Paul Rudolph with Larry Wallis, who wrote the bulk of this album, just a scant two years after their debut. The fierce lineup shifting also changed the band sound from a heavy post-psych style that fit well with co-conspirators Hawkwind into a more stripped-down outfit that heralded the beginnings of the NWOBHM, so much so that after a brief stint with UFO, Wallis would join the original form of Motorhead and associate with Wayne Kramer of the MC5. In fact, the lead-off track for Kings of Oblivion, "City Kids", would be adopted by early Motorhead.

So, isn't it interesting that amidst all of these other well-known bands, the Pink Fairies seemed to have slipped into...oblivion? There were a few more albums released long after this one, mostly of questionable quality and dictated by the whims of a highly fickle Twink and ex-Deviant Mick Farren who lurked behind the scenes but was never officially in the band.