Twink

Twink has been around the musical scene since the fifties in various skiffle & rockabilly bands and 1963 as an original member of the In-Crowd, Tomorrow, he was with the Pretty Things as they turned to psychedelic R&B and features on the classic ‘S.F. Sorrow’ album, then formed the Pink Fairies with ex-members of Tomorrow and has been solo ever since.
At the heart of the street side of the psychedelic movement in the UK, his music has always been less ‘pretty’ than many of the pop bands of the time.

These two reissues show different sides of Twink with ‘Think Pink’ released in 1970 and ‘Mr. Rainbow’ coming along 20 years later.

He started working on ‘Think Pink’ while he was still with the Pretty Things and the album is pretty hardcore psych, featuring artists such as Steve Peregrine-Took (Tyrannosaurus Rex), Paul Rudolph (Deviants), John Lodge (Moody Blues), Viv Prince (Pretty Things), Vic Unitt (Edgar Broughton Band) and others. There is nothing on the album that follows any conventional song structure, most tracks sounding like psychedelic jam sessions. It’s remarkably good to listen to straight and I imagine that in an altered state would be even more engaging. The issue comes with a mono CD and a second stereo disc with the album plus some alternat versions of tracks.
For anyone building a collection of psychedelic music or music from the ‘tribal’ beginnings of hippiedom, it is pretty well essential but also good listening.

‘Mr. Rainbow’ is a very different album with more song-oriented structure, much faster and more ‘rocky’ sound – Twink invented ‘Acid Punk’ when he released an EP ‘Do It ‘77’ in 1977, which features ‘Psychedelic Punkeroo’, the first track on this album and celebrating Syd Barret of Pink Floyd.
The album is actually Twink re-recording numbers he had been involved in over the years, with songs from his time with the Pretty Things, Pink Fairies et al and all of them very different from the originals. He passed the drumming duties to Andy Dowding and took on vocals and rhythm guitars with the band featuring Robbie Gladwell on lead guitar and Darrell King on bass.
Again, very listenable and well worth investigating