Pink Fairies “Live at the Roundhouse 1975” 1982. Big Beat Records, on pink vinyl. Today, November 29th, is Pink Fairies drummer/vocalist Twink’s birthday (b. John Alder, 1944). Psychedelic hard rock, Pink Fairies was born from the ashes of the Deviants and added Pretty Things’ Twink as a second drummer, and throughout the years has had a revolving door of members including T. Rex’s Steve Peregrin Took; Shagrat’s, Motörhead’s and UFO’s Larry Willis; and The Move’s Trevor Burton. Live at the Roundhouse was a reunion concert of sorts, organized by the head of Chiswick Records. Performing that night were Twink on drums, Russell Hunter on drums, Sandy Sanderson on bass/vocals, Larry Wallis on guitar/vocals, and Paul Rudolph on guitar/vocals. The live album is a highly abbreviated recording of the full concert, “the rest being deemed unsuitable for public consumption” (Wiki). I don’t know if that means the quality was shitty or the performance got totally out of hand. Also according to Wiki: “Demand was so high [for the concert] that those locked out attempted to burn down the doors of the venue. The stage was ‘enhanced’ by a large polystyrene Mandrax tablet erected by the road crew and the distribution to the crowd of many cannabis ‘joints’.” Only two of the five songs on Live at the Roundhouse are Pink Fairies originals: “City Kids” and “Uncle Harry’s Last Freakout” which is an epically long freaky jam session. The other three are pretty great covers: “Waiting for the Man” (Velvet Underground), “Lucille” (Little Richard) and “Going Down” (Freddie King). Now considered protopunk, Pink Fairies performance is hard, raucous and heavy with a lot in common with slightly earlier US bands MC5 and the Stooges. “Following this concert, Wallis, Sanderson and Hunter decided to give the Pink Fairies another try. This line up eventually gave numerous ‘farewell tours’ before disbanding. After a period of inactivity they entered the burgeoning punk scene as one of the few ‘hairy’ bands revered by the new guard” (Wiki). Pink Fairies continued to shed and add members over the years, recording their last record in 2018; Sanderson and Wallis both died in 2019. Twink is, I believe, still going strong.