The Electric Banana / The Complete De Wolfe Sessions (3 x CD)

Description

Reissue – Compilation / Remastered

(From the original master-tapes).

3CD Boxset – Clamshell box with each disc in a card sleeve
Includes 20 Page booklet

Hype Sticker Reads – The Complete de Wolfe library recordings by members of the Pretty Things

1967/78-UK

Format: 3 x CD

#Ref: CRSEGBOX058

Release date: 2019

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Release notes

Initially coming together during a Fontana-era lull in The Pretty Things’ prodigious career, the band’s now-legendary body of work for music library de Wolfe as The Electric Banana saw their alter-egos become parallel universe superstars, their work utilised by film and TV producers in everything from soft-porn skin-flicks, a Norman Wisdom vehicle and horror classic Dawn Of The Dead to small-screen ratings winners like Dr. Who, The Sweeney and Minder.

In the Sixties, the Banana recordings mirrored British pop’s gradual evolution into rock, courtesy of brass-led Swinging London ravers (‘Walking Down The Street’, ‘Danger Signs’), primal garage punk (‘Street Girl’, ‘Love Dance And Sing’) and maximum psychedelia (‘Eagle’s Son’, ‘Alexander’). They switched gears again in the Seventies, confidently mixing swaggering bar-band hard rockers (‘The Loser’, ‘Sweet Orphan Lady’), putative terrace-anthems (‘Whiskey Song’), metal-based rock (‘Maze Song’, the Hendrix tribute ‘James Marshall’) and jangly, Byrds-inflected power pop (‘Do My Stuff’).

Taken from the original master-tapes, the 3-CD set The Complete De Wolfe Sessions represents a number of firsts: the first-ever legitimate CD issue of these recordings (authorised by both The Pretty Things and de Wolfe), the first time that the Banana’s Sixties and Seventies work has been made available under one roof, and the first time that the karaoke-anticipating backing tracks have been made commercially available.

Housed in a clamshell box that includes a lavish illustrated booklet, The Complete De Wolfe Sessions incorporates the original albums artwork, an extended essay on the band, quotes from pivotal members Phil May, Dick Taylor and Wally Waller, and some priceless photos of the classic “Even More Electric Banana” line-up, taken from the summer-of-’68 Swinging Southport film What’s Good For The Goose.

More than forty years after The Pretty Things last donned the Electric Banana mantle, this long-overdue complete package is the final, definitive word on these seminal and much-loved recordings.

Review

Peel back the layers on the frontage of this box set and revealed inside is the undeniable musical swagger of the original bad boys of British R’n’B The Pretty Things during a commercial break from their unpredictable 24/7 day job as the wild men at the frontier of the burgeoning rock scene.

Banned by concert venues and radio stations for their outrageous behaviour and controversial single releases – psych song LSD didn’t drop on any jobsworth 1960s radio DJs playlist platter – the band resorted to creating ‘library music’ for de Wolfe for use in celluloid soundtracks, commercials, skin flicks and, much later, Dr Who, The Sweeney and Minder to keep the butter on their bread before they became toast.

Whereas their contemporaries and mostly fellow white working-class kids The Who and The Stones were feted and sensationalised for their onstage wild and destructive ways, aided by astute management, The Pretty Things were considered too dangerous to toy with. Being mismanaged and misrepresented eventually conspired to propel the band into writing a slew of astounding, prescient and boundary warping music before, during and following the inception of psychedelia all of which is finally and comprehensively collected here in its totality.

Appearing in and contributing music to the 1969 Norman Wisdom starred film What’s Good For The Goose didn’t quite match up to, or have the cachet, of the Blow Up cameo by the short-lived Beck/Page Yardbirds line-up three years earlier. Nevertheless, the music still stands up to scrutiny and grooves along very nicely.

The de Wolfe sessions is a compelling time capsule documenting the development of modern music from pop-infused R’n’B into Psychedelia then onto Hard Rock. From swinging London freak-beat raver Walking Down The Street to the maximum head-charge psych-out bangers Alexander and Eagle’s Son to the heavy rock ear melt of Sweet Orphan Lady and Hendrix tribute James Marshall, The Pretty Things, as The Electric Banana, pushed forward the nascent, experimental boundaries of the evolutionary gene pool of rock music’s DNA.

Tracklisting

DISC ONE

THE ELECTRIC BANANA (1967) /
MORE ELECTRIC BANANA (1968)

1. WALKING DOWN THE STREET
2. IF I NEEDED SOMEBODY
3. FREE LOVE
4. ’CAUSE I’M A MAN
5. DANGER SIGNS
6. WALKING DOWN THE STREET (INST.)
7. IF I NEEDED SOMEBODY (INST.)
8. FREE LOVE (INST.)
9. ’CAUSE I’M A MAN (INST.)
10. DANGER SIGNS (INST.)
11. I SEE YOU
12. STREET GIRL
13. GREY SKIES
14. I LOVE YOU
15. LOVE DANCE AND SING
16. A THOUSAND AGES FROM THE SUN
17. I SEE YOU (INST.)
18. STREET GIRL (INST.)
19. GREY SKIES (INST.)
20. I LOVE YOU (INST.)
21. LOVE DANCE AND SIGN (INST.)
22. A THOUSAND AGES FROM THE SUN (INST.)

1-10: THE ALBUM
THE ELECTRIC BANANA,
DE WOLFE DW/LP 3040,
PRESSED 1967

11-22: THE ALBUM
MORE ELECTRIC BANANA,
DE WOLFE DW/LP 3069,
PRESSED 1968

DISC TWO

EVEN MORE ELECTRIC BANANA (1969) /
HOT LICKS (1973)

1. ALEXANDER
2. IT’LL NEVER BE ME
3. EAGLE’S SON
4. BLOW YOUR MIND
5. WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE
6. RAVE UP
7. ALEXANDER (INST.)
8. IT’LL NEVER BE ME (INST.)
9. EAGLE’S SON (INST.)
10. BLOW YOUR MIND (INST.)
11. SWEET ORPHAN LADY
12. I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES
13. GOOD TIMES
14. WALK AWAY
15. THE LOSER
16. EASILY DONE
17. SWEET ORPHAN LADY (INST.)
18. I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES (INST.)
19. GOOD TIMES (INST.)
20. WALK AWAY (INST.)
21. THE LOSER (INST.)
22. EASILY DONE (INST.)

1-10: THE ALBUM
EVEN MORE ELECTRIC BANANA,
DE WOLFE DW/LP 3123,
PRESSED 1969

11-22: THE ALBUM
HOT LICKS,
DE WOLFE DW/LP 3284,
PRESSED 1973

DISC THREE

THE RETURN OF THE
ELECTRIC BANANA (1978)

1. DO MY STUFF
2. TAKE ME HOME
3. JAMES MARSHALL
4. MAZE SONG
5. WHISKEY SONG
6. DO MY STUFF (INST.)
7. TAKE ME HOME (INST.)
8. JAMES MARSHALL (INST.)
9. MAZE SONG (INST.)
10. WHISKEY SONG (INST.)
11. THE DARK THEME (INST.)

1-10: THE ALBUM
THE RETURN OF THE
ELECTRIC BANANA,
DE WOLFE DW/LP 3381,
PRESSED 1978

11: THE ALBUM
EVEN MORE ELECTRIC BANANA,
DE WOLFE DW/LP 3123,
PRESSED 1969

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