Pink Fairies

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Pink Fairies
Cover of the album Never Neverland
Origin	England
Years active	1969 - 1975
Genres	Rock, Hard rock

The Pink Fairies were a British heavy/progressive/alternative rock group active in the London (Ladbroke Grove) underground and psychedelic scene of the early 1970s . They promoted free music, drug taking and anarchy and often performed impromptu gigs and other agitprop stunts, such as free outside the gates at the Isle of Wight pop festival, the Windsor Free Festivals as well as appearing at the first Glastonbury outing and Phun City. The band led by Canadian Paul Rudolph on rock guitar; Duncan (Sandy) Sanderson on bass; and two drummers, Twink, and Russell Hunter, toured N. America before launching their first "trippy" album, "Never, Never Land"; they went through several different line-ups of band members over the years, although the core was always the aforementioned supplemented by ex UFO Larry Wallis. The iconoclastic "Do It" was the band's call to arms and have fun, until Wallis invoked the more urban "City Kids" anthem as the new lead. The Pink Fairies occupy a unique position in British rock history, as defining pioneers of "psychedelic hard rock", post "hippy", pre-Punk and pre-heavy metal, influencing many bands of the latter categories. They stayed outside the mainstream (pop and rock) scene of the 1970s, failing to become a large stadium Led Zeppelin/Deep Purple/Black Sabbath type rock band, although they later regretted their lack of commercialism and dumped the earlier legacy of "free" everything, to become more hard nosed, as mentors/managers like "Boss" Goodman fell by the wayside due to over indulgence.

They have always been sustained by a hard core niche British/London fan base of "hippies, hells angels and other psychedelic rebel rockers" who prefer the live music "rowdy get togethers" to buying albums/CDs. One of the great, transcendent on-stage moments was captured for posterity when Paul Rudolph returned to the Pink Fairies line up for a July 13, 1975, show at the London Roundhouse that put together the group's original line-up and paired him with his successor, Larry Wallis.

The Pink Fairies evolved out of a drinking club formed by Steve Peregrin Took (formerly Marc Bolan's partner in T Rex, the Pretty Things, the Deviants, and Syd Barrett) in 1969. Took, along with Mick Farren (founder of the Social Deviants/Deviants) and Twink (previously of The Fairies, Tomorrow, and Pretty Things) named the group Pink Fairies, only to see Twink appropriate the name for his new project (Pink Fairies Mark 2) with three ex-Deviants members. Mick Farren's first solo album, Mona, features the original Pink Fairies Mark 1 line-up. But it was Rudolph, bassist Duncan Sanderson, and drummer Twink of the Deviants who reorganized the band that became the renowned, infamous Pink Fairies, and enlisted Russell Hunter. The band continued as a radical cultural group appealing to those whose values and norms of behavior ran counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, but less activist and more rock'n'roll "right on, fight on" teenage rebels without a cause other than self-indulgence.

After the successful "Mark 2" version of the band broke up in 1972, a new version (Mark 3) formed which, eventually adding ex-Shagrat guitarist Larry Wallis, who took over the band, writing and leading them on the Kings Of Oblivion LP, was successful for a while. Wallis was simultaneously in both the Pink Fairies and the original line-up of Motörhead with ex-Hawkwind bassist Lemmy, who was himself replaced by Paul Rudolph taking up the bass for Hawkwind.

Although never in an official line-up of the Pink Fairies (after Mark 1), Took continued to be associated with the Pink Fairies. He played support slots for the Pink Fairies and occasionally joined them as a third drummer, and once on bass guitar.

Members of the Pink Fairies and Deviants were largely interchangeable throughout the years. A more recent member of the Deviants, (Andy Colqhoun) appeared with Larry Wallis, Twink, Russell Hunter and Duncan (Sandy) Sanderson for the relatively recent Fairies reunion album, Kill 'Em & Eat 'Em.

The "Kings of Oblivion" line-up had been set to play at a "one-off" gig on 22nd January 2007, at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm (the scene of many Fairies gigs and "farewell" performances in the 1970s and early 80s), but the gig was cancelled due to Wallis suffering from a trapped sciatic nerve.