Minutes into my roadie debut at Seattle's Bumbershoot in 1999, I'm thrown to the fire. Pretty Things manager-producer Mark St. John reminds me three times to get liquids to drummer Skip Alan, a burly man with shaggy hair.
"He dehydrates!" explains the flamboyant St. John, who sports a ponytail and wears black spandex shorts and a tight black sleeveless shirt. Skip does more than dehydrate.
Once, he vomited over his shoulder, continuing to play. St. John is also nervous about the crowd.
On this overcast afternoon, the Pretties are following a local '50s swing group, and the audience is sedate, strictly G-rated. "These people are gonna disappear when the Pretty Things take the stage," St. John mutters, scanning the swing dancers assembled on the lawn.
"The Pretty Things are ugly!" Indeed, the Pretties are probably known as much for their bad behavior as their music. Regarding the latter, most notably, in 1968, they produced the first rock opera, S.F.
Sorrow, which preceded Tommy. Inexplicably though, the Pretties stayed home during the British Invasion. While The Who and their other contemporaries like The Rolling Stones went on to international superstardom, the Pretties remained in relative obscurity.
Before my friend recommended me for this three-week gig, I'd never heard of the Pretty Things. I'm not a rock n' roll guy. Skinny jeans aren't in my repertoire, and as far as music-related experience, well, I'd witnessed Macarena Night at Yankee Stadium and interviewed the India.
