The Deviants 3

While The Beatles and others may have represented the acceptable face of psychedelia, the Summer of Love also spawned the murkier underground of the Ladbroke Grove area; The Social Deviants, Pink Fairies and, most famously, Hawkwind were at the top of the class. With his art school background, Mick Farren was a fixture of London's underground. He was a staffer at International Times and a UK wannabe White Panther. In 1967, he formed The Social Deviants with Sid Bishop, Cord Rees and Russell Hunter. Funded by a rich kid (Nigel Samuel), Ptooff! was released independently, via the newspaper's network of counter-culture shops in London (and later reissued on Decca Records). Disposable appeared a year later, with Duncan Sanderson now on bass; but the addition of Canadian guitarist Paul Rudolph in 1969 inspired the band's masterwork, The Deviants 3. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker and released (somehow) on the folky Transatlantic label, the album was all Deviants: a large dose of 50s rock ‘n' roll, fuzzed-out psychedelia and Zappa-inspired weirdness. "Broken Biscuits" is highly proto-punk, while "First Line (Seven the Row)," represents the typical blues-inspired rock of the era, and reveals Rudolph's expertise as a guitarist. "Metamorphosis Explosion," however, is the one track to remember. Farren's vocals are decent, and his words here unexceptional; but when the singing part fades away and the band kicks into gear, the song transforms into underground rock at its finest. However, a US tour in 1969 proved near-fatal when Rudolph, Sanderson and Hunter split from Farren; all would eventually be rectified when they reunited as the Pink Fairies.