THE DEVIANTS #3
The Deviants 3 is the third album by the UK underground group The Deviants, recorded and released in 1969. Lead vocalist Mick Farren regards the album as the beginning of a divergence between himself and his fellow musicians, stating “I had one idea and the rest of them wanted to be a kind of Led Zeppelin guitar band”. Soon after the band would split, with Farren going on to record the Mona – The Carnivorous Circus album before leaving the music business, while the others continued as the Pink Fairies. (More from Wikipedia)
Long before Andy Colquhoun joined up, the Deviants were one of the leading “underground rock” bands; their 1967 album Ptooff! is a classic in that little known genre. The band sprang up in the British psychedelic melange that spawned Pink Floyd, Tomorrow, Hawkwind and several other like-minded bands; the epicenter for the scene was the UFO Club (pronounced “oo-foe” in an interview of Farren at the club that is on one of their CD’s).
The Deviants were also strongly left-wing politically, and their songs feature unabashed screeds and sharp social commentary. Check out this candid declaration that introduced their third album, The Deviants #3: “We are the people who creep in the night / We are the people who hide from the light / We are the people who pervert your children / Lead them astray from the lessons you taught them / We are endangering civilization / We are beyond rehabilitation”.
(August 2011)
