Monday, May Day Bank Holiday, seems to be a day for anniversaries. Something about thirty years ... Well, being more of a glass half full person, let's accentuate the positive and celebrate the fact that this would be about Mods May Day '79, when a live LP was recorded as a new mod generation exploded onto the scene, and the Small Hours stole the show on that occasion. Someone seems to have taken a lot of trouble to upload this live Small Hours track and images from, well I'd say a few years later but it does make you yearn for your old Gabicci and Roberto Carlo tops ...
Naturally there's a neat connection to The Enormity of Small Things, the latest issue of Your Heart Out where mention is made of the Small Hours, and indeed their cover of the JJ Jackson/Pierre Tubbs penned But It's Alright. The other enduring composition by this wonderful team would be Come See Me, which the Pretty Things performed in a wonderfully wild way. Just look at this Dutch TV clip of the Pretty Things. Yes! Makes you proud to come from the Dartford delta ...
Now if there is an enduring legacy of the '79 resurgence of interest in the whole mod thing it is the education aspect. I remember getting into the Pretty Things because Robert Manton of the Purple Hearts often mentioned them, for example, so it's only appropriate to point you in the direction of the born again Purple Hearts playing live recently and in, erm, extraordinarily good form. Still think the Stone Roses totally ripped them off, but hey ho.
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