Colville Community History Project issue 21 September 2017 It’s Your Colville www.colvillecom.com contact tomvague@gmail.com Getting it straight in Notting Hill Gate

Twink Peaks: an audience with Abdullah Mohammed John Alder aka Twink featuring Hendrix, Syd, Steve Took, Tomorrow, Pretty Things and Pink Fairies reminiscence with Tom Vague and DJ Dave Hucker—photo of Twink above by Michael Williams—cover poster design by Maria Sainz Bonet

The Legendary Twink—I Had To Much To Dream Last Night—Twink was a leading light in the UK’s alternative music scene throughout the 60s and 70s. Starting his career with Decca-signed the Fairies in the mid-60s, he later joined Steve Howe (later of Yes) and Keith West in the In-Crowd, which soon became Tomorrow, who had a hit single with My White Bicycle, though the band split up shortly afterwards, but not before they jammed with Jimi Hendrix at the legendary UFO Club.

In 1967 Twink recorded with Santa Barbara Machine Head, in which his fellow musicians were Jon Lord (later of Deep Purple), and Ron Wood and Kim Gardner (later of The Creation, and—in Wood’s case—the Faces and Rolling Stones), before joining Pretty Things in 1968 to record their celebrated SF Sorrow album, which received little support from their label EMI in the UK (it was licensed to Tamla Motown in the US), but has since

become regarded as a true classic.

In 1969 Twink recorded his first solo album, Think Pink, which was released the following year. Musicians included the Deviants, Mick Farren and Steve Peregrin Took (of Tyrannosaurus Rex), and this line-up evolved into the Pink Fairies, with whom Twink recorded the Never Never Land album, including the much sought-after single The Snake / Do It. Twink then moved to Morocco for a short while before returning to the UK in 1972, when he formed Stars with former Pink Floyd singer Syd Barrett. The band performed a handful of gigs before Barrett quit, and Twink went on to play with Hawkwind and Glider, then formed Fallen Angels with Humble Pie’s Greg Ridley and Mickey Finn, before embracing the new punk movement by joining the Rings as vocalist, releasing one of the first punk singles in I Wanna Be Free, coining the phrase ‘acid punk’, and

releasing the Do It ’77 EP on Chiswick Records.

The 80s saw a number of solo releases—including the Mr Rainbow album—and collaborations with Bevis Frond and the occasionally resurrected Pink Fairies, before he joined forces with Hawkwind’s Nik Turner for Pinkwind, and released two albums. After a while living in Los Angeles, Twink returned to Morocco to live in the early-2000s, but has recently been recording once more: an album with Italian outfit Technicolour Dream, and released the long-awaited follow-up to Think Pink, Think Pink 2. Twink has recently returned to the UK to live, featured in the BBC’s Psychedelic Britannia documen-tary, and recorded a new album—as a taster, he re-leased a cover of the Electric Prunes’ classic I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night as a single on Magick Carpet Records in 2015, distributed by CD-Baby Twinkle-Toed. For further info contact Nik Moore on 020 8676 9540 / 07809 642044 twinktwink.com Moore Publicity, 187 Mackenzie Road, Beckenham BR3 4SE

www.moorepublicity.co.uk / nik@moorepublicity.co.uk

Twink Peaks

Twink—Think Pink 2—Drummer, lyricist, vocalist, with the Deviants, Tomorrow, the Pretty Things, the pre-punk Pink Fairies, and a brief stint with Syd Barrett’s All Stars, John Alder, or Twink to his fans, has certainly paid his dues to 60s and 70s psychedelic rock and counter-culture. His signature anthem, Do It, with the Pink Fairies, has been proclaimed to herald in the punk era, but Twink modestly brushes off the claim, although confesses having enjoyed warming-up (or is that stirring-up?) audiences with the song for a Pink Fairies set or concert. The summer of love over, the Pink Fairies at Glastonbury a distant memory, Twink found himself out of step and out of time, doing various session work and acting jobs. It was a period in his life that he describes as, “Drink, drugs, without rock and roll”, or “The wilder-ness years”, and although he tried reinventing himself in order to re-enter the music world, which essentially is his creative DNA, even aiming for the American Dream with a trip to California, a permanent career in music eluded him. “Whatever I did, however I applied myself, it was like grains of sand slipping through my fingers, and a realisation that musically, I couldn’t live on past glories”. And so he licked his wounds.

Like many musicians before him, Twink found himself in

Morocco, embarking on an inner journey of self-

discovery and spiritual awakening. Under the sheltering

sky of Marrakesh, he also found love, got married for the

second time, and finally settled down and built a life for

himself and his family. It was idyllic, well almost, for deep

down, Twink felt a yearning to make music, write lyrics,

compose songs, and perform again. Then in 2013, out of

the blue, he was contacted by an Italian band, Techni-

colour Dream, who suggested he might like to collabo-

rate with them. Following the release of their first album,

Twink and the Technicolour Dream, he’s not looked

back, going on to create another album, Twink—Think

Pink 2, released in 2015 on Sunbeam Records. His next

project with Technicolour Dream was setting Aleister

Crowley’s poems to music. John (Twink) Alder is avail-

able for interview via Michael Woods—email:

mwoodsphotos@hotmail.com

The Pink Fairies were the (Social) Deviants without their

front man Mick Farren, also of IT, NME and sci-fantasy lit

fame who lived at 56 Chesterton Road. Twink, Duncan

Sanderson, Russell Hunter, Paul Rudolph and their tour

manager were along Ladbroke Grove on Faraday Road

or thereabouts. They played in the Powis Square

gardens at the 1971 People’s Free Carnival and posed

by All Saints church and the ‘God is Dead’ graffiti. The

Fairies best local connection is the ‘Portobello Shuffle’

track on their 1972 album What a Bunch of Sweeties.

Think Pink 2

.

1967

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore appear on Southam Street in Stanley Donen’s ‘Bedazzled’, near the site of Trellick Tower. Pete, playing the Devil, leads Dudley to his Rendezvous basement club. Dudley asks: “Where are we? Is this hell?” Pete replies: “Just my London headquarters.” In early 1967 Jimi Hendrix was staying at 167 Westbourne Grove, when the property was painted purple. According to rock legend, on his return from a UFO club trip one morning, the sight of the house is said to have inspired his second single. At the time of the Stones’ drugs busts, according to the News of the World’s acid investigation, ‘amongst the most active British groups advocating LSD are some members of the London Free School.’ Pink Floyd began 1967 with a happening at the Commonwealth Institute while Syd Barrett became the psychedelic Lord Byron at the international acid-freak convention that was the Holland Park Youth Hostel in the old east-wing of Holland House. On March 11, the day British psychedelia was launched with the release of Pink Floyd’s debut single ‘Arnold Layne’, John ’Hoppy’ Hopkins and co presented ‘The Death and Resurrection of IT’ parade along Portobello Road—after the paper was first busted by the Obscene Publications Squad. This hippy street theatre consisted of a coffin carried on a ‘rebirth journey’ from the Cenotaph in Whitehall back to Notting Hill Gate on the Circle Line, and a procession through the market. At the end of the demo, IT was symbolically resurrected in the human form of Harry Fainlight, resulting in several arrests as Mick Farren took shelter in the Mountain Grill café at 275 Portobello Road. On April 29/30 Hoppy made his name as the alternative impresario with the ‘14 hour Technicolour Dream’ ‘human be-in’ at Alexandra Palace, featuring Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Arthur Brown, etc, etc, with security organised by Michael X. After which he went to jail for drugs offences, amounting to cannabis possession. In 1967 Michael X reinvented himself again as Britain’s Black Power/Flower Power messiah. He appeared with Allen Ginsberg at the Legalise Pot rally in Hyde Park and spoke at the Dialectics of Liberation conference at the Roundhouse. Then he joined Hoppy inside as the first person to be convicted for inciting racial hatred, under the new Race Relations Act. Princedale Road went from fascist to flower power with the arrival of Oz magazine at number 52. Richard Neville and Martin Sharp founded Australian Oz back in 1963. The first British Oz featured Colin MacInnes on Michael X and a funding appeal for Defense, the black legal aid group set up by Michael, MacInnes, Frank Crichlow and Courtney Tulloch, which was superseded by Release, Caroline Coon and Rufus Harris’s legal advice centre at 52/70 Princedale Road that specialised in drug cases.

Princedale Road also hosted Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, the psychedelic design team of Michael English and Nigel Waymouth, who also co-founded the King’s Road shop Granny Takes A Trip. As the Free School class of ’66 went their separate ways, to fame/notoriety and fortune/drug oblivion, a second more bread-head generation of hippy hustlers emerged, epitomised by Richard Branson, the health food equivalent Craig Sams, and ‘the Branson of dope’ Howard Marks. Marsha Hunt, the star of the hippy musical ‘Hair’ with the most famous Afro hairdo in the UK, recalls first hearing about the auditions in Portobello market. As Notting Hill became London’s answer to San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury hippy district, Peter Whitehead shot a scene in the antiques market in ‘Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London’. After Peter Blake found Victoriana for the ‘Sergeant Pepper’ sleeve in the antiques market, Ed Vulliamy recalled the ‘lure of the Portobello Road’ with ‘all those Sergeant Pepper jackets outside Finch’s.’ As Guards jackets were superseded by Afghan coats, Lord Kitchener’s Valet at 293 Portobello Road became the Injun Dog shop, and the first Head Shop was established at 202 Kensington Park Road (which would become Rough Trade in 1976). Spectrum released another ‘Portobello Road’ song, which goes: ‘Portobello Road, Saturday morning, antiques, very old… you can spend or stand and stare, it’s better than the Chelsea fair, antiques, bric-a-brac, pretty Georgiana… memories, great Victoriana, custom-ers, American, treated just like long lost friends, when business stops the friendship ends in Portobello Road, do you remember Portobello Road? They’ll pick your pockets clean there… You won’t forget you’ve been there.’ Donovan and Simon Dee were photographed walking up Portobello by the Princess Alexandra pub. Van Morrison sang ‘Keep away from Notting Hill Gate’ in ‘He Ain’t Give You None’ on his ‘Blowin’ Your Mind’ LP. In Jonathon Green’s ‘Days in the Life’ the summer of love is recalled by Chris Rowley as “when Notting Hill was really a little paradisiacal. It was like some fairy tale.” As Pink Floyd released their debut album ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, the Notting Hill People’s Association made the first attempt to open the gates of the Powis Square gardens. The second Rhaune Laslett ‘Notting Hill Festival’ was incorporated into the Notting Hill Community Workshop Summer Project; a more serious version of the London Free School, organised by the People’s Association in All Saints hall which became the People’s Centre. The project mostly consisted of research for George Clark’s housing survey of the Colville and Golborne areas; which student volunteers paid to carry out in a month long jamboree of interview-ing slum tenants and opening playgrounds. To the hippies, opening up the fenced off garden squares became a mission, to convert ‘unturned on people’ and start ‘a tidal wave which is about to wash away the square world’, as the playwright Neil Oram put it.

.’

After-party Q/A continued at Henekey’s (the Earl of Lonsdale), Westbourne Grove/Portobello where Sid Vicious and Viv Albertine formed the Flowers of Romance group

1977 Punky Reggae Party