After a casual conversation which involved Joe Meek and Beat Happening I decided to excavate some of the original High Priests material which had been scattered to the wind. It was Grunge time and I and a mad drummer from Oxford and even madder guitarist formed the greatest racket makers this side of the Thames Valley.
The Single:
The Story….
Formed in 1990 and hitting the shambling but right track soon after ‘The High Priests’ took their name from a Alex Chilton record.
Looking for the missing link between Garage Punk, Power Pop and Sun-era Rock n, Roll they avoided rehearsing and playing live until 1993 when the above live first-take recordings were laid down at London’s infamous Toerag Studios under the genius care of one Liam Watson ( more famous recently for his work with The White Stripes amongst others).
Thinking they’d made the greatest wigout garage classic ever the bass-less trio span wildly out of control at a succession of dingy north london pub venues before exploding in a bewildering cacophany of feedback mid song at a Piao Festival in Hammersmith London where the head honcho of Rough Trade was seen to physically grimace and walk away in despair…
All in all a thoroughly glorious failure as befits a drunken blues bunch…
A 7″ was released through Southern Distribution in 1993 featuring ‘Ice Cream Town’ b/w ‘Black Swans Sink’.
It was a bloody racket according to noted noise merchant Billy Childish and graced a sleeve by the designer of Stereolab Sleeves. As only 1000 were pressed and most disappeared along with guitarist Tim Featherstone who has never been heard of since*…
It could be a collector’s item or it could be crap…who knows…. the band members are still searching for that rare single and the master tape of the High Priests session recorded at Toe-Rag Studios London with Liam… a mix of punk and blues with heavy Moe Tucker like drumming and no bass player….hmmm…a full ten years before the White Stripes and the Black Keys…maybe if we’d had a colour in their name …… the High Priests ‘complete’ works are to be released on Tstar Records sometime soon……you have been warned…
* we found him recently but still no date for the repackaging of the HP’s greatest hit..and please do not confuse with the London band of same name ( we had the idea first:-)