“This is British amphetamine psychosis music and if you don’t like it you can fuck off and listen to your Iron Butterfly albums”—Mick Farren onstage with the Deviants in Toronto, 1969
Although I’d generally sworn off binge drinking by my mid-20s, there was one (and only one) person who I would happily consent to get shit-faced with whenever the call came. Mick Farren, the legendary counterculture rabble-rouser, rocker, music journalist, TV columnist, poet, sci-fi novelist, etc., etc. ... could drink. A lot. And he could drink it very, very quickly. Out of, I guess respect, or at the very least wanting to synch up our respectives buzzes, whenever Mick was on the other end of the phone line suggesting a “refreshing beverage or two”—20 refreshing beverages was far more likely—I would always say yes, knowing full well that the next day wasn’t gonna be pretty. Mick was good company and as you might expect, quite the barstool raconteur. He and I got along great. Our political leanings were very similar. Mick had no qualms about stating his belief that certain people could be improved with a bullet and I don’t disagree. His aggressive polemic in the NME and Trouser Press had a huge influence on me during my formative years. I never got tired of hearing his stories and I was a good audience for him. I really adored Mick. He was my kinda guy.
We’d almost always meet at the Farmer’s Market on Fairfax—within walking distance for Mick, who did not drive thank god—smoke a joint in the parking lot and then head for the bar in the middle of the older section of the market. In my entire life I have never seen anyone neck a pint faster than Mick Farren. It was impressive. I never attempted to seriously keep up with him. That would have been foolhardy, if not simply impossible and anyway I really wasn’t interested in achieving real-time liver damage. If on average we’d meet and hang out for around three hours, Mick would drink about eight beers every 60 minutes. And he’d have to take a piss constantly. Luckily (?) my own bladder is ill-equipped for heavy drinking, so we’d carry on conversing at the urinals and walking back and forth from the men’s room. That would happen at least three times an hour. Anyone reading this now who’s ever met Mick for a drink knows this drill well.
One afternoon when we met at the Farmer’s Market, Wayne Kramer was playing a set there and we sat at the bar talking about music. Mick wondered if I’d ever heard any of the Deviants’ albums. Of course I had. “The third one is the one I like. It’s easily the best,” I told him.
“IT IS NOT!” he replied, his voice rising an octave. “We were exhausted, creatively and of each other, by then. We couldn’t even come up with a decent title, hence Deviants #3!”
“No way. The first two were far too derivative of the Fugs and Zappa. The third album is definitely the best one. And it’s got that fantastic cover.”
Mick looked dejected. “I really wish you wouldn’t have said that!”
“Why?”
“Because I had very little to do with that album! I quit the Deviants—or they quit me, I suppose—right after it came out.”
To be candid, I wasn’t wrong. Deviants #3 is obviously the best Deviants album. Perhaps not Mick Farren’s best album—that would be the unhinged Mona The Carnivorous Circus recorded with former Pretty Things drummer Twink and Steve Peregrin Took (Marc Bolan’s ex-partner in Tyrannosaurus Rex) soon after his departure from his band. But with Mick out of the way (he wasn’t really a musician so much as he was a poet/spoken word performer/ranter) the other Deviants became the vastly superior Pink Fairies, so this wasn’t really such a bad thing for rock and roll. Still, Deviants #3 has a lot going for it. The group’s malevolent, amphetamine-fueled freakbeat is tight, evil and scary sounding and Farren’s familiar themes of social unrest, disreputable characters and apocalyptic street fighting took matters quite a bit further OUT than almost any other band of the late 60s (think Stooges, MC5). Here’s a sample lyric: “We are the people who pervert your children, lead them astray from the lessons you taught them.” Imagine if the PR campaign that posed the question “would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone” was asked instead about having a Deviant as a son-in-law? None of this was a pose for these dirty, rotten scoundrels. They really fucking meant it. The Deviants were the first anarchist rock band in Britain. They lived and snorted their politics.
Fifty years after its original release and Mick’s withering opinion of it aside, Deviants #3 is a monster of an album—a minor masterpiece of the psychedelic era, even—and has aged quite well. Real Gone Music have done a quality rerelease of Deviants #3, the first time the album’s been available on vinyl for many a moon. The special black and white “nun’s habit” pressing is in a limited edition of 1000 and the mastering is particularly good. All that and one of the single best album covers of the rock era. I rate this a must-own.
On September 20th, 1969 the Deviants played the third free rock festival held at Hyde Park that year (the first featured Blind Faith and the second was the Stones performance after the death of Brian Jones). Also on the bill were Soft Machine, Quintessence, Al Stewart and the Edgar Broughton Band. This would be Farren’s final performance before he was sacked from the band.