hac45
01. De De De Dum
02. Eagle-wise
03. She Dwindles Her Fingers
04. Purple Boy Gang
05. Nancy
06. Latin Version
07. Marie
08. The Tennis Player
09. French Girls
10. Sounds
11. Adrenaline And Richard
12. She Says To Me
13. An Old Servant
14. Hey Sue
15. We Crossed The Atlantic
16. When Each Descends
17. A Fraying Space
18. Into Elizabeth's Eyes
19. There Was Melancholy
20. Vida
21. A Bird In The Engine
22. Empty
'If any Australian performer of the 60's deserves the description 'cult figure', it's Sydney singer-songwriter-poet Philip 'Pip' Proud [1947-2010]. Among his fans are Ian McFarlane, who likens him to Britain's legendary Syd Barrett and American Tom Rapp (Pearls Before Swine). One of his most ardent champions is Sydney writer-musician David Nichols [The Cannanes], who describes Pip as "Australia's first pop primitive" and hails him as "the greatest Australian singer-songwriter of the 1960s". In the late Sixties Pip was touted as Australia's answer to Bob Dylan, but this was a simplistic comparison. Nichols suggests a commonality with other distinctive solo artists like Nick Drake, Richard Thompson, Melanie, Donovan and Sandy Denny, but perhaps more so with some of the 'underground' artists of the last 10-15 years:
"He was, of course, twenty-five years ahead of his time. Listen to Lou Barlow's Sentridoh, or the Folk Implosion's Kidssoundtrack. Listen to other cutting-edge U.S. artists like The Mountain Goats, Beck, Guided By Voices or The Spinanes. Or listen to New Zealand's Alistair Galbraith, such a Proud fan he led off his 1994 Cluster EP with a song called 'Pip Proud'. Then listen to Pip Proud and tell us he doesn't fit so snugly with those sounds it's almost uncanny.'
Pip's style was unique. He wrote strange, plaintive song-poems about modern urban life and love, which he sang in his distinctive high, quavering voice. What made his recordings really stand out was that he accompanied himself by strumming or tapping on the strings of his unamplified electric guitar. Italian music writer Piero Scaruffi describes Pip's songs as
"... bizarre, childish rants of an hallucinated mind, accompanied by an out-of-tune guitar and paced at irregular tempos. The only precedent was the acid-folk music of the Holy Modal Rounders."
Like Syd Barrett, Pip recorded two remarkable solo Albums of original music in the late Sixties -- which now fetch hundreds of dollars apiece on the collectors' market -- and then he more or less disappeared from view. But interest in his remarkable music was kept alive by a dedicated few, and in the mid-1990s his musical career was revived, thanks largely to the efforts of super-fan David Nicholls. We are delighted to report that, since then, Pip has recorded and released several CDs of new music, which have gained international release.
Information about Pip's life and career is scant. What we know so far is that Pip was born in Adelaide and moved to Sydney in his late teens, where he began creating a large body of poetry, songs, novels and plays and also -- like most of his contemporaries -- became involved in the anti-war movement. Ca. 1967 he was 'discovered' by stockbroker and art patron Michael Hobbs, who financed Pip's first recording, the privately-recorded album De Da De Dum. It was released on the Grendel label, and apparently only about fifty copies were pressed, which must qualify it as one of the rarest and most collectible of all Australian recordings of that era.
Fortunately for posterity, Pip's album was heard by Bob Cooley, A&R manager at Phonogram Records [the Australia branch of what later became the Polygram group]. He was impressed by the unqiue qualities of Pip's music and signed him to the Philips label. Pip's first commercial LP was a re-recording of the songs from his debut album, released in 1968 under the title Adrenaline and Richard . It was well-reviewed in Go-Set which led to Pip making a few TV appearances and giving a handful of live performances.'
oldie/goodie. been revisiting this kat's hallucinogenic tone poems of late & wanted to make sure everyone who need knoweth finds out, especially my weird brother badger. say g'day to the australian syd barrett. further
