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SHAGRAT - AMANDA/Peppermint Flickstick (Shagrat ORC001) |
 | STEVE TOOK'S SHAGRAT - Nothing Exceeds Like Excess (Shagrat ENT001) |
 | STEVE PEREGRINE TOOK'S SHAGRAT - Lone Star (Captain Trip Records CTCD-312) 2001 |
 | STEVE PEREGRINE TOOK - Missing Link to Tyrannosaurus Rex (Cleopatra) 1995 |
Taken from the Forced Exposure # 11, (winter 1987) Nigel Cross interview.
READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE CLICK HERE
LARRY WALLIS: We're (The Entire Sioux Nation) down at the Speakeasy one night -- we'd play there all the fuckin' time that they'd give us 'cause Hendrix used to go there --and this group of people came in. They're wearing pink velvet jackets, they've got hair over their shoulders. They're Mick Farren, Steve Peregrine Took and various other members of the Pink Fairies All Star Rock a Roll Show & Motorcycle Circus - which was a drinking club!
I'm thinking -- hey, they like me. Well, it seems that Mick Farren and Steve Took have always wanted to form a band, so they got hold of me sad said, LOOIC -- do you want to join a bigger league?" "Yeah." The Entire Sioux Nation sort of came to a halt.
So we formed this sort of group- Mickey, Tooky, me, Tim Taylor and Phil Lenoir. We used to get together in a room -- maybe Mick Fare's or Steve Took's flat -- but ultimately we never did nothing together 'cause Mick and Took had a row.
NIGEL CROSS: What about the early Pink Fairies gigs with those guys from Little Free Rock?
LARRY WALLIS: All that had already happened, then Mick and Took decided to start a real group. So we'd get together and they'd write songs and me and Tim would learn them, but nothing much was happening. We never did gigs, we never even had a loud rehearsal. Then one day, Mick and Took met us and Mickey said, Look --what's basically happened is that we've had a row. We don't like each other anymore. Are you coming with him or me?"
Me and Tim Taylor looked at him and said, "Steve Took."
Mick Farren got the rave in him and funked off. We then formed a band called Shagrat with Took, me, Tim and Lenoir. And Mick Farren wouldn't talk to any of us for years. So we'd go to this place near the Tower Bridge called the Stone Hole and we'd rehearse all these great Took songs. But we only ever did one gig, which was Phun City... (Link to off site Phun City Resources). By then Farren didn't hate everyone nearly as much as he did before. And I think we'd made the right decision, but Steve was a space case really.
NIGEL CROSS: Steve had already left Tyrannosaurus Rex?
LARRY WALLIS: Yeah. He'd been kicked out of T.Rex because he was in Ashford for drugs just as everything broke for them. If you ever want to listen to his account of it, Steve Took's track on Mick Farren's MONA album is him talking about being in Ashford Rehab Centre while his record was #1 in the charts. He was in Ashford wearing pixie boots and velvet with hair down to his asshole. He was the flower child, the little elf and a vegetarian. . .his description of what it was like to walk into the dining hall every day for lunch was great.
NIGEL CROSS: So who ended up being in Shagrat?
LARRY WALLIS: Took, me and Dave Bidwell. Bidwell's dead, so is his girlfriend Patty. Took's dead, Took's girlfriend Angie's dead. But the three of us used to rehearse in rooms and take drugs. When we'd walk around town we'd live Shagrat, we'd be Shag rat, but we never recorded as Shagrat. We just were Shagrat. Took was the wasted, drug-taking rocknroller. Which sounds great -- you turn up at a session and the lights have to be turned down low and you drink half a bottle of Southern Comfort and smoke some joints and all that. But when someone's paid for the day and at the end of the session there ain't any sensible tapes been made. Took lost his credibility. He was too out of it all the time.
NIGEL CROSS: Did you actually record?
LARRY WALLIS: We did as couple of demos. We recorded in Strawberry Studios right after they opened. I was king of the wah-wah pedal then. But truly, we didn't do a lot of recording. Took's best song was called "Peppermint Flick Stick". It all came from this girl on the Cadbury's Flake advert. It was this great thing about this chap sitting in his fucking living room when he sees this girl come on the screen going, "Hey -- if you suck a peppermint lick stick say, 'Yes'."
So he takes all his life's savings and runs down to the local shop and buys thousands of Peppermint Flick Sticks and he runs back and locks himself in his flat. He sits there eating them and having sexual fantasies. Songs like that and, "Boo! I Said Freeze."
Took's hero was Arthur Lee Of Love. He turned me on to Love. but there's not a lot to tell about Steve. We used to go buy plastic cars from the toy shop on a Friday night and we'd go to my mother's house and take LSD after my mum and dad had gone to bed. We'd boil these cars in saucepans full of water and twist them out of shape and burn them. Took was getting up a collection of car wrecks. His flat used to have all these great plastic cars that were twisted and burnt and stuff…then I lost touch with him 'cause he got into heroin.
Once though, I was recording with Nick Lowe or somebody at Pathway Studios and as we finished our session, Took's band -- Steve Took's Horns -- were coming in. Took asked me to stay around and help out. So they did the backing tracks, which were great, but Took immediately said he couldn't sing a note unless he was a relaxed man. And relaxed meant half a bottle of dark rum. Well, by the time the bottle of rum was halfway through, Took was slurring his words, getting it all wrong and everybody knew it. I said I was just going to have a piss and I went outside, picked up my guitar and crept away. It was embarrassing and that was the one time that I did desert Took. He thought that when you hired a recording studio you invited all your friends and it was party time.
For more information on Steve Took, 'Shagrat', 'Steve Took's Horns' & more check out STEVE PEREGRIN TOOK's DOMAIN
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