been talk of them playing in Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia but none of these materialised. It’s hard to believe they never even ended up in some grotty basement club in Hamburg as so many others did.


Closer to home, The Birds were finding it hard to contact their new managers, the Richardson brothers. All became clear on July 30th ’66. While the rest of England celebrated their nation winning the World Cup that very afternoon, Charlie Richardson had been arrested for his part in what became known as “The Torture Trial”. The Richardson brothers, along with “Mad” Frankie Fraser and the rest of the gang had been charged with various offences, including nailing their victims to the floor, electrocution, whippings, teeth extraction and the chopping off of toes. Maybe if the Richardsons had taken the band’s reins earlier in their career, and had met JimMcGuinn and the rest of The Byrds at the airport, they may have had more to worry about than some legal writs, and musical history would have been changed! It was instantly realised that their shiny new van had been bought with illegal earnings – so they decided to do what any self- respecting R&B band would have done and sold it to The Bee Gees!


In September ’66 a final single was released, a cover of The McCoys’ ‘Say Those Magic Words’. Due to contractual problems, the release had been delayed for almost a year, the original having been released on the NewYork label Bang and featuring a jangly guitar style backing. The Birds saturated their version with their trademark fuzz guitar, possibly in direct opposition to The Byrds’ favoured West Coast sound. The B-side, ‘Daddy Daddy’, while keeping the pop-art style, sounds not dissimilar to another contemporary pop-art raver, ‘Help Me Mummy’s Gone’ by The Game. Still smarting from their run in with their American namesakes, the band released the single under the name Birds Birds, an idea of Stigwood’s that didn’t impress any of the group.


“I think the troubles with our singles, progress wise, was that we didn’t do enough. So while we were progressing in the studio, our live act was different. We were out there every night, but in the studio it was few and far between. All of a sudden they’d say ‘you’ve got three days this week, but only four hours a day’. Studio work is like a craft, so you’ve got to learn how to sound. The first time I ever went into the studio I wondered how I was supposed to sound. It’s stupid, but as soon as you hit that first note in the studio it’s totally different to being on stage. We went through different stages, because although it’s the same band, we had different engineers trying different ideas. If I’mbeing critical, ‘Say Those Magic Words’ was probably the pinnacle of how I wanted to sound.”


The single went nowhere and by ’67 the band was in freefall. They’d always operated as a tight-knit unit, making democratic decisions between themselves, but Tony Munroe had voiced some opinions that didn’t fit in with band policy and was consequently fired by Ronnie and Kim.


At their penultimate gig at Staines Town Hall in ’67, the writing seemed to be on the wall. For some reason they didn’t get paid for the gig,


and more arguments ensued. In the audience that night were Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart. Beck had come a long way since his early days in Birds support act The Tridents. He and Stewart lured RonnieWood away to form The Jeff Beck Group. KimGardener also jumped ship to join pop-art hipsters The Creation. TonyMunroe went on to form The Gods with Mick Taylor (later of the Stones) and Ali MacKenzie was offered the job of lead singer in up and coming band Deep Purple but declined and joined Peter on the road of obscurity.


Ali MacKenzie has now re-discovered his forgotten passion. He fronts a band consisting of Dan Taylor (drums), Jon Gray (harmonica), Matt Bond (guitar) and Neil Runalis (bass) going under the banner of The Birds. So far they’ve played a handful of gigs at The 100 Club, The Go Sinner Go Festival in Madrid and The Eel Pie Club in Twickenham. They’re currently working on re-writings of original Birds material including the “lost” verses of ‘That’s All That I Need You For’ as well as new material.


Ladies and Gentlemen…The Birds are back and they’re flying higher than ever.


With thanks to Mike Stax. 53


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