The Birds
Originally called The Thunderbirds, West Drayton's The Birds
had shortened their name to avoid confusion with Chris Farlowe's
backing band. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire .
. .
When The Byrds arrived in Britain in July 1965 - following the
success of Mr Tambourine Man - the LA quintet were served
with a summons by their rather less-successful UK equivalents just
as they stepped off the plane. Although the case was never
seriously pursued, the legal notice complaining of loss of
earnings got the group front page headlines in Melody Maker
- for the first and only occasion.
The Byrds were so aggravated that the following year's Eight
Miles High - the lysergic travelogue of their London trip -
alluded to the incident in the lines "Nowhere is there warmth
to be found/among those afraid of losing their ground".
Thankfully, the succeeding lines - "Rain gray town, known for
its sound/in places small faces abound" - contained a more
positive reference to another London group.
But the legal challenge wasn't The Birds last stand. They also
featured in the 1966 movie The Deadly Bees, but after their
fourth single (released under the new name Bird's Birds) the group
split.
Ironically (given the references in Eight Miles High),
Ron Wood joined The Small Faces' post-Steve Marriott incarnation,
The Faces, before finding his eventual spiritual home in The
Rolling Stones.
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