Shagrat (band) - Legacy and Retrospect

Legacy and Retrospect

Following a positive reaction to Took's solo performances in lieu of Shagrat band gigs, he would continue with the solo format. Took made some headway as a live act, frequently supporting the Pink Fairies and Hawkwind, attracting some coverage in the UK music press and even performing a live radio session on Steve Bradshaw's Breakthrough programme on BBC Radio London. Took continued to make use of the Shagrat bandname by occasionally billing himself as 'Steve Shagrat Took' - notably on advertisements for his support slot for Hawkwind at Chatham Central Hall on 18 November 1971

Wallis' guitar work for Shagrat would in 1972 earn him Farren's recommendation as the new guitarist/frontman for the Pink Fairies. Following Paul Rudolph's departure from the band, remaining members Duncan Sanderson and Russell Hunter had been working with Took on a rerecording of acoustic Shagrat song Amanda as a possible single. Longtime Took friend Mick Wayne happened to be in the studios at the time and was roped into the session on guitar. Afterwards, Wayne, Sanderson and Hunter formed a new Pink Fairies lineup which recorded the single Well Well Well. Unhappy at Wayne's songwriting and playing style however, the other two Fairies approached Farren to nominate a successor. Farren's choice was Wallis and this was to be the start of a long personal and professional relationship between the two which would encompass Wallis' production work and co-songwriting on Farren's second solo album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money. The partnership was renewed in late 2001 when Wallis provided musical backing at Farren's reading of his memoir Give The Anarchist A Cigarrette at London pub Filthy McNasty's.

Looking back on Shagrat in 1972, Took opined that the band had suffered from being ahead of its time. Interviewed by Charles Shaar Murray in 1972 for the NME, Took commented that "(Record companies) didn't want to buy Steel Abortion or Peppermint Flickstick A bit naughty, the words, but then I'd taken in all this American culture and American society in general, and got chemicalised out of it, a general trip, and put it all into words. Now there's Alice Cooper's School's Out and Killer, Hawkwind and the general thing is there now, and it wasn't there then because they couldn't accept that it was gonna sell. I was saying to 'em. "Look, man, look at the Yanks, because we're about three years behind them as far as youth culture is concerned. This is what's gonna sell." and they'd say, 'Oh yes, lads sure, do they really want to hear this sort of thing?"