The Private Parts & Pieces idea was born in 77/78 as a hopeful, if long-shot, idea of finding an outlet for the softer, lyrical, mainly instrumental music of the Geese-era which had been largely kicked into touch by Punk, Disco and the insistence of record companies' on a unilateral reversion to 3 minute pop songs (not my strongest suit!).

Much of the music on Private Parts & Pieces was recorded in 1976 in the fallow period following the Geese and it remains a piece of delicious irony that it was the very hiatus created by the initial lukewarm reaction to the Geese that gave me the time and space to record all the new material! 

I consider myself extremely lucky that Arista were prepared to release Private Parts and Pieces (no number attached as it very much felt like a one-off!) with Sides in early '79 as many musicians sporting similar styles were beginning to be cut down in their prime and sent packing.  It was carnage out there for anything vaguely "classical". How silly, unnecessary, narrow and juvenile it was that many genres of music could not still co-exist as they did still in other countries?

In the early 80's, after my rock song albums hadn't exactly been runaway commercial successes (?!), I was fortunate to be able to develop this "one-off idea'' into a series with the second volume (Back To The Pavilion) encompassing a wider range of styles than the first release with music from '76 -'79.

PP 3 (Antiques) was again different: all guitar duets with the wonderful Quique Berro Garcia including a duet arrangement of one of the gentle acoustic Genesis songs of the intermediate period between From Genesis to Revelation and Trespass (most of which died on the road and never saw the light of day) entitled "Old Wives Tale", formerly ''Little Leaf".  Included on the album in an instrumental form, the audience were spared one of the more gruesome chorus lyrics, 'Bury my sorrow in fields of tomorrow'! which I hasten to add was NOT Peter Gabriel's work !

PP 4 (A Catch At The Tables) was back to a potpourri of material including the song "Sistine" which was originally bound for Invisible Men.

The first 3 feature exquisite covers from Peter Cross especially the first which established said Private Parts as a soldier. PP4 has the more mysterious but arresting "Catch at the Tables" painting by Ed Tanner. It was his 'rough' with phone numbers written in the bottom corner etc  - but, as so often with musicians' demos, it had a quality that the 'Master' lacked. Or at least I considered so, to Ed's amazement!

Passport / Jem continued to release these in the US and were available elsewhere on import only - PP2 famously in 1980 topping the import chart above John & Yoko and Bowie!

In addition on this release we delved into the archives and tried to come up with interesting, presentable music of the time that would complement the other four albums; it is duly entitled "Private Parts and Extra Pieces".  In this I am deeply indebted to Jon Dann, my sonic sleuth, who has again painstakingly searched the vaults, discovering and rescuing tapes and then mixing and remixing until we felt we had a cogent collection of pieces.