The music world lost yet another luminary earlier this week with the death of former Troggs singer Reg Presley, who died from cancer aged 71. You may well be wondering exactly why a bunch of hip young things like Sick Chirpse are paying tribute to the singer of a band from the sixties.

Well we’ll tell you why. Reg Presley was a very cool dude and one of the great eccentrics of British pop music. The Troggs were a pretty big deal back in the day, selling millions of hit singles and driving young women wild with their floppy haircuts and tight trousers. They were cited as an influence by Iggy Pop, Jimi Hendrix and The Ramones. Their biggest song was probably Wild Thing, a global uber-hit that was used in everything from American baseball movies to Lion Bar adverts;

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Reg was also into UFOs, crop circles and the paranormal but in a fun way, not in some paranoid, wrap-tinfoil-round-your-head-so-the-lizard-people-can’t-find-you way. He invested plenty of his own money into research and even went so far as to write a book, Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us, in 2002.

But arguably one of his finest achievements was The Troggs Tapes, a now-legendary recording of what can be politely described as a frank exchange of ideas during a Troggs recording session. Dear old Reg unleashes a tsunami of harsh language while working through artistic differences with his band mates, and the whole thing is made even more amusing by his lovable West Country accent. Check it out here:

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Farewell Reg, you gave us some awesome songs and a whole lot more besides. We salute you.

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