History
Only a period as musically fertile, socially heady and culturally diverse as the late 1960s could have fostered the growth of a performer as unique as Phillip `Pip' Proud (b. 1947). This shy singer/songwriter/poet was a true anomaly on the Australian 1960s pop scene. Proud sang his gentle pop songs in a quaint, quavering voice while strumming or tapping the strings of his (unamplified) electric guitar. Writer David Nichols later called Proud `Australia's first pop primitive'. Overseas equivalents of the day would be the solo Syd Barrett and Pearls Before Swine's Tom Rapp. Proud was also compared with Bob Dylan, Donovan and Tiny Tim, comparisons which were spurious at best.

With help from financier Michael Hobbs, Proud recorded his limited edition, debut album De Da De Dum in 1967. One of the 50 or so copies pressed up came to the attention of Bob Cooley at Phonogram Records, who signed Proud to a deal with the Philips label. Proud re-recorded De Da De Dum which Philips issued as Adreneline and Richard in 1968. The album garnered positive reviews in Go-Set, and Proud made a few television appearances as well as doing a handful of live gigs. The album contained such sparse, idiosyncratic and evocative songs as `De Da De Dum', `Purple Boy Gang', `Into Elizabeth's Eyes', `An Old Servant' and `Adreneline and Richard'.

Proud issued one more album on Philips, A Bird in the Engine, before travelling to the UK. Although the album contained several more captivating songs like `Eagle-Wise', `Hey Sue', `Vida', `A Bird in the Engine' and `She Dwindles Her Fingers', Philips dropped Proud upon his return from the UK in 1970. Proud spent most of the 1970s writing poems, novels and plays. None of his novels was ever published, although Sydney radio station Double J aired two adaptations of his plays Vlort Phlitson, Intergalactic Trouble Shooter and Don Coyote. In 1995, David Nichols (from Sydney band The Cannanes) tracked down Proud and, with support from Nic Dalton at the independent Half a Cow label re-issued Adreneline and Richard and A Bird in the Engine on the Eagle-Wise CD (July 1996). Nichols and Dalton also took Proud into the studio for the first time in over 25 years to record a batch of new songs that may see the light of day in the near future on Half a Cow.