Dave Amitri on The Incredible String Band
I’ve taken some guidance from Wikipedia to get some background of The Incredible String Band and it strikes me that they were from a time now over 50 years ago of which I know very little. However they were “discovered” by someone who saw them play live and signed them. The album I’ve listened to 3 times today is their eponymous debut.
The first thing that struck me before I heard a note were the sleeve notes, I literally laughed out loud. I’ll share 1 paragraph ….
“There are three logs, one for each of the incredible string band, and although they look just like any other logs, they were given to the three musicians by a golden wonder potato, who was a very close friend of the magic blackbird”
There is more of the same and a joyful description of each song by Mike Heron, no lyrics, just a stream of consciousness that already sets the scene for what is to follow. I knew what was coming before the needle hit the record. The one for “Oh Lord How Happy I am” should become a daily poem at all secondary schools in the UK. The front cover seems to include Martin Fry, Ed Sheeran and Noel Gallagher holding a selection of antiques for celebrity “Flog It”
The album opens with “Maybe Someday” which is a lovely ditty in the folk traditions and instantly put me in mind of those guitar lesson programmes in the dead zone of weekday morning TV of the early 70’s. You’re immediately aware that these are talented musicians having a crack at singing in a Bob Dylan style, I have to confess I haven’t checked who came first. As expected there are flutes, I suspect some lutes and other instruments you wouldn’t find in a Coldplay recording session (no-one tell Chris Martin) but in the hands of Heron, Williamson and Palmer (who only gets one song which according to Wiki stretched his belief in the magic blackbird) it creates a really pleasant sound and collection of songs
It’s obvious I can’t judge after 3 listens beyond the honest view that there is enough here for me to give it another go. I’d love a time machine to back to 1966 and get a sense of the vibe of that time that allowed this album to be made. It’s clear all was not well with the world and The Incredible String Bands freeforming hippydom and music was intended to be an antidote to that, A group of celestial travellers takings sounds from the birds and the forest and turning them into songs for all to enjoy. It’s a shame they followed the structure of an album format and could have been even more out there. The writing on the cover is a real find and I genuinely love it.
In summing up, it’s a folky journey back to a more innocent time. Any album that can go from “Footsteps of the Heron” to “Niggertown” is ok with me. 3 obviously talented, creative musicians just being in a time and space that I suspect not many others have inhabited. It’s given me an insight into Johnny C’s world and leaves me with a lovely mental picture of Pencilsqueezer at his easel. brush in hand being inspired by “Smoke Shovelling Song” . All in all a lovely time capsule of an album that I will definitely be trying again
Aces.
Excellent. Can’t wait for the rest.
Sleeve notes a reminder “Don’t take drugs, kids”
Or maybe to us older Afterworders, “Don’t return to drugs, guys”.
Or even, “Make sure you’ve taken drugs before you read this.”
Or, thems were good drugs back then.
Listen to Peel’s Perfumed Garden, rush out and buy ISB. Spend the next month accosting friends & strangers – “this is Ace”.
If it was released today I would most probably heap scorn & derision on it but thanks for bringing some of that innocent magic back.
Nice work and a brave leap in the dark. If it’s any consolation, this is the first ISB LP and they never sounded more “normal” or mainstream than they do here. Hell, there were even (at least) four cover versions of the Mike Heron-penned song Maybe Someday including one by Alex Harvey and another by prog outfit The Human Beast (the band who featured heavily in the first Danny Baker book).
There were also covers of Everything’s Fine Right Now and October Song, including versions by Davy Graham and Bert Jansch. So, it all ties in.
Clive Palmer left after this album and that’s when the ISB really began to put the acid into acid folk.
By the way, collectability wise, there are several pressings of this album on Elektra.
The very first pressing with white label and green Elektra logo is hugely rare now (around £200+). Orange label pressings sell for maybe £50+ and red labels, less still.
It was the red label……….
Great review, Dave. I bought this, but it was really 5000 Spirits… and The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter that I got fixated on and played to death. Listening to this again, I’m not sure why that was, except as JC says, it’s a bit more mainstream.
*footnote* I see that 5000 Spirits…was released a month before my 20th birthday, so I was still a teenager.
Yes, 5,000 Spirits was the one.
As I’ve said elsewhere on the blog, In over 50 years of record buying I’ve only ever bought 2 LPs on the strength of their cover design alone (ironic charity shop purchases don’t count. I’m talking about full price records).
One was The Zappa/Mothers – Freak Out and the other was the ISB -5,000 Spirits, both in 1967. I knew nothing about either band or their music at the time, but I had a hunch that if the cover was this good, the music might be too.
Both turned out to be wise, if not life-affirming, purchases.
And speaking of cover versions, First Girl I Loved from 5,000 Spirits is possibly the most covered ISB song of all with versions by:
Judy Collins, Jackson Browne, Wizz Jones and the Rosie hitmaker Don Partridge.
Plus many more versions by more obscure artists.
While we’re waiting let’s remind ourselves of just how good the Incredibles (as the hip kids called them) were back in their prime.
From the much discussed album The 5000 Spirits, Or The Layers Of The Onion, this is First Girl I Loved
I keep hearing the melody for Randy Newman’s ‘Political Science ‘ mixed up in that.
The ISB got there 5 years before Randy.
Of course but do you hear it in there?
I didn’t before you mentioned it, but there is a certain similarity in the chord sequence
I love that about music. How you can borrow and steal and yet end up with something completely new. I posted a link in one of the recent Bowie threads where Carlos Alomar lovingly demonstrated to us what he said to David that golden years in the format he had it at the time was pretty much the melody to on Broadway. It’s amazing what can be achieved once you have realized plagiarism . LOL
It’s in here somewhere…
It’s interesting that you say that hip kids referred to the ISB as “the Incredibles”.
Word magazine supremo Mark Ellen always made a point of referring to them as “The String Band”!
I was being flippant, but seem to remember the two names were interchangeable duco.
As I’ve just described on the Teenage thread, I bought Rock Bottom on the basis of its cover. It had just been released but was cheaper than the usual LP price. That purchase did affirm my life!
I bought Roxy for your pleasure for the cover. If I wasn’t already a fan Country Life would have been a cert anyway.
I think my dad would have happily bought Stranded just for the cover.
I’ve always enjoyed Country Life with its helpfully laminated sleeve. I like a big German bird me.
The year after 5000 Spirits I bought The Fool’s eponymous LP on the vague assumption that because they’d done the cover art for one of my favourite albums it would be good. I was wrong of course…wouldn’t even be worth much if I still had it.
Produced by Graham Nash, I see.
More Fool him.
The Fool… Rod Jane & Freddy with cooler friends.
I must apologise, the clip above is not the original version from the 5000 Spirits, Or The Layers Of The Onion album as stated, but in fact an early demo later released on the Chelsea Sessions album. I didn’t listen to it before posting and was fooled because they used the 5000 Spirits cover art.
This is the correct version. You’ll notice there’s a sitar and Danny Thompson’s upright bass here which is not on the earlier version.
Three Hail Marys and a Mea Culpa should do it.
Fond memories of @paul-waring ‘s journey into ISB madness at the old place, following his fearless trek into Mahavishnu land.
Am I right in believing that the PaulWaringmeister is still lying in a darkened room?
Nobody has heard from him since.
I heard a rumour that even the darkened room had given up on him and had moved to a new address…
It was right after his seven part review of the darkened room, where he proclaimed to to be “bloody weird” and that he “couldn’t see what all the fuss was about this darkness business, anyway” that he disappeared from sight.
I understand the darkened room had already, by then, submitted an extensive and somewhat perplexed review of PaulWaringmeister on a blog run for the darkened rooms community. It’s similar to the London taxi driver community: ‘You’ll never guess who I had in me cab/darkened environment the other day… Gor blimey, mate, these blaahdy record reviewers…’ etc etc
Oi! I remain deeply scarred by my foray into the world of the ISB. Only now am I beginning to regain a degree of balance in my auditory faculties, through almost constant immersion in the recorded works of Half Man Half Biscuit. Who, by the way, continue to make folk music of the highest order.
If you’re going to talk about me I might have to come back and bore you rigid once more with talk of obscure Liverpool indie bands and suchlike. So think on.
Ah, there you are! It’s great to see you here, Paul. Come back and bore us often.
Hurrah! PaulWaringmeister is BACK BACK BACK!!!!! 🙂
The woods… and the darkness… and the HOWLING WIND!
Will the MO’s never cease?
In a parallel universe, there is a version of Ragnarok where a giant PaulWaringmesister is locked in endless combat with the massed forces of the Mahavishnu Orchestra on the jazz-rocky slopes of the mountains of Valhalla, shouting ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!’ – as Odin, Thor and the boys look on and say to each other, ‘Lads, I’m not sure this is in the script…’
Ok, so going through the box what should I listen to next?
ISB
Changing Horses
I Looked Up
The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter
The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of The Onion
Tyrannosaurus Rex
My people were fair and had the sky in their hair…. But now they’re content to wear the stars on their brow
Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
The Pentangle
The Pentangle
Donovan
Universal Soldier
Stephen Stills
Manassas
Or The Concert for Bangladesh box set (not going to happen….)
There are more but I need some guidance of where to start next
Bangladesh is better than you think. The best of that lot, in my view, is Stephen Stills.
With you on Bangladesh, though possibly more Ravi Shankar than you need. Leon Russell’s entry on Beware of Darkness is one of my favourite moments.
Dave, you might as well knock off ISB in chronological order – some treats in store…
“more Ravi Shankar than you need” – hurrr
Who can forget Ravi’s gentle jibe at the audience at the start of his Bangla Desh set, after they sycophantically applaud his tuning up:
“If you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more”
Impossible.
The Bangla Desh box has its moments, but Clapton was strung out on heroin and put in a lacklustre performance.
I’ve told the story here before about asking George to sign the book from the Bangla Desh box at a 1981 photo shoot. He got very excited about the pictures of Eric playing a beautiful Gibson Byrdland and insisted on showing it to everyone who was there.
Unfortunately, most of George’s solo career was a lacklustre performance. Didn’t he even put out an album that no-one noticed or cared about called ‘Gone Crappo’?
Yes, it was mostly downhill for George after the giant success of All Things Must Pass. Although I enjoyed some of the mid-period Dark Horse label albums
You’re saying he was a bit of a dark horse, then?
Dylan’s set was excellent (with half The Beatles backing him), good to great George Harrison albums : ATMP (of course), 33 1/3, George Harrison, Cloud 9 and Brainwashed. and there are other gems all over the place, a very decent solo career.
…with huge gaps and/or loss of interest in between the output you mention. Not so much a decent solo career as a few decent engagements with the muse once in a while, with the odd decade in between.
Funny was about to recommend the raga hitmaker
Yes, Manassas is worth an hour of anyone’s time. A splendid collection
Rather than start a new thread, I thought I would resurrect this one to make it known that I am thirty-one years old and I have just listened to the Incredible String Band for the very first time. It wasn’t as scary as I feared.
You do realise you now have to listen another three times, making a total of six, and post a review?
How did you get to six from one listen plus three?
The title of the thread says “Three Listen Reviews…” I assumed he’d listened three times already.
I listened to ‘The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter’ and here is my very brief review:
There was a song early on which is basically the inspiration for ‘The Lumberjack Song’. That was alright. I enjoyed the appearance of Sweep on backing vocals during ‘A Cellular Song’, the one with Bob Dylan style harmonica was pretty good and it wouldn’t surprise me if the Water Song genuinely features a sound-recording of somebody having a bath. I am not sure how to react to ‘Swift as the Wind’ as it seems they recorded it during a medical examination – ‘Open your mouth and say ‘Aaah’.
This sounds brilliant.
More of this sort of thing.
Don’t listen to him! He’s not your real Dad!
Amoebas are very small.
….slithering….