At last I can see, albeit only dimly, light at the end of the tunnel.
I hope to resume posting on the more frequent basis I did before the death, in about two months.
But who knows? None of us can predict the future!
Pink Floyd in Italy (1)
Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
Pink Floyd.
One of the oddest things about Pink Floyd is its curious connections with Italy in the period 1970-1971. I did not become aware of this until the late 1970s, when two, at first in my mind, unrelated things happened. Firstly, my wife and I went to the Cinema to see a film called “Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii”. The trailer for this was to me even more extraordinary then, being a film of the 1970 line-up of Fairport Convention performing a live version of “Now Be Thankful”, a phenomenon which I hope to return to at some point.
Secondly, I bought an LP called “Zabriskie Point”:
The Incredible String Band – “Wee Tam and The Big Huge” (8)
Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
The Incredible String Band.
The last one on this band closed with the astonishing revelation that I had TWO LPs both claiming to be Side 1 of an album called “Wee Tam and The Big Huge”, even though I have only one copy of the double album. I shall elaborate on how I came to know how this happened in due course, but for now here is another startling fact I have only recently discovered. This is that even the double album itself has TWO serial numbers, one for Sides 1 and 2, the other for Sides 3 and 4. On discovering this, I had thought this was a unique feature in the realms of double LPs; but then I remembered that it was possible in the late 1960s to buy Cream’s “Wheels of Fire” as a double LP or as two single LPs. Sure enough, on checking it I find that is has the same dual serial number syndrome. Still, as far as I know, these are the only two double albums to have been treated in this way; and at least with Cream the title stayed the same, qualified only by the words “Live” or “In the Studio” respectively. Conversely, “Wee Tam and the Big Huge” became “Wee Tam” and “The Big Huge” respectively, and in a way which destroyed the wholeness and harmony of the album.
It can be recalled from an earlier post on this album that my first acquisition of any of it was when I bought “The Big Huge”, an LP whose existence made no sense at all to me at the time. Anyway, Track 1 Side 1 was the first thing I heard from it of course, and what an introduction that was! It is a Robin Williamson composition called “Maya”, coming in at an epic 9.24 minutes. It is a truly marvellous song, featuring Robin on guitar and bass, Mike on sitar, and both girls on percussion. Typically it has various sections, but the entirety fits together in the most wonderful fashion. For most of it Robin sings solo, but the whole band joins in with the refrain, which only occurs one and a bit times. This is because the second go at it comes right at the end with a view to attempting to dramatise the next track, which is a bit of a dull, plodding Mike Heron song called “Greatest Friend”. Don’t get me wrong, it is still a pleasant song, but for me it is the weakest on the album.
I now come to the oddity about discovering I had two LPs both having a Side One label titled “Wee Tam & The Big Huge”. This is because in addition to having the double LP and the two separate single LPs, I also have a two LP set, but the two LPs are not the same as the separate single LPs in terms of packaging. This is the “picture side” of “The Big Huge”:
Pink Floyd – “Atom Heart Mother” (3)
Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
Pink Floyd.
Track 3 on Side 2 is the Dave Gilmour song, called “Fat Old Sun”. This is unique on this record, in that it is the only track therefrom that featured in their live performances for several years thereafter. It is an utterly brilliant piece, and like so many others from these earlier LPs, very much a harbinger of things to come. It starts off with a dreamy and immensely beautiful section which gradually builds up to a rock classic, all of course featuring the wonderful and inimitable electric guitar of Dave Gilmour.
The final track on the LP, Track 4 on Side 2, is the second longest after the title track, which occupies all of Side 1. This is a quirky thing called “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast”, credited to all four members of the group, and for me it is the weakest track on the album. The title is, in fairness, an entirely honest description of the content of the piece, which is essentially a meandering, piano based, and jazz influenced ramble. There are sound effects like that of bacon cooking, but there is no singing as such; rather, there are some mumbled spoken words. Of these, the clearest and most memorable are: “Marmalade, I like marmalade.” It is nevertheless not unpleasant to listen to, in its own odd way.
The title track was originally called “The Amazing Pudding”, recorded for a John Peel session. On 16 July 1970, however, during a break in recording, Peel bought a copy of the Evening Standard, which contained a report about a woman who had had an atom powered pacemaker fitted to her chest. The headline of the story was “Atom Heart Mother”…
Strangely, the band did not rate the LP; Roger Waters said it was “a really awful and embarrassing record.”
This is the middle section of the gatefold cover:
The Incredible String Band – “Wee Tam and The Big Huge” (7)
Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
The Incredible String Band.
I have only this last fortnight discovered just how schizophrenic this album is; from the outset it seems to have been at the same time a double album and two single albums. More of this in due course, but in the meantime I’ll say a little bit more about the music.
Track 3 on Side 2 is a Heron song called simply “Air”, and lasts 3.12 minutes. It is the most soothing music I have ever heard, and a piece of immense beauty. The girls, Rose and Licorice, do a gentle and magical chant as an intro, which continues throughout. The lyrics are almost spoken rather than sung by Mike, and form a soft counterpoint to the main melody, much in the way of “Sheep May Safely Graze”. It is a song of pure brilliance and God-given inspiration (no pun intended). If I were introducing ISB to someone who had never heard them before, this is the track I would play to him or her to convert him or her. Mike plays guitar and organ, and Robin plays flute.
Side 2 ends with an epic Williamson song called “Ducks On A Pond”, which comes in at a whopping 9.17 minutes. Robin takes the lead vocal and plays guitar, piano, kazoo [yes really!] and bass drum; Mike plays percussion and harmonica. The song has nothing to do with ducks or a pond; the title is taken from its opening words. This piece makes a splendid cadence to the “Wee Tam” half. It does leap and hop among various discrete sections, including towards the end the complete nursery rhyme “Boys and Girls Come Out to Play”. Shortly before this the song also features the line “Lovely Jesus nailed to a tree”, which would not be out of place in any of the Christian songs I love to sing. Again this shows the Scottish Sunday School upbringing the two chaps had. In any event this is a truly magnificent song, one of the very best the band ever did.
On the schizophrenia, for the time being, suffice it to say that I have only recently discovered, to my utter shock and amazement, that I have TWO LPs the labels one Side One of each claim to be Side One of an album called “Wee Tam & The Big Huge”!
;
Death in the family (2)
Dad’s affairs are proving to be vaster and more complex than I had thought. I fear that the disruptions to my posts could continue for a year.
Pink Floyd – “Atom Heart Mother” (2)
Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
Pink Floyd.
Side 2 of the LP has 4 tracks on it, and the idea is roughly the same as for the second LP of “Ummagumma” [see above], in that with the exception of the final track and the drummer, Nick Mason, each member contributes one piece. Each of the first 3 tracks is utterly brilliant, in its own way.
Track 1 is “If”, one of the shortest titles I know, and is the Roger Waters song. Two years earlier on the very first Fairport Convention album there is a track called “If (Stomp)”, which was also released as 5the B side of the band’s first single “If I Had A Ribbon Bow”,
but the two songs could not be more different. The stomp is indeed a stomp, but the Floyd song is an intensely soft and gentle thing of immense beauty. Roger sings the lyrics very quietly, kicking off with “If I were a swan, I’d be gone”. Dave Gilmour adds some extremely sensitive electric guitar, in his inimitable way, and the whole thing just flows like a tricking stream on a hot summers day; great stuff.
Track 2 is the Rick Wright song, and despite its basic simplicity, this is one of my favourite songs of all time. It is called “Summer ’68”, and is actually all about a groupie (being a girl throwing herself at a pop musician for sex). It has always entranced me from the opening piano break, which is a straight five semitone chord progression, but done uniquely in a way that to me is positively magical. This theme is improvised on in various ways throughout, including a jazzy middle 8, but the whole thing gells together in an ecstatic way. Rick sings the song with an intensity not quite bordering on regret, tinged with a hint of sweet nostalgic poignance, and this song always moves me in a manner quite unlike any other.
This is the back cover of the LP:
The Incredible String Band – “Wee Tam and The Big Huge” (6)
Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
The Incredible String Band.
Side 1 ends with a splendid Mike Heron romp called “Log Cabin Home In The Sky”, which lasts exactly 4.00 minutes. It is a classic rockabilly song, but of course rendered in the unique ISB style. Mike plays guitar and washboard, Robin violin, and Rose (here credited for the very first time) viola.
Side 2 opens with another Heron masterpiece, and one which I have always associated with my wife. This is a waltz time song called “You Get Brighter”, lasting 5.44 minutes. It is an intensely cheerful song, with just two instruments: Robin on harpsichord and Mike on guitar. Whilst what the piece describes is a scientific impossibility, the sentiment expresses the true angst of first love.
Track 3 is a typically brilliant Williamson composition called “The Half-Remarkable Question”, which lasts 5.01 minutes. It is classic stuff, and the work of pure genius. Robin plays guitar and percussion and Mike adds in with his sitar. The question in question might be said to be revealed in the short middle 8:
“What is it that we are part of?
What is it that we are?”
although these words are described specifically in the song as “the old forgotten question”.
On any view of the matter, however, this is one of the best ISB songs ever recorded.
One of several unique features of the album is this notice which is the top right corner of the back cover:
and indeed it does. I was lucky enough to find that the second hand copy I had bought still had the poem insert:
Pink Floyd – “Atom Heart Mother” (1)
Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
Pink Floyd.
This was actually the very first Pink Floyd record I ever acquired. It was the early months of 1971, nearly a year after the release of the LP, when I was able to buy a second hand copy for just over £1. The cover was striking and unusual, to say the least:
Nowhere in the packaging are any pictures of the group, nor are the members of it named, except as surname credits for the composers of the tracks.
The title track takes up all of Side 1 of the album, and is truly extraordinary. It is a unique piece of music. According to the cover, it comprises six sections, although it is not easy to discern the divisions among them:
(a) Father’s Shout
(b) Breast Milky
(c) Mother Fore
(d) Funky Dung
(e) Mind Your Throats Please
(f) Remergence.
This work features a full orchestra and choir. The orchestra is not named, but it is just possible to make out the identity of the choir as the John Aldiss Choir.
The track opens with a few faint electronic sounds, followed rapidly by the main theme, which is a majestic and dramatic classical march with the full orchestra and choir; marvelous stuff. This is repeated about three quarters of the way through. The rest of the piece contains a variety of interludes, including choral sections (with a bit of chanting and whooping here and there), and some very pretty instrumental parts relying on Rick Wright’s organ as the main contribution.
This is a remarkable one-off, and a truly wonderful way to fill a side of an album.
Death in the family
My father, the last surviving grandparent of my children, died on Monday. I therefore regret that there will be an inevitable pause in the posts for a week or two.
