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The Incredible String Band – “The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter” (2)

September 22, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

The album opens with a Robin Williamson song called “Koeeoaddi There” [yes,really!]. It is a splendid overture to the LP, being a stylised recollection of childhood years. It is classic ISB stuff, with Robin very much taking the lead vocal on the verses, but with the whole ensemble in its unique harmony joining in the fairy-like riddle refrain.

Track 2 is another Williamson composition, this one however delivered in an over-the-top Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera style. It is called “The Minotaur’s Song”, and it does what it says on the tin. Part of the chorus is the phrase “I can’t dream well because of my horns”. Again Robin does solo vocals on the stanzas, with support mainly from Licorice on the refrains.

Track 3 on Side 1 is yet another Williamson song, but very short (2.30 minutes) and very different from the first two. It is called “Witches Hat”, and is a light, lilting, whimsical thing in which the singer imagines himself as being such a thing. It features just Robin and his guitar.

Side 1 ends with one of the most celebrated pieces the band ever did. It is an epic (12.55 minutes) Mike Heron composition titled “A Very Cellular Song”, and its basic topic is anaerobic reproduction. However, it features several different styles and genres throughout its lengthy course. Heron freely admits that it had a close connection with an LSD experience, a trip as it was known. The closing sections include “We Bid You Goodnight”, originally done by The Bahamian Pindar Family and often used by the Grateful Dead to conclude their sets, and “May the long time sun shine on you” which has its origins in a Sikh spiritual called “On That Day”. On any view of the matter, it is certainly a truly remarkable piece, and a brilliant cadence to the first side.

The back cover shows the two chaps ion winter garb:

Pink Floyd – “Umma Gumma” (1)

September 16, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

As noted in the last post, this was the first Pink Floyd album I ever heard of, in the late autumn of 1969, when I had just started my third year at the grammar school, except that it had that year become comprehensive, and, for the first time in its history, co-educational. I always knew it comprised two LPs, a live one and a studio one, and that the first track was stunning.

The front cover was intriguing:

It shows the four members of the band in a scene by an internal doorway leading directly into a garden. However, in the top left quarter of the tableau is a mirror, in which we see the same scene repeatably but with the chaps rearranged each time in ever decreasing size. On the floor are white capital letter blocks neatly spelling out the group’s name, to the left of which is the distinctive EMI Harvest label logo. Magic stuff, particularly for a thirteen year old schoolboy. I turned fourteen a couple of weeks before the end of the 1960s.

The Incredible String Band – “The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter” (1)

September 13, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

This LP has always seemed to me to be the “darkest” of all the ISB albums, but this may be just a subconscious effect of the title. However, there is also a bit of a sense of ancient foreboding in the front cover:

This is a motley crew. To the left stands Mike holding a grotesque mask. A child separates him from Robin, who is seated holding a jester’s rattle. To the right of the picture is Licorice holding a dog. In the middle at the back, between two men, is another woman who may well be Rose, Mike’s girlfriend who became a formal member of the band along with Licorice a few months later. One of the men could be a chap called Malcolm LeMaistre, who joined the band in 1971. The whole tableau is set against the bleak background of a forest in winter. All are dressed in medieval clothes, even the hapless kids.

The music, however, though mainly a bit serious in delivery, is really not very dark at all.

The Turtles – “The Battle of the Bands”

September 9, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

I take a brief break now from the current Pink Floyd/ISB series to mention this remarkable album, or rather its packaging.

The Turtles were one of the very best pop groups of the 1960s, and released six LPs, one every year from 1965 to 1970. two of its constant members, Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman subsequently joined Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention in the early 1970s, when they were known as the Phosphoresent Leech and Eddie.

At the last UK Record Store Day I was able to purchase a box set of all the six albums. The fourth in the series, released in 1968, is the only one with a gatefold sleeve, and is titled “The Battle of the Bands”. When you open it up, you see 11 pictures of the then 5 chaps in the group dressed up as the competing bands in question:

Pink Floyd in 1969 (Part 2)

September 7, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

In the previous PF post I mentioned that 1969 is my favourite year. It was also a uniquely prolific year for prog rock. It was the only year in which the classic line-up of the Moody Blues released 2 LPs, the only year in which Fairport Convention released three and Led Zeppelin two; it was also the only year in which Pink Floyd released two albums. We have already seen that the first of these was “More”. The second was a double LP called “Ummagumma”; it was the very first Pink Floyd record I was ever aware of.

It seems that with the possible exception of the late Rick Wright, the band were still trying to come to terms with what they were trying to do. Dave Gilmour was probably the first to succeed, developing a brilliant, unique guitar style where his solos have been described as “sheets of sound”, which virtually defined prog rock for a decade.

On 14 April the band played a gig at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Nick and Roger were into the presentation side of things, whereas Rick and Dave concentrated on the music; this proved to be a very successful recipe for a stage show.

Work on “Ummagumma” had started early in the year, and the original idea was that it would be released in March. In fact, it turned out to be so atypical in terms of what EMI (the record company) were expecting, that it did not get released until October 1969. This delay was very fortunate; originally it was a single studio recorded LP, but when the time came for its release it had a second live LP added to it, because EMI thought it would prevent buyers feeling ripped off. It was also issued at a “budget” price, and sold far better than anyone expected.

The Incredible String Band in 1968

August 24, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

In 1968 I finished my first year at the grammar school and started my second. It was also the year, I found out some time or times later, in which the ISB released two or three albums, depending entirely on how you choose to count them.

The previous year, after the release of “The 5000 Spirits…”, the ISB had done a series of small venue concerts all over the UK, mainly in London clubs. Amongst the most significant of these was a support for Pink Floyd [see current] and Fairport Convention [the Judy Dyble line-up; see way above] in October at the Saville Theatre, and later that month a double bill with Shirley & Dolly Collins [see way above] at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. This is a poster advertising it:

However, the manager of the ISB at that time, Joe Boyd, had the bright idea of booking big gigs for the band over the following 12 months, and as it turned out they were sell-outs. This had much to do with the band’s third LP.

As I have mentioned on several occasions, at school I was fortunate enough to have a pal who had a really cool elder brother, and he was the source of an immense amount of information to me in my early months of prog-rock. On learning early in 1971 that I had bought the ISB album “U” [to which we shall come in a month or three], he told me about two earlier albums they had released. both of which had titles that were pure magic to my ears; one was called “The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter” and the other “Wee Tam and the Big Huge”. As I would learn much later, these were the 1968 records, and that was the order in which they were released.

Pink Floyd in 1969 (Part 1)

August 19, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

1969 is my favourite year. It saw the first moon landing, Woodstock, the only three Fairport Convention LPs to feature both Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, Pentangle’s “Basket Of Light”, the ISB’s “Changing Horses”, the first two Led Zeppelin albums, Tyrannosaurus Rex’s “Unicorn”, Jethro Tull’s “Stand Up”, the first King Crimson record, the first Mott The Hoople LP, Nick Drake’s first album; the list goes on and on. Of course, I didn’t know much at all about it until some time later.

1969 was the year towards the end of which I turned 14. This meant I could quit the Boy Scouts and join the youth club, which had GIRLS! In September 1969 the school I attended changed from being a grammar school to a comprehensive, and so for the first time in its history it had some GIRL pupils!

Puberty was beginning.

In the two years ending in September 1969, uniquely in my life, I had not conversed with any female person who was not related to me; it was a very odd time, but very conducive to fervent learning at school. The time after it ended was a bit of a shell shock to me.

However, my interest in prog rock had started in the previous summer term, at the start of which we all craved “Abbey Road”. By the end of term we had the Island sampler “Nice Enough To Eat” [see far above], and things were never the same again.

The Incredible String Band – “The 5000 Spirits… (9)

August 13, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

Before we leave this record, I thought I’d put up a few photos relevant to the LP and the band as it was in that heady year of 1967:

As can be observed, the middle one is an ad for the single “Painting Box” [see above], and the one on the right shows the chaps up a tree; they liked climbing trees, something which will become clearer when in a few weeks we get to the 1969 album “Changing Horses”.

Pink Floyd – “More” (5)

August 10, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

As mentioned above, all of the remaining tracks on side 2 of the LP are instrumentals. Track 3 is “More Blues”. This does what is says on the tin. It is only 2.12 minutes long, but is indeed a Gilmour guitar based blues; however, it is done in a uniquely Pink Floyd style.

Track 4, another instrumental of course, is titled “Quicksilver”, and is the longest track on the LP, coming in at a whopping 7.13 minutes. It is a typical swirling organ based fantasy, but a bit more laid back and doom-laden than the norm. In my view, on balance, it goes on too long.

Track 5 is the only one on side 2 not composed by the whole band, and is not strictly an instrumental, in that it does feature some “Speedy Gonzalez” type mutterings. It is called “A Spanish Piece”, and is credited to Gilmour alone. It is the shortest track on the LP, lasting only 1.05 minutes, and is essentially an acoustic Flamenco guitar thing with those mutterings.

The album ends with a final instrumental with the very fitting name “Dramatic Theme”. It is only 2.15 minutes long, but like the first track on side 2 “Main Theme”, this is timeless classic Pink Floyd, and for my money the second best track on the record after “Main Theme”. It is certainly a perfect cadence for this extraordinary LP.

I mentioned last time on “More” that I had it on CD. That CD is apparently Japanese:

but does include all the lyrics of the songs in English:

The Incredible String Band – “The 5000 Spirits… (8)

August 6, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

Track 6 on Side 2, the penultimate track on the LP, is a truly magnificent Mike Heron composition called “Gently Tender”. For two or three years at the beginning of this century I was a keen and active member of the ISB fanzine site on the Web, and this was one of the most discussed songs thereon, largely because of the last word of the chorus. This is a most haunting refrain, one of the most beautiful and delicate bits of music I have ever heard, and the lyrics thereof go like this:

“And now, all my wine is water; to her, all my wine is water; and my pearls are …”

That final word on the record sounds like “clear”, but this is a function of the remains of Mike’s Scottish brogue. The actual word is “clay”.

This really is a great song, arguably the best on the album; it is extremely pleasant to listen to. Mike takes the lead vocal and plays guitar, Robin supplies backing vocals (as does Licorice on this one), and plays no fewer than FOUR instruments: drums, bass, gimbri and flute; or three if it is a bass gimbri!

The LP ends with Track 7 on Side 2, a Robin Williamson song titled “Way Back In The 1960s”; remember, this album was released in 1967; in 1968 the Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded “1983, A Mermaid I Would Be”, and a few short years later Wings did “1985”. “Love Potion Number 9” tells of how the singer has been since 1956. These references do sound a bit odd as the months and years roll on, but on the whole they don’t really matter very much. This is indeed the case with this closing track, which is a wry and amusing thing where Robin sings lead vocal and plays guitar, Mike plays lead guitar and sings supporting vocals, and Danny Thompson plays bass.

“We still used the wheel…”

All things considered, a fine cadence to this extraordinary album, which of course I now also have on CD.

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