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The Incredible String Band – “The 5000 Spirits… (4)

June 21, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

Track 3 on Side 1 of the LP is a minor masterpiece called “Painting Box”. It is a typically cheerful tonal Mike Heron composition, but this one is truly outstanding. The credits read: “Mike Heron, lead vocal& guitar; Robin Williamson, lead guitar, flute & vocal, Licorice vocal & finger cymbals; Danny Thompson [see above], bass”.

The ensemble refrain is a hearty thing with these words:

“For somewhere in my mind there is a painting box; I have every colour there it’s true. Just lately when I look inside my painting box I seem to pick the colours of you.”

There are three verses, the song commencing with the first and ending with the chorus:

“When the morning of your eyes comes waking through my shadows, leaving just a trace of twilight sleep;

I whisper to the baby raindrops playing on my window, and tell them gently, This is not the time that they should weep.

My Friday evening’s footsteps plodding dully through this black town Are far away now from the world that I’m in,

My eyes are listening to some sounds that I think just might be springtime, With daffodils between my toes I am laughing at their whim.

The purple sail above me catches all the strength of summer. Fishes stop and ask me where I am bound.

I smile and shake my head and say my little ship is sinking, But I kind of like the sea that I’m on and I don’t mind if I do drown.”

The band, comprising just the two chaps, performed this song on UK TV in 1967 on the Julie Felix show, with her joining in effectively taking the Licorice vocals. I am fortunate enough to have a DVD which includes a video recording of this, and it is indeed pure joy to watch.

It was a perfect choice for a single, but sadly it did not chart:

21 June 2017

June 21, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Ah, and once more the nights start drawing in again.

In memory of Tim Hart deceased.

Pink Floyd in 1968

June 20, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

As will have been observed from the posts on “A Saucerful Of Secrets”, the group that recorded it did not exist in any precisely definable form. The group’s management split, half effectively going with Syd Barrett in the firm belief that the group was finished without him. A tour of the USA took place in the summer of 1968, a time when the groupie phenomenon was at its zenith. Indeed, there is a track on “Atom Heart Mother” called “Summer 1968” which deals with that very topic.

One big problem with doing gigs back in the UK, however, is that Pink Floyd Mk II was not in any position to recreate on stage the vast majority of the band’s recorded output.

As the year turned, however, a step in the right direction, albeit a curious and uneasy one, was about to be taken.

And they did look quite striking:

The Incredible String Band – “The 5000 Spirits… (3)

June 16, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

Track 1 on Side 1 is “Chinese White”. This phrase then described a type of heroin; and oh boy, from the opening notes of the bowed gimbri, it was patently clear that this was a very different album from the first one. It is a Mike Heron composition, and he sings lead vocal and plays guitar. Robin sings and plays the bowed gimbri. If you have never heard a bowed gimbri, the sound is enthralling and positively unworldly, sounding a bit like a violin on LSD. The song is a truly magnificent opener, with the refrain “Oh, will your magic Christmas tree be shining gently all around?”

Track 2 strikes a splendid contrast, being Robin Williamson’s “No Sleep Blues”. This could have come from the first LP, and is a super romp fantasising wonderfully on the topic of insomnia. I often describe this blog as a cure for insomnia. Robin takes lead vocal with Mike supporting, and both play guitars. Danny Thompson (shortly to be of Pentangle) plays “bass”, which is probably a double bass, as he does on quite a few tracks on this LP.

This track was also the B side of a single of which the very next track was the A side.

Pink Floyd – “A Saucerful of Secrets” (6)

June 8, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

As hinted at last Pink Floyd time, in this final post on this LP, these are the entire lyrics of “Jugband Blues”;

the break indicates the instrumental section; the final lyrics thereafter end the song and the album abruptly:

“It’s awfully considerate of you to think of me here and I’m most obliged to you for making it clear that I’m not here and I never knew the moon could be so big and I never knew the moon could be so big and I’m grateful that you threw away my old tunes and brought me here instead dressed in red…and I’m wondering who could be writing this song. I don’t care if the sun don’t shine and I don’t care if nothing is mine and I don’t care if I’m nervous with you: I’ll do my loving in the winter.

BREAK

The moon isn’t green…I love the Queen…and what exactly is a dream…and what exactly is a joke?”

The Incredible String Band – “The 5000 Spirits… (2)

June 7, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

This album has one of the most extraordinary psychedelic front covers ever produced, of a type which could only have come in to being in the late 1960s, and indeed really only in 1967 or at the latest 1968:

As can be observed, the only words are “The Incredible String Band”, but even these few are hard to discern in this amazing tableau. It was worth buying LPs in those days just to get the artwork.

The back cover is slightly more prosaic, and does include the album title in slightly more legible lettering:

The words “Layers Of The Onion” are the yellow bits with green stripes. Beneath the oval picture of the band members are their names, carefully arranged in the cover style to emphasise the names of two birds.

In the lower section are the track listings and credits. The sleeve design and artwork is credited to “SIMON & MARIJKE”.

Pink Floyd – “A Saucerful of Secrets” (5)

June 5, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

The first track on Side 2 being so long, there are only two other tracks on that side.

Track 2 is “See-Saw”, a Rick Wright composition, on which he sings lead vocal. It is a gentle, whimsical waltz time thing comparing a girl/boy couple’s relationship to the actions of a see-saw. It has a bit of a flavour of some of the more thoughtful Syd Barrett songs, which does a little bit to ease the listener into the shock of the final track.

Track 3 on Side 2, the cadence of the album, sticks out like a sore thumb. It is a Syd Barrett song recorded in the October 1967 sessions, so Dave Gilmour does not appear on it at all. Indeed, Syd Barrett does the solo vocal throughout the whole of the lyrical bit. Given the “transitional” nature of the LP, this was in fact the only way it could be properly ended, and that is how it has always seemed to me, but the song is truly, achingly apposite. It starts off with simple acoustic guitar accompaniment with Syd speaking rather than singing the opening words, which become more “sung” as the piece progresses. The second half is instrumental, and a typically wild psychedelic romp of a thing with hooters and horns and all sorts of stuff.

As swansongs go, however, this has to be the epitome. To put it mildly, the words were prophetic when recorded, and tragic when committed to this vinyl; they even include the phrase “I’m not here”. I may return to this in the next Pink Floyd post. Meanwhile, some pictures; I have this one on CD:

Though sadly this CD has become unplayable, so I intend to throw the actual disc away. However, I shall keep the case, as the packaging includes a much expanded picture of the “wine glass group” miniaturised on the front cover:

Fortunately, I also have a CD copy of the album as part of a boxed set called “Shine On”:

The Incredible String Band – “The 5000 Spirits… (1)

June 2, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

The second ISB LP was called “The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion”. Yes, really; well, it was 1967 – beaten only by Tyrannosaurus Rex’s first album the following year, “My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair But Now They’re Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows” [see above].

In early 1967 Robin returned from Morocco and rejoined Mike to rebuild the ISB. The new duo quickly made a mark on the London club scene and made their first TV appearance, on a UK BBC2 programme. The new album was released in July 1967 – the heart of the “Summer of Love”.

My junior school girlfriend Julia had some months previously told me that she was not friends with me any more, temporarily breaking my 11 year old heart. I was about to learn that I had passed the 11 – Plus and to experience the worst 10 days of my life at a Boy Scout camp on the west coast of Arran. In about 6 weeks I was to embark on that unique period of two years in my life when I did not speak with any female person who was not related to me. I did not learn of the existence of the ISB for another 3 years. I did not acquire a copy of the record until the mid 1970s, in Oxford UK, when it came on the “butterfly” Elektra label:

Pink Floyd – “A Saucerful of Secrets” (4)

June 1, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

Side 1 ends with Track 4, “Corporal Clegg”, another Roger Waters composition, but this is a much heavier rock style thing, at least in the intro and the verses. The choruses are much softer, however, sung in harmony by the ensemble, with these words as the lyrical refrain:

“This is Clegg; you must be proud of him.

This is Clegg; another drop of gin.”

The track ends with a short psychedelic fairground sort of style instrumental. The whole thing is actually quite effective once you get over the shock of it.

Side two opens with the title track, “A Saucerful of Secrets”, which is a 12 minute instrumental, in the sense that it has no lyrics, although it does have some brilliant vocals in the final section. The track apparently came about because the producer, Norman “Hurricane ” Smith, had said they could do what they liked with 12 unallocated minutes, and it shows. The 12 minutes comprise 3 x 4 minute sections, which neat division may or may not have been intentional. To my teenage ears the first section was just cacophonous noise, and the second little better, but as an adult I came to see the point of them, and they became much easier to listen to. However, there is a live version on “Umma Gumma” which is much more tonal, and all the better for it. The first section is a moody selection of more or less musical sounds, but undoubtedly of an “experimental” nature. The second is better, introduced by a short but spectacular drum break, which is very attractive and seizes one’s attention immediately. It in fact continues on a mechanically repetitive basis throughout the whole section, though for most of the section it carries on so faded as to be virtually inaudible. Above it are shriek-like guitar lines and doomy organ, but as the third section starts, this slowly morphs into the brilliancy of it. In my Pink Floyd song book, the only music you get for this number is this third section, which really is superb. It takes the form of a slow, majestic chord procession of immense beauty, over which the band start singing an “Ah” counterpoint melody, which transforms this 4 minutes of music into something truly wonderful; and the funny thing is, it wouldn’t sound nearly so good without those first two sections.

ISB – the last ever cover notes

May 31, 2017 · by listentomusicanywhere

Mike Heron’s notes on “Everything’s Fine Right Now”:
“Blinds drawn, fire warm, lights dim, don’t hold too hard to the past, and don’t call out to the future – it’ll find you without even trying.”

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