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Incredible String Band – “Changing Horses” (3)

April 19, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

Side 1 opens with a Williamson composition called “Big Ted”. Robin sings lead and the other 3 provide backing vocals. He plays washboard and piano, Mike electric guitar and another piano, Rose bass, and Likky acoustic guitar, with the addition of a chap called Walter Grundy on harmonica. It is a very pleasant romp about a pig, lasting 4.21 minutes.

Track 2 is for me the least enjoyable one on the LP, being a dirge like Heron song called “White Bird”. The choruses are splendid, but short and few. But the song goes on for 14.46 minutes! Mike takes lead vocal and plays guitar, the other 3 doing the backing. Robin plays flute, sarang, Chinese banjo and percussion, Rose bass and Likky organ.

Track 3 ends Side 1, being another Williamson thing called “Dust Be Diamonds”, coming in at 6.14 minutes. It is a slightly frenzied piece, but very good indeed, and a welcome respite from the previous track. Robin sings lead and plays percussion and electric guitar, Mike guitar and vibraphone, Rose bass and Likky organ and kazoo.

The sleeve is a gatefold one, and the left side of the inside has this surreal Williamson penned picture:

Pink Floyd in Italy (16)

April 11, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

I left school in December 1973, shortly before the notorious 3 day week that started in the UK. I had gained a scholarship to read law at Pembroke College, Oxford, but was not due to start there until October 1974. Accordingly, I had one of the first “gap years”, though it was involuntary, and only lasted two thirds of a year. It was a dismal time to be looking for work in Sheffield, but God smiled upon me, and found me a job at British Acheson Electrodes Ltd in Wincobank, a division of the late lamented international company Union Carbide. It was a fantastic introduction to the world of work in those days, and I earned £15 per week for a 5.5 day week, working Saturday mornings. This was quite a good wage then.

One Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1974, I was walking along a pedestrianised street in central Sheffield called Fargate. At that time there was a record shop there called Bradleys, and in their shop window I saw a single which utterly intrigued me:

By this time I had every track recorded by Pink Floyd, but this one was conspicuous by its absence! Moreover, it was obviously Italian. So, of course, I went straight in and bought it.

Incredible String Band – “Changing Horses” (2)

April 9, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

This was the band’s first LP to feature the girls, Rose and Licorice, as full members of it. Its front cover shows all four of them artistically draped around the branches of a tree:

British Summertime Begins

March 31, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

A lone stanza from the huge store of my teenage doggerel:

Or lack of sleep is killing me
Of all the nights to pick
To put the clocks on BST
Perhaps that made me sick

Pink Floyd in Italy (15)

March 17, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

This time we conclude “Alex the Gnome”’s notes in the insert which came with the CD “An Italian Tale”:”

“This leg of the tour should also be remembered for of the notorious concert in Venice on July 15, 1989, when the stage was placed on a barge in the middle of the lagoon, that will be remembered more for the controversy (and the poor organization) than the music played. The band once again returned to Italy on [sic] September 1994, during the last world tour, for 6 concerts to promote the album “The Division Bell” and for the novelty of performing the entire rendition of the album “The Dark Side of the Moon” in sequence. This was the last gift from a band beloved by Italian fans for many years, who were mortified by the total absence of live performances by the Floyd when the band were performing, delighting audiences in many other European countries, the imagination and the many artistic expressions that made them great.

“All in all, the Floyd are largely in debt to their Italian fans, who were not guilty for relying on such poor local promoters and who were the first victims of the provincialism of certain cultural and musical choices, who had been keeping away from the country a large number of foreign artists at their artistic peaks. This Brescia show is released for the first time on CD and stands as a sort of compensation to those who wanted to be there but could not, who were there and did not understand and who were there but have not forgotten.

Alex The Gnome”

And a final pic:

Incredible String Band – “Changing Horses” (1)

March 10, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

I see from the ISB Handbook , edited by Adrian Whitaker and referred to above, that the band did a lot of touring in 1969. I never saw them until they reformed at the beginning of this century. However, this was of course the year of Woodstock, and I learned about 15 years ago that the band had played there, and I now even have a DVD which includes their performance there. Frankly, it was easy to see why they were not included in the original 3 LP selection, as they did not really fit in. Moreover, they were doing “inaccessible” stuff from the forthcoming LP “I Looked Up”, which do not come over well at such an event as Woodstock was.

Anyway, the LP they released that year was “Changing Horses”, which I bought in early 1971 from a new discount record mail order service called “Virgin Records”, which was how Mr Branson started off.

Relics of ISB and the Floyd

February 10, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

One of the many reasons I am currently alternating posts on these two bands is that in 1971 they both released albums called “Relics”:

More of these in due course, God willing.

In the meantime, note that the PF Relics was only ever a single LP. In a typically confusing manner here, though, there is a single LP ISB Relics AND a double one! It is the double one shown here. I bought the single one first but gave this to my sister when I got the double one.

Pink Floyd in Italy (14)

February 10, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

This time we continue with “Alex the Gnome”’s notes in the insert which came with the CD “An Italian Tale”:

“The day after the band performed regularly at the EUR Palazzo dello Sport in Rome, adding new songs to the set list played at Brescia including “Astronomy Domine” to include in the show. After this brief and somewhat tormented experience Pink Floyd returned to Italy for only a few days in October of the same year to shoot their famous concert in the amphitheatre of Pompei [see above].

“After this last visit, the band wouldn’t return to Italy for a long while; the promoters poor reputation had the management decide to turn their backs on the Italian public. Only 17 years later, in 1988 and with the release of “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” this embargo ended and Pink Floyd played 5 shows in 3 different cities (Turin, Modena and Rome), the huge success meant that the band would return again in Italy the following year (with the same show) for 8 other shows to 4 other Italian cities, including Verona, where they finally played for 3 nights at the famous Arena where they would have played on August 26th 1972 during a festival, but unfortunately this was cancelled due to the alleged hostility from the Italian press.”

Next PF time we conclude Alex the Gnome’s notes. Meanwhile, a pic from the CD packaging:

The Incredible String Band – “Wee Tam and The Big Huge” (21)

January 23, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

At long last we now come to the final post on this brilliant and baffling double LP, which will consider the very last track on it. This is a masterpiece called “The Circle is Unbroken”, timed at 4.47 minutes. It claims to be a Williamson composition, which is certainly true as regards the lyrics. The tune, however, is an ancient Celtic traditional folk melody the true authorship of which is lost in the mists of time, and one of the most beautiful and haunting ones you will ever hear. This is arguably the best fitting cadence to an album that I know. Mike plays organ, and Robin plays whistle and Irish harp. Robin sings solo throughout, and these are the words:

“Seasons they change while cold blood is raining

I have been waiting beyond the years

Now over the skyline I see you’re travelling

Brothers from all time gathering here

Come let us build the ship of the future

In an ancient pattern that journeys far

Come let us set sail for the always island

Through seas of leaving to the summer stars.

Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging

O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?

Seeds of beauty ye bear within you

Of unborn children glad and free

Within your fingers the fates are spinning

The sacred binding of the yellow grain

Scattered we were when the long night was breaking

But in bright morning converse again.”

My very last comment on the double album is that, uniquely, it has a credit for typesetting: James C. Joyce Ltd.

Pink Floyd in Italy (13)

January 17, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

This time we continue with “Alex the Gnome”s notes in the insert which came with the CD “An Italian Tale”:

“Everything looked pretty much established (posters had already been printed advertising the event) when, once again, the fear of public disorder led local authorities to deny the necessary permissions (the music of the Floyd obviously appeared very antagonistic at that time). A curious thing to highlight is that James Brown has played one of his high-octaine shows at the Palazzo dello Sport in Bologna in 1971, without any kind of problem from unrest nor needed any special permission to play.

“The show was about to be cancelled when the band promoter finally managed to find the availability of another city not too far from Milan, Brescia, where the “Palace of Art Events” was available for the band. The ticket price was set at 1500 Lire (about 1 Dollar 15 cents or 65 new British pence). The Floyd played for two hours in front of an audience that had arrived from many parts of Italy but the light show, that the band would later become renowned for, was not very sophisticated or developed at that time so it was mainly the job of the music to captivate the audience. “Echoes” was still listed as “The Return of the Son of Nothing” (Its name was changed during their first Japanese tour in 1971) and had been performed live no more than a dozen times before that evening. “Atom Heart Mother” without its familiar brass and choir had a major impact, and after closing the show with “A Saucerful of Secrets”, the Floyd were forced to deny the rumour that Syd Barrett should appear on stage with them for the concert the following day in Rome, that rumour being originated from EMI before the Italian tour ( a Machiavellian attempt to increase number of tickets sold).”

More from these notes next PF time. Meanwhile, another pic from the insert:

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