#Incredible String Band

[affiches-concerts]

Incredible String Band, Newcasle - 1969. Art by Nigel Weymouth.

[guessimdumb]

Incredible String Band - Witches Hat (1968)

Certainly, the children have seen them, In quiet places where the moss grows green. Colored, shells, jangle, together, The wind is cold, the year is old The trees whisper together, and bend in the wind, they lean…

[jt1674]

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Robyn Hitchcock & Richard Thompson - "First Girl I Loved (Incredible String Band)," The Barbican, London, England, July 19, 2009

Robyn Hitchcock's Patreon continues to pay dividends if you're a Hitchcockian like myself. For example: a few weeks back, Robyn shared three Joe Boyd-produced demos from 1987 that were recorded for a proposed Incredible String Band tribute album. Alas, this was as far as the duo got. "We couldn’t find anyone else in the venal 1980s interested in these pantheistic Scottish minstrels who had peaked two decades earlier," Hitchcock reports. What, was R.E.M. too busy?!

Ah, well, it's good stuff to hear all these years later. About two decades on, Robyn showed up at a Boyd-organized tribute concert for the ISB with none other than Richard Thompson to perform a crackling rendition of "First Girl I Loved." Is this the only time Robyn and Richard have shared the stage? Maybe! (There's video, too.) What a great song — so ahead of its time in its candid/funny/sad way.

In Hitchcock's recent memoir, he writes evocatively of his first exposure to the Incredibles: "I drop the needle on 'Chinese White' and am immediately transported to Incredible String Land. The music is like the cover: teeming with joy and a mysterious darkness that underpins it. The songs are simultaneously celebrations and laments; like Dylan, Mike Heron and Robin Williamson seem to sense how sadness is the shadow of beauty. Unlike Dylan, they also sense the holiness of all living matter. These people must be very stoned. I don't yet know what exactly it is to be stoned, and I know probably it may not be the answer, but it will surely help me ask the right questions — won't it?"

[andagon]

AnDagon's Water Song

Water water see the water flow Glancing dancing see the water flow Oh wizard of changes water water water Dark or silvery mother of life Water water holy mystery heavens daughter

God made a song when the world was new Waters laughter sings it is true Oh, wizard of changes, teach me the lesson of flowing

@god-in-the-basement

[boscofuller]

[theoriginaleppieblack-blog]

Rest in Peace Melanie Safka

[kckatie]

Bonus Folk Friday track: The Incredible String Band - Blues for the Muse

The previous song was sung by Mike Heron, so I thought I'd link one sung by Robin Williamson

[andagon]

This is so beautiful that it hurts. I still have this one to give it to the one I love.

I forgot who that was.

So I just play my favourite song:

[julio-viernes]

Del mítico álbum folkie hippie "The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion" (Elektra, julio de 1967) de la Incredible String Band, "No Sleep Blues" de Robin Williamson. Memorable canción, de esas que le debían gustar mucho a Bob Dylan, que creo que era un fan declarado del aquí dúo masculino poco después cuarteto mixto. Tengo claro que mi favorito es Mike Heron, pero no hay que menospreciar en absoluto el talento de Williamson.

[dannyandtheinfiniteplaylist]

#109: "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" by the Incredible String Band (1968)

a pretty wild psychedelic folk album from Scotland.

a lot of the songs on this record, espcially the thirteen minute piece that closes out the first side, feel less like singular songs and more like suites, or assemblances of little compositional chunks. it was an okay record. over-stayed it's welcome pretty quickly.

i think it's really funny that all these psychedelic records from the sixties have a sitar on them. i wonder if there was some reason for that.

[librarychair]

Listen, a woman with a bulldozer, I wake up, my brain starts playing Koeaddi There loudly in high fidelity, I ask if my kitty cat wishes for a fish on a dish

[jt1674]

[andagon]

Serpent rising

And after all that romantic stuff and playing the postillon d'amour for all sorts of creatures, now back to the themes of hell itself:

[boscofuller]

[guessimdumb]

The Incredible String Band - Chinese White (1967)

Not sure if this counts as a Christmas song. Also, it's Chinese white, the color, not China white, the drug.

Oh, will your magic Christmas tree be shining Gently all around?