#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]

[crashstreetkids]

I have died. Badly

[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

[dollarbin]

Dollar Bin #28:

Mike Heron's Smiling Men with Bad Reputations

In 2003 I spent a day with two way-out-of-my-league hipsters. I was not cool: a social worker married with a 1 year old; I had no thoughtful facial hair or ironic t-shirts; they were the epitome of cool: screenwriters and poets by day and ladies men by night; it goes without saying that both had very thoughtful facial hair and very ironic t-shirts. Together we visited one of San Francisco's hippest independent music stores.

Once in the door, we split up. My peers thumbed and nodded their way through the Stereolab and Flaming Lips sections while making confident small talk with the shop's owner about how Jeff Tweedy had plagiarized him on basically all of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (the store had a big, loud, handwritten editorial on this subject on prominent display: according to the shop, they'd turned Tweedy on to the source for all the background noise on the record - you know, the lady repeating the call sign title and the swirling jet streams of periodic chaos - and therefore they deserved co-songwriting credits for everything; but they were way too cool to consider legal action, and, what's more, they considered the music Tweedy and Co had made detracted from and trivialized the original, CD collection of white noise, which they still exclusively sold for only 28 bucks) while I hit the shop's very small and disregarded Dollar Bin on the floor in a corner.

2003 was, as you know, still the height of the CD era. Only cheapskates like me still bought records, let alone still owned a record player. I had that Dollar Bin all to myself.

Similarly, the Incredible String Band was not enjoying any kind of renaissance at that point. (They've never really had one. I'm starting it right now.) In 03 people were still very much reeling from 9/11, wrestling with the Bush presidency and downloading Nabster. Everyone was listening to Outkast and Radiohead, not hippies who sang about minotaurs.

And so when I passed a Dollar Bin copy of Mike Heron's Smiling Men with Bad Reputations across that august shop's counter for purchase everything got real awkward real fast. The owner rang me up with disdain and great reluctance, like he was worried that Tweedy might show up at that very moment, his full, written apology in hand, and then see my transaction going down and change his mind. My hipster friends took deep breaths and suggested I get a bag with which to carry the record back to their squat; after all, flashing Mike Heron on vinyl was gonna cut our cool factor in front of the SF ladies down into the negatives.

Happily, the only lady I've wanted to impress since 1992 is my wife (only she can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a ladies man, no time to talk). And happily, I have no pride. So I declined the shop's bag and told everyone present that Mike Heron's first solo record rocked - think VU's third record, I told them, if Cale had fired Reed and replaced him with Brian Wilson and everyone was way into Scientology. The embarrassed sighs that greeted this speech were collective; had I asked for a copy of their white noise album the owner dude would have claimed they were sold out.

Listen: I am never shy about making a fool out of myself when it comes to Mike Heron. I once sat at a bar for an hour with the great Meg Baird before one of her Heron Oblivion shows. We were the only people there; I was so excited for their show that I showed up ridiculously early (again, I'm a no pride person).

Meg and I talked about her music for a bit, then I name dropped my famous brother, who she totally knew, because, you know, he's famous. Once discussion of his fame petered out, and after she'd politely asked me this and that about my own life, I got down to the most important topic of that or just about any other evening: Mike Heron.

Me: So, Meg, I'm guessing your band's name, Heron Oblivion, is a tribute to the great Mike Heron, yes?

Meg, who was fingering her Led Zeppelin necklace and thinking big deal rock and roll thoughts: Uh, Who's Mike Heron?

Me: You know Meg, from The Incredible String Band! Mike and Robin Williamson were Paul McCartney's favorite musicians in 1968. Paul's a smart guy, some of the time. Jimmy Page played on Mike's first solo record!

Meg: Oh yeah, right, Mike Heron. No, we definitely did not name our band after anyone in the Incredible String Band. We were thinking about the bird actually. You know, herons.

Me: There's a bird named after Mike Heron?

Okay, so I admit it: I didn't say that the last line. But I wish I had! And the rest of my story is true. Finally, who knows, maybe herons really are named after Mike, pictured flush left, who wrote about so masterfully about amoebas living the timeless life.

What song can you name that's more unique, bizarre and wonderful? That's right, none. Here's what I think: if indeed there are not already birds named after Mike Heron, then I think we should find some new ones and name them Mike Heron.

Back at the bar, I did go on to suggest, very earnestly, that Meg and her bandmates consider covering Feast of Stephen, the final track on the A side of Smiling Men with Bad Reputations. The track is totally ready for Heron Oblivion's twin guitar attack under Baird's howling vocals. Baird very nicely decided that she needed to get a life and stop talking to me at that point. I don't blame her, but I stand by my suggestion. Feast of Stephen is an under the radar platter of sonic sweetmeats ready for everyone's consumption. Eat it now.

Let's get into a little background on my man Mike and the story behind this record from 71.  ISB had made 6 or 7 (or maybe 8?!) records in the previous 5 years, records that are alternatively silly and deeply spiritual.  Heron typically wrote the lighter and more joyful tracks, except when he didn't.  Williamson wrote droning, brooding epics that turned delightful corners, except when he didn't.  The two men sounded as good together as they look on the cover of The Big Huge: clear eyed young geniuses sharing a double bill, like a behind the looking glass version of Lennon and McCartney with all their angst and megalomania swapped out for earnest, unbridled joy, plus kazoo solos. 

The boys played every instrument imaginable and included their lady friends, Rose and Licorice, who sang and played bass like they were in The Shaggs.  Song topics ranged from the joy one can find in a box of paints or new puppies to the meaning of life.  Imagine Robyn Hitchcock and Rafi dropping LSD and then sharing a jet ski. Why isn't everyone into the Incredible String Band?

But somewhere right before Heron slipped away on his own to make Smiling Men with Bad Reputations, Scientology slipped its slimy, parasitic hooks into the duo. It would quickly suck them dry.  Under evil uncle L. Ron's sway, Williamson's songs got longer and wilder, almost unlistenable.  Heron, his head at least momentarily more firmly in place, decided it was time to rock. And so he called his famous friends and admirers. They all came. And I mean all of them: sessions for Smiling Men with Bad Reputations featured most of The Who, Elton John, most of the Fairport/Fotheringay crew, and Stephen Winwood. Oh yeah, and Jimmy Page.  What's more, John Cale arranged much of the record, filling in all the cracks with his signature swelling grace; the ubiquitous Joe Boyd produced. 

Heron may not be on any hipster's radar this century but he was, for a moment, the leading hipster in England in 71. Everyone wanted to spin in his wacky orbit. I imagine Lennon and McCartney showed up hoping to contribute but were simply not needed. (Stephen Stills, who, dedicated readers of the Dollar Bin will remember, was living in Ringo Starr's mansion at that point, surely heard that Heron had a song in development entitled Feast of Stephen and assumed the song was dedicated to his mastery; when he showed up to grace the sessions with his presence I trust Richard Thompson karate chopped him in onto his keister.)

Happily, Heron didn't simply bask joyfully in his famous friends attention.  He brought his best work to the table.  The album opens with Call Me Diamond, a joyful, flinging horn ride; it's weird the B52's never covered it. 

Flowers of the Forest follows, featuring Richard Thompson's unmistakable gurgling guitar leads; the song is very nearly perfect.  All that's missing is Cale's polish; he appears on much, but not all, of the record.  Why, oh why, didn't Joe Boyd insist that Cale get his hands on every single song?  Even so, I encourage you to listen to Heron's passionate track alongside another masterpiece Cale did in fact arrange that same year, Nick Drake's Northern Sky.  What are better love songs than these?  

All of Side 1 is packed with equally good ideas, the tone jumping from wild to earnest to gentle then epic.  Unfortunately, much of the flip side is dedicated to Warm Heart Pastry, Heron's paean to the kind of meat that is placed inside dough. Mike fronts The Who on the track which sounds awesome on paper; but the results don't fully justify its 6 minute run time.

Still, let's cut Mike a break. Smiling Men has got everything, even has a goofy, incomprehensible cover.  (What the hell is the story being told on the gatefold, anyway?  Heron joyfully presents a pineapple to a chaotic mod of Halloween Saudi sheikhs; there's enough aluminum foil on hand to cover a whale sized burrito.  I can't understand any of what is going, but I sure wish someone had invited me to the party.)

So, why isn't this record famous? Why didn't Heron sell enough copies to instantly become chief captain of Scientology's battleship and crash all those John Travolta-look-a-like aliens that are secretly controlling our thoughts into the sun? As near as I can tell - and I'd love to hear from someone who knows better - Heron escaped the cult in the early 80's, but he hasn't made music of note in 50 years. What happened?

I don't know, but Mike is still alive and well. Rick Rubin, Heron Oblivion or Jeff Tweedy should get their act together and lure Heron back in the studio with them for a final run of genius. I have no doubt that the music they could create together would finally bring Heron the recognition he deserves.

And hey, Rick/Jeff/Meg: when you settle into the studio to record it all, let Mike know that I will graciously keep quiet about how the entire project is essentially plagiarism of The Dollar Bin (so long as I'm granted co-songwriting credits, of course). 

[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.

[jt1674]

[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.

[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: