The Incredible String Band

Highly recommend!

 

I agree about the missed opportunity. It'd have been great to have had Mike's thoughts about the whole of the ISB's career, but apparently he can't remember half of what happened and he's **** at typing so it's never gonna happen. But the anecdotes about the period up to and including the debut are priceless. The second half of the book is just as enjoyable though, probably because it's slightly better written, but yeah I'd still rather just have a whole book about the ISB.

 

Ah come on now! WT&TBH is my all time favourite period, but there are plenty of great moments after that. The only albums that I find frustrating are Liquid Acrobat because Mike used his best songs for his solo album, Robin decided to be streamlined and commercial and it misses Joe Boyd's production, and Hard Rope because, well, it has a **** 20 minute prog rock song and 2 thin sounding live songs on a 6-song album. Other than that though, all their albums offer plenty of rewards. No Ruinous Feud? Yep, a great album!

 

Page isn't on the album, but he's on the single b-side Lady Wonder. Which deserves it's b-side status...

 

I'm monopolising this thread a bit now, but I kinda really hated that magazine. It's good in theory, but whoever's doing those reviews of the ISB's albums clearly doesn't actually like most of them. None of them are above criticism of course, but for a magazine like that it would have kinda been nice if the reviews were more positive. Reading that you'd think I Looked Up, for example, is a right load of ****e whereas for me I'll defend it to the day I die. Because it's great.

 

Be Glad for the Song has no Ending

be Glad- The Incredible String Band

 

Where "Liquid Acrobat" is good it's my favourite post '68 ISB album... where it's bad, it's just bad!

 

Elton John is on that too, I think?

 

Speaking of Elton, I guess most people know about the session where he and Linda Peters (=Linda Thompson) did demo cover versions of Mike Heron's songs as well as Nick Drake and a few other songwriters, but just in case, here is one of them.

 

Oh, i dunno. For myself any even slight surface noise distracts mightily from the magickkal, mystikkal vibe. Same reason i only listen to Ambient stuff on CD. The background needs to be blacker than black. YMMV.

 

C'mon. Many great ISB releases were on the mythical Island Pink Rim label -apart from the astonishing sound, those rekkids were built to last !

 

Heh. Like i can afford those Pink Island pressings! CDs are fine, thank you very much.

 

I like the Elektra LPs. They were a perfect fit for the label at that time.

 

For anyone wanting to get their feet wet for some ISB music, Wounded Bird records recently reissued the 1971 Relics... compilation on CD. It is the same tracklisting as the 2LP version. Some territories like the UK only got a one LP version of this compilation. The track listing IMO is better than some of the other CD comps that have come out in the last 20 years.

 

Here's some of the footage from Woodstock. I don't think they did that badly, here, but being sandwiched being Creedence and Canned Heat's sets -- is it possible to have been more out of place than appearing between those two acts? They should have gritted it out through the previous day's rain.



"The Letter" from I Looked Up was the first time ISB played anything resembling "folk rock", right?

 

"Painting Box" - ISB w/ Julie Felix

 

Ha yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Kicking off with Talking of the End? This had got to be a great album!Fast forward a few minutes to Adam and Eve? Hmmmm....

 

He's on the outtake Make No Mistake. A pretty good song that's not quite fully realised.

 

I'd heard First Girl I Loved on the radio and liked it, so I was assumed I was in for lots more of the same when I borrowed Hangman's Beautiful Daughter from the library in 1987. I can remember being a bit horrified by what I heard - out of tune singing, that endless Cellular Song, songs that seemed totally unstructured. It was the other big musical culture shock I had that year (the other was Trout Mask Replica). Didn't bother with ISB for a long time after that, but 'came round' in the late 90s, when I check out 5,0000 Spirits....and went on from there. Some great music, but they do demand ALL your attention, don't they? I actually like the Malcolm LeMaistre years, too, which probably means I'm not really an ISB fan, as such....

 

I too bought `Hangmans' in 1987, (aged 24). I thought it was horrible and didn't get it at all.

I saw them on ITV's `South Bank Show' (I think) in 2001 aged 38....someone was talking about how wonderful that there was a song asking a river to "teach me the lesson of flowing". I was hooked instantly this time and bought most of the good stuff in very short order !

 

Yes. Recommended.

 

I'm a fan, and I started with the Island years and worked backwards sort of. It's all good.

 

That's amazing. I've never heard of anyone doing it that way round. It must have been great getting to the first album.

 

I enjoy Hangman and Wee Tam/Huge in small doses. Inventive, complex and melodic. Strong narrative. I shouldn't really like Puppies and Duck on The Pond, but sometimes I allow myself. My only criticism is that I quite quickly find the music's sense of preciousness overwhelming. I liked that they discovered American music, non-Western musics and escaped trad. folk. I know they were criticised for the American influences. But there were still very true to their British Isles roots

 

Yes, it was. 1976 I think, when I bought the s/t album, import as it wasn't avaialble here.

My first one was Earthspan, as it was the current album when I first went to see them, 1972. In those days word of mouth, the limited music press, and haunting record shops was how you found out about music.