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| From | Stewart Mason <flamingo@theworld.com> |
| Subject | Re: The Incredible String Band |
| Date | Thu, 24 Apr 2003 17:10:40 -0400 |
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At 01:50 PM 4/24/2003 -0700, Brian Kassan wrote:
>Just noticed a very high ranking of favorite 60's British rock (#6) on the
>"Making Time" website for The Incredible String Band's 1968 release-"The
>Hangman's Beautiful Daughter." Can anyone here recommend this and describe
>what it's like?
If you have to get an Incredible String Band LP, I suppose this is the one
to get, but be warned: there is no "rock" here at all. The ISB were an
acoustic folk duo of Mike Heron and Robin Williamson (plus, by this point,
their wives on bass and violin), who favored a mixture of odd stringed
instruments from around the world that meshed British folk traditions with
a sort of proto-world music that was actually kind of cool musically.
However, they have two very large strikes against them:
1. The lyrics, even by '60s hippies standards, are just fucking
unbearable. Titles include "A Very Cellular Song," "The Minotaur's Song"
and "Three Is A Green Crown," to give you an idea.
2. Robin Williamson, who sings most of the lyrics, has the most godawful
voice in the history of pop music. He trills, he chirps, he giggles, and he
does it all just enough out of tune to be profoundly irritating. His voice
bugs me so much that I feel that if I ever met the man, I would slap him
just on general principles.
So basically, the ISB are vaguely intriguing in some ways, very offputting
in others, and unless you have a huge fondness for extremely twee acoustic
folk and a level of hippie-dippie blather that makes A GIFT FROM A FLOWER
TO A GARDEN sound like WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT, stay well clear.
S
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