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BeGlad: An Incredible String Band Compendium
Adrian Whittaker (ed) Helter Skelter Publishing (ISBN 078-1-900924-64-1)
Witches Hats & Painted Chariots: The Incredible String Band and the 5,000 Layers of
Psychedelic Folk Music
Jon Mills and Andy Morten (eds) Shindig! (ISBN 978-0957365759)
Way back in the 1990s… in the world before Green Man Festival, Shindig! magazine, and a million ’60s rock nostalgia blogs, being a Johnny-come-lately Incredible String Band fan (and I was one such) often felt like a soli- tary affliction. Fortunately, I was blessed with a small group of like-minded friends (most of whom dwelled on canal boats) who would come round to watch my VHS copy of The Wicker Man (and “how,” we marveled, “has like, nobody ever seen this?”) before sticking- on The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter and drifting into pleasant, communal reverie.
And then, somehow (most likely via a
small ad in fRoots – advertising works!), I dis- covered beGlad fanzine, co-edited by Adrian Whittaker and Raymond Greenoaken (now editor of Stirrings) to whom I duly dispatched a letter with cheque enclosed (ask your par- ents, kids) and waited for the post. What eventually arrived was nothing like the old xeroxed, tippexed, illiterate and ugly punk fanzines that I’d bought for pennies in my yoof. This was a proper, glossy magazine writ- ten not just by fans, but by fans who could write. Erudite, funny, frequently brilliant and sometimes utterly barmy, beGlad was verily the ISB flesh made word.
The Incredible String Band
When, in 2003, the best bits were com- piled into the first edition of this book, it was immediately elevated by the faithful to the status of String Band scripture – a position only enhanced by the inclusion of a foreword by Dr Rowan Williams, (then) Archbishop of Canterbury. Ten years on, we now have the revised standard version.
It’s a substantial book (just short of 500 pages) which includes extensive interviews with every musician who ever served in The Incredible String Band ranks (with the excep- tion of Christina ‘Licorice’ McKechnie, whose current whereabouts are unknown) and fellow-travellers like Wizz Jones, Billy Connolly and Joe Boyd.
If you’ve ever felt even the slightest desire to study an Incredible String Band Guide Map to Edinburgh, check the chapter- and-verse origins of the biblical references in Wee Tam And The Big Huge, wondered about the influences of Scientology or Zen on Mike Heron’s songwriting, or just about any other imaginable facet of the Incredibles, then purchase with haste.
www.helterskelterpublishing.com Witches Hats & Painted Chariots is also a
compendium – this time from the Shindig! editors, Jon Mills and Andy Morten. Essential- ly a special edition of the magazine, a one-off beGlad, for the post-Green Man generation – beautifully designed, with an abundance of suitably curly fonts, marbling and art nou- veau borders.
New interviews with the main players (Robin Williamson, Mike Heron, Clive Palmer) appear alongside articles about both the String Band and various ‘acid-folk’ names, including Dr Strangely Strange, Forest, Comus, Dando Shaft, Heron (and yes, The Wicker Man). If the likes of Anne Briggs and Shirley Collins find themselves perplexed at the ‘acid’ tag, well, that’s retrospective genre- assignment for you. beGlad folks Whittaker, Greenoaken and (Clive Palmer biographer) Grahame Hood all contribute articles here too, alongside writers like Jeanette Leech, Rob Young and Will Hodgkinson, and musi- cians Alex Neilson and Genesis P Orridge.
There’s a wealth of wonderful, evocative photographs but (surprisingly, for a genuine labour-of-love, like this) an almost complete and inexcusable absence of photo credits. I’ve seen that Keith Morris portrait of Mr Fox in fRoots before, and a few more besides. A bib- liography would perhaps have been useful to both readers and contributors, too.
For newcomers to the ISB and the whole malarky though, this is properly good. It’s a pretty great addition to the collections of long-term fans too, while hopeless obsessives will enjoy basking in the warm glow of pathetically smug satisfaction that comes from mentally ticking-off all the records in the ‘Top 20 essential acid-folk’, list. Anyone fancy watching The Wicker Man director’s cut DVD and listening to Hangman’s?
www.shindig-magazine.com Steve Hunt
Photo: Keith Morris
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