Doctor Strangely Strange's Incredible Medicine Show Dept. - Part I
There's a corner of th' Isle O' Foam© given over to rainy weather, pixies, and magic mushrooms. There's a crackling wood fire in the grate, and spliffs are rolled on album covers in the firelight. Very likely a Clive's Original Band (C.O.B.) cover.
Their two albums capture the essence of Wyrd Acid Folk® before it was even a thing. Back then - another lifetime, another world - there was just music, not endless categories of sub-genres. And music was, for some, very nearly the most important thing in all the world. It could sound like Clive Palmer, or Carl Palmer, or Carl Wilson, or Wilson Picket. It was all good.
Maybe there's a corner of your island where you can still listen to stuff like this, where you can look up at the stars and feel like the universe is still mostly magical, in spite of our unceasing efforts to turn everything to shit (King Midas In Reverse).
Here's some Clive Palmer fo' yo' asses. The first Incredible String Band album, the first Famous Jug Band album, and the two C.O.B. albums. That mushroom is big enough for us all to sit under.
Ask, and you shall receive. Niche market advisory.
ReplyDeletethet niche is right in ma wheelhaus please and thank you
ReplyDeleteWhen you say 'pixies' I'm taking that to mean nubile hippy chicks who love to play HIDE THE MUSHROOM! Especially with titles like MY SHE MAKE STIFF...so know that we know what a TARTAN LANCE is...(like a COB) let the symbolism begin! How fayre is that? The point, you ask? Oblio phone home...Arrow's on point.
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ReplyDeleteGandalf's Garden
I thought that I would share the sleeve notes from the first Incredibles album:
ReplyDelete“Ever since their meeting with a magic blackbird one day, the incredible string band have led lives of a rather strange nature. From dawn’s first pale whisper till the sun’s wick burns low, the logs on which they spend every waking hour splash whitely down the river.
“There are three logs, one for each of the incredible string band, and although they look just like any other logs, they were given to the three musicians by a golden wonder potato, who was a very close friend of the magic blackbird.
“Now you might think that, since they spend every day sitting astride their logs, they must have travelled a considerable distance down the river by now, but it appears that they have little interest in going far, in fact they are constantly stopping, turning around, and even splashing backwards. If a bird leans out of the branches and sings the warmth of summer to them, they stop and echo its song in their hearts, and if any of the creatures of the forest calls to them, they are sure to stop for a chat.
“They have no idea where they are going, and they certainly will have changed by the time they get there, for they change all the time – one moment they are two kangaroos and a badger, the next moment, a monkey, an elephant and a rat, no wonder the logs have started to split.
“Everywhere they go, they leave bits of themselves lying about all over the place, and if you didn’t look at them very closely, you might quite easily think they were songs.”
Thank you, Mystic Marsupial!
DeleteFor your continued delectation of ISB (without Clive this time) The Incredible String Band's performance at Woodstock which was Oddly Normal and includes the intro, interruption and outro by Chip Monck: https://we.tl/t-hxRNRfGaFe
ReplyDeleteHad the ISB album - the rest are new to me. Riding logs - don't even want to think about where the splinters could lodge. Thanks, Farq.
ReplyDeleteAs a huge No Jive, It's Clive Palmer fan, I have all these, but there are so many more weird and obscure titles out of his.
ReplyDeleteAt one point he would run cassettes at home and sell them at his gigs.
The later Clive is just as wonderful. Search out All Roads Lead To Home.
In his later years his voice takes on a magical quality that at times can sound like a cross between Allen Ginsburg and Leonard Cohen. The songs too are just amazing.
Thank you for this generous sprinkling of magical pixie dust -- definitely welcomed in days like these.
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