Review: Robyn Hitchcock's Memoir, '1967'

Anyone who's fallen under the spell of Robyn Hitchcock's tombstone surrealism should be more than a little intrigued by his foray into the memoir world. The guy can write. Not that you'll necessarily find as much story in 1967 as you will in, say, "Underwater Moonlight". 

As the title trumpets, the narrative stays firmly planted in that year of psychedelic whimsy that would so influence Hitchcock's perspective when he began putting out his own songs a decade later. In '67 he was an unripe 14 year old consigned to boarding school, so do not expect 1967 to be the usual rock and roll bacchanal. Even as far as British schoolboy stories go, there isn't much story here. Young Hitch goes to school, where he encounters a few eccentric instructors, as well as his meathead and groover peers, none of whom we readers ever get to know too well. Clearly much more significantly for the lad, he falls in love with the likes of Syd Barrett, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and The Incredible String Band. Then he learns to play the guitar.

Review: Remastered Edition of First Three Incredible String Band Albums

The Incredible String Band went through a very definite evolution over the course of their first three albums. Their eponymous debut (1966) finds a stripped down traditional folk combo occasionally embellished with such accoutrements as violin, mandolin, banjo, or whistle, but mostly staying happy with Mike Heron and Robin Williamson’s acoustic guitars and elfin voices. The droning opener “Maybe Someday” is the only hint of the more international direction the Scots would take on their second album. On The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (1967), ISB employed sitar, finger cymbals, tamboura, gimbri—as well as drums and bass—to enliven another set of concise and tuneful tunes, and the album stands as the most accessible balance of Heron and Williamson’s songwriting and zeal for non-Western instrumentation—the perfect portal into the ISB’s enchanted world. However, it is their third album, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (1968), that is most often championed as the group’s masterpiece because of its ambition and originality. Epics such as the multi-sectioned “A Very Cellular Song” and the raga “Three Is a Green Crown” now play amongst the compact pieces, yet all follow a mercurial path that may alienate those hoping for more of the good-old knee stompers of ISB LPs past. Hangman’s is a grower that may never actually grow on you, though it certainly isn’t as much of an alienating “masterpiece” as, say, Trout Mask Replica, and songs such as “Koeeaddi There” and “Witch’s Hat” are as magical as ever. “The Minotaur’s Song” really mixes things up with its community light opera company feel. More importantly, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter really opened up the ISB format, allowing the guys to make the ultimate use of their ambitions on the double LP Wee Tam/Big Huge released later in the year.

But let’s not get ahead of Heron and Williamson, because only the first three albums are collected in a newly remastered double-disc set on BGO Records (which actually gave the same treatment to Wee Tam/Big Huge last month). The remastering is fine, natural, and not too loud, as some older BGO remasterings were. Cramming three albums onto two CDs means that one has to get split, but The 5000 Spirits is conscientiously divided between its original Side A and Side B, so it’s not too jarring. There is also a fat booklet with all of the original liner notes (including Heron’s track-by-track notes for the first album) and a new essay by John O’Regan. A nice package could only have been improved with full-color, full-size (well, CD booklet-size) reproductions of the three album’s original artwork… you’ll have to break out your magnifying glass to take in The Fool’s marvelously dated art on the cover of The 5000 Spirits!

Review: 'Dust on the Nettles: A Journey Through the British Underground Folk Scene 1967-72'

While the American hippies were digging up the blues and country roots buried in their home soil, their British counterparts were getting back in touch with their own past. Thus, archaic ballads, weird legends, and a creepy Gothic sensibility came billowing out of the cauldron that some branded “acid folk.” The endless Jerry Garcia jams yawning across the pond could only sound staid and boring in comparison.