The Daily Deep Cut

The editors at JamsBio like to think of ourselves as music fans first, not critics, and that’s the sensibility we strive for at JamsBio and that we seek in other sites as well. That’s why we’re so jazzed about Damn Fine Day, a site that each day profiles a deep album cut that’s been overlooked, but deserves a place in everybody’s collection. In the name of spreading the gospel about great music, we present “The Daily Deep Cut,” where we add our two cents about the songs featured on Damn Fine Day. Once you read our unique take, we’ll send you over to Damn Fine Day so you can stream the full track and download it if you like. Sometimes we might even suggest another deep track from the same album or present some other novel twist on what their hawking.

When I was in college I went spent a few years obsessed with modern (1960, 1970s) records influenced by traditional British Isles music (i.e., Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, Planxty, etc.). Obviously, an obsession such as this would inevitably take one down the merry path of the Incredible String Band, perhaps one of the more idiosyncratic and flat out bizarre groups of the day (and clearly a major influence on the recent Freak Folk movement led by Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom).

More or less a duo of Robin Williamson and Mike Heron with various supporting players, the Incredible String Band concocted a stew of hippie mantras punctuated by a bouquet of exotic instruments (sitar, tambura, jaw harp, gimbri, pan pipe, oud, chahanai) and rooted in the age old Celtic songwriting tradition. It was all very otherworldly for a Jewish kid from Texas in college just outside Boston. But I drank the Kool Aid by the buckets and immersed myself in the whimsical world of the Incredible String Band by purchasing their entire catalog in a hodgepodge of formats (from used vinyl to import CD and second generation cassettes).

While I still listen to most of the Celtic-influenced music I discovered in the early 1990’s (especially Pentangle and Fairport Convention, which will always have a place on my iPod), I’m sad to say that I abandoned the Incredible String Band soon after graduation, once I transitioned into my neo-Mod-revival phase. And aside from sporadically indulging in the band’s 1971’s electric offering Liquid Acrobat as Regards the Air (which to my ears is the band’s most listenable…although most would disagree), the Incredible String Band is largely a pleasant memory of a short, but distinct period in my crate digging past.

It’s nice to listen “First Girl I Loved” again and perhaps it’ll spur me to dust off my old copies of Wee Tam or The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter. Regardless, I encourage you to take in the wonder that is the Incredible String Band at Damn Fine Day. It just might kick start your very own journey into the depths of freak folk mach one.

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