An Incredible String Band Compendium | Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending, Revised And Expanded Edition
A wide-ranging collection of interviews, anecdotes, essays, and ephemera concerning one of the most enigmatic bands to emerge from the 1960s hippy scene.
First published and masterfully compiled by Adrian Whittaker in 2003 and long out of print, Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending: An Incredible String Band Compendium is the definitive book about The Incredible String Band. Containing a wealth of interviews, essays, and ephemera from the band’s brief but tangled history, this new revised and expanded edition includes two new pieces by The Incredible String Band member Rose Simpson on Witchseason Productions’ idiosyncratic offices and on recording with The Incredible String Band in the Sound Techniques studio, as well as interviews with Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, folk musician Alasdair Roberts, and Ossian Brown of Coil and Cyclobe. Contributors include Rowan Williamson (former Archbishop of Canterbury), The Incredible String Band manager and producer Joe Boyd, Andy Roberts, Billy Connolly, and Raymond Greenoaken.
Adrian Whittaker has written for The Wire, Shindig!, and Record Collector. In 2003 he edited Be Glad: An Incredible String Band Compendium. In 2019 he published Fitting Pieces To The Jigsaw, the definitive book on Irish psych-folk band Dr. Strangely Strange. He has also written and presented a number of music history documentaries for Resonance FM.
Early fan fiction and The Incredible String Band?
The Incredible String Band can claim to have spawned some of the first “fan fiction,” a genre which took off in the wider world in the Star Trek magazine ‘Spockanalia’. Here are two charming little tales set in the ‘Wee Tam’ era (1968/9) which appeared in a 1969 tour programme, credited to ‘Fate and ferret from Pittenweem’.
Concerning Fuzz and Pan
It was a warm still summer evening all over the quiet countryside which humped and wrinkled under the light of Venus, the pale evening star. There was a new moon and Pan was on the loose. He was stampeding across the fields, taking running jumps at anyone he might meet. He was feeling even more sharp and mischievous than usual, that goat-footed scatterer of nymphs. But where the Increds, who were as close to him as the curls on his shaggy loins? Where were they, who should be chasing across the peppermint fields, searching for flowers in the long light? He sat down in a small grotto to think and soon his eyes twinkled with merry mischief and his great laugh woke the birds in the forest, where they sang as though it was still day…
Truth to tell (and it shames me to say so) Robin and Mike and Rose and Licorice were all at the flat practising. This is to say, with the two girls holding Mike down, they were just about to start when…
In burst Fate and ferret, all hard frenzy, and before Robin could say, “Almighty Pan!” they burst out: “It’s the fuzz! The fuzz! The fuzz are coming! They’ve got a fudge-making in public charge!”
Was it bluff? The company froze, listening for the sound of those heavy footfalls. Mike was the first to break. With a cry of “Aargh! They won’t take me alive!” he dived for the window and shinned down with the speed of long practice.
Clutching her broomstick, Licorice followed. Trying to cool it, Robin stepped over the window-sill and glided to the street below as does thistledown waft in the summer winds when that season comes upon us. Rose slipped out of the room after Robin, but not before winding up all the clocks, dusting the furniture (“I hadn’t expected visitors”) and leaving a note for Joe which read:
“Dear Joe,
There are four steaks under the grill. Do try to eat at least three so they will not be wasted and I think you need a little fattening. Tell Angie I’ll see her whenever possible. Feed the cat. Dust the furniture. Keep the guitars in tune. While Mike and Robin are still away please put up the nice curtains Licorice and I wanted. We may be some while. Love, Rose.”
Concerning Mike
Course when Mike has a pain or illness of any sort he makes sure Robin and Licorice and Rose know all about it. But of course Robin was ill much more often than Mike because of his habit of walking about in most inclement weather in most unsuitable clothes, despite all of Rose’s efforts.
“Mind ye wrap up well, Robin,” was the cry that would ring in Robin’s ears as, like a dignified stork, he sailed out of the flat.
So when he came back one day with a shocking cold no one was very surprised, least of all Robin who was secretly quite pleased, for the boys like having Rose fussing round them. Rose gave him a good scolding as he stood there dripping and sneezing. “Serves ye right. Going out on a day like this. At your age, Robin.”
Uttering small cries of agreement and consolation, Licorice was trying to dry Robin off, using sponges and cloths. She puzzled him in front of the fire. Clouds of steam rose and the edges of his cloak caught fire. At the sight of all this blundering Rose clapped her hands to her eyes and for the 400th time wondered how she had ever got herself in charge of three such idiot children.
However, she got Robin to bed where she and Licorice brought him relays of hot food, hot water-bottles and hot toddies. “Hey, that’s ma whisky!” howled Mike as he dived for the bottle.
“Aak phooey,” said Licorice as she neatly tripped him up.
All that day the two girls fussed around Robin, lending him most every want. “What about me?” Mike protested. “O, go and write a song, Michael,” said Rose, as is usual on such occasions. Mike rushed screaming round the room, beat the walls and writhed on the floor. “I’m dying, I’m dying! My head’s falling off!” “Take two aspirin,” said Licorice helpfully.
“Aw, c’mon, Rose,” whined wee Mike, “look at all those songs I wrote you. Look at Log Cabin and how about Puppies? Yes, sir, an’ then You Get Brighter! What more do you want? An’ Air; how about that for a song?”
“Very nice, dear,” said Rose as she brought Robin another bowl of nectar. Mike swore a dreadful oath and, with a great cry, threw himself on her. Her squeaks for help became more smothered and, we suspect, turned to laughter as Robin and Licorice slipped out of the room, out into the rain of that one gentle night.
Fate & ferret unmasked
Andrew Greig, 2021
George Boyter and I went backstage after the ISB concert in Edinburgh on 30th August 1968 and offered Robin Williamson our cider. We emerged forever altered as Fate & ferret, clutching Joe Boyd’s address.
In the heady and for us provincials oddly innocent days of 68-70, we would catch the scampi lorry from East Fife to London, with our latest recordings, and guitars in plastic bags just in case. Smelling strongly of fish we would present ourselves at Joe Boyd’s office. For the next years we pestered Joe and the ISB with our poems, daft stories, and very approximate songs in the key of Fife. There must have been dozens, perhaps hundreds of us, giddy with the same dream.
We were one of a thousand other raggle-taggle wannabees; our meticulously mocked-up albums were made on our 2-track in George’s bedroom (on one track his mother is heard calling “George, your tea’s ready” at a particularly intense and meaningful moment). But we did spend time with Joe Boyd and the ISB and opened for John Martyn, who as Ian MacGeachy was the nephew of our gym-teacher at school, and offered us a slot at Les Cousins when we bumped into each other in Soho. He and others were very kind, which was as well because we were very trusting. When we met the Strangelies in Joe’s they were young and scruffy and hopeful like us. The only difference was they got recorded.
When we were faint with hunger—we lived off onions—Ivan Pawle took us to the Golden Egg and bought me beans on toast with fried egg on top. Never forgot that.
Anyway, I saw sense and became a writer rather than musician, and that has been my life. [George, on the other hand, went on to some musical success with power-pop band The Headboys, appearing on Top Of The Pops in 1977 with the single The Shape Of Things To Come—Ed.] My book At The Loch Of The Green Corrie contained a memoir of that period in London, mentioning ‘Fate & ferret of Pittenweem’. Adrian Whittaker got in touch, very excited: the secret was out! We never committed ourselves when someone asked ‘So who is Fate and who is ferret?’ That was the point: we were jointly Fate & ferret.
In what we felt was the true ISB spirit, our stories were a kazoo rasped from the sidelines. Mike was being impulsive, horny and bouncy, while Robin floated ethereally and Likky was a sighing princess. Rose was practical, exasperated, coping with these idiot children. Our guesses, as always, were based on very little evidence—though now they seem not entirely inappropriate.
George died suddenly last year (2022). The last song we sang together was ‘Won’t You Come See Me?’.
From the book Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending – an Incredible String Band Compendium (Ed. Adrian Whittaker). Published by Strange Attractor, 4/11/23. More about it here.
Headline photo: The Incredible String Band, 4-piece with Rose Simpson and Likky McKechnie | Out-take from ‘I Looked Up’ cover session (1970) | Courtesy of Adrian Whittaker
Dr Strangely Strange
It is so strangely moving (and oddly normal) to read F&f’s innocent fan fiction again, more than fifty years after we wrote it to Joe Boyd and the ISB, to accompany our latest songs, photos and news from Fife. We were exhilarated, uplifted, to be able to walk backstage in Edinburgh 1968. We were high on the music and just wanted to say Thank You. That’s all we ever wanted really, to say Thank You by writing and recording our own music, poems and stories. In time we become who we are, and do what we are some good at. We call that series of swerves and chances My Life. In ended up doing half a dozen music and poetry gis with Mike a few years back, which seemed at once incredible and normal. George and I stood with Rose to sing back up vocals for Dr Strangel Strange’s song SO YOUNG; we were grinning so wide our heads nearly fell off. Now George has gone and I miss him so much. But with school friends we recently recorded his lovely song BOOKBINDER., and as Fate & ferret we gave each other permission to be daft, enthusiastic, unrealistic and love our times. LOVE and GRATUTUDE.