Strung out in the String Band
The Incredible String Band may not enjoy the same degree of veneration as many of their peers, but in the late Sixties they were one of the most influential groups on the planet. The Beatles declared their Grammy-nominated psychedelic-folk opus The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter their favourite record of 1968. For Robert Plant, the album provided a powerful blueprint for Led Zeppelin to follow. They were dug by The Doors, courted by The Rolling Stones, and headlined at Woodstock.
None of these achievements is covered in You Know What You Could Be, a two-part memoir written by ex-member Mike Heron and the Scottish author Andrew Greig. ISB were never a conventional band, and this is no conventional music biography. Instead, as its subtitle suggests, the aim is to capture something more elusive: those free-spirited few years before the 1960s became ‘The Sixties’.
Heron’s tale is of bohemian rebirth. A public schoolboy in Presbyterian Edinburgh, all ‘Spartan rooms, dark lino and heavy brown furniture’, he’s destined for accountancy until he falls for the beatnik charms of the capital’s folk clubs, ‘bathed in the sunshine of marijuana’. He evokes the clash of cultures beautifully.
His first LSD trip coincides with an Army recruitment drive in the city: ‘We made our way through the guns and tanks with rising panic,’ he recalls. When he tells his mother that he won’t be sitting his accountancy exam and is instead moving in with a French divorcee, she cuts off contact for several years. Self-determination came at a cost.
Through it all runs the thread of consciousnessexpanded folk music, made in flats, pubs and ad hoc clubs, with little thought of a career plan. Heron’s memories end in 1966, shortly after the release of the first ISB album. His band mates have tossed aside any vague hopes of stardom and vanished on the hippie trail, leaving him to conduct press interviews from a call box – reversing the charges, of course.
From here, Greig picks up his side of the story, recalling the head-spinning impact of first hearing ISB as a teenager in the East Neuk of Fife. But never mind the music, just check out the audience! ‘Wizards mingled with medieval ploughmen, Afghan peasants in Turkish trousers… Kohl lay thick around soulful eyes, glitter and ornaments spangled in tangled hair.’
Inspired, he forms a band, Fate & Ferret, and inveigles his way into the orbit of his heroes. He turns up at the home of Heron’s bandmate Robin Williamson to find him making cakes. ‘He was wearing oven gloves!’ The bubble doesn’t burst, exactly, but it does deflate somewhat. Heron and Greig’s stories are distinct and personal, but they combine to create a warm, beautifully drawn evocation of formative years, hippie culture and key friendships.
‘His first LSD trip coincides with the army bringing tanks and guns through the city’