rainbows in curved air (or curves in rainbowed air)

How Did We Get There From Here?

Our Kif was reading ‘White Bicycles’ & I was trying to convey how totally alive the music scene was at that time.

The John Peel shows ( & Pete Drummonds) were crucial in understanding what was happening. Labelled ‘Progressive Music’ prior to ‘prog’ being a ‘dirty’ word & used in a different context.

Originally this meant all the new exciting radical stuff like: Family, East of Eden, High Tide, Quintessence, Tyrannosaurus Rex (acoustic), Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Edgar Broughton Band, Roy Harper, Nick Drake, Michael Chapman, Bridget st John, Kevin Ayers, Ron Geesin, Ten Years After, early Fleetwood Mac (with Jeremy Spencer doing his Elvis & Elmore James impersonation), Chicken Shack, Third Ear Band, Liverpool Scene (this writer’s favourites), Bread, Love & Dreams, Incredible String band….the list goes on forever really…………& this is mostly the UK bands.

There was so much happening so quickly. I tried to explain that the Beatles & Stones were not really in the same ball game. They were ‘pop’.

Record labels like Island, Harvest, Dandelion & Vertigo were producing the sweet stuff.

I could be way off the radar here, but I see parallels today with the whole ‘freak folk’ or ‘wyrd folk’ scene. There is a growing output of new stuff appearing. Originally a lot of this was released on vinyl in small quantities, but it is now gaining momentum.

I was ‘up with the scene’ when I began diggin’: Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective, Jewelled Antler Collective, Vashti Bunyan, Vetiver, Joanna Newsome….etc…but I suspect this will be seen in the fullness of time as the first wave or the tip of the iceberg. I suggest it’s time to get aboard, before global warming melts all the ice.

I have been catching up with this material of late & I have been grooving to e.g. Skygreen Leopards, Bowerbirds, Tree People, We’re Late for Class, In Gowans Ring, English Heretic, Volcano the Bear, Wooden Wand…………….etc.

Other items of interest: Perry Leopold, 18^th day of May & Mandrake Memorial.

People probably think I am a little crazy getting up at 7 a.m. on weekend mornings to listen to the above artists & to type this, but I can cope with this.