WFMU Find

So I went to the WFMU record fair in New York City yesterday not expecting to find much and I walk out of there with a great find. I had this album on CD for a few years now. I even a had a few songs on a mix tape of the Incredible String Band that my friend made. I was impressed by this band from the very start of my 1960's music listening. Like King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King Cover, I saw this one with awe.

Incredible String Band was one of the bands in High School I wondered more about. They were from the sixties and played at Woodstock, but were left off the classic rock radio stations. I had a compilation of classic music from the sixties and they were represent with one song. That song about seven minutes. It was the most interesting seven minutes on that disc. Sure there was White Bird by It's a Beautiful Day and Jefferson Airplane number and most of the disc was full of band I knew, I might have not known the songs but this was one of the artist on that set that I had no idea who they where.

I started to ask questions that no one could answer. So I did research. This is pre-internet too. I asked the library where I worked. Very few people knew who I was talking about. So I asked for a record from another library. This was the album. The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion. I got home from work and quickly ran to the turntable. I gently placed side one on. It was like nothing I heard. The song that was on this 3CD sixties compilation that I had was song three. The first two songs were amazing. The songs were a mix of folk, psychedelic, world and Indian music.

I thought this stuff was great, even the art work on the cover was amazing and detailed. I put on side two. More amazement followed when The Hedgehog Song and the song that followed First Girl I loved. I could not believe that this was an album from 1967. It had no feel of Sgt. Pepper or Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It was something different. Later on I found all their albums on CD at a store. I picked them all up. I also read up that of all the albums that came out in 1967 which included the two above and Kinks Village Green, Grateful Dead's First album and The Doors first one, and Hendrix Are You Experienced that Paul McCartney said it his favorite album of 1967. This album to me is the ultimate sixties classic that no one knows about. Enjoy a true classic.