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Review from beGLAD 13
First Girl I Loved was recorded live in Canada, allegedly, though the where and the when is not stated. The when is almost certainly the last few months of l972, as Gerard Dott is in the band and Robin mentions that Earthspan has just been released in the US. He also sings a different set of lyrics to Old Buccaneer than in the version that was actually recorded for the No Ruinous Feud album, the sessions for which were in January l973. Just to confuse matters further, the last track Ithkos is from the band's final BBC concert broadcast in June 1974. So that's that sorted then....
I can't say I care overmuch for the sleeve, which looks like one of
Enya's! The sleeve notes are brief and contain a few errors too, but the musical content is really rather good. Of the thirteen tracks here, three have never been available before, though two of those are really throwaways, one being a Scott Joplin piano rag and the other a trad jazz number with clarinet and mandolin! The ISB always were a somewhat eclectic bunch... The third new number is the semi-legendary Gillies Crooked-Deal which was basically an excuse for Malcolm Le Maistre to cavort about the stage playing all the characters in the story, which is a sort of 1950s gangster film spoof and not unamusing
Tbc rest of the tracks are what you might expect, a few older numbers and a couple of items from the then unreleased No Ruinous Feud. Of the older numbers. Cousin Caterpillar gets a fresh and lively treatment, with excellent interplay between Robin's fiddle and Gerald's clarinet, while First Girl is presented in a
bossa-nova style which works, but I can't see anyone preferring it to the original version. The inevitable Black-Jack David turns up again, making it the fifth version officially available. Nice to have a live version of Lighthouse Keeper, though. And that's it from Canada. Four of the songs are the same as on the Live In Concert CD, but they do not appear to be the same versions.
Ithkos originally took up one side of the last ISB album and it is fair to say it polarised their fans. By 1974 the ISB had a full-time bassist, drummer and lead guitarist in the line-up and Ithkos is really a progressive rock piece. The version here was recorded in June 1974, and Robin left the band very soon after that date, effectively breaking it up. For all that, it is a very good piece of music, which
I have always enjoyed, and the version here is a lot gutsier than the rather over-produced take that was on the original album. Good stuff indeed.
String Band fans can rest assured that Live is a worthy purchase; ignore the sleeve, just enjoy the music, and Robin's nicely spoken introductions too!
Grahame Hood
Note from Raymond Greenoaken of beGlad:
I wrote a sleeve note for it, which wasn't used because (so I'm told)
Mooncrest couldn't open the file. So it seems they confected an alternative
sleeve note of their own which seemed to suggest that the recording was made
as part of the Williamson-Heron get-together last autumn. The packaging
apparently mentions nowhere that the recording is of 72 vintage. Mojo, as you
may be aware, then reviewed it as though it was recorded last year, causing
blushes all round. Mooncrest have now recalled all copies and reworked the
packaging to make the recording date plain and restore the original sleeve
note. Life is so complicated, is it not...?
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