Incredible String Poll: Wee Tam & The Big Huge

Yellow Snake -- I keep meaning to learn how to play that on guitar. Such a lovely, weird tune.

It's hard for me to consider this one album due to it being split into two separate records for the US. Some really great songs, I think Williamson's contributions overshadow Heron's on this one (and on most ISB records, I suppose). Voted Job's Tears.

i voted job's tears too. it's a weirdly christian record, especially given their previous pagan-ish mystical leanings, and their subsequent embrace of scientology. mike has some great songs on here, though; "log cabin home in the sky" is one of my favorite isb songs.

Yeah, I do love that song. Maybe I'm being unfair to Heron.
I think that I used to favor his songs and now I'm going through a backlash period.

i agree with you that, throughout their whole catalogue, robin has a definite edge. for me, anyway. but mike did write some great stuff. i mean, "a very cellular song" ffs!

"Maya"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Too bad there wasn't a way to put a "MayPOLL" pun into the thread title.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wee tam is so much better than the big huge.
as a matter of fact, along with hangman's, it's their best record.

It was the first one that I heard and yeah, I love it a lot.
I gave mine to a very dear friend years ago, still haven't replaced it.
Never owned a copy of the Big Huge, but I really like the song "The Iron Stone."

I remember when Papa Crazee was still in Oneida (now he does Oakley Hall) and he joked about them doing a ten minute cover of "You Get Brighter."

yeah The Iron Stone and Maya saves Big Huge from mediocrecy imo

Puppies is an awesome song.

weird,i don't like sitar except in ISB songs - (listening to the half remarkble question now).

they were ahead of their times, or more exactly - they were/are at a time and space of their own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xEaEALzyJo

Damn, this happened during my ilx hiatus. Would have voted Ducks On A Pond.

^ did a cover version of that song live once *red face*

The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (Elektra, July 1967)
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (Elektra, March 1968)
Wee Tam and the Big Huge (Elektra, November 1968)

- rare example of an act recording a relatively large amount (3) of legendary awesome records in the shortest period of time(15 months)

i was always really underwhelmed by these. like i bought them quite excitedly after listening to 'hangman' non stop for a week, and there was just a lack of anything that was interesting in that record to them. none of the arrangements; no sense of the whimsy having been chipped away at until it actually reached some kind of workable set of songs, just whimsically half-written stuff in a heap.

i expected an "until i discovered it's a masterpiece" ending...

sorry dude :|

Not as inventive as Hangman's or as consistent as 5000 Spirits but still pretty good!

First three minutes of "Ducks on a Pond."

Indeed. Listened to "Wee Tam" on the way to work this morning, intros to the songs are often better than the rest of the songs! Prefer "Half Remarkable Question" to "Job's Tears" and "Puppies" to "You Get Brighter". Have come to the conclusion that I don't like "Log Cabin" (or, for that matter, Mike's similar attempts at folky fiddle-scrapin' knees-up material on other albums) but love the ramshackle mediaevalism of "Beyond the See". Definitely better than "The Big Huge".

"Down gallons of glandular corridors of the dark castle
The pompous old bellman is tolling one bell
At bathtime the hippies in chains they are crossing the hall
Where Hitler is making his new film about it all"

Odd that two of the first four songs on "The Big Huge" mention Hitler.

More than almost any other artist, I have to avoid being intimidated by the ISB and admit that, although I’d like to accept their albums as complete and organic works of untrammelled creative expression, even their best records are about 1/3 unlistenable.

…and this one is not quite their best.

(xp) Fair comment tbh, I can't think of an album of theirs that doesn't make me cringe at one point or another.

What’s strange about it is my inclination to treat these records as unified masterpieces, despite the fact that they were conceived and recorded quickly and fairly sloppily even by 60s standards.

to like this band I guess you have to give up on perfection and embrace the sloppy or cringey or listless moments as a necessary part of the whole - either that or be on enough psychedelics that it all sounds just right anyway

I am fascinated by their impact on the much more professional sounding and more frequently canonised rock acts of the late 60s and even their brief chart success at the time - it's a vibe that seems so far from today's zeitgeist* where even the druggier stuff is much slicker and less aimless (*apart from a few weird pockets - I assume Joanna Newsom is familiar with them and her songwriting sometimes resembles theirs; Janelle Monáe is a fan but I don't hear much of them in her music, except maybe the eclecticism)

anyway I would have voted for job's tears

I've never heard The Big Huge (always just assumed people were referring to "U"), but on Wee Tam this is probably Half Remarkable Question for me, though You Get Brighter and Job's Tears very close.

This is 'Maya' all day long.

Robin!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMNgtFUIvP4

Great version from the auld fella!

Great performance- impressed that he could still hit those high notes.

"Big Huge" is great. I haven't heard "Wee Tam".

Wee Tam might be better.

Wee Tam is better

I’m sure I would like it, I like most of the ISB stuff that I’ve heard.

I really need to listen to this properly. I've owned it for years and years, but have never really paid it real attention.

The first five minutes or so of "Ducks on a Pond" is maybe the most beautiful in all of recorded music. I've said a version of this before but the song like the albums is a mix of tragedy and farce, sacred and profane. Something I've also said before is that Wee Tam is more consistent to my ear, while Big Huge is more uneven but then again it's hard to beat the towering majesty of "Maya"

maybe tragedy's not exactly the right word, more like epic poetry or something