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Incredible String Band

The ISB was a major influence on Jimmy Page and Robert Plant....the recorder duet in the intro to 'Stairway to Heaven' was a direct nod in their direction.

This article from Rolling Stone illustrates the fact:

http://www.sahej.com/Incredible-String-and-Led-Zeppelin.htm


To his credit, Bill Graham (Rock Impresario who opened the Fillmore East and Fillmore West) has put his 'vault' of recordings on line from those days. Registration is required, but there are some gems there, including this ISB performance from June 5th, 1968

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/the-incredible-string-band/concerts/fillmore-east-june-05-1968.html

WOW!

Thanks for the link to the Bill Graham vault.

Thanks too for the Led Zep info also.

If I live long enough, I'll know a thing or two.

The other ISB set in the vault is from the Fillmore West (now the location of a Honda dealership) dated May 11, 1970. My wife and I and our future son ( he born Oct. 12,1970) went to see them that night. The room was so full of grass smoke, you'd have to use an aqualung to not get high. Good times. Pete Grant played with them that night (along with Rose, Licky, Michael, Robin). Loads of SF Org staff were there. A very fun evening. The band had done the solo course at ASHO when my wife was the solo course sup.
 

Div6

Crusader
WOW!

Thanks for the link to the Bill Graham vault.

Thanks too for the Led Zep info also.

If I live long enough, I'll know a thing or two.

The other ISB set in the vault is from the Fillmore West (now the location of a Honda dealership) dated May 11, 1970. My wife and I and our future son ( he born Oct. 12,1970) went to see them that night. The room was so full of grass smoke, you'd have to use an aqualung to not get high. Good times. Pete Grant played with them that night (along with Rose, Licky, Michael, Robin). Loads of SF Org staff were there. A very fun evening. The band had done the solo course at ASHO when my wife was the solo course sup.

You are welcome!

Reconnection is a powerful thing.
 

Arthur Dent

Silver Meritorious Patron
......

I can remember when their music starting changing, losing its magic and creativity, with the band breaking up soon thereafter. This coincided with the ISB reaching the 'confidential' levels of the Grade Chart. Towards the end, the beautiful mystical poetry was gone - avoided as "R6 bank dramatization" and "mixing practices," etc., followed by several years of musical stagnation in the sterile land of Scientology, followed by permanently exiting Scientology.
....

So true and more's the pity.
A lot of people from the time got in because of their talent and inspiration.
 

OHTEEATE

Silver Meritorious Patron
ISB

When I was on HQS at South Lake Tahoe Mission in 1972, a carload of us students piled in a car one Saturday and drove 3 hours to San Francisco to see ISB at the Palace of Fine Arts theater. We drove home immediately afterwards and slept in the following morning. They were worth it. All of us owned a few ISB albums. It was the hippy/Scientologist thing to be/do/have!
 

Boojuum

Silver Meritorious Patron
They played at the Boston Org one night in 1978. They were fantastic. One of the GO was pretty close to them and I think that's why they played. She (GO) claimed that ISB were responsible for over half of the new Scienos in England. I doubt that could have been true but the music was wonderful.

Ahhh. The good ole days.


Struck me odd that they didn't play to more audiences to promote Scn. They could have brought tons of new people in. People love music a lot more than a Dianetics book.
 

Veda

Sponsor
By 1969, the ISB were - to some extent - beginning to promote Scientology. I was handed a "Scientology ticket" when entering the Fillmore East to see the ISB in 1969. Later in 1969, the ISB performed at Woodstock. Notice the brief locational process, and other benign Scientology-like phrasings.

Yet the difference between the music and "vibes" of the ISB and the real Scientology could not have been any more drastic.

Ah, the days of innocence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUXTZTz_Y2Y&NR=1

The original group split up in 1974.
 

Anonycat

Crusader
The ISB was a major influence on Jimmy Page and Robert Plant....the recorder duet in the intro to 'Stairway to Heaven' was a direct nod in their direction.

This article from Rolling Stone illustrates the fact:

http://www.sahej.com/Incredible-String-and-Led-Zeppelin.htm


To his credit, Bill Graham (Rock Impresario who opened the Fillmore East and Fillmore West) has put his 'vault' of recordings on line from those days. Registration is required, but there are some gems there, including this ISB performance from June 5th, 1968

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/the-incredible-string-band/concerts/fillmore-east-june-05-1968.html

Stairway to Heaven ripped from Spirit by LZ. They toured together, and the rest is history.

[video=youtube;xd8AVbwB_6E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd8AVbwB_6E[/video]

[video=youtube;czfI66yQUkk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czfI66yQUkk[/video]
 

still here

Patron with Honors
I was inroduced to Scn by musician friends who knew ISB and had got into scientology because of them.

Once I arrived in the SO at St Hill, I met someone who had lived with the band I think in Cumbria called Melita Oram. I am sure many people knew her (FOLOUK) 1975 - 1079 at least..

As an aside, I think her then divorced husband..Mike? Orem was a poet and promoter.

Melita was a wonderful person and I loved her - she had young daughter called Celeste who eventually, when she was 16 had an affair with Hoppy (Ron Hopkins, then Ed London Fdn, it was a huge problem and I think finally caused the split with Diana and Hoppy...

My memory is not good but great if anyone else can remember and if anyone knows what happened to Melita?
 

Terril park

Sponsor
I was inroduced to Scn by musician friends who knew ISB and had got into scientology because of them.

Once I arrived in the SO at St Hill, I met someone who had lived with the band I think in Cumbria called Melita Oram. I am sure many people knew her (FOLOUK) 1975 - 1079 at least..

As an aside, I think her then divorced husband..Mike? Orem was a poet and promoter.

Melita was a wonderful person and I loved her - she had young daughter called Celeste who eventually, when she was 16 had an affair with Hoppy (Ron Hopkins, then Ed London Fdn, it was a huge problem and I think finally caused the split with Diana and Hoppy...

My memory is not good but great if anyone else can remember and if anyone knows what happened to Melita?

On my return as an FEBC to london Org was given no time to even begin to figure out what to do. Within days had an SO mission including Celeste and
and the senior Frances ----- can't for the moment recall the last name.
Bait and Badger which was off the wall. I needed full on expanded Non-e. Like from HCO how would I know reg prospects from cartoon characters?

At the time Hoppy was CO UK. I don't have earlier knowledge when he was CO Lnd F.
 

Terril park

Sponsor
On my return as an FEBC to london Org was given no time to even begin to figure out what to do. Within days had an SO mission including Celeste and
and the senior Frances ----- can't for the moment recall the last name.
Bait and Badger which was off the wall. I needed full on expanded Non-e. Like from HCO how would I know reg prospects from cartoon characters?

At the time Hoppy was CO UK. I don't have earlier knowledge when he was CO Lnd F.

Yes he ran off with Celeste. Heard Diana Hopkins ethics report on this.

He has been the mnost respected CO in the UK.
 

still here

Patron with Honors
Hi Terril

I think Hoppy was CO Ldn Fdn AFTER he had been CO UK (unless he was again later??)
My memory is awful!

I am trying to remember when this was - I think probably 1979 or thereabouts...(could be wrong)

When were you in London (I may know you I think) FEBC - ? I was the management Aide UK (I took over from Ewa Ronnquist) and was introduced to Brian Wingate as CO Ldn Day whe he returned from his FEBC??
 

Infinite

Troublesome Internet Fringe Dweller
. . . I can remember when their music starting changing, losing its magic and creativity, with the band breaking up soon thereafter. This coincided with the ISB reaching the 'confidential' levels of the Grade Chart. Towards the end, the beautiful mystical poetry was gone - avoided as "R6 bank dramatization" and "mixing practices," etc., followed by several years of musical stagnation in the sterile land of Scientology, followed by permanently exiting Scientology . . .

Remind me, in 1969, where would a person get the "know you who are" clap trap from - would it have been the "Enemy Condition" thingy or the EP of OTVIII?

[video=youtube_share;moyvaM9c4nM]http://youtu.be/moyvaM9c4nM[/video]​
^^^ horrible drivel

As an aside, the same sort of thing - a deliberate strangling of the spiritual force which enables creativity - happened to Van Morrison in the early 1980s. He came right about ten years later, of course, but only with a return to his roots and the marketing power of nostalgia. I wonder what the world was robbed of during his, and the ISB, hiatus in Hubbard land. Fey celts, eh? Pretty much sitting ducks for a showman voicing the shadowed echoes of a tortured truth.

[video=youtube_share;AfnexKspN4c]http://youtu.be/AfnexKspN4c[/video]​
 

DartSmohen

Silver Meritorious Patron
I was inroduced to Scn by musician friends who knew ISB and had got into scientology because of them.

Once I arrived in the SO at St Hill, I met someone who had lived with the band I think in Cumbria called Melita Oram. I am sure many people knew her (FOLOUK) 1975 - 1079 at least..

As an aside, I think her then divorced husband..Mike? Orem was a poet and promoter.

Melita was a wonderful person and I loved her - she had young daughter called Celeste who eventually, when she was 16 had an affair with Hoppy (Ron Hopkins, then Ed London Fdn, it was a huge problem and I think finally caused the split with Diana and Hoppy...

My memory is not good but great if anyone else can remember and if anyone knows what happened to Melita?


Here are a few facts.

At the time Hoppy was CO UK. Mike Oram worked for the GO B1 and moonlighted at a tyre centre in EG. He was, in my opinion, rather "shifty":ohmy:

Melita was fine. She was outgoing and friendly.

The ISB lived (Mike Heron still does) at The Row, near Peebles. Robin lives in Swansea. Rose moved to North Wales and became Mayoress of her local town, Likky moved to Arizona where she joined a community and went silent. I remember when Hoppy took up with the young lady. He was living near Lingfield race course at the time at Maggie Butlers place.

Was the person who introduced you to $cn Malcolm Le Maistre ? Or maybe Graham Forbes, from Glasgow ? Malcolm joined the band, Graham was a close friend.

Did you attend the ISB concert held in the ballroom at Stonelands? That was a magical night. So much fun.

Dart
 

TG1

Angelic Poster
Dart,

Nice to see you around. I had just poured the last dram from a bottle of Glenkinchie and will raise my glass in your direction.

Cheers!

TG1
 
The ISB inspires and uplifts me, still even today, more profoundly than any other individual or group of individuals that I have come across in this lifetime. I am posting some wonderful footage from a BBC documentary. I first came across it on youtube a few years ago, then one day I went to watch it again and the video had been removed. I was shocked. I searched and searched for another version of it and came up with nothing. I thought I might never get over the loss! Then, some time later, I stumbled on it again, and this time I downloaded it to my computer quick as you could say 'find the program'! At the end when the narrator (John Walters?) says: "God, I love them! I love them to this day!" it makes me cry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRegqLZvUWg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mntUCzabzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzF-nIXS3E
 
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