Magic, indeed...the most potent ever made, of its type.

To some extent, for those who don't get the Incredibles, you had to be there. They were (and still are, on record, for those who make the connection back into the mists of time) extraordinarily in the spirit of the mystical-magical 60s.

Their unfocused, wayward sound on many pieces was the epitome of the era's exploratory, adventurous, improvisatory approach to life. That approach came a cropper sometimes, but also produced miracles. Safer, sounder approaches reach neither extreme.

Amba and I saw the ISB in concert in Boston sometime in,I think, '68. Mike, Robin, Rose and Likky wandering about the instrument-and-fabric-littered stage, picking up this or that oud or kantele or sitar...making soaring music. Tim Buckley opened for them, a difficult artist capable of magic himself, but also capable of bombast. Of course the theater was choking with fragrant smoke... We came out into the night street addled with delight. The records barely capture what was a total life experience. We feel lucky to have been there. But it was not anything anyone today would recognize as a concert. "Love-fests" are very out of fashion nowadays, aren't they.

The "60s" ( = roughly '67-73 in mood and spirit) have been roundly damned by those with political antiagendas. But they were a new dawn, and for those of us lucky enough to sense it, the dawn keeps on dawning toward revelation (caveat: that has nothing to do with the standard meaning of the term). Nobody expressed that sense of wonder as well as the Incredible String Band.

Trivia note, I remember seeing an article on Arlo Guthrie as just a kid, Woody's boy, long before he ever recorded. He was quoted as saying the Incredible String Band were among his favorite listens at the time. No clue if they still are. But they still are for me. Their sounds grow and change and wreathe and twist with the passing years into new radiances forever.

Glad to see quoted the refrain to Mike's wonderful Hedghog...an anthem for us all.

They are not just part of Amba's and my lives. They helped create it.   In tribute... Bob.