Dr. Strangely Strange interview

By Giacomo Checcucci

Dr. Strangely Strange are usually remembered as the Irish counterpart to the Incredible String Band. However, this label is quite limiting. It’s true that, between the late ’60s and early ’70s, Tim Booth, Tim Goulding, and Ivan Pawle established a connection with Robin Williamson and his bandmates, but Dr. Strangely Strange are something different — a group that weaves, in an original way, acoustic and electric instruments, weirdness and melody, as well as utopia and irony. During the golden age of psychedelia, Dr. Strangely Strange released two enchanting albums, ‘Kip of the Serenes’ and ‘Heavy Petting’, but they also created two venues for free expression, known as the so-called “Orphanages.” These places were frequented by peers like Phil Lynott and Gary Moore. After a tour with Gay and Terry Woods, Dr. Strangely Strange disbanded. Yet, over the following decades, thanks to their deep friendship, they reunited to play and record. Each time, the clock magically seemed to turn back to 1971. This year, the band released ‘Anti-Inflammatory’, a joyfully timeless album. We take this opportunity to ask Ivan and the two Tims some questions about the band’s history, their latest work, and their early days in 1960s Dublin — a city where, while historic buildings were being torn down, the foundations of counterculture were being laid. In this context, we will see the role played by a cosmopolitan school like Trinity College, but also by the folk clubs. Even within the folk revival after the war, a form of conservatism emerged. But Dr. Strangely Strange did not follow the unwritten rules of folk orthodoxy. They stayed true to their nature. Indeed, the goal then was the same as today: to be free from all constraints. And we can say this: Dr. Strangely Strange succeeded.

GC: Your new album, ‘Anti-Inflammatory’, your first since ‘Alternative Medicine’ in 1997, not only gives the impression that half a century has passed since the 1970s, but also perhaps that only five minutes have gone by. How did you go about composing and recording this new material? How do you still manage to speak this musical language with such freshness?

Tim Booth: Since the breakup of the version of the band that had contained Terry and Gay Woods, we have been meeting up and playing together once or twice a year and this has kept us fresh and ready to go. We all write - tunes or songs or both - so now and then we scrape together a budget and set about recording. We are the best of friends, and our practises and gigs are filled with laughter and this communicates in the recorded work.

Ivan Pawle: What if... Had we been gigging steadily I imagine we would have burned out by now!

Tim Goulding: When Strangelies meet the clock stops and we find ourselves “same as it ever was”. 

[photograph by Sarah O'Mahony]

Let’s take a step back. Could you tell me something about your early musical influences? And what were your first experiences as musicians before you met each other?

Ivan Pawle: Like many of my vintage I would have been a major fan of Buddy Holly and The Crickets, Eddie Cochran, The Everly Brothers etc. I played in a band at school, largely based on Cliff Richard and The Shadows covers. I had piano lessons and later flute, and learned to read music, but I lacked the dedication or patience, and really much preferred trying to play by ear. We also had a jazz group at school and I enjoyed improvising. At home we had a grand piano and gramophone with a few jazz and classical records.

Tim Goulding: At primary school I studied piano up to grade 5. On changing schools it became too much like maths. But played ‘cello in string quartets. After school just noodled on the piano and listened to mostly classical and modern jazz. Came to pop music in early twenties.

Tim Booth: My mother played piano - Debussy, Chopin and such - and she wanted me to take piano lessons, but I wanted to play guitar, as even at twelve years old, I knew it was far sexier as well as considerably lighter than a piano. My art-schooled elder sister was into Fats Waller and traditional jazz, but I preferred the early rock and roll I heard on radio and at boarding school, where I slowly learnt to play chords and strum patterns on the acoustic guitar my mother had bought me for six pounds in McCulloughs of Dawson Street, Dublin. Of course, a band was formed and we got to play a short set at the school mid- term dance. Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly with even a self penned number. University opened my eyes and ears to a lot of alternative styles, from modern jazz to folk. I was not proficient enough to attempt jazz - nor was I interested - but folk music in all its forms caught my attention and I could accompany myself with a rudimentary claw- hammer style I had learnt by watching better players in the folk clubs. Thus equipped, I met Ivan Peter Pawle and we got down to it.

In the liner notes of the Guerssen reissue of Oliver’s album ‘Standing Stone’, it says: “A nearby neighbour was Ivan Pawle, also of a Suffolk farming lineage, who went on to become a key player in acid folk legends Dr. Strangely Strange.” Ivan, could you tell me something about about your youth in Suffolk and your relationship with the Chaplin brothers and about Oliver in particular? What do you think of his album?

Ivan Pawle: After WW2, a lot of young couples moved to the countryside, back to the land. In many ways it felt like an idyllic childhood. My parents’ farm in Suffolk was 60/70 acres and no field was larger than 6/7acres. It was mixed farming, livestock and arable. The Chaplin family lived about 4 fields away. Christopher, Giles and I would have cycled around the countryside, fishing and swimming in ponds and streams. Oliver was slightly younger. We all helped out on the farm in the various activities and chores. I was sent off to boarding school, so then we would only meet up in the school holidays. My parents split up and the farm was sold in 1959. After that I more or less lost contact with the brothers. The Chaplin family moved to West-Wales at some point and I visited briefly when I was staying at Penwern with some of the Incredible String Band. Around that time I also met up with Giles when he was living at Dolwilym and we kept in touch over the years until he sadly died. When we were younger, Christopher and I made crystal sets from kits, then later valve radios; he was much more adept than I! Musically, Giles was brilliant on the piano, sussing out boogie and blues by ear. I lost contact with Christopher, although I heard that he did some really important work at the BBC. I met Oliver when we did a gig in Camden around 2007(?) I didn’t know about ‘Standing Stone’ and only came to it much later.It is a wonderful album, different from anything else.

Dr. Strangely Strange formed in Dublin in 1967 at Trinity College, where Ivan Pawle and Tim Booth were students. I imagine that, on the whole, Dublin wasn’t as open and free as London. But I’ve read that Trinity College, being of Protestant tradition, was a cosmopolitan university with students from all over the world. What did it mean to engage in counterculture in Dublin at that time? And did the atmosphere at Trinity influence your creative freedom?

Tim Goulding: Definitely Trinity College was the hub of the counter culture, where I met poets, writers, musicians and goofballs. The American hippy music was blowing in from San Francisco.

Tim Booth: Having just turned 17, Trinity College Dublin hit me like a fast train. Everybody seemed so grown up. Lots of Students from England with huge government grants and Mini-minor cars who came to TCD because it was not one of those new post- war ‘Red Brick’ jobs but a genuinely old seat of learning and tradition. Some of the young men - ten years older than me and experienced in the ways of the world - had just completed compulsory military service and many of them, both men and women, spent a lot of time in the various societies that flourished beyond the bounds of the degree courses in Dublin, while still strapped down by the dictates of church and state, was beginning to grow a counter culture, and certain watering holes became focal points for students from TCD, the Art College and various other interested individuals to meet and exchange ideas and/or bodily fluids. But it was TCD that educated me, not just by awarding me with a degree, but by introducing me to a freedom of ideas and encouraging me to think and work creatively.

Ivan Pawle: I pursued a general Arts degree in Trinity and I enjoyed studying, but to be honest, the course wasn’t very taxing. Thus it was that both ensembles that I joined involved replacing an Engineering student. Joining The Vampires I replaced Denis Kelly on rhythm guitar and vocals and I replaced Jerry Harrington in The Idlers playing acoustic guitar and singing harmonies with Sue Shepherd and Kate Nesbit. Our repertoire drew largely on Joan Baez and some standard folk songs.

How were Dr. Strangely Strange formed?

Ivan Pawle: After University in 1966, I went off to London for the best part of a year. I tried various musical experiments, such as electrifying a Turkish Saz that i had bought inIstanbul. Back to Dublin. Iain Sinclair was filming Allen Ginsberg’s visit to Europe for a German television station, and he asked me to do some music to accompany ‘Ah! Sunflower’ by William Blake. Cassette tape recorders had recently appeared and I recorded a very minimalist piece in Tim Goulding’s painting studio at dargle Cottage in Wicklow, with Tim and Humphrey Weightman. Later that Autumn Tim Booth was invited to perform at the Fresher’s reception at Trinity, to encourage new students to join the Folk Club. Tim asked Humphrey and me to join him, which we did. We had to come up with a name, and so came Dr. Strangely Strange!.

The band's name is a tribute to the Marvel character Doctor Strange. What led you to that choice? Was the world of comics a strong influence for you?

Tim Goulding: Tim Booth is a comic aficionado and the name came from him.

Tim Booth: We had a friend, Jim Duncan, who referred to the unusual as being “Strangely strange but oddly normal”, so the band name and Ivan’s song came from that, the Marvel comic and the Kubrick film ‘Doctor Strangelove’ which had just been released. I have loved the world of comics since I first came across Dan Dare in 1950 and learnt how to draw by copying the beautiful line work and spent a recent ten years drawing him and his world for a hi-end fanzine. What goes around comes around.

Ivan Pawle: The name came about from various sources. First, Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. In Marvel Comics Steven Strange was brilliant brain surgeon and while driving too fast he crashed his car, resulting in a loss of the manual dexterity required by his profession. Chastened, he went off to Tibet to study at the feet of the Ancient One. Strange studied diligently for several years, perfecting Astral Travel and devoted the rest of his life to Humanity, defending Good against the forces of Evil. Second, a friend of Annie Christmas often repeated the phrase “Now that’s Strangely Strange, but oddly normal” Adverbs were in vogue at the time - Bob Dylan had ‘Positively 4th Street’, ‘Absolutely Sweet Marie’. The current Beach Boys album was called ‘Smiley Smile’ and not to forget ‘Dr. Strangelove’. So, a melange became a mouthful.

In an interview, Ivan Pawle said you performed in folk clubs because you were an acoustic band, but that you only retained certain elements of folk. What was your relationship with folk music at the time, and with the debate between traditionalists and innovators? How was your experience at the Dublin University Folk Club and other folk clubs around the city during that period?

Tim Goulding: We mostly played in pubs accompanying rising and voluble poets. Later we played in folk clubs but definitely eschewed the purists.

Tim Booth: In my early 20s I discovered American folk music, and began playing some Appalachian songs in the Dublin folk clubs. I liked how the words and music were honed from real life experiences. I was not that into traditional Irish music, but liked the song writing of some of the newer innovators such as Ewan MacColl and Bob Dylan because they seemed to stand on the shoulders of the great earlier performer’s. I was a founder member of the TCD folk music society and performed in many of their events, and also in the Dublin folk clubs such as the Pike, Slattery’s and the Neptune Rowing Club sessions, honing my skills to the best of my ability.

There’s been some confusion around the word ‘folk’ throughout the 20th century. On one hand, it refers to traditional music of rural communities, and on the other, the same term is used to describe acoustic music played in cities with instruments from national or regional traditions. What are your thoughts on this? And do you feel that labels like psych-folk or acid-folk are accurate in describing your music?

Tim Goulding: I don't think we were anywhere near a folk band in the strict sense, although Tim Booth had an influence from Americana as it’s now known. Ivan was more wide open to blues and rock and I was stuck in a semi classical rut (but without the wherewithal).

Tim Booth: Strangelys mostly play acoustic instruments, so you could apply the term ‘folk’ to our music, should you so wish. I regard it a just music, but any label that has been introduced in order to help describe or understand our sound is totally justified if it enlightens. When I heard Bob Dylan and the band in Dublin in 1965 or thereabouts, the folkies in the audience disgraced themselves by booing and shouting ‘Judas!’ at him because - in their eyes - he had transgressed some arcane traditional diktat by going electric. But not in mine. It was a superb concert and my mind was well and truly blown. Which was as it should have been.

In post-war Dublin, parts of the city’s Georgian architecture disappeared due to demolitions and collapses. You took a stand—at least in one song—against the destruction of some buildings and received support from the Dublin Housing Action Committee. What was it like to be a band of young rebels fighting to preserve old buildings? Is there a connection between this theme and Irish nationalism?

Tim Booth: That was Strangely mk2 with Brian Trench who wrote the song and drilled Ivan and myself in the harmonies required. The song was called ‘Corporation’ and we performed it on TV. For days afterwards, we could go nowhere without being recognised: “Saw yez on de tele Saturday night, yez were BRUTAL!”

Ivan Pawle: A whole Georgian side of Merrion Square, a prime location in Dublin 2, was knocked down by the E.S.B. (Electricity Supply Board) and replaced with a visually less attractive modern office block. Whatever about social/economic/political factors, the social housing tenements in Townsend St., not far from Merrion Square and close to the rear entrance to Trinity College, were allowed to fall into disrepair and collapsed, killing 4 people in 1963. Our pre-Goulding bandmate, Brian Trench wrote a song excoriating Dublin City Corporation for its dereliction and we performed it on the ‘Late Late Show’. 1968 was a pivotal period of protest and our highlighting of the problem was appreciated by the Dublin Housing Action Committee. It is true that some members of the DHAC were members of Sinn Fein. Apart from an occasional allusion, we tended to avoid politics, moreover I, as an Englishman (a Sassenach) would have been totally unqualified!

After playing with other musicians, Pawle and Booth eventually chose Tim Goulding as the third member. How did you realise you had found the right chemistry?

Ivan Pawle: Tim Goulding brought the harmonium with him, as well as a congenial sense of humour. Friendship has always been paramount (plus the right chords!)

Tim Goulding: We were on the same scene, the psychedelic exploration scene, and I just happened to have a harmonium.

Tim Booth: Didn’t take long. The audience we were building knew and so did we. Laughter is indeed the best medicine.

I’m a bit confused about the roles of the two Annies, Orphan Annie and Annie Christmas, and the two gathering places, the first and the second orphanage, in your story. Could you help me clarify? What did these two places of freedom mean for you and the wider Dublin counterculture?

Ivan Pawle: I met Patricia Mohan at the Fleadh Cheoil in Mullingar in 1963. She had left her family home in Dublin and travelled to Scotland where she fell in with a like-minded cohort of friends. I confess that I first named her ‘Orphan Annie’. We met up again the following Autumn when she returned from Scotland with Christina McKechnie (Licorice) and the three of us rented a flat at 55 Lower Mount St, an address that attracted people from all over, and became known as ‘The Orphanage’. Annie Christmas was a good friend of us all, who grew up in Dublin. After leaving school she got a job in an advertising agency and took a lease on a house in Sandymount, which later became known as the second orphanage.

Tim Goulding: Annie my wife lodged in a Georgian 4 story building in the Georgian part of Dublin. Here she cooked and entertained many a footloose traveller from far and wide. It became a nest for the outsiders and artists of the town.

Tim Booth: Orphan Annie rented a floor of a Georgian house in Mount Street, which became known to its inmates and visitors as ‘The Orphanage’. Because there was access to the basement area, many parties were held and there was some space for visitors to crash. Orphan Annie was a mighty cook and there was always something good to eat. Many rising stars passed beneath its Georgian Fanlight. Annie Christmas was a friend and mentor and subsequently administered the second orphanage in Sandymount that was in a 50s suburban house in Sandymount and I lived and worked there for some time and my studio space became Strangely’s rehearsal room.

In those two orphanages, Phil Lynott and Gary Moore—two central figures in Irish music—took their early steps. Can you tell me something about them and your relationship with them?

Tim Goulding: Both Gary and Phillo were visitors in both orphanages.

Tim Booth: Phil Lynott - who I knew from the Mount Street Orphanage - had asked me if I could look after a very young Gary Moore, so he came to stay and that meant his amps and guitars and our harmonium all in my painting space, but it also meant the most ridiculous rehearsals as Gary - when not away gigging - would very often sit in and even at 18 he was a fantastic player, not just on guitar, on Mandolin, fiddle, and keys as well. Many of his friends and other band members would drop by, so there was always something happening, visitors from all around the world stopping by, maybe staying a few days… or weeks and somehow it was all very cool. One day a knock on the front door revealed a dapper middle aged man in a velvet collared beige camel hair coat: Gary’s father come to check out his digs. Annie Christmas took him under her wing with a cup of tea and he left reassured. Life’s emollient design.

I know you’ve spoken about this in other interviews, but would you kindly recount your first meeting with the Incredible String Band and later with Joe Boyd? What was your relationship with them, and how did they influence your music?

Ivan Pawle: Robin Williamson came over from Scotland and Licorice returned with him. We struck up a rapport, and it was through this friendship that Robin referred us to Joe Boyd. Needless to say, it was wonderful to hear Robin singing and playing the guitar. I think Phil Lynott was inspired to start making his own songs after meeting Robin in the orphanage. I can’t remember how his first song went, but I confidently remember that the theme was the death of a faun.

Tim Goulding: I remember Robin Williamson visiting the first orphanage staying for a few days and writing The October Song. Later on we attended their concerts. But Ivan and Mary lived up in Scotland with the tribe.

Tim Booth: I don’t remember when I first met the ISB, but it was probably at the gig we did with them in Liberty Hall. Joe Boyd we met a bit later, when he came to a gig in Carlow. During this period, Brian Trench was still a member of the band. The ISB’s main influence on me personally was to awaken me to the possibility of writing our own material.

Ivan, you played on ‘Changing Horses’. Could you tell me something about it?

Ivan Pawle: In Autumn 1968, Caroline Greville (Linus) and I, great pals (though not romantically involved), went off to Penwern in Wales to visit Robin and Licorice and some members of the Exploding Galaxy who had rented an old farmhouse down the hill from Pentre Ifan. It was an idyllic creative existence. I think that we were all on a Macrobiotic diet at that time. My contribution to the rent involved mucking out a pigsty for Farmer Luke. They had shot a film there that Summer and we were preparing for an appearance at the Albert Hall in London. The concert involved music and dance, and my contribution was on keyboards and backing vocals; Linus was involved with percussion and dancing. ‘Creation’ was to be recorded later for the ‘Changing Horses’ album. It was an exhilarating experience! When we returned to Pembrokeshire the lease was up at Farmer Luke’s, Linus returned to Dublin and the troupe of musicians and dancers moved into two separate properties. I was at Trehaidd with Nicky Walton in charge of some of the dogs while the I.S.B. went off to the U.S.A. It was while I was staying at Trehaidd that Giles Chaplin came to visit me, having come over the Preselis from Carmarthenshire.

What do you remember about the recording sessions for your two historic albums, ‘Kip of the Serenes’ (1969) and ‘Heavy Petting’ (1970)? What changed in your approach between the first and second albums? 

Tim Goulding: Joe Boyd was a somewhat distant apparition as he was always working. We lived in his house in Lots Road, Chelsea but rarely saw him. He was a very much an elder figure and much respected. The first album was recorded in Sound Techniques in Chelsea. Very much an affair of sitting around a microphone and playing as if we were at a gig.

Tim Booth: ‘’Kip’ was recorded in a couple of sessions in Sound Techniques Studio on the Kings Road, where lots of Joe Boyd’s stable of acts recorded: Fairport Convention, John Martyn, Nick Drake et all. We were naive and inexperienced, but made up for it in enthusiasm. Joe produced and Roger Meyers engineered. Some of the later ST recordings became the acoustic element of our second album ‘Heavy Petting’. As we had started incorporating electric instruments into our live act, it was an evolutionary step to record some heavier material. We choose to do this in Ireland where we had friends amongst the electric bands and Joe flew Roger and Fairport’s drummer Dave Mattacks over for a few days recording in Eamonn Andrews Studio. This was in the old 4Provinces Ballroom on Harcourt Street and was skilfully recorded by Roger live onto two track equipment. Gary played lead, Ivan, myself and Brush Shiels played bass, Andy Irvine played mandolin and Johnny Moynihan played bouzouki. We rocked.

[the band in 1969]

In 1971, Goulding withdrew to the Samye Ling Buddhist monastery in Scotland. What was your relationship with spirituality, and how did it influence your music? What did you think at the time about your friends in the Incredible String Band joining Scientology?

Tim Goulding: The spiritual journey has been a lifelong hobby of mine, albeit a minority sport. Samye Ling was a springboard to further investigations. I spent a month there with a  26 year old Zen monk fresh from a monastery in Kyoto. I saw the cult aspect of Scientology and stayed well away. I feel it was deleterious for the String Band. Didacticism has little place in Music.

Tim Booth: My relationship with spirituality has always been deeply personal and my own business. If you can hear a smidgeon of spirituality in my songs, well and good. Being rational, I loathed scientology and the attempts by ISB acolytes to initiate me into the cult infuriated me then and still do now.

Ivan Pawle: It was a pity that the ISB became ensnared by L. Ron Hubbard’s organisation- I think it took a lot of time and energy for some of them to escape from its clutches.

At that point, Pawle and Booth joined Gay and Terry Woods for a tour, but the chemistry didn’t quite work. What went wrong? What do you think of their music?

Ivan Pawle: After Tim Goulding moved to West Cork, Booth and I and Neil Hopwood (Hoppy) our drummer, got together with Terry and Gay Woods, who had left Steeleye Span after their first album. We were due to start gigging in January and then I got a call from the ISB asking me if I would like to join them. At the crossroads... Since I had already committed to the first option I decided to turn down the offer. It was a tough choice, but there you go. Then again, the Woods option didn’t work out satisfactorily. A period of transition followed. In retrospect it’s as well that I avoided the Scientology!

Tim Goulding: It was a brave attempt to marry the strangely ethic to more traditional Irish music but sunk due to marital and alcoholic issues with the new members.

Tim Booth: It was a mistake. Leave it at that. I liked their music, still do.

Compared to your approach, the Woods seemed more anchored in tradition. And yet, in the albums by Sweeney’s Men, Steeleye Span, or the Woods Band, Gay and Terry played American instruments like the banjo, autoharp, and dulcimer. What are your thoughts on the fact that so-called traditional bands incorporated foreign instruments and were still considered traditional—or at least more traditional than Dr. Strangely Strange? Isn’t theirs also a process of hybridisation, much like yours?

Tim Booth: Strangelys never set out to be traditional. Terry and Gay brought their influence into the group for a while, but we soon soon shucked it off in favour of a more languid approach. Today, we have Joe Thoma playing with us. He is an accomplished traditional musician. He brings his overall musicianship to our mix but does not attempt to change our inherent lack of skill. He is a joy.

And now—what’s your next goal?

Tim Goulding: We are all speeding toward geezerhood and just happy to meet up and play with no grand intentions but the joy of music and camaraderie.

Tim Booth: World domination.

Giacomo Checcucci

With thanks to Roger Houdaille for the photos.

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