Dr. Strangely Strange are an Irish experimental folk group, formed in Dublin in 1967 by Tim Booth (vocals and guitar), and Ivan Pawle (bass and keyboards). After playing an initial 1967 Trinity College gig with guitarist Humphrey Weightman, and some 1968 gigs with keyboard player/vocalist Brian Trench, Booth and Pawle teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Tim Goulding (vocals, recorder and keyboards), at that time an aspiring painter. Goulding and Pawle were living and rehearsing in a Lower Mount Street house rented by Goulding’s girlfriend, “Orphan Annie” Mohan, which its tenants nicknamed “The Orphanage”. Percussionist/vocalist Caroline “Linus” Greville joined the band for two brief periods in 1968 and 1969. Gary Moore often sat in on live shows in this time as well, augmenting the band on various instruments. After signing with producer and manager Joe Boyd, Dr Strangely Strange debuted in 1969 with Kip of the Serenes. The album was produced by Boyd. The band became popular on the UK college circuit, playing support slots the length and breadth of the UK.
Their second album, Heavy Petting, was released in September 1970 and included Dave Mattacks on drums and a returning Gary Moore on lead guitar. In summer 1970, at a Burton-on-Trent concert, they enlisted drummer Neil Hopwood. Pawle and Booth teamed with Gay and Terry Woods for a six-week European tour, but Dr Strangely Strange began falling apart. The group disbanded in May 1971, after playing a concert with Al Stewart. Booth and Pawle felt the combination was not working, and there were tensions in the band. The Woods explained: “We said that if the Strangelies hadn’t gotten it together during the time we were on the Continent then we would leave, because six weeks of gigging should pull a band tighter. Unfortunately, instead of getting together, they were getting looser”.
Tim Booth, Ivan Pawle, and Tim Goulding reunited in 1972 for an Irish tour. Tim Booth led a new lineup through 1973. Booth, Goulding, and Ivan Pawle reconvened again in the early 1980s, joined by fiddle/mandolin player Joe Thoma. The four piece lineup of Booth, Goulding, Pawle, and Thoma has remains the core lineup of the band to the present day, although only performing intermittently. In October 1994, the band played at the Griffin Hotel in Leeds as part of an Incredible String Band convention weekend. The band reformed to record a third album in 1996.
In 2005, the group performed an acoustic gig in a cabbage patch as part of a wake for Annie Christmas, of the “Orphanage” house on Sandymount, Dublin, where the band used to live. In June 2007, the band regrouped for a Bloomsday concert at London’s 12 Bar Club to mark the launch of the archive collection Halcyon Days. This was followed by a special homecoming gig in the Sugar Club on Leeson Street, Dublin, Ireland on 1 March 2008. In February 2009, Hux Records reissued Kip of the Serenes as a Collectors’ Edition with four bonus tracks.
On 19 July 2009, the band participated in the Witchseason Weekender at The Barbican, London. They performed a free concert on the foyer stage and then participated in the full Sunday evening concert entitled The Music of the Incredible String Band. October 2011 saw the Hux re-release of Heavy Petting, marked by a launch gig at London’s Jazz Café. A book about the band’s heyday, Dr Strangely Strange – Fitting Pieces To The Jigsaw (Adrian Whittaker) was published in 2019, with extensive contributions from Pawle, Booth and Goulding. In October 2022, American label, Think Like A Key Records, released the Radio Sessions album, compiled from BBC, Dutch, and Danish radio broadcasts from 1970 & 1971. The CD edition includes a 1970 rehearsal track with Gary Moore from the Heavy Petting sessions.
