New contribution on the Web about the TEB's Macbeth soundtrack.

A new critical contribution about the Thirds and their wonderful gloomy soundtrack for the Polanski's "Macbeth" is available on the Web at "Dark Holler Arts" site - http://darkhollerarts.com/music/wyrd-sisters-third-ear-band-polanskis-macbeth/#comment-377

The interesting piece is titled "Wyrd sisters: Third Ear Band and Polanski's MacBeth".

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first) 

New radio show with Third Ear Band Music at Stroud FM.

"Hello Luca, how are you?
Things are going well here, my progressive rock radio show is still going strong and I'm pleased to say that I have played a few Third Ear Band tracks and people have been enjoying them. My query isn't really a major one, but I thought I should still check.

I recorded my latest show yesterday and ended it with Mike Oldfield's "Lament for Atlantis" and thought that I could do a vague link between shows by starting the next one with the Third Ear Band's "Atlantis Rising". However I was concerned that I couldn't find the album I have 'Magic Music' listed on their discography (or rather, not the version that I have) and then saw your archive on unofficial albums, so I was wondering if it is okay to play the tune?

If not that's fine, I'll just play a track from one of the other albums I have. Either way I'll be opening my next show with the Third Ear Band!
All the best,

Ed Wilkins"

"No problems, Ed, you can use the track. If you let me know when the show will be aired I'll inform all the fans through the Archive.
All the best.
Luca" 

"Thanks Luca. I'm recording the show tomorrow and it will go out at 10pm on Monday (the 21st). It will also be on my Listen Again page for a while afterwards:

 http://podcasts.canstream.co.uk/stroud/index.php?cat=An%20Hour%20of%20Prog%20with%20Ed%20Wilkins
I think there are one or two shows already on there with the Third Ear Band played as well.
All the best
Ed"

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first) 

Tracked down the shots of the "Atomic Sunrise" festival: what about that with the Third Ear Band playing?

The festival was shot by an unknown underground director and the (33 hours! of) footages was missed for around 20 years, until a guy called Adrian  Everett tracked down them and tried to edit. 

All the long story was reported by The Indipendent on January 25th, 2013 (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/atomic-sunrise-a-rare-glimpse-of-david-bowie-genesis-and-hawkwind-on-the-brink-of-stardom-8466113.html). 

Here's an excerpt of the article written by Tim Cumming:

"Atomic Sunrise: a rare glimpse of David Bowie, Genesis and Hawkwind on the brink of stardom
It’s the missing film that captures David Bowie’s transition from acoustic to electric star; the emergence of Genesis and Hawkwind; and the musical birth of the Seventies with the rise of glam, prog and heavy rock.
The Atomic Sunrise festival, held at the Roundhouse between 9 and 15 March 1970, was the direct consequence of the murderous events at Altamont the previous December. The Grateful Dead not only pulled out of that gig: they also withdrew from a scheduled appearance at the Roundhouse the following March, which left a week free to mount what was billed as “Seven Nights of Celebration” in a “Living Theatre Environment”.

Three bands were scheduled to play each night, many of them regulars at the Roundhouse’s Sunday Implosion gigs, with The Living Theatre – officially the oldest experimental company in the world – moving among the crowd like the counter- cultural equivalent of a flash mob, but with social/political consciousness-raising rather than marketing as the intent. They were the resident artistes at Atomic Sunrise, on a bill that included many names welded firmly to that time: Graham Bond (whose presence deterred the billed but absent Black Sabbath), Brian Auger, Third Ear Band, Fat Mattress, Gypsy. But none of these are what gives the film to be premiered at the Roundhouse on 11 March its cachet. That lies with the unique, thrilling footage of Bowie, Genesis, and Hawkwind at formative stages of their careers. There is nothing else like it on film. 

(...) The film’s director-producer, Adrian Everett, first heard of the footage in the late 1970s. Who actually placed the cameras in those communal, countercultural early days is not on record, but the stock was being held against a film-processing bill of several thousand pounds. Everett tracked it for years, until, in 1990, he was told it was to be destroyed unless the bill was paid. He put down the money hours before the film was to be trashed, and with the film and the rights secured, his next task was to see exactly what it contained. He spent the next three days watching 33 hours of rushes.

“It was adding the sound and seeing the film come to life that made me realise how important it is,” he remembers. “Until then I just thought it might be interesting, but now I knew it was amazing. That’s why I felt I had to get it out there.”
A deal with a record store owner provided a small budget to begin a first cut, and a chance encounter put him in touch with the original sound man at the gig, who helped him put music to the silent film footage.

“I developed a method of playing and replaying the footage – spotting the start of a song and then looking for clues such as an opening word of the lyric or an instrument.” He was working after-hours in a friend’s cutting room, but progress stalled when Everett’s backer pulled out during the early 1990s recession. Aside from a few assembled performances, the rushes remained just that, sequestered in boxes for the next 20 years, largely unedited and virtually unseen.
Efforts to secure a broadcast slot on the BBC or on Sky came to nothing, and in the meantime, the original participants were heading for that great gig in the sky. Mick Ronson was the first to go, in 1993. In 2010, when Everett heard of the passing of original Genesis drummer John Mayhew, he determined to get a cut of the film into circulation. “Not only so that people could see it at last,” he says, “but as a sort of tribute to those who had gone, some of them unrewarded and almost unknown.”
Taking time out from editing an hour-long first cut of a film that has travelled with him for more than 30 years, Everett admits that it’s “nerve-wracking wondering if people will be pleased with the result”.

“But I can only do the best I can with the resources I have,” he says. “The music and images are amazing, and my plan is to do a book and DVD of the final edit. There are so many strands to this story. It’s a great story to tell.”

‘Atomic Sunrise’ is screened at the Roundhouse, London NW1 (0844 482 8008; roundhouse.org.uk) 11 & 12 March".

If it's clear the projected film does not include footages with the Third Ear Band in, it seems quite possible the live set the band played it's included on the 33 hours shot.
It would be important having some infos by Mr Everett and for this we've sent an email at sunrisefest@yahoo.com... 

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

The very rare National Balkan Ensemble record on Ebay!

The very rare Various Artists record with three tracks by the National Balkan Ensemble (Standard Music Library ESL 112, 1970) is on sale on Ebay at 95 pounds until October 9th. 

You can see the ad at http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STANDARD-MUSIC-LIBRARY-ESL-112-LP-NATIONAL-BALKAN-ENSEMBLE-THIRD-EAR-BAND-/231067102444?pt=UK_Records&hash=item35ccac2cec

[Note the composers' names printed on the back cover that testify the origins of the band!]

A reconstruction of the album's fascinating story is available on this Archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2009/12/national-balkan-ensemble-aka-third-ear_11.html

As our post-folk wizard Sedayne states in a post under  here, "It's worth noting that the other side of this album is a sequence of 'Comedy Links & Bridges' - several of which feature in both series of Catweazle. I often think the NBE tracks would have suited Geoffrey Bayldon's time-travelling medieval wizard down to the ground. Jason's Trip, for example, is Catweazle's very essence!".

Infact, one has to admit really intriguing the connections between TEB/NBE music and Catweazle's contents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catweazle, http://www.catweazlefanclub.co.uk/, http://www.paulpert.com/catweazlepage1.htm)... 

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)