Third Ear Band at the 1970 Dutch Woodstock.

On June 27th, 1970 Third Ear Band played at the Kralingen festival in Rotterdam (Holland). Named "Holland Festival 70" but known also as "Stamping Ground" or "The Dutch Woodstock" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kralingen_Music_Festival) it was promoted by Holland pop fans Toosje Knap, Berry Visser and Georges Knap and despite the rain, an estimated 100,000 people was in the audience.
Many famous pop/rock bands and musicians played there: TRex, Family, Pink Floyd, Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Al Stewart, Country Joe McDonald, Santana, Dr. John, It's a Beautiful Day, Soft Machine... Also the Third Ear Band with the original quartet (Sweeney, Minns, Coff and Smith), probably with a track taken from the second album...

Firstly, this important undergound event became a movie directed by Jason Pholand and George Sluizer titled "Stomping Ground" (in U.K.) 0r "Love and Music" (in the rest of Europe)  and  various audio bootlegs was circulating among fans. 

Now a vast selection of the three days festival is available on a 3CDs box format (two audio CD and a 97' DVD movie of live performances) published by Gonzo Multimedia on April 2013 (£ 11.99) under the project co-ordination of Rob Ayling.

Maybe it's not too unexpected that the producers of it have decided to keep out Our Holy Band from some horrible (and quite scarse audio quality) music played by bands as Canned Heath, Cuby & The Blizzards, The Flock...

And it's quite incredible that at that time a group as the Third Ear Band could share the same stage of such kind of bands... TEB's project was so exclusive, so unique, with so little connections with blues, rock and the so-called progressive that it was a real hazard to propose its music to a big audience at festivals...

Links of interest:

 For buying the record: www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk
A sampler of the album tracks at AllMusic.com here

A film trailer on YouTube is available here 

Reviews of the album: 

- by Dangerous Mind here

- by Shawn Perry on Vintagerock.com here 

- by Bill Kopp on MusoScribe here

- by Craig Hartranft on DangerDog Music Reviews here  

 no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

A new piece about 'music' by Dave Tomlin for I.T.

This is a new piece written by our Dave Tomlin for the glorious evergreen I.T. You can read many other interesting (& clever) stuff  here

Cardboard Vibrations

The idea that sound travels from one point to another, when examined, is revealed to be no more than an illusionary concept, for ‘sound’ remains in the only place it is engendered.

The world seen with the eyes is a world entirely without sound, no birdsong sweetens the air and the soughing of wind among the trees has never happened, for soundwaves are nothing more than puffs of disturbed air; vibrations which extent in all directions from their source; but they are themselves profoundly silent.

Sound occurs when these vibrations of disturbed air encounter the mechanism of an eardrum, activating the nerves connecting it to the brain. The brain then interprets the vibrations of the drum as sound and therefore the sound perceived occurs entirely within the head, while the world which we see outside remains in eternal silence.  

Music: The manipulation of specific tones on a musical instrument, each with a unique rate of vibration and arranged generally into recognisable patterns; these are also absolutely silent until reaching an eardrum, but at least these vibrations, directly received from such an instrument, are genuine.

Recorded and amplified music is however somewhat false, since the original vibrations from the instrument are lost when translated into electrical impulses via a microphone or wireless signal; these travel (silently) along a wire to emerge at the other end by activating the cardboard diaphragm of a loudspeaker.
 
The vibrations from the instrument itself are not heard at all but have been replaced by these cardboard (facsimile) vibrations.

All sound occurs only inside the head via the ears, while out there is a world which is utterly silent.

However, whether these vibrations are genuine (directly from a musical instrument); or cardboard facsimiles; or even come to that, birds, wind, or the voices of one’s friends ultimately makes no difference, for what one ‘hears’ is nothing more than one’s own ear drums rattling.

©2014 Dave Tomlin - Nick Victor(art)

In 1969, on the cover of "Alchemy", his friend Glen explained the thing in this way: "Third Ear Band music is a reflection of the universe as magic play illusion simply because it could not possibly be anything else. Words cannot describe this ecstatic dance of sound, or explain the alchemical repetiton seeking and sometimes finding archetypal formes, elements and rhythms..."

no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Hermione Harvestman, Tertius Auris, Peter Burne-Jones, The Third Ear Band, Sedayne...

Hermione Harvestman, a.k.a. Sedayne, writes us a new vionary excursion into the esoteric Third Ear Band's soundscape...
  

"Hermione Harvestman is my hauntological  take on the electro-shamanic zeitgiest  that has been my life's dream since my brain first sang to Delia Derbyshire & Daphne Oram in my early childhood, though their names I wouldn't know until much, much later...  

Here, in Hermione's own dreaming, an encounter with the Third Ear Band in Durham in June 1971 plants a few seeds that become the Tertius Auris.

In reality, I heard a story once from Peter Burne-Jones of how he was at that gig but didn't like it so much because they were more like a normal rock band, complete with drumkit, so they all went back to his place and listened to "Alchemy" on his super hi-fi (Peter would go on to invent the PBJ tone arm!). 

In my dreaming Hermione sees the beauty in both....".

Listen to Sedayne/Hermione's two wonderful 

thirdearband-ish's ragas here

no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)