The reliable "Observer Review" in the "Pop" section expressed enthusiastic opinion as well, concluding: "It's the first 'pop' score for a film can be misleading; it is skilled, farout chamber music, like so much rock today".
“Benefit for U.C.S.”
TEB with Matching Mole, Trees, Keith Christmas and Mike Gibbs.
"John Peel Sessions" radio show: TEB played/recorded "Air" and "I The Key"
31th – Plaza Theatre (London)
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19710101%2FREVIEWS%2F101010319%2F1023&AID1=%2F19710101%2FREVIEWS%2F101010319%2F1023&AID2=
Technical notes at http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/reviews/reviews.asp?id=6847
Polanski with Princess Anne at the film's premiere (photo by Central Press/Getty Images) |
February
12th - Town Hall (Birmingham)
15th – Colston Hall (Bristol)
Around this period Paul Buckmaster quit the band. As to Paul Minns, by then famous musician and arranger thought the music played by the band in that period was really bad and just compromising for its own artistic reputation.
Sweeney, tactfully, to Roy Hollingworth ("Melody Maker", 1972): "Well, it was always a strange thing with Buck. He sort of drifted into the band, and I could never work out whether he was really with us or not. I remember we were travelling on the continent at one time, and Buck was sat writing music. It was "Space Oddity" - and suddenly Buck was famous. He drifdted away, and we struggled on with Ursula Smith on cello. Then I met Buck again - he was famous by then - and before I knew it, he was back in the band. But during the period with Macbeth, I had to tell him that we wanted him permanently, or not at all. We all know how pressured he is. Infact, during Macbeth, he should never have been working at all".
3rd - Seymour Hall (London)
"Fun 'an Games"
TEB with MC5, Pink Faires and Magic Michael
18th - Sweeney announced to "Melody Maker" a new line-up
"Drummond" radio show
The TEB's appearance on "Macbeth". |
A wonderful promo poster of Harvest (circa 1970). |
22th - Disc & Music Echo
TEB with Camel, Sandy Denny and others.
(read a report at http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/clitheroe-festival.html)
"As a 19 year old immigrant from Baltimore. Glen Sweeney was very nice to me. I met him back stage at the premier of Matching Mole's "Little Red Record". He was the first person to start talking to me. I told him that I had seen Third Ear Band at the Kings Cross Cinema that summer supporting Hawkwind. I remember Third Ear Band played last that night well into the dawn they were magnificent. They were performing material from the recording that released years later entitled "The Magus". I specifically remember the song "Cosmic Wheel" being performed. The vocals in this haunting song were unforgettable".
(Craig Runyon on the Facebook TEB's page, September 2013).
1st – Battersea Pavilion (London)
TEB with Steve Tilston, Pete Atkin etc.
TEB with Egg and Edgar Broughton Band
TEB with Camel
September
TEB with Matumbi Band
October
11th – Bumpers (London)
TEB with Arthur Brown's Kingdom Dome and Graham Bond among the others.
November
Sweeney to Hollingworth ("Melody Maker", 1972): "Mike has been hanging around the group for some while. We heard the songs, and well, it seemed only natural that he should come in. It's a tremendous jump for us, I mean, we've never done songs before. It's right to say that Thirdies are feeling a little schizofrenic at the moment. I mean, there's that album out from Macbeth, and that's totally avantgarde, and there's us playing songs".
"So what of these songs?" - asked the journalist. "Well, at the start, we teated them in a sort of Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen type of way. But we became dissatisfied with the limitations of eight bars, an 16 bars. We decided that we really wanted to open out. They certainly aren't pretentious songs, there's no pseudo rubbish about them. There's no Lucy in the Sky with feedback. But they are songs that fit Third Ear".
"They are all based around the Tarot, and they are purely descriptions of the cards, and their meanings. It's meant a lot of work, changing from a purely instrumental band, but it really seems to be working. And people certainly like it".
The album, in spite of all the enthusiastic anticipations, would be "disasterously recorded at Island and rejected" (Paul Minns in 1996).
It's been realised by Angel Air just in 2004 with the title of "The Magus".
17th - Chelmsford Mid-Essex College
December
23th – Arts Theatre (Cambridge)
“Multimedia Mixed Festival”
Sweeney remembered in 1990 that particular period: "That was the pits. I've got this awful thing. Whatever the trip, you must do it to end. Dave said that the band at the time sounded like an used car yard and it probably did. We did it till the end until nobody wanted to know" ("Unhinged", Spring 1990).
During the gigs TEB played also old Fugs' and Edgar Broughton Band's tracks (as like "Out demons Out"...). Sweeney (1990): "We had the whole audiences just split the gig immediately".
28th – Royal Albert Hall (London)
"1972 Film Performance Nominations. Awards Presentation Dinner & Dance"
Theatrical traditions and superstitions don’t often cross over to film, but neither Macbeth was particularly successful at the box office. So maybe there’s something to the superstition after all".
TEB with Claire Hamill and John St. Field.
18th – BBC Studios (London)
“Pete Drummond’ sequence” radio session with Al Stewart: TEB played "I The Key", "The Magus", "Ten Dimensional Landscape".
19th – Hampstead Town Hall (London)
TEB with Global Trucking Company
TEB with Kevin Coyne
"3rd Windsor Free Festival"
A festival with a lot of bands, among them Hawkind, Pink Faires, Skin Alley.
Andrew King reported about the experience (1996): "Blackhill was interested only in Art, TEB was interested in money (and sex and drugs). EMI didn't know what they were interested in, but felt there should be money involved. There weren't really anyone at EMI (except perhaps Malcolm Jones) capable of having a conversation with them. So Blackhill was always the go-between; and really Blackhill had no clear plan as to what we were trying to achieve. Third Ear Band was so divorced from the normal sort of 'act', that it was always difficult to see them as anything more than a sort of strange hobby; despite the fact they sold a lot more records than more conventional bands (e.g. Kevin Ayers)".
Peter Jenner (1996): "Sweeney's approach to the musicwas a mixture of misticism, naivety and opportunism. He was the boss of the band and I can't believe how hardly was to talk with him. He wasn't a great drummer... he was a bullshit... but a great leader of the Third Ear Band".
Read a short interview with Andrew King about the TEB at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2009/12/blackhill-enterprises-manager-and.html
Carolyn Looker (April 2012) has a different opinion about it: "Blackhill never really understood the music, if they had been more supportive TEB made more of film music. I.e. Polanski and Kubrick admiring TEB and involved them more in the arts as in Pink Floyd. Steered the right way the band could have been big".
Once the band definitively break, Glen Sweeney bought an houseboat and lived with Carolyn on a river in Kent.
He remembered in 1990: "Well, it took me three years to recover my brain. We bought this old houseboat down in Kent. There was this flood and it got washed up into a field - I didn't have anything to get it back into the water, so we just stayed there - and the council used to come and photograph it every week to see if it had moved".
Carolyn Looker in April 2012: " "We had an idyllic Summer on the boat. Glen was writing poetry, I was painting. Hard work because the mooring wasn't residential we had to collect our water and calor gas about 1/2 mile away. We retired to a friend's flat in the Winter as the river flooded all the time. Infact one huge flood, the Ark, our boat, flooded over into the field and settled there when the floods ended. We lived that way chocked up in the middle of a field for an year. The council complained and at great expense we hired a crane to put us back in the water".
?th – "Experiences" is realised by Harvest Records
The album, sold at a very special price (just £ 1.99!), was launched in the Harvest Heritage's series with a promo poster (with Kevin Ayers' anthology titled "Odd Ditties"): "A superb compilation album performing The Third Ear Band at their best...".
Come back in London with the project to reform the Third Ear Band, Sweeney met Terry Haxton and Gary Heath (probably through a magazine ad), two musicians who had played in some bands not very successful indeed.
A new line-up is built infact during that year around the founder Sweeney and Minns, with Heath on bass and keyboards, Heath on synthesizer and Mick Carter, a musician known in Kent, on guitar. They rehearsed for some weeks at the Swiss Cottage Pub in London. But even if the new TEB have got some enthusiasm again, no contract is available and the band split again.
So in the spring of 1977 I started to go to London, go down to Shepherd's Bush and rehearse with The Third Ear Band once a week to start with. Every Saturday we'd go and rehearse and there were tapes; we recorded them ourselves, they weren't studio tapes but they were well recorded Glen Sweeney apparently played one of these tapes to Pete Drummond the Radio One DJ and he wanted us to do an "In Concert" immediately, for the BBC.
I've got a piece here that says "whilst still at rehearsal stages, members have come and gone, but with only the problem of finding a bass player left, the remaining lineup was settled down finally to Glen Sweeney (percussion), Paul Minns (oboe), Mick Carter (guitar and violin) and ex-Magic Muscle guitarist/vocalist Rod Goodway. Musically things have changed dramatically. The extensive use of stringed instruments has been replaced by more inventive use of conventional rock instrumentation. The new material also lends a more attacking quality (“a type of medieval rock'n'roll” is what Glen Sweeney calls it) - a sharp contrast with the calm floating sound of yore. "I thought it was quite good because it had a lot of eastern tinges to it and that kind of is my dream, eastern-flavoured rock or mantra rock That was definitely what The Third Ear Band were into doing in 1977".
Sadly, and I take the full responsibility, my marriage breakup had caused more of an impact than I'd thought and my liver (you know, with the previous problem I'd had) couldn't take the drinking and stuff that I was involved in, and I had a liver failure. So I'm afraid - what with the liver and a mini nervous breakdown - I couldn't continue with The Third Ear Band and wrote many letters to Glen Sweeney and had many kind letters back. We parted amicably but sadly; I'd work with the guy again any day. Great guy".
The "piece here"... David Ilic article published by NME in 1977. |
The tracks, once again inspired by Tarots, had been composed by Sweeney during the 'houseboat period'.
The Hydrogen Jukebox (L-R: Diprose, Hayes, Carter, Phil Shaw (recording engineer) and Sweeney). |
Jim 'Gipsy' Hayes recording his vocals. |
The album, remixed by Carter, had been 'forgotten' in his own studio file and realised only later, in 1991, by Italian label Materiali Sonori with a new title, "Prophecies".
A cover designed by Glen Sweeney in 1990 for the Hydrogen Jukebox CD edited by Materiali Sonori. |
As journalist Chris Auty ("Programme Note London Film Co-op") writes, "It's a black-and-white record of European cities in the dark (2-5am), from Basle to Belfast. Quiet, and meditative, what ermerges most strongly is an eerie sense of city landscapes as deserted film sets, in which the desolate architecture overwhelms any sense of reality. The only reassurance that we are not in some endless machine-Metropolis is the shadow of daytime activity: a juggernaut plunging through a darkened village, a plague of small birds in the predawn light. The whole thing is underscored by a beautiful 'composed' soundtrack, from quietly humming stretlamps to reggae and the rumble of armoured cars in Belfast. A strange and remarkable combination of dream, documentary and science-fiction".
Watch the intriguing film (about 61 minutes) for free at http://ubu.com/film/klopfenstein_nacht.html
Clemens Klopfenstein. |
Glen Sweeney, Luca Ferrari and Carolyn Looker just that day of July 1987. |
Glen, Luca and Elena (Luca's wife) photographed by Carolyn. |
From this sessions is been realised in 1993 "Necromanticus", a bonus track for the new edition of the CD "Live Ghosts". In the meantime "The Ear Management", a sort of agency witht the aim to organize band's concerts, especially in Italy, is made up. They pressed promotional t-shirts with the TEB concert playbill at Purcell Room in 1970.
The original card of The Ear Management. |
The short tour, so called by Sweeney because the scarce moneys gotten, was organized by The Ear Management (Luca Ferrari) with the enterprising Gigi Bresciani's Music On agency.
Allen Samuel (photo by Elena Blasi). |
TEB on stage at Umbertide: (L-R) Samuel, Carter, Minns and Sweeney (photo by Elena Blasi). Sweeney and Carter playing on stage (photo by Elena Blasi). |
Sweeney protographed by Elena Blasi. |
The late Brian (the tour driverman), Sweeney, Allen and Ferrari relaxing in Umbertide. |
December
Promo ad for the cancelled gig in Genova. |
Flyer for the cancelled DIA Club (Bergamo) concert. |
During November the band had reharsaled at the Cambodian Embassy (read in this Archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/third-ear-band-rehearsaled-at-occupied.html).
Three concerts, once again organized by The Ear Management and Music On agency, have played by a new line-up with, besides Sweeney and Carter, Lyn Dobson (flute and saxes) and Ursula Smith (violin).
11th – Teatro Impavidi (Sarzana, La Spezia)
https://soundcloud.com/mirco-delfino/teb-ge-2 (part one)
https://soundcloud.com/mirco-delfino/teb-ge-1 (parte two)
Sweeney and Carter on stage at Psyco Club (photo by Luca Ferrari). |
March
Enthusiastic reviews: Ugo Bacci on Italian rock magazine "Rockerilla" (July-August issue): “The album is divided into acid sound dissertations, charming and essential, exquisively minimal. They progress in a costant flow which admit “Alchemy” ascendancy; they may be considered the sourest raga in English underground”.
"Live Ghost" is moreover reviewed with exciting tones in France by the well known jazz critic Philippe Renaud ("Revue Notes" n. 34, August) and Sawada in Japan as well ("Marquee" n. 32, July).
June
25th – S. Agostino Choister (Bergamo)
Luca Ferrari shows TEB album "Live Ghosts" inside the fifth edition of "Folk Out", a three days of concerts and various events promote by Gigi Bresciani.
July
Due to her job as a teacher in the school, Ursula couldn't stay in the band. Allen Samuel came back replacing her in the line-up.
That July 2nd, in a sunny morning, first (and last) photo session of the new TEB managed by Materiali Sonori with photographer Lucia Baldini. Read and watch the pictures at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/third-ear-band-last-photo-session-vinci.html
The original postcard realised by Materiali Sonori for the event. |
TEB photographed by Lucia Baldini at Da Vinci's museum. |
The poster printed for the two-days concert. |
Promotional photo of John Porter and Neil Black (on right), circa 1989. |
Carter and Black recording "Magic Music" at the Alchemical Studios (Kent). |
The pre-released review of "Magic" published by "Rockerilla" on November 1989. |
24th - Borgo Castello (Gorizia)
Piero Bielli wrote on the event ("Auditorium" n. 4, 1990): "It's a total music which involves the listener's spirit in order to subdue and lead him in a sort of Nirvana; Glen, old elf with devilish eyes, would enchant the hardest viewer. "The Book of the Dead", another fantastic piece, has ended the gig with an anguish crescendo, so that the frailest minds feel confused as after a peyotl".
The band on stage: (L-R) Dobson, Carter, Sweeney and Black. |
25th - Sala Piatti (Bergamo)
and download the full concert at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2013/06/tebs-1989-concert-at-london-club-dog.html
In another interview of that year (with Brazilian DJ Fabio Massari) he declared that "a music is magic because it doesn't exist, it hasn't a concrete form. So the voice... It's all very subjective, so it's magic".
"Are TEB playing "world music"?" - asked the journalist.
"It's cosmic music! It's music of the universe. It embraces all cultures, we mix all kind of references - Africans, Indians... We play every kind of mixture...".
Aldo Lastella's article published by "La Repubblica" on February 6th, 1990. |
"La Repubblica - Tutto Milano", February 1st, 1990. |
6th – Auditorium Flog (Florence)
TEB with Novalia
That day, just before the gig, Glen Sweeney was invited by Italian avant-garde composer Fabio Capanni (leader of an Italian group called Nazca) to record in a studio in Florence with Amon Duul's founder Chris Karrer. A track, titled "Old Man Kangaroo pt. 2" is recorded. It'll be include later in a Materiali Sonori compilation titled "The Greetings Compact" (read in this archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/12/another-little-gem-for-tebs-aficionados.html).
Luca Ferrari and Lyn Dobson at the piano in a recording studio in Florence (February 6th, 1990).
"The concert"
The programme of the club. |
10th – Teatro Petrella (Longiano, Forlì)
Barry Pilcher, Sweeney's old friend since The Hydrogen Jukebox, replaced Lyn Dobson on the sax. A track from that sessions, titled "Raga of the Wind" is been included by Materiali Sonori ont the CD "Sonora - The compact", given free with magazine "Sonora" (issue 2, 1991): read and download the track at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/11/elektric-third-ear-band-raga-of-wind.html
Another one, "Song of Gaia", will remain unrealised.
A poor poster designed by Sweeney about the project of the Elektric TEB. |
12th - Dog Club (London)
This concert, as the following one, was held by the Elektric TEB with Barry Pilcher on sax.
A postcard from Cappadocia by Paul Minns and his wife Kathryn... |
August
29th - Sant'Anna Arresi (Carbonia - Sardinia)
"Ai confini tra Sardegna e Jazz"
TEB (Mick Carter and Glen Sweeney) with Sardinia Project (Roger Eno).
5th - Naples
Lyn Dobson got back on the TEB line-up replacing Pilcher.
December
28th - Rome
1991 Materiali Sonori promo ad. |
A new Italian mini-tour is organized by Gigi Bresciani's Music on. TEB line-up was Sweeney, Carter, Dobson and Black.
Luca, you're an idealist! |
The last TEB line-up! |
12th - Folk Club "Gli Zanni" (Ranica, Bergamo)
With an audience of about fifty persons (!), at this tiny club it'll be remembered as the last ever TEB concert!
During that year TEB came back in the studio to record a new album, being not satisfied with the results of the year before. Lyn Dobson returned definitely in the band on wind instruments and vocals (for the first time in the TEB history two vocal tracks was recorded!) replacing Barry Pilcher. An instrumental track, recorded with Pilcher ("Song of Gaia") was put aside to remain unrealised.
December
March
Glen in Richmond (London), just after the first heart-attack (March 1994). |
In the book is included, for the first time, a CD with the unrealised music of "Abelard & Heloise" soundtrack.
"The recording quality of original recording of "Abelard and Heloise", wrote me Richard Coff in 2008, "was not great"... It suffer, too, from poor production (mix and editing) and, because they are not in multi-track format, there is little or nothing that can be done to mine any musical gold that may be hidden with. The transfer to the master you made appears to be as good as can be expected".
Paul Minns rehearsing at the Cambodian Embassy (London, Summer 1988). |
Another portrait of the great Paul in 1988 (photo: Carolyn Looker). |
Titled "The Dragon Wakes", the album was compiled with unrealised studio and radio tracks from Luca's private archive.
Read a reconstruction of the story of this project - never realised - at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-october-2000-just-after-paul-minns.html
The beautiful painting made by Carolyn Looker. |
2005
17th - The Royal Star & Garter Home (London)
"(...) It was a beautiful ceremony rather than a conventional funeral, Steve Pank read from the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" and tracks from "Alchemy" were played, incense was burning, Glen was in a raffia coffin with sunflowers on top. Everyone said what a wonderful experience it was and some were reminded of being at an early Third Ear Band concert. I'm sure Glen would have approved" (from a postcard sent by Carolyn Looker to Luca Ferrari on September 3rd, 2005).
A tribute to Glen Sweeney written by Steve Pank (December 2005). |
Glen drinking wine just before the Umbertide concert, on September 9th, 1988 (photo by Elena Blasi). |
2009
November
13th - Guitarist Mike Marchant passed away.
Read in this archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2010/01/mike-marchant-rip.html
English Gonzo Multimedia realised a TEB DVD titled "The Lost Broadcasts" with TV video from 1970 (German programme "Beat Club").
Read a review in this archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2011/11/lost-broadcasts-dvd-review.html
September
http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2012/09/at-last-heres-wonderful-tremendous-1970.html
http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2012/09/teb-french-broadcast-unseen-cuts.html
Read at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2013/12/bad-news-for-christmas-mel-davis.html
The funeral lament played by musicians friend of Davis. |
Obscure cellist TEB's founder Brian Meredith (here on a picture taken in 2012) emerged from the Web writing to this Archive!
Read at: http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2013/12/finally-also-first-teb-cellist-brian.html
The first part of a planned two-parts exclusive interview is pubblished in this Archive here
Original TEB guitarist Denim Bridges talks about it here
Barry Pilcher (old Glen Sweeney's friend)... lost & found! Read a report at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2015/05/lost-found-news-about-barry-pilcher.html
English Gonzo Multimedia published "Necromancers of the Drifting West", a brand new Third Ear Band CD with "Rare gems from the Vaults". The record was edited by Luca Ferrari who wrote the booklet with all the story of these rare tracks. Read a brief articles at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2015/04/first-of-two-new-third-ear-bands-cds.html and some reviews HERE.
June
Luca Ferrari, editor of this Archive, published for Gonzo Multimedia a biography on English jazz pianist Mike Taylor, with memories of Dave Tomlin and Steve Pank who played and knew him in the Sixties.
September
English Gonzo Multimedia published "New Forecasts from the Third Ear Almanac", the official reissue of the old rare live cassette recorded in Sarzana in January 1989. The record was edited by Luca Ferrari who wrote the booklet with the story of these concert.
Original TEB pins produced by The Ear Management in the '80's (sold out). |
no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)
(last updated August 2024)
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