Found lot of never seen ads about the Band!

After many years of absolute nothing, thanx the Net sometimes we find never seen before stuff about the TEB.

So, after the recent found of 5 unrealised photos by Ray Stevenson and the promo ads about TEB gig at the 1973 second edition of the Windsor Free Festival, here below you can see other extraordinary things related to the glorious past of Glen Sweeney and C.: handbill concert of the Giant Sun Trolley, TEB gigs ads, Blackhill Enterprises press releases...

Of course, all of this will be included in the chronological file at  http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2010/07/a-teb-day-by-day-chronology-1966-1971.html and http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2016/06/a-teb-day-by-day-chronology-1972-2016.html

 Teathre Royal concert handbill (July 2nd, 1967) with last appearance of Dave Tomlin and the Giant Sun Trolley.

 

Isle of Wight Festival celebration 1970-1990.

OZ Magazine #22 with David Loxley snakes.

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

Dave Tomlin's forthcoming new book!

Dave Tomlin's new book will be distribuited on June 9th, 2017 by Strange Attractor (http://strangeattractor.co.uk/), an interesting English publisher. It will be a reprint of the complete "Tales from the Embassy" that he published privately in three different editions (in 2002, 2006 and 2008).

On the back cover of this brand new edition you can read:

"One night in 1976, a group of squatters entered the Cambodian Embassy in London, an opulent building that had remained empty for two years following the bloody revolution of the Khmer Rouge. For the next fifteen years, this peculiar residence would play host to the Guild of Transcultural Studies, an open platform for creative monomaniacs, radical metaphysicians, poets, prophets and exiles.

Dave Tomlin, founder of the Guild, member of the experimental music ensemble Third Ear Band, and contributor to the legendary underground newspaper International Times, traces a playful, semi-fictionalised, and highly readable path through this long occupation, illustrating the unfettered nature of its many occupants while providing a vivid portrayal of a more leisured age in which eccentricity could flourish more readily.
These humorous, insightful, and deftly crafted vignettes boast a thinly disguised cast of provocateurs, many of them celebrated in their own right, including pursuer of earth mysteries John Michell, beat poet Harry Fainlight, playwright of The Warp Neil Oram, the surrealist playwright and performer Ken Campbell, heretical biologist Rupert Sheldrake, countercultural photographer and journalist John “Hoppy” Hopkins, and Sir Mark Palmer, aristocratturned-gypsy-traveller and male-model impresario."

Three excerpts from the old books with references to Glen and the Third Ear Band  are available on this Archive at: 

http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2010/03/first-part-of-excerpts-from-tale-from.html 

http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2010/03/second-part-of-excerpts-of-tales-from.html
http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2010/03/third-and-last-part-of-excerpts-from.html

Dave talks about his experiences at the Embassy on this Soundcloud page:  https://soundcloud.com/oliviadocmaker/tales-from-the-embassy

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

Nick Drake and the Third Ear Band at Cousins: strange cross of destiny!

The place, the legendary Les Cousins Club at London Greek Street, 42. The date: April, 4th (or 11th) 1970.

That evening (7:30-11:00 pm) Nick Drake supported the Third Ear Band... such a strange and unique cross of destiny!

Unfortunately, apart these little paper cut, most likely from "Melody Maker" (thanx Mirco!), no memories/pictures/recordings of the event seem to be available. 
Authoritative sources as the recent wonderful book edited by Nick's sister with an extensive list of concerts ("Remembered for a while",Little Brown & C, 2014) or the best biography ever published ("Nick Drake. The biography" by Patrick Humphries, Bloomsbury 1997) have no detailed infos about the gig. Also Glen and Paul in the '80's remembered nothing about (having

wrote through the years books on Syd Barrett and Nick Drake, of course I asked them some memories about those my heroes...). Asking Carolyn Looker few days ago, she replied: "Glen's gig at Cousins was with Davey Graham, I cannot remember Nick Drake..."

Maybe someone in the Net could remember something more...

Les Cousins today

So we can only conjecture about the right date of the gig with the reference around. For example: on "Dreaming England" (Reaktion Books,London 2013) biographer Natham Wiseman-Trowse compiles a list of Drake's gigs reporting on the 1970 section: "Nick plays a regular Sunday night spot at Les Cousins in Soho - He is known to have played at least three shows supporting the Third Ear Band, John Martyn and John James..." (page 138)
A site devoted to Drake (http://www.tannforsen.com/nickdrake/biography.asp?intId=20) states Drake supported TEB in "Spring 1970", and in the same period he played at Cousins with Martyn and James.

On a  John Martyn Web site (https://www.johnmartyn.info/node/989#1970) we can know he and Drake played at Cousins on April 18th, 1970. 
From the official John James Web site (http://www.johnjamesguitarist.com/) we read he played with Drake two times - on November 15th, 1969 and in August 1970... 
Asking him he replied: "Ciao Luca. Thank you for your message. I lived in London in the late 1960’s, and played many concerts and knew a lot of people, but not everybody!
The musicians of the Third Ear Band - I do not remember meeting them. I remember seeing the band name playing around London. But I do not remember sharing a concert with them. It is great to hear that the 3rd Ear had a reunion... I wish I could have a reunion with many musician friends...John Martyn, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn etc etc but they have all gone!!!
In fact even Andy Matheou (Matthews) who ran the Les Cousins club is dead now. I think Diana, Andy’s wife still has the original diaries.
You mention Nick Drake of course Nick died a long time ago. I will look up your blogspot:it is funny that you should write about this time, London 1960’s, because I just had a message that BGO Records are reissuing 4 of my albums,Transatlantic Records from this same time. So grazi mille, Luca, for your message, sorry I cannot help you more.
Keep in touch
Ciao
John James"

The door of Les Cousins

From the Third Ear Band chronology page of this Archive (read here), based mainly on Paul Minns' journal and lot of other sources, we know in April 1970 the band was working on the recording of "Third Ear Band" and from the 20th it was on tour in Europe (France, Holland, Germany); so possible dates could be the 4th or the 11th of April... but who can tells?!

A last curiosity about this quite surprising correlation is that on the "Melody Maker" issue of July 29th, 1969 printed in the same page there was the reviews of Drake's "Five Leaves Left" and TEB's "Alchemy", "a demanding mixture of Eastern and European influences"...

Can you image an encounter more intriguing than this? 

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

Glen Sweeney's "Alchemy" manifesto on a 1971 Alchemical Almanac!

This ad was published on a 1971 catalogue from a London 'head' business called 'Alchemical' - title: "The Alchemical Almanac & Handbook of Herbal Highs".

It's the old manifesto Glen Sweeney wrote probably at the beginning of 1969 for the press, then used for the cover of "Alchemy".

The interesting fact is that the same text was included years after in this "Alchemical Almanac", even if in a shorter form. Note the reprise of the Sun and Moon elements taken from the TEB album back cover...

Source:  http://jot101.com/what-is-a-jot/

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

TEB special on Italian rock magazine: old bad habits on a new magazine...

Monthly magazine "Classic Rock" (issue 54) published this month two new articles about the TEB, one on their story with references to the Sixties/Seventies popular music aesthetics and the first albums; one on the relation between their music and scores ("Abelard & Heloise" and "Macbeth" soundtracks).

Full of many little factual historiographic errors, the first piece (simply titled "Third Ear Band") written by Marco Braggion is a patchy and omitting excursus through the TEB first phase story, with references to musicians and records of that time, but with very bold time gaps   (i.e.: the journalist states that  "If man but knew" by Habibiyya, published in 1972, was a clear reference for many groups of the time, one of the first example of "world music"...!) and arguable point of views. 

Ignoring the extraordinary tracks of the National Balkan Ensemble (now available on Gonzo's "Necromancers of the Drifting West"), recorded in late 1968/beginning '69, just at the end of the piece he dismisses the last artistic period of the band (1988-1992) with this shallow and debatable way: "After these outputs ["Abelard & Heloise" and "Macbeth" soundtracks], the band splits [sic!], but it will come back in '90's [sic!] with some albums that travel on more predictable tracks - pieces alterning verse and chorus and an use of the voice codified on a suspended Rock music between that psychedelic mood of the beginning and some electronic New Age scent.", showing that he evidently never listened to the live works "Live Ghosts" (1989) and "New Forecasts from the Third Ear Almanac" (1989), and more recent Gonzo's live CDs. 

Again, no discography, no references to this Archive, nor a mention to my book published in 1999, before that (at least) in Italy all the journalists was repeating the same old abused commonplaces about the band. (Now it's easy, you know, one journalist goes in Internet and can cut & paste everything from this Archive using that as he was the real author of it...).

Great Italian music journalism!

Better the second piece written by  (old) good journalist Giandomenico Curi titled "Visions and soundtracks", where he analyze the soundtracks TEB recorded for "Abelard" (German TV 1971) and "Macbeth" by Polanski with some interesting  sparks about the relation between visions and music in the TEB experience.

Anyway, here below you can read (just in Italian, sorry!) the complete special (given to me by friend Mirco Delfino of the TEB Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/third.ear.band/) and form your own opinion...

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

TEB at 1973 Windsor Free Festival.

Related to an obscure period in TEB's story, I've found on line this references to their appearance at the second edition of Windsor Free Festival, played from August 25th to 28th, 1973 in West London at Windsor Great Park. Probably one of the last of their first artistic phase.

Here's some stuff for the promotion of the festival:

 

One could ask how a group as TEB could be on the same bill with Hawkwind (the stars of that edition), Pink Faires, Skin Alley, Camel... but we know at that time, after the attempt to record "The Dragon Wakes" and the  recordings of "Macbeth", the band was trying to develop a new form of "electric raga rock".

A photo by Dave Walking with the Hawkwind on stage: (L-R) Michael Moorcock, Robert Calvert, Simon King and Lemmy.

The very good portal of UK festivals at the page about the Windsor Free festival editions (http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/windsor-menu.html) shows memories and pictures about the event, even if nothing about the TEB.

Any memories by Ghettoraga readers will be well accepted!

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)    

Found four never seen before pictures of the TEB!

These below are four never seen before shots of the band taken by Ray Stevenson - two at the London Kensal Green cemetery, where there was one of the first photo sessions for the "Alchemy"'s cover, and two on stage at the Isle of Wight festival (August 1969).

Now these b/w pictures are on sale at Rex Web site (go here).

 

As we know (read on this Archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2010/01/teb-first-photo-session-by-ray_30.html), also Carolyn Looker (Glen's missus) was involved at the Kensal Green session: you can see her arm just behind the tomb...!
Other pictures of the band at the Isle of Wight festival was taken by Barry Plummer (read here), Derek Halsall and Karen Francis (read here).

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

TEB at the London Roundhouse, May 30th, 1969

"Hi Ghettoraga,

I'm making a film about Eel Pie Island and would like to include a photo of TEB outside Roundhouse. Any idea who took it? It looks like a publicity shot so perhaps their record company? See more at www.eelpieislandmusic.com/film 

Regards, 

Cheryl Robson"

 

"Hi Cheryl,
nice to hear you're involved with this great project...
The old photo with the band beyond the Roundhouse was probably taken by someone in Blackhill Enterprises agency staff, because it was taken just after the first Harvest artists showcase on May 30th, 1969 (two shots of the band on stage are on sale at Repfoto site - https://www.repfoto.com/index.php6).
The original photo was published officially for the first time on EMI-Harvest 5CDs-Book anthology "Harvest Festival" published in 1999, so you could ask them.
On the same book you can find also photos of Michael Chapman and the Edgar Broughton Band taken in the same occasion.
That's all I can tell you.
Please, let me know if you will use the TEB photo for your project because I will promote it through Ghettoraga Archive.
Best wishes,
Luca Chino Ferrari".

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)