In August 1969 "Beat Instrumental on "Alchemy" with a veiled irony...

In August 1969, clearly out of time, "Beat Instrumental" devoted a blurb to "Alchemy", which had come out two months earlier. It's four shrill words that echo, with veiled irony ("seeking the fifth dimension"...), the notes written by Glen on the inside cover. But at the end they recognized, goodness gracious them, that "they aren't a bad band at all."

 

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The Ferlaina Archive and the extraordinary discovery of unrealised TEB photos at Hyde Park! - part three.

This is the third part of the story... 

(first part here, second part here).

 

3.

"So I engage in the sale of photographs, especially from the 1970s - things like Living Teathre... - and art books and catalogs. At home I have particular books, for example on Conceptual Art.... which I have 'fed' on over the years, but they didn't sell much, it was almost like an exchange of stickers between enthusiasts ... but the photos, those did sell well. I used to buy them on eBay, for example, for 50-60 euros and resell them for 100, you didn't have a huge margin but it worked..."

 

Ferlaina during the interview.

At some point Ferlaina had the intuition to broaden the commercial discourse to music, his great passion, and began to frequent antique markets as a buyer, finding very interesting material without worrying about copyrights and agencies. One day he happened to go there early in the morning, at five o'clock, and came across a stall with boxes...

"I asked the people selling them if they would give me first refusal to see them before the others.... 'How many are you selling them for,' I asked him? 'Five euros each, but if you get some I'll make even less. I selected an initial bundle and went home in seventh heaven. I saw that the name of an agency was printed behind the photos and, not knowing anything about it, I inquired, worried about the possible legal consequences (embezzlement...). I found out that the agency no longer existed--but who was the photographer? I would have liked to involve him in some initiative, like organizing an exhibition. At that time I had organized an exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni of Novegro (Milan), on "Photography and otherness", and I had become interested in the work of an Italian stage photographer, Franco Cattarinich, a great master of technique."

Ferlaina meets the photographer and discovers that the latter, having started his own agency in 1980, has a basement full of old photos purchased from other photographers that he never marketed. Ferlaina asks to see something and makes an offer, but hesitates. He insists, peeks through the envelopes at the words "Rolling Stones London," and decides to offer a cash sum. He ticks it off. It's the beginning of a long negotiation that will lead him to acquire as many as 21 boxes of photos and negatives totaling thousands of pieces (as of today still to be cataloged).

 

Ferlaina Archive in Milan.

As he began to delve into what he had purchased, he came across the nearly 150 shots of the Stones' Hyde Park concert. But who is the photographer? - I asked him. "On the photo envelopes was this name, Callá," he says. "I did some research and found out that he was the director of "Colpo Grosso" ["Big Shot", a trivial broadcast of the 1970s, ed.] and "Disco Ring" [a music broadcast of the same era, ed.] Pino Callà, a RAI director who has been living in New York for years. In the late 1960s he was a freelance in London. Now he lives in Milan." 

In fact a Callà's Wikipedia page does exist here as a Facebook's one here. 

 

(end of part three - to be continued)

A group of Hell's Angels.

 

 

 

 

The audience.

The Third Ear Band playing on stage.

Paul Minns with Paul Buckmaster on stage.

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Glen Sweeney and Richard Coff talk about TEB's music to "Beat Instrumental" in 1969.

Here's another little archive tidbit, this time a short article about the band in which Sweeney and Coff talk about the music. The monthly magazine 'Beat Instrumental' published it in September 1969, a few months after the release of 'Alchemy' and with the four-man line-up with Coff and Ursula Smith. Few words but interesting...

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The "underground" movement according "Disc & Music Echo" and John Peel in 1968.

On November 2nd, 1968 a five-pages article about the "underground music" edited by Hugh Nolan was published by "Disc & Music Echo" with a short profile of the Third Ear Band by legendary DJ John Peel. Title: "Underground  - not so much pop music more a way of life".

Peel writes: "Another I've not heard yet. I must rectify this as such authorities as Pete Drummond speak well of them."

A little-known fact is that Drummond was a great friend of Glen and Carolyn since the beginning, so much so that to this day he still uses to have a lunch or take a walk around London with Carolyn... 

 

 

 

 no©2022 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

The Ferlaina Archive and unpublished photos of the Third Ear Band in Hyde Park 1969 free concert - part two.

Here is the second part of the extraordinary accidental discovery (read the first part here).

2.

On 1st June I took the train and went to meet in Milan, Lambrate area. There, a stone's throw from the station, is the photographic archive where many treasures unknown to most are kept. So many photos that tell the story of 20th century Italian culture through the world of entertainment, especially live concerts and television appearances. Portraits of Italian cultural personalities such as Pasolini or Moravia, singers such as Modugno or Dalla, directors such as Fellini... mostly unpublished or rarely circulated shots (which may have appeared in a magazine or newspaper article).  

Giuseppe Ferlaina (June 1st, 2022).

Giuseppe Ferlaina himself turned out to be a character with an important story to tell, strong passions (Erik Satie), great ambitions (writing, between art and philosophy). Speaking of "Vexations", Satie's composition-paradox, he says, for example: "Even today Satie is an undefeated master, because he dilutes the music, at a certain point you don't hear it any more, entering the mechanism of compositional praxis... you don't hear it any more, he liquefies it, which with "4'33"" Cage evokes it, he only represents it. Satie doesn't make a representation... No one else succeeded in obviating the work like Satie... All the avant-garde, the happenings, Fluxus, where do they come from? They come from there, an absolute master!" 

Born in Naples in 1970, after graduating, he first moved to Milan in 1989, only to return almost immediately to Naples, working in a photography studio as a fashion assistant. In '94 he returned to Milan again and worked for a few agencies doing simple auditions, but was dissatisfied because he had an idea for more creative work and returned to Naples again, before finally moving to Milan in 1997. At that point, 'disappointed with the economic results achieved', he went to work as an agent for the prestigious Treccani publishing house; then as commercial director for Vallecchi. Marriage and the birth of two children forced him 'to put his head down' and accept a more coventional job as an employee in a cooperative. "In the meantime, I still continued to study, particularly philosophy of art... I had to, like it was medicine..."

Once this experience was over, he took up photography again and came up with the idea of the archive, opened around 2012. "I was already buying photographs, I was interested in the 1970s, in artistic research. Everything was born out of love for art, despite the fact that I had graduated without practically opening a book..."

(end of part two - to be continued)

 

Mick Jagger in Hyde Park, July 1969.

Jagger reading the poem for Brian Jones.

 no©2022 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first.