Mick Taylor reviewed TEB's Alchemy on Melody Maker.

 

On the monthly "The History Of Rock" ("Uncut" publication) of September 22, 2016 devoted to 1969, retrieving an old issue of MELODY MAKER (July-September 1969) documents a review by Mick Taylor, guitarist for the Stones who had recently replaced Brian Jones, in which he comments on "Alchemy." The column was the well-known “Blind Date” in which musicians were subjected to 'blind' listening...

Needless to say, even in that 1969 the ears of most rock musicians were not ready for the music of the Third Ear Band. What about today?

 no©2024 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Dave Tomlin, a giant of British counterculture.

From the video interview "Radical Elders" (2019).

Multi-instrumentalist, lyricist, writer and poet, David John Tomlin (1934-2024) was a seminal figure of the British underground. A founder of Giant Sun Trolley with Glen Sweeney in 1967, a collaborator with the Third Ear Band on “Alchemy” (1969), he was a cultural and political agitator since the second half of the 1960s, after a militancy in trad jazz from the late 1950s with Bob Wallis' band. From 1976 to 1991 he directed a commune experience in the occupied Cambodian Embassy in London, rejuvenating the countercultural model of the legendary London Free University of the 60s (from where Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, for example, became known). 

Dave Tomlin (right) with Joe Gannon (left) announcing the Notting Hill Carnival, 1966.

From the early 1990s he began a prolific writing activity, mainly in the online pages of the reborn International Times (read here), publishing several books of an autobiographical nature (e.g., on his experiences in India or chronicling his years at the occupied embassy), poetic, non-fiction with strong political and social characterization (such as the essay "Power Lines").

He acquainted me with the dramatic story of Mike Taylor, helping me with research (with his brother Tony) and the writing of his biography, with suggestions and revision of the text. In 2020 he collaborated on the book I wrote about Glen and the Third Ear Band by sending his memories and giving me this unpublished poem of his from 1967, I decided to use as the epigraph of the book:

"The Giant Sun Trolley is coming

League transversing it globally encircuits

Beneath the eversun  

Where lances of pain

Become rays of warmth

Emanating mindwards and on

Till, reaching the epiphany

Of space and time 

Flash in ozonic  splendour

For Cosmic Man."

A true giant of the British counterculture and underground. Intelligent, sharp, witty, always on the right side of those who claim, especially today, the right to a better world.

From the video interview "Radical Elders" (2019).

 

Since very little can be found about him on the internet, I repost here, updated, Dave's bibliography and discography already posted on this archive, willing to supplement or modify it if suggestions are received from you readers.

 

DISCOGRAPHY

. Mike Taylor Quartet – “Pendulum” (LP - Columbia SX6042, UK 1965) Recorded at Lansdowne Studios, London, October 1965. Dave plays soprano saxophone. A 2007 CD reissue by Sunbeam Records also exist, but now very rare.

. Third Ear Band – “Alchemy” (LP/CD – Harvest Records, UK 1969) Recorded at EMI Studios in 1969. Dave plays violin in one track composed by him, “Lark Rise”.

. Hazchem - "Strange Attractor" (CD – Worldwide Records SPM-WWR-CD-0011 7703, 1990) Dave plays violin, keyboards and bass on three tracks, co-composing six tracks of the album and all the lyrics.

. High Tide – “Ancient Gates” (CD - World Wide Records SPM-WWR-CD-0007, Germany 1990) Dave plays violin and keyboard on all the six album tracks.

. Hazchem – “Star Map Excursion” (CD - World Wide Records, Germany 1991) Dave composed two tracks for the album.

. Third Ear Band – “The Magus” (CD – Angel Air Records SJPCD173, UK 2004) Recorded in 1972. Dave plays bass guitar. He writes also the liner notes. A limited edition of 500 copies of 180 gr. vinyl was published in 2019 by Tiger Bay.

 . The Bob Wallis & His New Storyville Jazzmen - (CD – GHB BCD-262, 2006) Dave plays clarinet on three tracks recorded in London, 1959.

 . The Bob Wallis & His New Storyville Jazzmen - "Vintage" (CD – Lake Records LACD280, 2010) Dave plays clarinet on some tracks recorded in London, in the Fifties.

 . Various Artists – “Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers and Free Fusioneers: British Jazz 1960-1975” (CD – Reel Recordings RR026, UK 2012) Dave plays tenor saxophone on one track, “Phrygie”, recorded at Herne Bay Jazz Club in 1961 by the Mike Taylor Quintet.

. Mike Taylor Quartet – “Mandala” (CD/LP – Jazz in Britan, UK 2021) Limited to 500 copies worldwide. Recorded live by Jon Hiseman on 8th January 1965 at the Studio Club, Westcliff-On-Sea, Southend (UK). Dave plays soprano saxophone.

. Mike Taylor Quartet – “Preparation” (CD/LP – Sunbeam Records, UK 2021) Recorded at 19 The Common, Ealing (Mike Taylor’s home) in September 1965. Dave plays soprano saxophone.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Tales from the Embassy" vol. 1 (Iconoclast Press, London 2002)

"Bluebirds" (Iconoclast Press, London 2004)

"Howling at the Moon" (Iconoclast Press, London 2004)

"India Song" (Iconoclast Press, London 2005)

"Tales from the Embassy" vol. 2 (Iconoclast Press, London 2006)

"The Collected Mister" (Iconoclast Press, London 2006)

"Into the Holy Land" (Iconoclast Press, London 2007) with Tony Jackson

"Tales from the Embassy" vol. 3 (Iconoclast Press, London 2008)

"A Hole in the Wind" (Iconoclast Press, London 2008)

"Harry Fainlight. From the notebooks. Posthumous pieces" (Iconoclast Press, London 2008) 

"Harry Fainlight. Fragments of a lost voice" (Iconoclast Press, London 2008) 

"Power Lines" (Iconoclast Press, UK 2012)

Dave in 1967.

no©2024 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

A 1970 Third Ear Band's unrealised live recording found in Germany!

Dear TEB aficionados, lovers of fine antiques, 

I was contacted a few days ago by Made In Germany (M.I.G. Music), a German label specializing in reissues and discoveries of 60s and 70s albums and recordings (http://www.mig-music.de/en/), to collaborate in the production of an extraordinary new live album by the Third Ear Band!

As announced months ago (read HERE), this is a recording of the performance that the band (in the quartet line-up: Sweeney, Minns, Smith and Coff) played on April 24, 1970 at the Essen festival, recorded and broadcasted by German radio. I am working  to analyze the seven tracks, partly taken from "Alchemy", partly from the upcoming "Elements" album, with some brilliant surprises.

An extraordinary new chapter in the band's history is therefore expected in the coming months. I am sure that it will amaze and captivate you as in the past. 

Keep in touch!

no©2024 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

"How I got the third ear". Memories from Finland.

TEB fan Mauri Kankaanpää gives us some memories closely related to the Third Ear Band...

"1st of December 1973 was a remarkable day for a 17 years young man. On that day, exactly 50 years ago,  the mailman gave me a ticket to pick a box of records from the local post office. I can’t remember the content of the box as wholly, or if there even was more than one LP, but that very one is still in my shelf, from the band I got into in previous summer. 

 

Easy to guess the name of the band. The LP I bought first was the one known as Elements. It really changed my musical world. At that time, I was also interested in esoteric things, theosophy etc. so the music fitted to my taste like glove in the hand. How did I find this world? First step was taken on a Fool’s day the previous year. I was able to visit our capital Helsinki and a large record shop there. I had saved lots of money to buy three records, one of them was Pink Floyd’s "Meddle" (I still have the copy). 

 

 

The record itself was extremely important to my music taste which was turning to progressive rock, but also the inner bag, ”the Harvest shopping list”. Following summer I bought Roy Harper’s "Flat Baroque and Berserk," starting my long lasting fandom to him and a week later my first Third Ear Band record, "Elements" - just by the name of the band, the cover of the LP and the typography on it. So it’s 51 years and 4 months now when I gave Glen & C. my other ear lobe, after which they took the whole ear, then the second on the other side of my head and finally they gave me a third one to start hearing.
Back to the date mentioned in the beginning. The album was "Alchemy". More of the magical music, thank you very much. 

One thing where vinyl beats cd is the cover size. Of course, vinyls need space if you have a lot of them, but the information and the emotional aspect of handling the cover, it’s almost like shaking hands with the artist. You get closer to them. 

 
So, I was 17, and I was living in Western Finland in the middle of an agrarian flat, known earlier as the bottom of the sea which now, after the ice age, is rising 5 mm in a year. Pop music was extremely rare on the radio. There were two channels, one for serious music and things like that, the other was for common people, almost funny ones. But please remember that people between 12-20 didn’t really exist for radio management, it was still in the ice age. And then there were minorities with their occult hobbies.

Again, I was handling the cover you know now. Turning it front and back, open and close, reading the text as much as my English did bend to it, more or less hypnotized from the music. Then there was the photo, with a monument where the players were hiding or just stepping out. Oh how far they are! Wish could visit that place! For a 17 years old person such a thing was like a flight to the moon. England is so far, three times around the world and only rich people here could afford to fly - and then they go to Mallorca... And if I ever get to England I surely will get lost. And where is that monument, if it is a grave there must be a graveyard, or thousands of them! Not for me! A desperate case.

But the years will roll. Inevitably. We are in 2019 in this story, now. Thanks to the internet and Wikipedia, sources and sites I found the name of the graveyard and got the name of the monument. I had found England earlier and the City of London in it, too.
London is an interesting town with all the layers the history had left there. I was travelling with my now ex-lady and had spent a couple of days in the town enjoying its arts and taps. After leaving the town, the metro rattled in a narrow gap through sleepy suburbs like in some Ghibli movies. Old dirty cables were hanging on the sides like lianas in the jungle. The car was almost empty. Now I was sure it will happen. 

 

Kensal Green cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London (I've seen two of them now). And what a relief, the grave was quite easy to find, thanks to the officer of the cemetery and the map she gave. The very moon of this story is the grave of Charles Spencer Ricketts (1788–1867). 

We landed at the cemetery on the 16th of September, at last. I felt excited when starting to walk the paths of the place. And finally, there it was!

 

 

The grave was smaller than I expected but it stood out of the area in its pale colour and strong decorations. Looked like it was ready to take a walk. Unfortunately I forgot to say something immortal like... “this is one small step for mankind but one giant leap for man”, but just something like “siälä se on!” (there it is! in Finnish) directed to my partner. 

However, it was unbelievable that it had been waiting for me all this time!"

 

Mauri Kankaanpää

 

Other stuff in this archive about the Kensal Green cemetery:

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2017/06/ray-stevensons-memories-on-kensal-green.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/01/teb-first-photo-session-by-ray_30.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2017/08/original-contacts-from-first-1969-teb.html
 

no©2023 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Two old reviews of "Alchemy" found in the local press...

Not only music magazines, but also local newspapers have devoted space to the Third Ear Band. Here you can read two reviews of "Alchemy" from "Lincolnshire Record" (21 July 1969) and "Evening Post" (20 September 1969)  on which we can ascertain the band's golden moment and the media's consideration of it as one of the most interesting expressions of 'new wave' at the time. "Evening Post"'s journalist James Belsey wrote, "The music is sort of gentle, rather whimsey. I'm a bit lost in this one, truly. Try Area Three or Ghetto Raga and you may find something I can't."

no©2023 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

"Alchemy" in Padua...

A few weeks ago, while on vacation in some beautiful northern Italian cities, in Padua, I came across the window of a historic record store, GABBIA DISCHI, established in 1920. 

You can imagine my surprise to see that among the records in the window was also displayed prominently the recent vinyl edition of "Alchemy," released by Esoteric Recordings.

This was an unexpected event, also because record stores are becoming increasingly rare, unfortunately...

 

no©2023 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

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."

 

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

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...

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

Chris Welch reviewed "Alchemy" in July 1969.

The day CHRIS WELCH ("Melody Maker") reviewed "Alchemy" on the issue of July 26th, 1969, other records was the wonderful Fairport Convention's "Unhalfbricking" (Island Records), Tyrannosaurus Rex's "King of the Rumbling Spires" (Regal Zonophone) and Nick Drake's masterpiece "Five Leaves Left" (Island Records). 

With his usual ironic register, that Glen loved too much, Welch writes about the mystical power of TEB's music - "simply strip to the waist on one's Earls Court pad, daub on cocoa, drop "Alchemy" on the turntable, and bingo! - one is immediatly in touch with the Spirit beings."

 

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

Paul Revere's lead vocals MARL LINDASY talks about "Mosaic".

Dear TEB aficionados, here below you can read an old "Blind Date" extract from Melody Maker published on June 21th, 1969. 

Provoked by listening some tracks blindly, Paul Revere & the Raiders' co-founder and lead vocals Mark Lindsay talks about TEB's "Mosaic", just recorded for "Alchemy".

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

The TEB... just a relic of the past?

In the Italian music magazine "Buscadero" last issue (# 442 September 2021), Andrea Trevaini reviewed the TEB's box with very positive words about the music and the band, but with some arguable statements about the actuality of their project (also totally ignoring the last part of their story in Italy...).

Here's a brief excerpt from the review:

"(...) these records are inextricably linked to a bygone era, so to appreciate them you really need to tune into the waves of a now-dissolved Hippy era. To understand this, it is enough to read some of the titles of the tracks of their first album Alchemy. (...) to find yourself immersed in a world where they seemed to be within reach of the counterculture: Indian music, Celtic religion, the cult of the dead from the Egyptian Pharaonic era, the phantasmagorical Chinese symbolism."

Are we sure their idea of music was simply rooted in that (hippy?) age and now is just a relic of the past? Maybe Bach is just an expression of 1600? Or Bartok is an old artefact of 1900?

As I wrote in my last book on the band, I think that just a superficial approach to the TEB's music and themes can suggest such childish prejudice: "Alchemy" can be seen as a clear transposition of the Book of the Dead for contemporary souls (life and death, ethics, religion, human spiritual aim...) and the Elements album is a dramatically pure chant for a planet going dead...

 

 no©2021 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first).

Dave Thompson's review of "Mosaics" on "Goldmine".

 

Contributing editor at "Goldmine" and "Spin Cycle" vinyl column, a much published author (he co-wrote recent (and upcoming) autobiographies by Eddie and Brian Holland, New York Doll Sylvain Sylvain and Walter Lure of Johnny Thunder’s Heartbreaker), DAVE THOMPSON writes this good review on "GOLDMINE - The Music Collector's Magazine" web site.

 

"If you don’t know the Third Ear Band, stop reading and look them up on Youtube. We’ll see you back here in about thirty minutes.If, on the other hand, you do know their music… and have been waiting for a CD package that comes close to the quality of your original vinyl… this is what you’ve been looking for.

Effectively, Mosaics is a slimmed down version of the deluxe editions that appeared a few years back; it contains just the three basic albums (1969’s Alchemy, 1970’s Third Ear Band and 1972’s Music from MacBeth), without any of the bonus material, BBC sessions and out-takes, that accompanied them the last time around.

It’s a fascinating journey regardless; the first two albums in particular hang so far outside anything remotely approaching even the underground mainstream of the era that the most common description for them is “challenging.”

Nevertheless, the band’s haunting oboe/cello/violin/hand drum-led improv (more-or-less) transports you to places best described as the ultimate destination for everything that was happening musically at the end of the sixties. Flavoured with a vision that refuses point-blank to sit comfortably among your expectations."

 

(original page here)

 no©2021 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first).

"Stone Circle" in a new collection dedicated to "the undeground sounds of 1969".

 

This is the cover of a new 3CDs collection produced by Esoteric Recordings about the "underground sounds of 1969". Third Ear Band is included with "Stone Circle", taken from "Alchemy". The project is edited by Mark Powell.

You can get a copy of it at £19.99 HERE.

 

Here's the press release:

"Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the next release in their series of compilations celebrating the so-called “underground” rock music – “Banquet – Underground Sounds of 1969”, is a 3CD clamshell boxed set which gathers together nearly four hours of music from 1969, a year that saw a huge progression in both musically and socially. It was a fine year for creativity in British album-based rock, embraced by the emerging counter-culture. Musical stylistic influences such as psychedelia jazz, blues, hard rock, folk and even classical music melded, all of which championed by “underground” figures of the day such as DJ John Peel on his BBC Radio One show Top Gear and by publications such as International Times and Oz.

The common thread among all of these artists was an emphasis on experimentation and a desire to push the perceived boundaries of popular music. It was also a year that would see the birth of “progressive” record labels such as EMI’s Harvest and Phillips Records’ Vertigo imprints, both aiming to mimic the success that independent labels such as Island Records had achieved and it was the year when the “sampler” compilation albums such as “You Can All Join In”, “Nice Enough to Eat”, “Gutbucket”, “Son of Gutbucket” and “Wowie Zowie! – The World of Progressive Music” left a lasting impression on the album buying audience.

1969 also saw bands that would go on to achieve success and influence in the 1970s such as Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Barclay James Harvest, Edgar Broughton Band, Free, Family, Genesis, Strawbs, Van Der Graaf Generator, Man and Yes begin their rise to prominence.

Aside from featuring better known acts such as Jack Bruce, Thunderclap Newman, Procol Harum, Moody Blues, Taste, Fairport Convention, Colosseum, Michael Chapman and The Jeff Beck Group, this compilation also features lesser-known acts that produced fine work of a wide breadth such as Eyes of Blue, East of Eden, Blodwyn Pig, Locomotive, Mighty Baby, Pete Brown and The Deviants.

This collection celebrates a creative period when rock music was evolving into something altogether more serious, moving away from the single as medium to give way to the dominance of the album. Open your ears to “Banquet – Underground Sounds of 1969”."

 

You can read a review by Dave Thompson on "Goldmine" here.

 

no©2021 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first).

TEB book outtakes - part 3: the great Mel Davis.

Here's the third part of the outtakes from my book on the TEB dedicated to the great late Mel Davis. He played the cello on "Alchemy" in 1969 and he was a great musician in the avant-garde British jazz scene most of all with the People Band (read a piece about him on this Archive here).

These pictures were given to me by film-maker/musician Mike Figgis who played with Davis and the People Band in the Sixties and who's making a docu-film on him (read here).

This is another chance to remember Mel for all his great music and ideas about improvisational music. A real giant!

                           The great late Mel Davis in the last few days of his life.

                               Mel Davis on cello with Mike Friggs in the Sixties.

no©2020 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

"Alchemy" 180 gram vinyl limited edition released!

As announced, "Alchemy" has been released on 27th September for Esoteric Records in a vinyl limited edition to 1000 copies (catalogue number: PECLECLP 2668). The album is an exact facsimile of the original 1969 Harvest LP release (yellow-green record labels included!). Also, it's in a gatefold sleeve and on 180-gram vinyl. 

Here's a sequence of photos taken from my personal copy: 

 

no©2019 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)