"Brain Waves" CD reissue scheduled for September, 22th 2017.

As announced some weeks ago, "Brain Waves" CD reissue (originally published by Materiali Sonori in 1993) has been scheduled by Gonzo Multimedia for September 22th, 2017. 

The album, with the original cover by Carolyn Looker and booklet notes by Luca Chino Ferrari, will be enhanced by a bonus track recorded the same year.
Info and pre-order: 
http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/product_details/16060

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

An interview with Luca Ferrari about the TEB on "Perfect Sound Forever" Webzine.

An interview with Luca Ferrari by Jason Gross about Ghettoraga Archive and the involvement with the Third Ear Band is on line at "Perfect Sound Forever" Webzine site - http://www.furious.com/perfect/thirdearband.html

 no©2016 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)      

"Born in Canterbury": a case of Italian crap journalism about the TEB.

Some Italian pseudo-music journalists have the sad habit to repeat the same old tragically fake infos about the Third Ear Band. One of the worst one is named Cesare Rizzi, an author involved with the important publisher Giunti on "guides to" some kind of music.

He wrote three books about the so-called Progressive scene (1999, 2003 and 2010) annoting coincise profiles about bands as King Crimson, Pink Floyd... and fatally (but I'm not agreed with this) the Third Ear Band.

On the volumes he states the band was born in Canterbury!, when even kids know Glen Sweeney's ensemble was born in London Ladbroke Grove.

But one of the thing that really upset me is when Rizzi tells about the last phase of the band story (the reunion and the records made in Italy): he alludes to a "bunch of Italian fans", not quoting me (a writer about music since 1985) and my friend Gigi Bresciani (one of the most important promoter in Italy)as the only responsible of the band reunion and the very first concerts played here; nor the only book existing on the band (with the very first edition of the "Abelard & Heloise" soundtrack) - "Necromancers of the Drifting West", published by Stampa Alternativa in Rome - written by me (where he could take some verified infos about the Thirds).

An hateful way to make journalism, superficial and amateurish; writing just in Italian they can omitting the truth, but the clever and really passionate fans around the world know where they can find the right stuff!

no©2016 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

The new TEB's CD will be realised in February 2016.

The next TEB's record produced by Gonzo Multimedia (edited by Luca Ferrari) will be ready at the first months of next year, likely on February 2016.

Titled "EXORCISMS", it will show recordings from the 1988-1989 period, when the musicians involved was Glen Sweeney, Mick Carter, Ursula Smith, Lyn Dobson and Allen Samuel.

The art cover (as for the first two CDs) is by the great Martin Cook. Here below you can see a cover proof of the record based on a Cambodian devil mask...
  

 
no©2015 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)          

"Necromancers of the drifting West". A 1996 essay on the Third Ear Band by Luca Ferrari. (part 1)

On 1996, when I decided to write a book on the Third Ear Band, I got the kind collaboration of all the members of the group, except Richard Coff (apparently none knew where he was) and Ursula Smith (I forgot to insist with Glen for having her address).

In a first time the title intended for the book was "Tickling the Third Ear" and the idea was to make an historical cronological reconstruction of the TEB's story to free the band from that aura of mystery surrounding his story. But just at the end of writing, when I completed the essay for the introduction, I decided for "Necromancers of the drifting West": for myself, infact, the Band has advanced the so-called World Music and the multicultural/intercultural dimension of the relation between West and the rest of the world. At the same time, in my opinion, their music was a sort of sign, a monition of musical (and cultural) decline of the old Europe (for that reason the image of 'necromancers'). A group strongly political, I think, because "silence", acoustic (as natural) sounds (no words), minimalism aesthetic, are really 'political' today, in this age of excess of experiences.

I confess I've been very imprudent to write an interpretation of the TEB's music and probably, read today, this essay is quite outdated or at least arguable (also it's a sort of funny paradox in having set up an archive like this - so full of words! - to tell and document a music that didn't need to have words...).
I remember I asked Glen and Paul to excuse me for my hazard. They was so kind and indulgent to excuse me...

Anyway here I am with this old text. So please, excuse me you too...

(Note: the English adaptation was by Piera Testi)

MUSIC FOR THE THIRD EAR

FOR A CONSCIOUS LISTENING
I'm not persuaded that the sound  of a certain historical period - in acertain society - forecast the times and the social models to come (J. Attali).
The immersion of sounds/noises we are submitted in  these years seems to reflect  the times (of triviality, superficiality, esteriority...) we live in, and it seems to describe  them perfectly, evidencing  the socio-cultural deep crisis in which West countries are and the negative impact  of the Record Industry and the technology on the music creation  and use.
The anonymous non-places (M. Augè), where music is  absently used, acting as simple sound upholstery which brings and keeps company  to the consumption, suggest the idea that the re-producing of sounds, and the hidden possibility to listen to music everywhere, have made the listening experience less the  result of an active, conscious process and more the result of a passive unconscious behaviour.The advertising makers have understood this  process with a great advance and as a matter of fact they use music to persuade people "in a pleasant way" to buy, thus showing our (just presumed) needs.
The music, which goes deep into our daily life, has turned in a non-place, deprived of any identity, history and relation with the time and the place of living, is a sort of undefined and virtual phenomenon.

Sweeney live on  September 1970 (courtesy Facebook TEB's fans page)

The music surround us, and the chaos it determines (just try to tune on any 'free' radio station...) that melting pot of articles which remind us of something "already heard", the consumed symbolic appeals it evokes, the image aggression it goes with, reveals the shy hope of a creative, stimulating"transparent society" which is positively going on, which had seduced and deceived us on the threshold of postmodernity (G. Vattimo).
To oppose the silence to the chaos, as we hear from time to time, seems anyway a quick and candid utopia as it proposes  a runaway (or happy island, or pure oasis, or ivory tower) where, on the contrary, some kinds of "creative resistance" (alternative voyages through personal, choerent inner routes) should be equipped (suggestive is a small book, as a renet example, by Chambers and Gilroy on Jimi Hendix, hip-hop and the evolution of thinking, published in Italy in 1995) to escape the risk to be dazed and submerged.

Bridges live on  September 1970 (courtesy Facebook TEB's fans page)

There are solutions, but they are hard to get and they are placed in a prompt reasearch of a recent and perfect past of the popular music and in an analysis of the present, in spite of some difficulties which are inside  any cultural outgoing phenomenon.
They are inside the variables of the popular music, since its origin inside the delicate balance  freedom-conditioning: the relation between Record Industry and creation (product/goods-product/art), as first; the incidence of technology on the creative process: how 'releasing' is effectively the technological innovation, the usage of the more and more sophisticated sound-machines?; the relation between space and time of listening; the presumed authenticity of the produced musics and its consequent effect on the common imagination.
These criteria may favour a detached approach to music we are exposed to and inevitably immersed in every day. We could, at least, accept as a unique rule (not less right than the others, of course) the casual listening, as a simple daily background".

(end of part one - to be continued)

no©2011 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

"The hydrogen Raga": another old interview with Glen Sweeney (1988).

One of the first Italian interview with the Thirds was made in 1988, just after the first tour (Bergamo and Umbertide). It was pubblished by the rock magazine "Rockerilla" (issue 99, November 1988).

With a biographical, full of commonplaces and quite boring stuff written by Italian journalist Vittore Baroni (title: "The hydrogen Raga"), came this interview with Glen Sweeney made by myself (under the name of my wife Elena Blasi). Another little contribution to set up the knotty puzzle of TEB's history.

EB: "First of all: how do you feel about the reaction of audience at the Bergamo and Perugia gigs?"

GS: "Well, twenty years ago drugs conditioned the concerts, today the approach is quite different. Anyway, the fact is that in Bergamo the audience was really well-disposed with us and surprisingly open to our music; promoter Luigi Bresciani has done a great work, making the things worked on. Instead, at the Perugia gig people came just for listening to very different groups and everything was just a guys drinking and eating all the time... It dipends, you know, by the way the people 'feel' our music: we're not cold and unfeeling machines made to entertain the listeners... We play with soul, yes, with soul and spirit..."

EB: "If I'm not wrong, "Spirits" is just the title of a your new composition..."

GS: "Yes, right, even if the track will be titled "Ghosts" on the new record... Spirits, in this case, as misterious,  supernatural higher entity. The essence of material life...".

EB: "So, you'll produce a new album, after about fifteen years from the "Macbeth" soundtrack!".

GS: "Yes, it'll be one of the many things involving the new Third Ear Band... Maybe it's too soon to talk about, but Materiali Sonori is agreed to produce a record, as like for a live album that will be published first, until this year..."

EB: "A live record...?"

GS: "Yes, it's been an idea of Luca Ferrari, our manager, that in agreement with the Bergamo gig's promoter decided to record professionally the concert... It came a great thing, really exiciting... So, at the end of the concert, listening to the reels, we decided to realise it..."

EB: "What about the other things you was talking about?"

GS: "Just after the two gigs we've formed The Ear Management, not a pretentious thing, you know, just a practical way to coordinate better the things. On December we'll managing a new tour, maybe with more dates. And we have an idea to create a sort of fan club, a thing that personally I consider ridiculous, insomuch as we've thought to call it The Ear Lodge because it'll born here, in Italy, the quintessential country of Mafia...".

EB: "But why in England indie's are not interested into producing your music?"

GS: "In London, if you haven't got an hit in the charts you doesn't exist, believe me, and as you can easily understand we cannot have any 'song' in the charts. Our music didn't have any chance to be played live in England because the so-called "underground" is that Sixties 'archeological' kind of music, just interested into the past on a discographical level. Just to make moneys... In this sense, a real English "underground"  doesn't exist now, because every expression is conditioned by the big record companies".

EB: "What did you do before this unexpected reunion?"

GS: "Nothing of interesting. Everyone of us had a normal job. All over those years, me and Paul Minns was experimenting, playing Indian music...".

EB: "What's happenend just after "Macbeth", your last record produced by E.M.I.?"

GS: ""Macbeth" is been our best commercial opportunity. At the same time it's been our definitive 'debacle'. The Polansky's film, our potential vehicle, basically had a very bad promotion and it was a disaster. Now the soundtrack is a rarity for collectors, by now deleted. After the album, we played some gigs, but we had lost our self-assourance and in Blackhill, so we decided to split up the band".

EB: "What's happened to the other TEB musicians?"

GS: "Well, as you can see, me and Paul have been in contact for all those years... About Ursula Smith, I know she is married and she has got some children: I think she plays now country & western music somewhere... About Richard Coff, I've lost track of him... probably he came back to America. Just after "Macbeth", he tried to form an acoustic band with Ursula, a band called Cosmic Overdose, but nothing happened, just few performaces in London Hyde Park".

EB: "Where have you met the new Thirds?"

GS: "Violin player Allen Samuel is a Dave Tomlin's  pupil, a great friend of mine. He has had academic training playing at the Albert Hall. Mick Carter, the guitar player, is an old friend of mine since the Hydrogen Jukebox, the band I formed about 1974, after "Macbeth"".

EB: "Did you record anything with that band?"

GS: "The main idea was to change our music, composing proper pop songs, and at the end we made a master for a record never realised. At the moment Luca Ferrari has got it and we are planning to realised it at the right time. Maybe now it's the right time, considering the new interest for the Sixties, but I don't know... We will see...".

EB: "Can you tell more about the Hydrogen Jukebox?"

GS: "What can I say... It's very different from TEB music, it's just another thing! Maybe listening to the record you'll think to the Doors, even if is not the best comparation. Most of all, the lyrics are really interesting: they talk about political and social situation of England at that time, that to be honest it's not too changed... Something of those lyrics, anyway, will be published on a book Luca is going  to write next year...".

EB: "A very lot of things for a band reported as dead!"

GS: "Yes, it's really incredible to think... These are the oddities of this world! It took not much to resurrect us, and it's been a real surprise to discover all this interest in Italy. On December I hope we'll  come back here, I really love your country...".

no©2010 Luca Ferrari