The music according to Glen Sweeney in an old article from 1970.

 

Dear loyal listeners of the Third Ear Band, for however few of you are left, here is another archival tidbit from the distant past. 

 

From an April 11, 1970, issue of Disc & Music Echo, in a column devoted to musician's ideas of music, Glen Sweeney talks about his idea of music and reveals some unknown biographical anecdotes (e.g., I didn't know he had been a dishwasher for a living either).
It is interesting to note that a magazine as widespread as Disc could give the floor to an obscure protagonist of the underground of those days: in times of boorish homogenization such as the ones we are suffering, it would be as if today Mojo or Uncut gave space to  R. Stevie Moore or Eugene Chadbourne...

 

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

Blackhill's manager Andrew King continues to sling mud on Glen...

As I wrote in the book recently published by Recommended Records, Glen was a really funny chap, sometimes a comedian, but he had a huge spirituality and a rare deepness for the typical worn rock standards. With a very ugly memory, pulled out of his usual hat of cheap falsehoods for the bad "Mojo" magazine, Blackhill's manager Andrew King says: "Glen always claimed that he was a junkie who cured himself of heroin taking lots of acid".

Apart the ethic question of talking about a dead person in such horrible way, this memory is totally false, there's nothing in Sweeney's personal story that can be related with heroin or other hard drugs. 

Glen always claimed... what?!

I was so pissed off and outraged that I sent to the magazine this short letter:

"Dear editorial staff, on page 102 of your latest issue (issue 331 of June 2021), in an article dedicated to Third Ear Band's "Macbeth", Ian Harrison manages to write more than three thousand lines without mentioning yours truly, curator of the CD booklets remastered by Cherry Red, author in 1996 and 2020 of the only two volumes dedicated to the band (the last one published by Recommended Records), curator since 2009 of Ghettoraga, the band's official online archive.

Add to this some questionable recollections of Andrew King, one of which was even insulting to Glen Sweeney, related to his alleged heroin addiction.
Is this your idea of journalism?"

Asking Glen's partner and my friend Carolyn Looker what she thinks about it, she writes me: 

"Ciao Luca. Brilliant letter to Mojo! I'm debating weather to write to them also. I was furious at first by Andrew Kings ridiculous words about Glen but actually its such a stupid and unbelievable thing to say that l'm sure no-one will take it seriously. Its such a pity that he gets interviewed for his memories as they are now ramblings of a senile old man. In interviews with other band members things have been said which were totally untrue also and made me very angry. I guess Glen did annoy a lot of people and also talk nonsense and put them on!!! He was a very strong personality and the guys were all happy to follow his ideas at the time.

Peace love and freedom...

Carolyn".

All in all, this is a typical cynic way to make music journalism for the most magazines, disinterested in providing objective information to their readers. It's better to gossip, to feed falsehoods and clichés, to exaggerate things as an adolescent would do in his bedroom in front of the poster of his favorite rock star. This is the rock imagery on which rock magazines speculate (and I've ever detested it!). 

As long as they have readers....

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

TEB album is one of the best reissue of 2018 (according Rocklistmusic)!

  

Julian White runs the interesting project of Rocklistmusic at http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/. The idea is simple but very incisive:  he tracks all the lists published by the main English and USA rock magazines and makes "the list of the list" for documenting the best records of the year. 

In the section Re-Issues/Compilations (read at http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/tysofar.htm) you can find our TEB with the Elements album...

Re-Issues/Compilations

Brian Eno - Discreet Music/Ambient 1 & 4/Music For Films
Rolling Stones - Beggers Banquet
Super Furry Animals - At The BBC
Paul McCartney & Wings - 1971-1973 Box Set
Manic Street Preachers - This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours 20th Anniversary Edition
Terry Callier - The New Folk Sound Of.../What Color Is Love
Neil Young - Songs For Judy
Buzzcocks - Another Music From A Different Kitchen/Love Bites
The Moody Blues - In Search Of The Lost Chord
The Fall - 58 Golden Greats
Third Ear Band - Elements 1970-1971 / Music From Macbeth
Badfinger - Badfinger/Wish You Were Here
The Beta Band - Hot Shots II
Stereolab - Peng!/The Group Played "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music"

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