On the road with the Third Ear band. Steve Pank's memories on driving for the band.

After I had published the magazine, Albion, I was running weekly benefits in All Saints Church Hall with the Third Ear Band playing as the resident band, Sam Cutler was the compere and he introduced many guests, including Alexis Korner Arthur Brown, and Davy Graham. Members of the Floyd used to come down, and on one occasion, Syd Barrett did short set, backed by Nick Mason on drums and David Gilmour on bass guitar. Andrew King of Blackhill Enterprises asked if I could put on the Edgar Broughton band which I did, and when Glenn asked me if I could recommend an agent and I suggested Blackhill Enterprises. They signed on the Third Ear Band. and to a recording deal with EMI Harvest records. The first booking they got was some way out of London supporting John Mayalls Bluesbreakers. To get there, Glen booked ‘Motivation transport, very sympathetic to heads.’ Their van broke down on the way home and the group had to hitch home.

Afterwards Glen asked me if I would drive for the band and I agreed to do so, He hired a transit van. I drove for the band for two years for 12,000 miles. Anywhere that was unfamiliar I would always stop and check the signposts, and we never missed a gig.

Blackhill organized free concerts in Kensington Gardens, The first featured with other groups. the Pink Floyd, Pretty Things, the Third Ear Band was the opening band. the second one featured Blind Faith with Eric Clapton. the Third one was in Hyde Park featuring the Rolling Stones, with Alexis Korner, the ‘Third Ear’, and other groups. A rumour went round that the Third Ear Band was booked to open the concerts to ensure that the weather was good.

One booking we had was organised by DJ and broadcaster John Peel, and folk singer Bridget St John. It was at Holloway ladies’ prison. The concert was for the remand prisoners. We met in John Peel’s flat. Also on the booking was a folk duo called Friends of the Poor, consisting of a singer guitarist and a cello player. the singer with Mike Deighan and the cellist was Ursula. At that time the cello player in the ‘Third Ear’ was Paul Buckmaster who had just been involved in an instrumental version of J‘taime by Jane Birkin, which was being played on the BBC. Because of this he had told Glen he could not play on the next booking. I suggested to Glen . ’Why don’t you ask Ursula to play at the next gig?’ and Glen replied ‘I have already asked her to join the band’. One of the first bookings that Ursula played on was at the first Isle of Wight festival that was to be headlined by Bob Dylan.

After driving Down to Portsmouth and crossing on the ferry to the Isle of Wight, we headed to the festival venue at Ryde. The previous night, the Saturday, had been headlined by The Who. The Sunday was more of a folky concert with people like Julie Felix and Richie Havens, and the Third Ear Band who played in the afternoon. There was a big stage and an audience of half a million people. Afterwards, Ursula told me that after she had got up on the stage and drew her bow across the strings, there was a huge roaring sound such as she had never heard before from her instrument.

There was a lot of expectation in the air, that evening was the first time for Bob Dylan to appear live since his motorcycle accident two years before. He was to be backed by The Band. As artists we were allowed into the small enclosure in front of the stage, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were all there. I remember hearing that as Paul Minns was sitting down, someone came up to him and said: ‘You can’t sit there. because that is Ringo Starr seat’.

We waited a long time, maybe an hour for the evening concert to start, then The Band appeared and did a set. When Bob Dylan did come on and started playing, he seemed very nervous and uncomfortable with his guitar. This was his first public performance since he had a motorcycle accident. He then handed the guitar to Jamie Robbie Robertson of The Band to tune it up, and after that, things did improve. At one point he stopped playing and looking around at the crowd. said ‘It’s good to be here’. At the time it was the biggest live crowd he’d ever played to. There was one time we went down to Michael’s Mount at the tip of Cornwall to play a booking, and I remember the promoter telling us that his car had been parked on the beach and as a result had it been washed out to sea.

The band was booked to do a national tour in ten major venues around Britain with Al Stewart. We discussed with Glen what to call the tour. John Michell just published a book about ancient ley lines and geomantic patterns called ‘The View Over Atlantis’ and we suggested the tour could be called ‘Atlantis Rising’. Glen said it sounded good to him but what would Al Stewart think? Ursula and myself agreed to go and see Al Stewart and ask him if he would agree. he reluctantly agreed, and said he would just as soon it was called ‘Ham and Eggs!’ However by the time the tour ended, Al Stewart included a song he had written that was all about the prophecies of Nostradamus. John Michell’s book ‘The view over Atlantis’ was written up in the programme.

The tour covered ten venues. Starting out at Queen Elisabeth Hall in London, then going to Leith town hall in Scotland, Birmingham Town Hall, North Staffs Poly, Colston Hall Bristol, Fairfield Hall in Croydon, Southampton Guildhall, Century Hall Manchester, Crewe Hall Sheffield and ending up at Brighton Dome. After the tour, there was noticeably more interest in the band, and there was better attendance at local bookings.

The Third Ear Band played a booking at the Paradiso, the top club in Amsterdam, I remember during that gig, a lot of the audience were lying flat on the floor! Another important gig was at the Essen pop and blues festival in Germany. This was in a huge sports arena, and along with the Third Ear Band, there were a number of other British bands on the bill. I remember thinking how good the Third Ear Band sounded, a recording of this has been recently released as a LP by German M.I.G. Records.

The band was always popular in Wales. One night, I drove to Aberystwyth and back in one night. On that occasion, I remember Andrew King was there, came into the band room and found me lying on the floor trying to get some rest before driving the band back home to London. On another occasion we went to Glasgow and we had nowhere to stay so we asked a member of the audience if they knew anywhere we could stay. They found some people who were happy to put us up.

There was an occasion when the van’s battery charger was failing, and I had to drive back to London on the A1 using only the sidelights. It was around that time that the driver of the Fairport Convention’s van fell asleep at the wheel. This caused an accident in which two people, Martin Lamble the drummer, and Jeannie Franklin, Richard Thompson’s girlfriend, died in the crash. Jeannie had been a clothes designer and had made outfits for the band the Cream. Jack Bruce‘s first album was dedicated to Jeannie and was called “Songs for a tailor” in her memory. After that happened. I said to Glen that I felt it was getting dangerous and we needed have a second driver especially on the long trips. The first second driver we had was Terry Oldfield, the younger brother of Mike Oldfield, he lasted about two weeks. then Glen got another driver who had previously worked as a professional roadie for some time.

Originally, I had been living in this in a flat off Ladbroke Grove and then I moved into the basement flat of Richard Coff, the violinist with the band. Shortly after that, I moved into a community in Brixton with Ursula. I was then parking the van in Acre Lane Brixton, and the equipment was not secure. Living in this community I got interested in playing the guitar and writing songs myself. That was when I left as driver of the band.

After I left, the band did a live recording of the film Abelard and Heloise, As Ursula described it, there was no preparation, the group just sat down and improvised while watching the film on a screen. After they came off the plane, they were off to Glastonbury to play for a Ceremony with a Druid group, on the top of Glastonbury Tor.

Steve Pank, August 2025

no©2025LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first).

 

Rare photo of the TEB pops ups on the Web!

This rare photo of the band in its brilliant, wonderful line-up with Sweeney, Minns, Buckmaster and Bridges (note his legendary double deck electric guitar!) was taken in November 1971 in one of the last Blackhill promo sessions.

It's on sale now on EBay for about 60 euros here. 

no©2025LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Peter Jenner told the story of Kevin Ayers' Joy of the Toy sessions.

On the glorious "ZIG ZAG" #9 (January 2nd, 1970) PETER JENNER wrote about the story of KEVIN AYERS' "Joy of the Toy" recording sessions, revealing for the first time the involvement of some musicians (not mentioned on the inner sleeve for copyright reasons) as our PAUL MINNS and PAUL BUCKMASTER. Interesting the fact Jenner said Buckmaster had left the Thirds just before... (December 1969?)

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

The Al Stewart and Third Ear Band's 1970 tour programme.

 

 

Among the Third Ear Band memorabilia in my archive, this tour program has a special place because it was given to me years ago by Steve Pank, the band's first manager (and driver). As 'lived-in' as it is, when I leaf through it for me it is always a pleasure to look at.

It is interesting to note the band's introductory note with the famous motto “art form or con?” devised by Blackhill and the comments to the individual tracks in the set. These include the apparently unreleased Druid 11(almost ironic, since we know Druid and Druid One exist in the repertoire) and Labyrinth, with that laconic “Find the end.”
 

Truly jarring the iconography and writing of the Band and the following promos for Al Stewart, 'authentic star' of the tour. Can you imagine what Paul Minns might have thought of this unlikely encounter?

 

The tour, almost certainly the longest ever undertaken by the Third Ear Band, began on January 3, 1970, at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and touched 16 English cities from the south to the north of England, ending on February 27 with an appearance at the Dome in Brighton.

 

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

"Il Segreto Cantico Degli Elementi". JENNY SORRENTI e TULLIO ANGELINI celebrano la Third Ear Band!

All'inizio del 2020 la musicista italiana Jenny Sorrenti e il musicista/promoter Tullio Angelini hanno scritto un breve pezzo sul loro album psichedelico preferito per un numero speciale dedicato alla musica psichedelica dalla rivista Classic Rock. 

Davvero sorprendentemente, hanno scelto il secondo album della Third Ear Band ispirato agli elementi primordiali. Non una semplice recensione, la loro, ma un vero atto d'amore per la band, traboccante passione ed emozione.

Quella che segue è una versione più estesa del pezzo scritta da Jenny e Tullio (che hanno selezionato anche le immagini) esclusivamente per i lettori di Ghettoraga!

 

 

  

IL SEGRETO CANTICO DEGLI ELEMENTI

"Era il mese di marzo dei primi anni ‘70 quando qualcuno mi disse di una casa del Vomero, quartiere nella zona collinare di Napoli, dove si ascoltava dell’ottima musica e infatti i vinili erano appena usciti e importati dall’Inghilterra. Noi giovani musicisti, afflitti da quel processo di decadimento che stava subendo la musica, sempre più povera di emozioni, esclamammo parole di grande soddisfazione.

Era un fotografo napoletano che apriva la sua casa all'ascolto delle ultime novità nei vari generi musicali: dall’underground alla psichedelia, dal folk al rock. Visse due anni a Londra, lavorando nel campo fotografico e vendendo giornali fuori dalla metropolitana.
Dunque fu in quella casa napoletana che mi sintonizzai, per la prima volta, con le vibrazioni e le frequenze della Third Ear Band, ed ecco che il segreto mi fu subito rivelato.  

Di preciso non ricordo dove, ma in quel periodo acquistai il secondo disco del gruppo, quello omonimo, dedicato all’Aria, alla Terra, al Fuoco e all’Acqua. Questo ascolto mi comportò un significativo cambiamento personale. Quello della Third Ear Band è un suono rarefatto, ancestrale, costantemente in bilico tra sistemi di scrittura non ordinari. Le ambientazioni descrivono forme e composizioni in costante dialogo tra Oriente e Occidente. Frequente è il riferimento al raga indiano integrato dalla pratica improvvisativa, autentico punto fermo della formazione. 

Un particolare interesse sembra essere dedicato al recupero di alcune sonorità, memorizzate senza alcuna dichiarazione formale e interiorizzate come se fossero in clandestinità. La percezione della musica e della vita furono totalmente nuove, a tal punto che questa profonda trasformazione, aiutarono a liberare la mia mente. Un processo e un’alchimia che mi portò a vivere di visioni, colori, sensazioni mai provate prima e senza dover ricorrere a chissà quali sostanze psicotrope. 

 

Questo disco mi lasciava presagire la mutazione, eccellente, sapiente e così mi avvicinai all'ascolto con sorpresa, stupore e timore. Timore come di qualcosa d’ignoto ed esoterico. Gli intrecci tra oboe e violino, sostenuti in modo ipnotico dalle percussioni, costituivano il paradigma di un linguaggio in divenire che io avevo intercettato e intrapreso e che infrangeva quella classicità, fino a quel momento, così preminente nella struttura e forma dei brani. Quelle note, quel susseguirsi di fraseggi ed esecuzioni mi condussero a una visione naturalmente alterata della realtà e m’incoraggiarono a esplorare nelle profondità del mio cuore e delle mie sensibilità... Senza alcuna esitazione, fu il disco “psichedelico” più bello mai ascoltato e infatti, poi, nel nostro primo album dei Saint Just, intitolato con lo stesso nome del gruppo, li ho meritatamente ringraziati nei credits.

JENNY SORRENTI (foto di Francesco Desmaele)

Ricordo che… nel ’74 venni a sapere che Paul Buckmaster, già membro della Third Ear Band, in "Macbeth", partecipò, come musicista, al primo album di un mio amico percussionista napoletano. Mi incuriosiva il personaggio. Scoprii così che aveva studiato violoncello presso il Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella di Napoli, proprio dove anch’io diedi alcuni esami, quando studiavo lirica. Paul era di madre napoletana e padre inglese… esattamente l’opposto di me! Sua madre, pianista diplomata, per lui aveva scelto dove farlo crescere e studiare, quindi preferì la mia città natale. Mi sentii onorata.  

Quando poi andai a Londra per contattare alcuni musicisti avrei voluto incontrare anche Paul Minns. Ci tenevo ma non ci sono riuscita. Avevo poco tempo. Dovevo ritornare in Italia per continuare la lavorazione di "Suspiro", il mio primo album solista.
Nonostante il susseguirsi di generose e onorevoli trame di violino, oboe e cello, sorrette dall'incedere percussivo, la musica degli Elementi è ancora oggi inalterabile, al pari di una roccia lavorata da braccia vigorose e capaci di scolpire sopra, immagini e raffigurazioni resistenti al procedere del tempo. 

Viene un dubbio…! Riuscivamo davvero a interpretare tutto questo?

Un'officina di suoni e simbologie che, all'inizio, ci sorprese come uno spirito quasi sinistro e subito dopo ci riempì i cuori con la sua grazia iniziatica. Gli strumenti usati erano come dei battenti nella notte, che facevano crescere la nostra devozione ancora e ancora di più... fino al punto che, per mezzo dei loro messaggi, la musica stessa diventò parte del nostro essere. Pure adesso il loro suono è forte, vigoroso e noi stessi sembriamo e sappiamo poter ancora arrossire all’ascolto. Nel disco degli elementi si dispiegano i cieli, si distendono le terre, si sprigionano le acque e si scatenano i fuochi. Se vi è dunque una musica che ha aiutato il nostro sé artistico a diventare più creativo e coraggioso, quella musica è stata senza dubbio questa e ci rivelerà ancora tanto mentre continueremo a camminare per la nostra via, per la stessa via... attraverso le vite. 

TULLIO ANGELINI (foto di Luca D'Agostino).

 

È così che suonava e che suona la musica della Third Ear Band. Come una straordinaria meraviglia sonora che ci fa immaginare di essere tra i rari e fortunati testimoni segreti.
Quello che viene da evidenziare in questo album è l’ascesa del suono, il suo divenire. Si percepisce un qualcosa di non immaginato e tanto meno organizzato o redatto. Nemmeno l’improvvisazione è in grado di sancire questo superamento. Oltre alle note dello spartito, dietro di esse, o forse al loro interno, sembra esserci una zona nella quale succedono cose straordinarie. A guisa di un’estensione temporale capace di porre gli stessi musicisti fuori controllo.  

Del resto, l’Aria, la Terra, il Fuoco e l’Acqua appartengono alla Natura, alle sue divinità e alla formazione del mondo, non condizionato da scansioni del tempo esistenziale e senza distinzioni tra passato, presente e futuro, ma dalla contemplazione dell'eterno. Le armonie, i ritmi, le melodie delle quattro tracce dell'album sono funzionali sempre e solo alla creazione di dimensioni che hanno la comune caratteristica dell’ineludibilità.

Piano piano si è quasi liberata la conoscenza di condividere un’inalterata e nel tempo mai sopita attrazione per questa band… così ineffabile. E’ la principale motivazione per tale scritto, che abbiamo firmato a quattro mani.
Da riportare che l’oboe di Paul Minns (e sinceramente diciamo che seguita a essere il nostro eroe), con la sua timbrica, continua a emettere segnali che ci giungono da lontano… forse vincolati al segreto di ritualità remote e non cogliendoci mai impreparati, anzi, sempre ricettivi alla sublimazione dei… segni".

Jenny Sorrenti e Tullio Angelini
Roma, novembre 2020

 

CONTATTI

- Jenny Sorrenti -

https://www.facebook.com/jenny.sorrenti3/

https://www.facebook.com/SaintJustJennySorrenti/

https://www.facebook.com/JennySorrentiofficial/ 

mail: jennysorrenti@gmail.com


- Tullio Angelini -

http://allfrontiers.it/

https://www.facebook.com/AllFrontiers/

mail: momusit@yahoo.it 

no©2020 LucaChinoFerrari (a meno che tu non intenda farne un profitto. In tal caso, prima chiedi.)

"The Secret Canticle Of The Elements". JENNY SORRENTI and TULLIO ANGELINI celebrate the Third Ear Band!

 

At the beginning of 2020 Italian musician Jenny Sorrenti and musician/promoter, Tullio Angelini  wrote a short piece about their favourite psychedelic record  for a special issue on psychedelic music published by Italian magazine Classic Rock. They selected TEB's second album inspired by the primordial elements. A piece that's a real act of love for the band, full of passion and emotion. Here below you can read a more extensive version of it, written by them later, exclusively for Ghettoraga Archive (Jenny and Tullio also proposed the pictures included).

 

 

 

   THE SECRET CANTICLE OF THE ELEMENTS

"It was March in the early '70s when someone told me about a house in Vomero, a neighbourhood in the hilly area of Naples, where some guys were listening to great music. At the time the vinyl was 'just out' and imported from England. We young musicians, afflicted by that process of decay that music was undergoing, increasingly more deficient in emotion, expressed words of great satisfaction for this.

 

 

 

He was a Neapolitan photographer who opened his house to let us listen to the latest news in various musical genres: from underground to psychedelia, from folk to rock. He had lived two years in London, working in the photographic field and selling newspapers outside the subway.
So it was in that Neapolitan house that I tuned in, for the first time, with the vibrations and frequencies of the Third Ear Band, and the secret was immediately revealed to me.  

I don't remember exactly where, but in that period I bought the second record of the band, the one with the same title, dedicated to Air, Earth, Fire and Water. This listening brought me a significant personal change. The Third Ear Band's sound is rarefied, ancestral, continually hovering between non-ordinary writing systems. 

 

The settings describe forms and compositions in a constant dialogue between East and West. Frequent is the reference to the Indian raga integrated by the improvisational practise, a band's true staple. A particular interest seems to be dedicated to the recovery of some sounds, memorized without any formal declaration and internalized as if they were in clandestinity. Since that time my perception of music and life were totally new, to the point that this profound transformation helped to free my mind. A process and alchemy that led me to live with visions, colours, sensations never experienced before and without having to resort to who knows what psychotropic substances.

  

 

This record let me foreshadow the excellent, wise mutation, and so I approached the listening with surprise, amazement and fear: a fear as of something of unknown and esoteric. The weaves between oboe and violin, hypnotically supported by percussion, were the paradigm of a language in progress that I had intercepted and undertaken. It had broke that classicism, until that moment, so prominent in the structure and form of the songs.

Those notes, that succession of phrasings and performances led me to a naturally altered vision of reality, encouraging me to explore in the depths of my heart and my sensibilities... Without any hesitation, it was the most beautiful psychedelic record ever heard: in fact, in our first album of Saint-Just, titled with the same name of the band, I deservedly thanked them in the sleeve credits. 

 

Jenny Sorrenti (photo by Francesco Desmaele).

I remember that... in '74 I discovered that Paul Buckmaster, already a member of the Third Ear Band, in Macbeth album, had participated, as a musician, to the first album of a Neapolitan percussionist friend of mine. I was intrigued by the character. So I discovered that he had studied cello at the Conservatory of Music San Pietro a Majella in Naples, where I also had done some exams when I was studying Opera. Paul was of Neapolitan mother and English father... precisely the opposite of me!

His mother, a graduate pianist, had chosen for him where he would grow up and study, so he preferred my hometown. I felt honoured by it. When I went to London to contact some musicians, I also wanted to meet Paul Minns. I wished that, but I couldn't, I had a little time. I had to return to Italy to continue working on "Suspiro", my first solo album.
 

Tullio Angelini (photo by Luca D'Agostino).

Despite the succession of generous and honourable plots of violin, oboe and cello, supported by the percussive procession, the music of the Elements is still unalterable today, like a rock worked by strong arms and able to carve over, images and representations resistant to the passage of time. 

 

A doubt arises...! "Could we really interpret all this?"

 

A workshop of sounds and symbols that, at first, surprised us like an almost mischievous spirit and immediately afterwards filled our hearts with its initiatory grace. The instruments used were like knockers in the night, which made our devotion grow even more... to the point that, through their messages, the music itself became part of our being. Even now their sound is powerful, vigorous and we seem and know that we can still blush when we listen to them. In the album of elements the heavens unfold, the earth stretches out, the waters flow, the fires are unleashed. So if there is a music that has helped our artistic self to become more creative and courageous, that music has undoubtedly been this and will reveal so much more as we continue to walk our way the same way... through lives. 

That's how the music of the Third Ear   Band sounded, that's how it sounds, an extraordinary sonic wonder that makes us imagine that we are among the rare and lucky secret witnesses.
What is highlighted in this album is the rise of sound, its becoming. You can perceive something not imagined and even less organized or edited. Not even improvisation can sanction this overcoming. Along with the notes of the score, behind them or perhaps within them, it seems to be a place where extraordinary things happen, in the guise of a temporal extension capable of putting the musicians out of control. 

After all, air, earth, fire and water belong to Nature, to its divinities, to the formation of the world. This is not conditioned by scans of existential time, without difference between past, present and future, but by the contemplation of the eternal. The harmonies, rhythms, melodies of the four album's tracks of the album are always and only functional to the creation of dimensions that have the common characteristic of inescapability.
Slowly the knowledge of sharing an unaltered and in time never dormant attraction for this band... so ineffable. This is the first motivation for this writing, which we signed with four hands.

Paul Minns playing at the German TV in 1970.

 

Finally, we would like to affirm that Paul Minns' oboe (he is still our hero!), with its timbre, continues to emit signals that reach us from afar... perhaps bound to the secret of archaic rituals. It never caught us unprepared but, on the contrary, always receptive to the sublimation of... signs."

Jenny Sorrenti and Tullio Angelini
Rome, November 2020

 

CONTACTS

- Jenny Sorrenti -

https://www.facebook.com/jenny.sorrenti3

https://www.facebook.com/SaintJustJennySorrenti/ 

https://www.facebook.com/JennySorrentiofficial/ 

mail: jennysorrenti@gmail.com

- Tullio Angelini -

http://allfrontiers.it   

 

https://www.facebook.com/AllFrontiers

 

mail: momusit@yahoo.it

 

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

"What's this ear?". A Glen Sweeney and Paul Minns short interview on an old issue of Disc & Music Echo.

I've just found in the Web an old copy of "Disc & Music Echo", the British magazine born in the Fifties.

In this issue (April 22, 1972) there's a short interview with Glen Sweeney and Paul Minns about the "Macbeth" recordings.

Nothing of particularly revelatory, but it's interesting for some little known details of that experience, most of all for the relation with filmmaker Roman Polanski.

Also, here there's the proof that Stanley Kubrick was interested into involving the band for the soundtrack of his masterpiece "Clockwork Orange", even if different than the usual Glen's memory. 

In fact, Glen told: "I heard that Stanley Kubrick was thinking of doing the science fiction  novel "Dune". It's a fantastic book, vaguely Eastern and right up our street. However, even if he does do it, we had a bit of a run-in with Stanley, so I don't know how we'd stand. He wanted us to do something  for "Clockwork Orange" for free. We said no chance, but it turned out all he wanted to use was our second album "Air". It was to be played through the scene  in which someone turns sadistic. It has been rumoured that several people have gone mad after hearing that album!"

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

Rare short statement by Paul Minns on British press.

As part of an investigation promoted by "Disc & Music Echo" on  January 10, 1970 titled "Is single snobbery stifling progress by the underground?", TEB founder oboist PAUL MINNS stated that "we're certainly interested in doing singles - we've nothing against them".

Apart this very unexpected statement, this piece is interesting because is a valid testimony of the ideas that was circulating between underground musicians about music business and record market. Pete Brown, Edgar Broughton, Roger Glover, David Gilmour had different opinions about it...

 

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

Extraordinarly amazing TEB tv appearances in October 1972!

These two video tracks are the last nuggets emerged from the Web. British YouTuber Nuthatch (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-VZ_N8KLdwJhobRHGRtm8Q) posted these extraordinary videos of the TEB from a TV appearance in October 1972 taken from ILEA (Inner London Education Authority) archive. 

The peculiarity of these excerpts is that this is the only existing video thing of Mike Marchant and Peter Pavli with the band.

The line-up consisting in fact in Glen Sweeney - drums; Paul Minns - oboe; Peter Pavli - electric bass; Mike Marchant - vocals and Simon House - electric violin & VCS3.

Introduced by Brian Kenny, the first track is titled "The Magus" and it's the boring vocal song taken from the eponymous album the band recorded in December 1972; the second one it seems to me a rendition of "Air" and it's much more interesting for the improvisations by House  and Minns on violin and oboe.

After a gig at Kingston Polytechnic, on 18 March 1972, Glen Sweeney announced to the press the new TEB line-up, explaining to Roy Hollingworth ("Melody Maker"): "I think us changing in a natural way - and not just for the sake of it - is far more rewarding. I know we will be a far more rational band - giving out something which everyone can enjoy. After three months of rehearsing, we are now capable of playing a varied menu for more than two hours. You wouldn't have got more 45 minutes a year ago".

Even if without a recording deal (after "Macbeth" EMI-Harvest fired the band), through the following months the musicians played live in England (most of all in London), with an appearance at the third edition of "Clitheroe Festival" (Clitheroe Castle of Clitheroe).

Then, on 16 November, thanks to Blackhill's manager Peter Jenner, who has placed The Sharks to Chris Blackwell's label, TEB signed a contract with Island Records for a new album, based for the first time on proper songs composed and played by Marchant, who got inspiration from the Tarot. The agreement scheduled this track-list: "Cosmic Wheel", "I the Key", "Hierophant", "Magus", "New Horizon" and "Tent Dimensional Landscape".

Sweeney to Hollingworth ("Melody Maker", 1972): "Mike has been hanging around the group for some while. We heard the songs, and well, it seemed only natural that he should come in. It's a tremendous jump for us, I mean, we've never done songs before. It's right to say that Thirdies are feeling a little schizophrenic at the moment. I mean, there's that album out from Macbeth, and that's totally avant-garde, and there's us playing songs".

"So what of these songs?" - asked the journalist. "Well, at the start, we teated them in a sort of Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen type of way. But we became dissatisfied with the limitations of eight bars, 16 bars. We decided that we really wanted to open out. They certainly aren't pretentious songs, there's no pseudo rubbish about them. There's no Lucy in the Sky with feedback. But they are songs that fit the Third Ear".

"They are all based around the Tarot, and they are purely descriptions of the cards and their meanings. It's meant a lot of work, changing from a purely instrumental band, but it really seems to be working. And people certainly like it".

The album, despite of all the enthusiastic anticipations, would be "disastrously recorded at Island and rejected" (Paul Minns to me in 1996) and it's been realised by Angel Air just in 2004 as "The Magus". 

Later, Sweeney had strong opinions about it: "(...) At the time I was surrounded by idiots who were hoping I had a few quid! They dragged me in there - even now that Simon House swears it's a masterpiece - I had this rodie, Ron Cort, whose father was a hire car wallah, rolling in it - Ron really went to town on that album - he got acetates made, he got a single made. It was crap - even I didn't know what I was doing - the singer was terrible, we had vocals. All the songs were based on the tarot, but strangely enough, his father [vocalist Mike Marchant's father] was a vicar and all the songs were based on hymns" ("Unhinged", Spring 1990).

I don't know what do you think about, but for myself Glen was right and these video tracks are surely interesting (of course!) but not comparable to the deep dowsing research done for "The Dragon Wakes", recorded two years before by Sweeney, Minns, Bridges, Buckmaster, Coff and House...

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

The very first Web review about the book.

This is the very first Web review of the book by Arcana.fm, "set up to give you the chance to step into classical music with no fear or pressure – just the chance to enjoy and read about good music!", written by  Richard Whitehouse and put on line on August 8, 2020.

On paper – Glen Sweeney’s Book of Alchemies: The life and times of the Third Ear Band 1967-1973 by Luca Chino Ferrari 

Glen Sweeney’s Book of Alchemies: The life and times of the Third Ear Band 1967-1973
by Luca Chino Ferrari
ReR Megacorp/November Books [softback, 226pp plus CD, ISBN: 978-0-9560184-6-5, £18]

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Over two decades after his pioneering biography of Third Ear Band, Necromancers of the Drifting West (Sonic Book: 1997), Luca ‘Chino’ Ferrari has now published this larger and more inclusive survey of arguably the ultimate cult band to have emerged in the late 1960s.

What’s the book like? 

One thing it is not is an update of that earlier study. Instead, Ferrari has assembled a range of documents from a variety of sources centred on TEB’s guiding force: the often enigmatic and always recalcitrant Glen Sweeney. Only in those (brief) first and second sections does Ferrari posit his thinking as to why this outfit flourished, foundered yet refused to die across a period of almost 30 years. The third section showcases Sweeney’s poems and lyrics – ranging from the inspired to the not so inspired while suggesting that, with a degree of luck, the proto-new wave incarnation of the mid-1970s (aka Hydrogen Jukebox) just might have broken through.

The fourth section features Sweeney’s writings – engaging and frustrating in equal measure – but most valuable are the interviews in section five; above all, an expansive 1990 Q&A with Unhinged’s Nigel Cross as captures Sweeney in almost confessional mood. Quite a contrast with those gnomic ‘soundbites’ in the sixth section where he dons the guise of false Messiah. Much the longest section is the seventh, ‘memories and interviews’, carried out over almost a quarter-century and drawing in almost all TEB’s one-time members (except for the elusive violinist Richard Coff). They range from the humorous to the desultory, with several of those featured seemingly intent upon post-priori acts of self-justification, but not oboist Paul Minns – who, writing in December 1996 (months before his untimely death) places the triumphs and failings of TEB in the wider context of post-war Western culture with a precision and pathos that makes it required reading for anyone at all interested in this veritable fable of disillusion.

The eighth section comprises a chronological listing of audio and video releases – worthwhile especially as TEB releases from the late 1960s or early 1970s have been reissued on various occasions in numerous formats, whereas those from the 1980s onwards constitute a minefield of reissues and partial re-couplings which Sweeney must have relished. Hardly less welcome, section nine offers a day-by-day chronology of the band across 53 years and which is, almost inevitably, at its most thought-provoking when the band had all but ceased activity and those associated with it make a (not always fond) adieu – above all, Sweeney himself in 2005. Chris Cutler’s footnotes are a judicious enhancement from one ‘who was there’, while the selection of photos is decently reproduced with several stunning shots of drummer Sweeney in action.

Does it all work?

Yes, despite vagaries of presentation (Section IV is headed ‘VI’ on p28, and where exactly is the Epilogue?) or inconsistent layout. Whether or not the attached CD indeed constitutes The Dragon Wakes, the unreleased third album from 1971, its content is never less than absorbing.

Is it recommended?

Absolutely. Apart from its historical significance, Third Ear Band’s extensive recorded legacy is still of undeniable relevance, with this latest publication a valuable and necessary resource. Whether or not it proves to be the ‘last word’ on TEB rather depends on Luca Ferrari himself.

Orginal Web page at:  https://arcana.fm/2020/08/08/glen-sweeneys-book-of-alchemies/

 

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