Dear TEB obsessive addicts,
here we are with a very exclusive gift related to the Thirds from our friend (and great musician!) Sean Breadin, a.k.a. Sedayne.
A dream on friendship, shamanic poetry, Glen Sweeney and the snow (with a wonderful TEB medieval Xmas song at the end).
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| Sedayne, the Green Man. |
SHAMAN IN THE SNOW
"Hi Luca,
a while back I sent you a mock up my friend Raymond
Greenoaken did of the inside sleeve of "Alchemy" featuring himself as
all the members. He's recently been in hospital having a heart
bypass, which filtered into my dreams in the guise of Glen Sweeney
as a guiding Shaman. Here's what I wrote about it:
Raymond was in my dream last night - we were up on the top of
Glastonbury Tor with Rob Ayling watching Glen Sweeney dancing,
chanting & storytelling in the snow with a huge Shaman's
drum decorated with tiny animated figures which on closer
inspection turned out to be Grayson Perry's interpretations of
characters from the Beano & The Broons intermingled with
graffiti from St Alban's cathedral - including the famous Hare,
which was being chased by Baby Face Finlayson who in turn was
being chased by PC Murdoch. Raymond asked Glen if he could play
his whistle with his drumming, but Glen said (in those enigmatic
tones so familiar to avid collectors of Third Ear Band bootlegs)
'You're not ready for that yet' before vanishing away into the
blizzarding squall... All the while I just sat there, in
trembling awe, my fingers numb, and my fiddle-faddle locked away
in its case. On the way back down we stopped to take photographs
of the hawthorns on which the blossoms grew through the snow in
time-lapse unfolding before our very eyes...
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| Sedayne - Southwell |
Two things worth mentioning here. One is a wee book I have
somewhere of Christmas Games, Customs & Stories (Jack
Spriggans and the Magic Bean indeed) which promises an
abundance of fiddle-faddle stuff... & talks of maggots
in a mad-man's brain. The other is the last time Raymond
and I were at the top of Glastonbury Tor we played weird
improvised Third Ear Band style music in the ruins of St
Michael's to a wee gathering of tourists and hippies - that was
a perfect sunny Friday in the Summer of 1985, on our way to the
festival after a merry magical mystery tour hitching around
Wiltshire... On that occasion I was playing my old viola, and
Raymond his trusty Conroy penny-whistle and a Chinese hand-drum
from Ray Man. That was the occasion that we first met Rob Ayling
who came with us to the festival (which was a washout) & has
been a pal over the years, and very succesful too with his
Voiceprint label.
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| Raymond at the "Alchemy" tomb. |
Festival memories are vague - I was carrying
a newly bought copy of John Sampson's classic XXI Gypsy Folk
Tales with me and I read out 'The Squirrel and the Fox' one
night huddled from the downpour - a story which has been the
core of my repertoire ever since. We also played with the synth
group Another Green World, which was nice, and Robin Williamson
dedicated Free Born Man of the Travelling People to the
recently trashed Convoy & Raymond bought a Principle Edwards
Magic Theatre album from the same stall as I bought Lol
Coxhill's Fleas in Custard.
Anyway, Raymond's op was succesful & he's home now."
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| Rapunzel and Sedayne (2011). |
Rapunzel & Sedayne's Third Ear Medieval Xmas song:
A special interview with Rapunzel & Sedayne about their last album "Songs from the Barley Temple" at:
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| Sedayne (2011) |
