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 Magus" vinyl edition out now!

As announced, the vinyl 180-gr vinyl edition of "The Magus" (TB0006430), the so-called TEB's lost fourth album, is out now thanks to a London label Tiger Bay (https://tiger-bay-records.com/).

As you can see here, the album is a traditional cardboard coloured gatefold cover record with black vinyl. It has spare notes on the back and a sober label.

The quality of sound is good, better than the CD edition published in 2004 by Angel Air and for any record vinyl addicts, it's worth to have it.

About the music (composition, lyrics and playing), you know what I think about, but it's just a question of personal opinions and I know that many TEB fans are enthusiastic about this album...

So get it and enjoy, all in all, it's a brand new Third Ear Band record for your collection! 

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

"The Magus" new vinyl edition out soon!

Tiger Bay will release on June 21th, 2019 a brand new edition of TEB's  1972 album "The Magus" in a gatefold vinyl edition (as TB0006430) for € 27.00. 
This is the label press release:

"Recorded in 1972, but not released til' 30 years later, this magnificent 'missing album' by the free-thinking UK psych-prog band is now available on 180-GRAM VINYL, packaged in a gatefold sleeve. Sounding like an east-meets-west kind of affair, this spiritual work includes early electronic experiments and vocals."

Tiger Bay is "a label specialised in luxury and limited edition releases on vinyl. Focusing on progressive, experimental, psychedelic and jazz-rock, TIGER BAY’s releases include both out-of-print reissues and rare or unreleased material works by artists that contribute to expanding these genres through the years. TIGER BAY works closely with artists and labels to realise high-quality licensed vinyl, with re-mastered sound, and finely designed artworks."

Web contact: https://tiger-bay-records.com/

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

Another Progressive Rock anthology with a TEB track included! Down with the "file under" tyranny...

The old commonplaces about the Third Ear Band music are hard to die! Here's another 3CDs anthology of the so-called Progressive Rock with a track of the band included (on side three,  "Cosmic Wheel", from "The Magus" album), this time made by Music Brokers (MBB7082) in Argentina in 2010. "Progressive Rock Trilogy" the greatly original title...

One should explain what Keith Emerson's or the Premiata Forneria Marconi's music have in common with the Third Ear Band's one... 
Hey you journalists/compilers/editors... don't you have still realised is not possible to force TEB's music in labels or categories...?

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

A memory about the Thirds in 1972...

Miracle of the Net. Memories about the Third Ear Band from people that lived that Day. Here's Craig Runyon, who saw the band on live in 1972. This thing is taken from the excellent Facebook's TEB Fans Page run by Mirco Delfino (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Third-Ear-Band/156660855584?v=info). 
We thank him for the precious work he's doing...

"As a 19 year old immigrant from Baltimore. Glen Sweeney was very nice to me. I met him back stage at the premier of Matching Mole's "Little Red Record". He was the first person to start talking to me. I told him that I had seen Third Ear Band at the Kings Cross Cinema that summer supporting Hawkwind. I remember Third Ear Band played last that night well into the dawn they were magnificent. They were performing material from the recording that released years later entitled "The Magus". I specifically remember the song "Cosmic Wheel" being performed. The vocals in this haunting song were unforgettable. Glen explained to me that night that Third Ear Band were in a transitional period because they were moving from acoustic to electronic music. This was brought to a halt by the music commissioned by Hugh Hefner to compose the acoustic music soundtrack of Roman Polanski's Macbeth. They were paid £150,000 a generous sum for those days. Glen said he lived an ordinary life in a modest flat in London and that he wasn't interested in a rock star life style. He said that his cooker wire in his kitchen was broken.Glen also told me that every one was frightened of Roman Polanski people believed that he was cursed. That every where Polanski went people dropped off like flies.As t ime foretold Glen Sweeney wasn't interested in fame and fortune.His art came first.I think his generation was the last to be like this.I hope that Glen's great knowledge in music can be passed down to the next generation.This is very important for the culture.The night I met Glen I was with Lol Coxhill who has also sadly passed away.I don't know if they ever worked together because Lol did work in the folk genre with The Albion Band.This was a profound generation of truly great artists.That lived in a time of great optimism and hope.They must never be forgotten".

Editor's chronological notes: the London King's Cross Cinema TEB concert was played on June 6th, 1972. The premiere of Matching Mole's "Little Red Record" was probably around September of that year, just before the band disbanded in late September. The album was finally realised in November of that year.

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)  

Dave Tomlin analyzes his two compositions from "The Magus" (1972).

I've asked Dave Tomlin to analyze his old compositions for the TEB's THE MAGUS album, "New Horizon" and "The Phoenix" (actually a poem declaimed by himself), and he has been so kind to do it for Ghetto Raga Archive. 
As everyone knows, THE MAGUS was recorded in 1972 by a line-up with Sweeney (drums), Minns (oboe, recorders and hammond), Mike Marchant (electric guitar and vocals), Simon House (electric violin, VCS3 and piano), Dave Tomlin (bass and flute) and Ron Kort (percussion, doom piano). The late Mike Marchant composed the majority of tracks inspired by Tarots. Recorded just in five days, rejected by Island Records, the album was lost in the vaults, re-discovered and published for the first time in 2004 by English Angel Air thanks the late sound engineer Ron Kort.

Here's Dave's writing about his tracks.

  
New Horizon (music & lyrics by Dave Tomlin)
There are four significant verses in the lyrics of this song. 

1) ‘We are standing on, our own horizon’. 
This, the first line of the song although intriguing, is in fact nonsense.
For those whose English is a little weak, the horizon is the visible line between the earth and sky. Sometimes this can be quite near depending on the kind of landscape. At other times it can be at a great distance (while at sea for instance).
Nevertheless, to stand on one’s own horizon cannot be done and were it to be accomplished would require shifting to another dimension. However, the concept leads to another seeming impossibility which is revealed in the second verse.

2) ‘Paths that lead this way, by-pass yesterday’.

I wrote this song around 1966 when the idea of ‘now’ was inspiring the minds of the hippies of that time. 'Baba Ram Das’ (Richard Alpert) book, ‘Be here now’, was required reading and the idea of abandoning the past in this quest had much power. This was the notion that launched the ‘happenings’ and spontaneous events that were the signature phenomena of the time. On a more personal level the idea also supported the idea that the personal ‘self' belonged to the past, and freedom from that self lay only in the present moment. Therefore, to by-pass yesterday was an invitation to a new kind of freedom.

3) ‘It’s made more or less, out of nothingness but that doesn’t mean, it cannot be seen’.

Quantum physics had of late revealed the insubstantial nature of matter which, although obtuse to the point of almost non-existence is still, nevertheless, commonly perceivable by the human eye.

Some forms of Buddhism also speak of this paradoxical fact.

4) ‘There’s no reason why, we should have to lie/die. If the Pope goes mad, we’ll be very glad/sad’.

I realised when writing these lyrics that they might be controversial amongst those of a particular religious persuasion and therefore, as above, considered some alternatives. However, I left this decision to the very last moment, in fact while I was singing it, and, the times being what they were, I was seized by a bolshie spirit and went for ‘lie’ and ‘glad’.

Catholics of course are excused from adopting this view, but for those outside that mindset such an affliction to the Holy Father would seem to be of great benefit and undermine the credibility of that teaching, particularly for children who are being programmed into such a Satanic doctrine. For instance, in the view of that perfidious teaching to miss mass on Sunday is a mortal sin, and should that sinner die without seeking forgiveness in the confessional, will be cast into Hell for all eternity.

Enough to terrify and give nightmares to any sensitive and vulnerable child. 

               A beautiful page from "Conference of the birds" by Farid Ud-Din Attar (1177).

The Phoenix (music and poem by Dave Tomlin) 

This song also written in 1966 was based on and inspired by

‘The Conference of the Birds’. A 12th century Persian poem by Farid Ud-Din Attar.

‘Come you lost atoms to your centre draw and be the eternal mirror that you saw Rays that have wandered into darkness wide return and back into your sun subside’.
etc.

The birds go on a journey to seek their King, the ‘Simoch’ otherwise the Phoenix. 

"Conference of the birds" (detail), from Attar Mantiq al-Tayr (1493)

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first) 

The core of it. Some personal autosuggestions of postfolk-shaman Sedayne about the Third Ear Band.

An artist is an artist - an artist, an artist, an artist - as George Sand would tell today about Sedayne (Sean Breadin), the English postfolk shaman devoted to strong fieldworks on traditional soundscapes.

These are some inspired suggestions by him to get us ready for the Autumn-Winter season...

"A visitor to my house recently looked through my CD shelf and was surprised to see more than the three old Third Ear Band albums they were aware of. They hadn't known of the Hydrogen Jukebox, nor yet the re-union era Italian albums, much less Abelard and Heloise and The Magus; they hadn't known of all the rarities that have emerged in recent years from The National Balkan Ensemble to the session material (ancient & modern) or the German DVD and the French TV footage.

Time was, I was well content with my three Third Ear Band albums - old habits die hard: on cold Autumn mornings I always play Macbeth. Alchemy is special beyond measure - I only play it when it snows! Elements I play on stormy elemental evenings remembering the friends I never saw again after I first played it to them - Gong they could cope with, but the Third Ear Band was going too far.

These days - God knows. I often find myself playing Brainwaves when I'm cooking. It's nothing special in the way the other albums are, but it is Glen - the heart and soul of the Tertius Auris; Shaman, Trickster and catalyst for some of the finest music I've ever heard. Hell, even The Magus has its moments of utter transcendence, and Druid Grocking on the German footage is one of the most astonishing things I've heard in my entire life. 

The core remains the pure Alchemy of the four elementals though, as revealed on the French film: Richard is Fire - he burns & blazes, relentless, hungrily consuming the silences whilst lighting the very dark & warming the bitter cold; Paul is Air - he blows as the rushing wind that moves the waves & sets the very trees a dancing; Glen is the Earth - the stone circle dragon-alignments that set pulse and pattern to both enrich and 

 reveal the very chaos of nature; and Ursula is Water - she flows, she sparkles and she thunders in the depths of the unfathomable abyss. At least that's how I see it anyway.

Oh, and I forgot to mention New Forecasts, featuring Ursula on Sybilic Violin by way of pure Revelation, as the best of it remains, eternally...".

Follow Sedayne at:

http://ploughmyth.blogspot.com/ 
http://soundcloud.com/rapunzel-and-sedayne
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rapunzel-and-Sedayne/217002238319466

                                                        Sedayne - "Mr. Fox's Equinox" (March 2012)
no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first) 

TEB music on Spotify platform.

At the moment available just in some countries (UK, USA, Sweden, Spain, France, Finland, Norway and Netherlands), this new Web juke-box (with millions of tracks to listen) "comes in all shapes and sizes, available for your PC, Mac, home audio system and mobile phone". As they promises: "Wherever you go, your music follows you".

Very easy to start, just download and install Spotify (at http://www.spotify.com/int/), then search the tracks you like...

Some are the Third Ear Band records available:

TEB's Top Gear radio session recorded on July 27th, 1969 ("Hyde Park Raga", "Druid" and "Ghetto Raga"), Glen Sweeney's Hydrogen Jukebox (published in 1991), the quite horrible "The Magus" (2004) and the absolutely terrific "Alchemy" (1969) and the Elements album (1970).

no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

TEB "I the Key" included on a new Angel Air compilation.

The bad "I The Key", taken from the rather ugly posthumous TEB's album "The Magus" (published by Angel Air in 2004), has been included on a new Angel Air compilation titled "Ventis secundis, tene cursum. This is Progressive Rock!" (Angel Air SJPCD348) realised on January 2011.

Other bands included, Atomic Rooster, Affinity, Greenslade and Warhorse. 

Short samplers of the tracks are available at http://www.allmusic.com/album/ventis-secundis-tene-cursum-this-is-progressive-rock-r2103135

 The album has been edited by the writer/reviewer James McCarraher that in his Web site (http://www.jamesmccarraher.com), about the TEB, writes:
"Third Ear Band emerged in a haze of hashish onto the alternative music scene in the late Sixties and produced a series of strong albums. They epitomised the title of this collection with their spontaneity and experimentation, working with raga, folk and classical music. Despite a rolling line-up, they achieved a lot in a short period, including the recording of the soundtrack to Polanski's 'Macbeth', which was also released as an album.
The final recordings from 1972 failed to see the light of day for over thirty years, the tapes being stored away carefully by producer, Ron Kort. Kort took the tapes to Angel Air in 2004 and they duly released them as 'The Magus' (magician). Sadly, Ron died before the album went to the pressing plant. He would have been thrilled at the reception it received. Classic Rock Society described it as “...an atmospheric and ambient album, this is the point where electronic music, classical music and ambient music meet in an otherworldly journey through music...a superb album.” The track featured here is 'The key', which is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Ron Kort". 

Among the reviews published in the Net, Steven Reid on Rocktopia claims "I could personally have done without the spacey snake charming of Third Ear Band, or the jazz meets Ozric Tentacles of Mouse, but neither song is particularly awful"; while such Claudia A, on Music-News.com tells that "‘The Key’ by The Third Ear Band is a product of the hazy and psychedelic 60’s, with a sound that’s throws folk and raga elements in the blender, with a dash of classic. Not much rock here and also not a track that stood the test of time too well, more like one to chill out to or get stoned to".

I'm sure Glen and Paul would be horrified now by this thing (It seems to me to hear Glen say: "Bad news, Baby!"...).
But... biz is biz, baby. 
Isn't it so?

Info about the CD at http://www.angelair.co.uk/

no©2011 Luca Ferrari