Balham sessions'unrealised TEB tracks album postponed.

Asking by mail to Denim Bridges about some news on the projected new TEB album with the tracks from the Balham sessions (February 1971), this is his kind (& very interesting) answer:

"Hi Luca,
good to hear from you. I regret I have not been able to spend anytime on TEB. I have needed to concentrate on recording CDs for Fiona Frensche and promoting my album ("Go For Gold" by The Bevans) through iTunes, Amazon and Zunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/go-for-gold/id424375245
http://www.amazon.com/Go-For-Gold/dp/B004RA8LMI/
http://social.zune.net/album/The-Bevans/Go-For-Gold/ccefb906-0100-11db-89ca-0019b92a3933/details

You will hear better samples of the songs at

Reverbnation.com/thebevans

or
Myspacemusic.com/bevansband

The samples are shortened versions of the whole song not just the first 30 secs.

I am going to be touring as the sound engineer for Renaissance this summer. There is talk of a tour of Italy next year. I hope to get time to dedicate to TEB in the autumn/ fall. 

I saw about the cover of "Fleance"'s song. I'd like to hear it. Glen and Paul hated that track because it didn't fit in with TEB concept. It was composed for the movie and it was composed by me alone. The words were provided to me so I, of course, just wrote the melody and chords. The turn around where I repeat the line as a sort of refrain was my trick that I often use(d) and using the minor chord was cool I think. The rest of the band improvised the arrangement in TEB style as best we could within the ridged structure. Anyway that song was the start of my demise with TEB as that's the way I wanted TEB to go. Finally a spelling correction - it's "Groom's Dance" not "Groam's Dance". 

My memory is going. As I said I was the 'songwriter' in TEB and we have ascertained the "Mistress To The Sun" had been lost. I am also confused regarding "I The Key". For me to have played it on Peel's show I must have written it but I don't remember it. But, I didn't remember the song from Hamburg until you showed me the video. When I get to a computer instead of my iPhone I might be able to access some links.

Anyway, I'll keep you informed.

Regards,
Denny" 

 

no©2011 Luca Ferrari 

An interview with Italian musician Fabio Zuffanti that 'demixed' on July 2000 the TEB "Elements" album.

As written on a past file in this Archive (http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/italian-musician-fabio-zuffanti-demixed.html), Italian musician Fabio Zuffanti recorded on July 2000 a 'demixed' version of the Third Ear Band "Elements" album.

Zuffanti is playing & recording music from 1994, solo and with some other bands, producing an huge amount of interesting music (check at his site http://www.zuffantiprojects.com/).

Because this Archive intend to document all the things related to the Third Ear Band, we think it's important to interview him about that experience, investigating on the process of 'demixing' that old wonderful tracks.

Fabio Zuffanti (2011)

When (and how) your interest for the Third Ear Band is born?

"My knowledge of music comes from my brother's records collection and dates back to my childhood. Among the records I remember a copy of "Music from Macbeth". Sure, I was too young at that time, but I remembered that music afterward as something of strange and magic, fixed in my mind even in my teen years. In that period, around the end of '80's, I remember I read a beautiful retrospective about the TEB on "Rockerilla" (an Italian rock magazine) and from there I wished to deepen the knowledge of the group. In those days  reissues of old albums was circulating in the shops and I bought a copy of "Third Ear Band" being enchanted. At that point I got all their (scant) discography. Frankly, I wasn't interested into the band reunion, happening just in that period, because I was totally involved in their arcane works recorded in the Sixties/Seventies. Anyway, after that I've listened to all the new recordings and the archive stuffs too".

What about the idea to "demix" the "Elements" album?

"It was just a very impulsive thing, without counts. One day, while I was listening to the "Elements" album, I wished to go deep into the music and try to get his core for expanding some traits of it. I wanted to build from that tunes something more dilated that started from the elements to achieve something more wide and visionary. I feel TEB compositions as tied to something of very hearthly, as it's normal for a description of elements characterizing our existence on this planet. I've tried to do it much more abstract, making such as a mix between the sciamanic TEB world and my artistic 'Enonian' (i.e. Brian Eno music) influence...".

The album recorded in 200

Can you explain us the concept of "demixed"? What do you mean exactly?

"I told you it before. It means to go deep in a tune. I like to think about a white hot core and from there to expand everything to outside, making it to grow and picking out some aspects rather than others. While for 'remix' I mean a different disposition of tracks, for 'demix' I mean something more emotional and specific. It goes to the core of creation, explodes it and then reconnects all the pieces...".

Which is the technical process of it?

"I did the work 11 years ago and I didn't have so much technology at the time - just a programme called Cool Edit. Using it I've imported all the four tracks from the original CD and sometimes I've expanded and delayed the tunes with  the time stretch, making everything became slower, out-of-focus and foggy; in some cases I've selected one element that it seemed to me topical for about the composition and I've rebuild the tune using just that kind of fragment. On everything I used a wide amount of delay, reverberations and echoes because I was interested, as I told before, to lend to the music a state of trance, more abstract as regards the original TEB tunes". 

What do you think about the TEB work? How did it contribute to your musical research?

"As a listener of the band I just think all the best. TEB is a really magical and alchemical group and it reflects into the music some medieval depictions where alchemy tried to reveal an inner and fantastic side of reality. For myself, this visual element is very very important; all the artists I love are those let me imagine arcane and timeless world.
On the level of my musical research, apart that experiment to 'demix' their music, I don't think to have ever take back in my compositions all the love I feel for the TEB atmosphere. Maybe because I've always worked on more 'rational' areas of composition and I've never worked on open structures and based on improvisation as Sweeney & co. did".

Is it possible you'll work on other TEB compositions in the future?
"I don't think at the moment, but I've got an old dream, to form an ensemble for playing a kind of music between TEB and "Hosianna Mantra"'s Popol Vuh. I know one day I'll do it, but I don't know when...". 


Download and enjoy the TEB "Elements" demixed album at http://www.zuffantiprojects.com/spirals/thirdearbanddemixed.htm

no©2011 Luca Ferrari 

New album by Sweden Urf Ivarrson's Beat Under Control, "between European avant textures to late 60s hypno-drone alchemists the Third Ear Band...".

His second album has been published at the beginning of last April.  
Urf Ivarrson, a Sweden musician played with bands as the great Hedningarma, has a great "jazz/dub intense electro funk" album (a quotation from his record company) with some explicit reference to European avantgarde music and the Third Ear Band, recorded by his own band Beat Under Control.

Urf Ivarrson

As it's stated on his label's Web site Magnatune, "this philosophy is explored with often stunning results on Ulf's second Beat Under Control album, "Cosmic Repackage", a colossal aural menagerie of space-jazz brass themes and solo flights, subterranean pulses and dark-hued banks of strings which dart between European avant textures to late 60s hypno-drone alchemists the Third Ear Band... it's a heady brew, ranging from the nocturnal back alley jazz of neighbourterror blues to the intense freeform scattershots and coruscating atmospherics of "departure... if dub's shadow looms over the album, notably on tracks like the bottomless fizz-bombs of interruption, it steps out and flashes its glorious sonic stiffie on the alien skank of subversion dub, albeit lashed with dissonance and howling winds...". 

Tracks as "Cosmic Repackage" (7:22), "Departure" (1:53) or "Numb" (6:50) refer to the last Materiali Sonori TEB albums, expecially "Brain Waves", with that electronic jazz spacey avantgarde rock of Sweeney & Carter. An interesting exhaustive review is available at http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/st/2008/04/beatundercontrol-cosmic-repackage-malicious-damage/

You can listen to and buy "Cosmic Repackage" at http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/beatunder-cosmic/

no©2011 Luca Ferrari 

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

Who's that Groan quoted on TEB's "Groan Dance"?

Mervyn Peake

Except for few tracks, TEB compositions have been only instrumental. As we know, they used to title tracks with some references (sometimes obscure) to philosophy, religion, science, culture...
One track, apparently mysterious, is titled "Groan's Dance" and was performed by the band at the BBC programme "Drummond" on March 21th, 1972 .

Who's that Groan?
 
Maybe some TEB's fans ignore that Titus Groan was one of the main characters of a famous trilogy written by English writer (and artist) Mervyn Peake (read at http://www.mervynpeake.org/) between 1946 and 1959.

A trilogy of Fantasy quite near to the more famous (and contemporaneous with) J.R.R. Tolkien.

In the rock history other groups quoted some references to the Peake's works: Steerpike and  Gormenghast was names of bands recording in 1969-1971 taken by Peake's characters/places. So the progressive English groups Titus Groan (with an album recorded in 1970 with the track "Fuschia" (!) on it...) and Fuchsia with only one album in 1971. 

A drawing by Peake based on the trilogy

Al Stewart quotes Peake on his sleeve notes for "Zero She Flies" (1970), while the Strawbs titled a track "Lady Fuchsia" in their 1973 album "Bursting at the Seams". Another English band called Fruupp titled a track "Gormenghast" for his record "Modern Masquerades" in 1975.

In 2000 also ex-Can Irmin Schmidt composed and conducted an opera based on the Peake's trilogy titled "Gormenghast"...

PS: Because a TEB track of the same period is titled "Groom's Dance", a beautiful medieval dance composed for the soundtrack of Polanski's "MacBeth", it could be possible it was a misspell of the title possibly made by the DJ during the radio programme. Unfortunately no radio recordings of that broadcast seem to be around...

At the page http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2011/05/balham-sessionsunrealised-teb-tracks.html on May 22th, 2011 Denim Bridges makes the things clear revealing the right title is "Groom's Dance"...

Last update: May 23th, 2011

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

A new letter from Steve Pank...

While I'm still waiting the Ursula Smith's answers to my questions sent before Christmas, and no news are coming from Denim Bridges (the project of a new TEB record...), just yesterday Steve Pank has written me this letter, quite interesting...

"Hi Luca,

(...) I have been quite busy writing a book of music it is called "Chromatic cycles" and is to help instrumentalists to play in any key, I have written versions for brass instruments, the saxophone, flute keyboard and cello, I have finished them now so I should have more time for other writing.
I have been helping Ursula with her piece for the website, as I was with the band most of the time that she was in it. There is a bit more work to do on it. 

(...) I recently saw Carolyn in London as she came to the Druid ceremony of the spring equinox on Tower Hill, I have some photographs of her in the ceremony and also of Dave Loxley who did the covers for Achemy and the Elements, he is now the Chief Druid. 

I will email you the photographs if I can sort out how to do it. I also have some photographs of Ursula at the end of a concert where she was leading the cello section of the Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra.

Whilst I was in London Carolyn gave me a copy of the "Live Ghosts", the album made with Paul Minns and Alan Samuel. I had never heard it before. I knew Alan briefly when he was living at the embassy with Dave Tomlin and others... I though he played nicely and I enjoyed what he did, but the really important thing about that recording is that it was the last that Paul recorded with the Third Ear Band and for me his playing was remarkable, as good as or even better than the work he did with the original band.
I recently bought a CD of "Alchemy" and the Elements from Amazon at a reasonable price, some of the fans might like to know that it is available again...

(L-R) Dave Tomlin and Steve Pank in London on July 2010 (photo by Luca Ferrari).

Carolyn or was it Dave told me that you were interested in the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream which happened in 1967. The person you need to contact about that is Hoppy, John Hopkins, he was the main man, he was a Third Ear Band fan and you may be able to contact him through the International Times website.
I may be running out of space in this mail, so I will finish now and will encourage Ursie to complete her contribution. Send me a tape by all means, but not the original, make a copy.
Good wishes

Steve".
no©2011 Luca Ferrari

A review on "Third Ear Band" by American musician Elliot Knapp

American musician Elliot Knapp, on his personal blog at http://www.elliotknapp.com/2011/02/third-ear-band-third-ear-band.html, has reviewed TEB's second album, the seminal "Third Ear Band". Frequently on the Web fans and journalists use to write on the band, testifing the great interest for the TEB is not expired, and this review is particularly smart...

"Third Ear Band's second album, 1970's self-titled (now sometimes retroactively titled "Elements") builds on the oboe melody-led excursions of "Alchemy" by assigning each of its four songs to an element. While the instrumentation is still basically the same as the debut, the songs are considerably more identifiable from each other.

Every time I listen to this album I'm amazed at how fun a listen it is without being particularly melodic: the opener, "Air" gently coalesces out of the ether based on a repetitive tabla beat and some probing oboe and cello/violin groans and fails to present any melody except for an occasionally repeated violin riff. And yet, its smoky mystery is utterly compelling and lushly gorgeous, especially considering how few instruments produce the music. "Earth" shifts gears completely, with the strings playing pizzicato over a much more minstrel-like beat from the drums. Dual oboes improvise gently, probing Eastern-scales, while the tempo subtly gathers pace. All of a sudden it's an ecstatic frenzy, then just as suddenly the tension disappears, the rhythmic pattern slightly shifts, and the process starts again. Despite the general mood and ever-present tonal center of the music, there's no real melody to speak of - clear and quite listenable evidence that melody needn't reign supreme as the only musical element worthy of close attention.

"Fire" is a brilliant study in high-register drones and another shift in texture, with a relentless wavering feeling not unlike that of a dancing flame. "Water" closes the album with an actual melody (imagine that) over sustained violin with just enough dissonance to remind us that we're not in any territory that had been scouted at the time of the album's release, or really a whole lot more since. As I listen and re-listen in rapture to the strange and evocative sounds these instruments make together, I'm not always sure how the structures pertain to the elements they're named for, but in reality it's immaterial - by consciously giving each suite a distinct mood, the band stretched itself beyond its impressive but sometimes nebulous debut and gave structure to another forty odd minutes of rare beauty with memorable compositional elements".

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

Third Ear Band quoted on an Italian book about English electric folk music.

As reported some months ago at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-italian-book-on-english-electric.html Italian writer/musician Antonello Cresti has written a book on "electric English folk" titled "Fairest Isle" (Aereostella, € 17.00) where a prominent position is reserved to the Third Ear Band. You can buy a copy through the Web site of the home publishing at http://www.aereostella.it/libri.php.

Apart some obvious well-known references to the band's history (mainly based on my book "Necromancers of the drifting West", 1997), the most important aspect of the book is the author's attempt to analyze his musical project.

On a chapter titled "Pariah" (= outcast), Cresti writes about the TEB as one of the band "more radically experimental", a "one-off and unique experience", "probably the most  remote and isolated outpost in all the epic of new English folk music", here  named "wyrd folk" from a definition coined in 1990 by American artist Tim Renner.

The author claims TEB music is deep-rooted in psychedelia (for cultural aptitude) and folk - for the use of acoustic instruments and above all "for the strong, almost sacral, bond with their place of origin, even if inexorably "elsewhere" as regards to the map of musical orthodoxys of yesterday and nowdays".

Summing up the main phases of the band's history, the writer attributes to Glen Sweeney the role of deus ex machina, "perfect and sincretic fruit of many urges and illusions of a generous age as that hippy generation".

Strangely scarce the list of musicians influenced by the TEB: apart the Italian Aktuala and Franco Battiato's "Sulle corde di Aries" albums, Cresti quotes just the Xenis Emputae Travelling Band and our Sedayne... ignoring other not less important experiences (documented in this archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/italian-musician-fabio-zuffanti-demixed.html and http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-italian-tebs-little-nephews.html).

A specifc paragraph of the book is reserved to the analysis of the Elements album, with some interesting references to the links to the ancient celtic tradition of the cover lettering: "... infact it remembers the medieval Christian art and masterworks of miniature as that included on Lindisfarne's Gospels, works miniatured around 600 BC at the monastery founded by Saint Aidano on the wild isle of Lindisfarne, Northumberland...".

About the music on the album, Cresti underlines the relations with the ancient Greek philosophers (as Empedocle) and their idea of four elements as roots founding all the things.
“Sweeney and friends, with a tireless attempt of cultural hybridization, (…) pay their attention to a subject that, become famous thank to very wide speculations of Mediterranean world, it had appeared in many ancient civilizations all around the world: so the band’s holistic and pantheistic idea has contrasted to any materialistic and immanent conception of being ontology”.

Analyzing the four tracks, interesting the thinkings about "Earth" and "Water": on the first tune, Cresti claims "it's one of highest point reached by the band, even similar to the Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"", with a "pure musicality, where the melodic element becomes primordial rhythm".

About "Water" (my favourite ever!), he states "it's the descriptive peak reached by the band: it starts with some naive sound effects, then the composition unravels on a brilliant counterpoint of strings that symbolize the conflicting current of water".

In short, for the author the album it's "the experimental top of wyrd folk, the work where different processes of cultural and stilistic hybridation, even if in a reference frame strongely Britannic, have raised to fertile state of the art".

An important contribution to the comprehension of the TEB's still  quite obscure epic, very rare in Italian music journalism.

Cresti is working now on a new book dedicated to the English "esoteric folk", with some new analysis about the Third Ear Band (and maybe also an interview with myself about the cultural sources...).
Of course, I'll try  to document it for your esclusive pleasure...

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

An interview with Carolyn Looker, Glen Sweeney's wife, soon...

A long interview with Carolyn Looker will be published here soon. I've called her by phone some days ago and I've sent her about twenty questions on things connected to the Third Ear Band's story: it'll be an important chance to know and understand better some obscure facts of the past.

Luca Ferrari and Carolyn Looker in Chiswick,  London (July 2010)

Another interesting opportunity could be an interview with Kathryn Ade, Paul Minns'wife. I've sent her a letter to her old Scottish address, hoping she's living still there...

We will see.

Again nothing from Ursula Smith (and Steve Pank), even if I've sent her some questions just before Christmas...

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

On fRoots forum talking about Peter Bellamy, Ian A Anderson states that he played support to the Third Ear Band.

Just today musician and TEB's acolyte Sedayne writes me an e-mail about a discussion  on fRoots forum on Peter Bellamy, where the great Ian A Anderson reveals he was  involved with the Third Ear Band as supporter on live concerts... 

Read the letter and go to the forum for details...

Peter Bellamy at Shackleford Folk Club, 1980

"Hi Luca,

the release of the "Oak Ash Thorn" CD is almost upon us, featuring a stellar cast & already attracting a lot of media interest in the UK - read Colin Irwin's fRoots review here: http://www.frootsmag.com/content/issue/reviews/
(...) On the fRoots forum right now there's a general discussion on "Oak Ash Thorn" and Peter Bellamy on which the fRoots editor Ian A Anderson mentions he played support to the Third Ear Band on various occasions.  Could be another line of enquiry???  Read the discussion here:  http://froots.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5842
Hope all is well

Sean / Sedayne".

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

Third Ear Band's radio broadcasts available in the BBC vaults: a brief updating.

As the Third Ear Band's manager in the Eighties, I've been able to ask to BBC Archive service which TEB radio broadcasts are available in their archives.

Differently from that list published in the past (based on a book edited by Ken Garrer (read in this archive at the page http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-many-teb-unrealized-tracks-left.html), it seems the only broadcast available is just this:

"STUART MACONIE'S FREAK ZONE 

Date: 29/03/2009
Weekly music show presented by Stuart MACONIE. Includes
University of the Strange, live guests, archive performances and sessions. 

Entry produced from production sources This week:
UNIVERSITY OF THE STRANGE with Justin SPEAR: Yusef Lateef

FEATURED ALBUM: The Rotters' Club by Hatfield And The North

LIVE FREAKS: Third Ear Band (archive performance)"

The Broadcast Media Researcher Information & Archives Jeffrey Smith writes me that "the programme I emailed you is all we have listed under THIRD EAR BAND in our archive - I cannot find anything else" but, because I've replied him with the quote of the Garner's book on "John Peel sessions", he promises me "I will ask radio 1 to see if they have any other recordings of the band".

Anyway he cannot tell where, when and what the TEB played on that live freaks "archive performance"...

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

(Scraping the bottom of the barrell 4:) One unrealised 1989 live track of the Third Ear Band!

There's hardly anything left in my personal archive, but  searching better I've recently discovered one unrealised live track from the band, recorded in London at the end of Eighties.

Glen sent me a sampler of it with the indication "Dog Club" on the tape (see below), but the concert was probably that played at the "Sir George Robey" pub  on December 15th, 1989 as reported on this archive at the page http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2009/12/tebs-tape-recordings-at-london-british.html.

The line up, the same of the Vinci concert:

Glen Sweeney – hand drums

Lyn Dobson – sax and flute

Mick Carter – electric guitar and effects

Allen Samuel – violin

From the set played that night you can listen "The Book of the Dead" (no recordings of the other track quoted on the tape, "Midnight Drums"...) with Glen announcing it as "Necromancer".

All you have to do now is download this rare unexpected gemns at:
http://rapidshare.com/files/443983595/Book_of_the_Dead.mp3
and realize as great and powerful has been that line-up...

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

An unexpected letter from Denim Bridges...

Just few days ago (January 19th) TEB's guitar player from the "Macbeth" era Denim Bridges wrote me back after a very long time... Maybe we'll have new perspectives at last to see that old tracks realised?!

"Hi Luca,
I have been very involved with new projects. That is why I have not contacted you for a very long time. I saw your new posting. I was surprised that it was as recently as October last.

You can hear samples of my new music:

Originals
Reverbnation.com/thebevans
Covers
Myspace.com/dxbden

Denim Bridges, Largo (Florida) 2010

I hope to have the time this spring to look at the TEB tracks again. People can certainly influence me by pre-ordering the CD (LP or EP remains to be seen) via my e-mail address:

dxbden@yahoo.com

For the past 20 years in between playing gigs I have mixed front of house for Annie Haslam of Renaissance. In 2009 I was tour manager and FOH mixer for the 40 year anniversary tour of Renaissance in USA. In 2010 I mixed for Renaissance opening for Procol Harum.

I still play the occasional show with Fiona Frensche although the name Grandetourismo is no longer used. She plays solo more now.

I hope you have a happy and successful 2011.
Best wishes,
Denny".

So, dear TEB addicts, we have the opportunity now to "influence" Mr. Denim Bridges to produce the old TEB's tracks recorded in Balham. Write, write & write him!

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

A new letter from Steve Pank, original TEB's promoter and driver.

Waiting for the interview with his wife Ursula, here's a recent letter Steve Pank, the original TEB's promoter and driver, has sent me. Among the others, you can read some interesting unknown things about Paul Buckmaster...

(L-R) Dave Tomlin and Steve Pank in London, July 2010 (photo: L. Ferrari)

"Hy Luca.
Thank you for the photos, I like the ones with Dave and you and Dave and me but the one you and me that Dave took doesn't work so well.
Ursula a been working on the answers to the questions, you sent her, but we had all the family here (three children and three grandchildren) over Christmas and it has been a busy time.

I have not been able to get in touch with Richard Coff yet, I have had a look at his Suzuki Academy website and it looks as thought he is quite busy. I have a spare copy of "Abelard an Eloise" which you gave me, because Jan Diakov gave me a copy of it shortly after Glen's funeral. I think the best thing for me to do is to is to write to Richard in Miami and send it to him.

You may be interested in Mel Davis and the People Band, Mel was playing with the People Band before he joined the Third Ear Band and again afterwards. It seems they still get together. If you put ''Mel Davis People Band" into Google you will find the link.

Paul Buckmaster was at the Royal Academy of Music at the same time a Ursula and they shared a stand in the orchestra. After he left, one of the first things he did was and instrumental cover of "Je t'aime" the hit by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. At the time the original was considered too riskee for the BBC to play.

While he was with the Third Ear Band, he wrote the string part for David Bowie's 'Ground control to Major Thom' ["Space Oddity", from the same album of 1972] the violin crescendo at the end was rumoured to be based on Richard Coff's parts in "Book of the Dead".

Later went to America, he met Miles Davis. He also wrote some string arrangements for an album the Grateful Dead again ther is a rumour that the Miles Davis album title "Live Evil" was inspired by Glens reversible title "Evil dog".

I was pleased recently to get a double CD of "Alchemy" and "Elements" from Amazon at a very reasonable price.
Happy new year.
Steve Pank".

(L-R) Steve Pank and Dave Tomlin during a conversation with the archive's editor in London (photo: L. Ferrari)

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

(Scraping the bottom of the barrell 3:) Some rare poems by Glen Sweeney.

Written around the second half of '80's (except "Tiger", date back to 1979), here's some rare poems by Glen Sweeney, probably intended for a planned book of writings, poems & something else. But the book was never published... 

Poems to Maggie and Ron*

Her master with his million sins

his sawn off mind his seven chins

inside his head a demon sings

of blood and death and slaughter.

This witch sits spiderwise 

inside her web of lies and cries

only he loves me who dies

and the room filled up with laughter.

Ha, ha, ha, ha...

©1987  Glen   Sweeney Estate
*Note: Maggie and Ron are Margareth Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

The future star wars

There is a war in the stars

Venus fights Mars

and Earth is ripe for the kill

the prophets of doom

prepare for the boom

and they teach their kids to kill

it is plain to see

that our destiny is to fight 

till the end of the time

and love will become a crime

for the future of man

is a cosmic plan

by the architects of fear

and the gods they await

will arrive to late

with a nod a wink

and the fear.
 ©1987  Glen  Sweeney Estate

Untitled poem

Have you heard the sound of one hand clapping

have you heard the sound of one man rapping

tired of sleeping in the street

want somewhere to rest your feet

Have you heard the sound of one hand clapping

have you heard the sound of one man rapping

tired of politicians lies

don't listen with your ears

listen with your eyes. 

©1987 Glen  Sweeney Estate

 

The poem titled "Tiger" handwritten by Glen Sweeney.

Tiger

(Poem. Thanks to Willy Blake)

Tiger tiger 
burning bright

soon you will be 
an unknown sight

no more forests 
of the night

something that you 
cannot fight
has replaced thy 
fearfull symmetry
felled the soaring 
jungle tree
left a symbol 
                  of our culture
a 
   Coca Cola 
                     tin
on which stands 
                   a vulture.

 ©1979  Glen  Sweeney Estate     
                                                                                  

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

(Scraping the bottom of the barrell 2:) "Abrakadabra": another lyrics from the Hydrogen Jukebox era.

Here's another lyrics from the Hydrogen Jukebox, A.D. 1978, the electric-pop band formed by Sweeney after the TEB experience. Written by the percussionist for the album, but lightly modificated for the vocals, it's a long apocalyptic vision about the times, valid even for this 'new' second decade of 2000's...

Abrakadabra

"I've heard the works of Eliphus Levi
Kafka and Verlaine
I've been astral travelling nightly
with commuters of the brain
but the sign posts of the occult
all seem to read the same
I'm heading for the palace
of pain... singing

ABRAKADABRA now!

I've seen the demons of the drug stores
cast their pearls before swine
I've seen the pedliars of madness
down on Hollywood and vine
but the second hand of oblivion
sweeps the corridors of time
and I'm frozen in a catatonic mime... singing

ABRAKADABRA now!

I've seen the captains of confusion
order millions of their doom
heard the horseman of the apocalypse
like thunder on the tomb
heard the children of innocense
screaming in the womb
and I'm hiding in a crater on the moon... singing

ABRAKADABRA now!

The original lyrics handwritten by Glen Sweeney.

I've heard the pious popes of pornography
preaching to the poor
heard the flood tide of humanity
crying out for more
I saw the scothsayers of war
that left me screaming in terror 
on the floor... singing

ABRAKADABRA now!

I've heard the bibles of bullshit
preached the sermons of hate
I've seen the sign that says no niggers
above the pearly gate
I've sung the hymns of hypocrisy
and before it gets too late
I'm joining the fairies of fate... singing
ABRAKADABRA now!"
                                               ©1978  Glen Sweeney Estate

Jim "Gypsy" Hayes recording Hydrogen Jukebox tracks.

About the Hydrogen Jukebox: maybe can be intersting to know that the album, formerly titled "Apocaliptic Anthems" and then called "Prophesies" when Materiali Sonori produced it in 1991, had two different track-lists (but with Sweeney it was a normal thing...):

“Prophecies” (CD – Materiali Sonori , 1991)
“Kingdom of the Brave”. “Life is an Art”. “Crysalis the Man”. “Voidoid City”. “Shoe Suede Blues”. “Ab-ra-ka-dab-ra”. “Prophecies”. “To be Continued”.

“Apocaliptic Anthems”/”Voidoid City” (pre-realise tape)
“Abracadabra”. “Folded Up the Afternoon”. “Join the Fairys of Fate”. “Kingdom of the Brave”. Signspots of the Occult”. “Don’t whistle while you piss”. “I saw Buddha smile”. “Voidoid City”.

At one point, during 1990, Sweeney decided to title it "Voidoid City" and designed the cover reproduced below: 

                                                                                              ©1990  Glen Sweeney Estate

Asking Mick Carter, produced the album's  tracks  at Dansette Studios (Kent) in 1978 and the definitive mix at London Alchemical Studios in 1991, he confirmed no out-takes or alternate tracks exist in the vaults...

The Hydrogen Jukebox (L-R): Brian Diprose, Jim Hayes, Mick Carter, an unknown engineer, Glen Sweeney.

no©2011 Luca Ferrari