A little talk with Gino Dal Soler, writer & journalist, author of a recent essay on psychedelic folk music with few pages dedicated to the TEB.

A great book, really, that one written by Gino Dal Soler, Italian writer and journalist of "Blow Up" magazine. The problem it is that it's written only in Italian.

More exhaustive than the recent good book of Cresti rewieved here (read at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2011/03/third-ear-band-quoted-on-italian-book.html), more handbook than essay, with "The Circle is Unbroken" Dal Soler traces the long fascinating epic history of that kind of music (most of all, English and American) defied weird folk, starting from the recognised fathers of the revival (in UK Davy Graham, Shirley and Dolly Collins, Anne Briggs...) to the more recent musicians, even if he's conscious that is "a story still open", "a still unexplored universe by an essay writing level" (and the huge work made by Rob Young published in UK by Faber & Faber as "Electric Eden. Unhearting Britain's visionary music" (read at http://www.electriceden.net/) - 664 pages - proves it...).

Shirley Collins and Davy Graham

Among a very lot of known and unknown artists - believe me, a true map also for expert listeners! - few pages are dedicated to the Third Ear Band, a group Dal Soler knows very well from the '70's, when, as he writes, "for ourself it meant mysterious looks, records mainly impossible to find, a pure fragment of the English underground scene or maybe just universal one".
On the paragraph titled "The Third Ear Band magical esoterism", describing the music of "Alchemy", he considers "Lark Rise" "an autentic folk gem included just to reaffirm the primary roots of a sound that has taste of earth and "wilderness"".

About "Third Ear Band", "an absolute masterpiece", Del Soler writes the music "bordered on the sublime, perfect in its ciclic evolve" and, describing "Earth", he admits that "it's impossible to tell the beauty of that circular vertigo as like to evoke with simply words the impressive vertical power of "Fire": the flames and the explosive  energy of the element are delineated by a relentless and wild movement of percussion, strings and oboe gone mad, literally the peak reached by the Third Ear Band as to power, dynamism and alchemy of sound".

The second English edition of the record.

And if for the author "Abelard & Heloise" is "still full of charm and mystery", "Music for Macbeth" has "an ever more folk oriented bent". "Many people, by the gloomy and dramatic atmosphere that permeated the whole record, caught the presage of decline".
From the reunion of the band in '80's and '90's, Del Soler takes "Magic Music" as his favourite, "where the band seems to come back to the far esoteric splendour despite the almost totally new line-up".
The tracks "try again to tell the ancient lost legends and the druids around Glostonbury Tor, highlighting that happy and very peculiar free folk and improvised music have influenced so much the "weird-wild folks" generation in Europe as in America. Music from the spheres, modal ragas, primitive and tribal dances run into distill a quintessence that was psychedelic and visionary, terrible and sublime".

Because this archive first of all intends to be a place of ideas, opinions, memories, essays, I've asked the author (visit him at http://it-it.facebook.com/people/Gino-Dal-Soler/100000741111756) some questions on his approach to the Band's music.

What do you remember about the mood of the time, when the name of the TEB was circulating for the first time among fans? Did you get their  albums at the time? How?

"The discover of the TEB for myself it was a sort of epiphany. I remember when I bought firstly the second album, the so-called "The Elements Album", it was almost a revelation for whom just few months before like progressive music...
It happened in Brescia (where I was studying) at the very beginning of '70's, in a record shop selling imported albums (there I bought also Popol Vuh's "Hosianna Mantra" and Tangerine Dream's "Atem"...).

The book was published on 1973.

Until that time on the TEB I had read only an inspiring piece on "Pop Story", a book written by the Italian rock journalist Riccardo Bertoncelli, and that thing was enough to persuade me to looking for the records. It wasn't so easy in that period, infact I found "Alchemy" with some difficulties just one year after...
I listened them with a religious transport in certain hours of the day, savouring with care and let to listen to my friends that visited me as they was sort of precious pearls, but not for all... From that period I've never stopped to listen the first two albums. Sometimes I prefer the first one ("Ghetto Raga", "Stone Circle", divine...) but when I listen to "Air Earth Fire and Water" is as a dance that repeat itself every time. I think it would be very difficult to choice just one of them if I were forced to do it..."

Did you have friends to share TEB music with or it was just a solo experience?

"Both of things...".

Which do you think are the real connections of the TEB music and the folk Sixties/Seventies scene? Do you think it is effective or just ideal?

"I just think so, even if the band's uniqueness made them a separate world - it wasn't properly folk and it wasn't free jazz... Avant-garde music 0r etnomagic music? Who knows, you can tag them in any way, but for myself those so arcane and mysterious sounds evoked me other worlds where to look at and for that I've stopped to worry to define them...

The original Dal Soler's writing published on "Re Nudo".

About the TEB I wrote one of my first stuff on music on the magazine "Re Nudo", I think around 1979, when the band was split by then and for many people they was just a distant (but unforgettable) memory... I remember also that the editorial staff decided to publish it as like I had typewritten it with all my corrections and drawings, on the central pages of the magazine...".

Which is your favourite TEB track and why?

"Re Nudo" stuff pt. 2

"I think I've still suggested it in my previous answers, but here are my favourite tracks: "Earth" (one of the most pretty and whirling dance related to the element); "Stone Circle", just very few minutes of pure magic... "Fire", the panic ecstasy burning and dissolving... The misteries of "Egyptian Book of the Dead"... and then their vision of the Raga hither and thither disseminated on all their records...".

Did you follow their reunion in the '80's and '90's? What do you think about it?

"Of couse and I'll never stop to thank you for it... Your personal contribution in that sense cannot be discussed... And "Magic Music" is still a great album!"
What do you think about their music being so unique?
"The originality, the state of grace...".

no©2011 Luca Ferrari

"Life takes so much time!". An interview with Ursula Smith, the legendary TEB cello player.

Yes, dear inveterate TEB fans, at last we have got the announced interview with Ursula Smith, the legendary great cello/violin player of the Third Ear Band!
As she writes me from his home in Norwich, 
"(...) Sorry this has taken so long. I hope it is of some use/interest. Life takes so much time!".

Right. Here's the interview...

Ursula Smith at the end of a concert with the Norwich Philarmonic Orchestra (2011)

What kind of musical training have you got? 

"I started piano lessons at the age of eight and took up the cello at 13, I had lessons on the cello at school but the teacher was never there for the lessons, I have an idea that he didn’t think girls should learn the cello. I taught myself from what I had learned on the piano. Later I had lessons from a Polish gentleman who was a professional cellist . He helped me with the audition for the Royal Academy of Music".

As every serious TEB fan knows you met Glen and the other guys after a concert in a prison... What do you remember about it? Why did you decide to join the band?

"I left the Royal Academy in 1966 and did a year teaching. I didn’t enjoy the teaching much and left at the end of the year. I then took a job as a cleaner in a pub. At the time I joined a folk duo with singer songwriter guitarist Mike Deagan. We did some bookings in a folk club called Les Cousins in Soho (London) and it was there that we met folk singer Bridget St John. She was a friend of the DJ and broadcaster John Peel and one day she asked us if we would do a free concert for the remand prisoners in Holloway Prison. On the day we arranged to meet with the other performers John Peels flat. John wasn’t there at the time but that was where I first met with the Third Ear Band. The only person I recognised was the cellist Paul Buckmaster who I knew fom the Royal Academy, as we had had the same professor.
I remember we were playing to an audience of about 90 mostly young girls in a courtyard. . Around the yard were tall concrete walls with small cell windows in them , at the end of each number all these hands came out of the cell windows and waved.
One girl spoke to me in the interval and told me that she had been in the Arts Lab near Covent Garden, and she was on an acid trip, when the police came in and the the Arts Lab was raided. She was arrested and now she was on remand in Holloway. It came as a complete surprise to me at the end of the concert when Glen came up to me and asked me to join the Third Ear Band and I accepted. I learned later that the reason I was asked was that there had been several gigs that Paul Buckmaster was not able to do".
 

TEB 1970 (L-R): Minns, Sweeney, Coff and Smith (photo by Blackhill Enterprises)

Which are your feelings about the two years you played with the original TEB? Any particular memory about concerts, events, some anedocts...? 

"The band was on tour around the country. We played gigs in Scotland, in Wales, in Manchester - in a club called the Magic Village run by Roger Eagle - and some in a club in Birmingham called Mothers which was rumoured to be run by gangsters.
One of the early bookings I did was the first Isle of Wight festival with Bob Dylan on the bill. We arrived on the island by ferry and then drove to the venue field. The day before had been the rock and roll night headlined by the Who. We were on in the afternoon with folk artists like Tom Paxton, Richie Havens and Julie Felix, and in the evening was the comeback concert of Bob Dylan backed by the Band.
When I walked out on the stage there were people as far as I could see. I sat down and when the amplification was set up, I drew my bow across the strings and and I heard this great roaring sound, through the giant sound system and the monitors.
The other band members got set up and as we started to play the music came together. 

TEB on stage at Isle of Wight Festival (August 1969) with  Ursula on cello (on right)

 
We did some broadcasts mostly for John Peel, sometimes with an audience and sometimes just as recording sessions. The album "Earth Air Fire and Water" was recorded in Abbey Road Studios.
Abroad we did the Paradiso in Amsterdam, where most of the audience were lying on the floor, and we did several festivals in a giant sports stadiums in Germany.
There was a festival in an Aircraft hangar at Le Bourget airport in Paris, where the Pink Floyd were playing with a whole range of other bands. I remember we stayed at the Paris Hilton and we did a TV show in Belgium. We did two concerts in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank - the first one was called "The Crab and the Crescent Moon": this was shortly after the moon landing and the title was based on a dream that Glen had had. Dave Loxley did a poster for the concert which was based on a tarot card. 

The music was accompanied by a light show by Tina Keane and there was a guest appearance by sitar player Sam Hutt. Later Sam Hutt became famous as the country singer Hank Wangford.
We were booked to do a national tour with folk singer Al Stewart. Glen wanted to call the tour "Atlantis Rising", myself and Steve [Pank, her husband and road manager of the TEB] were detailed to go and see Al to ask him if he would accept that title. He was a bit doubtful about it and said he would be just as happy if the tour was called ‘Ham and Eggs’.

However he accepted the title and during the concert we shared with him at the Queen Elizabeth Hall he gave a short speech about how Nostradamus had predicted the assassination of the Kennedy brothers. He then sang a song about Nostradamus. Later when he toured America his tour was called ‘The year of the Cat’.
The Third Ear Band played for two Druid ceremonies, the midsummer one on Glastonbury Tor and the Dawn Equinox ceremony at Parliament Hill in London.
We had been in Germany playing at couple of festivals and recording the soundtrack for a German TV production of Abelard and Eloise. On that, we first watched the movie though on a TV screen and then it was played in front of us while we improvised the music.
When we arrived back in London having had virtually no sleep we were immediately rushed into the back of a van and driven to Glastonbury Tor. We climbed the Tor carrying the instruments. Luckily it was beautiful day. My cello was the heaviest and the biggest. The person having the most problem was the Chief Druid who looked like he might have heart attack at any moment. He had to keep stopping to have a rest. When we all reached the top I found that there was nothing for me to sit on, so I sat on the side of the Hill. After the Druids performed their ceremony, we played to the people and to the Sun. 

TEB playing for Druids in 1970: Ursula on left with Glean on tablas and Coff on violin

The dawn ceremony for the equinox was on Parliament Hill in Hampstead. We processed with the druids and formed a circle, and the druids started the ceremony. Paul was asked to play to announce the rising of the sun.
The Chief Druid got the time wrong and Paul had to keep playing for ages till the correct moment of the sun rise. We were honoured to be asked to take part in these ancient ceremonies, it was a unique experience for the band.
We also did a concert in the Royal Festival shared with a French avante garde music group...".

Why did you decide to leave the band with Richard Coff? What did happen to the Cosmic Overdose (?) project?

"After Steve left the band as driver, we were doing a tour of Belgium when Richard called me and Paul together, and Richard started a discussion saying he was not happy with the way the band's finances were being run. He said he had decided to leave and asked me to go with him. That was when I left the band. 

Richard and I did some rehearsing and got some ideas together. Richard rang the "Melody Maker" music paper and got an interview, but we had not got equipment or management or agency.
We were busking near Speaker's Corner Hyde Park when this South African guy came up to chat to us, and said he knew a guy who ran an equipment shop and he could get us some equipment there.
We went to the shop and Richard spoke to the manager who told us that this person was an intelligence agent for the South African government and that we should be very wary of him.
After that Richard rejoined the Third Ear Band and so did Paul Buckmaster. Soon after that the Third Ear Band got signed for doing the music for Polanski’s "Macbeth"...".

What have you done just after the split with Coff? 

"I got interested in traditional folk music and in 1970 I went to a traditional folk festival in Ireland and took up the fiddle. I used to go down to sessions at Cecil Sharp House [English folk song and dance society] and joined in with the folk dance band there.

Later I played with a ceilidh band called Ginger Beer Shindig with some people who l later formed the band Blowzabella. I did a recording session for Clive Palmer on his first Album. I remember the comic actor John Cleese coming into the studio.

I moved to Norwich with Steve in 1971 and our son was born there in the Autumn of that year. By then Steve was playing the guitar and bass guitar and we formed a folk dance band called the Haymakers. We played at dances, clubs, festivals and fairs until the early 1980s.
On one occasion I depped for Dave Swarbrick of the Fairport Convention. I did the arrangements for a live production of Peter Bellamy’s "The Transports" and recorded [on cello] with the comedy folk duo The Kipper Family as part of The New Trunch Coronation Band.

 A rare VHS from YouTube with a Bellamy rehearsal: note Ursula with her cello on right

How Glen contacted you for playing with the reformed TEB? 

"After that period I was playing fiddle in bluegrass and country bands until I started teaching music in a school in Suffolk. Around that time Glen asked me to rejoin The Third Ear Band playing fiddle for a tour of Italy..".

Lyn Dobson and Ursula at  "Psycho Club" (Genova) on  January 1989 (photo by L. Ferrari)

What are you doing now? 

"More recently I have returned to playing classical music on the cello. Currently I am the principal cellist with the Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra [read at http://www.norwichphil.org.uk/index.htm] and I do freelance work for local choral societies and occasional chamber concerts and string quartet concerts". 

Ursula on cello during a rehearsal at St Andrew's Hall (Norwich) on 5th December 2008

Ursula on November 6th, 2010 at St Andrew's Hall Mahler rehearsal

(An attempt of) An Ursula Smith discography

Third Ear Band 

"Third Ear Band" (LP/CD - Harvest SHVL 773, UK 1970)

Third Ear Band

"Abelard & Heloise" (CD - Stampa Alternativa SB, ITA 1970/1997)

C.O.B. (Clive's Original Band)

"Spirit of love" (LP/CD - CBS, UK 1971)

Third Ear Band

"Experiences" (LP - Harvest SHSM 2007, UK 1976) anthology

The Kipper Family (with the New Trunch Coronation Band)

"The Ever Decreasing Circle" (LP/CD - Dambuster Records, UK 1985/2005) 

Third Ear Band  

"New Forecasts from the Third Ear Almanac" (cassette - ADN RECO1, ITA 1989) live
Big Ray
"Naked" (LP/CD - City Slang, GER 1992)
Ursula played violin and cello on three tracks. Read at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2013/04/unknown-1991-ursula-smiths.html

Peter Bellamy 

"Wake the Vaulted Echoes" (Free Reed Records, UK 1999) anthology 
3 tracks have taken from the never officially realised BBC 1982 production titled "Maritime England Suite" (read details at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/11/ursula-pank-nee-smith-played-also-on.html) 

(Discography updated on April 17th, 2013)
no©2011 Luca Ferrari 

Another Italian book about psychedelic folk with quotations on the Third Ear Band.

Gino Dal Soler, Italian journalist of "Blow Up" magazine, is the author of another book about acid/psychedelic folk music titled "The Circle is Unbroken: forty years of psychedelic and visionary folk" printed on January 2011 by Tutte Edizioni (235 pages, € 16,00. You can get a copy writing at http://www.blowupmagazine.com/prod/the-circle-is-unbroken.asp).

Soon an interview with the writer to deepen his point of view about the band...

no©2011 Luca Ferrari 

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