Ex-Judas Priest guitar hero K.K. Downing quotes the Third Ear Band celebrating his 62nd birthday!

Maybe it can look incredible, but ex-Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing quotes the TEB  while he's celebrating his 62nd birthday...
Read this, taken from the The House of Hair Web site (http://houseofhaironline.com/2013/11/metal-news-recap-week-of-november-3-2013/ ):

"Ex-Judas Priest guitar great K.K. Downing celebrated his 62nd birthday on October 27with this birthday message riminiscing about his younger days: 

“Well, it’s that time again! Another birthday comes around! All of you that were there with me in the late ‘60s/’70s and onwards will know what I mean. Isn’t it crazy that Mick Jagger is 70, for example? And Jimi Hendrix would also have been 70 this year. Anyway, not to be too down about it, because at least we were there to witness everything that is relevant to the music that we know and love today. I always say that I couldn’t have been born at a better time. I was just in my early teens when John Mayall, Cream and all of the early blues artists were just coming to fruition along with The Stones, Pretty Things, Troggs, and The Kinks, etc. This was all back in the day when music was everything to us, and it was all we had and we were more than happy with just that. Although I can remember having an insatiable appetite that always wanted feeding, so I had to go to concerts and festivals as much as I could. That’s because what I wanted was still scarce on radio and television. I seem to remember being 16 and there was only the late and great John Peel who played anything close to what we wanted to hear. Although John’s taste was often a little too diverse for me, including, for example, T. Rex, Captain Beefheart and the Third Ear Band, John was still the greatest pioneer and champion of our cause at the time.

John Peel & records

Am I jogging some memories here? Again starving for the real thing, I was lucky enough to see two shows on this Jimi Hendrix tour, Coventry 19th of November and Bristol 24th of November 1967. I can’t remember which tour it was but can remember being ecstatic when I myself with Priest played these venues later on, especially following in Jimi’s footsteps playing on stage right. Another great venue close to my heart: Newcastle City Hall — where Priest have played many times. I have only just found out that the tour went there. It is said and written that the great Lemmy [of Motorhead] himself was also working the tour as a roadie. I have hung out with Lemmy many times and never knew this; otherwise I would have wanted a gig by gig report off him. Anyway, my devoted friends, it is for sure that the Internet is our greatest friend and our worst enemy at the same time. But I am certainly grateful to the Internet today, in order to be able to bring this blog to you now. Please take care and please continue to feed the flames of metal.”

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

Avantguarde French composer Bernard Parmegiani died on last November 21th.

Avantguarde French composer Bernard Parmegiani has died on last November 21th at 86. He played on June 24th, 1970 with the Third Ear Band at the "Sun Wheel Ceremony", a concert promoted at the prestigious Royal Festival Hall of London.

The I.T. ad

That evening the band played with Bernard Parmegiani two traks, "Fire" and the unpublished 34'56" "Freak Dance" (other title: "Pop Secret", from the Parmegiani official Web site). On "Melody Maker" (July 4th, 1970), Chris Charlesworth wrote about the event: "The hall was barely half full. Accompained at times by electronic machines making weird sounds Third Ear Band droned through two lenghty pieces which were well accepted by their fans. Their music has no title and is 90 per cent improvisation. It just starts and finishes when the band feel like it. There's a vague anonymity about their music. However violinist Richard Coff, who hate make announcements, did mention that one piece was called "Freak Dance". This contained some haunting oboe work from Paul Minns, and I rather enjoied it. Their second piece was more ambitious and, I thought, less enjoyable. At one stage I actually saw Richard tapping his foot!".

Quite different Carolyn Looker's memories of the event (April 2012): "Parmegiani concert was at Festival Hall. It didn't work too well in my opinion. TEB's music was organic, the French were music concrete, it didn't got".

You can listen some original Parmegiani's compositions (from 1965 and 1971) at http://www.ubu.com/sound/parmegiani.html or download his "De Natura Sonorum" (1984) at https://archive.org/details/agp140

 

His official Web site at http://www.parmegiani.fr/ and a very good tribute (with fabulous music excerpts!) at http://www.inagrm.com/sites/default/files/mini-sites/parmegiani/co/Bernard_Parmegiani.html
Lastly, a very good 2008 essay on Parmegiani's music by electronic sounds expert Simon Reynolds at http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.it/2008/08/bernard-parmegiani-loeuvre-musicale-en.html

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

An interview with Glen Sweeney on an old Italian book.

Italian musician and journalist Pierluigi Castellano dedicated to the Third Ear Band an interview in a book edited in 2004 by publisher DeriveApprodi (http://www.deriveapprodi.org/estesa.php?id=157) titled "Le sorgenti del suono. Trenta incontri con musicisti straordinari" ("The sources of sound. 30 meetings with extraordinary musicians" - pages 192, € 13.00). 

Among the others, original interviews (just in Italian) with 'monsters' as Terry Riley, John Cage, Philip Glass, Uri Cane, Alice Coltrane, Brian Eno... to investigate the origins of their sound.

As the author states in the preface, the aim of this book is "to detect the freedom of choice inside and against the limits imposed by present conditions. Suggesting an idea of musical expression deprived of gerarchies, with processes of contamination taken even from scientific disciplines, and restating the power of collision between subversive power of art and his reduction to the logic of a controlled communication".

About the Third Ear Band, in December 1989 Castellano asked few  questions to Glen Sweeney related to the origins of the group, the first two albums recorded ("Even today I like much to listen to them: in particular the second one that probably is the best album we have done..."), the experience with Polanski's Macbeth.
About this Sweeney reveals: "(...) Personally, I had the idea that a soundtrack were something of too artificial, not so ideal to make good music: so I replied we were just available to improvise on the pictures he'd given to us. (...) I think music we recorded was very very good, but it happened something of very funny: the copy on which we had worked was b&w and just the evening before  we realized Polanski's Macbeth was a wonderful full color movie... Obviously it was really pleasant, while the black and white ones was so glum...".

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

New contribution on the Web about the TEB's Macbeth soundtrack.

A new critical contribution about the Thirds and their wonderful gloomy soundtrack for the Polanski's "Macbeth" is available on the Web at "Dark Holler Arts" site - http://darkhollerarts.com/music/wyrd-sisters-third-ear-band-polanskis-macbeth/#comment-377

The interesting piece is titled "Wyrd sisters: Third Ear Band and Polanski's MacBeth".

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

New radio show with Third Ear Band Music at Stroud FM.

"Hello Luca, how are you?
Things are going well here, my progressive rock radio show is still going strong and I'm pleased to say that I have played a few Third Ear Band tracks and people have been enjoying them. My query isn't really a major one, but I thought I should still check.

I recorded my latest show yesterday and ended it with Mike Oldfield's "Lament for Atlantis" and thought that I could do a vague link between shows by starting the next one with the Third Ear Band's "Atlantis Rising". However I was concerned that I couldn't find the album I have 'Magic Music' listed on their discography (or rather, not the version that I have) and then saw your archive on unofficial albums, so I was wondering if it is okay to play the tune?

If not that's fine, I'll just play a track from one of the other albums I have. Either way I'll be opening my next show with the Third Ear Band!
All the best,

Ed Wilkins"

"No problems, Ed, you can use the track. If you let me know when the show will be aired I'll inform all the fans through the Archive.
All the best.
Luca" 

"Thanks Luca. I'm recording the show tomorrow and it will go out at 10pm on Monday (the 21st). It will also be on my Listen Again page for a while afterwards:

 http://podcasts.canstream.co.uk/stroud/index.php?cat=An%20Hour%20of%20Prog%20with%20Ed%20Wilkins
I think there are one or two shows already on there with the Third Ear Band played as well.
All the best
Ed"

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

Tracked down the shots of the "Atomic Sunrise" festival: what about that with the Third Ear Band playing?

The festival was shot by an unknown underground director and the (33 hours! of) footages was missed for around 20 years, until a guy called Adrian  Everett tracked down them and tried to edit. 

All the long story was reported by The Indipendent on January 25th, 2013 (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/atomic-sunrise-a-rare-glimpse-of-david-bowie-genesis-and-hawkwind-on-the-brink-of-stardom-8466113.html). 

Here's an excerpt of the article written by Tim Cumming:

"Atomic Sunrise: a rare glimpse of David Bowie, Genesis and Hawkwind on the brink of stardom
It’s the missing film that captures David Bowie’s transition from acoustic to electric star; the emergence of Genesis and Hawkwind; and the musical birth of the Seventies with the rise of glam, prog and heavy rock.
The Atomic Sunrise festival, held at the Roundhouse between 9 and 15 March 1970, was the direct consequence of the murderous events at Altamont the previous December. The Grateful Dead not only pulled out of that gig: they also withdrew from a scheduled appearance at the Roundhouse the following March, which left a week free to mount what was billed as “Seven Nights of Celebration” in a “Living Theatre Environment”.

Three bands were scheduled to play each night, many of them regulars at the Roundhouse’s Sunday Implosion gigs, with The Living Theatre – officially the oldest experimental company in the world – moving among the crowd like the counter- cultural equivalent of a flash mob, but with social/political consciousness-raising rather than marketing as the intent. They were the resident artistes at Atomic Sunrise, on a bill that included many names welded firmly to that time: Graham Bond (whose presence deterred the billed but absent Black Sabbath), Brian Auger, Third Ear Band, Fat Mattress, Gypsy. But none of these are what gives the film to be premiered at the Roundhouse on 11 March its cachet. That lies with the unique, thrilling footage of Bowie, Genesis, and Hawkwind at formative stages of their careers. There is nothing else like it on film. 

(...) The film’s director-producer, Adrian Everett, first heard of the footage in the late 1970s. Who actually placed the cameras in those communal, countercultural early days is not on record, but the stock was being held against a film-processing bill of several thousand pounds. Everett tracked it for years, until, in 1990, he was told it was to be destroyed unless the bill was paid. He put down the money hours before the film was to be trashed, and with the film and the rights secured, his next task was to see exactly what it contained. He spent the next three days watching 33 hours of rushes.

“It was adding the sound and seeing the film come to life that made me realise how important it is,” he remembers. “Until then I just thought it might be interesting, but now I knew it was amazing. That’s why I felt I had to get it out there.”
A deal with a record store owner provided a small budget to begin a first cut, and a chance encounter put him in touch with the original sound man at the gig, who helped him put music to the silent film footage.

“I developed a method of playing and replaying the footage – spotting the start of a song and then looking for clues such as an opening word of the lyric or an instrument.” He was working after-hours in a friend’s cutting room, but progress stalled when Everett’s backer pulled out during the early 1990s recession. Aside from a few assembled performances, the rushes remained just that, sequestered in boxes for the next 20 years, largely unedited and virtually unseen.
Efforts to secure a broadcast slot on the BBC or on Sky came to nothing, and in the meantime, the original participants were heading for that great gig in the sky. Mick Ronson was the first to go, in 1993. In 2010, when Everett heard of the passing of original Genesis drummer John Mayhew, he determined to get a cut of the film into circulation. “Not only so that people could see it at last,” he says, “but as a sort of tribute to those who had gone, some of them unrewarded and almost unknown.”
Taking time out from editing an hour-long first cut of a film that has travelled with him for more than 30 years, Everett admits that it’s “nerve-wracking wondering if people will be pleased with the result”.

“But I can only do the best I can with the resources I have,” he says. “The music and images are amazing, and my plan is to do a book and DVD of the final edit. There are so many strands to this story. It’s a great story to tell.”

‘Atomic Sunrise’ is screened at the Roundhouse, London NW1 (0844 482 8008; roundhouse.org.uk) 11 & 12 March".

If it's clear the projected film does not include footages with the Third Ear Band in, it seems quite possible the live set the band played it's included on the 33 hours shot.
It would be important having some infos by Mr Everett and for this we've sent an email at sunrisefest@yahoo.com... 

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

The very rare National Balkan Ensemble record on Ebay!

The very rare Various Artists record with three tracks by the National Balkan Ensemble (Standard Music Library ESL 112, 1970) is on sale on Ebay at 95 pounds until October 9th. 

You can see the ad at http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STANDARD-MUSIC-LIBRARY-ESL-112-LP-NATIONAL-BALKAN-ENSEMBLE-THIRD-EAR-BAND-/231067102444?pt=UK_Records&hash=item35ccac2cec

[Note the composers' names printed on the back cover that testify the origins of the band!]

A reconstruction of the album's fascinating story is available on this Archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2009/12/national-balkan-ensemble-aka-third-ear_11.html

As our post-folk wizard Sedayne states in a post under  here, "It's worth noting that the other side of this album is a sequence of 'Comedy Links & Bridges' - several of which feature in both series of Catweazle. I often think the NBE tracks would have suited Geoffrey Bayldon's time-travelling medieval wizard down to the ground. Jason's Trip, for example, is Catweazle's very essence!".

Infact, one has to admit really intriguing the connections between TEB/NBE music and Catweazle's contents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catweazle, http://www.catweazlefanclub.co.uk/, http://www.paulpert.com/catweazlepage1.htm)... 

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

"The Third Ear Band’s soundtrack to Macbeth is seminal"...

One of the things I'm usually asking for is why so many bands are claiming to be influenced by the Third Ear Band.  You listen to their music and ask yourself: what hell have this music to do with the Third Ear Band's ones?

Here's a new band states it on an interview, The Toutatis from England.

Who are ya?
"Dried out by salt air and fine wines, By Toutatis are a collection of fops and grizzled folkies who use the “Three Bs” to create their distinctive sound: baritone, broken things and buzzing noises".

Where are you from?
"Many places, converging generally around the wonderful land of Saltburn-by-the-Sea".

How long have you been doing what you’re doing now?
"Three swift and sexually-charged years".

Is being a musician your full time job?
"Not having full time jobs is our full time job. Although drummer Ben works at the amazing Georgian Theatre in Stockton".

How would you explain your sound to someone’s 90 year old grandmother?  
"Picture that favourite dancehall from your youth. Remember the glitz and the glamour? The dancing? The nights that never ended…? Now imagine it burning – slowly reducing to ashes festooned with shards of glitterball and cremated bowties. See the band resolutely playing in the corner? That’s us. With a wind organ". 

 

Are there any obvious influences in your music? "Jacques Brel, Tindersticks and Yann Tiersen have been bandied about…".

Are there any not so obvious influences in your music?
"The Third Ear Band’s soundtrack to Macbeth is seminal".

Apart from yourself of course, what other band/artist would you recommend our readers check out?
"Dressed Like Wolves, RM Hubbert, Natasha Haws, General Sherman…too many more to list".

Best place for people to find out what you are up to?
www.facebook.com/bytoutatis is where it all seeps out from. Tweets are regularly freed from @bytoutatisband

The band's last record "The Song we Sang to Death" is available for free listening at http://tinylights.bandcamp.com/album/the-songs-we-sang-to-death

no©2013 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)  

New attempt to interview Peter Mew, E.M.I. Studios sound engineer that recorded TEB in the '60's...

Ghetto Raga Archive has tried a new attempt to interview Peter Mew, the well-known sound engineer that recorded TEB in the Sixties at Abbey Road studios.

Now a kind Holly Pearsons, "Communications Co-ordinator" at E.M.I., answers me that "Peter Mew has now retired from his post at Abbey Road Studios, so I have forwarded your email to him at home. If he's interested in taking part, I'm sure he will be in touch with you directly".

So we hope Mr. Mew would be agreed with this, it would be very interesting to ask him some questions about the past with the Thirds...

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

English folk musician & singer Sharron Kraus states her pastoral music is inspired by the Third Ear Band...

"Sharron Kraus is a singer, musician and songwriter who both defiantly recasts and tenderly cherishes the folk tradition. Her songs tell intricate tales of rootless souls, dark secrets and earthy joys, the lyrics plucked as sonorously as her acoustic guitar. Utilising voice, field recordings and sparse instrumentation, her new project, 'Pilgrim Chants & Pastoral Trails' attempts to evoke the music embodied within the landscapes of Mid Wales. In Sharron's own words: 

"Driving along the Elan Valley from Rhayader to Aberystwyth one sunny day I had the overwhelming sense that there was music contained in the landscape, waiting to be discovered. I decided to move to Mid-Wales, to a quiet place just north of that valley and try to tap into that music and draw it out. Over a period of two years I walked and drove around the area, criss-crossing the landscape, stopping wherever the magic of the place was too strong to ignore. I took a minidisc recorder with me and recorded the birds, streams and waterfalls, the animals, the wind, and the jet planes that sliced through the quiet. I listened and absorbed as much as possible and then went home and recorded. 

"My initial aim was to record a soundtrack for my own experiences, something to listen to as I drove along the winding mountain roads or walked out in the hills at night, but as the project developed and other musicians added to it, the pieces moved out of the realm of the purely personal and became soundscapes that captured something of this place, unlocked an enchanted world. Musical reference points include Eno's ambient works, Richard Skelton's landscape-inspired pieces, Mike Oldfield's 'Hergest Ridge', Popol Vuh's soundtrack to Herzog's 'Nosferatu' and the music of the Third Ear Band, Fursaxa, Plinth, the latter two being people I've collaborated with." (from Second Language Music site at http://www.secondlanguagemusic.com/news.html)

Listen the full album of this really pastoral music at http://sharronkraus.bandcamp.com/album/pilgrim-chants-pastoral-trails and, beyond the inspiration admitted, decide by yourself if the references are true.

To myself, this sounds are quite near to the gloomy, sinister, esoteric mood of some TEB music ("Macbeth"?). Really English and organic, pagan and ritual... Alchemical? Ipnotic?... and the very impressive vocal textures (i.e. on "Dark Pool" or "Cadair Idris") remind me that masterpiece titled "Parallelograms" by Linda Perhacs (1970)...
The same Rob Young on his seminal book "Electric Eden" (Faber and Faber, London 2010) quotes Kraus in a group of musician "all sallying into the wildwood with dronal, rustic "Dark Britannia" and viewing the tradition through the retrospective of prims like The Wicker Man" (page 604). 

Realised on August 13th, 2013, the record is played by Sharron Kraus (voice, guitar, dulcimer, organ, recorders, drones, percussion, field recordings), Harriet Earis (harp),
Mark Wilden (drums) and Simon Lewis (Korg MS-20). 
Brave English (new) folk music! 

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

A new pretty picture of the Third Ear Band emerged from the Net!

This is a new unknown photo of the Third Ear Band taken at the Isle of Wight festival on August 31th, 1969 by Karen Francis.

Differentely from the set taken by Barry Plummer (read here the interview with him at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2011/08/brief-interview-with-barry-plummer.html) this beautiful picture (as that one already known taken by Derek Halsall) show us the stage and the band in vivid colour. 

I've got a contact with Francis, and she's been very kind to write me these memories:

"Hi Luca
What a surprise! I remember odd bits about the 1969 IOW Festival of course but not too many specifics, after all I was just 18 years old then and I'm 62 now! I do recall the impact of the whole weekend as it was so enormous in my life back then - I had hitched a lift to the docks and bought a ferry ticket, walking to the site and spent the whole three days living on doughnuts and little else.
You asked about the Third Ear Band. They did make an impression on me and that is why I took their (rather bad) photo. I was in the front 'row' of 35,000 people, a little left of centre and up against a fence in front of which was the press area and where celebs like John Lennon and Yoko Ono occasionally sat. I had a little Kodak Instamatic camera and one film (12 photos) which is why I have so few photos!

I remembered the band because they were so different - I'd not heard anything like that and, to be honest, I wasn't sure whether I liked the music or not at the time. I could pick up the fact that the origins seemed to be all over the place, a bit gypsy, a fair bit of Indian influence and very 'modern' and alternative in outlook. As a very young person who had travelled some distance to see rock bands like the Who and Moody Blues, it was rather grown up and other worldly for me I suppose. Now that I am several decades older I can see how ahead of their time this band really was - if I could whistle back in time now I would appreciate their stuff far more and indeed I do have a copy of the remastered Alchemy so you see they did make an impression :-)

I expect that you have managed to source a copy of the 1969 IOW programme for yourself but, if not, this is what the description of the band said:

"The music is the music of the Druids, released from the unconscious by the alchemical process, orgasmic in its otherness, religious in its oneness, communicating beauty and magic via abstract sound whilst playing without ego enables the musicians to reach a trance-like state, a 'high' in which the music produces itself. This is the aim of the Third ear; to act as carriers of consciousness and to play a music that being non-conscious is an organic synthesis of all musics "...each piece is as alike or unalike as blades of grass or clouds".

I had no idea what that meant, still don't :-) 

I enjoy photography but am, and always have been, an amateur. I take photos of wildlife for pleasure, that's all [check her wonderful photo blog at  http://butenature.wordpress.com/ ].

My photo is rubbish in my opinion but feel free to use is it if you wish.
Cheers

Karen"

Rubbish or not, dear Francis, I'm sure this is a really precious gift for all the TEB fans around the world!

      

  The original page of the festival programme dedicated to the TEB.

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

Another Italian band inspired by the Thirds...?

Clessidra [hourglass in english], a new Italian band from Tuscany, seems to be inspired by the Third Ear Band. This is what the Web site "Fritto Misto" claims at http://frittomisto12.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/clessidra-carta-malabarica-manza-nera/

about their new album titled "Carta Malabrica" (Manza Nera).

I don't know what some writers (journalists, experts, fans...) in the Net know about the TEB's music but sometimes this relations are very obscure and vague for myself...

 

A certain T/T writes: "The interior and oniric space sketched out by the Clessidra's lush maps has something of dangerous and hostile: and unfathomable desire to pull out to the obvious and renown that mainland already extensively explored and categorized under the obliging cathegory of "post-rock"".

Anyway, even if very interesting to my ears, you can listen to this music and decide what do you think about it. 

As usual, any comments, ideas, replies is well accepted by the Ghetto Raga Archive...

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

An ironic point of view about music by Dave Tomlin...

This is one of the last writings by Dave Tomlin published by IT internet site at http://internationaltimes.it/music/
It's dedicated to the music with the peculiar sardonic irony of Dave...

You can read all the posts by him at http://internationaltimes.it/author/davetomlin/
 

Music
The language of music conforms within a mathematical matrix to produce a kind of grammar, whereby each tone is identified by name and endowed with a chronological period.
Thus each symbol in the language must simultaneously represent both placement and time.
Music though, like its sister, poetry, is founded upon an ultimately ungovernable spirit; wild to the rules of any grammar and always ready to confront the righteous pedant with a more existential viewpoint. 

The Hum  
Smith, a simple soul, has encountered his friend P. B. Rivers, a rabid existentialist, and they now sit drinking coffee at a table outside a café.
P. B. Rivers opens a conversation: ‘This is the age of traffic and shopping’, he announces, and slits his eyes meaningfully at Smith as if willing him to respond, but Smith, not being the least interested in either subject turns for relief to a technique he has only recently evolved.

Realising that whistling distorts the lips, making the exercise obvious if undertaken during a boring conversation, he had discovered that he can hum without this handicap. He has also detected three levels to the discipline. The first is a hum so quiet that it is hardly detectable even by himself. The second is loud enough to be heard by another but not sufficiently so as to reveal its source. The third, an uninhibited and full-bodied hum is capable of overcoming any conversation.

‘Traffic is something other people do’, he thinks, ‘and shopping is some sort of weird art form now more popular than football; both devoid of any interest’. Therefore it is at this point that he begins to utilise his hum.

He chooses a lightish tone, not too deep and one which is easily maintained. Faintly at first and then, given the generous parameters of the situation, begins gradually to increase the volume until he perceives that P. B. Rivers has become aware of it, but not yet that it is issuing forth from Smith. He now begins to go over the top and the, by now, powerful hum, growing ever louder, makes its source obvious.

‘Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,’ goes Smith.

P.B. Rivers is unfazed by this display of social precociousness and merely cocks an ear; he has perfect pitch and can accurately identify any tone.

‘That’s G sharp,’ he snaps irritably.

‘Oh, is it?’ says Smith.

‘I thought it was Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.’
 
Dave Tomlin
©2013

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

Third Ear Band quoted on a magazine about the great late Claudio Rocchi...

The recent unexpected death of Claudio Rocchi at 62, a great Italian musician played some wonderful music in the '70's in some way inspired by the Third Ear Band (i.e. "Viaggio", "Volo Magico n.1" and "Volo Magico n. 2", recorded from 1970 to 1972), has led various tributes on Italian magazines: one of these on the weekly music magazine "XL" written by Andrea Silenzi about that music played and recorded in the Seventies in Italy by musicians as him, Franco Battiato, Osanna, Aktuala, Alan Sorrenti... The journalist also quotes the TEB in a section dedicated to Aktuala.

Even if in Italian, you can read it at http://xl.repubblica.it/articoli/claudio-rocchi-e-i-suoi-fratelli/3998/ and listen to some excerpts of very good music...

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

The same old useless sampler on the so-called "Progressive Rock"...

 

The Market tries desperately to sell his by now Jurassic punched disks. The last attempt to save itself from the forthcoming crash is this useless 5-CDs E.M.I. box sampler about the so-called "Progressive Rock" titled "Prog Rocks!" (very pristine title!).

Published on last March, we have 5 CDs with tracks taken from glorious 70's English labels as Harvest, Liberty, Charisma, Virgin and from InsideOut.

The little surprise is that on volume 1 there's also a track played by our Third Ear Band, the omnipresent "Fleance".

But is it so essential to have "five discs celebrating five legendary progressive rock labels" as the title states?

I've got my answer. What about yours?

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

TEB's 1989 concert at the London Club Dog available for free downloading in the Net!

Thanks a meritorious blog called "Head Duster" we can get for free downloading the full concert TEB played at the London Club Dog "one chilly December night" of 1989.

Apart the bad introduction of the band taken from the Web (where the TEB "was originated from Canterbury"...!?), the blog's editor writes: "This tape was recorded at Club Dog @ the Sir George Robey pub, Finsbury Park, London on 15th December 1989 (the very gig on the flyer above). There are seven tunes included here, I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the band to identify them. (Recording notes - 2xPZM microphones above rear of audience>cassette deck>chrome cassette>> cassette deck > PC > sound editor > spliced@41m10secs > 320kbps .mp3)".

 

As reported in December 2009 here (http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2009/12/tebs-tape-recordings-at-london-british.html) actually the tracks played that night was eight:
1. "Druid One" (Sweeney - Minns - Coff)
2. "Sun Ra Raga" (Sweeney - Carter - Black - Dobson)
3. "Live Ghosts" (Sweeney - Minns - Carter - Samuel)
4. "Solstice Song" (Sweeney - Carter - Black - Dobson)
5. "Behind the pyramids" (Sweeney - Carter - Black - Dobson)
6. "Book of the dead" (Sweeney - Minns - Coff)
7. improvisation 
8. "Third Ear Raga" (Sweeney - Carter - Black - Dobson)

The TEB line-up was:
Glen Sweeney – hand drums
Lyn Dobson – sax and flute
Mick Carter – electric guitar and effects 
Allen Samuel – violin

The original recording is available at the British Library - 96, Euston Road - St. Pancras - London NW1 2DB.

Get the concert at: 
http://headduster.blogspot.it/2013/06/from-top-drawer-liii-third-ear-band.html

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

Third Ear Band on air in France at Robotouffe Radio...

TEB UBER ALLES!, dear maniacal alchemical fans!
TEB is alive and well and on last April 30th, 2013 French Web radio Robotouffe aired the infamous "Fleance".

You can listen to the show at http://www.mixcloud.com/robotouffe-radioshow/robotouffe-du-30042013/ with tracks, among the others, played by Chuck Berry, The Melvins, Black Flag... "Fleance" is at 14'03"...

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