Wyrdness Abounds On Th' College Circuit
The Third Ear Band probably mean zip to you if you're a Merkin in Merika, but they were all over the festival and college circuit in the U.K. The thinking hippie's soundtrack to The Lord Of The Rings, the Thirdies were an authentically and uniquely strange band, conjuring up misty moods of wiccan wyrdness with a hauntingly raga-esque approach to instrumental improvisation.
The cover to their first album (on Harvest - where else?) had a powerful impact at the time, featuring some history-type dude making an omelette with a sword. Wo-ah! The music delivered, but this wasn't an album to take to parties (trust me - I tried). This was an album to lie on the floor in the dark to, passing a spliff around.
They did it again with their second album, a mystic treatise on th' elements, and then took Polanski's dollar for the soundtrack to Macbeth, and if you're expecting upbeat tunes and twangy party themes you're in for a disappointment.
Download contains all their shit from the extended editions, entire new albums of runic ruminations to convince you you're levitating above Stonehenge. Don't play this for your main squeeze unless she's a witch.
To get initiated into the druidic brotherhood, simply make the choice between bubble gum and chewing gum, and tell us why you made it.
ReplyDeleteBazooka Joe says hi. Bubble gum, despite the fact that it tastes like whale blubber after 30 seconds.
ReplyDeleteI remember sending away for the Secret Noise Ring or whatever it was, and the bitter disappointment on receiving the piece of crap. But those little waxpaper comics were treasures.
DeleteI have to choose bubble gum, but I don't use it. My wife does and sells vid clips of her blowing bubbles with it to strange men.
ReplyDeleteChewing gum. It doesn't have to be chiselled off your face.
ReplyDeleteKaugummi
ReplyDeleteI voted for bubble gum twice. They are a great way to save carbon dioxide for later.
ReplyDeleteI vote for bubble gum. Girls in high school use to snap it went they talked. I like skanky girls.
ReplyDeleteJust dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
ReplyDeleteAnd also to say that Roman Polanski's Macbeth is a very fine film, spooky and bloody as all hell.
Here ya go, pals
ReplyDelete!
good memories about this group. weeley festival at the end of August 1971. I went there for BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST and KING CRIMSON. I remember RORY GALLAGHER who started around 5am with 90% of people sleeping in their sleeping bag and an hour and a half later 80% who are up and asking for more. In the afternoon, after QUINTESSENCE and my first joint weed (not of the day but of my life) three or four musicians took place on the stage to play this strange music, medium ageuse under a bright sun. The only regret , for me it is that they did not play in place of COLOSSEUM just before BJH, at nightfall. I asked what was the no of the group which seemed not to be on the program and I was told THIRD EAR BAND. I already knew the band on the HARVEST compilation "Picnic - A Breath Of Fresh Air" with the title water from their eponymous album (also called ELEMENTS). It was a good festival which I look back on with nostalgia. then it allowed me to know GROUNDHOGS, HEAD HAND AND FEET, HOME or STATUS QUO. And then to change his mind about T.REX who got booed by taking the scene with a "" Hi, my names Marc ... you might have seen me on Top "but which in the end thrilled everyone with his cover of eddie COCHRAN s Summertime Blues
ReplyDeletea good memory despite the camping camp on a freshly harvested field which caught fire because of the bivouacs (a few vehicles and tents remained there) and the theft of clothes bought the day before the festival in london (luckily I had kept the albums in a backpack). I have long lost the cassettes that I had unfortunately recorded.
p.s neither bumble gum nor chewing gum because with my dentures it sticks.