The Gong Show

I've been listening to a lot of Gong recently due to their excellent new release 2032; the best new release I've heard for a long time; and, from my point of view, a strong contender for album of the year.

(Very good Fortean Times article on the band; go there to check it out: includes Daevid Allen interview and some excellent recent pics.)

So I wanted to post some Gong material to celebrate their new found vitality and dynamism; and this Anthology album seems to be one of the rarer items in their massive back catalogue (much of which has now been made available due to new interest; an interest I believe that's come about through their music being discussed and shared by bloggers...).

The collection begins with some very angry people, French people, being very angry indeed.
Despite the 'riot' being recorded in 1971, this is a most fitting start to a retrospective collection of Gong's music, as they were conceived during the most troubled of times; emerging out of the 1967/68 Paris underground scene.

The earliest recordings here are in demo form; including the original demo for 'Magik Brother', one of the band's first recordings.
But the majority of this album is made up of live tracks; all of which are unavailable elsewhere, so despite many of the titles being familiar, the recordings are not; and there's some great versions of some real Gong classics.

The highlights include a wonderfully hyperbolic psychedelic version of Kevin Ayers' 'Why Are We Sleeping?' and Gilli Smith at her scariest best in a perfectly controlled hysterical delivery of 'I Am Your Pussy'.

Cracking!
Gong - Anthology 1969-1977

Riot 71 - France, 1971.
Pot Head Pixies - Live, France, 1972.
You Can't Kill Me - Live, UK, 1974.
Magik Brother - Demo, 1969
Why Are We Sleeping? - Live, France, 1972.
Radio Gnome - Live, France, 1972.
Dreaming It - Live, France, 1972.
Bambolay/Ya Sunne - Glastonbury Fayre, UK, 1971.
Es Que Je Suis - Demo, France, 1970.
Hypnotize You - Demo, France, 1970.
Oily Way/Outer Temple - Live, France, 1977.
You Never Blow Your Trip Forever - Live, France, 1977.
You Can't Kill Me - Live, France, 1973.
I Am Your Pussy - Live, France, 1973.
Fohat Digs Holes In Space - Live, France, 1973.
Pot Head Pixies - Live, France, 1972.
Perfect Mystery - Live, Norway, 1974.

CD rip to mp3s
Travel to Planet Gong here

Space Man in New York

This makes for a nice compliment to the previous post, for here is Gilli’s old man chewing on the cud that was punk rock.

Punk was relatively kind to Daevid Allen, and he along with many of the creative elements satelliting around him, produced an acceptable form of hippy-shit that was welcomed and embraced by the new attitudes and ideologies that were inspiring and motivating the yoof.

After all, here was a character who had been actively taking part in and promoting through art and music the ideas of anarchy, chaos, guerrilla art and doing things for yourself – in the most subversive way, of course - for years.

As a consequence, Allen didn’t have to radically change, either musically or ideologically, to adapt to the new trends (notice the shortened hair and the leather jacket he is wearing on the album’s cover); in fact, the end of the seventies could be seen as a time of rebirth for his art; and being reborn, Allen felt the need to say hello to everybody; in his own inimitable way of course:

'Greetings Aliens greeting Humanoids greetings No Body ANY Body EVERY body Some body WHO CARES Whether you Stare look away clap cheer split jeer who cares wot you wear wot the style of your HAIR or if you listen what you hear – doesn’t matter – you’ll pick us up anyway Greetings Gong Freeks lunatics Oil sheiks nuke leak politics esoteric power cliques TRUTH SEEKERS Now turn the OTHER CHEEK – No time – there is NO TIME – greetings big city wet dream QUEENS with pilled UP shrilled out forked tongue PUNKS getting force fed day GLO agro robot rock n roll clone wild bionic stare and PLASTIC HAIR there is no time. Greetings sleepers workers drivelling shrinks and stoned berserkers mutants narcs and psychodelik blimps spaced out in parks like soppy hippys trying not to be too FLIPPY FLOPPY. Greetings creeps and sheep and SHIT shovelling SMACK grovelling DOPERS COKERS nose drapers and hash smokers UN-REAL DEALERS UN-CLEAN speilers SQUEALERS healers scene stealers
ALL IS SUPERFLUOUS IN THE CITY OF NO SUN'

The references in the opening preface obviously refer to New York, as does the album’s title, and indeed that is where the recording takes place.
Allen carries on with the hip contextual referencing in the next track, informing the listener that he really does know what’s been going on, namedropping Teenage Jesus, Pere Ubu, James Chance as well as CBGBs.

Bill Laswell joins Allen on this album, and his experience and superlative technique really does add something to the sound; helping not only to update it, but giving it a punky, spiky edge, allowing it to slot nicely in to the turn of the decade’s zeitgeist.

This album readily tapped into the late-seventies New York vibe, but it’s not sycophantic; and despite the punkiness of much of its sound, Allen remains slightly aloof, recognising that fashions come and fashions go, and in reality it’s all about conviction and authenticity; not clothes, not hair, not words.

The only instrumental track on the album, 'Materialism', is a wonderful piece; Laswell showing his chops, busily playing a repeated pattern on bass in a King Crimson, Frippertronics kind of way allowing Allen to masterfully noodle over the top, reminding everybody that he could really do it – very Allan Holdsworth!

I have referred to this album as if it is Allen’s, as if it’s a solo album, and despite the fact that it has Gong in its title, a solo album is essentially what it is.
I think it’s his best.
In the main, it still sounds fresh and vital.
And due to Allen’s idiosyncrasy and eccentricity, About Time floats free of the period in which it was made; shrugging off many of the genre trappings so many artists found attractive at that time; succeeding in a way that a lot of music from this time just hasn’t.

New York Gong - About Time (1980)

Preface

Much Too Old

Black September

Materialism

Strong Woman

I Am A Freud

O My Photograph

Jungle Window

Hours Gone

Quality vinyl rip @320kbs
Visit New York from outta space here

Cup o' tea anyone?

You see a lot of Gong in the blogosphere; but this is an album you never see.
I felt that needed addressing.

This is a great retrospective album, featuring some excellently recorded performances; and if there’s one thing that seems to be severely lacking amongst the plethora of Gong material, it’s quality of sound.

After existing as a kind of guerrilla art movement attached to various protests and acts of disobedience in ideologically ravaged France at the end of the sixties, Gong signed up with up and coming new independent label Virgin Records in nineteen seventy-two.
Apparently, Branson believed in the band so much, he gave them preferential studio time over Mike Oldfield (an artist who would keep Virgin Records afloat over the next few years with absurd sales of his wishy-washy Tubular Bells).

Gong Live etc, the last album the band made for Virgin, captures live performances from the band’s associative years with the label; leaving a solid reminder of their energy and creativity over their short but prolific stay, showcasing their best material from the first half of that gaudy decade.

So this is to a certain extent a Greatest Hits album; but it’s better than that, as all the recordings here are unique to this release. And let’s face it, Gong didn’t have any Hits!
Which is why I always loved them.

The album is chronological in structure, beginning in 1973 with material from Camembert Electrique, moving through the Radio Gnome Trilogy of 1974, into the final period of the original conception in 75, post-Gong shaman Daevid Allen and High Priestess Gilli Smith, usurped by Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy.

The quality of sound is superb throughout, corrupted slightly by the odd crackle from my recording – you can’t have everything – but it is far superior to many live recordings of this band in existence.

It is often forgotten, amongst all the pot-head pixies, earth-mother magick, flying teapots and mantra chanting, that Gong were a mighty fine collective of musicians.
Whether it was Didier Malherbe’ superb sax playing, Pierre Moerlen’s athletic percussion, Gilli Smith’s creepy space whispers or Allen’s or Hillage’s breathtaking guitar playing (I don’t know what it is, but the glissando guitar (I think it’s just slide played with a glass finger[?]) creates some beautiful sounds), the listener is transcended and readily abducted to their crazy, vibrant planet of sound.
And the Planet Gong was a beautiful and remarkable place.

Gong - Live etc (1977)

You Can't Kill Me
Zero the Hero & the Witche's Spell
Flying Teapot
Dynamite/I am Your Animal
6/8
Est-Ce Que Je Suis
Ooby Scooby Doomsday or The D-Day DJ's got the DDT Blues
Radio Gnome Invisible
Oily Way
Outer Temple
Inner Temple
Isle of Everywhere
Get it Inner
Master Builder
Flying Teapot

Excellent cassette rip @ 320kbs
Journey to the Planet Gong here for Part One
And here for Part Two