Daevid Allen

Christopher David Allen (13 January 1938 – 13 March 2015), better known as Daevid Allen, sometimes credited as Divided Alien, was an Australian poet, guitarist, singer, composer and performance artist. He was co-founder of progressive rock groups Soft Machine (in the UK, 1966) and Gong (in France, 1967).

Biography

Early years

In 1960, inspired by the Beat Generation writers he had discovered while working in a Melbourne bookshop, Allen travelled to Paris, where he stayed at the Beat Hotel, moving into a room recently vacated by Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky. While selling the International Herald Tribune around Le Chat Qui Pêche and the Latin Quarter, he met Terry Riley and also gained free access to the jazz clubs in the area.

In 1961 Allen travelled to England and rented a room at Lydden, near Dover, where he soon began to look for work as a musician. He first replied to a newspaper advertisement for a guitar player to join Dover-based group the Rolling Stones (no connection with the later famous band of that name) who had lost singer/guitarist Neil Landon, but did not join them. After meeting up with William S. Burroughs, and inspired by philosophies of Sun Ra, he formed free jazz outfit the Daevid Allen Trio ('Daevid' having been adopted as an affectation of David), which included his landlord's son, 16-year-old Robert Wyatt. They performed at Burroughs' theatre pieces based on the novel The Ticket That Exploded. In 1966, together with Kevin Ayers and Mike Ratledge, they formed the band Soft Machine, the name having come from the Burroughs novel The Soft Machine. Ayers and Wyatt had previously played in Wilde Flowers.

Allen

Allen, Allen's or Allens may refer to:

Places

Ireland

United Kingdom

United States

Good morning

Good morning may refer to:

Television

Film

Music

Albums

Songs

Canterbury scene

The Canterbury scene (or Canterbury sound) is a term used to describe a loosely defined style of music created by a number of progressive rock, avant-garde and jazz musicians, many of whom were based in the city of Canterbury, Kent, England during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians played together in numerous bands, with ever-changing and overlapping personnel, creating some similarities in their musical output. Many prominent British avant-garde or fusion musicians began their career in Canterbury bands, including Hugh Hopper, Steve Hillage, Dave Stewart (the keyboardist), Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Daevid Allen, and Mike Ratledge. Over the years, with outside musicians joining Canterbury bands, and new bands all over the world adopting a "Canterbury sound," the term has come to describe the musical style rather than a regional group of musicians.

Definition

The Canterbury scene is largely defined by a set of musicians and bands with intertwined members. These are not tied by very strong musical similarities, but a certain whimsicality, touches of psychedelia, rather abstruse lyrics, and a use of improvisation derived from jazz are common elements in their work. “The real essence of 'Canterbury Sound' is the tension between complicated harmonies, extended improvisations, and the sincere desire to write catchy pop songs.” “In the very best Canterbury music...the musically silly and the musically serious are juxtaposed in an amusing and endearing way.”

Banana Moon

Banana Moon is a 1971 studio album by Daevid Allen. The album is sometimes referred to as Bananamoon and it was also reissued as a Gong album.

The band features Allen's former Soft Machine bandmate Robert Wyatt on drums, Gary Wright from Spooky Tooth, Maggie Bell from Stone the Crows, as well as Christian Tritsch and Pip Pyle from Gong. Some of the musicians on this album would subsequently contribute to Kevin Ayers' 1973 album Bananamour.

The track "Memories", basically a Robert Wyatt performance, was initially recorded in 1967 by Soft Machine (with Daevid Allen on guitar) and later also covered by Material on their 1982 album One Down with a lead vocal by Whitney Houston. "Stoned Innocent Frankenstein" was re-recorded in 1978 by Allen in collaboration with Here and Now as Planet Gong on their Floating Anarchy Live 1977 album.

The initial issue featured the painting (of moons or planets) by Didier Léon on the front of the gatefold cover, with liner notes written by Daevid Allen Subsequent issues included even one by BYG Actuel that was credited to Gong and had the photo from the gatefold inside on the front. The first UK pressing, in 1975 on Virgin Records subsidiary Caroline, had an alternative Daevid Allen drawn cover, featuring a peeled banana/moon playing a guitar.