where is the love for GONG?

I need a copy of Last Autumn's Dream if anyone has an extra. And I only bought a couple after Kites, but I know there are more. If I see them for a dollar, I will pick them up someday.

I like them loads, though there are lots of annoying stupid bits that fuck up yr mood just when you get into what they're playing. I think "Camembert Electrique" is the best one, b/c it actually sounds pretty tough/driving/lean/sparse. Agreed abt "you can't kill me", though "Fohat digs holes in space" is even better.

it's from "bambooji" on shamal

and one of the deeper elements of their "floating anarchy" wz how they refused to kowtow to the authoritarian concept of the "song" eg they'd do a good bit, then a rubbish bit, then a good bit

i don't think many of their songs are w/o a rubbish bit

Yeah, I agree. Case in point, the last Gong-related thing I listened to was Daevid Allen & The Magick Brothers Live at the Witchwood 1991. They follow-up a really tasty, acoustic version of "Why Do We Treat Ourselves Like We Do?" (strangely, in my head, I always picture Shane MacGowan/The Pogues doing this) with the excruciating "I Am My Own Roadie".

On second thought, that's not true. The last thing I listened to was Mother Gong's Eye, but that was zzzzzzzz.

I love Gong, listened to them in the 70s in college (slightly embarrassed about all the hippie imagery), forgot about them for years, then re-discovered them about '99, just before they came through L.A. on tour. The hippie stuff I now find kind of charming. Turned out the re-formed band was just as good as the 70s one, and the Zero to Infinity album is pretty good too. You is the definitive Gong album, though, if you don't like this one you don't like Gong.

the wire conducted an entertaining invisible jukebox w/ allen a cpl of years back, where he talked abt terry riley, his love of thelonious monk, prog, punk, psychedelia, releasing an alb on BYG/Acteul etc. and didn't charles hayward play in an incarnation of gong?

allen is a charmer, def, and - given the apparent pervasive fluffy dippiness - you have to admire how long he has sustained his RIGOR!!

That Flying Teapot album is one of the best jazzy/hippy/acid rock freakout albums that's out there. I love it when they just get into a groove and squonk away for ages. I wish I had seen them live but like lots of other people I turned my nose up at them for decades because of all the hippy stuff.

Haven't heard that one yet, but I love Camembert Electrique. That's the only one I actually own, but Magick Brother's not bad either.

I think I rate it above even Camembert Electrique and You, which is saying something 'cos those are great albums too.

My favourite band at age 12/13, finally got to see them in 2001, still nurse a lot of fondness. Camembert the obvious peak, Flying Teapot and Angels Egg deeply adorable, "Blues For Findlay" on the Continental Circus soundtrack the hidden gem. Hillage's incipient megalomania spoilt You, but blow me if the first post-Allen album (Shamal} didn't turn out to be great. It inhabits its own musical micro-universe.

i always feel hillage is more all over 'angels' egg than 'you'. they were pretty much my favourite band aged 13 too and i totally agree vis a vis 'blues for findlay'. so great!

you dudes must've been weird at 13.

"Magick Brother" is my fave

Gong's one of those bands I've wanted to get something by for a while. I'd always thought it would be a progression from having explored the work of two other fellow ex-Soft Machine members, Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers. Of course, Wyatt's and Ayers's work are quite different. And I imagine Gong's similarly unique. All the talk on here of prog rock is likely to make one run away. "One" being me.

just get magick brother and work forward, it'll be quite painless and worth the effort. it's not super-prog.

I suppose "Magick Brother" isn't really a Gong album

gong ain't prog.

My only exposure to Gong was seeing the Acid Mothers Gong show at Victoriaville this year - which is a collaboration between Gong and Acid Mothers Temple members (and this incarnation featured Yoshida Tatsuya on drums). I have to say it was a bit of a disappointment, not least because the Gong members seemed to tend to spoil whatever forward motion was generated by stopping for lengthy "spoken word" interludes about politics, Bush, terrorism, etc. I would have rather seen Acid Mothers Temple by themselves.

Too bad. Sounds like a dream ticket otherwise. Maybe this will excuse them. As one comment says this is mother fucking off the hook!!!

wow!

anyone got that david allen + euterpe 1977 cd? how is it, etc?

The Daevid Allen/Euterpe album (Good Morning) is a thing of great loveliness. Recorded in Deya, Majorca with a local band, as I recall. Some acoustic pastoral/whimsical stuff, some trippy glissando-guitar psych-out stuff, but generally a light, amiable, playful, contented feel. The title track's my favourite: episodic, seemingly unconnected fragments, but it all works as a whole in the oddest way.

thanks! i'll probably buy it... couple of tracks on history & mystery of them that are really good.

Been playing it this morning, following a happy Googling accident. Utterly charmed, all over again. It's an ideal indolent summer morning album.

The 11:30 space-rock/space-whisper "Wise Man In Your Heart" is at odds with the rest (and the only track to feature drums) but I mind that less now than I did then.

you dudes must've been weird at 13.

Agree. Was Gong the band of choice for the school intellectual elite at this time?

I think I'm a close contempoarary of m t-d, so this would have been smack in the middle of punk?

French TV appearance + interview, January 1971

Not as good as the 1972 clip linked above, this is the Allen/Smyth/Malherbe/Tritsch/Rachid Hourai line-up. Interesting for two reasons: they play "Perfect Mystery" from You, over 3 years before its release, and - quite a major shock, this - one of Malherbe's comments in the interview will be VERY familiar to anyone who knows Camembert Electrique.

No, Bob - Gong were my fave raves in 1974/75, and I came to them quite alone, via a re-issued Camembert being on sale with a rrp of 50p.

Ok thx - that makes more sense. 74/75 were desolate years at my school; I remember Genesis and Status Quo were big then, with the inner circle of alleged hip kids like myself into David Bowie.

The hip kids at my school were aware of Gong but more into Hawkwind, with a significant SAHB sub-faction. The lumpen masses were into Yes, Genesis, ELP (or "Yelpesis" as Peel dubbed them), Santana, Floyd, Oldfield and Deep Purple. Led Zep not so much. Bowie and Roxy were neither here nor there, really. Sha Na Na were oddly popular for some reason, and Tangerine Dream had a certain intellectual cachet.

like m-t-d i was intrigued by a very cheap 'camembert' in the record shop though this was a few years later for me (circa 1980) when it was on sale for £1.99 (still very cheap for the time). i didn't meet anyone else who had heard of them for another 5 or so years.

That sounds like me - lumpen mass or at best inconsequentially neither here nor there, thinking I'm a hip kid.

It's making me nostalgic...In those days you used to take an album into school to show people (there was no means of playing it), and there'd always be a crowd of interested people to handle it as a significant object d'art.

And music was one of the rare and acceptable ways in which you could cross the otherise rigidly observed age divide.

Daevid Allen played a free show with his new band (can't remember name) at this tiny bar in my neighborhood a few years ago and they played Soft Machine's "Hope For Happiness"! It was great, and he seems like a nice guy.

Bob, good point about the music/age divide thing. When I was 18 I hooked up with a local radio station and became friends with people twice my age.

I listened to Yes and King Crimson in 1980, but it took me a long time for Gong.

In those days you used to take an album into school to show people (there was no means of playing it), and there'd always be a crowd of interested people to handle it as a significant object d'art.

flashback!

Sleeve, that was probably University Of Errors; they do tend to play some of the very early Soft Machine material, and I've seen them cover solo Ayers and Wyatt stuff as well.

Rejoice, for they are back!

Two Gong Concerts in London this June and the release of the special
Gong UNcon Limited Edition Double DVD.

THE CONCERTS

For the latest transmission from the luminous green planet Gong
dada 'hymn-self', Daevid Allen, is joined by co-founder Gilli Smyth,
the motherbeat bass of Mike Howlett, master drummer Chris Taylor,
incomparable jazz saxophonist Theo Travis - and for the first time in
the UK since 1975 - Steve Hillage & Miquette Giraudy!

New energies are in the air – new recording plans are being
discussed – a new DVD from the legendary 2006 Amsterdam Uncon event
is being released – and these two June 2008 London shows are an
important step along a new pathway.

Saturday 14th June 7.30pm – GONG at Massive Attack's Meltdown
Queen Elizabeth Hall (Seated Venue)
South Bank Centre, London, SE1 8XX

Sunday 15th June 7.30pm – GONG
The Forum (Standing Venue)
Kentish Town, London, NW5 1JY
(supported by Slackbaba)

There was a song I really liked by these guys and of course I don't remember what it was. I know what tape I put it on roughly, but I'm not sure if I have that tape anymore. In fact, I don't think I do.

Yes, you are totally right, I imagine it was very visual and either way I'd have loved every millisecond of it had i been there. Cheers for the Laurie Allen info.

I mean Allan, no relation. :-)

currently digging -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e5RvJ3lZG8

Who I note are back on tour now. Regrouped? Never broke up? Original lineup? I don't know.

the current lineup of Gong is pretty much all new guys, led by Kavus Torabi who I assume most people posting in this thread are familiar with

I've heard the one they released this year, it sounds like it could've come out right after You, though the sound quality is obviously better. the fact that there aren't any original members never really occurs to you, they've definitely done their homework

I was referring to Nektar.

You has impeccable sound quality.

Yeah, You is an amazing sounding record.

When I sold off most of my prog rock vinyl back in the punk rock daze, I kept You because it didn't really seem like prog to me. Cosmic hippie stoner space jazz rock I can hang with.

ok 'better' is definitely the wrong word, but you can tell they're more modern even if the music & instrumentation is similar

...and I had no idea there was a new Gong record this year. Checking it out now and it's pretty cool!

It is!

I was referring to Nektar.

― nickn

kavus torabi is probably in nektar now too

They really need a good documentary, like the Dead one from last year, to just lay it all out on the table for us to see, they're not an ordinary band and had such an unusual trajectory, so many brilliant rabbit holes. I've been looking into the GAS tapes of various kinds and they/he/she were so prolific.

listened to 'you' for the first time and the sound quality is amazing, doesn't sound like 1974 to me

Simon Reynolds on Gong in The Guardian. He’s talked to Howlett and Hillage for the piece. Some good stuff in here.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/18/gong-daevid-allen-steve-hillage-prog-rock-psychedelia

soooo.... Tim Blake, what's good??

Dunno sorry

BUT I recently happened across this video of a concert where a group cover the whole of camembert electrique almost note for note and dress as them too, and it's all kinds of wonderful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6_JBMaExOo

I picked up The New Jerusalem recently and sold it again cos I found the vocals unbearable - and I think of myself as reasonably robust tolerator of Difficult Singing. Maybe I was found wanting here and should have persevered… but life is short.

Feel like I listened to the first one on Spotify around that time and it was (mostly?) instrumental and much easier to get along with.

The two new Kavus Torabi led records (one from 2023 and one from 2019) are both really good, they don’t really sound like classic Gong to me (much less wacky) but they are a trip all the same

i love The New Jerusalem vox n'all. (Lighthouse is all time). Crystal Machine also ace.

He is also behind this one off 7" by Saratoga Space Messengers which is a BIG hit in my house.

this one is pretty much vocal free. synth heaven!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sREVq5TPkYA

i adore this video where he is rocking the vcs3 and having the time of his life. being in gong in 1973 must have been just about the best job in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSvW_O4V8Yo

Did the 2 volumes of Gong Dreaming by Daevid Allen get republished. I have the 2nd one which is the one where he forms Gong but never got the first one which is his life up to that point.
I thought I'd heard they were going to come out through another imprint at one point.

SAF the original publisher folded a few years ago i think.

thanks for that video stirmonster, that was indeed fantastic

(i passed on cheap copies of Crystal Machine, New Jerusalem and the self-titled Clearlight Symphony record yesterday, regretting it now! that tune off Crystal Machine that you posted definitely needs sampling btw if no-one's done it already?)

"forever reoccurring" is a major jam. twenty minutes fly by like nothing

Just thinking about the long interview with Kramer, was it, where he talks about Gong, iirc.

You was my gateway in the 70s, via a shortie in the CREEM back-of-the-book Rock-a-Rama section---not my usual fare, but oh my, lucky i.
BYG has reappeared on Bandcamp, where I finally heard and dug Magick Brother, also Banana Moon, which made several of my ballots---I said this on the main Wyatt thread:

Quite a few BYG albums now reissued and streaming on Bandcamp---I started with Banana Moon, because RW is in the core band with Daevid Allen and Archie Legget, ready for excellent guests. "Stoned Innocent Frankenstein" could be the title track, considering whole set's seemingly off-handed pop-rock flair through the crusty bits*, with attentive dynamics def. incl. Wyatt's drumming and harmonies.
He sings lead on "Memories," which could be a ringer, but fits with other songs' sincerity ("Get Me Outta Here," o yes), and the voice is distant, but persistent, also unmistakable, while the playing is bluesier than his otm "Rock Bottom" B-side arrangement, but sympathetically so. Here's the best audio of the B that I've heard, on Richard Sinclair's Bandcamp:
https://richardsinclairsongs.bandcamp.com/track/memories

And before I forget, here's the 2023 Banana Moon:
https://bygrecords.bandcamp.com/album/banana-moon (Gong's reissued Magick Brother is sounding pretty good on BYG BC too)

*wiki:

In 2003, David Bowie included it in a list of 25 of his favourite albums, "Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie", saying that "it's possible, just possibly maybe, that strands of the embryonic glam style started here."[7]

As for this:

I've never followed Gong very closely, but for me Hillage earned his place in music history for helping Rachid Taha put together Made in Medina. Songlines' reviewer said when he heard it, he glimpsed what Page and Plant were going for w North African musicians. Yeah, seems like this is the realization and then some, to put it mildly. Anyway, more on Made.. should prob be for another thread--what's the deal with New York Gong? The genesis of Material, right? Is the album good?

― dow, Sunday, October 14, 2012 7:11 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

i've grown to really like the new york gong album over the years after completely dismissing it when i first bought it but whether you'll like it or not really depends on whether or not you dig daevid allen's schtick. the laswell hook up came via the notorious jean karakos who moved his celluloid label from france to new york and had gong connections going way back. material probably took the name from the "materialism" track on it and put their first album proper out on celluloid shortly after this came out.

― stirmonster, Sunday, October 14, 2012

There is a compilation of appearances on French tv during the early 70s that I have seen crop up at the end of videos I've seen. Assume its still around though not sure when videos were upped to youtube.

I'm seeing copies of the volumes of the Gong Dreaming book going for massive prices. I did think I had heard about a reprint but not seeing copies cheap and current. Volume 2 was very good anyway.

I return to this clip of "I Never Glid Before" loads, Mike Howlett's playing especially is just so absurdly good, my wife likes to point out that Daevid has a little bit of Spin Doctors singer thing going on :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeHN_VmVfRI