Gong. Anyone Else Think They're Good?

[J Ed]

re that video I linked to above
can anybody make out who's who?
heres a colour photo from some nice gatefold edition of Camembert Electrique, for comparison

(my 2000ish reissue just has that same photo much smaller and in b&w on the back cover)

[Stephen]

Middle has to be Daevid Allen I would have thought.

[J Ed]

looking at my copy, its actually a different shot from the same session ... theyve moved a bit but are still in the same order:
"the band in 1971 from left:
BLOOMDIDO BAD DEGRASSE - tenor sax and flute
SUBMARINE CAPTAIN CHRITIAN TRITSCH aqualung bass
PIP PYLE drums & breakage
Robert Wyatt's son SAM
BERT CAMEMBERT local vocals and lewd guitar
VENUX DE-LUXE switch doctor and mix master
SHAKTI YONI space whisper"

but in the video is it the same lineup and which is which? its very confusing
well Shakti Yoni is easy enough to identify but not quite so femme-y as Id always thought she would look, given the sexiness of a lot of her lyrics and moans

[Stephen]

Something else to be mulling over



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU1ZZW0oyqY

[J Ed]

I picked up a copy of the French TV dvd and heartily recommend it
its all preHillage so tends to be dada-ist rather than trippy

the beginning is a lengthy interview in the country commune where all the members of the band were living at the time
although the others dont say much, Bloomdido BadDeGrasse seems to be the creative equal of Daevid and Gylli, but I guess he was the original member along with them
Daevid anseres every question with absurdist nonsense of course, then at the end of the interview Bloomdido asks the interviewer "Tu veux du camembert?", just like in the album

[my breakfast.]

I just heard Gong's contribution to the Glastonbury Fayre fund raiser album. It is called Glad Stoned Buried Fielding Flash And Fresh Fest Footprint In My Memory, and seems to link their debut album with the later Radio Gnome albums quite well. Infact the Radio Gnome intro tape thing seems to crop up here, alongside various tape-loop experiments and weird sound effects. Their contribution for the album is not culled from their Glastonbury performance after the fourth minute, at which point a power cut stops their performance in its tracks. It seems they chose to edit up various practice tapes and such to fill out the rest of the time.

[J Ed]

I only ever saw that Glastonbury Fayre album once and the dealer wanted $300- for it

I did pick up the confusingly named Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dancehall double album recently ... this is actually a various artists projects where vintage progressive rock acts each get one side of vinyl, they being Camel Henry Cow Gong and someone named the Global Village Trucking Company

Gongs side seems to be a freeform medley of elements from Flying Teapot, Camemberte Electrique and Angels Egg, but its hard to tell with live Gong exactly what theyre playing as they segue random bits of their studio tracks together with trippy jams and their patented tapeloops
Steven "Hillside Village" is on this one, and parsing the silly codenames its exactly the same classic lineup as Angels Egg, which I also found on vinyl the same day

shame these two sidelong things they did are so rare, by definition they could rerelease the two of them together on one lp, or add some more rarities and fill an 80minute cd full of yet more essential Gong toonage

[nosaj]

I was listening to Gong last night. Great stuff!!!

[Jimi Dean Barrett]

New Gong album! "I See You".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF6KNMPV3y8 "When God Shakes Hands With The Devil".

[Wolfpack]

I like Daevid Allen's solo album 'Divided Alien Playbax 80' (1981) very, very, very much.

Opening track:
Daevid Allen - When
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIhtS_3zaN0

[Jimi Dean Barrett]

That said, I had no idea Daevid Allen has undergone radiotherapy!!

daevid allen - Health update good news
[posted Fri 3 Oct]
On 1st October daevid's course of radiotherapy was completed. During the last phase of treatment it was decided to double the level of radiation and double the number of sessions to two per day. Consequently daevid is frail as could possibly be, far below shattered, very quiet and as Turiya e-mailed, "very introverted", he has also lost a lot of weight - but most importantly the cancer is gone. Now comes the slow journey back to being a healthy, happy, independent 77 year old.

When he decided to embrace the radiotherapy course of action daevid said he would commit himself completely and utterly for the duration, and do whatever 'they' said needed to do done. Then, when it was all over, he would commit himself totally to naturopathic pathways back to wellness - as well as the daevid pictured above in 2012.

http://www.planetgong.co.uk/news/current.shtml

[Annoying Twit]

I've never heard a Gong album. As I'm around the forum now (I tend to come and go), I'm giving the album 'You' a listen on Spotify as a warm up for another listen to TER.

From the first song (?) and onto the second it appears that they have influenced one of my favourite New Zealand bands, Schtung.

EDIT: Most of the way through the album. I particularly like the longer mostly instrumental tracks. A bit of 70s Zappa maybe. On Isle of Everywhere right now. As an amateur bassplayer myself, I'm very much appreciating the bass guitar work on this album. Only vaguely Floydish, but there are some shared valules, methinks.

[Jimi Dean Barrett]

I've never heard a Gong album. As I'm around the forum now (I tend to come and go), I'm giving the album 'You' a listen on Spotify as a warm up for another listen to TER.

From the first song (?) and onto the second it appears that they have influenced one of my favourite New Zealand bands, Schtung.

EDIT: Most of the way through the album. I particularly like the longer mostly instrumental tracks. A bit of 70s Zappa maybe. On Isle of Everywhere right now. As an amateur bassplayer myself, I'm very much appreciating the bass guitar work on this album. Only vaguely Floydish, but there are some shared valules, methinks.

You are in for a real unexpected treat getting into Gong.

I first heard of them as they were one of my schoolfriend's brother favourite bands. And it was the muddy, but still enough fire of "Flying Teapot" album. Discovered the album before that "Camembert Electrique" in my own brother's collection, so got to buy "Angel's Egg" and "You" when I bought "Flying Teapot" for myself. Although the production seems a step back from "Camembert...", "You" has the best production, but "Angel's Egg" has the ensemble playing.
"Live etc." was a great CD that hasn't been reissued as far as I can see.
The band split into two, Daevid Allen left after "You" and Steve Hillage stayed on for the first album of the new band Pierre Moerlen's Gong which got a lot more Jazz orientated, Although "Gazeuse!" uses only percussive instruments.

Even I've lost track of the years of all the time Allen's Gong have broken up and reformed.
I'd like to point out "Shapeshifter" from 1992. Gong replaced a guitarist with a violin player instead.
This idea at least worked for this track Loli- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQDv7Bu0IuA
And I never found out of the answerphone message at the start of this album was real or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdGkX9hUkJw

I at least heard about their 2032 comeback album last decade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3gHiQSt0C4

I admit, I have lost track of the stuff they did since 2000, but as you can see, there's at least a dozen different versions of Gong you can say you're a fan of!
And yet all the band get written about are "Wacky" and stupid!

There's never been a better time to get into Gong, and please use this thread to say what you thought of the stuff in this post!