Gong (band)
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Gong are a progressive rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen. Their music has also been described as space rock.
They were formed in 1967, after Allen - then a member of Soft Machine - was denied entry to the United Kingdom due to a visa complication. Allen remained in France where he and a London-born Sorbonne professor, Gilli Smyth, established the first incarnation of Gong. This band fragmented during the 1968 student revolution, with Allen and Smyth forced to flee France for Deya in Majorca.
They found a saxophonist, Didier Malherbe living in a cave in Deya, before film director Jerome La Perrousaz invited the band back to France to record the soundtracks to his movies.
They were subsequently approached by the newly formed independent label BYG and signed up for two albums (Magick Brother, Mystic Sister and Bananamoon).
By 1971, a regular line-up had established itself, and Gong released their Camembert Electrique album. The UK release, put out by Virgin Records subsidiary Caroline Records in 1974, was priced at 49p, ensuring that sufficient numbers were sold for the album to chart (had it not been barred from the charts for being so cheap).
Gong played at the first Glastonbury Festival and were subsequently one of the first acts to sign to Virgin Records, getting first pick of the studio-time ahead of Mike Oldfield.
Between 1973 and 1974, Gong, now augmented by guitarist Steve Hillage, released their Radio Gnome Trilogy - three records that expounded upon the (previously only hinted at) Gong mythology.
At a gig in Cheltenham, in 1975, Allen refused to go on stage, claiming that a "wall of force" was preventing him. He left the band, as did Smyth, who wanted to spend more time with her two children.
Gong continued, under the control of drummer Pierre Moerlen (died 2005) and without their two principal members, because of contractual obligations. They morphed into the jazz-rock outfit - Pierre Moerlen's Gong.
The Gong mythology however, continued from the late seventies up until the nineties, in Allen's solo work, and with bands such as Euterpe and Planet Gong (also known as Here & Now), while Smyth formed a separate band: Mother Gong.
The various bands and incarnations are collectively dubbed the "Gong Global Family".
In 1992, Allen and Malherbe reformed Gong to release an album called Shapeshifter, subsequently dubbed Radio Gnone pt4. In 2000, a 5th installment: Zero to Infinity was released, featuring Smyth, and classic line-up bassist Mike Howlett.
Brief Discography:
- 1970 - Magick Brother, Mystic Sister
- 1971 - Bananamoon (Daevid Allen)
- 1971 - Glastonbury Fayre (Gong contribute one side to this live triple album, including a piece that is interrupted by "the generator packing up".)
- 1971 - Camembert Electrique
- 1971 - Continental Circus
- 1971 - Obsolete (Dashiell Hedeyat & Gong)
- 1973 - Flying Teapot (Radio Gnome trilogy, part 1)
- 1973 - Angel's Egg (Radio Gnome trilogy, part 2)
- 1973- Greasy Truckers: Live At Dingwall's Dance Hall (Gong contribute one side to this double album along with Henry Cow, Camel and the Global Village Trucking Company. Nb, the Gong tracks are not in fact 'live' performances)
- 1974 - You (Radio Gnome trilogy, part 3)
- 1976 - Shamal
- 1977 - Gazeuse! aka Expresso
- 1977- Gong est Mort- Viva la Gong! (French live album)
- 1977- Gong Live Etc (UK live album)
- 1978 - Expresso II
- 1989 - Gong Maison (Gong Maison)
- 1992 - Shapeshifter
- 2000 - Zero to Infinity
- 2003 - The World Of Daevid Allen And Gong (a 3 CD collection with no original material, but which includes almost all of the Radio Gnome trilogy, tracks from early albums including four each from Camembert Electrique and Bananamoon and selections of Daevid Allen's later work with Planet Gong and New York Gong.)
- 2004 - Acid Motherhood (with a radical new Gong lineup including current member Kawabata Makoto and former member Cotton Casino from Acid Mothers Temple. Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth's son Orlando Allen plays drums on this album.)de:Gong (Band)