Fantastic! This is the first part of a trilogy, 'Angel's Egg' and 'You' being the other two. They are certainly connected to the Canterbury scene but were formed in Paris by Daevid Allen who had trouble (as an Australian) getting documentation to stay in England. Lovely stuff JP!
The great part about Gong's charm is that you learn to like it more as their albums go on. This track sets the stage for the rest of the album. They're also not only fun, but trippy. Most definitely influenced by New Age ideas, psychedelics and general British eccentric whimsy and silliness. They're loosely tied to Canterbury because their members Daevid Allen and Steve Hillage came from Canterbury groups, but part of their lineup is also French.
“Radio Gnome! Radio Gnome Ev-vis-i-ble-HA!” These guys weren’t just Canterbury, they were part of the Big 5 Canterbury bands (Soft Machine, Gong, Caravan, Hatfield & The North, Henry Cow). If you want to hear some great “Ameri-Canterbury,” check out Amelia Earhart by The Muffins. The keyboard player/woodwind guy, Dave Newhouse, is a friend.
Great to see a Gong reaction. They were a bit weird but a lot of fun. I think all my mates and me had the ‘Camembert Electrique’ album because, along with Pictures at an Exibition, it was really cheap here in the UK. Very eccentric but a Great band.
It cost 49p, which meant that Virgin lost money on every copy sold, so it was a loss leader. Got their name known in the UK. Virgin did the same with the Faust Tapes.
Hi Justin. Please, please, please react to some Ozric Tentacles. Particularly the albums Strangeitude, Jurassic Shift and Arboresence They're not quite like Gong but influenced by them. They are a Spacey-Prog-Rock-Electronic-Ethnic-Ambient-Reggae-Folk-Jazz group of instrumental awesomeness.....!
Yes, I’ve asked before, nothing yet. Love those guys, saw them once, JS tour in 93? Crazy freaking show, car got towed that night but, it was worth it. Wonderful music and I got to yell at a tow yard cashier. They still send me stuff in the mail from Erpland.
After this you need to do some solo Steve Hillage tracks 👍 Daevid Allen was the catalyst for the Canterbury scene back in 1963! His radical ideas energised the likes of Robert Wyatt and Hugh Hopper who played with him in those early days of the Daevid Allen Trio. Daevid was also in the original Soft Machine of course, until he was denied entry back into the UK after a French tour (DA was Australian of course). Quite a few Canterbury stalwarts passed through the ranks of Gong over the years...Kevin Ayers, Pip Pyle, Steve Hillage etc
I much prefer Ozric Tentacles to Gong or Hawkwind. The music of the former is more concise and certainly less crazy, more restrained compared to its elders. on the other hand, it is also much more predictable and tends to look the same from one album to another. in the end, it's apples and oranges !
@@a.k.1740 agreed! Ozrics are one of my top 5 bands, and their music is varied once you penetrate the cryptic harmonic structures. Seen them a few times too. :)
@@-davidolivares I've suggested it before, but after much deliberation, I'll stick with Jurassic Shift (the title track) as the best example of the Ozric's psych prog madness.
My gateway to Gong was guitarist Steve Hillage's "Fish Rising". It features most of the members of gong, as well as Dave Stewart from Egg. Definitely worth a listen.
Gong kept going after Daevid Allen and Steve Hillage left, and they added Allan Holdsworth on guitar for two albums, "Expresso" and "Expresso II". While the two albums are more traditional "PROG" (less quirky), they are also my two favorite Allan Holdsworth albums, so worth checking out for his fantastic playing.
Gong has one of the weirdest band stories that I know of. Essentially, Gong was born as the musical expression of both Daevid Allan and girlfriend-turn-wife Gilli Smyth. Allan is an Australian from Melbourne that went to France hoping to meet beatnik poet William Burroughs, which he eventually did. Then decided to go to England and ended up forming a band called The Daevid Allan Trio with Robert Wyatt that within time would become the famous "Canterbury Scene" band known as Soft Machine. Soft Machine went to France to play some gigs in 1967 and upon return Daevid Allan was refused entry to the country for lack of renewed visa (he'd overstayed and now was being denied new visa). Stuck in France he ended up forming what was originally conceived as The Bananamoon Band, but is generally considered to be early Gong. This initial conceptual band disbanded within the year but after leaving Paris for Mallorca, Allan and Smyth returned to Paris in the fall of 1969 and formed a new Gong that began its recording journey by March 1970. So Gong is a French band, generally associated with the English Canterbury scene, that is lead by the music mind of an Australian from Melbourne. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! By 1975, after a number of bandmate changes, Allan and Smyth left Gong and its then guitarist Steve Hillage initially took over before leaving the following year to dedicate himself to his solo career. Gong was now left solely in the hands of its drummer Pierre Moerlen who began releasing the bands following albums under the name Pierre Moerlen's Gong making clear the change of musical directions the band has had since losing Daevid Allan; now clearly defined as more jazz-prog without any of the quirky Planet Gong storytelling. Eventually Gong folded as a band as the eighties arrived, prompting Daevid Allan, who was living in New York at the time, to release occasional projects under the name Daevid Allan's New York Gong. Gong as a real band, having Allan and Smyth back at the helm, came back to life in the early nineties. They once again began touring and releasing excellent new material that expanded upon the stories of Planet Gong and its quirky inhabitants until the passing of Daevid Allan in early 2015.
"You" (1974) is my favourite Gong album and demonstrates just how accomplished they were as musicians. Stand out tracks are "Master Builder" and "Isle of Everywhere" which is a 12 minute song featuring a sax solo by Didier Malherbe and guitar solos by Daevid Allen (RIP) and Steve Hillage and incredible drumming by the late, great Pierre Moerlen (RIP). The perfect soundtrack to a herbally enhanced evening.
I've been waiting a long time for you to get back to these guys. I posted this in Gong's FB group so the band (present and past) will see it. Gong's various incarnations represent an enormous range of styles, but this era is particularly glorious and silly. ("It's all way too serious to be taken seriously") There's a mythology here, all based on 1966 visions Daevid had while still in Soft Machine. Psychedelic is definitely the word here, and it's pretty overt throughout the trilogy. While they were based in France back then, I still always connect them to Canterbury because of Allen, Hillage, Pip Pyle, Kevin Ayers... they are now based in London. You can't go wrong with any of the three albums as they progress toward a very spacey kind of fusion from here. "You" is mind-blowing, especially Master Builder.
I’d recommend pretty much anything off angel’s egg or Camembert electrique, for the jazzier side gazeuse and expresso ii you would enjoy I think. You is another great one, Pierre Moerlen is one of my favourite drummers ever, Steve Hillage is similarly one of my favourite gitfish players!
‘Well chuffed’ as we say in Britain you are here. You are starting your journey on a trilogy you simply MUST carry on to the end. This band seem gloriously chaotic and insane yet the more you listen the more smart and structured they are guided by the unique vision of Daevid Allen. Enjoy hearing the weird comments in the background the more you listen. “Henry!!!” Gong certainly link heavily to the Canterbury Scene but strong enough to be a category all their own.
So glad you're listening to Gong again! If you listen to them more in the future be sure to find out which songs do and don't go together. Angel's Egg is particularly confusing, I would do the whole album but people would disagree. Just make sure you listen to Oily Way/Outer Temple/Inner Temple together.
"Flying Teapot" is the first album of the so-called "Gong trilogy" (part two is "Angels Egg", part three is "You") that was later expanded to a hexalogy with the albums "Shapeshifter", "Zero to Infinity" and "2032". It tells the adventures of Zero the Hero on the planet Gong as he tries to reach enlightenment. The album "Camembert Electrique" is kind of a prequel to the trilogy (actually the Radio Gnome is already mentioned on "Camembert Electrique"), like "The Hobbit" is the prequel to "Lord of the Rings" or "Rhinegold" is the prequel to Richard Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" (Wagner himself called "Rhinegold" the "Vorabend", which is German for "eve", of "The Ring of the Nibelung"), with the follow-ups "Valkyrie", "Siegfried" and "Twilight of the Gods". In a way the Gong trilogy with the prequel "Camembert Electrique" is like a silly version of "Ring of the Nibelung", while "Lord of the Rings" with the prequel "The Hobbit" is kind of in-between. Like Magma Gong were located in France, and often both bands played at the same festival. And both bands claimed to be from another planet, Gong from the planet Gong, Magma from the planet Kobaïa. But the two planets could not have been more different. On planet Kobaïa everything is extremely regulated, but on planet Gong everything is extremely anarchic. Christian Vander, the drummer of Magma, once mentioned in an interview that when both bands played at the same festival they were never both good. Either Gong were good, then Magma were bad, or Magma were good, then Gong were bad. And whenever Magma were bad they said "we have to improvise more", and whenever Gong were bad they said "we have to play more structured".
A brilliant, interesting, weird, and fun band, full of great musicians. There's never a dull moment with Gong. I've loved them pretty much from my second listen to Camembert Electrique. Re the first play, didn't know if i'd been dosed, or had had some kind of... 'episode', having not heard the likes before. That second play though, it all just clicked :) Worth pursuing JP.
My first proper gig was Steve Hillage at the Hammersmith Odeon supported by Trevor Rabin (Yes), Nov '79... i was lucky....Hillage is definitely a rabbit hole worth exploring
Cheerfully out of their head. Love it. And their music's brilliant, too. Mint tea: if you wish to know the real taste, a visit to a Moroccan restaurant is a must. Everything else is a despicable imitation.
I don't know all Gong albums but that one is great. You should try one of their first "Camembert Electrique”. That one is crazy, and even my wife does like it, because it's also fun.
I always considered Gong, as an Aussie... more like a bunch of medieval troubadours mystically transported from entertaining wide eyed locals of all levels of society in a early Renaissance town/city by the pot headed pixies in a flying teapot, into a modern recording studio - and somehow they just mastered modern electrical instruments before applying their medieval brand of troubadour whimsy to a whole new level of musical creation, that somehow just defies all attempts to label it or classify it. Thanks JP for giving Gong a listen. 'You' is an awesome album, as is Steve Hillage's 'L'. BTW: not sure whether you've seen this but I knew I'd seen a RU-vid video of 'I Never Glid Before' which I found again here if you wish to see how good they are live... (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UeHN_VmVfRI.html)
Heavily linked with the Canterbury scene. Allen was Australian and one of the founders of Soft Machine, but visa issues meant he was refused readmission to the UK so he went to Paris to form Gong.
honestly for me there is no "canterbury scene", just the Daevid allen scene; before he came to canterbury Ratledge played classical, hugh hopper played rock, and wyatt played jazz. Daevid created the genre
Very nice reaction: thank you. I've recently been coming back to Gong. Some of the stuff in this trilogy of albums is just so rewarding to listen to. I will sometimes just line up all three albums and play them right through. And recently I have been thinking about this a lot: that the 'fun' aspect that you talked about is absolutely central to how good it is. There is a playfulness that somehow frees them to be very inventive. Once again, thanks.
The album "You" is more of the same, except mores, and thus a personal favorite. Within the trilogy "You" Angel's Egg" and "Radio Gnome" there is a kind of story, though I suspect it was retrofitted to the first album and developed into the trilogy. Gong is a hidden treasure.
They continue still, after Allen's death, Smyth's death. They are a family, as Allen always said. The period between 1975 an 1989 had no input from Allen at all yet there was still Gong.
Love that you’re reacting to Gong, I absolutely love them and this track! Glad you enjoyed. Do you think you’ll be reacting to more Gentle Giant at some point? If so Three Friends, In A Glass House and Acquiring The Taste would be my picks, in that order. Free Hand, Debut and In’terview are also amazing
@@JustJP awesome! They’re my favorite band and it makes me so happy to see you react to them! When it comes to progressive rock you’re my favorite youtuber, you’re a real intelligent guy and your personality is so warm and approachable. Keep up the good work, we love your content!
Scrolling through the comments I see no real mention of their album "Shamal". This album marked their transition from the more psychedelic to a more straight progressive jazz/rock sound. Fantastic album. Pierre Moerlen was a tremendous drummer. Unquestionably a band rooted in psychedelia. For real. It wasn't just a genre for them, it was a lifestyle.
Ahh !! Ok Justin ! Welcome on the Planet Gong ... here is deep jazz, funky, schoolyard ritornellos, Yoni-soap bubbles, a spatio-temporal rift towards the stars, some oriental mantras and volutes, this circus atmosphere Barnum and fucking good musicians!
Good description of the band, Justin. I think I might group them with bands like Henry Cow and the various Fred Frith projects, but also Frank Zappa, Captain Bee Fart, I mean Captain Beefheart, and the F-Art Ensemble of Greensboro. Not quite the Steel Cello Ensemble. A sort of musical Firesign Theatre. I had the album with the big percolator on it. It's been a while. Great to hear them again, and see that they are being kept alive.
Gong did a triptych. This album: Radio Gnome Invisible (also, sometimes, called Flying Teapot), Angel's Egg, and You. All connected by a central here called Zero. 3 fantastic albums. "I Never Glid Before" (Angels Egg) has, what I regard as, the greatest guitar solo of all time. Only 60 seconds long, every note a complete joy.
Glad you're getting back to more Gong. Been into this band for many decades. What I really dig about them is their use of Middle Eastern flavored jams. Allez Ali Baba Black Sheep Have You Any Bullshit off their Floating Anarchy 1977 album is a good example of this. The song uses a Middle Eastern rhythm that moves into a trance like journey. Very hypnotic. The other cool thing about the album is they actually printed a request/warning on the cover to their fans (and the records stores) to not pay more than a certain amount of money for their album. Great move from some musical anarchists.
You know the vocal ad libbing and weirder moments somehow reminds me of Area (the Crac! album), while most of the other things makes me think of Soft Machines' Volume 1 and 2. I know Daevid Allen came from Soft Machine and then formed Gong in France when he wasn't allowed to re-enter England after a time abroad with Soft Machine. I'm actually just now reading Robert Wyatt's authorized biography (Different Every Time), highly recommended, quite the brick. I would love for you to do more Gong since it will also expose me to more of Gong's music. And someday in the future I hope you'll also listen to Area- Crac! Wonderful Italian avant garde prog of the highest quality :)
Amusing song - lots of silliness in it. There was another British group that did some silliness, from up North in Scotland - String Driven Thing. They have a violin-rocking number from 1972 called "Circus". I have this theory about silly British Rock originating not in a small town, but rather a widespread movement derived from tuning into Monty Python's Flying Circus on BBC-TV. And going to Mothers of Invention concerts.
Remember buying the album in the tiny - at that time - Virgin store in London, they blew my mind! Good musicianship combined with humour and self-mockery
This group is new to me, but it grabbed my attention for sure. I will absolutely check out their stuff. Embracing your weirdness, but with serious musicians, that feels like WEEN, which I adore to death.
The character you feel in the word gnome is because he's pronouncing the word the french way. We say g-nome in french, hard g before the n. He's also pronouncing invisible in french. There's lots of french words and lyrics in the Radio Gnome Trilogy. They were based in France during that time :-)
Hi JP! I would strongly recommend Steve Hillage (Guitarist). He's also from Gong along with the electronics from Miquette Giraudy (who was also in Gong). Steve Hillage's music has the spaceyness of Gong but is more New Age / Spiritual. The albums I would recommend are Fish Rising, L and Green.
This track is a pointer to some of the weirdness found elsewhere from the Planet Gong but the real gems are to be found on 'You' imo. I'd put Gong in the same basket as Magma, The Cardiacs and Van der Graaf Generator in that they belong to their own genre and are truly loved by the cognoscenti but are perhaps too 'frightening/weird' for those afraid to explore unusual music. Me, I love 'em (seen maybe five different line-ups and they're all good). If pushed, I'd put them in the Canterbury scene for reasons discussed below by others.
I definitely support that view. Magma, Gong, the Cardiacs and Van der Graaf Generator all belong in their own genre. I would like to add Amon Düül II to that list of bands; they were totally out there with sometimes very daring lyrics (the song "Dem Guten, Schönen, Wahren" depicts Jesus as a child molester with lines like, translated from German: "We danced ring-a-ring-a-roses together and sang a beautiful song. The smallest started crying for her mother; I softly speared her with my member"). And Can also belong in a genre of their own.
Hey Justin! Haven't listened to Gong since my college days. I believe I only have one album, have to check the collection. They are definitely different. Somewhat Zappaish.
Nice! You should do a reaction to "Master Builder" from their "You" album. The "You" album was the third album in the trilogy and the first released here in the states. Downbeat Magazine, a very straight forward traditional Jazz magazine gave this album 5 out of 5 stars. I had to listen to the trilogy in reverse, as Flying Teapot and Angels Egg were only available in the import bins:) in 1974. I'll never forget walking into my favorite record shop late at night and hearing the "You" album being blasted through the store (gotta love campus record shops!) and I thought why am I the only one in here?...then finding the staff stoned laid out behind the counter:) HA! Almost all of these musicians went on to solo careers...there is an enormous amount of music from over the years...that Downbeat said, "..only the adventurous will enjoy." Thanks!
I was told that the reference to tea was euphemism for something stronger, as in Pot Head; tea is brewed in a teapot. The song starts with a clarinet which I think gives it a French feel. There is a kind of dreamy feel to the song.Maybe the jazz element gives licence to going off at odd tangents. They are not generally regarded as Canterbury scene,though I believe Daevid Allen was briefly in the band Soft Machine, but never recorded with them (I believe)
HAHA! He founded them, and was in them when they were BIIIIG. But stupidly, he over stayed his Visa, and got found out, when he tried to return to the UK from France.
I was at school when I first heard this (in 1973) and bought it because I loved the spacy keyboards, guitars and Didier's Saxophone. But "Flying Teapot", especially the start, is so trippy. I never smoked tobacco or weed or popped pills. With this kind of music you don't need that poison; it plugs directly into your creative brain and you trip cleanly! 😊 "The Octave Doctors And The Crystal Machine" is another fabulous track, along with "Zero The Hero And The Witch's Spell". But, Justin, YOU MUST LISTEN TO "The Isle Of Everywhere" from their album "You". It's my favourite Gong track, all 10:20 of it. Steve Hillage was superb on this track (as was the whole band). Closely followed by "A Sprinkling Of Clouds", all 8:55 from the same album.
I learned to love mint tea when I was a teen-ager visiting Marrakesh. Sitting at a table overlooking the Square of the Dead, green tea, sweetened with honey with an entire stalk of fresh mint stuck in it. It was so tasty and the square was so interesting. This music would have suited the moment very well.
Love mint tea once in a while. When I traveled to Egypt, I took a cruise on the Nile in a small boat, not the type with hundreds of tourist, there was only 7 cabins. Around 4, the would serve us mint tea on the deck. Since then mint tea always make me remembering those magical moments.
Hey Justin, note of interest, Daevid Allen had ties to the Canterbury movement, though to me Gong sounds more like space rock. He was in Soft Machine and both Pip Pyle( of Hatfield and the North) and Steve Hillage were members of Gong. Sadly Daevid passed, but charged Kavis Torabi of Cardiacs and Guapo fame to continue Gong.
Steve Hillage Fish Rising... Gong is/are/was/would be a collective musical collective consisting of English peoples, an random Australian, and some French fellows, who all lived in a heaping mass of humanity somewhere in the wild of France. Bruford joined for a short time but found the atmosphere a little too laced with lysergic. In the mid '70s Gong turned into Pierre Moerlen's Gong, which was at a progressive level hard to touch, having a cast of session guitarists, notably Allan Holdsworth, Mick Taylor, Mike Oldfield, and Bon Lozaga, Drummer Pip Pyle left to join National Health after Bruford left the project.
As you may expect from a band that is still going after 50 years (albeit with none of the original members), there are many facets to Gong. This is the early trippy phase, then Daevid Allen left for a while and Pierre Moerlen took over and the direction changed to a more recognisable classic 70s prog sound (but still very good), then Daevid came back and took over again and was in charge until his death a few years ago. The band is now fronted by Kavus Torabi (ex-Cardiacs guitarist in the 2000s - don't forget Fiery Gun Hand JP!) and is bringing back the early material in their live shows while forging ahead with their AD (after Daevid) version of the Gong sound. Gong isn't so much a specific group of people, it's a state of mind.
Gong are great, cosmic and comic, musically inventive and good musicians. Daevid Allen was a musical iconoclast. The original Radio Gnome trilogy are fabulous, zero to infinity is pretty cool too. And without Allen they produced an absolute classic with Gazeuse! Gong are associated with the Canterbury scene, Daevid Allen was in Soft Machine prior to their first album. But they're in it more as a genre than a place as they were largely French, Allen himself was an Australian.
One of my favorite lines from Rocky & Bullwinkle, from the story of a farmer digging down to find a gnome at the bottom of the well. "You, there, where are you from?" "Alaska." "And you're a gnome?"
@@1nelsondj There is a business location in Maplewood, Mo. called "Moosylvania" -- the home island of Bullwinkle, somewhere between Canada and the U.S. Jay Ward tried to lobby for Moosylvania's statehood in Washington D.C., but was locked out because of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I confess I avoided Gong for a great many years as a friend of mine got caught up in some heavy drug consumption and would go on about the narratives and it all seemed as if I was losing him to insanity. He has since cleaned up and now cannot listen to them anymore. For me they are like Zappa, the lyrics are nonsensical but the musicianship is ace. This album has a great title track which builds and builds over an extended period timescale.
Fun. Circus-y. Spacey. Hallucinogenic. Weird. Love it! Accurate adjectives. Not to be taken too seriously. Another great group with a fun side is the French band Morglbl. No absurd lyrics and jazzier. Actually, no lyrics at all. Can music without lyrics be funny? Yes! Just try to pronounce the name of the band!.
Love your Stuff...! Could you please try "Kobah - Live!" by Magma and anything by Pierre Moerlens' GONG featuring Allan Holdsworth. This pairing brought a new feature to them both! Thank you. Drummer (age 71) in Tropical Far North Queensland, Australia.
I can dig it. However, I just realized it has been ages since you dipped ur toe into Budgie and wanted some ideas about where to go try them for a second time. So I have two to pick from that will blend into your taste for prog. and hard/heavy metal. The first is Zoom Club. Wanders and has the riffige that is heavy and a great bit of tasteful vocal to boot. The second is called, Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman. My fav. from Budgie. Wanders and explores lots of heavy places, raw, power packed rhythm section gets after it and I love the work. The song gets better as it works along the 8 plus mins. So freakin' Budgie good!
Oh man. You're killing me with your band choices. Gong Live Etc. is on my all time top ten list. It's hard to find but I have it on a YT Music playlist here music.ru-vid.com/group/PLBF91FA8D6D315149&feature=share Isle of Everywhere is just an insanely good, beautifully structured song in 2 parts with Steve Hillage killing it on guitar. But actually, listened all the way through, it's a masterpiece of live performances (with a pinch of studio "Etc" thrown in.
I was listening to IAO Chant From The Cosmic Inferno this morning, by The Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno from Japan. Do you, or your subscribers, know this? It's one track that's almost an hour long and was based on the Gong song Master Builder.
Not exactly my cup of tea, pun intended, but this reminds me of a mad cross between Zappa and psych-Pink Floyd. Not bad, just a bit too goofy. Always enjoy your reviews, JP!
I've been watching your videos non stop I love you man. I would love for you to listen to Black Sabbath Headless Cross and Tyr. Tony Martin is criminally underrated because he's not Dio. He's not Ozzy. But this is Tony Iommi prime heavy metal. So fricking fantastic. Sharon and Ozzy prevent these albums to come back out.. I beg of you give them a chance!!!
