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Floating Anarchy: Gong, live on French TV, 1973

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Considering how much I love the shit out of Daevid Allen and Gong, I’ve only posted about them once before on DM??? How can that be?

Well then, here’s to making up for that grievous oversight with something so fucking good it might cause you to have an out-of-body experience: Two insanely great live Gong performances from French television in 1973 on a show called Rockenstock.

First, the band do a ripping version of “I’ve Never Been Glid” that sounds extremely close to the studio version on Angels Egg except that Daevid Allen mischievously changes the song’s last line, “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and have a cup of tea see” to “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and smoke another roach.” (“Glidding” is how the Pot Head Pixes fly the teapots, if you are confused…)

I love the way that Allen’s trippy hippy dancing seems to “conduct” the group. Dig Steve Hillage’s “lewd guitar, Pierre Moerlen’s drums (the man was a god of rhythmic pounding, up there with Jaki Liebezeit), Tim Blake’s spacey VCS3 and synth-work,  the great Mike Howlett’s booming, tight, bass-lines and Didier Malherbe’s anarchic sax riffs. This is Gong at the height of their power and they absolutely crush it..
 

 
In the clip below, from the same program, “space whisperer” Gilli Smyth (how I love her) performs a mind-melting version of “Witch’s Song/I Am Your Pussy” from Flying Teapot, the first album in the Gong’s classic “Radio Gnome Trilogy.” Bjork should cover this!
 

 
Both of these clips are available on the Gong: French TV 1971-73 DVD. Until yesterday I didn’t even know it existed, but I’ll be frantically waiting for it to arrive in the mail for the next few days, I can assure you!
 
Bonus: A 1975 radio interview with Daevid Allen about the reasons he left Gong.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.30.2011
03:03 pm
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