by Will Romano
“I think the idea of Gong and the concept of the hero myth is about self-discovery,” says bassist Mike Howlett, who came to London in 1970 from Sydney, Australia. “I think it goes along with this idea that the music—the very act of making music—can communicate something to us. The world that communicates with us, which may be an inner or an outer world, is Planet Gong.”
“I’ve always seen Gong as a mystery school,” says Allen, who briefly left the band after Flying Teapot, disenchanted by the business (or lack thereof) of Gong but was lured back by the band’s Virgin deal. “I try to leave the concept wide open as I can, because everybody has their own spiritual path.”
Gong was—and still is, judging by Allen’s space-pixie stage outfits—one hell of a doozy. They’ve succeeded in creating their own universe, a farcical sci-fi, acid-induced world in which even the musicians in the band have been christened (by Allen) with alter egos—a kind of yin and yang.
“Didier Malherbe [sax and wind instruments] had the most beautiful name of all: Bloomdido Bad de Grasse,” says keyboardist Tim Blake (aka Mr. Hi T. Moonweed), who’d written music for the Radio Gnome trilogy. “I don’t think I ever called the man Didier. The sound engineer had the best name of all: the Switch Doctor. In fact, ‘Switch Doctor’ was the name of the first electronic tape collage experiments [Allen] did in the mid-1960s. He had worked with tape loops with Terry Riley in the early ’60s as well.”
Gong’s music, particularly on Angel’s Egg (arguably the band’s most “progressive” record) and You, seems to revolve in its own orbit. There’s very little in the progressive rock world to compare with this musical amalgam of technically proficient runs (featuring voices doubling vibraphone tones), seductive “space whisper” effects, and billowing (and sweaty bebop) sax lines receding into a matrix of backward tape noises, spiraling spacecraft-blastoff synth sounds (enhanced by Blake’s use of “ping-ponging” tape echo delays), gamelan-like bells, Terry Riley/La Monte Young—like ethnic minimalism, Hindu-ish hypnotic chants, and jazz-and blues-informed guitar riffs.
These sounds were as much a result of each individual band member’s input as the dynamism of the band as a whole, which included Allen, Smyth, Malherbe, classically trained drummer/percussionist Pierre Moerlen, guitarist Steve Hillage, keyboardist Blake, and bassist Howlett.
“For Angel’s Egg, we recorded with the Manor Mobile equipment in a forest in France in a chateau [Paviullon du Hay], and everybody seemed to be high on acid,” says recording engineer Simon Heyworth. “It was a hippie commune type of environment—band members were living together—and this may have contributed to the kind of telepathic music being made.”
“In a sense, Gong followed the construct of the hero myth,” says Howlett, who joined the band in 1973. “Any time a group of musicians are strings on a greater instrument that are played by a higher consciousness, that’s called the Octave Doctor. That’s a very Jungian thing—the collective unconscious that’s greater than the sum of the parts. If the musicians surrender to that, they have the possibility of making remarkable music. I think that occurred on ‘Isle of Everywhere,’ from You, for instance, where the basic tracks were done in one take. We were locked into this cycle of time changes that moved from 4/4 to 7/8 to 6/8 to 4/4 and so on. Each eight-bar section would move up a minor third, and when we’d dropped a full octave, we’d drop a beat, changing the time signature.”
“From the very first time I had jammed with Didier [Malherbe], even before I joined Gong, when I was on tour with Kevin Ayers, an electrical charge went off,” says Hillage. “It all felt very natural. I didn’t so much get the call to play with Gong as heard the call.”
PIERRE MOERLEN’S GONG
Perhaps out of disappointment that You wasn’t the commercial barn burner some expected (judging by Virgin’s advertising push), or because the music business (and all of its vices) was beginning to wear on the band, or because he felt Gong could not top the musical chemistry they’d achieved on Angel’s Egg and You (or maybe because he simply felt the band had accomplished its initial mission), Allen walked away from Gong for the second time in 1975, seemingly abandoning the mythology—and the faith—forever.
In his wake, most of the members dissipated: Hillage launched a solo career (which garnered such multigenre classics as 1975’s Fish Rising, which very well could have been a Gong record, as Virgin was pushing Hillage to become top Pot Head Pixie in Allen’s stead; 1976’s L, produced by Todd Rundgren; and 1977’s Motivation Radio. Hillage continues to work in the ambient/electronica field with his project System 7.
Mike Howlett went on to become a record producer and took up the Gong mantle (along with Malherbe, Hillage, and keyboardist and Hillage partner Miquette Giraudy, who appeared on You) for 1975’s Shamal (produced by Nick Mason).
Pierre Moerlen followed in their footsteps and headed up his own version of Gong, which continued recording through the 1970s, 1980s, and even into the 1990s, with releases such as Expresso, Gazeuse!, Expresso II, Downwind, Time is the Key, and Breakthrough.
“There was a time in the early ’70s, in France, when Magma and Gong were the two big bands,” says Gong guitarist/producer Steve Hillage. “We were yin to their yang: their ‘dark planet’ concept was the opposite of our musical vision.” (GAB Archive/Getty Images)
Gong: You (1974)
“Pierre went off into that sort of perfectionist jazz-rock thing—a bit like my old band, Soft Machine, did—and he obviously wanted to put all the studying in classical percussion he did at the Conservatoire Regional de Strasbourg somewhere,” says Allen. “You know the old saying: Trust in God but tie up your camels first.’ ... I think you need to tie the camels. That is, you really need to know how to play. But then you have to leave enough space empty and let the wind carry you.”
THE OCTAVE DOCTORS RETURN
To the delight of true believers everywhere, Allen would periodically continue activities under the Gong banner or some approximation of such (he recorded and gigged with Planet Gong and then New York Gong with members of the band that would become Material—Bill Laswell, Michael Beinhorn, and Fred Maher) with such releases as 1980’s About Time, 1989’s Gongmaison, the 1992 official Gong release Shapeshifter (episode four of the Radio Gnome series), 2000’s Zero to Infinity (part five of the series), 2004’s Acid Motherhood, and 2006’s I Am Your Egg.
Veteran members of Gong have been gigging together since 2006, but it wasn’t until 2009, with the appearance of 2032 (the year, according to Gong mythology, that the Octave Doctors return and Pot Head Pixies spread joy of the new age across the globe), that a full-blown reunited band—featuring Allen, long-time partner Smyth, Howlett, Malherbe, Hillage, Giraudy, and new members drummer Chris Taylor and saxophonist /flautist Theo Travis—made its biggest post-’70s splash. (Moerlen, sadly, died in 2005, and personal and creative issues have kept pioneering synth man and sometime Hawkwind member Tim Blake away.)
“We were sort of sucked back into it—back into the energy,” says Hillage, who produced and mixed 2032 for the band’s indie label, G-Wave Records. “Daevid had a big burst of energy and came up with another episode of the story.”
Allen’s strangely alluring musical vision has not lost its impact and has been championed by the trippy/electronica band Massive Attack (and Gong were invited to open their Meltdown festival in June 2008 in London). Radio Gnome and the music of the trilogy have left a lasting impression on prog rock and listeners in general—even if the Gongmeister thinks otherwise.
“Everyone says, ‘Daevid, when you pop your cork, no one will be able to replace you,’” Allen says. “Well, I don’t believe that. When there’s a vacuum, it gets filled. It may not be the same thing as [it] was before, but it allows energy to continue.”
Soft Machine: Volume One (1968)
Soft Machine: Volume Two (1969)
Soft Machine: Third (1970)
Khan: Space Shanty (1972)
Hatfield and the North: s/t (1974)
Gon
g: 2032 (2009)
Caravan: If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Do It All Over You (1970)
Caravan: In the Land of Grey and Pink (1971)
Kevin Ayers: The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories (1974)
(Estate Of Keith Morris/Getty Images)
CAMEL
Dust and Dreams
CAMEL ARE EITHER ONE OF THE MOST HAPLESS of all the prog bands or easily the best example of a band successfully skirting the laws commonly governing the music biz. Neither relegated to cult-band status, like their Canterbury scene cousins, nor a chart-topping success story, like Pink Floyd, Yes, and ELP, Camel occupy a strange musical territory all their own.
In spring 2006, Camel guitarist, mainstay, and founder Andrew Latimer was invited to perform with Roger Waters for the former Floyd front man’s world tour. Waters was intrigued by Latimer, who had been known around England, Europe, and America as having been influenced by David Gilmour, owing to his nasally vocals and passionate, blues-inflected guitar solos. Who better to play classic Floyd material?
Latimer met with Waters and the two agreed to perform together, to get a read on each other’s musical temperature. “The writing of a new project is progressing well, but as you have heard, there’s been a few distractions,” Latimer wrote in an e-mail to fans and interested parties. “Hearing from Andy Fairweather Low and consequently meeting Roger was an extremely enjoyable experience. It all happened very quickly, and before I knew what was happening, I was playing ‘Comfortably Numb’ at full blast somewhere in London.
Camel, 1977, mimicking Floyd’s Ummagumma? Left to right: Andy Ward, Pete Bardens, Andy Latimer, and Richard Sinclair. (Courtesy of Deram)
Rain Dances (1977)
“The band sounded great, and then ... Roger asked me to belt out ‘Breathe.’ Singing softly, I could manage it, but needing to belt it out was a whole other story. I did a fairly croaky rendition but the cruncher was ‘Wish You Were Here.’ Roger, forever the quintessential Englishman, smiled and said, ‘Bit high for you?’ We talked for quite a while. What a nice chap he is, very easy to talk to. I felt like I’d known him for ages.”
As run Latimer’s and Camel’s luck, though, the guitarist didn’t get the gig.
But had it come off, it would have been a hard-core prog fan’s wet dream—a unification of pupil and teacher; vindication for all the years Camel had flown just below the radar. Yet the circumstance is of just the sort to which Camel fans have grown accustomed and have accepted as another round in the band’s good fight.
“We’re considered progressive by default, really,” Latimer told the author in 2003. “I don’t mind. I am quite pleased, although I don’t really think of us as a progressive band. Camel was a band that maybe did more instrumental music than most. That was what it was. It’s kind of interesting to me, because I always thought that people like Yes and King Crimson and ELP were much more obscure than Camel. They were probably better players and consequently got into much more complicated material, which made it even more obscure, less accessible.”
Still, jazz- and Latin-tinged rhythms did show shades of experimentation. Unfortunately, the market wasn’t ready for another Santana-ish or a half-baked, sometimes-focused, emerging progressive band with psychedelic leanings. Camel’s self-titled debut only sold five thousand units, a quantity too low for MCA to justify keeping them on their artist roster. When MCA declined to pick up the contractual option for a second record, Camel roamed free for weeks until manager Geoff Jukes signed them to his own Gama Records, a deal that led to a contract with Decca.
In November 1973, the band settled into Basing Street Studios to record Mirage. Producer David Hitchcock had been exposed to the more absurdist strain of British prog, having recently finished sessions with Caravan (1972’s Waterloo Lily) and Genesis (Foxtrot). While Camel displayed no real sense of overarching irony, Hitchcock nonetheless seemed to tap the band’s ability for more expansive songwriting (e.g., Latimer’s nine-plus-minute Genesis-style epic “Nimrodel/the Procession/the White Rider,” inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.)
Having spent the better part of the previous year and a half on the road with Barclay James Harvest and Wishbone Ash, Camel had a better idea of what worked and what didn’t, and were familiar enough with their own songs to nail transitions and even take chances in the studio.
After playing their new material to generally receptive crowds, Camel released Mirage in March to a bit of controversy. The cover design was intentionally created to ape the graphics used on Camel-brand cigarettes. Sensing an opportunity, the band’s management struck a sponsorship deal with the European branch of Camel cigarettes. The crossover marketing plan included such campaigns as five-pack minis featuring the record’s track listing. Despite the European division of Camel taking to the idea, their American counterpart wanted nothing to do with the rock band.
“When we first did it, the European company of Camel loved the idea,” Latimer said. “They thought we would just gain a whole bunch of new audiences. Of course, America, at that stage, wanted Camel to be a respectable cigarette that only a healthy gentleman or rugged guy might smoke. They didn’t want teenagers, or anything to do with pop music. So they put a stop on this right away.”
Nonetheless, by November ’74, Mirage had entered the Billboard album chart at number 149, and on the strength of the material, the band was getting calls for gigs throughout Europe and was booked for a short tour of the States.
The follow-up, Music Inspired by the Snow Goose (a concept album based on the short novel The Snow Goose, by author Paul Gallico), “was still in its infancy,” Latimer remembered. “We had just finished writing it and we weren’t 100 percent happy with it. We had recorded some parts and had gone off and done this mammoth tour. It was only supposed to be a six-week tour, but I think it turned into a three-month tour, backing Wishbone Ash and doing about fifty states. It was a mind-boggling thing for a band like us. It was our first time in America. We were opening for people like Kiss, Steppenwolf, MC5, Ted Nugent—a lot of strange people. Every time we did something like ‘Mystic Queen’ or a slower ballad, people would shout out, ‘Fuckin’ rock ’n’ roll.’ So we started to tailor our set to include some fast numbers.”
Camel heeded the feedback the American audiences were handing the band and incorporated changes to the their Snow Goose songs.
In a surprising move, Camel dis-pended with vocals and went for broke, creating an album-long, virtually instrumental suite.
“The record company freaked out when they first heard the record because it was just one piece of instrumental music,” Latimer remembered. “They were saying, ‘Hey, how can we sell this shit? How can DJs play it on the radio?’ There weren’t even grooves in between the tracks....”
Nonetheless, Camel defended their creative vision, and their steadfast resolve proved to be correct. The Snow Goose stayed one, long instrumental suite and, ironically, tracks such as “Flight of a Snow Goose” and “Rhayader” were released as a single in May ’75, the band’s first “sides” for Decca. Despite Gallico’s efforts to clamp down on the band’s usage of the title The Snow Goose (Camel eventually inserted the phrase Music Inspired by ... to avoid a legal mess), the album entered the British charts and went to number twenty-two. And, despite the label’s resistance, the LP broke overseas, as well, into the American Billboard charts at number 162.
“We were all a bit freaked out after the Snow Goose album,” Latimer said. “When you get success of that sort, I don’t know, we were voted ‘Brightest Hope of the Year’ by Melody Maker magazine in England. We did the album with the London Symphony Orchestra. After all of that success, you know, you say, ‘What should we do now? What should we do?’ We talked about it endlessly.”
Eventually the band arrived at another concept—sort of—a kind of command performance that hinted at the greatness of the last record without repeating it. “We decided what we would do [was] ... something based on the individual
members of the band,” Latimer said. “Instead of doing ... Son of Snow Goose, which most intelligent people would probably do, we decided to do something completely different, and we did Moonmadness.”
Latimer was at his jazzy, Santana-meets-David-Gilmour best. “Lunar Sea” and “Chord Change,” both from Moonmadness, are prime examples of Latimer’s guitar greatness; surely he is one of the most underrated guitarists in all of prog rock, squeezing out solos, seemingly on the fly.
“Moonmadness has a much more open feel, and maybe [that is] because we didn’t have time to mess it up,” Latimer said. “We just went in and did it.”
Given the time frame for recording—just a few weeks—it’s shocking how sophisticated the music is. Moonmadness also benefits from at least one memorable gimmick—an endless groove is cut into side two, thus not allowing a turntable’s arm to disengage.
Moonmadness can be placed squarely within the tradition of elite prog records of its day. Yes’s Fragile was compiled and composed by five individual band members in a piecemeal fashion, yet became one of the band’s most popular—and enduring—efforts. Similarly, Moonmadness was not a wholly planned effort comprised of individual artistic expressions. And, as Yes’s work did for that band, Moonmadness sheds light on Camel’s collective creative process. It was evident that the quartet had logged some serious miles on the road and were comfortable trusting one another’s musical instincts. Moonmadness reached Billboards Pop Albums chart, coming in at number 118 in the U.S. and number fifteen in Britain.