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Gong

Gong... Fucking Gong! I remember coming across this band's (and all it's different variations') albums in stores and thinking "this looks like some crappy british symphony progrock band". "Phew! Stay away!", I would tell myself! But boy was I wrong! It was only many years later, when I was rummaging through the shelves of a used record stores for anything released on the french Spalax Music label, famous for re-releasing so many krautrock obscurities, that I fell upon a copy of Camembert Electrique. After scratching my head for a few seconds, I decided to listen to it. How surprised I was to hear how fucked up this band actually was! This was some incredibly warped slice of psychedelic rock. Some of it even reminded me of Mr. Bungle at their most unpredictable, the way a song could shift from one thing to another in a matter of seconds; and when I found out that some members of Acid Mothers Temple were huge fans, I just had to find out more about them.

I eventually found out that I wasn't too far off with my cheesy british progrock presumptions, but this is because of the way the band evolved after the departure of australian born, early Soft Parade member and french expatriate, Daevid Allen. Any post-Allen incarnations of Gong are much inferior and hardly worth investigating if you ask me. He was obviously the brains behind the psychedelic and amusing imagery the group worked under during it's early years. Tired of not being taken seriously (because dragons, wizards and castles were much more mature subject matter compared to pot-head pixies and titties) Allen eventually left the group. Well, which Gong period is most admired today and which one is almost completely forgotten? That's what I thought.

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