Gong – Kevan Furbank

Once again, a lot of water had poured under the bridge and a lot of Gong people had come and gone. First out of the door was Graham Clark, who quit both Gong and The Magick Brothers. He said to the author: I left in early 1993. We were meant to be going back to the US as The Magick Brothers, but Daevid had problems with his back, and I was relieved.

I thought, there’s something wrong with that, you’re supposed to feel disappointed. Then I thought, I’d rather not do Gong either. I tried to go back to being an academic, I was doing some research at Bristol University. A few months later my mother died and everything changed. I had to go back to look after my dad, and then he died. So I would have had to have withdrawn anyway. Graham didn’t close the door on working with Daevid Allen – in fact, he popped back on several occasions and was working with him on and off almost up to the latter’s death.

The following year was a special anniversary – 25 years since Gong’s first official gig at the Amougies Festival in 1969. To celebrate, a grand birthday party was organised across a Saturday and Sunday in October at the Forum in London. On the bill were the Invisible Opera Company of Tibet, Kangaroo Moon, Didier Malherbe’s acoustic band Fluvius, Here & Now, Tim Blake, Shortwave, Lady June, Kevin Ayers and Mother Gong. Two Gong lineups performed – the Shapeshifter band with Keith Bailey on bass and Graham on violin (although he suffered terrible sound problems) and, finally, Trilogy Gong minus Pierre Moerlen, who was touring with the stage show Evita, and Steve Hillage, who sent a message of congratulations.

They were replaced by Pip Pyle and Here & Now guitarist Stephan Lewry. This performance was released a year later as The Birthday Party. It wasn’t until 1996 that this lineup reconvened again for what was, amazingly, Gong’s first-ever North American tour.

A Pot Head History 1. Magick Brother (1970) 2. Camembert Electrique (1971) 3. Continental Circus (1972) 4. Flying Teapot (1973) 5. Angels Egg (1973) 6. You (1974) 7. Shamal (1976) 8. Gazeuse! (1976) 9. Expresso II (1978) 10. Shapeshifter (1992) 11. Zero To Infinity (2000) 12. Acid Motherhood (2004) 13. 2032 (2009) 14. I See You (2014) 15. Rejoice! I’m Dead! (2016) 16. The Universe Also Collapses (2019) 17. Unending Ascending (A Pan-Galactic Suite By Gong) (2023) 18.

Gong: Live Etc 19. Pierre Moerlen’s Gong 20. Mother Gong 21. Other Gong OceanofPDF.com Thanks to I want to give my gushing, heartfelt thanks to a number of Gong people who very generously contributed their time, memories and general wisdom towards the production of this book. In particular, I want to give three cheers and a tiger to: the current magnificent Gong lineup of Kavus Torabi, Dave Sturt, Fabio Golfetti, Ian East and the mysterious Cheb Nettles; the bass legend and producer Mike Howlett; the tall and handsome Josh Pollock; Gongmaison, Shapeshifter and Magick Brother violinist Graham Clark; Jonny Greene of www.planetgong.co.uk; Harry Williamson; Brian Abbott; Keith ‘Missile Bass’ Bailey; and Trilogy synth wizard Tim Blake.

Without their assistance, this book would be an awful lot thinner. I want to thank Stephen Lambe of Sonicbond Publishing for his encouragement, guidance and support. And, last but definitely not least, thanks to my wife Liz and daughters Sarah and Emily for being my Pot Head Pixies. OceanofPDF.com Preface In the late 1970s I visited a friend studying at the Imperial College, London.

He was a Mike Oldfield fan and had found, lurking in the college music library, an album by Pierre Moerlen’s Gong that featured the Tubular Bells guitarist on the title track, ‘Downwind’. He investigated further and discovered another Gong album that sported on its cover a large, green cartoon teapot. He described the two albums to me thus: ‘This,’ he said, holding up Downwind, ‘is great.

But this,’ holding up Flying Teapot, ‘is a load of rubbish.’ Intrigued, I listened to both albums on his portable record player (a primitive music reproduction device, kiddies. Look it up on Wikipedia) and discovered he was half right. Downwind was, indeed, great. But Flying Teapot was wonderful!

How to describe the aural delights that burst from those innocent- looking microgrooves? It is said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. In which case, writing about Gong music must be like dancing about architecture while stoned and dressed as a pixie. Silly yet serious. Apparently random yet carefully constructed. Sometimes angry but frequently bathed in love. Musically daring and unpredictable yet played with consummate skill, with bass and drums interlocked like the pieces of a Rubik’s Cube. With Gong, you never know what is coming next.

But you know it will be life-affirming, genre-crushing and ear-tickling. It will be like nothing you have ever heard before.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 94f3ce22f92c1551
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 6,424,440 bytes (6.127 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 375
• Language: English (en)

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