Acid Mothers Gong

Acid Mothers Gong - Live at Uncon 2006 (Audio Only) - 2008 - Voiceprint

The remarkable avant garde/progressive rock band Gong, formed in 1968 in Paris, are continually evolving. We have had Gong, Mother Gong, New York Gong, Gong Maison, Planet Gong and now, the latest formation, Acid Mothers Gong, formed in 2003. As Steve Hillage said "nobody ever left", and the history of Gong has been ever changing, like a river. Acid Mothers are a group of technically skilled, improvising musicians with philosophical leanings. They are an immensely popular Japanese underground band, have released over 100 CD’s, and have a huge international cult fan base.They were the ideal musicians to explore the amazing music of Gilli Smyth and Daevid Allen. Daevid and Gilli recorded an album in Australia with Acid Mothers in 2003, and have toured Japan with them. These tracks were recorded at the three-day "Unconventional Gong Gathering" festival at Amsterdam’s Melkweg Club, in November 2006. If you like the music of Egg, Can, seventies Krautrock, and Canterbury Rock, in general, you will probably like this album. If not, then it's frisbee time again! It has to be said that music of this type, even if it is sometimes of an avant garde nature, should not be discounted. Avant garde does not necessarily meen "weird" or "unlistenable". Some of the greatest experimental avant garde music can be heard on The Beatles "Sergeant Pepper" album. Many of these albums are highly inventive, very accessible, and musically enjoyable. The great Australian musician, Daevid Allen, a founder member of Gong has created some brilliant albums, and is a world class composer who has constantly sought out new sounds all his life, and finds them. ! Listen to Daevid's superb "Good Morning" album. Some of Gong's early albums like "Camembert Electrique" and "Bananamoon" are masterpieces of early seventies psychedelic progressive rock, and deserve a hearing. There is info on Gong's excellent 1978 "Expresso 2" album @ GONG/EXP2 For music in a similar genre, check out albums by Soft Machine, and Matching Mole

TRACKS

01 Teapot In Ruins 05:52
02 Tsunami Magick 03:30
03 Invocation Of The Interior Motive 08:51
04 Steve and Miquette Interview 00:23
05 Invisible 04:14
06 Voices 01:31
07 Asteroid Ointment 05:57
08 Makoto Interview 00:34
09 Sweet Minnie Marmalade 10:30
10 Anyone can do it 08:18
11 soul baloon 05:13
12 mabeline 06:22
13 e eye o 07:02

MUSICIANS

Daevid Allen - Guitar, Vocals
Kawabata Makoto - Guitar
Gilli Smyth - Vocals
Higashi Hiroshi - Synthesiser, Theremin
Yoshida Tatsuya - Drums, Vocals
Atsushi Tsuyama - Vocals, Bass
Josh Pollock from the University of Errors [Special Guest] - Guitar, Megaphonics

REVIEW

"This amazing DVD was shot at Gong’s three-day festival at Amsterdam’s Melkweg Club. I must say that the Gong Uncon 06 surely was every Gong fan’s wet daydream, and I’m personally really pissed off that due to financial and family matters I couldn’t attend. Well, luckily also some official releases from the convention have been starting to appear to fill this huge black hole a little bit. This time around, Acid Mothers Gong was formed by Yoashida Tatsuda, Kawabata Makoto, Atsushi Tsuyama, Hiroshi Higashi, Gilli Smyth, Daevid Allen and Josh Pollock from University of Errors. This is the first full live DVD released by AMG and it includes very delicious, mad and psychedelic improvisation all right. First we’ll get a well-rehearsed and composed section, as the drummer Yoshida Tatsuda gets to show what he’s capable of with pre-recorded, very progressive and technical backing in a drum solo called ”Teapot in Ruins” that functions as an intro for the gig. Right after that the ”normal” Kawabata solo attack begins while the rhythm sections jams along and Hiroshi creates some spacey atmospheres with his synthesizer in an improvisation called ”Tsunami Magick”. Soon also the rest of the gang creeps on stage and Allen begins his funny and wonderfully weird, effected narration. Some very Daevid Allen-like poetry is also shown on screen... Little by little the track starts to rock pretty wildly, and this is tight going! Towards the end also Allen gets a guitar and the chaotic music just blows your mind. This long track is entitled ”Invocation of the Interior Motive”. Then follows, maybe a bit surprisingly, a short snippet of a Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy interview where they wonder just how psychedelic the AMG gig really had been. ”Invisible” starts off with a traditional, trippy Gilli Smyth space whispering and psychedelic affects. Soon Allen starts his glissando guitar thing but the track stays pretty ambient in nature. ”Voices” continues in the similar style but soon explodes into motion as ”Asteroid Ointment”. Kawabata plays with a bow and Pollock drives himself into a freaky frenzy. After the furious acceleration there’s still some wacky singing by Mr. Allen. After the short Kawabata interview clip we luckily still get an unlisted version of the Acid Mothers Temple live standard ”Pink Lady Lemonade” and especially Allen’s manipulated vocals and guitar playing give it some brand new dimensions... Everything of course leads to pure chaos again. Excellent! Then follows some duet vocal whimsy by Allen and Smyth after which there comes some pretty vague, distorted and experimental freak-out. Later on also Atsushi does some singing for a while and then the wild rocking starts again and Kawabata really tortures his guitar. Then they return to the ”Pink Lady Lemonade” theme in a very serene mode. Soon the track grows again for a while. Finally, we still get the hypnotic Gong classic ”Master Builder” that pours deep into your consciousness and it’s here, at the latest, that the band wildly goes for totally unrestrained delivery. Wow! Harry Williamson’s direction is a homage to the music of AMG, and I really like that he has included a suitable amount of silliness and for example pieces of Kawabata interview and some footage of Allen at the sound check. The lightshow was originally already very psychedelic, but there are some added effects which works out great. There is also a four-sided booklet inside the cover with Allen’s AMG illustration, comments by Steve Hillage and the AMG Anti-Manifesto. This is a must-have for all the Gong fans out there!" © D J Astro, Psychotropic Zone, Voiceprint © 2006

BIO

Gong slowly came together in the late '60s when Australian guitarist Daevid Allen (ex-Soft Machine) began making music with his wife, singer Gilli Smyth, along with a shifting lineup of supporting musicians. Albums from this period include Magick Brother, Mystic Sister (1969) and the impromptu jam session Bananamoon (1971) featuring Robert Wyatt from the Soft Machine, Gary Wright from Spooky Tooth, and Maggie Bell. A steady lineup featuring Frenchman Didier Malherbe (sax and reeds), Christian Tritsch (bass), and Pip Pyle (drums) along with Allen (glissando guitar, vocals) and Gilli Smyth (space whisper vocals) was officially named Gong and released Camembert Electrique in late 1971, as well as providing the soundtrack to the film Continental Circus and music for the album Obsolete by French poet Dashiel Hedayat. Camembert Electrique contained the first signs of the band's mythology of the peaceful Planet Gong populated by Radio Gnomes, Pothead Pixies, and Octave Doctors. These characters along with Zero the Hero are the focus of Gong's next three albums, the Radio Gnome Trilogy, consisting of Flying Teapot (1973), Angel's Egg (1974), and You (1975). On these albums, protagonist Zero the Hero is a space traveler from Earth who gets lost and finds the Planet Gong, is taught the ways of that world by the gnomes, pixies, and Octave Doctors and is sent back to Earth to spread the word about this mystical planet. The band themselves adopted nicknames -- Allen was Bert Camembert or the Dingo Virgin, Smyth was Shakti Yoni, Malherbe was Bloomdido Bad de Grasse, Tritsch was the Submarine Captain and Pyle the Heap. Over the course of the trilogy, Tritsch and Pyle left and were replaced by Mike Howlett (bass) and Pierre Moerlen (drums). New members Steve Hillage (guitar) and Tim Blake (synthesizers) joined. After You, Allen, Hillage, and Smyth left the group due to creative differences as well as fatigue. Guitarist Allen Holdsworth joined and the band drifted into virtuosic if unimaginative jazz fusion. Hillage and Allen each released several solo albums and Smyth formed Mothergong. Nevertheless the trilogy lineup has reunited for a few one-off concerts including a 1977 French concert documented on the excellent Gong Est Mort, Vive Gong album. Allen also reunited with Malherbe and Pyle as well as other musicians he had collaborated with over the years for 1992's Shapeshifter album. Hillage also worked as the ambient-techno alias System 7. A number of Gong-related bands have existed over the years, including Mothergong, Gongzilla, Pierre Moerlin's Gong, NY Gong, Planet Gong, and Gongmaison. During the new millennium Gong material continued to be released, including Live 2 Infinitea issued in fall 2000, as well as numerous reissues. I Am Your Egg appeared in 2006 from United States of Distribution. © Jim Powers, All Music Guide , © 2007 All Media Guide, LLC

BIO (Wikipedia)

Gong is a progressive/psychedelic rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen. Their music has also been described as space rock. Other notable band members include Allan Holdsworth, Tim Blake, Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Gilli Smyth, Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett and Pierre Moerlen. Others who have, albeit briefly, played in Gong are Bill Bruford, Brian Davison and Chris Cutler. The various incarnations of Gong, its spin-offs and related bands, such as Pierre Moerlen's Gong, have become known as the Gong Global Family. Gong formed in 1967, after Allen—then a member of Soft Machine—was denied entry to the United Kingdom due to a visa complication. Allen remained in France where he and a London-born Sorbonne professor, Gilli Smyth, established the first incarnation of the band. This line-up fragmented during the 1968 student revolution, with Allen and Smyth forced to flee France for Deya in Majorca. They allegedly found saxophonist Didier Malherbe living in a cave in Deya, before film director Jérôme Laperrousaz invited the band back to France to record the soundtrack of his movie Continental Circus. They were subsequently approached by Jean Karakos of the newly formed independent label BYG and signed a multi-album deal with them (Magick Brother, Mystic Sister, "Camembert Electrique" and Allen's solo album Bananamoon were all released on BYG). Gong played at the first Glastonbury Festival in June 1971, which they followed up with a UK tour the following Autumn. They were subsequently (late 1972) one of the first acts to sign to Virgin Records, getting first pick of the studio-time ahead of Mike Oldfield. By now, a regular line-up had established itself and Gong released their Camembert Electrique album. After the band signed with Virgin, subsidiary Caroline Records "Camembert" was given a belated UK release in late 1974. It was priced at 59p (that is, the price of a typical single rather than an album), ensuring that sufficient numbers were sold for the album to chart had it not been barred from the charts for being so cheap. Between 1973 and 1974, Gong, now augmented by guitarist Steve Hillage, released their best-known work, the Radio Gnome Trilogy—three records that expounded upon the (previously only hinted at) Gong mythology. At a gig in Cheltenham, in 1975, Allen refused to go on stage, claiming that a "wall of force" was preventing him, and left the band. With both Smyth, who wanted to spend more time with her two children, and synth wizard Tim Blake having jumped off in previous months, this marked the end of the 'classic' line-up. The band continued, touring the UK in November 1975 (as documented on the 2005 release Live in Sherwood Forest '75) and working on their next album Shamal, but Hillage, who had been the band's de facto leader since Allen's exit, and his partner Miquette Giraudy, who had taken over from Smyth in late 1974, left before Shamal was released in early 1976. They re-joined the band briefly for a 1977 live reunion in Paris. Drummer Pierre Moerlen, who had been persuaded by Virgin to rejoin Gong as a co-leader with Malherbe (after his spell with the French contemporary ensemble Les Percussions De Strasbourg) in 1975, gradually took over the band's leadership. When Malherbe, the only remaining founding member, finally left in 1977, Moerlen formed a new percussion-based line-up with American bassist Hansford Rowe and percussionists Mireille Bauer and Benoit Moerlen. To avoid confusion, it became known as Gong-Expresso, and from 1978 on, as Pierre Moerlen's Gong. Allen, however, continued to develop the Gong mythology from the late seventies up until the nineties in his solo work, and with bands such as Euterpe and Planet Gong (which comprised Allen and Smyth playing with the British festival band Here & Now), while Smyth formed a separate band: Mother Gong. After spending most of the Eighties in his native Australia, Allen returned to the UK in 1988 with a new project, the Invisible Opera Company of Tibet, whose revolving cast included the likes of Harry Williamson, violinist Graham Clark and Didier Malherbe. This morphed into GongMaison and by 1992, the name Gong was again in use, by which time original drummer Pip Pyle had also rejoined. The band released the album Shapeshifter (subsequently dubbed Radio Gnome part 4), followed by extensive touring. In 1994, Gong celebrated its 25th birthday in London, including a performance by most of the 'classic' line-up, including the returning Gilli Smyth and Mike Howlett. This formed the basic of the "Classic Gong" band which toured worldwide from 1996 to 2001 and released Zero to Infinity in 2000 (by Allen, Smyth, Howlett and Malherbe plus new recruits Theo Travis and Chris Taylor). However, 2003 saw a radical new line-up called Acid Mothers Gong, including Acid Mothers Temple member Kawabata Makoto and University Of Errors guitarist Josh Pollock. Allen and Smyth's son Orlando Allen drummed on the album Acid Motherhood but the drummer on most of the band's live dates was Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. While the "Classic Gong" line-up retired from regular touring in 2001, there have been one-off reunions since, most notably at the "Gong Family Unconvention" (Uncon), the first of which was held in 2004 in the Glastonbury Assembly rooms as a one day event. The 2005 Uncon was a 2-day affair featuring several Gong-related bands such as Here and Now, System 7, House of Thandoy and Kangaroo Moon. The most recent Uncon was a 3-day event held at the Melkweg in Amsterdam on 3-5 November 2006, with practically all Gong-related bands present: classic Gong (with Allen, Smyth, Malherbe, Hillage, Blake and Howlett, plus Miquette Giraudy, Chris Taylor and Theo Travis), System 7, Steve Hillage Band, Hadouk, Tim Blake & Jean-Philippe Rykiel, University of Errors, Here & Now, Mother Gong, Zorch, Eat Static, Acid Mothers Gong, Slack Baba, Kangaroo Moon and many others. These events have all been compèred by Thom the Poet.