Gong

Paris, France • Formed 1966

Biography

Daevid Allen got kicked out of Soft Machine because of a visa snag at the French border, leaving him stuck in Paris with nothing but a head full of pot-smoke and weird ideas while the rest of his band went on to be art-rock darlings. He didn't mope. He leaned into the student riots of '68 and turned Gong into a communal anarchy project that treated the recording studio like a high-altitude flight simulator. By the time they signed to Virgin, they weren't just a band—they were a mythology involving pot-head pixies and flying teapots that would have been a total joke if the musicianship hadn't been so terrifyingly tight. They spent the early seventies living in a farmhouse outside Sens, making records that sounded like a head-on collision between free jazz and space-rock. Gilli Smyth was doing her 'space whisper' vocals while Didier Malherbe played sax like he was trying to summon a demon. It’s a mess of glissando guitar and VCS3 synth gurgles that shouldn't work. Most of the time, the band was more interested in the communal vibe than the commercial charts, which is why the lineup turned into a revolving door of virtuosos who couldn't handle the weirdness or couldn't stop contributing to it.

Discography

Related artists

Members

Frequent collaborators

Around the web

MusicBrainz