After the success of their 2009 40th Anniversary UK tour and the critically acclaimed album "2032", GONG, the legendary progressive/psychedelic rock band will return to the UK in September 2010 for three exclusive concerts in Glasgow, Manchester and London, support for these concerts will come from very special guests Nik Turner's Space Ritual.

The forthcoming UK concerts will once again reunite core GONG members, including original founding member Daevid Allen (Guitar & Lead Vocal), Steve Hillage (Lead Guitar), Gilli Smyth (Space Whisper and Poetry), Miquette Giraudy (Synthesizer), Chris Taylor (Drums), Dave Sturt (Bass) and Ian East (Sax and Flute).

Photo Credit: © Colin Robertson
 
 

Described as exhilarating, compelling and other worldly, GONG's 2009 "2032" album represented the first time Hillage has recorded with original Gong founder, Daevid Allen, since 1974's "You" album.

"2032" continues Gong's famous 'Radio Gnome' album trilogy which includes the psychedelic progressive rock albums "Flying Teapot" (1973), "Angel's Egg" (1973), and "You" (1974). "2032" is the year that the Planet Gong makes full contact with the Planet Earth - a major new chapter in the continually evolving Gong mythology.

Gong September 2010 UK Tour Dates
Ticket Hotline: 0871 230 0333
www.artistticket.com

Photo Credit: © Colin Robertson
 
 

Gong originally formed in 1967, after Daevid Allen, a member of Soft Machine, was denied entry to the United Kingdom because of 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, including Ziska Baum on vocals and Loren Standlee on flute, 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 that included the albums - "Magick Brother," "Mystic Sister," "Camembert Electrique," plus Allen's solo album "Bananamoon."

Gong played at the second Glastonbury Festival in June 1971, which they followed up with a UK tour the following autumn. In late 1972 they were subsequently 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 "Flying Teapot" album. After the band signed with Virgin subsidiary Caroline Records, "Camembert Electrique" was given a belated UK release in late 1974.

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 Gong mythology, "Flying Teapot," "Angel's Egg," and "You."

In 1975 at a gig in Cheltenham, Allen refused to go on stage, claiming that a "wall of force" was preventing him, and subsequently 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 worked 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, and released the punk rock-influenced "Opium For The People" single.

Photo Credit: © Colin Robertson
 
 

Gong Mythology

Flying Teapot (1973): Radio Gnome Trilogy, Part 1

Gong mythology is a collection of recurring characters, themes, and ideas that permeate the rock albums of Daevid Allen and Gong and to a lesser extent the early works of Steve Hillage. The story is based on a vision Allen had during the full moon of Easter, 1966 in which he claims he could see his future laid out before him. The mythology is hinted at through all of Gong's earlier albums but is not the central theme until the "Radio Gnome Trilogy" (1973-1974).

The story begins on the album "Flying Teapot" (1973) when a pig-farming Egyptologist called Mista T Being is sold a "magick ear ring" by an "antique teapot street vendor & tea label collector" called Fred the Fish. The ear ring is capable of receiving messages from the Planet Gong via a pirate radio station called Radio Gnome Invisible. Being and Fish head off to the hymnalayas of Tibet where they meet the "great beer yogi" Banana Ananda in a cave. Ananda tends to chant "Banana Nirvana Mañana" a lot and gets drunk on Foster's Australian Lager.

This latter development mirrors the real-life experience of band members Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth who met their saxophonist, Didier Malherbe, in a cave in Majorca.

Meanwhile, the mythology's central character, Zero the Hero, goes about his everyday life when he suddenly has a vision in Charing Cross Road. He is compelled to seek heroes and starts worshipping the Cock Pot Pixie, one of a number of Pot Head Pixies from the Planet Gong. The pixies are green with propellers on their heads, and they fly around in teapots.

Zero is soon distracted by a cat which he offers his fish and chips to. The cat is actually the Good Witch Yoni, who gives Zero a potion. This concludes the first album of the Radio Gnome Trilogy.

Angel's Egg (1973): Radio Gnome Trilogy, Part 2

The second album "Angel's Egg" begins with Zero falling to sleep under the influences of the potion and finds himself floating through space. After accidentally scaring a space pilot called Captain Capricorn, Zero locates Planet Gong, and befriends a prostitute who introduces him to the moon goddess Selene.

Zero's drug-induced trip to the Planet Gong continues, and the Pot Head Pixies explain to him how their flying teapots fly (a system known as Glidding). He is then taken to the One Invisible Temple of Gong.

Inside the temple, Zero is shown the Angel's Egg; the physical embodiment of the 32 Octave Doctors (descendants of the Great God Cell). The Angel's Egg is the magic-eye mandala that features on much of the band's sleeve-art. It is also a sort of recycling plant for Pot Head Pixies.

A grand plan is revealed to Zero. There will be a Great Melting Feast of Freeks which Zero must organize on Earth. When everyone is enjoying the Feast, a huge global concert, the Switch Doctor (the Earth's resident Octave Doctor, who lives near Banana Ananda's cave, in a "potheadquarters" called the Invisible Opera Company of Tibet (C.O.I.T.) and transmits all the details to the Gong Band via Bananamoon Observatory) will turn everybody's third eye on, ushering in a New Age on Earth.

You (1974): Radio Gnome Trilogy, Part 3

In the third installment "You," Zero must first return from his trip. He asks Hiram the Master Builder how to structure his vision and build his own Invisible Temple. Having done this, Zero establishes that he must organize the Great Melting Feast of Freeks on the Isle of Everywhere, Bali.

The event is going well, and the Switch Doctor switches on everyone's third eyes except for Zero's. For Zero is out the back, indulging in Earthly pleasures (fruitcake).

Zero has missed out on the whole third eye revelation experience and is forced to continue his existence spinning around on the wheel of births and deaths and slowly converging on the Angel's Egg in a way which, to a certain extent, resembles Buddhist reincarnation.

2032 (2009)

"2032 is the year that the Planet Gong makes full contact with the Planet Earth; and a major new chapter in the continually evolving Gong mythology," says Daevid Allen.

The premise of the new album is that Gong exists in our solar system as an evolved and peaceful planet operating as a unified field of high frequency matter which renders it virtually invisible to Earth. Its representatives, the Octave Doctors, first visited Earth during the late sixties when hopes were high for a shift towards world peace.

Upon their return, they have opted to survey our progress and have made an offer of assistance at this decisive time in our planetary history. The year 2032 is thought to be the time when the existence of Planet Gong will be officially recognized by astronomers on Earth and will signal the first public arrival of these space visitors.