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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Arthur Pewtey)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: GONG Discography
Message-ID: <964@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-May-85 09:36:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.964
Posted: Fri May 10 09:36:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 11-May-85 03:32:32 EDT
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> I have Expresso II and Downwind, but had no idea Gong had that much history
> behind them.  Were all those albums released in the US?  What label(s) were
> they on?  I like Expresso II very much, and love the instrumentals on
> Downwind (although the vocal songs are total garbage - it's an incredibly
> schizophrenic album), and am interested in finding more.  Could someone
> tell me what king of personnel/stylistic changes they've had over the
> years?  What of their association with Mike Oldfield (if I'm not mistaken,
> they backed him up on the live portions of "Airborn")? [Mike Ryan]

Gong was originally formed by Daevid Allen (yes, that is his spelling).  Steve
Hillage was also a member of that original Gong.  Gong became a rather loose
collection of band members, both English and French, that soon split up into
two Gongs.  Pierre Moerlen continued the original Gong and kept it going along
a more jazz oriented path than Allen's original hippydippy psychedelic vision.
I believe this is the Gong that Bill Bruford played with for a brief stint after
the disbanding of the original King Crimson (1973).  Allen's Gong, later
called Paragong so as not to confuse it with the Gong that "kept going",
resurfaced some time after Pierre Moerlen's Gong blazed its own path.  Allen
has resurfaced from time to time in various musical contexts.  Steve Hillage,
Gong's original guitarist, has been a solo artist for several years, having
a few of his albums produced by Todd Rundgren.  I believe Hillage also produced
the double album package by the Simple Minds some years ago (the one that was
two albums for the price of one, where one of the albums was "Sons and
Fascination"---contained "Theme for Great Cities", "Love Song",...).  That was
one of the high points of Simple Minds' early career, following on the heels
of the two superb albums "Real to Reel Cacophony" and "Empires and Dance".

Sorry I couldn't provide more explicit info on Gong, but I'll see what I can
dig up if reuqested.  My friend has most of their early records including
Allen's original solo alubm that was supposed to have been the first Gong
album.  Recorded entirely on a TEAC 3340, for you studio gear buffs.
-- 
"If you offend everybody, you're doing a good job." --David Steinberg on the
							subject of satire
	Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr