With Gong’s arguably most celebrated period being honoured with a lavish box set in 2019, former guitarist Steve Hillage looked back with Prog on his journey with the often-overlooked pothead pixies – from mind-altering substances to label chaos and feeling part of the Gong Family.
Such has been the long and frequently bewildering career of Gong that it can be as difficult for the aficionado as it is for the novice to agree on where to start when it comes to their epic canon of work. Anarchic, improvisational and sometimes just plain silly, the band have been through so many incarnations as to qualify for its own TARDIS, while the many offshoots and side-projects that make up the Gong Family could keep a genealogist busy for several generations.
And yet for all that, Gong are one of those bands who occasionally slip down the back of the historical sofa. While they may not be mentioned in the same breath as some of prog’s more heavyweight names, their influence s arguably more keenly felt in the subsequent generations of outlier bands to have followed in their wake.
Take Ozric Tentacles, another ever-evolving unit with a taste for the outer limits, who certainly owe a doff of the pixie hat to Gong since starting out in the early 80s. More recently, the sonic antics and increasing output of Australian freak-out merchants King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard have come to mirror that of their antecedents.
But it’s to the source that we must return; and arriving with all the force of a dose of Albert Hofmann’s inadvertent psychedelic creation comes the sumptuous 12-CD and 1-DVD box set, Love From The Planet Gong: The Virgin Years 1973-75. Overseen by former guitarist Steve Hillage and bassist Mike Howlett and focusing on the Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy of Flying Teapot, Angel’s Egg (both 1973), and You (1974), among other notable contents.
This was a world entirely of their own making. With lyrics that sang of pothead pixies and flying teapots, Gong’s skipping, skittering music was suffused as much by jazz rock as it was by mind-altering substances. And beyond the theatricality and whimsy was a band that could hit warp speed to reach the furthest reaches of the cosmos with brilliantly extended space rock grooves and wig-outs.
Arguably their most celebrated period, this was also a time of high flux for Gong. Placed under enormous strain after the band’s French label, BYG, began to crumble, founder member and Soft Machine alumnus Daevid Allen (who died in 2015) and his partner Gilli Smyth elected to take a sabbatical during the mixing stages of Flying Teapot.
Recorded at The Manor in Oxfordshire, the album was rescued thanks to the patronage of Richard Branson’s nascent Virgin record label, while the band was rejuvenated with the arrival of synthesiser player Tim Blake and the guitarist most associated with Gong, Steve Hillage.
“I was really into Gong,” says Hillage as he recalls his entrance into the band. “My previous band, Khan, floundered because the record company wasn’t very enthusiastic about the material for the second album, so I thought it’d be really great to play with some other people for a while.”
Born just outside Chingford in 1951, Steve Hillage became smitten with the guitar after falling for the charms of skiffle pioneer Lonnie Donegan, followed by Buddy Holly and The Crickets, and The Shadows. His first band, Uriel, was formed at school with future Egg members Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and Clive Brooks. And even at that age, Hillage’s progressive tendencies were becoming obvious. “We were writing stuff in really quirky time signatures,” he recalls.
His connection with Gong began in a tangential fashion after he dropped out of a Humanities degree at Canterbury University to pursue a career in music. With Khan securing a record deal via Caravan’s management, early drummer Pip Pyle was asked to sit in on a session for Daevid Allen after his former Soft Machine bandmate Robert Wyatt became unavailable.
Hillage recalls: “I said to Pip, ‘How did the session go?’ and he said, ‘Great. But I’ve got a problem. Daevid wants me to join his band in France and they’re called Gong. Do you mind?’ From that point I became fascinated with Gong. After Camembert Electrique came out I became a bit of a fan.”
Following Khan’s demise in late 1972 and a stint playing with Kevin Ayers’ new band, Decadence, Hillage and Allen were formally introduced in the Maida Vale flat of the poet, musician and painter Lady June.
“I told him how much I liked Gong and that I’d like to do something with him at some point. He said that he’d heard about me and that I might be hearing from him sooner than I’d imagine. I thought, ‘That sounds exciting,’” explains Hillage.
“Lo and behold, a couple of months later, towards the end of the Kevin Ayers tour in France, we did a gig near to the house Gong had in the French countryside and some of the guys came down. Kevin invited [saxophonist] Didier Malherbe to jam and we had this really fantastic musical communication on the stage. I thought, ‘Wow!’
“After that, Daevid invited me down to their house for a couple of days and while I was there he asked me if I’d like to join the band. And, y’know, it was a ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’ moment!” He laughs: “I often compare joining Gong to taking the red pill in The Matrix. Once you’re in, everything sort of goes a bit different!”
Hillage joined Gong during a particularly chaotic period. Left without a label and with the recording of Flying Teapot yet to be completed, the band’s position was precarious at best. Factor in the departure of bassist Christian Tritsch and other members, and it looked as if Hillage might not have a group to play with. But Gong were far from over.
“There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth,” says Hillage. “The long and short of it was that it was just me, who’d just joined, Tim Blake who’d joined just a few months prior, Didier, and our wonderful live sound engineer, Venux Deluxe, sitting around thinking ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ It was quite a difficult moment.”
He continues: “We had gigs booked in France, so we decided to carry on and find a new bass player and a new drummer. We soldiered on without Daevid and Gilli, still as Gong, to see what would happen. And what happened was that we luckily had an amazing drummer join; he just turned up and said he wanted to join the band. And that was Pierre Moerlen.
“Daevid by this point had decamped to London to work out with Virgin how to rescue Flying Teapot and he’d met this bass player from Australia, and that was Mike Howlett. We ended up forming a fantastic new line-up. To this day, I’ll say that’s the best band I’ve ever been in. It built up from there when Daevid and Gilli rejoined and off we went.”
It’s hard to argue with his assessment. As evidenced by the next two albums, Angel’s Egg and You, the increased level of musicianship found Gong setting themselves apart from their prog contemporaries. The former album is characterised by songs far shorter than was the norm, while the latter, though still rooted in jazz rock, moved into far greater cosmic territories. Not that it made much difference to Hillage.
“I like all three albums,” he states. “When we started, it wasn’t necessarily going to be a trilogy. They’ve each got their own character. You is the most musicianly, what with the three long standout tracks – Master Builder, A Sprinkling Of Clouds, and The Isle Of Everywhere – but Angel’s Egg has some wonderful stuff on it. And Flying Teapot is really special. I like them all. I like the fact that each one is a bit different.”
To Hillage’s mind, their work was a continuation of what had started in the previous decade. “One of the things that I liked about Gong was that I felt that it was a second wave of psychedelia,” he says. “In the main wave of psychedelia, I felt that things went a bit awry in 1969; there were some nasty events like Altamont, Charles Manson and things like that. I felt Daevid had kept the torch alight and we were entering a second wave.”
And in keeping with their forebears, Gong maintained an enthusiasm for mind-altering substances that seeped into their music. But how were these activities viewed? Were they tools? Or were they something recreational or perhaps even sacramental? “All of those factors were at play, really,” admits Hillage. “Sometimes we took psychedelics together in a ritualistic way. Other times just for recreation, and other times it inspired some very interesting jam sessions.”
Despite flying their freak flag high, Gong maintained a work ethic that saw them meeting a ferocious live schedule that honed their skills as musicians and performers. The live set from Hyde Park in ’74, included on Love From The Planet Gong, is a case in point. With jaw-dropping readings of Master Builder and others, the end result is a glorious derangement of the senses, achieved only through kind of discipline that comes from regular musical communication among its creators. “We were really a live thing,” affirms Hillage. “We were gigging almost all of the time. It was good to be in the studio but we couldn’t wait to get back out on the road.”
Favouring a solo career, his 70s tenure came to an end before the completion of Shamal, where the guitarist appeared on just two of the album’s six tracks. But Gong had left its indelible mark upon him. “I think everything I’ve done since being in Gong has been modulated to a greater and lesser extent by the Gong experience,” he admits. “It really was a major thing for me.”
So what’s the band’s legacy? “I tend not to look at legacies,” replies Hillage. “I think Daevid would have agreed with this, but we’re more ‘Be Here Now’ people. We’re here and now and we do what we do.
”But, I would add, that I think that one thing about Gong that I really like is the fact that we’ve got the Gong Family. Unlike a lot of bands from that time, and even though we’ve had our disagreements, we’ve managed to keep the whole thing as one family. We see every Gong solo project or spin-off project or sister project as part of the overall Gong thing. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing.”
Love from the Planet Gong indeed.
