Gong – Flying Teapot

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5 Stars

*The wonderful childlike artwork for the album cover of a Flying Space Teapot Saucer rather gave the game away to the content in the sleeve. The artwork brings many a smile.*

Audio CD (paid link)

The most extraordinary band you will ever come across. The band originally formed in 1967 in Paris, France, by Australian multi-instrumentalist, Daevid Allen, and the wonderful, but mad English vocalist Gilli Smyth. Of course, this is all irrelevant as they all descended upon the planet Earth with a band of pixies from the planet Gong. You just have to look at the list of musicians on this album to realize what a talented bunch the inhabitants of planet Gong were.

The first two albums were released and made little impact, until they ventured forth with their third album, the first part of the Radio Gnome Trilogy, Flying Teapot. The lineup was not stable for the recording of this album, but then it never was. In all, fifty three musicians have been fully fledged members of Gong. In Wikipedia, members of the band Gong have their own page (sadly most of them have now passed onto the planet Gong), but many talented musicians have lent their abilities to the making of Gong music.

*Now gather around the space rug in a field, hold hands, concentrate, look upwards, you can see my house from here all the way on planet Gong.*

Listening to Gong music is a worthwhile experience, just certain precautions have to be taken first. All children and those of sensitive natures should be sent away. Those without a sense of humor should also be banished, and of course the wearing of silver foil hats is a must.

The story of the Radio Gnome trilogy starts off on Flying Teapot telling us the story of our heroes from the planet Gong, Zero The Hero and the Good Witch Yoni (beware; she is not a good witch as in Walt Disney’s good witches, she is very good at certain things though) and their helping pixies.

*Just a bunch of hippies in their farmhouse courtyard. They do look happy though.*

Now of course if you’re not already confused, there have been two versions of this album released with different track listings and various edits. Sacrilege to the avid fan. For the sake of confusion, we will stick with the original. Released on the same day on the new Richard Branson label Virgin as Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, it perhaps did not have the same impact, well on this planet anyway.

The first track, Radio Gnome Invisible starts off with a bit of Gong speak before the song comes bouncing in supported by keyboards, guitar, drums and babble. (Babble consists of hippie talk, Gong, Spanish, French and other dialects.) But if you get it, then the wonder starts to happen. You are lost as it whisks you from one part of the story to the next. Where the story is leading is never really made clear. I suppose that is half the fun, as you can make it up yourself.

The album bounces along from track to sonic track. If you thought Hawkwind was space/rock, think again. By the time it gets to the last two tracks it is clear why Yoni is a good witch. This bit does not leave much to your imagination.

*Now Daevid Allen was indeed a very special man. As the*
*Master of Ceremonies, you can quite clearly see*
*his pixie bearing.*

The trilogy goes on with ‘Angels Egg’ in 1973 and ‘You’ in 1974, after which both Allen and Smyth left, leaving the others to carry on. Of course, they would occasionally arrive back and form other bands, like Mother Gong. Gong as a band is still going strong after over 50 years. Since the return to Planet Gong of their founders Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, Gong released a rather good album called ‘Rejoice! I’m Dead’ in 2016.

In loving memory of our good friend from Gong, Stan Elkin.