‘Live Floating Anarchy 1977’: How Planet Gong Entered A New Orbit
Planet Gong’s ‘Live Floating Anarchy 1977’ saw the anarchic Daevid Allen and his band of psychonauts sell hippie idealism to punk rockers.
Never the most straightforward of bands, by 1977 Gong was represented by two radically different incarnations. One of them, trading as Pierre Morlen’s Gong, was deep in the realms of vocal-free jazz-rock (as exemplified by the previous year’s Gazeuse! album); meanwhile, original founder Daevid Allen’s nascent (and ultimately short-lived) Planet Gong outfit were on a more raucous musical path. With Allen joined by wife and long-time musical partner Gilli Smyth, plus assorted members of space-rockers Here & Now, the collective set off on a series of tours. Recorded at their November 6, 1977 show in Toulouse, and released the following year on French imprint LTM (and Charly in the UK), the Live Floating Anarchy 1977 album presents a vivid illustration of their live dynamic.
Live Floating Anarchy 1977 kicks off with “Psychological Overture,” a classic Gong montage of pixie voices and electronic bleeps, abetted by Gilli Smyth’s legendary space whispers. It’s left to the following “Floating Anarchy” to herald in the new direction, cranking up the tempo with a furious barrage of high-speed riffs topped off with political slogans and an anthemic chorus. “Stone Innocent Frankenstein” follows: a sped-up and rejuvenated reworking of Allen’s classic Banana Moon solo album cut.
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With its ethereal shrieks and slow-paced riffs, “New Age Transformation Try: No More Sages” briefly harks back to old musical pastures before “Opium For The People” (later released as a single) presents Planet Gong’s take on new wave music. The epic (in both title and song-length) “Allez Ali Baba Black-Sheep Have You Any Bullshit? And/Or (Then) Mama Maya Mantram” rounds things off with a downright unsettled menagerie of crazed chanting, astral bleeps, and heavy riffs.
With a dynamic perfectly suited to the times, yet still quintessentially Gong, the band was warmly received by contemporary audiences (in marked contrast to many of their late 60s peers). But then, with Gilli Smyth providing a feminine dimension almost unheard of in prog, and with an anarchic element constantly at play, Daevid Allen’s Gong was never your average prog outfit. With Planet Gong, and Live Floating Anarchy 1977, Allen added new wave angularity and uptempo riffs to their patented mix of folk, psych, space-rock, and jazz. In the process, he managed the near-impossible: selling hippie idealism to punk rockers.
The 13-disc Love From The Planet Gong box set can be bought here.
Hamish Macdonald
March 27, 2024 at 9:09 am
Acting as Daevid’s agent in late 1976, having promoted the Mallorquin Euterpe in Brighton, I was asked to set up a new UK tour with same musicians. However they didn’t want to return to the rain and cold and we turned to the idea of Here and Now being the band to provide a very different but still empathic platform for Daevid and Gilli. Having introduced Daevid to new wave/punk music via a series of cassettes, he started a whole new project – new songs, new format, new sound.
He had planned on a more ethereal presentation with a set up of Revox tape recorders, echo boxes and other effects through a specific PA set up (I have the drawing of this set up). But with a new skip in his step, he turned to the anarchic, psychedelic energy of Here and Now to realise a new vision of a far more confrontational and political ideal wired into the machinations of the late 60s and early 70s Gong. In fact it was a return to using the collective name Gong again, reclaiming the ideology and imagery so that a whole new generation could be turned on to the musicks and concepts of his original vision.