Daevid Allen (1938-2015)

So farewell then, Daevid Allen, the one, the only real Pot Head Pixie.

Since Kevin Ayers passed away a few years ago, this leaves only two original members of Soft Machine - the ‘Canterbury scene’’s most important band - left alive. And more importantly it leaves us with one less true maverick. It seems entirely appropriate that he died on Friday 13th...

Many have already said it far better already, but the wit, irreverence and irrepressible optimism which ran through his entire canon marked him out as a true original. Ironically, like many of my generation, I have arch-capitalist Richard Branson to really thank for my introduction to Allen and the Gong clan. Regular post-school visits to the local Virgin record shop in Coventry in around 1974 were spent staring longingly at the strange album covers and spending literally hours trying to decide which to buy with my woefully limited teenage funds. Oddly the first dip into the world of Pot Head Pixies and the little green planet outlined in Allen’s self-authored mythology was with the first of the classic ‘Radio Gnome trilogy’: Flying Teapot. This is strange because at the time Gong’s previous release, Camembert Electrique (first released on Jean Georgakarakos, Jean-Luc Young and Fernand Boruso’s BYG label in France in 1971) was also available for a bargain price of 59 pence. Having fallen deeply in love with Flying Teapot and its blend of silliness, motorik funk and cosmic electronica, Camembert Electrique became my second Gong purchase. (side note: I also bought Faust’s erm… challenging - for a teenage Bowie fan - Faust Tapes for the same price. The nascent Virgin label catalogue was, at the time, composed of a truly life-influencing blend of European oddness (krautrock, electronica etc.), along with the notorious Tubular Bells and various Canterbury, jazz-rock offshoots such as Henry Cow. In fact, I really should get round to writing about how virtually everything that label released in its first few years was to influence my musical tastes. But enough of the old-man-reminiscing bullshit.)

A few months later a school friend lent me Angel’s Egg (the second in the Radio Gnome trilogy) and the game was up - I was a fan. Its more coherent feel was bolstered with extraordinary musicianship, innumerable genre touch points from bebop to space rock and all topped off with Gilli Smyth’s frankly erotic space whisper and Allen’s deeper-than-you’d-realise philosophy (the whole notion of the flying teapot was indeed borrowed from Bertrand Russell, of all people). Even better, a lot of the album was recorded in a wood on a full-moon. Far OUT!

Allen’s roots lay not in the more commercially handicapped mid-‘60s hippie era but in its roots in beat culture from earlier in the decade. Moving from his native Australia in 1960 to the UK via Paris, he was a polymath more typical of the times, writing poetry and dabbling in the visual arts as well as playing jazz-influenced rock ’n’ roll. His credentials by this point even included working with William Burroughs. It was his shared love of jazz as well as his automatic status as role model due to his greater age and free-thinking, freewheeling peripatetic experience that drew the other, younger members of the early Soft Machine to him. These included the son of his Canterbury landlady - Robert Wyatt - on drums. It was only Allen’s forced expulsion from the band in 1968 (due to an expired visa that meant he couldn’t return to the UK following a French tour) which allowed the band to gradually morph from countercultural leading lights into full-on jazz-rock bores by the mid-‘70s. Back in France, Allen and partner Gilli Smyth forged the communal umbrella of Gong and their very own brand of space rock was born.

Soft Machine w. Daevid (far right)

Gong’s somewhat degraded status in the pantheon of ‘cosmic’ rock (compared to, say, The Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd) undoubtedly lies in one simple fact: they were slightly late to the party due to bad business decisions and, let’s say, a somewhat ‘laid back’ approach to the revolution. The band’s first album proper (if you discount the cheaply recorded Magick Brother, Mystic Sister album on the free jazz label BYG/Actuel (home of Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, Art Ensemble of Chicago and Anthony Braxton among others) appeared in 1971. But Camembert Electrique was initially only available in the UK on import from France and was almost instantly commercially scuppered when the label ran into financial trouble the following year. Thus, their ‘classic’ period truly began with the recording of Flying Teapot at Branson’s Manor Studios, and after Branson’s new label bought the distribution rights from BYG and made the album the second release after Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells.

Truth be told, the appearance of a band of free-thinkers who espoused cosmic love via a metaphorical story of invisible pixies in teapot-shaped spaceships from a green planet in another dimension was at odds with the zeitgeist, and while they found a home in the ragged remains of countercultural thinking, Allen’s seed vision remained a cult proposition at best. Yet over 40 years later the mythology lives on and Allen’s legacy not only spans Soft Machine and Gong, but a whole heap of solo projects that saw him work with everyone from Bill Laswell to Sting.

Musically, DA was (as in all things) an oddity. In many ways he resembled a more cosmic John Mayall, drawing a ream of talented players into his fold while remaining true to his own idiosyncratic path (to the point of leaving Gong just as they looked set to make it big). Each of these players drawn, almost mystically into Allen’s lunar orbit, was comically re-christened as they became part of the Gong cast of characters. Thus, bebop and world music sax specialist, Didiere Malherbe became ‘Bloomdido Bad De Grass’, and future Hawkwind electronics alumni, Tim Blake was dubbed ‘Hi T Moonweed’ etc. He himself used the names Bert Camembert, Dingo Virgin and many more. The band’s revolving roster of musicians included ex-members of Magma (Francis Moze), Yes (Bill Bruford), The Nice (Brian Davison), Kevin Ayers’ band (Steve Hillage) and even jazz rock legends Pip Pyle, Laurie Allan and Pierre Moerlen (as you can maybe tell, the band had trouble hanging on to drummers): the latter of whom went on to lead the band once Allen quit in ’75.

Unlike Mayall’s sturdy and (musicologically) important but intrinsically dull blues appropriations, Daevid had chops that put him in a class of his own, both philosophically and aurally. A friend often used to point out that early Softs and Gong recordings (before he teamed up with Steve Hillage) bear the mark of a true original on the guitar. For a thorough exploration of his technique I recommend the aforementioned Camembert Electrique, or his earliest solo album, Bananamoon. But in terms of true innovation on six strings he struck gold much earlier in the ‘60s. Following the Soft Machine’s appearance at the legendary Alexandra Palace 14 Hour Technicolour Dream in 1967, Allen witnessed Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd in their full acid-drenched glory. It was Barrett’s technique of ‘stroking’ the strings with a polished zippo lighter (itself, a technique borrowed from AMM’s Keith Rowe) that led to Allen ‘inventing’ ‘Glissando guitar’ (also referred to by him on occasion as ‘aluminium croon’): a method of using massive delay along with the use of polished surgical instruments to coax ethereal sounds from his guitar. It was adopted by Steve Hillage and influenced a slew of other guitarists (including… ahem… myself), and if there’s ONE thing alone that Daevid should be remembered for, it’s this.

Allen himself was a gloriously self-effacing and honest man who played the holy fool: part guru, part inane joker. His two volumes of autobiography make great reading, not only for his unshakeable belief in the spiritual quest which marked his muse, but for the honesty with which he paints himself as no saint, caught up in a business which rarely suffers such eccentricity for long. Despite the plaudits currently flowing about the man’s generosity of spirit, he, himself admits his tendency for an occasionally fiery temper matched with an egotism that stood at odds with his world view but was necessary to get his message across. But overall Daevid was a true idealist who never quit the search for real alternatives to late capitalism, and it often seems a shame that his adoption by the Glastonbury/Hebden Bridge brigade perhaps hampered such dialogue from reaching a larger audience. While the musical imprint of work he was involved with was immeasurably deep on my own tastes and directions, the world which he envisioned and the simple, playful ways in which it was explained were my first true introduction to so many things; from Eastern philosophy to consciousness-expansion. Like the fading traces of an acid trip, the end result always saw you returned to earth with a bump (just like Allen’s alter-ego, Zero The Hero at the close of the You album) but the journey was always so much fun.

A few years back I finally saw the classic band, along with all the attendant offshoots and followers of the Gong family, at their Unconvention in Amsterdam’s Melkweg. That one weekend still stands as possibly one of the most joyous, warm events in my life. The sense that everyone was there for the same reason was overpoweringly positive and for a brief spell I truly felt like I’d come home.

In short, he was a real hero, not a zero… 

Kevin Ayers 1944-2013

There was a time when 'rock' stars died and it was a tragic curtailment of a short, youthful and (usually) reckless life. Real romantic stuff.

Of course as me and my contemporaries wind down into middle age the heroes start dropping more regularly and with less chance of them passing into legend, if only because they had the bad grace to live too long. Singer songwriter Kevin Ayers has just passed away at the age of 68, which probably means he'll get a decent Mojo/Guardian obit and that'll be it. This review of The Confessions Of Doctor Dream (possibly his last great album, although I still have a fondness for its follow up, Sweet Deceiver) refers to him as 'undoubtedly one of this nation's lost treasures' and, in an industry that with each passing day gets more weighed down with hyperbole, I stand by that. 

A founding member of The Soft Machine, compadre of other Canterbury acts like Gong and the man who gave early exposure to people like Mike Oldfield, Lol Coxhill and Steve Hillage, Ayers was the very epitome of middle class, English, louche anti-materialism and original hippy laissez faire: more content to bask in the Majorcan sun than endlessly promote himself or kowtow to the MAN. 

His place in rock legend is secure, if only because he was the ''bugger in the short sleeves'' mentioned in the first line of John Cale's 'Guts' (hence the odd stare they give each other on the cover of June 1, 1974). The aforementioned Dr Dream... album came at the time where Kevin moved from EMI's house hippie label, Harvest, to Chris Blackwell's more bread-headed Island records, and attempted to turn himself into some kind of pop star. 

It was never going to happen, thank god. Despite the blonde tresses and voice like dark chocolate on a rich tea biscuit, Kevin was always going to be the also-ran, known to a discerning few. It was undoubtedly the way he wanted it.

While his earliest solo records such as Joy Of A Toy; Whatevershebringswesing, Shooting At The Moon and Bananamour contain some of the sweetest, most English of songcraft, they also contain a fair smattering of strange, avant garde fare. And this was Kevin's greatest gift, the ability to move effortlesly between the sweetly affected Edwardiana of 'Girl On A Swing' to the out-there abstraction of 'Pisser Dans un Violon.'

Here's my favourite moment of Kevin, right on the cusp between those worlds:

Little Things That Mean So Much pt1

A rather obscure, some may even say 'anal' one this. But listening to the Pink Floyd (as one does) the other day reminded me of something I've been meaning to do for a loooong time: start cataloguing the tiny, almost imperceptible things that make a record retain its place in your heart. I'm talking about those inexplicable noises, glitches and boinks that somehow, in some way make you love them even more than you should. For some reason these imperfections, whether they be deliberate or no, weld the public to the personal. It's actually one of the reasons that a vast quantity of music these days is UNlovable. The bottled, freeze-dried rebellion of guitar rock these days, processed to an inch of its life, may be loud or intricate, but it has an unrelenting purposefulness to it all. If Green Day want you to know that they're signifying loud and snotty it will come packaged with a guitar sound that came box fresh off the effects rack. There's a track on the first Ramones album where you can HEAR the speaker cones collapsing under the assault. The two are totally different beasts. But this isn''t a rant about how digital technology has stolen the soul of modern music. If you use your brain you can still introduce the elements of both randomness and mystery. No, this is about those tiny moments that make a record special. Contributions and suggestions as always welcomed.
Here's five to start with:

Pink Floyd - Remember A Day (A Saucerful Of Secrets 1968)
Point of interest: 2'40''

Syd Barrett's last hurrah with his old band. He plays the eery slide (with the obligatory ciggy lighter, natch). Over the rolling toms of Norman Smith (not Nick '4/4' Mason) Syd's wayward runs up and down the neck turn Rick Wright's rather lovely English psych classic into something far darker. Quite right too. But as the last echoes of his solo fade, to be replaced by a fuzz drone, we hear... something. A guitar being unplugged? Syd leaving the building in search of his marbles? Who knows. But it's a great clunk.

Brian Eno - Julie With (before And After Science 1977)
Point of interest: 1'15''

There's million Eno moments that endear the bald one to all right-thinking folk. But this was always my fave. From one of my personal top three Eno albums. It takes its own sweet time to come floating in, like the boat holding the titular Julie (there's a whole essay to be written about Eno's connection with water, rivers and the sea). And over some lovely backwards keyboards, sighing guitar and pulsing bass, resembling a warning buoy rolling in through some fog, comes the tolling of a bell. Bells are pretty evocative things at the best of times. But this one is the best. Ever.
It comes back at 3'33'' btw.


Gong - A Sprinkling Of Clouds (You 1975)
Point of interest: 8'42''

The last of the 'Radio Gnome' trilogy and the one where the band precariously balance some extended freak outs with Daevid Allen's penchant for quirkier stuff. This track ending the original side one has always been a big favourite (you should also check out the live version on the reunion gig album, 'Gong Est Mort'). Beginning with a glissando, synthesizer, tabla and bass raga, at the four minute mark it becomes a odd-metered fusion work out that transports you every time into the ether blah blah...
But representing the return to earthly hell at around the five minute mark is some fierce guitar wrangling from Steve Hillage which eventually dumps you on some desolate shore with only some drones and pan pipes for company. Then inexplicably we hear a buzzer and some bells in quick succession. It's an incongruous jolt which seems to signify 'your time on the planet of the Pot Head Pixies is OVER' Goodness knows why, but there it is. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Webb Brothers - Powder Pale (Maroon - 2000)
Point of interest: 0'59''

From the bruvvers' way underrated album that's all about how nasty a drug cocaine is. A song about a girlfriend od'ing? Who knows. But to reflect the tragic, empty space that coke fiends inhabit all the songs on this album come with a string-assisted grandiosity that's at once beautiful and terrible. Beginning with the orchestra and grand piano, it's like the ELO, well... on coke. Then as the vocals come in over a metronomic drum machine tick describing the girl turning, yes, powder pale, you suddenly hear the guitar getting all cranked up to burst loose over the recurring theme. Its impressive because it really signals the intention to get overblown, it sounds fucking amazing and ragged. And it may be the only song I know where the chorus has no words. Clever boys. Wonder where they got it from? (addendum: if anyone says that the chunks at the beginning of the chorus of Creep by Radiohead are better, they're wrong.)

Dusty Springfield - Just A Little Lovin' (Dusty In Memphis - 1969)
Point of interest: 0'07''

Yes, just seven seconds not only into the song but the album itself comes this beauty. The first time I heard it I was amazed. How could such a pinnacle of performance, songwriting and production be flawed? It's an almost comical guitar plink (is that you, Reggie Young?) that, for some unknown reason, made it past the ears of both Jerry Wexler AND Arif Mardin. maybe they recorded it live and it was far and away the best take, but boy, it always makes me laugh. And it also makes me love this wonderful, grown up slice of blue-eyed, southern-fried soul even more.
Go on, dig out your copy now and have a laugh...

Gliss bliss

A belated report of last weeknd's rather spiffing Gong Family UnConvention which was held over three days at Amterdam's Melkweg. The venue, it transpires, was where Daevid Allen first had one of his seed visions of the 'electric temple', whatever that means ;-). But seriously, it was an utterly splendid event, immensely well organised and filed with surprisingly great performances.
While my love of the Pothead Pixies goes all the way back to my schooldays in the early 70s I'm not such an uber fan as to forgive the somewhat suspect ramblings of all of the 'family's' many branches and offshoots (viz: kangaroo Moon, hem hem). Thus it was a cherry-picked smorgasbord, interpsersed with some great food, gallery visits and general digging of the civilized vibe prevalent in such a wonderful place. Canaltastic.
Friday's treat involved the Gliss Orchestra (see pic), featuring both Allen, Harry Williamson, various Acid Mothers, Steffie Sharpstrings of Here and Now and, best of all, Steve Hillage - who gave his all over the three days. Here and Now were a rather mixed bag, though Keith The Missile seems to have matured into the Mani of the Hippie set. Saturday's highlight was the four-to-the-floor techno of System 7. A guilty pleasure fer sure, as their brand of dance music is somewhat dated these days but Hillage and Giraudy make one hell of a groovy racket for a pair of 50 somethings and Steve's soloing was somewhere gorgeous between Manuel Gottsching and the Orb.
Sunday's climax was the double-header of Hillage's band (with Mike Howlett on bass), recreating most of Fish Rising followed seamlessly by Gong themselves with as near to the original 'classsic' line-up as was posssible, despite Pip Pyle and Pierre Moerlen having shuffled off over the last year. While many may see the Anglo French jazz rock jesters as a whimsical footnote in musical history, I was, and still am, inspired buy their irreverence, playfulness and benign wisdom combined with frankly fearsome playing. Allen's glissando technique is peerless, while Didier Malherbe's Coltranesque soprano still adds just the right dash of cosmic jazz (proof here, folks). He doesn't appear to have aged a day either. Ditto Hillage who, I confess, is still an idol for me. (I heartily reccommend the forthcoming re-releases on Virgin). The finest moment came about ten minutes into his preceding set when someone shouted in unbelieving wonder: "Steve Fucking Hillage!". I knew exactly what he meant. After 30 years it was simply incredible to see this man still being as deft, articulate and unashamedly FAR OUT. When I was in my early 20s I used to DREAM about seeeing him live again, especially with Allen and co. Observers have told me I had the biggest sh*t-eating grin all night. They played for hours and as we finally staggered into the Netherlandish night there was a genuine feeeling of having been part of something at once intimate and special. One for the 'best gigs ever' list...

Submarine captain ahoy!

For anyone going to Amsterdam in November...here's a nostalgic treat (albeit with guitar tuning problems!)

Pip Pyle RIP

Just heard the news that Pip Pyle, formerly of Hatfield and The North, Gong, National Health etc etc, passed away on Monday at the age of 56. Pip was a true exponent of the Canterbury sound in more ways than one. Not only was he a great jazz rock drummer, but he was also a great songwriter. "Fitter Stoke Has A Bath" from the mighty Hatfield's Rotter's Club is still one of the loveliest things I've ever heard.
A huge talent.