Considering how much I love the shit out of Daevid Allen and Gong, I’ve only posted about them once before on DM??? How can that be?

Well then, here’s to making up for that grievous oversight with something so fucking good it might cause you to have an out-of-body experience: Two insanely great live Gong performances from French television in 1973 on a show called Rockenstock.

First, the band do a ripping version of “I’ve Never Been Glid” that sounds extremely close to the studio version on Angels Egg except that Daevid Allen mischievously changes the song’s last line, “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and have a cup of tea see” to “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and smoke another roach.” (“Glidding” is how the Pot Head Pixes fly the teapots, if you are confused…)

I love the way that Allen’s trippy hippy dancing seems to “conduct” the group. Dig Steve Hillage’s “lewd guitar, Pierre Moerlen’s drums (the man was a god of rhythmic pounding, up there with Jaki Liebezeit), Tim Blake’s spacey VCS3 and synth-work,  the great Mike Howlett’s booming, tight, bass-lines and Didier Malherbe’s anarchic sax riffs. This is Gong at the height of their power and they absolutely crush it..
 

 
After the jump, “space whisperer” Gilli Smyth performs a mind-melting version of “Witch’s Song/I Am Your Pussy” from Flying Teapot.

 
British psychedelic prog. rockers Curved Air perform “Propositions” and “Vivaldi (With Canons)” on the classic German TV show Musikladen, March 1971.

This is the first incarnation of Curved Air, which consisted of Sonja Kristina - lead vocals; Rob Martin - bass; Francis Monkman - guitars, keyboards; Florian Pilkington-Miksa - drums; Darryl Way - violin, backing vocals. Their appearance on Musikladen came a few months after the release of their debut album Airconditioning, a pioneering work, which reached number 8 in the UK charts, but did little elsewhere. It was also the first picture disc, released in a limited edition of 100,000.

Their second album Second Album captured Curved Air’s unique mix of Progressive Rock and acoustic folk music, and netted the band their first hit single “Back Street Luv”. The band then went through various changes, including stints with Mike Wedgwood as bass guitarist, and Eddie Jobson on keyboards and violin. Wedgwood went onto fellow Prog Rockers, Caravan, while Jobson went on to Roxy Music.

Curved Air has continued under various line-ups and still play today, but this is them near the beginning, when they were considered “one of the most dramatically accomplished of all the bands”.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
Bonus clip of Curved Air’s ‘Phantasmagoria’, after the jump…