Outer Music Diary

Our sister site Avant Music News is reporting the passing of Andrew Hill this morning.

Gong - Lyon 10/14/72 (?)
Gong - Halifax 10/6/73
Gong - Theatre de Sartrouville, France 10/19/74

I often wish that the comparisons made between Gong and the Grateful Dead included a similar archives library, as then shows would sound much better than they do. And there are a lot of existing Gong shows, certainly more than I’ve got, yet few show up that aren’t better that what exists or used to exist, such as the Mantra released shows from 1973 and 74. The promise of a remastered Gong Live Etc, complete with their Bremen radio performance really got my blood stirred, but its plans seem to be going to the same place Zappa’s Roxy DVD went.

Anyway these shows in question give a good range as to what’s out there. The first of the shows, I must have seen in a half dozen or so formats and different dates, from 10/14 to 12/14 and 12/31. I’m not sure quality wise they differ all that much, this show definitely is quite listenable, featuring music from Camembert Electrique, Flying Teapot and, iirc, Continental Circus. It’s never really blown me away over the years, but it’s certainly right in the middle.

Halifax 73 probably came from the Gong band’s archives on cassette at some point, it’s not quite as quality soundwise as the 72 show, but there’s quite a bit more spark here. It reminds me quite a bit of the footage from Montserrat released recently on DVD, with an Other Side of the Sky>Dynamite opener. Both Hillage and Malherbe are very inspired here and it adds up to a rather great document, if only the sound was better.

Satrouville is the worst of the three here soundwise, just on the other side of listenability, you can hear everything if you struggle with the murk a bit. If it were another group I’d cut it loose in a second for the quality (certainly bad enough where it’s hard to comment on performance), but given its time period its worth hanging onto for reference. Whether I listen to it again is another question.

Cream - Grande Ballroom, Detroit, MI 10/15/67 

Got too many of these, I wish the band would just release the thing in its best version as this is one of the all-time great live gigs, up there with Coltrane @ The Village Vanguard, the Dead at Fillmore West 1969 etc. When these guys do the long tracks on this, they rival the best acid rock in the business, making Hendrix and Ash Ra Tempel look like pushovers. Jack Bruce delivers his evidence for best improvisational rock bassist ever on this one, it’s actually a bit of a shame to feel that Baker and Clapton aren’t maybe quite up there with him in terms of the way he changes the direction of the music. I’ve listened to this show enough to say were it sitting on the shelves, I’d have a brand new 15. The stuff of legends.