Gong & Punk
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
Forum Description: Discuss specific prog bands and their members or a specific sub-genre
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=103562
Printed Date: March 12 2025 at 11:47 Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Gong & Punk
Posted By: KhaoZ
Subject: Gong & Punk
Date Posted: August 05 2015 at 19:33
Hi there, I'm new in the forum, but not new in the website. I knew the website some years ago, when I was really into 70's prog rock.
Well, I don't know if this topic was discussed in the forum, but, don't you think that Gong's Camembert Electrique was very punk (let's call it proto-punk) ? ... this album is from the '71, so it was very ahead of it's time. I love love love this album !!! 
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Replies:
Posted By: Tom Ozric
Date Posted: August 06 2015 at 00:03
Here And Now arexa band that plays Prog Space-Punk. Gong collaborated with them in 1977 on their Floating Anarchy album. Gong and Punk is not such a far-fetched ideal.
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Posted By: Chris S
Date Posted: August 06 2015 at 01:09
Steve Hillage was making New Wave pre punk well before the onset. Television another band from USA were also way ahead of their time. Talking Heads flirted with art/punk rock also in 76'
------------- <font color=Brown>Music - The Sound Librarian
...As I venture through the slipstream, between the viaducts in your dreams...[/COLOR]
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Posted By: zravkapt
Date Posted: August 06 2015 at 09:12
A lot of punk rockers claimed Gong as an influence.
------------- Magma America Great Make Again
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Posted By: AZF
Date Posted: August 06 2015 at 18:49
And yet Daevid Allen was quoted in an interview saying "If the Punk's wanted to kill a Hippie then Gong were their best bet!"
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: August 07 2015 at 08:12
It'd be a massive generalization to say punk is "anti-hippie". I've never met a punk who didn't love Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators. I think punk was more reacting against how many of the hippies either gave up when the going got rough in the 1970s, or those who ended up at influential positions in academia and the arts became assimilated by the same kind of "establishment" they originally opposed.
People like the late Daevid Allen from Gong would then be largely exempt from those criticisms. Not to mention that the ideology of the crust punk subgenre could be categorized as basically the hippie movement liberated from 1960s nostalgia and the drugs.
------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Posted By: KhaoZ
Date Posted: August 08 2015 at 07:20
Toaster, you are right, in the beginning punk was against everything, but I think most of the "punk anarquist ideology" is very hippie-related. And yes, Crust Punk is very "peace and love", even when they look like some Mad Max-bad-asses ...
btw, Thank you all for the answers
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: August 08 2015 at 08:11
Is it really necessary to use that many beer toasting smileys?
------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Posted By: twseel
Date Posted: August 08 2015 at 08:40
Toaster Mantis wrote:
Is it really necessary to use that many beer toasting smileys?
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Posted By: Skalla-Grim
Date Posted: August 08 2015 at 09:07
I don't know why Camembert Électrique should be considered punk ... it's typical early Gong music (space rock, psychedelic, prog).
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: August 08 2015 at 10:18
I knew that username would come back to bite me again...
------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: August 08 2015 at 13:28
Toaster Mantis wrote:
... People like the late Daevid Allen from Gong would then be largely exempt from those criticisms. Not to mention that the ideology of the crust punk subgenre could be categorized as basically the hippie movement liberated from 1960s nostalgia and the drugs.
| Very tough topic and discussion. But we're forgetting that Daevid was also a "beat poet", and as such, he did not distinguish between one thing or another and there is enough work of his that could easily be defined as "punk", even if it were just the pointed lyrics. All in all, for me, the word is a gross representation of the whole thing, and more of a promotional/commercial usage for the term, than it really was in reality or concept. And then, they become RICH nice boys and girls, and appreciated when they are in their 50's and 60's. I really do not like to label artistic movements, since they are so different, and there are too many distinctions between them, but history uses these terms as a way to describe their livelihood. A more modern example today would be rap. Distinguishing the rap details kinda takes away its very edge and strength. It's like naked, the whole thing is meaningless, and I do not wish to think that of any music or art. Same with "punk".
------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: August 10 2015 at 20:08
Daevid Allen and Dave Brock were both inspired by Syd Barrett. "Oh Mother, don't do it again" is truly a type of Syd Barrett chord progression, vocal and all. Just take away the instruments and strum it on acoustic if you don't buy into it. Camembert Electrique also has the usage of tri-tone intervals and it relates very much to the way it was played on guitar in "Punk Rock" almost a decade later. Many aspects of Syd Barrett's music/sound influenced the creation of "Punk" years after he created the force in "Space Rock".
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: August 12 2015 at 02:42
Not to mention that Hawkwind have a direct connection to punk through Motörhead, whose influence on early-1980s British punk groups like Amebix, Discharge and GBH is hard to get around.
As a matter of fact, in that light crust punk is ideologically speaking just Motörhead's origins in Hawkwind going full circle like I mentioned a couple posts above. Especially if you consider its influence on sludge metal, which is often overtly psychedelic in sound.
------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Posted By: Triceratopsoil
Date Posted: August 12 2015 at 03:27
KhaoZ wrote:
Well, I don't know if this topic was discussed in the forum, but, don't you think that Gong's Camembert Electrique was very punk (let's call it proto-punk) ? ... this album is from the '71, so it was very ahead of it's time. I love love love this album !!!  |
I don't disagree about anything in this post
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Posted By: Flight123
Date Posted: August 12 2015 at 03:44
Of course, Hillage's famous appearance with Sham 69 at the Reading Festival showed the alliance with punk...'1988 Activator' off Side 4 of Live Herald was inspired by this event.
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Posted By: Nebulous Sun
Date Posted: January 04 2016 at 07:00
Ok, this subject strikes me because the song ooby scooby doomsday or the dday dj's got the ddt blues on angel's egg strikes me as kindof punk lyrics, yet sort of satirizes yuppies and hipocritical kids going in demonstrations against their parents, as to shy assimilate revolution with bad vibrations, i would like to know better in what context was this song written and what does it stand for because it has been confusing me for a while :P
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Posted By: Tom Ozric
Date Posted: January 04 2016 at 23:21
Nik Turner - the woodwinds player of Hawkwind fame - his Inner City Unit fused Punk with Space-Prog sensibilities. And lest we not forget that many of these Punk exponents were often closet Prog-heads, esp. Krautrock fiends....... ........ Bloody typos............'gawkwind' I typed........
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Posted By: HackettFan
Date Posted: January 05 2016 at 11:13
Hawkwind has always sounded very Punk and not very Prog to me, and one of the reasons I have difficulty getting in to them (I'm making some effort right now actually), so that I can believe that easily. I don't have the Gong album mentioned, so I'll have to look into that.
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: January 05 2016 at 13:04
Depends on which albums you're talking about. The S/T, Hall of the Mountain Grill and Warrior on the Edge of Time are probably their most prog albums.
------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: January 09 2016 at 14:09
TODDLER wrote:
Daevid Allen and Dave Brock were both inspired by Syd Barrett. ... Many aspects of Syd Barrett's music/sound influenced the creation of "Punk" years after he created the force in "Space Rock". | I don't think that Daevid and Dave were inspired or influenced by Syd. Daevid lived in the same house as Syd with Kevin, Robert and many others coming and going, and they were just about the same age, and they would have likely yakked many nights and strummed their guitars and showed each other many things. There is very little in Daevid's solo stuff that doesn't sound like Syd, and likewise, when you hear the couple of Syd albums, you will find ... gee ... that sounds like Daevid ... but I think that Syd on the solo side, was intentionally badly recorded, or done in the living room, kind of thing, because he might not have wanted to go to the studio. And on the odd days, having Allen Ginsberg throw some poems at a couple of these guys playing guitars would not be or sound out of the ordinary, and in fact he did just that in "Tonite We All Love in London". I'm not sure that Dave Brock is ever related to this side of things at all. And Daevid, and many other, learned a huge lesson about "recording the moment", rather than going to the studio, which led to Daevid doing many solo works on his own with basically nothing on hand. The "space rock" thing, I think is a bit different, and I think that Syd was curious about the different sounds one could get from this funny electric thing ... and he found many, that helped create valuable moments in music, and some of its effects and feelings became associated with space rock ... only because of the titles of the pieces. Not any viable reality ... and we need to wake up to that and stop being silly! For all intents and purposes, Daevid and Syd were contemporaries and knew each other and saying that one influenced the other is nuts ... specially when they were in the same house eating and sleeping and whatever else was the fashion of the day ... with some drugs.
------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
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