Daevid Allen: Gong Dreaming 1: Soft Machine to G.

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toroddfuglesteg View Drop Down

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Topic: Daevid Allen: Gong Dreaming 1: Soft Machine to G.
Posted: September 29 2009 at 12:27

Hi.

I have just ordered Gong Dreaming 1: Soft Machine to Gong by Daevid Allen.

Is this book any good ?

(a bit too late to ask since I have allready paid by Paypal, but I am an idiot and excused)

TODDLER

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Posted: September 29 2009 at 17:51

I would love to read this book. Daevid Allen had some insane experiences. When Gong entered the stage, it was one member after the other. As each member climbed aboard they joined in with what is called the OM riff. On one particular night, when it came time for Daevid Allen to enter the stage, (and being the last one), he claimed that he just couldn't get through and that there was an invisible rubber curtain blocking the entrance. Everyone else was already on stage and he just couldn't get through there because an invisible force field was preventing him. As Daevid Allen puts it on an interview tape, "That's really how I left Gong because I couldn't get on the stage". I bet this is in the book along with other zany stories. I have to purchase this book.

toroddfuglesteg View Drop Down

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Posted: September 29 2009 at 23:49

The book is offered for sale at Ebay for a reasonable price.

moshkito

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Posted: August 31 2010 at 20:43

toroddfuglesteg wrote:

Hi.

I have just ordered Gong Dreaming 1: Soft Machine to Gong by Daevid Allen.

Is this book any good ?

(a bit too late to ask since I have allready paid by Paypal, but I am an idiot and excused)

I would check the Gong/GAS website ...

If there was a book out on this, Johnny would probably have sent me one ... but I did see a while back and have to double check that he was doing this on a CD ... as if it were an interview format, which I think is wayyyyyy more like Daevid, than any book would be.

I have a very large series of emails with many people around Daevid, Kevin and Robert about many of these things. And I would venture to say that is one of the reasons why I take exception to so many books trying to "idolize" something that is not about "idolatry" at all ... and in the end, it's not going to jive with their art and work and music.

I mean, no matter how much is written about Daevid, if you can not put together a history off his solo albums, you are not listening to them at all ... they are all highly biographical in every sense of the words and feelings and screams and kids and anger ... you name it!

Why would you need a "book" to tell you all that?

Somehow a book is just not zen enough for Daevid ... he knows ... I told him that! He liked the joke!

Edited by moshkito - August 31 2010 at 20:47

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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nightlamp

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Posted: September 03 2010 at 16:29

There are two Gong Dreaming books -- the first one, which you mentioned, and the second which covers the years 1969-75. Both are very quirky (as one might expect given the author), but lots of fun and loaded with crazy stories, pictures, drawings, etc. I preferred the second to the first, but then again that's the Allen/Gong era that's most interesting to me.

moshkito

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Posted: September 07 2010 at 19:18

nightlamp wrote:

There are two Gong Dreaming books -- the first one, which you mentioned, and the second which covers the years 1969-75. Both are very quirky (as one might expect given the author), but lots of fun and loaded with crazy stories, pictures, drawings, etc. I preferred the second to the first, but then again that's the Allen/Gong era that's most interesting to me.

I imagine that the 1st one is tougher as it probably deals with a lot of other things outside music that Daevid was around and knew a lot about ... he still ahs not discussed anything about Robert, Kevin, Allen, Edgar, Gomelsky, Syd ... and so many others ... when they were all in the same house and went to the same events and ...

It might not be interesting for the "prog fan" at all ... but it will show you a literary link and artistic side and connection that goes way beyond music and any art ... which I find sad for many of us here ... the best way, and the only way that a lot of this work will be evenmore valuable is if we show it for what it is and its strength ... and it's a lot more than just a rock song, or a rock band ... but that is not something that the majority of people here want to hear ... and I think it scares them!

These people are the contemporary artists of the century ... that would be considered a lot more important were it not for a really bad period of hatred and distrust and the "revolution" to stop that ... but in the end, we lost ... and we're still nobodies ... and I can easily tell you that these people were as good, if not better, as many other literary or artistic giants ... with the exception that too many people here don't care? And are only interested in a song or two for their iPod?

Edited by moshkito - September 07 2010 at 19:20

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

moshkito

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Posted: March 26 2013 at 09:52

Daevid is anything ... except "quirky" ... though he likes to play the fool a lot and has fun with it in his own zen'ish way!

But, behind that "mask", is one of the most intelligent people you ever met ... and his energy comes from all that inside ... and the solidity of his internal work.

Wish he would put down on record his observations on his own meditation workshops with music ... because some of the things he has talked about are down right ... unreal, far out, and way out there ... the kind of observations that belong with the greatest mystics of the century ... that we will never see or hear or read about!

To me, the era that makes it all, is the era that helped get it all started ... you take a young man that is well read, and educated, and you end up with him in a house with famous literary minds, and an obvious knowledge of current literature and the arts ... and how the young man came out of that cloud of smoke, sex, drugs and music ... in one piece ... and lived to tell a story about it! In so many ways, this is what "Gong" is all about. Nothing more!

There is a lot out of that time and place, that has been dissed and dismissed and dumped because of the drugs and what not, and it also hurt the literary and artistic scenes, but all in all, Ginsburg, Burroughs, Baldwin, and many others are quite WELL remembered ... but the words and thoughts by Daevid and others around them, are being ignored ... except by a handful of us! I consider it our job to make sure these folks also get the amount of respect and appreciation they also deserve.

And who's to say that many of those folks were not inspired by these musicians themselves, in the first place? Can you even conceive that?

Edited by moshkito - May 25 2013 at 14:21

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