Gong was formed in 1967 by Daevid Allen and his girlfriend, Gilli Smyth (AKA Shakti Yoni), soon after Allen left the Soft Machine. They put out five albums with a constantly evolving lineup up until they both left the group in 1975. Gong continued on without them but sucked balls. Since then, both Allen and Smyth (sometime together, sometime separately) have worked with a number of bands using the Gong moniker in some form or another - Mother Gong, Acid Mother Gong, Gongmaison, NY Gong, you'N'gong. In 1977, Allen and Smyth joined up with a UK free-festival band called Here & Now to form Planet Gong. They recorded a live concert in Toulouse, France and released it the following year as Floating Anarchy,. The album contained all the weirdness you'd expect from a Gong album (Allen's whimsical chanting, Smyth's over-the-top space shrieking) with some of the best psych-punk shredding I've ever heard (think Hawkwind at the top of their game). Legend has it that while the band performed, there was a riot going on outside the gates when 3,000+ aggro hippies couldn't get into the sold-out festival. This shit rips but you don't have to take my word for it. Download it here.
This gets majorly heavy if you can make it to the end.
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