Gong has an elaborate mythology, much better constructed and played
out than Frank Zappa's similar attempt at a mythology (or whatever he
calls his - I seem to remember him calling it a mythology on the
Apostrophe album)
Even Gong's original members still evolved the Gong mythology in their
solo work.
In my mind, the original Planet Gong trilogy is them at their finest,
although Daevid Allen's 'New York Gong' was exceptional as well.
But Gong is more on the Jazz side (i.e. Jazz Rock - if one could say
that). I wouldn't call Gong 'Prog' per se, I would think of Van Der
Graaf Generator (and then later, Peter Hammill), Gentle Giant, or King
Crimson.
I wouldn't even consider Rush as Prog, they are way to firmly
ensconced in the Classic Rock realm to me, Rush's earlier musical
simplicity giving way to much more musical complexity over the years,
but I don't see where they became Prog in all that, because they
definitely weren't Prog in the beginning. King Crimson is definitely
considered Classic Rock, but they showed their Prog Rock roots from
the very beginning, and they only became Classic Rock after they had
already become famous Prog rockers.
On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 11:18 AM, Cfh <cfhiebert@sasktel.net> wrote:
> I was wasting a coffee break the other day wandering about Vintage Vinyl
> (used record/cd/head shop) the other day. One of the fun bits about that
> place is that whoever is running the turntable in there, gets to choose the
> music.
>
>
>
> The song that was playing was excessively long and instrumental, and
> extremely good. I didn't recognise the group at all, and after 5 or 10
> minutes I asked the fellow, who was I listening to. Answer was a group
> called 'Gong'. Which he informed was a proggy group from the 70's. I have
> never heard of these guys at all. Turns out they have a history, and while I
> don't know if I'll ever buy any, I was intrigued.
>
>
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