Steve Hillage and Gong
It began with an amazing electrical connection. It ended with jazz rock and a crucial absence.
“One sugar or two?”: the ‘Gong Family’ (Steve Hillage far left, Daevid Allen in blue holding drum and, in black, Gilli Smyth) have an impromptu space-jam, 1974.
Getty, Virgin Records Archives, Peter Hartl.
HELLO DECEMBER 1972
I’d developed a fascination with Daevid Allen from my time in Canterbury. He’d already left the Soft Machine and I heard he was forming an experimental space music group and he was going to use the name Gong. I thought, This sounds interesting.
I moved up to London and I was sharing a flat with Chris Cutler from Henry Cow. I had my own band Khan, but I became a raging fan of Daevid Allen’s Gong. Lo and behold, a few months later, I actually met Daevid at the flat of a poetess called Lady June in Maida Vale. Large amounts of pot were smoked and other things were consumed. I had a really nice chat with him and he said, “I’ve heard really great things about your guitar playing”, and, with a twinkle in his eye, “You never know, our paths may cross again quite soon!” I was floating on air after that.