Charly probably got wind of an impending official release and rushed their own version out to capitalize. What a bunch of turds...
Charly probably got wind of an impending official release and rushed their own version out to capitalize. What a bunch of turds...
Mmm...am hoping this is not the Virgin set in question:
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...g-2016.467437/
Nope, that's the Hillage set.
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
^But it says it covers from 1969, which is before he was doing any solo albums and that time-frame would encompass the Radio Gnome Trilogy.
Yes, but how would you expect a full Gong album to be included in a Hillage set ? Especially "Flying Teapot" where Hillage was actually a guest and only performed on about 1/3rd of the album.
This is exciting news, however, as there is hope this could include the pre-Khan demos (January 1971) recorded by Hillage with Egg backing him and Barbara Gaskin singing backing vocals. This, as far as I know, includes alternative versions of three of the Khan tracks plus a fourth previously unreleased song.
There is also an outtake from "Fish Rising" that survived as a vocal-less backing track ("I Think We're Beginning To See The Light Now") which could be released if Hillage recorded a vocal to finish it. This song was played on some gigs (e.g. Guildford) of the Autumn 1975 tour.
I don't see what could be included that dates back to 1969 except something from the Arzachel album, but let's hope at least for some 1971 stuff !!
Calyx (Canterbury Scene) - http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr
Legends In Their Own Lunchtime (blog) - https://canterburyscene.wordpress.com/
My latest books : "Yes" (2017) - https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/yes/ + "L'Ecole de Canterbury" (2016) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/lecoledecanterbury/ + "King Crimson" (2012/updated 2018) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/kingcrimson/
Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos
I would really love a Khan live show thrown into the this. They toured with Genesis in the spring of '72..
Apparently no live recordings of Khan survive. I corresponded with the keyboard player they had after the album (Val Stevens), he told me he used to have tapes of several gigs but threw them all away at one point. This and studios burned down or flooded detroying tapes, manuscripts, scores etc. - I hate these stories !
Calyx (Canterbury Scene) - http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr
Legends In Their Own Lunchtime (blog) - https://canterburyscene.wordpress.com/
My latest books : "Yes" (2017) - https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/yes/ + "L'Ecole de Canterbury" (2016) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/lecoledecanterbury/ + "King Crimson" (2012/updated 2018) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/kingcrimson/
Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos
Simply because he was on them and, the confusion over Flying Teapot aside, Universal have easy access to the Gong albums, they were on the same label as Hillage's albums. (Actually Hillage being only a guest on Flying Teapot allows Virgin to circumvent that confusion altogether and not include it!) They similarly have access to Khan's 'Space Shanty'...when you consider all that it's easier to see how 22 discs could be filled.
There was nothing in the earlier statement that said either way that what we would be getting from Universal was actually a Gong set per se, which is why I highlighted this. I could be wrong but I could be right, we'll see.
^Well that's good news, provided it's not another of these mega-sets for the rich and doesn't get the exposure beyond that.
"There will be a statement from the current Gong band after the weekend." ---- Jonny at the Planet Gong website
I'm kinda hoping for a proper release/reissue of the assorted Hillage BBC recordings. Rainbow 1977 came out last year, but I recall the old Radio One In Concert CD on Windsong featured mostly material from 1979 (which I think is the other show that was on the Gggggong Go Longggg double bootleg) plus one song from 76. I'm wondering what else could be included. I already know about (and have) the Rockpalast and Rock Goes To College shows that were put out on DVD, but what else is there besides that?
I am not at liberty to go into the whys and wherefores, i think Steve and Mike stated the case well on their facebook pages, however my other half is involved with Virgin/universal one and it will be fab!!
Some great news here, the ICU band is signed up for an album in 2016! Gong ist Mort Vive Gong!
http://gongband.net/2015/10/new-gong-album/
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
I had to go ahead and buy the Snapper set. I will definitely buy a similar set if it gets released by GAS or Esoteric or whoever it's supposed to come from! I just needed to have these 3 CDs (and bonus disk) in a single "earbook" format. And it's very nice. Haven't listened yet, as it just arrived, but seeing as how I've lived with and accepted the Japanese mini LPs till now, I probably won't be disappointed. The book is very nice, with nice photos and some interesting looking liner notes.
Whatever happened to the 'official' boxed set?
Ian Beabout
Mixing and mastering engineer. See ya at ProgDay !
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.co...m/bakers-dozen
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.co...-and-holland-3
colouratura.bandcamp.com
Knowing how Gong things go (slow), I can't imagine that this would be out until late 2016. Let's hope they try and combine the expanded Live Etc disc with the set.
I did chance upon the Snapper/Charly Trilogy box, but passed on it. For a second I thought I could buy it and make a donation to GAS to alleviate any guilt, but patience will be rewarded with the Universal Box, whenever it appears.
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
Perhaps Aymeric can answer this: do you know if there's any rights dispute going on between BYG/Charly and Universal? From the info on the GAS website it sounds like maybe (I'm inferring this) BYG/Charly believes they own the rights because although went bankrupt early on, they had financed the recording of Flying Teapot. However, I have no idea why they would think they have any claim on the rights to the following two trilogy albums. And is Snapper simply licensing the works from BYG/Charly? Since they release a lot of Prog, I would think they must have some sense of BYG/Charly owning or not owning the rights. But maybe not. Does Snapper have a parent company?
Ian Beabout
Mixing and mastering engineer. See ya at ProgDay !
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.co...m/bakers-dozen
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.co...-and-holland-3
colouratura.bandcamp.com
I am not intellectually equipped to understand such complex legal issues. The facts are these : BYG went bankrupt sometime in 1973, and Charly was formed in 1974 by former BYG co-director Jean-Luc Young. Daevid Allen's "Gong Dreaming" book recounts how, around February 1973, he tried to get Richard Branson and Jean Karakos (the other BYG co-director) to agree on a joint ownership of Gong by both labels, thus the "BYG/Virgin co-production" credit on both "Flying Teapot" and, somewhat more puzzlingly, on "Angel's Egg" (by the time it was released, BYG was clearly dead). I'm not sure how this was understood by either party in terms of what BYG's rights to the band/albums were, and what entitlement it gave Karakos and/or Young to past or current releases by Gong.
What did happen next is that, when in the summer of 1974, Virgin reissued the now out-of-print "Camembert Electrique" and sold it for 50p, to much success, with none of the money going to its original rights owner, Jean-Luc Young reappeared and took Virgin to court. The case was widely reported in the music press ca. October 1974. I'm not sure what the exact outcome of this was, except by guessing from what subsequently happened to Gong albums : "Camembert Electrique" and "Flying Teapot" (despite the latter being one of the very first Virgin releases) reverted to Charly, and "Angel's Egg" was reissued (including on CD) by both Charly and Virgin. So it seems the judges found Jean-Luc Young/Charly had a point. On what grounds ? I can't say for sure. Maybe it was retaliation for Gong licensing "Camembert" to Virgin despite the lack of permission from the original producers ?
What makes matters more complicated is that in 1977, Daevid Allen left Virgin and signed solo deals with both Tapioca (Karakos's new French-based label) and Charly. Didier Malherbe was briefly associated with Tapioca too, but it went bankrupt in early 1978 and the Bloom album was released two years later on another label. In the summer of 1977, yet another war raged between Virgin and, this time, Tapioca, whom Allen had granted permission to record and release an album of the May 1977 reunion concert. Branson was outraged, since for him Gong were still contracted to Virgin (which in a sense they were - he'd rushed to signed Pierre Moerlen's new group as "Gong"). Virgin rush released "Live Etc." to counter the "Gong Est Mort" release. There was a famous episode when Daevid Allen and Gong freaks raided Virgin's London office to protest against Young's attitude, with both Steve Hillage and Tim Blake joining them later in the day. Hillage's Virgin contract led to him (both his name and likeness) being erased from the "Gong Est Mort" sleeve.
I know little about the more recent Snapper Music aspect of the story, but basically : (1) "Flying Teapot" and "Angel's Egg" were both released as BYG/Virgin productions, so there was some sort of arrangement; (2) it appears "Flying Teapot" received a BYG release shortly before the label went bust, but "Angel's Egg" only came out on Virgin initially; (3) Virgin appears to have lost rights to (re-) release "Flying Teapot" after 1974, while (paradoxically) "Angel's Egg" and (even more inexplicably) "You" were reissued by both Virgin and Charly.
This means that Charly were in a position to issue of boxed set of the trilogy, having consistently kept the three albums available on vinyl or CD in the past 40 years, although the box includes bonus material which, to my knowledge, had only appeared on the recent Virgin/Universal reissues.
For Virgin to release a boxed set that would include "Flying Teapot", on the contrary, would mean that for the first time in over 40 years, Virgin are in a position to market that album.
(When I use the names Virgin and Charly in the present context, I mean, of course, whichever parent companies have absorbed them and now operate on their behalf)
Calyx (Canterbury Scene) - http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr
Legends In Their Own Lunchtime (blog) - https://canterburyscene.wordpress.com/
My latest books : "Yes" (2017) - https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/yes/ + "L'Ecole de Canterbury" (2016) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/lecoledecanterbury/ + "King Crimson" (2012/updated 2018) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/kingcrimson/
Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos
This is the first report I've actually read on how the recent box supposedly sounds. Both Jed above and a guy I know who bought it have only reported on the set's general appearance. I don't know how much of an indication the sound of the Spotify downloads is of the quality of the physical set.
Calyx (Canterbury Scene) - http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr
Legends In Their Own Lunchtime (blog) - https://canterburyscene.wordpress.com/
My latest books : "Yes" (2017) - https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/yes/ + "L'Ecole de Canterbury" (2016) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/lecoledecanterbury/ + "King Crimson" (2012/updated 2018) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/kingcrimson/
Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos
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