Gong Without End
Southern Evening Echo
Four Southampton University students have just finished their own concept film about pot-head pixies, flying teapots with hints of free love and drug-taking.
Anyone with a little pop know-how will realise it is Gong the psychedelic band of the seventies with a hang-over from the sixties, without seeing the film.
The project took three years to complete after Gong were recorded in concert at the university in 1978. [ 16/04, 07/06, 22/11 ? - Ed.]
But, "Gong – Here and Now" is unlikely to be seen outside the learned confines where it was made unless there is financial backing and many legal problems sorted out.
Editing The Film
"It was three years of hard work editing the film," said Ian Gibson one of the directors" and it would be nice for people to see it."
But the Students' Union spent a lot of money on the film. "As far as they are concerned once it is made they will not give any more," he explained.
"Each new print would cost about £300. We are not out to make money from the film, but it would need at least three prints.
"There is also the problem that we are not sure who has the rights and royalties. We have been concentrating so much on the film that we have only just started thinking about what to do with it," said Ian.
Several groups were annroached at [the time to do the film, ? ?] then there were contractural problems.
Ian, now an electronic engineer with IBM, said in the end Gong were the perfect choice, though he admitted he had to do some research into the band before filming.
"They were in the midst of their free concert phase and we managed to get them to come to the university just to do the film."
Gong were known for all their songs about flying teapots, pothead pixies thus the title "The Flying Teapot".
Eccentricity
The band were also known for being left over from the hippy drug culture of the sixties thus their extraordinairily British eccentricity.
"In many ways they were a good band to film and there is no doubting they were musically very competent," said Ian. We took the theme of the Flying Teapot and added many of our own special effects, some of it very sophisticated."
The end result is an extremely watchable half an hour chronicle where the film wizardry matches the music. The only shame is that there is not more of it and that more neonle cannot see it.