Revisiting my vinyl collection, one letter at a time...
I've been collecting records for as long as I can remember, and sometimes it's easy to skip over things, and forget what you've got. I'm going to start listening to things in alphabetical order, it give me a chance to look through my collection again, and give me an opportunity to share things with other music lovers, and vinyl collectors.
The rules are simple, I will start at A, and choose an artist from my collection beginning with that letter, next day I move on to B, then C, etc.
The story so far...
- A is for... Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier
- B is for... The Beatles - Abbey Road
- C is for... The Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust
- D is for... Nick Drake - Bryter Layter
- E is for... Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports
- F is for... Mark Fry - Dreaming With Alice
G is for...
Gong - Flying Teapot
This one is a beauty, I first heard this one at a friends house nearly 30 years ago. We used to listen to Pink Floyd, Zappa, Captain Beefheart, interesting psychedelic and proggy kind of stuff. One day we listened to Gong, and my mind was blown...
Flying Teapot was the second album to be released on Virgin Records, released the very same day as Tubular Bells, it didn't sell quite as many as Mike Oldfields masterpiece, but very much in the same experimental vibe.
It was a toss up whether to post this album or their previous album Camembert Electrique, but with classics such as 'The Pot Head Pixes' and 'Zero The Hero And The Witch's Spell', this album won out.
The lineup of Gong has been fluid over the years, but with the recent deaths of Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, the original incarnation of Gong is no more. Recently though the spirit of Gong has been rekindled under the leadership of Kavus Torabi. I had the pleasure of seeing them live a couple of years ago, and they were fantastic, not the same, but alive with amazing musicianship and psychedelic performances. Here's a picture from their performance at the Shepherds Bush Empire in 2019...
So here's my copy, it's one of my most recent purchases, and I think this is the first time I've given this copy a spin, it's released on BYG Records and is a clear vinyl pressing...
And finally, a couple of tracks from Flying Teapot to whet your appetite...