Riding off the success of the first A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble CD, Gaz was invited to BBC Radio 1 to spend two hours chatting to Rob Da Bank about psychedelia. Rob Da Bank had, of course, got Amorphous down to play at Bestival a couple of years before. That said, he continues to refer to him as “Gaz from The Future Sound of London”. As the first Radio 1 appearance in over seven years, it gives an idea of what a great press campaign can do for you.
The show opens with chat about what ‘psychedelia’ means, how it relates to both 1967 and 2009, with playing in the background, getting The Peppermint Tree and the Seeds of Superconsciousness some radio play at last. Then the A-Z starts, and, after a long list of psychedelic influences (as well as “aceeed”), it’s… Amorphous Androgynous. Edits of ‘I Have Loved You Into Oblivion’ and ‘Marylebone Road’; the latter sounding a touch better then normal with a load of radio compression on it. After that, Gaz talks about only really having two aliases these days – Amorphous and FSOL – feeding into the general feeling that FSOLDigital projects are largely Brian’s. Amorphous is about finding truth and happiness, FSOL is about enjoying the moments of unhappiness. Apparently. He then says FSOL has become timely again, with the possibility of hooking up TV, film, radio, internet again, the recent BLOC performance being the start of this new era of the FSOL broadcast system. Have I mentioned how exciting this was at the time? B is for Beatles. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, a track that links FSOL and Amorphous by featuring as far back as the 1995 Essential Mix. C is Comus, with their wonderfully bonkers song ‘Diana’. There’s a chat about the pagan sound of the track, which leads Gaz to talk about leylines and Christian churches built on them. Wonder if he’s talking about Brian. There’s also chat about the soul having predestined needs for things and government conspiracies, which may be a point certain more FSOL-leaning fans decide to turn off.
D is for Donovan, and, of course, ‘Barabajagal’ is played. Gaz gushes about Donovan for quite a while after. E is for Ed Askew, and F is for Focus and their “honking, squawking, elephantiasis flutes”, with a track previously heard on Electric Brain Storms Vol. 2. G is for Grover Washington Jr. A bit of chat about it follows, but then Rob drags Gaz into talking about ‘Papua New Guinea’. H is for Hendrix, Jimi. There are obviously no rules about whether the letter applies to the first or surname here. Gaz says it’s important never to be a completist. Sorry, Gaz, FSOL completist here. I is for Günter Kallman Choir. Wait a minute, what? I is for I Monster, only it’s an excuse to play the track sampled in ‘Daydream in Blue’ instead. Cheat. J is for July, a track Gaz got from Brian (who might not wear the flares, but appreciates them). ‘The Way’ is a rare example of that first generation British psychedelia to still make it through the Amorphous gates at this point. K is for Czech jazz fusion keyboardist Martin Kratochvíl, which was recommended by Andy Votel. L is for Leon Russell. M is for John McLaughlin. And, fittingly, Mahavishnu Orchestra, in this case, with the Monstrous Bubble perennial ‘You Know You Know’. There’s a lot of discussion about the recently released Oasis remix, with some (probably intentionally) ridiculous chat about Noel and Gaz both being reincarnated around the same time. And so N is for Noel Gallagher, or indeed Noasis, with the Alisha Sufit-fronted Part 4 of the remix played. O is for proto-Kraftwerk group Organisation, who Gaz seems to be far more fond of than the Autobahn and later incarnation, perhaps unsurprisingly.
P is for Psychonauts, a modern group who had apparently just been in touch after discovering their appearance on the first Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble compilation. Q is for Quo, Status. More cheating again there. Apparently the first song Gaz’s first teenage band played was a cover of the Quo’s debut hit ‘Pictures of Matchstick Men’. R is for the Rolling Stones, with another track that dates back right to the very start of the Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble series in 1997. In context of S, Gaz talks about sitars, and FSOL fans disliking the amount the instrument gets used in Amorphous tracks. It’s always fun to hear him addressing fans, especially as it rarely happens. S turns out to be for Sunforest. T is for Tommy James and Shondells. “I’ve lost the plot,” Gaz states when talking about archiving psychedelia in discussing the track. U is for US69, with another track that dates back to the early MPB mixes. V is for Vangelis. Don’t worry, it’s one of his early songs, no ambient music here. W is for The White Noise. ‘Love Without Sound’ is described as the song that started the turning point towards Amorphous in 1997. X is for… X Factor. Which leads to Ananda Shankar’s ‘Explorations’, somehow. Apparently it’s all Simon Cowell’s fault. He also mentioned XTC, who should have been played instead. Y is for Yellow Moon Band, and Z is for Zep. Led Zeppelin. The final tracks come thick and fast, with very little in the way of interview, Gaz having talked so much in the first half that the end of the live broadcast looms heavily.
The show was recorded from BBC’s iPlayer, and a bootleg does the rounds. Almost everything here is on one Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble CD or other, meaning it’s mostly the interviews you’ll be coming here for.
Tracklist
00:00 Interview (background: ‘Riders (On the Circadian Rhythm)’, ‘Tiny Space Birds’, ‘The Peppermint Tree’)
04:50 The Amorphous Androgynous – I Have Loved You Into Oblivion
06:25 The Amorphous Androgynous – Marylebone Road
07:53 Interview (background: ‘Papua New Guinea’)
11:42 The Beatles – Tomorrow Never Knows
14:27 Interview (background: Unknown)
16:12 Comus – Diana
19:10 Interview (background: Comus – ‘Diana’, unknown)
23:01 Donovan – Barabajagal (Love is Hot)
25:46 Interview (background: Monsters at Work – ‘Magic Morning’)
28:01 Ed Askew – Love is Everyone
31:18 Focus – Anonymous II
34:11 Interview
35:10 Grover Washington Jr. – Masterpiece
38:09 Interview (background: ‘Papua New Guinea’)
41:37 Jimi Hendrix – Hey Gypsy Boy
44:50 Interview (background: Unknown)
47:03 Günter Kallman Choir – Daydream
49:54 Interview (background: Unknown)
50:57 July – The Way
53:52 Martin Kratochvíl & Jazz Q – Toledo
56:59 Interview
58:36 Leon Russell – The Ballad of Hollis Brown
1:01:31 Interview
1:03:19 Mahavishnu Orchestra – You Know You Know
1:05:04 Interview
1:09:04 Oasis – Falling Down (A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Mix Part 4)
1:12:10 Organisation – Milk Rock
1:15:11 Interview
1:17:44 Psychonauts – Circles
1:20:38 Interview
1:21:28 Status Quo – Mr. Mind Detector
1:24:10 Interview
1:25:27 The Rolling Stones – 2,000 Light Years from Home
1:28:30 Interview (background: Unknown)
1:30:45 Sunforest – Magician in the Mountain
1:33:19 Interview
1:35:18 Tommy James and Shondells – Cellophane Symphony
1:38:05 US 69 – 2069: A Spaced Oddity
1:41:04 Interview
1:42:45 Vangelis – Let it Happen
1:45:50 Interview
1:46:48 The White Noise – Love Without Sound
1:48:40 Interview
1:50:13 Ananda Shankar – Explorations
1:53:23 Interview
1:54:00 Yellow Moon Band – Entangled
1:56:12 Interview
1:57:44 Led Zeppelin – Friends (Live)
2:00:00 Transmission end
Fractional Difference 