My Prog Hero: Temples' Thomas Walmsley bangs the gong for the late Daevid Allen

By Jo Kendall
( Prog )
published

Temples’ psychedelic bass chap chooses the high priest of cosmic anarchy, the late Daevid Allen, as his prog hero

A photograph of Daevid Allen dressed up on stage

“I got into prog through my dad’s records. He had The Dark Side Of The Moon, mid-period Genesis and one of the weirder Yes albums. These lived at the back of my collection with punk records and singles that I’d bought preceding them. About five years ago, they started to come to the front. The best thing about prog and psych is the lack of rules. It’s the freest music there is.

I became curious about the Canterbury Scene and read an article about Caravan, Soft Machine and The Wilde Flowers. There was a tightly-cropped picture of Daevid Allen’s head with the caption: ‘Founding member of Gong’. I knew nothing about him so I went online and it opened up a whole world. He was someone who had a lot to say. A beat poet and an agitator, even though drugs might have been used in the process to make music, his ideas are bigger than that; it’s about perception. I started off with the Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy, and although some tracks are quite off-putting, there are some incredibly well thought-out pop ideas.

He’s clearly aware of what he’s doing, making a myth around Russell’s teapot as a vehicle to challenge authority, and using comedy as well. I’m a huge fan of Good Morning!, recorded with Euterpe after he left Gong and went back to Mallorca. It’s a great, stripped-back psychedelic folk record that captures the essence of him. Within six months he was doing Planet Gong and made my favourite record, Live Floating Anarchy 1977, which is the opposite end of the spectrum on the heels of the punk movement. In that 12 months, Daevid was at his most creative, without boundaries. He was always very good at finding groups of musicians and directing them accordingly. In every era he had something to say; the New York Gong record About Time just works, it’s folk-punk-new wave, with an Ian Dury style to it.

My biggest regret is that I didn’t get to see him, but I love all the live footage. He was a true performer and even on the last album, I See You, he was as switched-on and relevant as ever.”

Volcano is out now. See www.templestheband.com.

Jo Kendall
Jo Kendall

Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer with 23 years in music magazines since joining Kerrang! as office manager in 1999. But before that Jo had 10 years as a London-based gig promoter and DJ, also working in various vintage record shops and for the UK arm of the Sub Pop label as a warehouse and press assistant. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!), asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit, and invented several ridiculous editorial ideas such as the regular celebrity cooking column for Prog, Supper's Ready. After being Deputy Editor for Prog for five years and Managing Editor of Classic Rock for three, Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, where she's been since its inception in 2009, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London, hoping to inspire the next gen of rock, metal, prog and indie creators and appreciators.