40 Year Itch : The Stream of Time

Steve Hillage :  It's All Too Much

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In September of 1976 ex-Gong guitarist Steve Hillage released his follow up to the fan favorite, Fish Rising. Produced by Todd Rundgren at Secret Sound in Woodstock with Utopia backing, L is bookended by two psychedelic covers, Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and the Beatles' "It's All Too Much". Having recently recorded near perfect note for note covers of 60's classics for Faithful, Rundgren and Utopia provide clean, shiny back up. Fans of great prog rock will find more treasures in deeper cuts.

Gong : Expresso

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Gong replaced Hillage with Allen Holdsworth as it dispensed with psychedelia and wit and became a progressive jazz rock band led by percussionist Pierre Moerlen. Opener "Expresso" will wake you up better than anything you can order at  a coffee shop. Tom Moon, calling Gazeuse! a , prog-rock gas, listed the album among his 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die. Still, many say they miss the anarchic days of the flying teapot.

40 Year Itch : Salty Solomon Salmon Soul of Man

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      How could Gong guitarist Steve Hillage be so lyrically trippy and such a mind-blowing guitarist all at the same time? For his first solo album, Fish Rising, Hillage recruits his Gong bandmates and Canterbury contemporaries for this psonically psublime psychedelic prog rock classic. A must buy!

      The fact that all the songs revolve around fish shouldn't scare anyone away. 

     "The Salmon Song" is a nearly nine minute suite made up of four tunes : Salmon Pool,  Solomon's Atlantis Salmon,  Swimming With the Salmon and King of the Fishes.