Writing Fairytales
Harry travelled to Deya, Majorca in early 1978 to write music for Gilli Smyth’s proposed LP ‘Fairytales‘. This was planned to be a follow up to her debut solo album ‘Mother’.
During the visit they fell for each other and traveled to England where they started a new band – Mother Gong.
They spent a few weeks in the snow bound hills near Welshpool with Dave Anderson at Foel Studio, and the isolation was perfect for concentration on the production of their first album together. They recorded the epic Wassilissa which made up side A, and three other stories for side B.
Fairytails at Foel Studio 1979
Arriving in mid Wales at Foel Studio in the snow was Didier Malherbe who played Flute and Sax, Dino Ferrari – Drums, Trevor Darks – Bass, with Mo Vickerage on Keys, and Eduardo Niebla on Spanish guitar. Nic Turner briefly visited and played Oboe and Corrina added voices. The album was completed in a month and then we were off to the USA where we toured in a Pranksters School-bus with Bill Laswell, Cliff Cultreri (guitar), Michael Beinhorn (synth), Don Davis (sax & flute), Mark Kramer, Daevid Allen, Yosco Seffer and a cast of thousands.
Harry Williamson
Returning to the UK, the ‘Fairytales’ Mother Gong Band played Glastonbury festival main stage in summer ’79. When searching for the next direction for the band, Harry revisited his love of science fiction.
Gilli and Harry created Robot Woman which eventually became a trilogy. It explored the paradigm of fixed role identity while confronting gender assumptions. One inspiration was the film ‘The Stepford Wives‘ (1975).
Glastonbury 1981
Harry and Gilli drew together their old friends, and created a new band. This headlined in Norway during a Midnight Sun festival. Back in the UK, Mother Gong were excited to find the CND organisers enthusiastic about having Gong members again contribute to Glastonbury 1981.
The team invited Mother Gong back, to headline the 1982 Glastonbury CND festival on the Pyramid stage. The new line-up with Didier Malherbe on reed and flutes, Yan Emeric on Lead Guitar, Dane Cranenburg playing Bass and Guy Evans (ex VDGG) on Drums went down a storm.
Robot Woman
Harry played rhythm guitar and acted several male characters, while Gilli as the Robot, developed the story and wowed the crowd with her headdress of mirrors. Harry set up his 8-track in a trunk under the mixing pyramid and recorded the performance. John Newsham engineered the live sound which was excellent, and so they captured many parts for a new album.
This line-up recorded both Robot Woman and much of Robot Woman 2. Robot Woman 2 was completed in 1982 just before the family moved to Australia
Recording in Melbourne
Harry recorded Robot Woman 3 at both Spring Studios and Richmond Recorders during 1986-7 in Melbourne, featuring an entirely different cast, including Silly Symphony’s voices, and Matt Arnold on Violin. It was released by Butt/Shanghai in 1983.
In 1988 regular weekly recording sessions occurred at Spring Studios in St Kilda, and Mother Gong ver 3.0 was born.
Complimenting Gilli and Harry were Robert Calvert – Sax, Robert George – Drums and Conrad Henderson – Bass. Harry played guitar and keyboards alternately, sometimes playing both instruments in one piece.
This band created the most deep improvisations and free music together with SCM.
Spontaneous Compositional Method
Rob Calvert coined the phrase ‘Spontaneous Compositional Method’ to describe the experience of creating structure ‘in the moment’. He first experienced this playing with John Stephens in the UK. The band created seemingly written pieces as improvisations which was a sort of alchemy.
In 1989 Mother Gong went back to the UK to record ‘Wild Child‘ in Wales in the same studio where they had recorded ‘Fairytales’. Afterwards they toured extensively, and covered the US coast to coast.
In 1991 they toured the US again as a 3 piece, which was Harry’s final tour with Mother Gong.
The St Kilda sessions produced the albums ‘Tree in Fish‘, ‘The Owl and the Tree‘ (with Daevid Allen) and ‘Buddha’s Birthday‘. The albums are all extensively improvised and enjoy a solid basis provided by Rob George and Conrad Henderson.
Robot Woman 1-4 from Snapper Records
In 2018 Snapper records released the definitive collectors edition of Robot Woman as 4 remastered CD,s including a whole new CD of previously secret demos and other material, together with an 88 page ear-book printed in Germany, detailing the whole story of Robot Woman, including the colour comic- strip illustrated story, many photos and details of the various line-ups and the complete libretto.
Harry Williamson took about 8 months to prepare all this material including re-mixing certain parts of Robot Woman 2 that had not made it onto the album ( as the master was too long and the family was leaving the UK when the original lacquers were cut). It is by any measure a labor of love, and the limited edition has all but sold out.
Daevid Allen
Harry Williamson first met Daevid Allen in London 1969, unaware of Daevid’s history with Soft Machine. They immediately clicked, but it was not until Harry met Gilli that their relationship deepened.
Harry remembers a day in 1969 at lady June’s Maida Vale apartment. Daevid, Kevin Ayres and a few fellow Soft-Machine-ists arrived to create a tape collage but they were without an engineer. Harry found himself roped in to record and edit the voices and effects on an ancient Revox. This was typical of Daevids way of working. As a result Harry got to interact quite intensely with people he had only just met. There was an immediate air of familiarity and ease.
Much later, Harry arrived at the Gong house near Oxford on the very day Daevid had decided to leave the band. Steve Hillage found himself fronting a very confused group.
The Alien Australian
Harry always loved Daevid’s turn of phrase and whenever they met they would end up creating something unusual. Together they recorded Art Radio Programs and many albums.
She, Australia Aquaria, Owl in the Tree, Stroking the Tail of the Bird, n’Existe Pas, 12 Selves – the list goes on.
Harry also recorded and mixed ‘The Death of Rock’, ‘Gongmaison‘, ’22 Meanings’ and the live Gong reunion at the 2006 Un-convention in Amsterdam.
Harry attended the passing of his old mate and confederate in Ocean Shores, Northern New South Wales in March 2015. It was a time of sadness mixed with a curious sense of relief from suffering . Daevid is greatly missed.
Far from the Madding Crowd
In 1992 Harry started to work with a wonderful Australian singer, Liz Van Dort. Their debut album ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ explores many of the varied vocal styles that Liz creates so flawlessly. After several years work they completed their debut album ‘Faraway’ – released in 1998 .
They visited the UK to promote the release and played at Glastonbury. Prikosovenie re-released the album in France.