In Chronological order... Tomas Monte: Guitar, Vocals, Moog James "Lurk" Roberts: Electric Bass, Vocals Gaven Dianda: Guitar, Vocals, Organ, Theremin, Sitar Dan Beer a.k.a Dan Zen: Moog, Organ,Theremin, Vocals Andre Lapointe: Drums 1 Keon Cross: Drums 2 Jeremy Forrest: Drums 3 Hans Russell Ohrt: Drums 4 Matthew Reeves: Electric Bass 2
Influences
Interstellar Overdrive, Syd Barrett, Hawkwind, Sublimatus, Sky Saxon & The Seeds, SRC, Stooges, Ron Asheton's Guitar Playing, The Golden Cups!, The Golden Dawn (both),The Great Society, AMM, Stockhausen, H.P. Blavatsky, Vivekananda, Webern, Flower Travelling Band, Mops, The Plastic Cloud, Ugly Ducklings, Bent Wind, The Painted Ship, The Chocolate Watchband Pebbles vol. 3 Pebbles Vol. 14 Pebbles Vol.16 Pebbles Vol.17
Endless Journey Comps.
Broken Dreams Comps.
Rubbles Comps. & Bam Caruso Records
Morton Subotnick, Yard Trauma, Laughing Soup Dish, Watch Children, Plasticland, White Noise's Electrical Storm, The Outsiders, Q65, July, Soft Machine, 13th Floor Elevators, Golden Dawn, Cold Sun, Edgar Broughton Band, Pretty Things, Popul Vuh, Amon Duul, MC5, Deep Purple, The Godz, The Fugs, Bruce Haack~Electric Lucifer, Country Joe & The Fish, Iron Butterfly, Beautiful Daze, Simply Saucer, The Purple Sea, Red Chrome Saucers, Johhny Angel, Sublimatus, The Nag Hammadi Library, The Apocryphal Gospels, The Manicheans, The Cathars, A.E.Waite, Eliphas Levi, McGregor Mathers, Christian Gnostic Apologists, Govinda's, Eric Von Daniken, H.P.Lovecraft, The Nihilist Spasm Band, Mole Records, Zap Records, CFMU FM, Dr.Who
we love you: cfmu, ciut, dr.disc, x-club, mole records, zap! records, thor volokwyn, cable 14, stavros, kutichak das, michele taffs, brian caero, gary daly, ray dallon, wayne phillips, walter & zena, bauke kamstra, lorraine, keith & ellis bateson, everette xiu, johnny angel, jim oak, christine leaky, kathy, keith monte, louis & deja vu, ray & puttin' on the ritz, stan rath, the cow 1 & 2, rosemary, lisa, janice, murray, westdale high, sir john a. macdonald, vine street, sublimatus gallery, barton street, michael's bar, skinny, jay, byk christine, sean, christian, the stinkies, the violent brothers, digitaria, hypnomuff, ian, matt, dan z, la luna (for banning us), capt.hemoglobin, high school hookers, gorp, ponderoo, creepin' chester, bruce mowatt, rob mctavish and his red dungeon, nix, lilly, justin, mayor mcCA, sandy, minsunderstood, farmer, howie, herbie, jackson square, gallery 431, chris andersen, toby & clark & the george street krishnas, and the girl who did "sufferin' psyche" for her oscar wilde commentary.
Sounds Like
The Music of Gorgolon
The National Anthems of Gorgolon
The Folk Music of Gorgolon
The Sacred Holy Music of Gorgolon
Tardis Tunes for Tomorrow People
THEE GNOSTICS R.I.P 1991-1996
"five fingers on the hand of cosmic man, six seeds of the pomegranate"
FROM THE LAND OF STEEL & SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING...HAMILTON
Garage-Prog music for Dr.Who Freaks. Electric Sugar Cube blues and cosmic fuzz. First formed in Hamilton, ON in 1991 from local Garage and Psychedelic groups The Chessmen, The Captives, The Bards, The Swinging Gurus and experimental group Sublimatus.
CASSETTE-OGRAPHY! COSMOGNOSTICUS K7 1992-93 TANGLE K7 1994 GORGOLON K7 1995 MINDMELT 777 K7 1996 Teen Scene Canada (ON) Misty Lane Records 7" (ITALY)
First formed in Winter 1991 from local groups, The Chessmen, The Swinging Gurus and experimental group Sublimatus. Locally influential, yet obscured and unknown to but a few in the know outside Hamilton, much like their steeltown forefathers Simply Saucer (who's theremin they used, allegedly). immeasurably unfashionable in the age of grunge, slacker indie-pop and toque rock. Known and loved by area weirdies hairies, seekers of sounds and sugarcube freaks for their monolithic live shows, oblivion inducing dual fuzz-wah lead players, interstellar moog & theremin blasts, overly lengthly improvisations, wrenching wrong notes, nerve sharttering volumes and mindmelting lightshows. Some of their brotherhood learned to play their instruments in a trial by fire method, while on stage and their approach to music was to improvise unceasingly. (in other words they never bothered to practice).
The Gnostics played many shows and were favourites for parties, biker funerals (you guessed it BLUES THEME), quasi-occult gatherings, art expositions, pot-parties and other dubious events, one occasion had them playing on a shuffleboard deck opposite bikini-boxing and pumkin wrestling, at another they were forced to play instrumentally (red dungeon) because they'd forgotten the PA system... Thee Gnostics somehow miraculously secured a monday night residency at the X-Clubfor a spell. There is however a half-finished "movie" made in a sort of monster movie exploito style which captures Thee Gnostics at peak lunacy. Titled "The Gurus and the Grotesque" it featured a group of ridiculous teens (played by thee gnostics and their friends) being stalked by some sort of shape shifting henry moore style hawaiian moster who probably just needed some sort of loving. it featured possibly the worst fake acting, (not quite the so bad it's good kind) and even worse plot (warranting narration), but it features some live footage of the New York Group The Ultra 5, a hillarious non-too-subtle giant phallus attacking two girls shadowplay, and characters from their own personal mythology, Dr.Noxvomicus, Cleug Moins, Johnny Angel, and various swamis and gurus. Stills from the film can be seen in the pics section.
Some members lived communally in an old post office building they caled "The (Gnostic) Temple". Afterwards some went on to live with local Hare Krishnas, Mennonite farmers, Biodynamic farms, and in the Irish counryside.
Their most ambitious release "Gorgolon" was a science fiction concpet album about the planet of Gorgolon and was housed in an interesting black tube with panoramic collage artwork depicting the Gorgolonian landscape dreamed up by Dan Zen, who's moog mindscapes flowed throughout the recordings. A thinly veiled comsmo-gnostic allegory, or addled indulgence?
Known for recording their 4 homemade "cassette only" releases almost exclusively live on a hand held tape deck, and were distributed to freinds and fans at shows....also known to play in E for hours on end, and inducing nausea in the weak hearted. After disbanding in 1996 Tomas Monte & Gaven Dianda went on to play in a folk-jazz group called Eleutheria and The Fourth Way. Gaven played drums in The Double Feature Creatures (who were to thee Gnostics a sort of "little sister" band, check out their archival cd re-issue on Misty Lane Records! ), The Polyester Explosion, The Flashing Lights, and most recently as The Saffron Sect. Dan Zen is currently a Professor and is over here at www.danzen.com.
this page is intended to act as a sort of monolith in memory of Thee Gnostics, in retrospect they might have been rather popular today, now that freak-out psych and progressive bullshit is de rigeur for the indie-rock set...enjoy....
p.s. don't drink the tap water.
Video from the "Gorgolon Cassette Launch"@Amigos 1995
Video of the Hare Krishna Sponsored VISHNU-RAMA festival at Mohawk College in Hamilton. you can see the Krishnas freaking out at the end to the transcendental loss of self the music induces.
Interviews with King Khan, The Spits, Pierced Arrows, The Dead Moon Story, Skip Jensen, Ratas del Vaticano, Chuck Violence, B-Lines, Rupert Bottenberg, CM Ruiz, The Speaking Tongues, plus an article on Stef Petticoat and a tribute to the late Cramps frontman Lux Interior. Also: Gary Pig Gold, Kirsten Easthope, an exclusive introduction by Bobby Beaton, reviews, more!
thanx 4 the add,,,u really rock,,,last time i was on stage i was hot i was on fire,,alright i backed into a friggin CANDLE but i was hot and onfire,,,haha
One man All-made record-excavator into the deep limbo of egoXploitation. —Features 43 min. of decadent loco self-conduct & mystifying woodoo'lectric playing, directly dropped down from the sole complexion of individual force as a plural human's sonic concoction, the alone-lineup that never existed but in the incarnation of one : Full-Blown Expansion.
........Notre nouveau clip, entièrement fait à la main... PIG MONSTER.
Déjanté, hors normes, expérimental, décalé, théâtral, déglingué.
........Our new music video, entirely handstitched .... PIG MONSTER.
Crazy, non-standard, out of norme, unusual, experimental, out of phase, theatrical, delirious.
Pig Monster
BONNE ANNÉE, GROSSES BISES et VIVE le ROCK...
