Daevid Allen
| Daevid Allen | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Divided Alien, Bert Camembert, Dingo Virgin, Ja Am |
| Born |
13 January 1938 Melbourne, Australia |
| Died | 13 March 2015 (aged 77) Australia |
| Genres | Psychedelic rock, space rock, jazz rock, psychedelic folk, performance poetry |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar |
| Years active | 1960–2015 |
| Associated acts | Gong, Soft Machine |
| Website | http://www.daevidallen.net |
Christopher David Allen (13 January 1938 – 13 March 2015), known as Daevid Allen, sometimes credited as Divided Alien, was an Australian poet, guitarist, singer, composer and performance artist. He was co-founder of the psychedelic rock groups Soft Machine (in the UK, 1966) and Gong (in France, 1967).
In 1960, inspired by the Beat Generation writers he had discovered while working in a Melbourne bookshop, Allen travelled to Paris, where he stayed at the Beat Hotel, moving into a room recently vacated by Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky. While selling the International Herald Tribune around Le Chat Qui Pêche and the Latin Quarter, he met Terry Riley and also gained free access to the jazz clubs in the area.
In 1961 Allen travelled to England and rented a room at Lydden, near Dover, where he soon began to look for work as a musician. He first replied to a newspaper advertisement for a guitar player to join Dover-based group the Rolling Stones (no connection with the later famous band of that name) who had lost singer/guitarist Neil Landon, but did not join them. After meeting up with William S. Burroughs, and inspired by philosophies of Sun Ra, he formed free jazz outfit the Daevid Allen Trio ('Daevid' having been adopted as an affectation of David), which included his landlord's son, 16-year-old Robert Wyatt. They performed at Burroughs' theatre pieces based on the novel The Ticket That Exploded. In 1966, together with Kevin Ayers and Mike Ratledge, they formed the band Soft Machine, the name having come from the Burroughs novel The Soft Machine. Ayers and Wyatt had previously played in Wilde Flowers.
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