Gong trilogy, how did it sound in the 70's?

Nice set of words, Dean

I see it similarly, though I (obviously) still have a nice feel and appreciation for a lot of it. I don't think that it was all that bad, but there was a lot that was wasted and the hippy bs, as you said, already saw the flowers wilt.  We know this was also important and even Amon Duul 2 and many other bands in Germany were not exactly immune to it, with a person having planted bombs in several places, thus showing their disillusion with the whole commune thing, up to and including its social/political context.

To me, the "post-hippy" ear/era gave us bands that did NOT scare me, or anyone I knew ... they merely illustrated, better, that in Europe there was much more appreciation for a piece of music and poetry, than in America, where it has been dis-respected and mis-trusted by hundreds of years of religious fanaticism. The same kind of fanaticism that one could find in the scene later called "new age" which was just a commercial excuse, and had less values than even the earlier hippy-dom did per se!

The album context, for me, is mostly visible with Amon Duul 1 and 2 ... and it goes like this ... let's say that AD1 is the old San Francisco thing, and AD2 is the new band, and way ... they did not wish to be mindless humanoids, doing nothing in music! In many ways, the theater in those days was like that ... if one can take Peter Handke and his word games, which are impossible to do on stage ... you don't have a point of reference to be able to learn those lines, and do them on stage ... there is no character ... there is no flow ... there is no importance on one word over the other ... and guess what Damo Suzuki did? ... and Malcom Mooney was studying! So was Fitzbender, who used to just turn on the camera and let it be ... literally! Some parts might relate to the "theme" and some not! ... and you never know which, or where it should be!

To me, that was a bit on the logical side, and it was neat to see ... but there were American bands that did the same thing, and they deserve credit ... I think Chicago is a perfect example, with 1 and 2, still their best work, and like the Europeans they were looking for meaning, which San Francisco loved to say ... hey man ... you ain't cool! ... and it was more fun to trip for the trip's sakes!

Gong, for me, might connect with the European scene in an artistic way, but other than the album "Floating Anarchy", I have never thought of GONG as a drug band at all ... even though people tend to think so. To me, all of GONG fits neatly into a poetry book, next to Ginsburg, Burroughs, Ayers, Harper, Kerouac, Kesey, Wyatt  ... and sometimes it's "story" and "meaning" is not as important as we think it is, but it is always full of moments that are important! I still love to laugh at the English style humor of ... I'm your witch ... I'm you pooooossie ... which is funny in the way she says it, except that Black Sabbath fans think that this is evil and Ozzie is not! (Hahahaha!!!!) Which shows you how distorted the whole thing becomes. I think the band KNEW what they were doing ... and drugs could have been a part of it, but NOT in the way that we would always associate with "psychedelia", of which the early GuruGuru is the ultimate, and both Mani and Helmut have admitted ... play something ... what? ... ok ... here we go ... and that is like ultimate psychedelia ... and it will go different directions every night ... there is a reason why it's called the LSD March!