The Byg Deal

The bona fide sonic-shrapnel of the '69 student riots. The missing substance between Marmalade and Celluloid Records. Featuring early, rare, desperate and covert recordings by Vangelis, Gong, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Brigitte Fontaine, Jean-Claude Vannier and members of Soft Machine, Procol Harum, Propera Cosmic, Visitors, MAGMA, Aphrodites Child and Los Bravos.

On paper, a label like BYG shouldn't have worked. A collapsed business plan salvaged from the flames of a Molotov cocktail. A makeshift label built around second hand music, handshake deals, alter egos and backstabs after scratches; resulting in an unexpected explosion of positive and spiritual energy emerging from political turmoil in an unsympathetic era united and guided under a divine symbol - that was stolen as a marketing mascot from a plastic key-fob.

This is the untold story of the bloodline of a sprawling musical legacy that unites a freakish family of disparate, influential pop-cultural orphans and the estranged surrogate parent that lost-pop forgot it even knew. Celluloid Records, Frank Zappa, Marmalade Records, Actuel magazine and the free press, the May '68 riots, the Tour Du France, Fellini, Magma, Blade Runner, Procul Harem, Charly Records, Serge Gainsbourg, Los Bravos, Saravah, The Pink Floyd, The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin, Soft Machine, The Marquee Club, Hitler, Jesus, Aliens, Pot-Headed Pixies and Elton John. Buddha smiles over all of them.

Between 1968 and 1974 the combination of B, Y and G might not have been the surefire code to financial fulfillment but the indelible contribution to experimental pop, free jazz, spiritual prog rock and Total Space Music would continue to send positive vibrations through future generations of progressive pop.