Hawkwind Press Clippings Part 14

Press Clippings XIV

The first batch on this page comes from an EBay purchase (cuttings collection) and so I don't know the names and dates of the publications from which they were untimely ripp'd... but there's hardly a (Mac) duff one here, some of these are great little pieces

Hawkwind are now Lords (1978, publication unknown):
Cosmic Warriors Hawkwind have re-named themselves the Hawklords and are set for a major October tour. The Hawklords line up is Robert Calvert vocals, Dave Brock guitar, Simon King drums, Simon House violin, and newcomers Harvey Bainbridge bass, Martin Griffith drums and Steve Swindells keyboards. Simon House will be appearing at selected venues, due to his commitments with David Bowie's backing band.

Coinciding with the tour the Hawklords release a new album 'Hawklords' on October 6. And the final album they undertook as Hawkwind will not be released until next year.

The Hawklords will be taking an elaborate stage show with them, including working models and six dancers. Tour dates are: Oxford New Theatre

October 6, Manchester Apollo 7, Liverpool Empire 8, Edinburgh Usher Hall 9, Newcastle City Hall 10, Middlesborough Town Hall 11, Hammersmith Odeon 13, Milton Keynes Leisure Centre 14, Croydon Fairfield Halls 15, Portsmouth Guildhall 16, Birmingham Odeon 17, Bristol Colston Hall 20, St Albans Civic 21, Ipswich Gaumont 22, Leicester De Montfort Hall 23, Sheffield City Hall 24, Bradford St Georges Hall 25, Stoke Victoria Hall 27, Paignton Festival Theatre 28, Poole Wessex Hall 29.

Ticket prices for all concerts are Ł1.50, Ł2, Ł2.50 and Ł3. They're on sale now.

Review of Hawkwind “Solstice at Stonehenge” DVD **** (2004, publication unknown):
For numerous reasons, Hawkwind's summer solstice appearances at Stonehenge in June 1984 loom large in their legend. Some of this footage has been released before, but the added songs -seven in the sunset show, a highly charged, punkish rock set, and two long sonic experiments in the sunrise performance- round out the spirit of the occasion, with vestal virgins, fire-blowing and the debuts of drummer Danny Thompson and current bassist Alan Davey.

Review of ‘The Business Trip’ (1994, publication unknown):
A quarter of a century on, Hawkwind still make

records with the swooshy noise off Silver Machine, still favour the song that never ends, and still introduce songs with sentences like, “This one's, like, a bit political”. They are beyond criticism; even an album as rambling as this, with its live bits, its (excellent) revamp of 1977's rocking Quark, Strangeness & Charm and its interminable somnambulent ambient feel on Altair, has its own peculiar dignity.

There is, however and typically, an awful lot of it and only the very keen-to-investigate are advised to begin their immersion in Hawklife here. **

-Jimmy Nicol

Hawkwind claim: 'We Fired Baker' (1981, publication unknown):
Hawkwind have now countered Ginger Baker's assertion that he quit the band, reported last week, by claiming that he was fired. Their story goes that Baker, "the world's best drummer", had a bust-up with bassist Harvey Bainbridge whom he described as "the world's worst bassist" - whereupon the world's worst bassist promptly fired the world's best drummer! Baker and keyboards man Keith Hale have now taken their new band off to Italy, leaving the three remaining Hawkwind members looking for two replacements. When these have been found, they'll be going into the studio to record the follow-up to their 'Levitation' album - and, said their spokesman, they will again be playing their annual UK autumn tour.

Doll By Doll Nixed (1979, Record Mirror):
Doll By Doll have split from Hawkwind's 10th anniversary tour following their Sunday appearance at London's Hammersmith Odeon - literally a year to the day since they were due to support Devo at the same venue (a tour they were also removed from).

The allegedly "amicable" split was, say Doll By Doll and Hawkwind management, the result of a confrontation between certain band members and some of the Hawkwind road crew.

Doug Smith, manager of Hawkwind, told Record Mirror: "The vibe wasn’t right. The way in which Hawkwind tour is a very peaceful way...they eventually just couldn't get on together though...it was something that gradually built up and came to a head on Sunday night."

Doll By Doll, who still play two more dates in their own right before Christmas, London Nashville (December 17) and London Marquee (December 21), issued the following statement in reply to Doug Smith:

"The vibe was right. The way Doll By Doll tour is a very creative way - eventually certain members of the band and some of the Hawkwind road crew couldn't tell the difference between a strobe and the white lines on the road. Simon King rules OK."

Currently plans are being forged for a Doll By Doll January UK tour.

Hawkwind profile (date and publication unknown):
Nik Turner sax, vocals, Dave Brock guitar, vocals, Huw Lloyd Langton guitar, Dik Mik electronics, John Harrlson bass, Terry Ollis drums. Archetypal alternative rock band which evolved from London's late-Sixties Ladbroke Grove hippie scene. With the emphasis on acid-induced, psychedelic space-rock augmented by a colourful and mesmerizing light show, they quickly established themselves as a unique live act. The line-up has rarely been stable, with Robert Calvert vocals, Lemmy bass, Paul Rudolph guitar, Ginger Baker drums, and science-fiction novelist Michael Moorcock vocals, among the more important luminaries who have passed through their ranks.

Their obsession with sci-fi imagery was fully displayed on 1971's 'In Search Of Space', their first Top 20 album, and 1973's double live opus 'Space Ritual'. Spin-off single 'Silver Machine' became a surprise hit in the UK, reaching Number 3 in July 1972. This mainstream success was not consolidated and the late Seventies marked a turbulent period in the band's history, with the subsequent firings of Lemmy and Nik Turner.

Numerous other personnel changes meant that the band carved an esoteric if uncertain musical path throughout the Eighties and early Nineties. 1992's 'Electric Tepee' saw Hawkwind down to a trio comprising Brock, Alan Davey bass, keyboards and Richard Chadwick drums, yet still retaining some unmistakable trademarks.

Hawkwind - UK group formed 1969 (1990, publication unknown):
Original line-up: David Brock, guitar, vocals; Huw Lloyd Langton, guitar; Terry Ollis, drums; Nik Turner, saxophone; John Harrison, bass; Dik Mik, electronics.

Career: Founded by Brock and Turner, unit

emerged from Ladbroke Grove area of London as Group X, then Hawkwind Zoo and, finally, Hawkwind. Quickly established themselves as darlings of Notting Hill longhair set. Manager Doug Smith negotiated recording contract with United Artists.

First album Hawkwind (1970) proved inauspicious, but strong live following boosted sales. Group's improvisational style was widely known after numerous festivals, including 1970 Isle Of Wight, where they played free for fans outside the site's fence. Group soon emerged as heroes of underground, playing community gigs and benefit concerts at every opportunity. Reputation and notoriety was further increased after reports about their apparent drug habits.

In June 1971, played at Glastonbury Fayre Festival, aided by poet/painter/vocalist Bob Calvert, whose presence attracted interest from sci-fi writer Michael Moorcock. This performance also introduced dancer Stacia, later to become regular feature at live gigs. Group's cosmic space rock phase was indicated on 1971's In Search Of Space.

By early 1972, 'resident poet' Carvert joined as full-time member. In February, played London's Roundhouse alternative music spectacle, later double album featured one side of Hawkwind performing Masters Of The Universe and Born To Go. Also played on triple album set Glastonbury Fayre with a host of celebrated rock heroes. Their highest single placing occurred during same period with No 3 hit Silver Machine. Flushed with success, they financed their own Space Ritual Road Show which spawned Space Ritual Live.

As youthful following increased, Langton, Harrison and Ollis drifted away, replaced by Simon King (drums), Del Dettmar (electronics) and a series of bassists: Thomas Crimble, Dave Anderson and, finally, Ian 'Lemmy' Kilminster. Dik Mik left as did Calvert. Dettmar was replaced by Simon House who joined for spring 1974 US tour.

During Stateside jaunt, Lemmy was caught in possession of amphetamines. Resulting fracas led to his dismissal and he flew back to England to form Motorhead. Pink Fairies' Paul Rudolph was replacement. When King suffered an accident following soccer match, Alan Powell was granted permanent membership.

In 1976, signed deal with Charisma Records, and Astounding Sounds Amazing Music was released shortly afterwards. Further changes followed: Nik Turner left and Rudolph and Powell were fired. Adrian Shaw (bass, vocals) was recruited in time for Quark, Strangeness And Charm. Next album, PXR5, was not released until May 1979, by which time Hawkwind had effectively split. Some remaining members became Hawklords, recording album under that title.

By September 1979. Hawklords had been replaced by revamped Hawkwind, comprising Dave Brock, Harvey Bainbridge, Simon King, Huw Lloyd Langton and Tim Blake. In 1980, signed to Bronze, releasing Live '79, which restored them to album charts. Ginger Baker replaced King on drums. Next album, Levitation, hit Top 20. Further lineup changes followed with departure of Blake (replaced by Keith Hale) and Baker (replaced by Martin Griffin).

In 1981, band pacted with RCA before switch to Flicknife label and solid Zones LP. Live work was depleted until 1988 UK tour saw new line-up take to road. Members were: Langton, Brock. Bainbridge, Alan Davey, bass guitar, and Daniel Thompson, drums. During same year, Calvert died following heart attack at his Kent retreat.

As celebration of 20th anniversary of release of first album, Hawkwind rounded up sufficient walking frames to ease them into studios for Space Bandits.

Hawkwind, Odeon, Edinburgh (1979, publication unknown):
Certain bands never fail to amaze me. How can this famous, though individually anonymous, combo trot around the country playing to sold out crowds of maniacs who perform the expected ritual perfectly, year after year?

Down in the front stalls an acid casualty cartwheels and somersaults away through the interval, all hair and denim. Not that I mind one or the other, but they are an horrendous combination. A big band version of 'Silver Machine' plays and the Hawkwind chant that interspersed the Doll By Doll set reaches heights of fervour.

Doll by Doll actually acquitted themselves admirably though I have seen them play better. Totally unstylish, the band are true members of the old school. The crowd hated them.

The band’s soaring and flexible vocal talents and the strobe-laden 'Palace Of Love' are, despite being intrinsically nasty, hugely entertaining. The ice cream ladies were out, trays alight, selling their wares before the Dolls had vacated the stage. The lads certainly wowed them.

Hawkwind, rock's answer to a rotary club, are currently Dave Brock and Huw Lloyd-Langton on

guitars, Tim Blake on mountains of keyboards, Simon King on drums and Harvey Bainbridge on bass. Hippier than hip pedigrees you couldn't ask for. Visually they are still stunning. Bob Calvert has left with his outré theatrics but one can still marvel at Brock's nutty professor chic, Blake's silver strides and Bainbridge's green and brown striped barnet.

King and Lloyd-Langton tear into their instruments like ex-Ramones. Crowd reaction is on a par with a Nuremburg rally. 'Shot Down In The Dark' opens and immediately it is easy to see that bands like the Stranglers are going where Hawkwind have been. Whether the bands are futuristic or outdated I know not. Suffice to say their bombastic bluster is undeniable. The lads do tend, however, to take things to extremes, dragging each number out to around the 10 minute mark.

Stoned, it must have been a fine show. Straight it reeked of anachronism but then again nostalgia isn't a time in the past, not as far as a Hawkwind crowd are concerned. The scissors of an editing room would have made my night brighter but that would defeat the band's purpose in life.

-Ronnie Gurr

Hawkwind: Basic and exciting (1977, publication unknown):
So this is the Music Machine, Camden eh? Hmm, not bad. Bit like a cross between an old time music hall and Caesar's Palace Luton (they even do hamburgers in the basket which is a bit disconcerting at a Hawkwind gig).

Still, the sound's all right (although it's a bit hard to tell with Lemmy's Motorhead all-purpose support thunder assault weapon). Don't think much of the stage though. Some mad architect has stuck it halfway up the back wall and you can see right up Lemmy's nose - the band are standing there about 15 feet up in the air. Beneath the stage the last idiot dancers in Britain are threshing out their death throes. So, at 11pm Hawkwind stumble on stage.

The new line-up (minus the sacked Nik Turner, Paul Rudolph and Alan Powell) rocks like a landslide, which is all a bit freaky really because it reminds me of the first Hawkwind gig I saw hmph hmph years ago when the best they could manage was a youth club in Hatfield. The slimmed down band has regressed somewhat in recent months till it is now more reminiscent of Hawkwind mark one - more basic and more exciting.

One of the major causes of this renaissance is new bass player Adrian Shaw who (unfashionably) totes an EB3 and drives the band along like he's chasing them with a flamethrower. Simon King helps too. Now the sole drummer in the band, he just gets down and plays engine houses, relying on nuclear fuel to do its best - he really is a very good drummer.

In fact everyone's on form. Robert Calvert is getting more sinister, a far better singer and a damn good mime artist. Simon House is a fine violinist (although he's a bit difficult to hear tonight) and ol' Brock is as ever the rhythm guitarist, resourceful and punchy with that sly foxy approach of his. Yes, I'm enjoying this, and so are the audience who are getting positively carried away to the strains of much new material from "Quark, Strangeness And Charm", a little from the last few albums and two superb new numbers, one a total classic by the name of 'Robot'.

At long last the Hawklords bit is dead and the audience don't even mutter the words "Sonic Attack' beneath their breaths any more. They appreciate the band for the hard, nasty rock outfit that it’s become (most of them look too young to even *remember* "In Search Of Space", gulp!) and that's fine by everyone, most of all the band who must be sick of being written off as a blast from the past.

One final word of wisdom for whoever was responsible for accepting the gig, though. Whatever the money considerations, Hawkwind lost prestige by playing a venue frequented exclusively by smaller acts. At this stage they deserve and can handle bigger venues and the audience would have been better off at a larger gig too. Hawkwind are very much alive and very well.

-Gary Cooper

Wind set to blow - Cosmic warriors' tour dates and new album (from Classic Rock, September 2004):
Hawkwind have set the controls for a major excursion into the cosmos (or the UK at least) by announcing tour dates to showcase material from their next studio album, 'Take Me To Your Leader'.

The band kick off with a pair of gigs at Cheltenham Town Hall on October 23 and Bournemouth BIC on the 28th. They follow on at Telford Oakengates Theatre December 9, Swindon Oasis 10, Cambridge Corn Exchange 17 and Exeter Arts Centre 18. A Christmas extravaganza, possibly at the London Astoria on December 19, is yet to be confirmed.

Two years in the making, 'Take Me To Your Leader' has aroused such label interest that the band are currently considering several different offers to release it as soon as possible.

Guitarist Dave Brock describes the album's vivid lyrical sweep: "One part of it is about androids, cloning and machines becoming useful as sex objects. It goes into techno land humans are becoming obsolete and computers are coming alive."

Violin virtuoso Simon House makes a welcome return, and other guests include new wave yodeller Lene Lovich and media personality Matthew Wright, a long-time Hawkwind fan who contributes vocals to a new version of 'Spirit Of The Age', which will be the single.

Review of Live Seventy Nine; Levitation; The Xenon Codex; Space Bandits; Palace Springs; It Is The Business Of The Future To Be Dangerous (publication unknown, 1999):
Hawkwind weathered the traumas of punk, survived the '80s by bonding with the crusty scene, and are once again faintly fashionable as trance-rock overlords. That's quite an achievement, but on this evidence, it owes more to the survival instincts of mainstay Dave Brock than to latter-day musical greatness. This selection of six titles spanning 1979-93, housed in book-style packages and with decent sleeve-notes, finds the 'Wind mired in an airbrushed form of NWOBHM-inspired riff-rock. The ubiquitous '80s synth sound was no replacement for the cosmic chaos of old, and only some jazz-rock noodlings from guitarist Huw Lloyd-Langton seemed to aspire to the stars. Matters reached a particularly unpleasant head on 1990's Space Bandits, prompting a spectacular volte-face in 1993, when It Is The Business relocated the group, now a three-piece, in Orb and Future Sound Of London 'sonic tone poem' territory. The diehards hated it, but it's by far the best of this otherwise unexceptional bunch.

Hawkfest: St Michael's On Wyre, Nr Blackpool (gig review in Classic Rock, October 2003):
A three-day private festival organised by Hawkwind, the second annual Hawkfest wasn't intended for the casual fan. With entry secured by Hawkwind Passport, the asshole element so prevalent at most festivals was easily barred, and the emphasis was placed instead on family values, spontaneous jamming and a laid-back 1970s vibe.

Despite Arthur Brown's undistinguished headlining Friday night set, Skyclad and Drunk In Public (The Levellers in acoustic guise) headed up the final day. The folk-metal of the former was especially enjoyable, deserving a far larger jig-pit as opposed to moshpit than was formed by the early departees.

Preceded by a jam session featuring guitarists Dave Brock, Huw Lloyd Langton and bassist Harvey Bainbridge, Hawkwind's headlining set almost reached three hours, overlooking glaringly obvious material like 'Silver Machine' for an absorbingly informal trawl through a three-decade-plus career. "There's a slight technical problem," grinned Brock after a prolonged gap, but then blew the group's stuffy image out of the water by announcing: "Simon [House, violinist] has had to go to the toilet."

'Hurry On Sundown', 'Spirit Of The Age, 'The Watcher' and set-closer 'Masters Of The Universe' were as commercial as things got, a string of relative obscurities like 'Utopia', 'Brain Box Pollution', 'Chronoglide Skyway', 'Green Finned Demon' and 'Golden Void' causing space-rock jaws to droop slackly onto the tent's tarpaulin.

-Dave Ling

Hawkwind: Solstice At Stonehenge (Cherry Red) (DVD review, Classic Rock July 2004):
It's 1984. The Summer Solstice. The Stonehenge Free Festival. And Spinal Tap are nowhere in sight. Still, if you can contain your disappointment, you do get to see virtually the entire Hawkwind performance on screen for the first time. Essentially an extended version of the long-form video, it does have extra tracks and a rather atmospheric

beginning, witnessing the slow dawn of the festival in a manner that, perhaps inadvertently, mirrors the dawn of civilisation itself. This rather sedate start gets a significant scatological jolt when the rather ludicrous Nik Turner is spotted taking a shit - a quaint human touch!

The live footage itself is decent without being at all groundbreaking, but then it was shot 20 years ago when visual technology was comparatively primitive. However, as a representation of this portentous event, Solstice At Stonehenge works well enough, with the band at their strongest on tracks like 'Motorway City', 'Brainstorm' and 'Sonic Attack'.

There are better Hawkwind DVD's out there, but it's worth getting a copy of this for its historic perspective. ***

-Malcolm Dome

Hawkwind: The Solstice At Stonehenge 1984 (DVD review, unknown publication, 2004):
The 'Wind were never happier than when they were trooping round Stonehenge, giving it solstice and generally being the flagship for the counter-culture. Somehow more mentally loose-limbed than, say, The Levellers, Hawkwind were the people's band in gaffa tape face masks with arm-waving much to the fore. This 1984 film of the band captures the spirit of those midsummer Stonehenge affairs in the last year that the police permitted the scantily-clad and mad-eyed to dance freely around the stones; doubtless English Heritage would call it a good thing, but from the (often rocking) evidence here, it would seem that an essential part of British life is gone for ever. Nothing much actually happens (arm-waving, immense riffing, bad dancing) but it all seems like peaceable, slightly bizarre fun. A shame. ***

-Jimmy Nicol