"Attention, attention," rasped the robotic voice. "This is Intergalactic Control with a news bulletin. At 2100 hours there will be a time warp. All beings are ordered to prepare themselves accordingly. No physical harm will be involved, but there will be distortion of the
They've unashamedly borrowed their basic style from Pink Floyd, who were the first band to introduce taped electronic space-hiss underlaid with the stability of rock. In fact, Hawkwind are very much an anachronism - employing the complete multimedia paraphernalia fashionable in the late sixties. Throughout their hypnotic performance light shows played on the giant screen which had been erected behind them, and the operator was particularly successful in synchronizing the timing of his effects with the heavy percussion on which their sound is based.
Old hat it may have been, but the audience loved every minute of it. For my own part, I found the concert exceedingly boring, with only the projected stills from Kubrick's epic film 2001 to maintain my waning interest. As someone whose main intellectual obsessions have been rock and science fiction, Hawkwind should be right up my street. But they fall down on both counts. As a band, they have nothing to offer. Their dirgy, monotonous sound has little in the way of creativity or imagination. The sci-fi imagery of their lyrics is equally garbled and confused - mixing up old and new wave with pointless spiritual and metaphysical complications. Flash Gordon meets the Velvet Underground. Sorry, but I just can't take them seriously at all.
Review of the Space Ritual tour (unknown publication, November 1972):
After a tedious interval, the Space Ritual landed, greeted by massive interstellar response. Announcements from ground control dictated words for a general jam then suddenly we were transfixed somewhere between here and eternity. Well, not quite.
Musically Hawkwind are repetitious. Riff after riff laid down upon a substantially rhythmic beat. Visually, Hawkwind become boring. So what's new? As far as sounds and effects go, we've seen it all with the Floyd. While Hawkwind feature an infinite variety of multi-media devices, nothing stands out as particularly amazing.
Review of the Doremi Fasol Latido album (unknown publication, November 1972):
'Ladies and Gentlemen, please fasten your safety-belts, we are about to take off...' Installation 15: Sonic Attack.
This is Hawkwind's latest space voyage, a collection of ups and downs in true Hawkwind fashion plus battle hymns and stellar songs all put together and seasoned with the salt of the Hawklords. Complete with 'Star-rats' colour poster and their own Space-Ritual booklet. The words outline the 'Doremi Fasol Latido' saga and the lyrics are given to each and every phase. Certain extracts are guaranteed to screw your mind if you're feeling a little hazy at the time of reading.
The musical presentation is very similar to that of 'In Search Of Space' the throbs and whirrs and the inevitable take-off in 'Lord of Light' immediately brings 'Master of the Universe' to mind. But again I'll give them their dues, such a definite style is difficult to vary and anyway, if they changed their ways they would no longer be Hawkwind. Maybe when everyone is aware of the H'Wind 'space trip' that will be the time to change both the name AND the music. Until then I hope they can stay as they are.
Hawkwind lose gear in theft; may split (unknown publication, 4 May 1972):
Hawkwind face the prospect of having to disband, following the theft last weekend of their transit van containing all their equipment. A £500 reward has been offered for the return of the gear, which is valued at £10,000. The group will still be appearing at the Bickershaw festival tomorrow (Friday) when they will use the event's own system. But they have had to cancel a tour of Northern Ireland and several projected concert dates in this country. Said a spokesman: "If the equipment cannot be recovered quickly, the lads will have no option but to break up."
Bickershaw Festival review (Sounds, 13/05/72):
Hawkwind came on to tumultuous applause, but they didn't really get off, and the applause at the end of their set was far less enthusiastic. Their mixture of intoned vocals —"This is your Captain speaking, your Captain is dead"— very basic music and synthesiser effects seemed to add up to little more than rather obvious gimmickry.
Jonathan Kelly did connect, though, as he combined strong songs with strong performance to project across the muddy wastes. One man and a guitar managed to come across with much more character and strength than all the rather desperate thrashing of Hawkwind, and his applause was well deserved.
Hawkwind are back in action (unknown publication, 20/05/72):
A revised schedule has been set for Hawkwind, now that they are back in action again following the theft of all their equipment. Two manufacturers who heard of the group's plight, AKG and Vox, provided all the gear that was necessary. Hawkwind commence a ten day European tour tomorrow (Friday) and their subsequent home dates are listed in this week's Nationwide Gig Guide. A new single titled "Silver Machine" is released on June 9.
Hawkwind stay together (from Melody Maker, 13/05/72):
Hawkwind will not split after all. The group, who were threatened with extinction following the theft of their equipment last week, have been completely re-equipped free of charge by AKG and Vox.
All existing gigs will be honoured, and an additional two appearances have been fixed for the group supporting the Doors in their two concerts at Birmingham Town Hall on Friday.
Their equipment and a van, worth £10,000 was stolen from Russell Road in Palmer's Green, London. A £500 reward is offered for information leading to the recovery of the gear. It will be impossible to dispose of in its present form because it is elaborately painted and stencilled with the group's name.
Hawkwind's singer Bob Calvert was released from hospital this week and he will be rejoining the band on all future gigs.
Hawkwind's Space Ritual takes the road on November 8 when they open their extensive tour at the Corn Exchange, King's Lynn. Three light shows will be accompanying the band along with a specially converted cinema screen, and the entourage will also include four dancers, three designers and disc jockey Andy Dunkley. The five man sound crew will be under supervision of tour manager John Burroughs and in the meantime special equipment is being constructed for the tour by the band's designer Barney Bubbles, who devised the 'In Search Of Space' album sleeve.
The concept of the tour is based around the "astronomical concept of the nine planet system", said a spokesman, "and the dancers will be choreographed to imply the movements of planets around the sun"; the group's equipment will be housed in six-sided cabinets built into six-pointed star formations. It is hoped that the Space Ritual will be recorded live sometime during the tour and be released on an album next year while the band's third album "Doremi Fasol Latido" is issued by United Artists on November 10.
Negotiations are taking place for Hawkwind to appear at the Sundown Edmonton on December 29 or 30 — right at the end of their tour, but confirmed dates are as follows: Corn Exchange, King's Lynn, November 8; Civic Hall, Dunstable, 9; Guild Hall, Portsmouth, 11; University, York, 16; University, Lancaster, 17; University, Leeds, 18; Locarno, Bristol, 19; St.Andrew's Hall, Norwich, 21: Music Hall, Aberdeen, 24; Empire, Edinburgh, 25; Hard Rock, Manchester, 26; New Theatre, Oxford 30; University, Exeter, December l; Chelsea Bowl, Bournemouth, 3; City Hall, Sheffield, 5; King's Hall, Derby, 7;
Sound Of The Future (unknown publication, March 1972):
Hawkwind, the rock band that will play at Aldermaston for CND's Easter demonstrators, is a band of the future — one with a more than casual relationship to science fiction.
In fact it is producing a rock opera with a science fiction approach to the threat of environmental pollution. Hawkwind will use the electronic sound equipment in which it specialises, combined with unusual lighting effects. The opera will last about two hours, more or less, depending on how it develops in each performance.
"We've gained a bit of a reputation for 'space music' and we think we're producing the kind of music that most people don't know about yet," two members, Nik Turner (electric saxophone) and Bob Calvert, the vocalist and poet of the group, told Sanity. Other members are: Dave Brock (guitar), Lemmy (bass guitar), DikMik (audio generators), Del Dettmar (synthesizer) and Simon King (drums).
Hawkwind have been touring Britain and Europe for two years with a complicated array of electronic equipment. Audiences are growing, they report, and the responses are enthusiastic: "It's great when you have a good audience — you get a feedback, find yourself playing harder and better. You get involved with the audience: you're all one thing together."
Said Bob Calvert: "It's a sort of ritual really. And it's a good thing not only from the musical point of view. It has a therapeutic effect. It releases all kinds of tensions and aggression built up by the frustrations of life today.
"Most of us have suppressed aggressions and most of us get tensions built into us when we are very young. Young people today can let their tensions and aggressions go in rock sessions. That's a good thing, isn't it? It's one of the reasons why the latest generation is less aggressive and less destructive than previous ones."
Nik and Bob say rock bands are peace-making bands. They are also war-making bands, but only in the sense that they release and get rid of aggressions. Why were they giving a voluntary performance for CND? "Well, we believe in CND and we go along with the peace movement, and most of our audiences do." Their audiences, in fact, salute them with peace signs. Nik and Bob have no doubt that this is a wide and growing feeling.
Without being up-stage, they take rock very seriously. They are sure that its roots go a very long way back in history to all kinds of folk and religious rituals, which, even In those days, served to relieve tensions and fears. Apart from this, of course, they make good music as their growing popularity indicates. This summer they will go on another tour of Europe — France, Italy, Germany, Holland. But before that they'll be at Aldermaston; and their presence there will be highly appropriate. For they stand for enthusiastic life in face of the black threat of death in the nuclear weapons research station just across the road from the field where they will perform.
Hawkwind truck off (from Sounds, 10/06/72):
Hawkwind have been trucking around Europe giving everybody a solid helping of that good space-rock and apparently outplaying Atomic Rooster. Del reckons that German audiences, particularly those in Berlin, are far more politically conscious than in England and tend to express approval or disapproval by whistling, which must be a little confusing.
The Berlin Branch of the Hare Krishna Temple died the death by whistling, but Hawkwind of course, went down big, and the promoter has invited them back to top the bill. Hawkwind also played in Rome at a paying (300 lire) "free" festival. Which sounds like it could be the same one at which Hookfoot, playing before 60,000 people, got three encores and twenty minute's ovation. A last word on Hawk: they did not crash their van, as reported by ourselves last week. They in fact ran out of road and glanced off the crash-barrier. Nik was at the wheel: "He shouldn't have bent the motor," was Del's comment.
Reaching Out for Higher Flings (from Disc, January 1974):
Hawkwind's Stacia acts it out. Disc's Caroline Boucher writes it down.
That Hawkwind ever get themselves to a gig is a constant source of amazement to them. They are still marvelling that they got to America and toured it, and did quite well. The fact that only one of them remembered to turn up to the party thrown in their honour in New York was merely typical.
"We function," says Stacia, "out of vaguely organised chaos."
Stacia is a whole heap of woman who got up onstage with no clothes on to dance with Hawkwind three years ago, and has never really got down or put her clothes back on since. Today she is wearing a black leotard, very short coat, and two pairs of black tights to cover the bruises incurred when she fell over in the Earls Court Road the day before. Black, says Stacia, is her favourite colour.
Hawkwind are currently touring the country with a stage act that contains 50 per cent of new material which will be recorded live for one side of their next album. The things they've written for it, says Nik Turner, are still spacey but the band are wary of getting very trapped by the space image they've been saddled with.
In true disorganised fashion, Hawkwind never got their big top tent together (they wanted to tour in much the same fashion Ronnie Lane is), but don't seem to worry unduly about it. Stacia, however, is trying to organise herself sufficiently to go to dance school for a time. "I need to make my body a bit more supple. I'm very clumsy, as anybody who has seen me will tell you; I'm always falling over."
Stacia conies from Exeter, and first met Nik Turner at the Isle of Wight festival, dancing about out of their brains. She met them again at their Exeter gig, where she got up and danced, and joined up with them in preference to her old job of dishing up meals at the University. "I've never had any formal dance training, or taken much interest in proper mime. To begin with, I just used to fling my arms and legs about. Now I've got more into theatrics — I'm pretty dramatic anyway, 24 hours a day. But now I'm trying to put a bit more meaning into my dancing."
True Stacia fans will hopefully go along with this sentiment towards higher art forms, and not just stroll along to watch her strip.
Hawkwind's Space Ritual album resembles an unhappy cross-pollination of Graham Bond's Magickal gymnastics and the pre-Kubrick excesses of Flaming Youth (remember Ark Two?).
Edmonton Sundown was choked with similar anachronisms - "Gorrenny acid man" crooned an erstwhile head. A goodly proportion of the bombed freaks must have been pushing 15 at the most; proof positive that the subculture is alive and well in Edmonton. The Love Generation were out in force. By way of demonstration, as soon as the MC called for everyone to be seated, the vertical few at the front of the auditorium were pelted with coke cans, plastic cups, cigarette butts. Someone handed out joss sticks from the stage. The pelting continued.
Then a desperate plea across the P.A. A guitarist was missing; "Where's Lemmy?" With astutely timed precision, the band appeared, when nobody was expecting them. Don't go backstage, someone said, 'cos the Hell's Angels have turned nasty...
In the face of such adversity, it must be said that Hawkwind put on a terrific show. The music was so tight it made the Space Ritual meanderings sound imbecilic. Then again, if audience involvement is what a Hawkwind concert is all about, the sounds are inevitably secondary to the visual presentation ("The aisle was full of noises...") The lights were stunning, the obligatory smokescreen for once wasn't a colossal yawn, and the climactic orgy of polythene
phalli and confetti was easily as impressive as the theatrics offered in J.C. Superstar.
The amazing Stacia has a formidable stage presence. To my surprise
-Godfrey Hamilton
Review of the "Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke)" single (from Sounds, 03/08/74):
A chappie whose opinion I respect (sometimes) tells me that Dave Brock, who writes these things for Hawkwind, is quite the cleverest person he knows. Certainly he's consistent enough — and so are Hawkwind. For, after a Tangerine Dream-like drone in, we're straightaway into the famous "Hawkwind rhythm".
This rhythm, as we know, tends to bulldoze its' way over all the lyrics and indeed, over any refinements of musicianship the Hawkwinds may care to display. Thus the lyrics remain obscure — but perhaps it is as well, for I did catch "politicians" and "concrete jungles" in the first verse. An orchestra saws away several miles hence -at least, it sounds like an orchestra— but the overall effect is still pretty unmoving. If you're into quasi-political, cosmic doom rock then this is your river of blood. Otherwise, skip it.
Review of the "Ejection" single by Captain Lockheed & The Starfighters (unknown publication, April 1974):
This comes from Robert Calvert's solo LP. This was an LP I did not really expect to enjoy so I was agreeably surprised when, in common with the legendary curate's egg, it was excellent in parts. Well perhaps excellent is overstepping the mark slightly, but none of it was actively unpleasant.
As a bonus the LP features Vivian Stanshall and Arthur Brown, heroes both and both, in their own ways, rock casualties, and although their roles are relatively minor it's nice to know that they are still functioning somewhere. Neither is featured on this single -at leastm, if they are, they are well hidden- is mainly pretty standard Hawkwind, although from the grey swirling thump thump lighter shades and forms sometimes emerge briefly.
Robert's voice and some rather nice growling guitar are buried well down in the mix, a mix which gives undue prominence to the rhythm — as I have hinted above. The side begins with vaguely aeronautical atmospherics and ends with an explosion. It's the sort of record I'll be asked to play at my awful gigs and I really won't mind playing it either.
I don't know if the Hawkwind mystique is still strong enough to bung this into the charts - time alone will, don'cha know, tell.
When I first heard the plot of this album I didn't expect anything as good as this. It seemed so pedestrian and about as worthwhile as the punishment my old gym master used to give out, which was writing a two page essay on the bicycle spoke! A brief synopsis of the story: it's set in the early sixties about a guy called Herr Franz Joseph Strauss, the German defence minister at the time. He sponsored an American designed Lockheed Starfighter which was originally intended to be a fair weather fighter. But ol' Strauss had the plane modified into a heavy duty atom bomber. This was the plane's downfall and resulted in many deaths, it became known as the "Widow Maker".
The story is followed via music and narrative. It features a host of musicians including the Hawkwind mob, Arthur Brown and The Ladbroke Grove Hermaphroditic Voice Ensemble. The parts of the characters are played by Viv Stanshall, Jim Capaldi, Tom Mittledorf, Richard Ealing and Captain Calvert. It's funny and extremely morbid at times. Humour is obviously provided by Stanshall and each character and event is treated with biting sarcasm. Strauss is a very gullible and a military type fellow who eventually realises his mistake in purchasing the plane. There's a lot of things that happen on this album: a scene between an officer and a recruit who wears mascara, and the patter between the American salesman and Strauss. A warning of the plane's downfall is on side one in the form of "The Gremlin", a track written by
There are a tot of misconceptions about heavy metal music. Robert Calvert has achieved the impressive feat of making the first heavy metal concept album. The (true) story tells how the Lockheed Starfighter was acquired for the German Air Force and so adapted that it was rendered unstable. The result was 162 crashes with almost as many pilots killed. The tragic bungling (essential tests were omitted before the plane was put into operation: the ejector seats in the first model didn't work at low altitudes) is explained in word and song by Calvert assisted by members of Hawkwind, Pink Fairies and others.
As usual with this kind of project, the spoken parts tend to fragment the music, after a few plays they become too familiar and the listener is constantly urging the speakers on so he can get to the music. It's almost impossible to overcome this, but Calvert's tried his best by using caricatured conversations rather than an inevitably dull narrator. There are no such built-in faults with the music, however; it's very Hawkwind-ish with a touch or Black Sabbath thrown in for good measure — heavy riffs and echoed vocals, in other words. Of the individual pieces, "Ejection," issued as a single last year, perhaps has the edge on the others for its ruthless driving force. As a whole, "Captsin Lockheed" is an impressive project, and coming as it does at a time when most musicians are endlessly seeking the lowest common
Warm 'wind - a review of Hall Of The Mountain Grill (from Melody Maker, 14/04/74):
The kings of the two-chord samba return with an invitation to c'mon and do the idiot dance. It's their best album to date (which ain't saying much) on which Simon House, their ex-High Tide keyboardsman, who recently succeeded Del Dettmar, introduces a wider spectrum of sound and some semblance of melodic interpretation of the group's songs (Dave Brock and Nik Turner especially). If you've seen the band on their few British dates this year, you'll be familiar with much of the material - "Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke)", their prospective hit single, Turner's "D-Rider", plus three of Brock's - "Web Weaver", "Paradox" and "You'd Better Believe It" are all stage tried and tested, the last two were live recordings in fact. In their own way 'Wind are a tremendously charismatic bunch of itinerants and were, arguably, one of the biggest draws among British bands. The greatcoats would gather in force at the drop of a tab. Despite the obvious influence of House in widening Hawkwind's musical palette it's still Brock's simplistic, chunky chording on guitar and his equally "lumpy" writing style which if not impressive certainly sets the group's noisome persona. An ever-present edgy scraping rumble beneath the sweeping Mellotron. Hawkwind, with complete innocence, have always seemed stuck in a time-warp hippie image, passé optics and recording techniques. Yet because they're the only band still playing in this style they've got the market all to themselves. Hawkwind certainly aren't the visionaries their sci-fi image suggests - Brock is a rocker throughout. The incoming House and the departing Dettmar both wrote a short piece for the album. Both create moods, appear 'esoteric' and to these ears, directionless. With Brock there's never any doubt. He's heading straight for the brick wall and he's gonna crash right through it. The title of "Hall Of The Mountain Grill" was inspired by a Hawkwind nosherie - a more suitable source couldn't have been found for their music is pure egg, sausage 'n' beans. - G.B.
Review of Robert Calvert's "Captain Lockheed And The Starfighters" (Music Scene, May 1974):
Was a time when Germany's Starfighter jets dropped from the skies with alarming regularity and it took 'Der Spiegel' to bring it all into the open . In a lighter vein, but with an underlying strata of seriousness, former Hawkwind member Robert Calvert has written a musical play entitled "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters".
The album is now on release and the stage production takes to the road in mid-May. South African-born Calvert took time out from preparations to tell his Uncle Beast what it's all about.
"When I was working with Hawkwind I was more interested in working with a band that wouldn't just stand there for two hours playing a set of songs related to one another. I wanted to do a show as a whole."
He had dabbled with some street theatres and in particular one in Camden Town called "Street Dada Nihilismus" which often shocked people by throwing paint at them. He was also interested in sound poetry.
"Hawkwind seemed to be doing almost the same thing in terms of electronic sound that I was attempting to do with poetry and it seemed topical to put the two things together," he explained. "Space Ritual didn't turn out to be the work I tried to achieve. The sounds of Hawkwind very often remind me of the aero-space age and it inspired me to think of jet planes rather than space travel. The Starfighters in Germany seemed to be an ideal subject for an electronic rock drama using satire telling a complete story in a logical way that you can follow. There is nothing Dadaistic or esoteric about it, some of it is Monty Pythonesque, some of it is Navy Lark. The music is based on the Germanic hypnotic riffs that Hawkwind use, the musical varionics. The whole thing derives from the Velvet Underground primitive rhythms, but also using the technology of music."
Those involved in the album include Hawkwind, Arthur Brown, Jim Capaldi, Viv Stanshall and the ubiquitous Eno. Adrian Wagner, a keyboard-playing descendant of classical composer Richard Wagner is on the album and in the touring cast. Costumes have been designed by Wendy Dagsworthy who created outfits for Roxy Music, and Stanshall plays, among other things, Franz Josef Strauss, the former West German Defence Minister.
The drama is in short scenes and the songs are a commentary on those scenes and an extension of them and take you onto the next scene. Calvert points out "Rather like what Bertolt Brecht called 'epic theatre' in the thirties, I have tried to present the situation in terms that are my interpretation of the events using my humour. The whole thing was laughed at b y everyone in Germany, except the relatives of the pilots that were killed. The plane wasn't developed to perform all the functions, including assault and battery, the Germans wanted it to do: the instruction manual was always changing, the pilots were constantly flying in a new experimental plane and the ground staff were only conscripts who couldn't care less about it anyway."
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