Hawkwind Press Clippings Part 23

Press Clippings XXIII

Forgive an old time warrior then if his neon lights fail to instantly ooze gold at the prospect of yet another live 'Wind album being sprung from the archives. This one, however, is a little different: a warts n' all recording taken from the start of the very same tour that the Space Ritual shows would be recorded at. Replete with cornerstone 'Wind daymares like Born To Go, Seven By Seven and Master Of The Universe, while nothing could ever surpass the giant leap into the galactic unknown marked by the asteroid-hopping Space Ritual, this does come crash-landing close.

Of course, older Hawklords amongst us will doubtless recall that this same set originally came out back in 1991. But that collection, with its incomplete track-listing and sparse-to-the-point-of-nothingness sleeve notes, has thankfully since fallen off the radar. Even wiser old heads may recognise this as a digitally spruced-up version of the surprisingly ace-sounding bootleg, which is still in existence. The bonus here is that you get two CDs worth of the stuff; one in mono, one in stereo. You also get two lysergically-enhanced tracks, Brainstorm and Silver Machine, recorded for a 1972 Johnnie Walker show on Radio 1 which for reasons known only to the orc-like fiends that ran the Beeb back then was never broadcasted; a wound now able to heal properly through the marvel of this here time machine.

Recorded for Radio 1 at London's Paris Theatre in September 1972 and broadcast as part of the In Concert series just a fortnight later, I would even venture as far as to claim ...At The BBC as a genuine slice of rock history that deserves to be sealed in a time-capsule and launched into space. As original captain and founder Dave Brock once told me, "The whole idea was to create something you could listen to while going off into your trip." He added that when recording they used to spike the engineers' tea with acid. Certainly, things were never quite the same again in the corridors of power over at Radio 1...

-Mick Wall

Captain Beyond - Robert Calvert, Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters (from Prog, March 2010):
Although often described as "overlooked" or "neglected", Hawkwind's sometime frontman Bob Calvert's first solo album actually scraped the album charts and was -along with an Afghan coat, a quid deal of red leb and a Mayflower paperback edition of one of Michael Moorcock's Elric books- an essential possession for the mid 70s adolescent Brit stoner, filed there alongside Warrior On The Edge Of Time, Fish Rising and something pre-Virgin by Tangerine Dream. It's a Hawkwind album in all but name, the line-up augmented by various Pink Fairies, Viv Stanshall, Jim Capaldi, Arthur Brown and (uncredited) Brian Eno. Its' popularity with the 'heads' can be put down to the Pythonesque sketches that link the songs -surreal skits about Luftwaffe pilots wearing make-up and dodgy Yank jet salesmen that are even funnier when herbally enhanced- but also to four absolute killer space metal songs The Aerospaceage Inferno, The Widow Maker, The Right Stuff and Ejection. It was everything that Hawkwind promised on Silver Machine and Urban Guerilla. :

It's more straight ahead punk rock before there was punk rock metal, alluding to other Calvert songs and stories, moving "sideways through time", that sort of thing. Calvert, as a boy, wanted to be a fighter pilot but a perforated eardrum put paid to that dream. With Hawkwind he lived out his fantasies - a few years later he appeared onstage dressed as some glam-rock combination of Biggles and Lawrence Of Arabia. And in these songs he seems to be flying with an afterburner.

The concept is about the Lockheed Starfighter, sold to the revitalised West German Luftwaffe in the 50s to help build the Federal Republic as a bulwark against the commies at the height of the cold war. They crashed and burned in alarming numbers, earning them the nickname Flying Coffins and The Widowmaker.

Calvert's songs have an almost JG Ballard-like fascination with the crashing aircraft, eliciting an almost sexual thrill from the disaster. You sense that he didn't so much want to fly a Starfighter as crash it into the ground.

Of all the songs on the album, the greatest is the masterful Ejection, probably the best song ever written about bailing out of a fighter plane. Legendary rock hack Nick Kent, a longtime champion of Calvert and Hawkwind, described Ejection as having the best riff since (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and although he was no stranger to hyperbole, in this case he was bang on.

The remastering on this edition gives the sound a much needed punch. The only disappointment is additional tracks: a more complete collection might have included The Widow's Song, planned for inclusion with Nico on vocals, though eventually recorded by Calvert and his girlfriend just before his untimely death. That's a petty quibble though: a brilliant monument to the great psychedelic warrior poet of the English underground.

-Tommy Udo

Messages – Steve Swindells (from Prog, March 2010):
No, I never made the connection between Hawkwind, Culture Club and the pioneering House club scene of the early 90s myself, but it exists in the remarkable Steve Swindells. Steve played in Hawkwind / Hawklords in 1978 and wrote the song Shot Down In The Night; in the 80s he promoted the massively successful –and influential- one-nighter Jungle, one of the first London clubs to play Deep House music; today he is in DanMingo with former Culture Club drummer Jon Moss. But his musical career was almost strangled following his debut solo album Messages in 1974.

Signed to RCA, Swindells was a budding singer-songwriter not a million miles away from Elton John, though with a distinctive style of his own. Unfortunately, questionable management decisions such as his manager producing the album then attacking the label MD in a drunken fit, ensured that his second album Swindells’ Swallow was never released – until now. Neither, it’s fair to say, is actually a lost classic, though the expansive Messages From Heaven is an interesting long form song that dips a toe in the space rock waters.

Swindells is a rarity in that he survived and it could be said that his best musical years are still ahead of him.

-Tommy Udo

What's In A Name? (from Prog, Feb 2011) :
Hawkwind: the group's penchant for spitting, farting and behaving like animals inspired their moniker, explains Dave Brock.

While many believe that the space rock pioneers must have taken their name from something intrinsically psychedelic, the reality behind Hawkwind's moniker is a little more down to earth.

"I was in a band called Famous Cure at the end of the 60s," says Hawkwind mainman Dave Brock. "But then I met a few other guys like Nik Turner, Terry Ollis and DikMik, and we started up this new project."

So swiftly did the band come together that they gatecrashed a gig at All Saints Hall in Notting Hill Gate, London, with no name and no songs.

"We called ourselves Group X on the spot, just as a one-off, and then jammed on The Byrds' Eight Miles High for what seemed like ages and ages."

Despite this inauspicious beginning, the band got a deal with Liberty Records, and now had to take themselves more seriously. So they became Hawkwind Zoo.

"Actually, that's a name with three definite parts - none of them particularly edifying," laughs Brock. "Nik Turner had a habit of spilling snot out of his mouth, and that was commonly known as hawking at the time. He also farted a lot - so you put Hawk and Wind together, and you get Hawkwind. We added in the Zoo bit, because all of us acted like animals, and that was the perfect description of our behaviour. So anyone who thinks Hawkwind is some deep and meaningful space-rock term, forget it!"

The fledgling band released one single under this name. It featured Hurry On Sundown on the A-side, and Sweet Mistress Of Pain and Kings Of Speed on the B-side. However, they quickly dropped the 'Zoo' part from their name, to become the more streamlined 'Hawkwind'.

"We stopped acting like maniacs, so having any allusions to a Zoo would have been inaccurate."

Of course, there are two more possible origins of the name, neither of which Brock denies. Firstly, there's a science fiction story titled Hawkwind Zoo by future Hawkwind collaborator Michael Moorcock, and secondly there's a wise and ancient Japanese proverb.

"By the latter I assume you mean: I'd rather be a hawk flying over the forest than an eagle flying over the mountains?" says Brock. "Yes, both might have influenced our decision to go with the name 'Hawkwind', but it really is down to Nik Turner's habits in the end. In a way, I wish it wasn't, because it would be nice if it were more spiritual. But that's the truth."

Space Oddities : Hawkwind: At The BBC 1972 (from Prog, March 2010):

Overlords of improvisation, gatekeepers of sonic spontaneity, Hawkwind have always been best appreciated in the live environment - a mode first perfected back in the mists of space-time when the original 'captains' of the Hawkship proved unequivocally that musicianly ineptitude combined with super-strength psychedelics could, under the right laboratory conditions, produce music unlike anything you had flapped your invisible wings to before.

That said, the last time I counted there were at least 23 live Hawkwind albums in existence here on planet Earth, and that wasn't counting their best-known album of all, the classic live double Space Ritual from 1973 - the one featuring the classic ‘Wind line-up of Dave Brock (vocals/guitar), Lemmy (vocals/bass), Nik Turner (vocals/sax/flute), Dik Mik Davies (sonic generator), Simon King (drums), Del Dettmar (synths) and, of course, the wondrous Stacia (sonic, er, breasts).