Lamest Line-Ups

Lamest Line-Ups

An oft-played game on the Yahoo! and BOC-L/Hawkwind email lists is "what was your favourite Hawkwind line-up" or "what would be your ideal Hawkwind line-up". (The former of these is a line-up that really existed and the latter is a Fantasy Football type of proposition.) So, to turn the thing on its' head, this page looks at the all-time worst Hawkwind line-up imaginable. It's not intended to be one that actually existed, just the worst possible combination that could be assembled...

The usual procedure is to name names on the basis of their prowess with a specified instrument, so the same principle obtains here - although it's 'lack of prowess'. As a starting point, our imaginary Hawkwind from Hell needs to have certain instruments filled - drums, bass, vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitar and keyboards. Anything after that is really the icing on the cake. As with some other pages on the site, this is entirely subjective and I'm open to alternative suggestions - email me here if you don't agree!

Drums
The bedrock of any band...and the choice is enormous given that Hawkwind have had 13 different drummers if you include bongo player Al Matthews. The others whose hats are hereby thrown into the ring are: Andy Anderson, Ginger Baker, Richard Chadwick, Clive Deamer, Martin Griffin, Rob Heaton, Simon King, Mick Kirton, Rick Martinez, Terry Ollis, Alan Powell, and Danny Thompson.

Some people can be ruled out straight away and I'd put Simon King's name at the top of that list, as he was, to quote Bob Calvert, "the real Hawkwind drum machine". And some others shouldn't be included for further consideration on account of the brevity of their time with the band. Goodbye Andy, Rick, Mick, Rob and Clive. You may have all been truly horrible drummers (I don't know) but you didn't get long enough to prove it in Hawkwind if so. To make it into the Lamest Line-Up you have to have been around long enough to provide incontrovertible proof of your shortcomings - which leaves us with a possible choice of Al Matthews, Ginger Baker, Richard Chadwick, Martin Griffin, Terry Ollis, Alan Powell, or Danny Thompson.

Now, Al Matthews has to be kicked out too, as he was properly speaking a percussionist rather than a drummer. Having a bongo player as Hawkwind's only drummer would in fact be a wretched state of affairs, which gives the idea enormous appeal - but it's cheating. So Al is out. And Richard Chadwick is certainly not everyone's idea of the man with the sticks, but you can't claim he's incompetent...this is more a matter of taste, and while I find his drumming a little too "light" to be ideal for Hawkwind, plenty of latter-day fans would heartily disagree. So Richard, you're gone too.

Martin Griffin has also had his detractors, as being 'metronomic': but his stint in the band in the Hawklords and RCA periods was when the band's style of music was oriented in this direction, and Martin proved at the Hawkfest 2002 that he's actually very fluid. Besides, that moustache surely makes Mr. Griffin too good to be in the lamest line-up, so he's out of the running.

Terry Ollis is said to have had his problems in the band, which resulted in his departure in fine style: taking his clothes off on stage, playing slower and slower, and finally falling off his drum stool at the same moment that a fan went mad and leapt on stage screaming. This is magnificent, and by itself rules Terry out of the lamest line-up. But he was and is a great drummer too (even better clothed)...

We are left with Ginger Baker, Alan Powell and Danny Thompson. Now I have an irrational dislike of Alan Powell, because he always looks such a berk in photos and I can't tell you what he actually did in Hawkwind apart from played second fiddle to Simon King. My understanding is that the demo version of 'Motorhead', featuring Dave Brock's vocals, features Alan Powell exclusively on drums, and I hate to say it but I can't find anything wrong with that. So Alan - you're out too, and we're left with a straight choice between Ginger and Danny. Which is a tough call. Ginger is of course one of the great rock drummers, and completely did not fit in with Hawkwind. He was also very very mean to Harvey Bainbridge, had red hair and a beard, and owned a dog which used to bite people. These are all damning indictments, but you can't get past the fact that Ginger Baker was / is a fine drummer. Whereas Danny Thompson...oh dear...the man who put the 'chronic' into Live Chronicles and the 'cod' into Xenon Codex. A quick listen to either of those albums will prove it - Danny's the man.

Bass
Not quite such an embarrassment of riches here. The roster consists of Dave Anderson, Harvey Bainbridge, Thomas Crimble, Alan Davey, Mr.Dibs, John Harrison, Lemmy, Paul Rudolph, Adrian Shaw, Steve Taylor and Ron Tree. The penultimate of these gents played with the band at Strange Daze 98, when Ron was refused entry to the USA, and also on Hawkwind's New Zealand tour of 2000. That's not really long enough to prove anything and so he can be ruled out at once.

The same really applied to John Harrison, although he did appear (pretty unremarkably) on the band's eponymous first album. In an interview Dave Brock was quoted as saying "John liked golf, actually" which is a point in his favour. I don't know whether this meant Mr. Harrison liked watching golf on TV or playing it, and which is more naff anyway? If he played it, imagine him appearing in a Hawkwind from Hell line-up dressed for the part, in plus fours and a flat cap. But sorry John, your stitch in the tapestry of Hawkwind is too short and in too drab a tone to make you a contender. You're out.

Thomas Crimble managed not to appear on any of Hawkwind's recorded output, and so he must be discarded. Mr.Dibs too, has only played bass for them live, and perhaps only on a single occasion and this just isn't enough to merit his inclusion. Besides which I've said more than enough uncomplimentary things about him already - and the same goes for Dave Anderson, who did something I consider definitive in Hawkwind - the bassline to Master Of The Universe is his and does a lot to make the In Search Of Space version the definitive one for my money. (And actually the Text Of Festival version is very very good too!) So bye-bye Dibs and Dave A...

Lemmy...well, he's just too good, isn't he? And so is Alan Davey. Neither can possibly be considered for this job. Adrian Shaw is another one, a bit like Ginger Baker, perhaps, who is a fantastic musician maybe not entirely suited to Hawkwind - though I personally think what he did with the band was awesome. Adrian's playing was so terrific you just can't have him in a lamest line-up. So we're reduced to an unholy trinity of Harvey Bainbridge, Paul Rudolph and Ron Tree.

Ron seems to get a lot of stick for his bass playing and I can't see why. He certainly was no Lemmy, but I can't see anything all that bad about his bass work either, and I caught the band live in 1997 when he was doing the bass and singing to boot....Ron did OK. He has another shout at making the Lamest Line-Up for his singing, so without further ado let's kick him out of the reckoning for bass player duties. Sorry Ron, but the final two are Paul Rudolph and Harvey Bainbridge. Mr. Rudolph may have been a fine guitar player but his major crime against humanity was trying to play funky basslines in Hawkwind - 'Time For Sale' and 'The Aubergine That Ate Rangoon' being two examples that didn't work. But then again, 'Reefer Madness' did work, and some of the live stuff from 1976 is excellent....so it has to be Harvey. For a start he played a Fender Precision, which is the bluntest of instruments, ideal for producing a dull thud upon request. And on his day, Harvey was spectacularly horrible as a bass player - the best example I can think of is on the 'Live 79' album, especially in the latter half of 'Brainstorm' where he's all over the place in terms of his timing. I think Ginger Baker was right, which is an awful thing to have to admit, particularly when Harvey's such a nice guy - but fortunately he came back and played some great keyboards for Hawkwind in the 80's, so I hope he won't mind being elected Hawkwind's lamest bass player...

Rhythm Guitar
Right, first of all, let's get this straight: Dave Brock is not a contender. And in his absence, the list of prospects is a very short one: Keith Barton, Steve Bemand (who filled in on a 1991 European tour); and Bob Calvert (you'd forgotten about him, hadn't you?) It's very tempting to just go for Steve Bemand as a righteous punishment for not being Dave Brock, but appearing on one tour isn't really enough, unless you were one of those unfortunates who'd waited years to see Hawkwind play live and when you finally did, there was no Dave Brock. In fact, if there's no Dave Brock, is it even Hawkwind? Either way, we're going to let Steve off the hook.

Now, the case for the prosecution as far as Keef is concerned goes like this: he's not Dave Brock, he's got short hair, he plays a Strat and he's in Spacehead, which would be a nice backhanded way of me getting at Mr.Dibs by proxy as it were. Hmmmm. But Keith's a great guy who works his arse off for the band as part of the road crew and lighting team. And we haven’t heard enough from him to know how good or bad he is – in fact I can’t recall ever actually hearing him at all when I saw him perform with Hawkwind at the 2003 Hawkfest. So despite the Strat factor, Keef’s not it either.

That means Bob Calvert wins (loses?) by default. The evidence is scant but compelling. First of all, there was his performance on the Marc Bolan TV show on 16/9/77, when Dave Brock’s car accidentally on purpose broke down, and Bob had to go out there with a guitar, miming for all he was worth with a plastic hawk strapped to his forearm. This is the stuff that dreams are not made of. And Bob did actually play guitar live with the band. I read an interview with Dave Brock somewhere where he had to walk across the stage to Bob during the gig and say “can you do something about your guitar, because it’s horribly out of tune.” So there we are, a musician who mimes and still manages to play out of tune, surely the right person to be Hawkwind’s lamest rhythm guitarist…

Lead Guitar
Now, Dave Brock can definitely be considered in this category since I’m sure most people would accept he’s a rhythm guitarist, and has done some fairly middling-to-horrible lead work. To take just one example, the lead guitar in ‘Black Elk Speaks’ on the Space Bandits album is vile. But Dave is not alone! Others who can jostle for the crown include Huw Lloyd Langton, Jerry Richards, Mick Slattery, Paul Rudolph, Dick Taylor, and Dumpy Dunnell. I’m going to drop Dumpy, Mick Slattery and Dick Taylor without further ado, on the by-now-well-worn-grounds-that-they-haven’t-blotted-their-copybooks-at-sufficient-length. This is rather a shame in Mick’s case, as something just feels right about selecting him for the role – but he never played on anything they recorded afaik, and didn’t even manage to strum a note at the Hawkestra in 2000, I believe. There was a rather engaging story about him attending some backstage shindig and being caught attempting to make off with a bottle of Rioja and a half eaten ham under his coat, or something like that, but it’s not enough. Sorry Mick.

Now Huw is an interesting case, he has committed some appalling atrocities in recent years, but has also in his time provided the best lead guitar Hawkwind have ever had. So remembering the good times and forgetting the bad, Huw’s out of the picture. And Paul Rudolph somehow ought to be in a lamest line-up, but the idea of him being there for his lead guitar just won’t fly. What he did on Chronoglide Skyway was a thing of wondrous simplicity and beauty, bugger it. At first I thought he would be hanging by a thread, but as I seasonally remarked in a Scottish accent to my wife, Rudolph’s thread’s no strained, dear.

So again by a process of elimination, it’s Jerry Richards. I can’t claim his playing to really be horrible enough to qualify on those grounds alone, but everyone else has fallen by the wayside, and Jerry has a couple of other strikes against him too. He’s another Strat player, and as with some others, his playing style did not suit Hawkwind at all IMHO. Phetamine Street, anyone? The main albums Jerry played on were In Your Area and Distant Horizons, so in my book that clinches it….

Vocals
Another broad field of contenders, here. They are Harvey Bainbridge, Arthur Brown, Dave Brock, Bob Calvert, Richard Chadwick, Alan Davey, Mr.Dibs, Samantha Fox, Keith Hale, Lemmy, Huw Lloyd Langton, Michael Moorcock, Tim Blake, Captain Rizz, Ron Tree, Nik Turner, and last and by all means least (maybe) Bridget Wishart….

First of all, let’s get rid of Arthur Brown, Brock, Calvert, and Davey because they can all really sing. Mr.Dibs has only done the voiceover for Abducted as far as I know, and did that well, so he’s out too. Lemmy and Huw are not classic vocalists but both of them have certain numbers that they’ve made their own, so they disqualify themselves thus. Sam Fox made a fairly miserable fist of singing at the Hawkestra, but it was just one performance. Similarly, Richard Chadwick is currently knocking ‘em dead in the aisles with his excruciating vocals to Angela Android – but it’s just one song. (We won’t mention the entire Star Nation album…) Tim Blake’s vocal tortures in Hawkwind, while truly desperate, have been limited to Lighthouse and the occasional Spirit Of The Age. And the only thing Keith Hale sang was his Dangerous Visions song…

We’re left with Michael Moorcock, Ron Tree, Captain Rizz, Nik Turner, and Bridget Wishart. Ron and Nik have certainly dropped a few clangers, but both have done the biz at other times too, so they drop out despite their eminent suitability for a worst line-up in some degree or other. Captain Rizz – is he a singer, exactly? Hard to say what he does, I find the man incomprehensible. But the actual timbre of his voice is pretty good, and it’s probably a case of you have to be into what he does to really get it. So Rizz lives to fight another day, or in another category. It’s a toss up between Michael Moorcock and Bridget Wishart. Who can hand on heart say either one is worse than the other? They’re both equally abysmal, so in the spirit of a really lame line-up, I nominate Moorcock and Wishart duetting on every number, a Space Rock version of Peters and Lee. Is that not an awful thought?!

Keyboards
Plenty of people have tinkered with keyboards as a secondary instrument, but the interesting thing is that Hawkwind have never had anybody poor playing this as their primary role in the band. What Del Dettmar, DikMik, Simon House, Harvey Bainbridge, Steve Swindells, Tim Blake, Keith Kniveton and Dead Fred have in common is that they’ve all been really good at what they did. Various others have done it on an extremely short-term basis or have guested on keyboards but none for long enough to have hoist themselves with their own petard. So the solution is that there’s no keyboard player in our Hawkwind from Hell line-up. No keyboards, no synths, no swooshy noises. Still, some of the stranger vocal effects achieved by our Moorcock & Wishart frontpersons (barking, snoring, wheezing, hissing, etc.) might make up for it.

Others
For stage costumes, how about Nik Turner circa 1984…with Ron Tree from the Alien 4 tour running him very close, although that was more in the “cheesey props” department. Tony Crerar is definitely the choice of worst dancer, for his amazing performances as Elric on the Chronicle Of The Black Sword set. Then there’s the whole area of performance art, where I see Captain Rizz and Bridget Wishart slugging it out. What we need is something conceptual involving both of them. Harvey has questions to answer as regards this inherently ludicrous activity…

There are some other instruments like sax and violin where there have been a couple of different protagonists, but no-one has ever been bad enough to be in the lamest line-up. Once again our solution must be to omit these instruments and hope that our other line-up members will generate a fearful enough cacophony to obviate the need.

So here's the final line-up:

Drums: Danny Thompson
Bass: Harvey Bainbridge
Rhythm Guitar: Bob Calvert
Lead Guitar: Jerry Richards
Vocals: Michael Moorcock and Bridget Wishart
Keyboards: None
Costumes: Nik Turner
Props: Ron Tree
Dance: Tony Crerar

No Dave Brock, and so you could argue that this isn’t Hawkwind. Maybe it isn’t but I for one would be willing to pay good money to avoid seeing this line-up play live :-)

Well, of course not everyone agrees with me. Here's some of the feedback I've had on all this.

Bernhard differs as follows:

Bass: Ron Tree
Vocals: Alan Davey
Keyboards: Dead Fred
Other instruments: Nik Turner
Worst member of all: Nik Turner
Worst HW years: 1982-1984
Worst tour: February 1983

(Well, I can't agree about Nik - he's done some great stuff in Hawkwind IMHO!)

And Dr. M reckons:

Lead Guitar: Huw Lloyd Langton
Bass: Alan Davey
Vocals: Bridget Wishart
Dance: Screechrock

(Alan Davey is an unusual choice of worst bass player but Dr. M mentions that it's the unvarying nature of his dun-dra-dun-dra-dun-dra-dun chord changes that does the trick...)

Ray's two-pennorth:

Bass: It should be Ron. Harvey came up with the bass line for Free Fall, which should, IMHO. be enough to keep him out, and, (I know it's credited to Dave Brock) but, did he not write the bass line for Who's Gonna Win The War? (absolutely smashing)

Rich says:

I have to disagree with your lamest line-up proposal on two points:

1 - You just can't have a HW line-up without some kind of keyboards or audio generators. They are as crucial to the band as is Dave Brock (aaah! did I say that?). So, on the basis of musical ability it'd have to be Del or Dikmik...but it couldn't be them because they, to me, are essential to a 'classic' Hawkwind. Oh hell, no keyboards then!

2 - Vocals...this just has to be Tim Blake. He did sing Lighthouse, and his vocal ability (having seen him solo live several times) is just awful. I mean, really dreadful! But you can't knock his ability on keys!

Zak T tells me:

Just a word or two in support of Bridgett - I only saw the Bournemouth Academy midnight gig in 1990, but I thought that was pretty damn good, and Bridgett was fine at it, gave a bit of life and variety to the band, and brought some poetry back in. The fireeaters helped as well. I'm very fond of Space Bandits (Images and Out of the Shadows anyway). So leave her alone! She's got some competition when you consider some of the atrocities Nik Turner committed in the 1980s - and I give you the Night of the Hawks video as evidence.

Worst songwriter? Mr Davey's "Wings" puts him up there somewhere.

Dave Law weighs in with this controversial piece:

This was, I feel a good question that Steve set and I've been meaning to post a reply sooner but what with Christmas and the new year, time has been a premium so hence it's taken till now to put finger to keyboard.

This particular question could be considered redundant as far as a lot of bands are concerned, I mean U2 and Led Zep both had consistent line ups throughout their careers (yes I know U2 are still going but I can't see any of them leaving, can you!) and whilst these could be considered the exceptions that make the rule, I'm sure that there aren't many bands out there that have had as many members as Hawkwind. That said, the more I think about it - has the band ever really had a line-up as such? Even in those early days in the 70's with major record company backing and for a short time seemingly the world at their feet, members were coming and going at an alarming rate with only Dave Brock remaining constant throughout these changes. So on reflection I'd call them more of a collective than a bona fide band in the true sense of the word, or at least, that is up until the early 90's when Brock had by this time been joined by bassist Alan Davey and drummer Richard Chadwick and with the exception of Mr. Davey leaving for a period to pursue his other band Bedouin, the three have seemingly formed a nucleus that has remained till this day. These days it tends to be a case of "well, you know those three will turn up, it's just a matter of who else". You may well be asking yourself by this point what this has to do with the "Lamest Line Up": simple, this is the one I would I would go for!

So what are my reasons, well let’s start with the positives; they are all fine musicians in their own right and obviously work very well together. With the amount, or should I say lack of gigs that the band seem to play these days I really don't think you can have a purely "collective" approach as it simply wouldn't work, the lack of rehearsing would stand out a mile. Nowadays I'm led to believe that these three rehearse a set and then "guests" are sent a tape so as they can improvise their relevant parts. So at the moment it's a case of "so far so good", what's the problem I hear you cry. Well I'll start with 12 words - IT IS THE BUSINESS OF THE FUTURE TO BE DANGEROUS + WHITE ZONE. Admittedly the second was recorded as the Psychedelic Warriors, but let’s be honest it's Hawkwind, albeit under a different name… and who recorded these "gems" – yes, the line up mentioned above (before people get too picky, we'll assume that Dr. Technical, The Lysergic Duke and Lord Charles are nothing more than alter-egos). True, they were also the guilty party that produced Electric Tepee, which in comparison to the other 2 is an absolute masterpiece but all the same could have been edited down from its 70+ minutes to a far more palatable 45 and at the same time been a far better album IMHO, and herein is where I believe that the problem lies. Left to their own devices they seem to go off on too many different tangents and too often stray too far from what they are, which is, regardless of the tag you wish to give them, in essence a "bloody good rock band!" As a three-piece they've toyed with dance music as well as reggae, both of which are perfectly valid forms of music when performed by people who know what they are doing. Turn it on its head a minute and let’s for a moment imagine Bob Marley covering "Brainstorm": true, the results could be interesting, but let’s be honest; he's not going to cut it with the urgency of Brock and co., is he?

I think what I am really trying to say is that what I now consider to be the nucleus of the band, namely Brock, Davey and Chadwick, are fine in that role but really need outside influences to get the motors running at full throttle. This three-piece also produced the live album "The Business Trip" which apart from some of the production, or to be more precise the way the crowd noise gets mixed up and down, is actually a pretty good product, however on the downside, for me at least, is the fact that an awful lot of it was created using tapes and samplers - and whilst it was quite a feat for the three of them to produce such a full sound you can give me real musicians any day of the week. I'd far sooner have Simon House standing on stage playing for all he's worth than Dave or one of the others hitting whatever trigger is required for a synthetic version to make itself heard.

At the end of the day it's all a matter of taste, not being a musician myself in any shape or form I'm afraid I can't really comment on who's technically the best on any given instrument, I just know what I like and what I don't like. One of the joys of being a Hawkwind fan is the generally unpredictable nature of the band, these days it seems that line-ups can literally change from show to show and with that can come radically different interpretations of the same song, which in turn makes for exciting listening and viewing; that said, please steer clear of dance and reggae!

Nick R responds with:

I'd also like to disagree with the suggestion of Dave, Alan and Richard for lamest line-up. The idea is complete nonesense, but then I actually like It Is The Business Of The Future To Be Dangerous, as well as The Business Trip and most of Alien 4 (Beam Me Up? I don't think so). For me, "Space is Their Palestine" is a corker, so it takes all sorts I suppose.

Here's the verdict according to The Count:

Vocals : Tim Blake (I know it was only one or two, but deary deary me...)
Lead guitar : Dave Brock (ooh! Controversial!)
Rhythm guitar : No-one was that bad
Sax : the machine that played it on the last tour. Soddin' karaoke
Keys : Keith Hale (too 'rock')
Bass : Ron Tree, by a country mile. Bad ain't the half of it
Drums : Mick Kirton, obviously, but otherwise... Richard Chadwick
Costume etc : Dave Brock (the skeleton suit)

Toodle pip!

Hornetlord weighs in with this:

Reading your Lamest Line-Ups page - great stuff! I believe there's an omission in drummers - John Clark - was it his drumming on Night Of The Hawks whose performance was described as "wretched
tubthumping" in your own Epoch:Eclipse CD review? [Might be: I've never heard of him!]

My only changes to your line up would be:

Vocals: Tim Blake
Bass: Paul Rudolph (based on his live performances)
Lead Guitar: Lemmy (The Watcher and Lost Johnny)

Gaz from Wolverhampton says:

Hi...I have to disagree with you about the Zones album being the poorest (I quite liked it!). In my opinion it has to be Hawkwind In Your Area.

I could live with the previous Distant Horizons album, there were one or two good tracks on there despite the poor production, but when I heard In Your Area I was disappointed beyond belief. Opening with yet another dodgy rendition of Brainstorm with poor vocals from Ron Tree who seemed to be struggling, it quickly disintegrates from there. The title track is throwaway, then there are more songs we’ve heard a dozen times before, and Captain Rizz puts the icing on the cake for me with Your Fantasy: the CD nearly went out of the window at this point.

The rest really aren’t worth mentioning accept for I Am The Reptoid which had potential. It seemed poorly produced and rushed, full of album fillers, and was not played very often by me after acquisition. It was this period in the band’s history that I didn’t enjoy much, when Alan Davey had left, and I would say it was definitely the lamest line up ever. I remember going to see them at the Civic Hall, Wolverhampton in 1997 and it was a bad night. Apart from my girlfriend nearly collapsing half way through the set, the set list was poor. Capt Rizz, sorry to say, has to be the worst Hawkwind singer of all time with his style of vocals and his stage presence, and Ron Tree’s bass and vocals were pretty awful too. He looked really bad at the time and Jerry Richards’ style of playing (distorted) was not very suited to Hawkwind, or awe-inspiring. I thought at the time they can’t get much worse than this. Thankfully things changed; certain members left and Alan returned...

So my lamest line up would be:-

Danny Thompson – drums
Ron Tree – bass
Capt Rizz – vocals
Keith Hale – synthesizers (sounded horrible)
Jerry Richards – guitar

I could go on all night about it but I will end it there and would just like to say what a great site it is you run and keep up the good work...thanks and regards...Gaz from Wolverhampton

Hawker adds this:

I was reading the lamest lineups and someone controversially said Dave Brock was the lamest lead guitarist. [Er, that would have been me...*ducks*...] Technically speaking this might be true but his style and method were all part of why Hawkwind sounded like they did - just imagine how terrible it would have been with some heavy metal shredder. Even Huw Lloyd Langton wasn't always appropriate.