Hawkwind Press Releases, Part 4

Hawkwind Press Releases - Part 4

This is a press release from Liberty Records, the label on which Hawkwind's early output was released. Liberty was a subsidiary of United Artists (to whom Hawkwind were signed) and this press release dates from some time between the first and second albums - probably July 1971

'Hawkwind Lives' seems to have been an embryonic marketing slogan, no doubt dreamed up by Clearwater Productions (the band's management / agency, co-owned by Wayne Bardell and Doug Smith). Both Liberty's and Clearwater's logos appear on the illustration to the right.

Clearwater were based in Notting Hill Gate / Ladbroke Grove and also managed local acts Cochise, High Tide, and Skin Alley

One Friday in October '69 they were Group X. No name, no number, no practice. Five freaks took the stage at All Saints' Hall, Notting Hill Gate and blew the roof off for about ten minutes. I was there with some fifty others and I'm sure they all remember the moment as well as I do. Strange, ear-splitting and completely untogether music, but decidedly the most exciting event of the evening.

Later Group X agreed to try it out, and Nick Turner, the man with the psychedelic sax, christened them Hawkwind Zoo. They dropped the Zoo and picked up a small, loyal following, a recording contract with UA, and Dikmik, whose electronic wizardry added atonal sweeps of sound to the music.

With the release of their first album (Hawkwind, UA 5519), recorded just over a year ago, the pattern and style is beginning to take form: Dave Brock, a guitar-pickin' busker of many years' standing, wrote most of the numbers - some simple harmonic songs, others layers of sound arranged by the group and already reflective of science fiction in 'innerspace as well as outerspace' as Nick would say.

This first album, put together after so little time, is a remarkable achievement. The production is good, it hangs together well and, as an indication of these people's popularity, it has sold more copies in England than the Faces' 'Long Player'.

During the summer, Hawkwind, whenever possible, borrow a flat-back lorry and a generator and move in on a festival site and play outside the barbed wire. At the Isle of Wight they jammed outside and inside a giant canvas tent for up to seven hours at a time and Nick with silver face made all the national papers, helping to bring about the legend of Hawkwind.

Now, nearly a year later, Hawkwind have gone through changes, in their heads, their nusic and their personnel. Dikmik, sadly, has left but the VCS3 that they now use has been mastered by Del Dettmar. Dave Anderson, an old friend and formerly with ace German band Amon Duul II, has taken over on bass and Terry Ollis is still working the drumkit. Their stage act is more outrageous and completely different each night - while some insist on comparing their sound to the Floyd, Nick feels more affinity to Arthur Brown and Alice Cooper and realises that the music has definite connections with sci-fi rather than 'acid rock', to the extent of beginning some sets with science fiction readings against a musical background which becomes a foreground and takes over and off.

Currently Hawkwind are halfway through recording a second album, producing it themselves. After the hassles of putting together such a complex unit, they now know what they want and how to capture it exactly. The album should be ready for release in time for their second birthday, and so mark the anniversary of one of the most exacting and exciting bands in the country, a band that has remained a nucleus for their community, and that will continue to do so. Hawkwind.

-Dick Lawson

Below I'm not sure if this is exactly a press release; it was part of a promotional booklet released by UA in support of the In Search Of Space album. The rest of the booklet (which had the ISOS album design for a cover) comprised some well-known photos of the band from that period and the first half of Bob Calvert's Hawkwind Fly As A Kite piece. Actually, seeing as there's a pic of Lemmy in the booklet, it must have come out after In Search Of Space...late 1971 it says in the text, so there you go...

Below: kindly provided by Wilfried Schuesler, this press release is for Dave Brock's 1996 solo album, Strange Trips and Pipe Dreams