Music from the Hawkwind family tree

Music from the Hawkwind family tree - Part 1

Many thanks to Graham who penned this piece - first in a series!

Documenting extra-curricular recordings and pre- and post-Hawkwind recordings of members of the band inevitably, given the huge number of musicians who have passed through the ranks, is a huge task. It is safe to say that some unforgivable crimes against music have been committed along the way, but there is also some really excellent music out there, not all of it well known.

There are literally hundreds of albums that fall into the “vaguely Hawkwind-related” category. This will be an occasional and (hopefully) gradually expanding series, looking at the best, the worst, and some points in-between – and offering a personal view on which is which!

Firstly, some boundaries: Lemmy has done some great work in Motörhead but they are simply too big in their own right to treat them as a Hawkwind offshoot. Hence, Motörhead are basically off-limits, although the first album proper and the earlier Kilminster/Wallis/Fox performances released as “On Parole” both feature versions of several Hawkwind tracks. In fact, let’s be clear, the version of “Motorhead” which was issued as the first Motörhead single on Chiswick in 1977 is the definitive performance. Better than the admittedly more tuneful original Hawkwind single b-side – and far, far, better than the Hawkwind version issued later on Flicknife. It is also better, frankly, than most subsequent live renditions by Motörhead themselves. [Note: On the Flicknife single, Dave Brock sings “…goes up in price at Christmas” where Lemmy’s original words were “…goes up like prices at Christmas”. Need I say more!]

Similarly, most of the career of Ginger Baker (who played drums on the Levitation album) has nothing to do with Hawkwind – and anyone who buys the complete works of Cream because of the “Hawkwind connection” has probably lost the plot! I will also avoid looking at Simon House’s work with David Bowie, Paul Rudolph’s albums with the Pink Fairies, Arthur Brown’s pre-Hawkwind career, and so on. On the other hand, Nik Turner’s adventures with Inner City Unit deserve a wider audience. ICU were - or should have been - the Bonzo Dog Band of the 1980s and it is criminal that most of their catalogue is unobtainable on CD (although some ICU material is available on CDR from Trev Thoms’ Real Festival Music and every song is available as an MP3 at the ICU website. So, without further ado…

Some of the best: Bob Calvert – Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters

No serious fan needs to be told that this is an essential album in the Hawkwind canon (and indeed it is reviewed in various places, e.g. on the Hawkwind Museum web pages). Not only is it Bob Calvert’s finest recorded 40 minutes, it also features pretty much the whole Hawkwind crew of the time (1974): Brock, Turner, Lemmy, Simon King and Del Dettmar, as well as Paul Rudolph and Arthur Brown. Also featured are Eno, Twink, Adrian Wagner, Vivian Stanshall, Jim Capaldi and the “Ladbroke Grove Hermaphroditic Voice Ensemble”. This is a concept album, mixing narrative pieces with songs, and built around the story of Germany’s acquisition in the 1960s of the hopelessly unreliable Lockheed “Starfighter” jet and the disastrous consequences for its pilots. Calvert is in great voice throughout, singing his own sardonic and intelligent lyrics, while the spoken word links and comedy routines actually bear repeated listening (although I suppose if you had any

personal connection with the subject matter you might find the whole exercise to be of questionable taste). The comedy is very much black comedy and the underlying mood of the album is sombre, befitting the subject matter, which gives it a real edge.

In track one, an overwrought Franz Joseph Strauss trips over his script but is wonderfully over the top, and this leads us to the first of four classic songs, “The Aerospaceage Inferno” – prime Hawkwind in all but name. The second spoken piece, “Aircraft Salesman” leads into the second song, “Widow Maker”. The sound is again pure Space Ritual era Hawkwind, with the Turner sax all over the mix.

Next up is the test pilots routine, leading into classic song number three: “The Right Stuff”. Again the Turner sax, along with prominent keyboards, adds texture over another classic ‘Wind groove. The final song on side one is part one of “Song of the Gremlin”, a slower song sung by Arthur Brown - and familiar from the 2002 Hawkwind winter tour.

Side two kicks off with another comedy routine, featuring two of the maintenance crew (who also trip over the script half way though), leading into “Hero with One Wing”, another atmospheric slow song, this time taken by Calvert himself, mythologising the heroic but doomed pilots.

Next comes the most familiar spoken word piece, since it has frequently been used as a taped introduction to the peerless “Ejection”. Another classic groove, with some screaming lead guitar and sax prominent in the mix. This is followed by the best of the spoken word tracks, “Interview”, which offers a darkly humorous view of an intending pilot’s mindset (and the fate of his mother’s false eyelashes). A reprise of “The Song of the Gremlin” verges on hysteria as Arthur Brown goes completely over the top. Lastly, “Catch a Falling Starfighter” - basically a chorus of voices over a funereal drumbeat, interspersed with fragments of previous dialogue and some spooky electronics - ends proceedings on a suitably sombre note.

Curiously, the booklet contains lyrics for another song (“The Widow’s Song”), which does not appear on the record. A version of “The Widow’s Song” did later appear on one of the Friends and Relations compilations but was presumably recorded at another time, since it sounds nothing like any of the tracks on the original album. Captain Lockheed was released on CD by BGO (BGOCD5).

Some of the best: Lloyd Langton Group – Night Air

The first real LLG album (excluding the live “Outside The Law”), originally released on Flicknife and arguably still the best. Entirely written by HLL (with Marion Lloyd Langton contributing to the lyrics), the album comprises mainly mid-paced rock songs played by a three-piece band, with Huw’s vocals the most distinctive feature. Where this album scores above many other LLG albums though is in the greater than average number of good tunes, as opposed to variations on repeated riffs.

“Night Air” is the lead song and probably the best, with a gorgeous chorus. Another highlight is “Für Kirsty”, a brief but pretty acoustic tune – just Huw on acoustic guitar with some understated synthesiser effects behind him. “Got Your Number” was good enough to get the Hawkwind treatment, at least on a mid-1980s Friday Rock Show session (along with two medleys entitled “Assault of the Hawk” and "Magnu,

Dreamworker of time”) but the Hawkwind version was only ever issued on bootleg.

Most of the original side 2 is less distinguished, although “Diseased Society” moves along nicely with some decent lead guitar, as does “Candle Burning” – which also features one of Huw’s more engaging vocal performances. In contrast, the closing “Lunar-tic”, with its half-spoken vocals and frequent repetition of the title phrase, is simply rather irritating. This album is presently available on CD as Allegro LLG8CD.

Worth checking out: Nik Turner – Prophets of
Time

One curious feature of the Hawkwind-related story has been Nik Turner’s wholesale recreation of his recorded past on a series of recordings made in the USA with Helios Creed and the members of Pressurehed, sometimes featuring other Hawkwind alumni (Simon House, Alan Powell, Del Dettmar). Aside from recycled Hawkwind, there has been recycled Inner City Unit and even virtually the entire Xitintoday album (i.e. Nik adapts the Egyptian Book of the Dead and plays flute inside the great pyramid) recycled as “Sphynx”. However, many of these albums are actually rather enjoyable and (dare I say it) no less valid than the mothership’s revisitation of past glories on increasingly numerous live albums.
[Other websites have drawn attention to revisions in

songwriting credits on such albums. I’m not going to go there.]

“Prophets of Time” features Simon House alongside the US crew and mainly revisits the ICU back catalogue, particularly the first ICU album (Passout), alongside Hawkwind’s “Children of the Sun” and some generally less exciting newer material.

It kicks off with “Prophecy”, a pleasant but unremarkable instrumental, then reprises “Watching the Grass Grow” (as originally featured on ICU’s Passout) and “Children of the Sun”. Both are dispatched efficiently but are a little brittle and soulless. The main problem seems to be too much reliance on drum programming.

“Strontium 90” is ICU’s “Nuclear Waste” revisited, again from Passout. “Communiqué” starts off in “Black Elk Speaks” territory, although in this case the Native American narrator is relating an alien abduction, before shifting into an early ICU-style romp (it probably is an ICU track, I just can’t place it).

“Chances Lost” bizarrely revisits the same set of Michael Moorcock lyrics that Dave Brock adapted as “Lost Chances” on the Sonic Attack album. This ambient treatment, backing a recitation by Genesis P. Orridge, unfortunately does the lyrics no more favours than the Hawkwind version. Perhaps one day someone will make a decent song from these lyrics – in fact, probably Michael Moorcock should give them to his other occasional collaborators, Blue Oyster Cult, to see what they could offer!

“Stonehenge, Who Knows?” is another ICU tune, this time from the final album (President’s Tapes) and the space-rock treatment is an interesting contrast to ICU’s rawer version. “Cybernetic Love” is 1st album ICU again, although not one of their most inspired moments. “Armor For Everyday” is a spoken word contribution written by Moorcock and recited by GPO, the resident “poet” for this album. Track 10 is “Bones of Elvis”, originally the opening track from the incomparably wonderful “Maximum Effect” album. Nothing can touch the sheer genius (and bad taste) of that original version but this is still a welcome inclusion.

“Walking in the Sky” turns out to be no more than an interlude of ambient space noises, with the title chanted in the background during the last minute or so. “Lunar Sea” is a Simon House instrumental (which also appears on one of his Spiral Realms albums) and is never less than pleasant. Track 13 is another ICU 1st album track, “Fallout”. Then we have the unfamiliar title “Andromeda”, which turns out to be a new setting of some of the lyrics from “Two Worlds” (from the Maximum Effect) and is hence nothing short of sacrilege! The album closes with GPO doing his “Space Station Announcement”.

So, quite a good album, especially if you happen to like ICU, but you really need to go back to the source, in this case the original ICU albums. Prophets of Time appeared on Cleopatra (CLEO69082) in 1994.

Worth checking out: Ballet Dancer – 4X

This is an instrumental album released on vinyl on the American Phonograph label in 1985. Since American Phonograph was the original home of “Space Ritual volume 2” and the LP was recorded at Foel studios, it will come as no surprise that the Hawkwind connection is the appearance of Dave Anderson on bass. All the material was written by Paul Sinden, who also played guitar and keyboards. The other musicians were Dave Earnshaw (sax, flute) and Clive Brooks (drums).

This is not space rock or even particularly heavy rock, and not remotely like Hawkwind. It is well-played, tasteful, instrumental rock music, a bit repetitive admittedly and occasionally reminiscent of Focus, Camel or King Crimson (probably mainly because of the prominent sax and flutes).

Side one kicks off with “Hide In The Rain”: a brief acoustic guitar intro gives way to the main (synth) riff, Dave Anderson’s bass prominent in the mix, especially underneath the screaming guitar solos. There is plenty of light and shade and frequent changes of pace: a promising start. “Breaker” is faster and more aggressive, with the sax coming in on the main riff and Dave Anderson's bass again prominent. “Tin Soldier” is somewhat Camel-like and the closing “Ballet Dancer” is a slower reflective piece, with wordless (synthesised?) female backing vocals.

The opening track on side 2, “In The Fire”, is probably the most varied track on the album, with several passages in varying styles. The fast passages recall Focus while the slow passages feature acoustic guitar and (again) wordless ethereal voices. The remainder of side 2 is taken at a more relaxed pace, comprising “Possessed”, “October” and the brief “Ballet Dancer (Reprise)”.

I hadn’t listened to this in years but it’s now on a tape in the car and has provided very good accompaniment to the morning traffic jams every morning this week. It is difficult to find – and don’t expect a lost classic – but it is a good album.

Approach with extreme caution Harvey Bainbridge – Interstellar Chaos

Harvey Bainbridge seems like a decent bloke: he was certainly very gracious about signing an autograph for me before the 2000 Christmas gig. He played bass and/or keyboards on some really good Hawkwind albums and he wrote the music for the sublime “Freefall”. On the other hand there is the small matter of “Dreamworker”. A harmless enough experiment when it first appeared on “Choose Your Masques”, it then refused to go away, reappearing under various titles every tour and on just about every live album. A little bit of it even appeared under the title “Blue Dreamer” on the Travellers Aid Trust album, thus luring the unsuspecting buyer into thinking there were two proper Hawkwind tracks present (the first being “Brainstorm 88”).

“Interstellar Chaos” is a sort of mini-history of (or homage to) early Tangerine Dream. It starts off like
“Alpha Centauri” or “Atem”, i.e. all random and

rather unsettling space noises, before the sequencers and some suggestions of melody appear, moving us towards “Rubycon” or “Ricochet” territory.

Side 1 kicks off with “Mistiness In Orion’s Head”. This is not music as we know it, Jim, and frankly if my head felt like that I’d take an aspirin. Track 4, “Cosmic Junk” introduces some mechanical rhythms, like factory machinery in the background, topped by a miasma of whooshing sounds, groans and burbles and lasts almost nine minutes.

Tracks 9 and 10, “Gravitational Pull” and “Voyager 1”, both benefit from some sequenced rhythm and hints of melody – and, for a combined total of 20 minutes, move towards (without achieving) the classic Tangerine Dream sound. Some bird song gets mixed into “In the Wake of Passing Clouds” – but Pink Floyd did it better on “Cirrus Minor”.

“Heading: Cygnus X-1” puts us firmly back into headache territory for 14 long, long, minutes and “Sunspot in H-alpha Light” is no easier on the ears, only shorter. “Cosmic Bubble” introduces a drum machine to no great effect before something most peculiar happens: the last track (“Lost Orbit”) is actually musical and almost funky for two minutes.

The album clocks in at 78 minutes. It might make a great soundtrack for a horror movie but it is not easy listening. The CD was released on the Taste label (Taste 40) in 1993 and the rather fetching psychedelic cover, picturing a mad-eyed Harvey perched over a keyboard, should be warning enough!