This piece was written by Graham, to whom my grateful thanks
“Pounding Drums” does pretty much what it says on the tin, with Jerry Richards adding squalls of guitar and Steve Taylor providing bass and spoken vocals. “Coupsticks” features a relentless riff along the lines of “We Do It”, over which Richard sings, before chilling out with swirling strings and synths. Steve Taylor appears again on “Shores Of Our Imagination”; this a spoken word piece with sound effects.
There is no label or catalogue number and the CD comes in a card sleeve, packaged with six CD-case-sized inserts on which are printed the lyrics, illustrations, and credits. It was released in 2000 and was available from Star Nation, PO Box 2979, Frome, Somerset, BA11 4XZ; I’ve no idea if it is still available.
The first disc is something a science fiction concept album, a space opera with monstrous guitar riffs and soaring vocal harmonies. Totally preposterous and ridiculously bombastic – and thoroughly excellent! Sample lyrics (cue vocal harmonies): “we have found the seventh sign, down in the catacombs, when the seven points align, they will lead us all back home”.
I have to admit that I have generally found Dave Brock’s solo work to be a bit disappointing, for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, there is a tendency to repeat tracks, including songs also released by Hawkwind, and/or recycle lyrics, riffs and melody lines. Secondly, despite being the true voice of Hawkwind he rarely presents his vocals as nature intended, instead burying them deep in the mix or distorting them with effects. Thirdly, the tracks often sound like work in progress and his lyrics are generally not up to the standard of Calvert’s efforts (although few people reach such standards!). Finally, he favours a rather lightweight, even tinny, sound - and rarely rocks out.
The original album had nine tracks on it. “Earthed To The Ground” opens the album in a catchy, if slightly irritating, fashion. This track is also known as “Wired Up For Sound” from the third “Friends and Relations” album – and this kind of lyric is probably best left to Cliff Richard! “Assassination” is of course “Some People Never Die” from “Church of Hawkwind” (it first appeared on WEIRD 101 and also reappeared on “Spacebrock”). It is (just in case you have somehow missed hearing it) basically a sound collage of the reporting of the Kennedy and Oswald assassinations. Track 3 is a fine solo rendition of “Green Finned Demon”, not dissimilar to the band version on the “Earth Ritual Preview” EP.
“Spirits” is a pleasant if repetitive synth and sequencer-based instrumental. “Sweet Obsession” is something that has rarely featured on band albums, namely a love song. Despite a tinny sound it is a decent pop song. “Oscillations” is a short, rather plaintive ballad. “Machine Dream” is another repetitive synth and sequencer track, which goes nowhere for 3 minutes until, near the end, a (justifiably annoyed) listener is heard complaining about the noise! “Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent” is Brock doing Shakespeare and first appeared on WEIRD 107. Probably the best track is “On The Case”, with Brock playing the private detective with sardonic humour. This lasts seven minutes – an epic along the lines of (although not in the style of) Dire Straits’ “Private Investigations”!
The CD adds five bonus tracks, all of which sound rather raw and underproduced – and the better for it: both sides of the “Social Alliance” single (although I think they are re-recordings), the aforementioned “Wired Up For Sound” (again emphatically not the original version, this has the punky, nihilistic feel of “Valium 10”), a version of “Sleep Of A Thousand Tears” (bizarrely presented as a sequencer-based track with almost whispered vocals) and the completely unfamiliar instrumental title “Riding the range”. The last track on the CD is a raw and aggressive take on “Social Alliance”, which rather disproves my point about Brock never rocking out on his solo releases and is actually rather good.
With typical care and attention to detail, the CD booklet claims that only “Green Finned Demon” had been previously released. Anyway, this was released by Voiceprint in 2003 along with a similarly retooled “Agents of Chaos” as a double CD (HAWKVP23CD). Despite all the criticisms above, this remains an essential purchase for any Hawkwind fan and, if you knew nothing of its history, you might find it to be a varied and fairly enjoyable album.
Side 2 of the vinyl release is straightforward: six bands, six titles, six pieces of music: “Heads”, “Nocturne”, “Wastelands Of Sleep”, “Empty Dreams”, “Into The Realms” and
Side 1 of the LP has 4 bands, 5 titles and 6 pieces of music. Band 1 is “Hi Tech Cities”. No problems there. Band 2 contains two pieces: the first is Crum’s Andean flavoured “A Day” – basically the same track as “Nocturne”; the second is clearly a Dave Brock piece with the lyrics of “Treadmill”, sung in the light, jaunty style of “On The Case”. Since the lyrics refer to office life I think it’s pretty conclusive that this is “In The Office”. On the CD both tracks are grouped under the title “A Day”. Band 3 also contains two pieces, the first of which has the “Back In The Box” lyrics. The second band-3 song refers to Hades in the lyrics and is clearly “Hades Deep”. On the CD, the first of the band-3 songs has been listed as “In The Office”. The last band on side 1 contains another song that uses the “Back In The Box” lyrics and, logically, this has to be “Words Of A Song”. Some web sites include the lyrics of both the band-3 songs under the title “Hades Deep” but I think there is a more obvious answer. The band does this regularly on stage and they did it on Xenon Codex: namely start one song, shift to another and then return. Hence, I think the track listing on side 1 of the album should probably be “Hi Tech Cities”, “A Day”, “In The Office”, “Words Of A Song (Part 1)”, “Hades Deep”, “Words Of A Song (Part 2)”. This has the sensible consequence that the two songs which feature the “Back in the Box” lyrics can be seen as two parts of the same song!
With that out of the way, there is the question of recycling of material. As we have seen, the words from “In The Office” reappeared in “Treadmill” (where they were used to much better effect). These lyrics also provided the title for “Techno Tropic Zone Exists” from IITBOTFTBD. The words of the song “Words Of A Song” reappeared on “Back In The Box”. Both “Heads” and “Wastelands Of Sleep” turned up on “Xenon Codex”, the former in a markedly different version. A version of “Hi Tech Cities” appeared on the Italian only CD “The Never Ending Story Of The Psychedelic Warlords”, on which it was credited to Hawkwind. Lastly, the riff from “Hades Deep” sounds rather like that from “Streets Of Fear”.
So to the music: the album kicks off with “Hi Tech Cities”, an unmemorable tune with a typically bleak Brock lyric about how crap it is living in cities and in the country as well! Next up is the excellent Andean-flavoured Crum instrumental “A Day”, followed by the “Treadmill” tune, which we will call “In The Office”. Then comes what I’m calling “Words Of A Song (Part 1), which is a brief, rather cheesy keyboard-based tune with the “Back In The Box” lyrics.
“Hades Deep”, with its oppressive riff, takes us on a tour of hell, with possibly Brock’s blackest lyric yet (“And your babies we shall kill, your mother will die a hideous death”, etc). “Words Of A Song (Part 2)” uses the cute device of having the performance fading in and out as someone turns the tuning dial on a radio.
Quite what “Heads” is about I can’t quite figure out – it could be animal experiments or possibly a brave new world in which humans are preserved forever in suspended animation; whatever, the imagery is again grim. The reprise of “A Day” as “Nocturne” is welcome light relief and is followed by possibly Dave’s most affecting love song (co-written with Kris Tait), “Wastelands Of Sleep”, in which he escapes the torment apparent on the rest of the album, in sleep, “and then I can reach out for your touch – am I asking for too much?”
On the vinyl, the next track is the short Crum instrumental “Empty Dreams”. On the CD we jump directly to the (presumably mis-titled) “Into The Realms”. Over an insistent bass riff and various other synth tracks, the spoken lyrics offer another disturbing vision. On the CD, the extra track “Infinity” is inserted here. It fits the mood quite well, even if it doesn’t otherwise belong on this album. Advance publicity claimed that Lemmy featured on this track but, since it differs little from the original PXR5 track, this doesn’t seem very credible. Mind you, the credits on the PXR5 album imply Simon King’s presence on this track, which also sounds unlikely! The last track, “Mountain In The Sky” is a rather light and relaxed instrumental built on a percussion track.
Overall, this is a pretty bleak album in terms of its lyrical content; apparently all was not well on planet Brock. However, it’s sometimes very good and rarely less than interesting. It’s just a pity that the CD re-issue mucks around with the track listing. As a final note, the person who had the bright idea of using the “Earthed To The Ground” album cover image, of Dave Brock in shades and lab coat carrying a machine gun / guitar, on both CD labels has a lot to answer for! On the “Agents of Chaos” CD, a negative of the image is used, making Dave Brock look like a cosmic Jimmy Saville!
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