17th March 2004
Orgone Accumulator
Faster than the Space Ritual Alive original and completely without the gravitas - this version sounds somehow brittle, skittering along like a speeded-up 12 bar pub blues number. Nik Turner introduces the song as "something devised by Wilhelm Reich" and proceeds to take the lead vocals, which he fairly spits out. Huw Lloyd Langton also stands out for his frenetic delivery -he does the usual Huw things that come out when he doesn't know what else to play- and no-one particularly shines. Alan Davey does a good job of holding it all together, but in 1984 he was still new enough to the band to be still playing only the root notes, and not stretching out at all. Brock is inaudible, Harvey's synth colourings are unexceptional, and Clive Deamer does the business behind the kit all right, in fact he sounds pretty good. Individually each band member sounds fine (except you can hardly hear Brock) but the arrangement...sucks....
Ghost Dance
Starts with some familiar sound effects from "Dream Worker" on the 1982 Choose Your Masques album, and "Dream Dancers" from the 1984 Earth Ritual EP. After that this devolves into what IMHO is one of the worst songs in Hawkwind's portfolio. A joint effort by Bainbridge and Turner, it's seven minutes of dull drum rhythms and heavily echoed almost wordless vocals. Here and there you can pick out a phrase like "Give me my heart". Mostly, though, they sound like Flashman's rendering of Chief Spotted Tail expressing his interest in rogering Mrs Flashman: "(I would like to) hhhrrrruuunnnnhhh!! (with her)". That's a part that Nik could play well, I suspect. (Lemmy would have to be Flashman, of course.)
Sonic Attack
Well this should have been dreadful but isn't half bad, actually. It's pretty much based on the awful 1981 remake but the pace is drawn back a bit from the breathless canter that made this the title track of the Sonic Attack album - and always sounds as though the band themselves know it's no good and are rushing to get through it and onto the next number as quickly as possible. But here it's measured, and Nik's lead vocals are at least twice as good as Harvey's had been on the '81 version.
Watching the Grass Grow
Another bad song. It starts off with some pleasant synthy intro before accelerating to 100mph with a burst of lead guitar. It's similar to the Do Not Panic version but perhaps better rendered - slightly faster and tighter. The best bit about this particular song is the middle section where Nik sings "Post-future reality...it's just the real world" and the band go into a slowish three-chord riff, managing to sound like Hawkwind instead of Inner City Unit. It's in this middle section that Brock can really be heard for the first time, albeit somewhat indistinctly. Once the song moves back to the verse, Clive Deamer's drum style becomes more apparent, and he goes in for some crisp rolls and fills, having almost a poppy style which is nonetheless very effective.
Coded Languages
A long spoken vocal exchange between Nik and Harvey introduces this and was probably meant to be comic (perhaps it actually was at the time) but it fortunately comes to an end and lets the song break out. Harvey sings and that along with Huw's lead guitar is the best thing here. The sound is on the indistinct side, with Brock of all people disappearing into an undifferentiated layer of murk. Nik throws in a decentish sax solo in the instrumental middle passage, but this rendition isn't a patch on the one to be found on the Live 1982 (Collector's Edition) album. Near the end of the number Dave's voice can be heard among the backing vocals and this is almost the first time you would know that he is appearing on this album.
Damned By The Curse of Man
Well this is why I own this CD. This track isn't to be found anywhere else. It's a fairly simple number, with some spouting lyrics sounding as though they might have been penned by Michael Moorcock over a descending sequence of three chords in a minor key. There are some nice washes of keyboard, where Harvey is doing the sort of thing that had been Steve Swindells territory five years previously. Huw throws in some pleasantly noodling lead guitar and there's even a bit of flute from Nik, but Mr. Deamer tries to go all 80's here, and undoes the delicacy of it all by doing something that sounds like the soundtrack to one of the Rocky films.
That marks the end of the 1984 live recording. The second half of the album is from 1988, precise gig unknown...but the sequence of 1988 tracks here (Ejection; Motorway City; Dragons and Fables; Heads; Angels of Death) occurred in a run of gigs between 28/11/88 at the Bournmouth Academy and 15/12/88 at the London Town & Country Club, so this recording is probably from early December 1988.
24/11/2004: According to the sleeve notes of the original white cover "Undisclosed Files" vinyl album, these live tracks, which comprised Side 2, were recorded at Nottingham Rock City on 7th December 1988. "Undisclosed Files" (without the "Addendum") was a promo version of this album and Side 1 had a slightly different tracklist than that shown above. The 1984 tracks consisted of Orgone Accumulator, Sonic Attack, Watching The Grass Grow, Coded Languages, and Damned By The Curse Of Man. And then Side 1 closed out with an otherwise unobtainable 1988 live version of Master Of The Universe. The album as represented in the vinyl promo version has never been issued on CD...
Ejection
Starts off with the control-tower-to-pilot tape from the Captain Lockheed album, while a synth keeps a syncopated rhythm, joined by bass drum and then (finally!) Dave's guitar crunching away. Alan Davey does the lead vocals this time. The synth chugs away throughout the song and this actually helps; for some reason Ejection often sounds as though it is going to go out of control and disintegrate into a thrashing mess. This is one of the better renditions and would be perfect if the sound quality hadn't that fuzzy edge to it. Which is odd, as from this track onwards the recording is from 1988 but the sound quality seems no better, and indeed qualitatively no different; perhaps a mastering issue rather than a recording one?
Motorway City
A long slow intro of the usual synth arpeggios, with some indifferent rhythm guitar chords from Dave Brock - there's very little or no effect on them and they sound febrile and half-hearted. But at long last he *sings*, if not as well as normally,.and maybe this gets him into it: as his guitar playing picks up too, so that by the time they get to the middle section, he's thrashing away like, er, a high octane combine harvester...(or is that threshing?) Huw's wonderful guitar solo is semi-faithfully executed, in a looser and more drawn-out fashion, and from there the track more or less fades out with an extended instrumental.
Dragons and Fables
It's hard to think of this as a Hawkwind track, so strongly is Huw Lloyd Langton's identity stamped upon it. Like most of the rest of this album it's a little too fast and a little too light: this one would benefit from a really thunderous arrangement, which is not going to happen here as Dave Brock doesn't play on this particular number. For the record, the other musicians who play on the 1988 tracks are Richard Chadwick, Alan Davey, Huw Lloyd Langton and Harvey Bainbridge
Heads
A slightly pacier and more dynamic arrangement than some of the others out there. This has some stately traditional organ sound and a subdued pattering synth as the only backing to Dave Brock's vocals on the first verse. For the second verse, the whole band plays, with Alan Davey producing a subtly disturbing undertone with a simple rhythmic variation on the root note. A long middle section features some exceptionally good melodic lead guitar from Huw, and the song finishes off with the last verse being whispered before it fades, and mutates into...
Angels of Death
Here's another one that has a syncopated feeling to it, with sequenced synths being the dominant instrument instead of Dave's guitar, as it should be. The resulting feel is somwhere between pedestrian and restrained, as if something is being held in reserve. I'm not even sure that Dave plays on all the verses, although he does crash and bang away on the choruses, too low in the mix, but not sounding 100% even so. Again, though, he does pick up as the song progresses, so that by the time this one closes out, the band are firing on at least four cylinders :-)
Well, overall this is not a bad album, but it's not one of the best live Hawkwind recordings, either. The main difference between the 1984 and 1988 recordings is the presence of Nik Turner on the former material, and his absence from the latter. Both gigs are very similar in terms of the sound, and once again perhaps it is Huw's contribution that is the most consistent thread running throughout the whole album. As for whether Damned By The Curse of Man makes it worth buying, I'd say no: but committed fans who enjoy live Hawkwind and don't yet have this CD should add it to their collections.
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