Hawkwind

Yeah, as a teenager I absolutely adored a ton of sci-fi and fantasy stuff that I would shudder to re-encounter as an adult, so I think it's best to leave him.

(I also wonder if there is a similar ~magic age~ at which one has to encounter Hawkwind for the first time, where they are able to capture that sense of wonder - like seeing them at 13 would have been amazing! But also, seeing them for the first time at 40, I felt transported to being about 13 again, so perhaps not?)

I've read the Elric books — first as a teenager, and then a few years ago; re-bought the whole DAW paperback series on eBay. They're okay. I didn't find anything especially "problematic" in them aside from incest among royalty, which...whatever. The prose is as overwrought as one might expect but each one is a fun enough way to kill an hour or two.

So many of the Elric stories feature the same scenario: he encounters an enemy, calls on supernatural aid which utterly vanquishes his foe, but kills one of his friends or allies at the same time. It's more like reading a book of myths than a dramatic novel.

Moorcock's prose is not great either, but many of the scenes and setups are interesting to recall when you're not actually reading his writing.

I feel Moorcock as editor has aged better than Moorcock as author? His run on New Worlds magazine is all-time and from a "heavy downer entropic SF" point of view feel very Hawkwind-adjacent. Also some amazing design in the original mags. Some of those paperback anthologies are well worth picking up IMO.

Moorcock churned them out by the yard in the 1960s (partly to finance New Worlds) - I find a lot of them tough going but some are fun - from memory The Black Corridor was a pretty good space-based bad trip novel.

I just downloaded a set of several of the novels in PDF form, and it just started out waxing poetical about Elric's ~milk-white hair~ and ~crimson eyes~, and this is such serious Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way shit I gotta laugh?

Will reading this RUIN Hawkwind for me?

I also wonder if there is a similar ~magic age~ at which one has to encounter Hawkwind for the first time

I have evangelised about Hawkwind forever but feel fairly sure I have never managed to get a single person into them. Maybe a track or two but not beyond that, so perhaps 13 really is the magic age to get into them?

I don't think reading Moorcock will ruin them for you.

Whhy does the namme of everyything in thiis bookk havve unneccessarry doubble letterrs?

I'm trying to think of how I first got into Hawkwind - I was a bit older than 13, but still very definitely in my teens. Maybe 17 or 18? There was this local punk rock dude that my girlfriend (and I, TBH) were kind of obsessed with - he played bass in the local noise rock band. Anyway, he loved Lemmy, and he kept raving about how great Hawkwind were - I think he played The Black Corridor for us? He used to recite the words all the time, for any occasion, and it just sounded like the most amazing thing I had ever heard.

So I had this idea in my head that Hawkwind were ~the coolest band in the galaxy~ already set in my head, before I ever heard an album by them.

I was 13, maybe 14 and a friend had bought "Warrior On The Edge Of Time" and hated it so gave it to me saying " you like weird stuff so might like this", which was odd as i don't think anything I was into at that point was at all weird.

But he was right and it was an epiphany. I can still remember listening for the first time to the part where "Assault and Battery" turns into "Golden Void" (which i always thought was a Mellotron but is actually Simon House's violin) and just knowing I was 1000% in.

Aw, that is such a good album! I'm kinda jealous you got to start with *that* one, at such a young age, because it is at this point probably my favourite of theirs? (When bands transition between two very distinct eras, I always find that the transition point albums are my favourites.)

I was looking for it all day yesterday and couldn't find my physical copy. (Maybe I lent it to someone; maybe I never had one and ripped it off a friend?)

Now of course I've got to listen to it on Spotify and try to find that point you describe - the general deep, intense, phaseiness of all of the sounds, how they mesh together in this cloud of wall-of-sound that is both unbelievably dense and absolutely lighter than air in the vaccuum of space...

Aw yeah, I just got there and listening for it carefully, I got shivers, man! There's a lifting, orchestral 'strings' sound, on top of the gurgling electronics sound, but also an incredibly strange almost shrieking horse-whinny sound (maybe it is Magnu of the Golden Mane?) that kicks in about 5:50 spirals up into the void - is that the thing you're talking about?

(It's so strange the way that I listen to this music with two minds at once - like, there is a sensible adult mind telling me that this stuff is completely and patently absurdly ridiculous, and then at the same time, there is some kind of childish wonder-mind that *always* wins out, and just thinks this is the most wondrous and awe-inspiring and magical thing I have ever heard?)

((There is this... vocal quality to The Wizard Blew His Horn that is *exactly* the same thing that I love about that Enigma record The Voice And The Snake we were all talking about the other week. It is totally ~Reading The Gospel In Church~ tone and it just does something to me, there should be incense and coloured lights and men in strange robes and everything is both fearful and amazing.))

Yes, around 5.50 is exactly the moment. Into the void with Magnu of the Golden Mane :-)

I have the two minds at once thing going on too. It is indeed absurdly ridiculous but also ecstatic, joyous, almost overwhelming, and yes, awe-inspiring and magical. I never tire of hearing it.

the last Hawkwind album I heard was "Amazing Sounds, Astounding Music". despite the title I did not find the sounds nor music all that great. "Kerb Crawler" is an excellent tune though

"Amazing Sounds, Astounding Music" is one of my favourites and I'm always perplexed as to why it gets so little love. Not even a bit of love for the mighty "Steppenwolf?"

Under skies heavy with snow
My eyes are convex lenses of ebony
Embedded in amber
I am a man-wolf
The fat bourgeois and his doppelganger
Are buried in their solid glare
Twin specimens of insect, set for display
I am a wolf-man

Of course it is "Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music"

idk...the grooves just feel so bare

I do love the lyrics to that tune of course

Hawkwind may not be a band for me

Haha, OMG those lyrics are beyond Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Calvert but alright, alright, Stirmonster I will give it a listen tonight!

Ha ha! To retread what was being discussed yesterday, it is the way those words SOUND / Calvert's phrasing that does it for me.

Hawkwind may not be a band for me

Not at all! "Astounding Sounds...." is much derided and many big time Hawkfans loathe it.

I think the bare grooves are what I love. It grooves in a way none of their other records do and i love the production.

it is worth noting that Dave Brock still to this day disowns it. He even apologised for it on the inside sleeve of their next album. He is wrong.

so then which later albums would you recommend

Post 1975 I'd recommend "Quark Strangeness & Charm", "PXR5" and the Hawklords album. Once we get past '79 apart from a few songs and "Church Of Hawkwind" (which i dig but is even more disliked by many Hawkfans than "Astounding Sounds"), I'm pretty much out.

Not even a bit of love for the mighty "Steppenwolf?"

Chiming in to say that this is one of my favorite Calvert tunes. Great lyrics, great performance.

Ha! It's really funny, how reading the lyrics on a page, I was convinced that was the worst song evah, but going back and listening to the tune - Robert Calvert's delivery, and how absolutely he embodies those ridiculous lyrics with complete intensity, combined with the atmosphere of the music (that violin!) - it's actually really moving?

Never judge a Hawkwind track by what it looks like on the page! Never!

Reading from Twitter that Nik Turner passed away yesterday :(

ah no! been going through a bit of a hawkwind phase of late too

Me too, totally hooked on 'We Took The Wrong Steps Years Ago', especially.

no!!! i hadn't heard. i had had a strange sense recently we'd lose an OG hawklord but i guess not so strange as they are getting on. really sad.

there are so many great NT tracks. this live D-Rider is just epic. his voice! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSmya2TR5wc

he was the heart of early hawkwind. the gentle out-there heart. last time i saw him with them was early 80s and he was on stage on rollerskates, with the craziest hair looking as if he was in the wrong band. the OG Acid Punk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkqCF3RUuJY

a sad lack of hawklove.

RIP Nik Turner - need to mention his band after Hawkwind - Inner City Unit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APTqKK2YV3s

Still reeling from the sad loss of my friend Nik Turner. I’ve known Nik for nearly 50 years. He was one of a kind. An inspiring and warm hearted human being, always game for musical adventures. With his departure this world is a lesser place, as his Spirit rides free. ♥️

— Steve Hillage (@stevehillage) November 12, 2022

i forgot how good this is (reminded by the hillage tweet).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63S4x_xBwDI

this one too, with Miquette Giraudy on vocals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U05HunYjwM

hadn't heard either of those before, very cool

listening to 25 Years On by Hawklords right now, where have you been all my life you beautiful new wave/solo eno/space rock/berlin bowie concoction??

See also Hawkwind's "Quark, Strangeness and Charm"

so a local bar here does a "prog night" every week and I befriended enough people there to feel obligated to go to the first ever performance of a Hawkwind tribute act (I mean nearly the entire band goes to this). they played at 11 PM and did like 5 songs off Space Ritual to a very young and very very drunk crowd and it fucking KILLED. and they say Hawkwind just isn't cool anymore (disclaimer: only like three of us knew who Hawkwind were)

Cool

Hawkwind is always cool, it is "they" who are wrong

Imagine doing the Del/Dik Mik roles in a Hawkwind tribute act, what fun!

... and Stacia?

no but the drummer (who was shroomin) was in a corset

I used to play sometimes in the audio generator role with a band heavily influenced by Hawkwind, it was quite fun! Easiest gig ever I have to say, I was using a Moog Rogue.

lol yeah the dude doing that was a pretty accomplished musician but I think didn't practice with the band at all. the sax dude wasn't very good and was relieved to find out nobody could really hear him. also the smoke machine went into overdrive and apparently after the first song they couldn't see anyone in the audience. I told them they probably didn't need it because so many people were vaping in front anyway. the drummer was insane though. you ever see that "drummer at the wrong gig" video? he played like that the whole time

Nik Turner was never exactly Sonny Rollins either tbf

Imagine doing the Del/Dik Mik roles in a Hawkwind tribute act, what fun!

i'd sign up for that, though i think Del did have some actual musical talent so maybe I'd be best suited to the Dik Mik crank the joystick on the VCS3 role.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb9xyMY2dFo

frogbs this sounds amazing, I am so jealous. let's bring Hawkwind back in the 2020s!

No details yet, but Cherry Red just announced that on September 29 they'll be releasing a 10 CD/1 Blu-Ray box set of Space Ritual. I think my brain just melted...

i can't see it on the website but eager to hear what is on it. i see there is also a steven wilson remix of warrior on the edge of time forthcoming too. i don't feel a need to hear a remixed version but interesting it is coming in the OG shield sleeve.

Speculation on Twitter from Joe Banks (author of Days of the Underground)

If we have a remix/remaster of the original, plus the full Brixton and Liverpool shows, that's 6CDs. Then Sunderland and/or Margate. 2 Blu-Rays for 5.1 mix. But what I REALLY hope is included is the Wembley Pool footage I unearthed during my book research, restored and synched! pic.twitter.com/FnOb82ZqU3

— Joe Banks (@JoeBanksWriter) June 14, 2023

Yeah, I saw that. And apparently the band's current bassist has confirmed the Sunderland show will be in there.

This is great, I listen to Space Ritual and the surrounding live recordings more than any other Hawkwind records, so to have a bunch of these gigs in full would be excellent.

More info - https://www.loudersound.com/news/hawkwind-detail-mammoth-eleven-disc-space-ritual-box-set

frogbs, has the Hawkwind tribute band had any more performances?