Hawkwind
Warrior On The Edge Of Time
(Atomhenge)
"If marijuana doesn’t cause extensive brain damage, how come so many people
listen to Hawkwind?". So spoke Peter Frame, in his "Rock Family
Tree" of the group, quoting "a characteristic jibe from the music
press, who tended to regard Hawkwind as a novelty item".
This is not a joke that was first coined about Hawkwind, of course, this joke
already being in circulation at the end of the 60s, on both sides of the
Atlantic, a propos of more than a few groups. But it’s true that – though
for about a couple of decades they enjoyed a degree of popularity that,
though it could not definitely be called "on a mass scale", it
was indeed quite larger than what we usually refer to as
"niche" – Hawkwind do not get the proper amount of respect, the
group having never really been regarded as an entity that’s part of the "history
of rock". Hawkwind as the proverbial underdog, if you like.
But if one has a look at the Hawkwind Family Tree page designed by Peter Frame
in 1979 – a date that’s quite close to the moment when the most interesting
phase in the life of the group actually ends – one is presented with the
history of a group that, through various line-ups, financial problems,
various confrontations with the law, more than a few record companies,
and an "internal temperature" that more than once was quite close
to reaching the boiling point, managed to formulate an archetype in sound
that’s easy to recognize after a few notes.
Here archetype does not equal monotony: with just a few modifications, the
group managed to inhabit with a fair degree of confidence such diverse "genres" as "space
jam",
"rigid groove", "proto-ambient", "almost-techno",
"rock song", "cosmic ballad", with the help of saxophones,
guitars, drums, and synthesizers, and a whole series of "topical preoccupations" –
from social issues concerning the use of power, to premonitions about ecology
(check the ballad We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago, off X In Search Of Space),
to dark sci-fi tales (who else could have imagined a giant factory where
workers unknowingly make angels’ wings?).
It’s an archetype that sees guitar player, singer, and main composer Dave Brock
as the only constant member through decades, Brock being to Hawkwind what
Robert Fripp was to King Crimson – though the gap in technical ability
between the two musicians, and the two groups, could not be larger.
And so, due to their limited technical skills, one could reasonably expect
that Punk embraced Hawkwind with open arms – it has to be said that if
there was a group from the "old wave" that had nothing to fear
from Punk, it was Hawkwind – but no, for a simple reason: Hawkwind was "a
group of old hippies". That includes the "leather and amphetamines" mutation
going under the name Lemmy, by the way, who learned to play bass guitar
while a member of Hawkwind, and who later found fame and fortune with Motörhead,
the group he founded after he was sacked from Hawkwind. Lemmy being nowadays
a "celebrity" on a world scale, of course.
Does an explanation that holds water actually exist? Well, it seems to me that
the UK press never had any love for Hawkwind, who for various reasons were
always regarded as being "out of step" compared to what was "in
fashion", and so given just the slightest amount of attention only
when a good placement in the charts made it impossible for the music press
to ignore them, members of Hawkwind being embarrassingly similar to your
typical "freak" who’s always an object of ridicule. This is both
true of Hawkwind, of course, and of those who – due to their appearance,
clothes, and haircuts, also their life philosophy – are regarded as specimens
who are unfit to incorporate and symbolize any of those "modern"
trends about which music magazines love to write at great length: the changes
in sexual roles of Glam Rock; the "social unrest" of Punk Rock;
the
"modern attitude" of New Wave. And when those fans of the
"French Nuveau Philosophers" of the structuralist kind got their
proper megaphone thanks to colourful monthlies such as The Face, the battle
was over. Today the "English Disease" has infected the whole Earth,
as today’s attitude when it comes to those people whose art is said to
"transform" and "subvert" – from Madonna, to Lady GaGa,
to Ke$ha – easily demonstrates.
Though
nobody knew it at the time, Hawkwind were born "old", a p.s.
to the dream of a "counterculture alternative" which just a few
years earlier was in full bloom with such groups as Syd Barrett’s Pink
Floyd, Soft Machine, and The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown (the guy who wore
a hat that emitted fire). Venues had names like Roundhouse and Middle Earth.
"Alternative society" needed money, and so benefit concerts, to
cover those legal expenses. Hawkwind played a lot of them, with the help
of people like Liquid Len (Jonathan Smeeton) – who with his Lensmen curated
the group’s light-show in the 70s – and Barney Bubbles (Colin Fulcher), who
designed many colourful record covers and posters for the group. (Here readers
could trace a parallel with the panorama of such US venues as The Fillmore.)
Readers
are invited to imagine – with a certain degree of caution, of course –
the show Hawkwind brought on tour thanks to the money they got from sales
of their fluke hit – #3 – Silver Machine: lights, dancers, a "poet
in residence"
(Bob Calvert, who’ll later become the group’s singer), and Stacia, "the
naked dancer". (Somewhere there’s also Nik Turner, wearing a frog costume,
sliding towards the edge of the stage.) A song like Silver Machine (it’s…
a bicycle, of course) could be filed under "Chuck Berry with synths",
like many singles the group released as its follow-ups: Urban Guerrilla;
Kings of Speed; Kerb Crawler; Quark, Strangeness and Charm; 25 Years.
Featuring
song titles such as Paranoia and Mirror Of Illusion, the group’s first
album (1970) of same name got labeled as "Space Rock". Willie
Dixon’s Bring It On Home and Pink Floyd’s Cymbaline, featured as bonus
tracks on CD editions, show some of the group’s influences lurking in the
shadows.
The
group’s style appears to be fully formed by the time of their second album,
X In Search of Space (1971), again featuring "space explorations",
Terry Ollis’s light-sounding drums, and Nik Turner’s "uncertain"
saxophones. (Truth or legend, it was told at the time that roadies had to
stand behind certain players being too incapacitated to perform.) The album
features the group’s two distinctive voices: Dave Brock’s barely controlled
hysteria; and Nik Turner’s opium-scented torpor. Both are quite versatile,
by the way, against all expectations.
Doremi
Fasol Latido (1972) has a new rhythm section, which would become a model
of sorts: the aforementioned Lemmy on bass guitar, and Simon King on drums.
The double live album titled Space Ritual (1973) presents the audio portion
of the tour financed with the royalties from the hit Silver Machine. Hall
Of The Mountain Grill (1974) has a wider instrumental palette, thanks to
former High Tide and Third Ear Band Simon House’s keyboards and violin.
I
have to confess that I had never thought of Hawkwind as being a
"Progressive" group. So, a few years ago, I was quite surprised
to see the group featured in a Mojo Special Edition issue about Prog (the
one with with Pink Floyd on its cover). And it’s for its being considered
as part of the
"Prog" movement that this new re-release of Warrior On The Edge
Of Time (1975), the album that for many years was "the missing chapter"
in the group’s discography, was announced with such great fanfare. (The album
features vocals and lyrics by Michael Moorcock, the famous sci-fi writer
who often contributed to Hawkwind’s work.)
It
has to be said that the album had already been re-released in CD format,
twice, but never before "from the original master tapes". It
appears that the European edition was dubbed from a vinyl copy. While the
US edition was said to be from a 1:1 analogue transfer of the master. Today’s
re-release comes in various formats, with bonus tracks, new stereo mixes
by Steven Wilson, Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround sound mix by Steven Wilson,
DVD-A Lossless new stereo mix by Steven Wilson, DVD-A 96kHz 24-Bit Flat
transfer of the original 1975 stereo master tapes, a vinyl LP, a big box
which comes with a book, and so on.
Faithful
to the original "hippy" spirit, I listened to the new digital
remaster of the original mix, which I compared to my original vinyl LP
(a UK pressing from 1975, "A Porky Prime Cut"), and to the CD
by Dojo. I have no problem calling the new remaster quite good, with a
lot of level, but no compression to strangle the sound. The dark, claustrophobic
dimension of the original LP is for me the perfect match for this material.
While the added highs and the more "open" soundstage of the new
CD offer a different listening experience.
The
arrival of new member Simon House had not been greeted with universal acclaim,
given the great gap in performing skills that made Hawkwind so different
from High Tide, the prodigious quartet playing "intellectual metal" of
which House was a past member. Also, due to what some regarded as a meagre
contribution by Simon House to the first Hawkwind album on which he appeared,
Hall Of The Mountain Grill. But it appears that the only thing House needed
was more time. A large part for the success of Warrior On The Edge Of Time,
House will contribute a great deal, both with his instrumental and compositional
side, to those later albums which saw the voice, personality, and narrative
of Bob Calvert coming to the fore, which in a way could be considered as
being Hawkwind’s answer to "new wave": Astounding Sounds, Amazing
Music (1976), where Turner’s vocals are featured on House’s piano ballad
Kadu Flyer. Quark, Strangeness and Charm (1977), which widens the synth
palette in a
"modern" way. On both live and studio tracks on PXR5 (1979). While
his contribution to the album titled 25 Years On, released under the name
Hawklords (1978), was by comparison quite muted: In fact, by then House had
become a member of David Bowie’s new group – check the double live album
titled Stage, and those videos widely spread online.
Three
brief spoken interludes with synths, percussion, and lotsa echoes, are
the freakiest part of Warrior On The Edge Of Time. Here readers will have
to judge for themselves . Compared to their previous studio efforts, this
album shows the group acting with more care and clarity, both in execution
and intention. An agile, "percussive", drummer, Alan Powell,
plays alongside Simon King, the palette now more complete. On tenor and
soprano, also on flute, Nik Turner plays with more discipline than in the
past, with fine results – a flute solo on the first track is bound to remind
one of Chris Wood of Traffic.
The
medley of Assault And Battery/The Golden Void which opens the album is
very good, with wide keyboards appearing under the bass guitar’s tense
opening phrase. Vocals, percussion, and keyboards – the Mellotron to the
fore – feed the flute the chords during the solo. A filter modulation (I
seem to remember that at the time House made ample use of Korg instruments)
acts as dramatic transition, the second track featuring a soprano sax solo
which moves through the left-right axis, also back-to-front, at times engulfed
by keyboards.
Opa-Loka
features both drummers, and Brock on bass, with moves that in a way could
be said to remind one of Neu! – let’s not forget that Brock penned the
liner notes to the UK edition of the German duo’s first album – but here
flute and keyboards are bound to remind one of UK psychedelia.
The
Demented Man is the classic Brock ballad with acoustic guitar. The main
instrumental part is played by House on overdubbed Mellotrons, all featuring
vocal timbres. A perfect close to Side One.
The
sound of flames and the wind start Magnu, featuring the tenor, an electric
guitar filtered through a wha-wha pedal, "Turkish" percussion,
and a violin performance by House that reminds one of High Tide.
Spiral
Galaxy 28948 features a Moog synthesizer, percussion, flute, and
"whistles", and is the only moment on the album that could really
be defined as "Prog". Dying Seas is the classic opium-scented ballad
by Turner, which makes a fine contrast with the previous track.
The
album closing track, Kings Of Speed, already released as a single, features
echoes, a violin that’s almost country & western (!), and easy-to-get
lyrics.
As
on previous CD editions, Motorhead – nowadays a very famous track, at the
time of its original release it was just a single B-side – appears as a
bonus track. (I get the stick of gum, I get the fourth day of a five-day
marathon, what I don’t get is "we’re moving like a parallelogram".)
I’ve
already talked about what came later. Here I’ll just add Levitation (1980),
where the group’s style easily accommodates (surprise!) Ginger Baker’s
meticulous rhythmic subdivisions (for those who are interested, there are
also legal live recordings out there), and Sonic Attack’s techno-metal
(1981). This period sees the return of the group’s former lead guitar player,
Huw Lloyd-Langton, who had disappeared from view after album #1 due to
an incredibly traumatic LSD trip (he died a few months ago; interested
readers will have no problem investigating what happened next when it comes
to the group’s former members, starting with bipolar Bob Calvert, who’s
no longer with us).
I’ll
stop here, quoting Michael Moorcock who on Sonic Attack invites us to
"question the nature of our orders", Dave Brock adding that
"future generations are relying on us/it’s a world we made incubus".
Just like old hippies.
Beppe
Colli
© Beppe Colli 2013
CloudsandClocks.net June
9, 2013