Last night I did something I've been meaning to do for some weeks. I watched a BBC documentary about 70s space-rockers Hawkwind I recorded last month. Until yesterday I knew nothing about the band other than they had a rubbish name and Lemmy had been among their number before he formed Motorhead. If you're equally ignorant, the All Music Guide nicely sums up their marijuana-scented essence:
Any sci-fi fan with long memories probably remembers those 1970s DAW paperback editions of Michael Moorcock's sword-and-sorcery novels, with their images of heavily armored, very muscular warriors, carrying large swords and standing against eerie land- and starscapes. Take that imagery, throw in some terminology and names seemingly lifted from the Marvel Comics of the era (The Watcher, etc.) and particle physics articles of the period, translate it into loud but articulate hard rock music, and that's more or less what Hawkwind is about.
Psychedelic guitar wig-outs would be banished to my Room 101 and I watched the programme more because a colleague described it as a real-life This is Spinal Tap rather than to learn more about Hawkwind's music. On that score I was not disappointed.
Hawkwind were obsessed with space-fantasy. Their allegiance with Michael Moorcock was more than inspirational; he wrote some of their lyrics. (The writer tells a lovely anecdote about introducing Arthur C Clarke to William Burroughs at a party. The scientist and Beat prophet got on famously). To hear the band recall their 1972 Space Ritual tour makes it sound like an audio-visual display to rival the final scenes of Close Encounters. Sadly no video exists, but Lemmy suggests that you can approximate the experience by dropping five tabs of acid, spinning the double live LP, getting out some oil and projecting it on the wall.
Lemmy was involved in many of Hawkwind's most Tap-esque incidents. While touring the American mid-west he wandered off, out of his mind, later to find himself abandoned by the rest of the band. He then hitchhiked across Michigan to meet his band mates. The next day he was busted for drugs going into Canada and fired. Lemmy and Hawkwind's Dave Brock tell the story most animatedly in this clip from another programme.
My favourite piece of nutty behaviour recounted in the programme involves sax player and Egyptoligist Nik Turner. He was fired from the band in 1976 for playing over other people's solos but re-joined in the early 80s. He memorably describes one of Hawkwind's appearances at the Stonehenge Festival where he wore a skin-tight bodystocking and careened around the stage on rollerskates. Turner thought this was the height of performance art. His band mates disagreed and he was soon fired again.
The documentary is full of these tragic drug-fuelled anecdotes. It's also fascinating about the Ladbroke Grove hippy scene of the 60s and 70s and makes some bold claims about Hawkwind's music: they were electronica pioneers and pre-empted punk and acid house.
I've got nothing against old music, I just prefer it played on a mandolin rather than a Mellotron. There weren't enough songs in the programme for me to make an educated assessment of Hawkwind's music but I still suspect it's not my cup of tea. Though that would probably change if, like most of the band's beverages seemed to be, it was spiked with PCP.
Addendum
My friend Wayne, who DJs the brilliant Uptight night at the Albany on the last Saturday of every month, emailed me after reading this. He said they've played Hawkwind's cover of Gimme Shelter on more than one occasion. I looked it up and it turns I actually have a copy on a 2002 freebie compilation from Uncut magazine. Wayne suggested it sounds a bit like early Spiritualized. See what you think.
MP3: Hawkwind - Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones cover)
Related Links
Hawkwind: Do Not Panic - the BBC doc
YouTube: Hawkwind Doc - of course it's here to watch
Hawkwind - they're still at it; this is the official site
Space Ritual - Nik Turner and other former Hawkwind members' band
