advertisement


Can someone kindly explain Hawkwind to me?

kasperhauser

kasperhauser

pfm Member
As stated. I picked up Space Ritual and Warrior on the Edge of Time. Haven't yet heard the former; currently listening to the latter, and think I could be missing something – relevant context or backstory, maybe – that's central to really "getting" it.

I'm coming at this from a position of complete ignorance, other than the constant urging from a friend long ago that I "really needed to get into it". (He was a Hawkwind purist at the time, who subsequently became a Dead Can Dance purist. He was also an Olympic-caliber fencer, if that helps explain anything.)

I'm not saying I don't like it, but I get the feeling it's trying to take me somewhere that I can't quite visualize. I've read a few threads here, but mostly they seem like appreciation posts from those already in the know.

(While you're at it, if you could explain Ozric Tentacles, that would be great. I have Afterswish and find it impenetrable.)
 
If it's the bits in the foreground you refer to, that does help. I've been there and wandered among them. Haven't yet wandered among the bits in the background though, to my knowledge. It is dark, so dark, on the edge of time.

(RE: Ozric, I spent the morning listening to a couple of full albums. Hadn't realized Afterswish was a compilation. The regular releases are much more accessible.)
 
kasperhauser said:
As stated. I picked up Space Ritual and Warrior on the Edge of Time.
Click to expand...

Two very different albums. Space Ritual is the very definition of space-rock, it is a brilliant live album, just totally spaced out and chuggy stoner-rock. Warrior is their token prog album, it’s a different thing and certainly has its moments, but for me the first four albums are where its at with Hawkwind.
 
A misunderstood band. Frequently lumped in with prog, or less imaginatively, heavy metal. To my ears they stand much more in the tradition of the great German kosmische bands (hate that other term) like Amon Düll and Can. There’s not much to get, really. Huge filthy flanged riffs, Lemmy’s propulsive bass, Simon King’s four to the floor pounding drums and lots of whooshy synths that sound great when you’re stoned. The first half dozen or so are the essential Hawkwind. Later albums became a bit of a self-parody and much less interesting. And, as someone already said, best experienced on heroic doses of LSD.
Ozric Tentacles not in the same league. Shameless Gong/ Steve Hillage knock offs. Every album sounds exactly the same so you only ever need one, if any.
 
@Finnegan Agree, the Ozrics were great if you were off your face in a field somewhere but the albums get very samey.
Also I totally agree about using "kosmische" not the other 'k" word.
 
They are fantastic! As are Hillage, Gong, Ozrics etc. Vast amount of drugs mandatory and as someone said it probably helped to be say 20 when you really got into them.

Still need someone to explain The Fall and Joy Division to me.....
 
Finnegan said:
A misunderstood band. Frequently lumped in with prog, or less imaginatively, heavy metal. To my ears they stand much more in the tradition of the great German kosmische bands (hate that other term) like Amon Düll and Can. There’s not much to get, really. Huge filthy flanged riffs, Lemmy’s propulsive bass, Simon King’s four to the floor pounding drums and lots of whooshy synths that sound great when you’re stoned.
Click to expand...

Agreed, and worth noting that early pre-Lemmy Hawkwind share a bass player, Dave Anderson, with Amon Düül II. I found Hawkwind as a kid and really liked them as they existed somewhere other than the usual cock-rock ‘widdly-widdly-widdly’ stuff that was all over the place. They just locked down into a groove and stayed there for ten minutes or so with some cool atonal synth abstraction and Nik Turner’s free jazz noodlings on sax. No guitar solos, no showing off, and as you say way more in common with the amazing stuff happening in Germany at that time that I was still to discover (I was way too young to be around any of this first hand, I’d have been 7-8 when Hawkwind, Can, Düül II etc were doing their best stuff. As such I approached it purely as music as a 13-14 year old school kid who went through a sci-fi stage, as so many do. No drugs involved or needed, I just instinctively connected with the ‘un-rockness’ of it, as I did with Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk etc.

PS Somewhat ironically (as I ended up detesting cannabis as it turned far too many of my friends and acquaintances into feckless losers or in some cases killed them) I was actually handed my first ever joint by Nik Turner after an Inner City Unit gig back in 1979!
 
I looked long and hard at the first Hawkwind album in a record shop in Birkenhead, but decided to buy a Jack Bruce album instead. (A similar situation arose with Ten Years After's Cricklewood Green, where I ended up buying Led Zep II).
 
Met Hugh Lloyd Langton in nineties when he played in a friends band, a very low key geyser, like a pocket sized Keith Richards.
Seen them live several times as Portsmouth guildhall was a regular Xmas gig, great live event but couldn’t listen to a whole album.
 
I smoked a joint with Nick Turner after being behind the mixing desk for Nick and his All Stars at an esoteric festival in deepest Wales:cool:o_O:rolleyes::)
I ended up pretty much hearing the "don't make a fuss just get on the bus" line... in as much as after some chilling they wanted me to join them like NOW as their new tech guy to go to the next gig tomorrow.. If It had happened ten years earlier:D
 
Tony L said:
PS Somewhat ironically (as I ended up detesting cannabis as it turned far too many of my friends and acquaintances into feckless losers or in some cases killed them) I was actually handed my first ever joint by Nik Turner after an Inner City Unit gig back in 1979!
Click to expand...

Blaming cannabis for that sort of thing is a bit like blaming gravity for a plane crash and as for killing them........
As for explaining or 'getting' Hawkwind a significant factor I identified growing up (went to my first Hawkwind gig aged 15) was the social class composition of the audience/fan-base. Unlike the prog/other psych type bands, they appealed more to a working class demographic much like in the metal scene that was also emerging (less so punk-which rapidly degenerated into more middle-class aesthetic). Go to a Hawkwind/Nik Turner gig today and it is still readily apparent but with less hair and more belly. Maybe less important from the OP point of view if they are looking at them purely from a retrospective viewpoint, but the more edgy, confrontational atmosphere of that scene throughout the 70s and 80s more suited the type who would attend a Stop the City demo/Stonehenge than a 'keep it fluffy'/modern Glastonbury type events.

As for the 'If you want to get into it, you've got to to get out of it' sentiment. Some people are suited, some aren't.
 
I don’t think there is a simple answer.

If you are looking for an understanding why you should get Hawkwind, then, I don’t think you will.

Rather, it just happens.

Hawkwind, what was the essence?

Counter culture, free festivals, chugging riffs (out did the Krautrock genre in certain examples), escapism, fantasy, drugs (if you needed them), light shows etc. Quite frankly, I can’t give you the answer. It just happens.
 
The correct method to understand them I believe was to get completely s&*t-faced on mind altering substances, 12-72 hour listening session then come back and explain them to others. Trouble is, no-one can remember those hours!

alternatively, I like Michael’s summary.
 
Pretty much the same as previous posters, Hawkwind were a space/prog rock band but lead by Lemmy's propulsive bass riffs, quite unusual for that type of music in their day , Lemmy didn't really fit the band after a while as he became a 'motorhead' (speed rather than LSD) of course Lemmy went onto form 'Motorhead' . Drugs went hand in hand with this sort of music , a bit like early 90's rave and E.
@Tony L cannabis never killed anyone
 
I should, at the start, say I only really like the first Hawkwind album which has a certain charm. I saw them a few times and they really rocked with added use of strobes. Try thinking of them as a rougher/darker take on 2nd wave early Floyd (Saucerful of Secrets). Whereas early Floyd could be fey, Hawkwind were, well just spooky.
 
I got interested in Hawkwind when I learned that Michael Moorcock, author of my then-fave fantasy/science fiction books, was an occasional member of the band, but I just couldn't get into them. They deserved another try, so I recently bought the Steven Wilson remastered 'Warrior On The Edge of Time'. It's OK, worth the occasional play, but it sounds very dated to my ears.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top