Astralfish – Far Corners

Here's another album that I mentioned during the Christmas blogs sequence; essentially an off-shoot of Spirits Burning – or more to the point of the Spirits Burning with Bridget Wishart sequence of records – Astralfish is Don Falcone and Bridget Wishart in instrumental mode producing sixteen tracks that "mixes space, ambient, jazz, rock and symphonic," with support from Daevid Allen (who appears on the track 'Far'), Richard Wileman of Karda Estra, Martin Plumley of Chumley Warner Bros, Culture Shock's Jasper Pattison, Mooch's Steve Palmer and a number of other members of the space rock, Spirits Burning, fraternity.

Don and Bridget certainly do explore all of those genres that they identify in their press release, but the record still sounds like a cohesive whole. These are short, sometimes almost thumbnail sketched tracks – none of the elongated movements that so often appear on records reviewed here – and it's fresh and approachable because of that. At the same time, the textures through the pieces have a nicely varied feel due to the revolving cast of musicians and instrumentations. So 'Summer Snake', gloriously smoky and atmospheric, derives its sense of identity from Purjah's tenor sax, while 'Riding The Seasons' is informed by Cyndee Lee Rule's violin and across all of the tracks there's Bridget's EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) delivering a range of tones from violin to oboe, French horn to pipes, synths to guitars. 'Key Rings' has a bright ease about it that colours-up its repeated electronic rhythms, 'Cloud Gather' cuts a heavier line with some nicely distorted guitar work – it's all about that sense of range.

So, while it's not really possible to describe this simply as a diverting change from standard Don Falcone / Spirits Burning fare, since there are other diversions from the SB format that Don's been releasing recently, such as the ambient-industrial Grindlestone album Tone from late last year, and because SB fare is 'non-standard' and unpredictable in any case, Far Corners clearly represents another angle both on Don's work generally and his collaborations with Bridget more specifically. It's a little 'background' perhaps but again that's part of what makes it work – I do like to have this sort of thing easing the work along when I'm writing – and it's multi-faceted enough to intrigue the listener into following its gentle meanderings, listening out for the next texture change and picking out its nuances and moods.

Band Website (MP3s on-line)

R2 (Rock N Reel) – March/April 2012

Issue #32 of R2 Rock N Reel landed here over the weekend. This issue I've got an 'Insight' interview with Mr Bevis Frond himself, Nick Saloman, on his recently ended sabbatical from the music industry and the marvellous new Frond album The Leaving of London and another 'Insight' piece with the wonderful Hazel O'Connor on her recent three-way album with Claire Hirst and Sarah Fisher, I Give You My Sunshine. Both interviews ran much longer than the 600 words of an R2 Insight piece and 'unused' bits may well appear here in due course. I'm also in the review pages writing about a number of new CD releases of which the most interesting to blog readers will be the intricate and intelligent album by Andrew Keeling & Otherworld [Keeling is an author of a King Crimson study and has collaborated with Crimson violinist David Cross), Bells of Heaven, and the folk, sometimes dark folk, album of Totnes-based Mae Karthauser's Mae and the Midnight Horses album Black Horses. Next issue is their annual festivals special – watch out for that one in a couple of months time.

American Hollow – Whisper Campaign

I mentioned this band from Salt Lake City during one of my Christmas posts and following on from that received a copy of the their debut album Whisper Campaign, released back in 2010, which is an intriguing and enjoyable mix of styles that doesn't particularly wander too far from their progressive metal modus operandi, even while it delves into some stuff that's more spacey or even ambient, but which still delivers ten distinctively powerful and atmospheric tracks. American Hollow are Kyle Mullikin, Chronos, Jameson, and Nathan Alan Gilbert.

They kick-off with a brooding and militaristic instrumental , 'Terronoia', which sets up a heavily oppressive mood in its drum patterns while a more optimistic chink of light breaks through before letting rip with some very strong songs that have a density and darkness to them that reminds somewhat of Porcupine Tree in places – I'm thinking particularly of 'Variable' here but it does apply across the ten tracks of this record. Partly perhaps that's the deliberateness that they seem to move their way across their songs, there's a coiled spring within their work that keeps straining to break free but is held-back, properly restrained, by the musicians, and that adds to the layers in the texture of their work very effectively.

That sense of holding back and holding down the songs, led by the considered bass lines and drums also gives their songs a pensive quality and a tension that is palpable – 'Gravity' delivers this musical tautness in spades, the song straining at its leash and creates a claustrophobic aura that demands a rapt attention.

Elsewhere it's conflagration of grinding guitars against clear and sharp vocals that imbues their tightly-sprung energy with an urgency and life, alongside the manner in which they splash different pallets of sound against the more traditional rock elements of their music – it's not that they want to imbue these tracks with lots of experimentalism but in each number there are moments of the unexpected – the where did that sound come from and the how did they get something to sound like that – which expands their aural range.

When they finally cut lose – 'Blow Wind! Bring Forth Storm' – they really pounce on the listener and the track is sharply named for the maelstrom that's produced – but there's still an eye in the storm for reflection and a reminding that whatever you think you're getting with this album, American Hollow will turn it around and give you something different. When those militaristic drum patterns return – 'Terranoyed' – they underpin a different mood and musical tone altogether – melancholic and reflective. It's that sort of record, you think you've got a handle on it and it's moved on again.

http://www.americanhollowband.com/info.php

Record Collector – March 2012

Just picked up the latest issue of Record Collector wherein I'm covering some very good new CDs and a really quite excellent book. The most relevant to the blog is a new compilation of psychedelic-progressive Russian music that's been released by friends-of-the-blog Trail Records in the US and is entitled Tripwave. The review is also currently on-line on RC's website and can be found here. Over the Christmas period I enthused here about the latest Paul Roland reissue, 'Masque', and in this issue I'm reviewing it in print, along with New Church, the new studio from former Shane McGowan collaborators The Popes and Fantagraphics' exhaustive study of Black Power music, Listen Whitey!, written by Mushroom musician Pat Thomas. Great releases all.

Silver Machine – Kickstarter Campaign

Plenty of updates to come over the next few days, including albums by American Hollow, Comets Ov Cupid, Astralfish, and Paul Cusick as well as a long overdue write-up of Allies & Clansmen in advance of the second volume of Lee Potts's compilations. In advance of that, here's something of a public service announcement for the Asheville-based Silver Machine who've been working on a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for their second album, which will be released in the next couple of months. Now, I believe this pledge campaign is only open until 2^nd March 2012 – and that the band have already surpassed their original target sum but they've got a range of pledge values that delivers the supporter anything from a digital download of the album right through to Silver Machine performing a private party gig (within travelling distance of their location, of course!). The campaign detail can be found here while the band can be heard on their Reverbnation Page. I'll write a little more about them later in the week, but here's track from the band, 'Chemical Jesus', to start this week's blogging with:

Looking in the Future..

Well, as it turned out I didn't manage to blog through a full 'twelve days of Christmas'; 9-5 work commitments and family Xmas parties slowed up the progress and hence no blogging was done on Thursday or yesterday. Next year I'll plan better in advance! There'll be one more 'general' blog post before the end of 2011 which will include an update on Festivalized among other things but before that, here's a sample of what friends of the blog have in store for us all in 2012. Happy Christmas, everyone!

Greg McKella (Paradise 9)

Well, this past year has been great, we got out to the festivals and cracked a fair few gigs in as well; It was terrific to get to Glasto to play, and other notable festivals were Cosmic Puffin, KozFest (Kozmik Ken's Psychedelic Dream Festival), and Sonic Rock Solstice (where we had an FAB impromptu guest performer, Ron Tree, come join us mid-set!). At Alchemy festival, on the SoundAwesome stage, we were helped out on drums by Here & Now's Nik Nimbus and were later joined by Nik Turner and Miss Angel Flame; at the beginning of Dec they again joined us, that time at the fantastic tribute memorial gig to Judge Trev in Brighton, which also featured Inner City Unit.

So in 2012, we aim to get out and clock a few new festivals, while returning to some others. We're really pleased to be playing the Cambridge Rock 2012 Festival (Aug 2-5th), and just in, we will be headlining on The Judge Trev Stage at next year's (July 27-30th) KozFest in Devon. Some great bands are also featured on this for 2012, including Here & Now, Krankschaft, Litmus, Omnia Opera, and Aurora (whom I occasionally guest with). In January, we'll be back in Liscombe Park Studios putting down the final parts to the album. We aim to mix, master and release this later in the year, while on Sat Feb 11th we'll be returning to our Paradise 9 birthplace, The Gunnersbury in West London, for a belated Xmas/Solstice party gig.

Paradise 9 Website

Don Falcone (Spirits Burning)

First up is Astralfish!

Bridget Wishart and Don Falcone launch Astralfish in March. Astralfish is an instrumental project that mixes space, ambient, jazz, rock, and symphonic. The debut CD, mastered by Robert Rich, is titled "Far Corners" and will be released by Noh Poetry Records. The opening track features Gong's Daevid Allen on guitars. Others featured on the CD: Doug Erickson (Grindlestone), Frank Hensel, Pierce McDowell (Gong Matrices), Steve Palmer (Mooch), Jasper Pattison (Citizen Fish), Martin Plumley (Chumley Warner Bros.), Purjah (Quiet Celebration), Cyndee Lee Rule, Karl E. H. Seigfried, Dave Speight (YAK, Peter Banks), Shannon Taylor, and Richard Wileman (Karda Estra).

Then, Spirits Burning is working on three CDs for 2012 and beyond.

(1) Spirits Burning & Clearlight: Healthy Music In Large Doses. Mostly instrumental adventures built on space, prog, jazz, and 60s-style grooves. Clearlight's Cyrille Verdeaux is on most of the tracks. There are over thirty crew members for this one, including Daevid Allen (Gong), Pete Pavli (High Tide), Hawkwind family members Bridget Wishart, Adrian Shaw, Paul Hayles, and Andy Anderson, with Michael Clare (University of Errors), Doug Erickson (Grindlestone), Don Falcone, Stella Ferguson (Flutatious), Fabio Golfetti (Invisible Opera Company of Tibet), Frank Hensel, Jerry Jeter, Chris Kovacs, Kenneth Magnusson (The Moor), G.C. Neri, Robert Rich, Cyndee Lee Rule, Karl E. H. Seigfried, David Speight (YAK), Jay Tausig, David Willey (Thinking Plague), Steve York (Manfred Mann's Chapter Three, Vinegar Joe), and members of Cartoon and Universal Totem Orchestra.

(2) Spirits Burning & Bridget Wishart: Make Believe It Real. This is the third Spirits Burning collaboration with Bridget, following the Earth Born and Bloodlines CDs. Lyrically, the theme of the CD is fiction, fantasy, possibilities. Musically, the CD is built on a heavier sound. Onboard are Daevid Allen (Gong) and Hawkwind family members Harvey Bainbridge, Simon House, Dan Thompson, and Paul Hayles. A new mix of 'Make Believe It Real', from the Friends & Relations 30th Anniversary CD as well as 'Always', (the SoundAwesome hit) from the Omenopus Portents CD with be included.

(3) Spirits Burning: Starhawk. This is a musical interpretation of Mack Maloney's first 'Starhawk' book. The songs follow the timeline of Hawk Hunter's introduction to the far future and a world of cloud puffing, slo-wine, and a very different earth. Most of the song templates and lyrics have been written, with recording sessions now underway. Parts have been completed by former Counting Crows bassist Matt Malley, Pete Pavli (High Tide), Larry Thrasher (Thee Majesty), guitarist G. C. Neri, Don Falcone, and Karen Anderson.

Dave Weller (4 Zero Records)

Following on from the success of the first limited-edition live Mushroom album expect a follow up from a couple of 2011 shows with Alison Faith Levy at the Make Out Room in San Francisco; an amazing funk trance blend of sitar, sax, vocals, flute and percussion. There will also be an album from Fred Laird of Earthling Society under the name of 'Moon Of Ostara', a pagan-inspired Krautrock homage. Both these will be 'proper' CDs in special artisan packaging and strictly limited. There are also a couple of Gong-related projects in the works including a Shapeshifter Gong 2CD culled from a recently discovered hoard of DAT recordings from the tours of France in 1992 and 1994, and it's also looking like there will be a Here & Now release hitting the streets too – fingers crossed!

4 Zero Website

Alan Davey (Gunslinger, Hawklords)

Hoo hoo hoo and a bottle of Rum! Hope ya all have a good Xmas and New Year! Drink and be merry or drunk and unsteady in my case!

I've been busy in the studio again and have just finished mixing a new solo album I've called Cyber Tooth. Eleven tracks of computer virus-related songs and instrumentals, such as 'Boot Killer', 'Doom Juice' and 'Cyber Tooth'. Release date will be around 21st February 2012 and available from my website.

Cheers, and see ya all with Gunslinger and Hawklords next year, AD ;-)

Alan Davey Website

Jerry Richards (Hawklords, Earth Lab)

Following the success of The Hawklords' European & UK Tour 2011 the band will be back out on the road in 2012. More European dates are being scheduled for September and a more comprehensive set of UK tour dates are being put together for October and November 2012.

This will be in support of a brand new studio album which the band is writing and recording right now... A release date has yet to be established but all news regarding The Hawklords live and recording activities can be found our Reverbnation page and on our Facebook presence.

Keith at Fruits de Mer Records

We're still in recovery at Fruits de Mer after a rush of blood led to us releasing a double LP, 7" single and double 7" single all at the same time in early December - we've sold out of all three, but that's involved one helluva a lot of trips to the local post office during the run-up to Christmas!

We're currently working on a number of releases for the first half of 2012 - the one that's most likely to your readers is a double album of kosmische/krautrock covers with the working title of Head Music - early days, but it's likely to include covers of classic tracks from Amon Duul (I AND II!), Neu!, Harmonia, Can..... 2012 is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Brain record label, which is no more than a coincidence but a nice one all the same.

Fruits de Mer Website

Fred Laird (Earthling Society)

Earthling Society have recorded two cover songs of classic psychedelia by Amon Duul 1 and The Pretty things for 2 Fruits de Mer album releases. One of the releases is very special indeed!

In February the band will enter a professional studio for the first time and lay down half an album's worth of tracks for what will be our meisterwerk of melodic psychedelic rock. The remainder of the album will be finished in April. The following month, E-S will be playing the 'Nuts In May' festival alongside Hazel O'Connor and Dave Swarbrick. In September, under the umbrella of the Transit Music group, the band will travel to the east coast of America to promote the new album.

Fred Laird, front man for the group will also be releasing his solo project Moon Of Ostara on the 4 zero label. The album titled, The Star-child, is a Krautrock instrumental album dedicated to William Blake and is musically inspired by Ash Ra tempel, Klaus Schulze and Popol Vuh. The track 'Star-Child Pt2' can be heard here.

Pete Bingham (Sendelica)

The Sendelica Ark has already been built ready for the Mayan Armagedon Floods of 2012. We have seen the movie so we know what to expect... LOL ...

We will be touring Eastern Europe early in 2012..........

Feb 2 Lepakkomies Baari Helsinki, FINLAND

Feb 7 Namaklub Riga, LATVIA

Feb 8 Balerija Jelgava, LATVIA

Feb 10 Roxy Klaipeda, LITHUANIA

Feb 13 PAKAC Preili, LATVIA

Feb 14 Tir Pskov, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Feb 16 ESG-21 St.Petersburg, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Feb 17 Vermel Club Moscow, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Feb 19 Bamboo Tula, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Feb 21 The Squat Cafe Moscow, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

We also have a limited edition live album 'Strangers In A Strange Land' out this month available exclusively from our Soundawesome page, while next spring will see the release of our next studio album.

Renato (Serpentina Satelite)

NOTHING TO SAY has been recently released on vinyl by Trip in Time records. This time around, Johnny 'O' from Rocket Recordings took care of the vinyl's artwork. The LP is now available in a limited edition of 500 copies, a 100 of them in lysergic red. You can find NOTHING TO SAY in the following websites:

 

SULATRON RECORDS: http://www.sulatron.com/

GREATEST HITS MAIL ORDER: http://www.greatesthitsmailorder.com/

ALL THAT'S HEAVY: http://www.allthatisheavy.com/

WHITE DWARF RECORDS: http://www.whitedwarfrock.com/

KOZMIC ARTIFACTZ: http://www.kozmik-artifactz.com/

For more info: http://www.facebook.com/serpentinasatelite

Bridget Wishart

With...

Ian Abrahams; Hopefully we'll see the publication of our FAB book Festivalised! (Yes indeed – I'll post an update generally on stuff including Festivalized before the New Year)

With...

Astralfish; March 2012 will see the debut release of the fascinating instrumental CD 'Far Corners'...

With...

Spirits Burning; Expecting completion of our third collaboration, Make Believe It Real ... rock fantasies abound :-)

With...

Chumley Warner Bros; New songs for the festival season are unfolding as I write...'On The Street' is a blinder even if I do say so myself. :-) You can catch us at the Sonic Rock Solstice and KozFest! We'll also be recording a track for Lee Pott's Allies & Clansmen II, due for release later in the year.

With...

Omenopus; Scars Are For Lovers our second CD is still being recorded and will most likely see release as we move further into 2012.

 

In Search of Hawkwind

Not every feature that gets written lives to see the light of day, that's part of the nature of freelance journalism. For the ninth in the sequence of consecutive blog postings, here's a feature examining what Hawkwind means; it was written back in 2009 and eventually fell-through, one of those things, and though some of it may well get re-cycled eventually as part of a new version of Sonic Assassins, it's presented here in its un-copy-edited form.

Is there any other band whose name represents so many different facets as the word 'Hawkwind' has come to represent? Spacerock exponents, Free Festival survivors, Ladbroke Grove alternative culture veterans, wherever you look in the development of British rock music, Dave Brock and his revolving cast of band members appear to have had an influence. They took the hippie ethic, fuelled it with biker attitude and delivered it with a Do It Yourself approach that made them proto-punks and neo-crusties. Their elongated improvised riffing signposted trance and rave, they had a finger in every musical pie from new wave to heavy metal. All this achieved by a band that didn't play by traditional rules, which appeared to stand outside of the music business whilst delivering a multi-media sensory experience.

Of course there have been bands with even greater longevity than Hawkwind's fast approaching forty years (their first documented performance took place at All Saints Hall in Ladbroke Grove, August 1969), but The Rolling Stones, just for instance, are The Rolling Stones through thick and thin. Hawkwind has meant something different to successive generations, whether their name is invoked to mean something musically, socially or politically.

What has it been about this shoestring operation, a venerable cottage industry, which has made so many disparate types identify with them and hold them in such esteem? As a starting point, I asked Richard Chadwick, Hawkwind's current drummer and second longest serving member. "I'd liked Hawkwind when they started. As a teenager, I thought their whole thing was remarkable, embracing or putting forward the idea that there was more to it than just the music, it was a lifestyle. People in the audience took their children, they all dressed differently to my parents, they looked like they knew what they were doing and there was a sense of purpose, a great tolerance within the audience that was another aspect to the hippie culture of the time. All of that attracted me."

Even within themselves the word 'Hawkwind' means different things to the multitude of different members. Freewheeling saxophonist Nik Turner thought them an inveterate 'peace and love' band; the inestimable Lemmy considered them a speed freak's black nightmare of a band. "Everyone has their own perspective," Turner concedes. "LSD broke down people's barriers and made them more open to peace and love. I was never into speed or downers and the whole ethos of peace and love seemed to me to be a much more worthwhile thing than the other things people were doing, giving each other a horrible time and taking horrible substances that gave a very warped sense of reality."

Much of the early philosophy of Hawkwind, playing outside of the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 for free in protest at ticket prices, being available and willing to perform for numerous charitable causes, and aligning themselves with the underground vibe of Frendz and International Times has been credited to Nik Turner: "I think [originally] people saw it as the focal point for something that was of the alternative culture. That was what it was to me. I wasn't anti-establishment as such, just going in the direction that I thought was cool, doing free gigs and using being in a band as means of benefiting others. Supporting people who were trying to get things together was a convenient and very apt purpose to put Hawkwind to. We were embraced by the alternative culture; all these creative people were very helpful towards us. I think they saw us as a focal point for what they were doing and we were able to all work together, which was one of the wonderful things about it."

Turner wishes they were a Gong –style collective with the name being shared around collaborators past and present to be explored, developed and sent off on the multiple tangents of musical imagination that has graced the membership over the years. Dave Brock, ever-present Hawklord-in-chief saw it entirely differently, trademarking the name for his own use during the mid-1990s and vigorously defending it ever since. They are far from the only band in rock music history to have been subjected to mutiny, in-fighting and long-running feuds. You'd have to say, however, they've certainly nailed the art of being the most public about it. In that respect (as I discovered), they are a biographer's dream. Individually they are as charming a group of individuals as you could wish to meet. Collectively, however, there is a sense of bitterness that runs through their memories of being involved with Hawkwind.

Tim Cummings, who produced an excellent BBC4 documentary on them a few years back that was first supported and then disowned by Dave Brock, considered in The Independent that Brock himself was the most bitter of them all. I think it's a huge shame if true, since Brock's contribution to British rock music is immense and highly valued.

Turner: "Hawkwind has always been a sort of very murky, very messy situation really. The band itself has become the complete antithesis of what it was about in the early days of Robert Calvert, [artist and designer] Barney Bubbles, John [Liquid Len] Smeeton and myself."

Some of what they believed in was articulated through their use of science fiction imagery, be it space operatic fantasy or the back-to-Earth social commentary of science fiction's 'new wave' of the 1960s. That meshing of rock music with sci-fi wasn't unique when they set out on that path with In Search of Space. Sun Ra had encapsulated such concepts in his jazz-rock, The Pink Floyd were most definitely using SF themes in their earliest performances. Bowie used sci-fi as one of the building blocks of his personae, contemporary to 70s Hawkwind. But Hawkwind took that a stage further, linking up with noted author and editor Michael Moorcock and using science fiction concepts as metaphors for modern ills in the same way that Moorcock's stewardship of New Worlds SF magazine did.

"What I felt about Hawkwind," Turner continues, "was that we tried to live by what we believed in; I lived in a squat or in the back of a truck or some scuzzy sort of place… slept on a different person's floor every night. I think we tried to be idealistic without being self-conscious about it or trying to make it into a pose." Hawkwind were always prepared to poke at society in the same way that Moorcock did in the stories he selected for New Worlds; Moorcock published Norman Spinrad's controversial, but prophetic, reality TV novel Bug Jack Barron and so doing got the magazine removed from W H Smiths, Hawkwind released 'Urban Guerilla' and were banned by the BBC. These were interlinked agendas with a common purpose, talking about what was wrong with social structures and modern media.

Find it evident in the lyrics of Dave Brock on the inner-city angst of 'Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)', 'live in concrete jungles / that just block up the view', or on his 'Eve of Destruction' styled acoustic pleading 'We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago'. It's on display through Robert Calvert's J G Ballard inspired 'High Rise', the social alienation and dehumanisation of contemporary living, 'someone said he jumped / but we know he was pushed…' and his declamation of the politics of the petrol-dollar, 'Assassins of Allah', which references the Palestinian terrorist cell Black September.

In the early 1970s they were the house band of the Freak scene, playing Bickershaw, Windsor, Watchfield. Adrian Shaw, originally involved with Hawkwind as bassist for their regular support act Magic Muscle and subsequently recruited to the ranks in time for their Quark, Strangeness & Charm LP considers them "the mainstay of all the Free Festivals, I'd say, alongside in the early days, the Edgar Broughton Band. Hawkwind were booked to play Bickershaw, so we [Magic Muscle] arrived with them, which was very handy because I got to see The Grateful Dead from the side of the stage. But you also had a counter-culture festival going on outside of the perimeter with Hawkwind, so they played officially and unofficially."

When Punk arrived, the concept might have been 'never trust a hippie' (despite the real background of most movers and shakers being directly from the Free Festivals) but Rotten was spotted backstage at Hawkwind's gig at the Camden Music Machine or caught by Julie Burchill hanging-out with Brock and the mercurial Calvert. "How I see Hawkwind is a bit like the Sex Pistols, really… but earlier," notes Nik Turner, whose own Inner City Unit straddled the hippie and punk ethics whilst maintaining its own wicked sense of the absurd. "I think there are other bands like that, there were other bands like that, and there always will be bands that have something to say. It was made out that there was a division between the punks and the hippies, but all the punks were hippies – Jimmy Pursey was a great fan of Steve Hillage, it wasn't another completely new dimension of people, a new generation, it was the same people [as the Free Festivals]."

"The thing about punk rock was that part of its energy came from the fuel of the burning rock icons that had gone before," notes Richard Chadwick. "What upheld Hawkwind during that era was that they went and played the Free Festivals, which were really quite important to me because they cemented all those ideas. It was a lifestyle; you could actually live like this, an alternative way of surviving. By playing the festivals Hawkwind remained relevant in an era where they might have been forgotten."

Marc Swordfish, of festival regulars Magic Mushroom Band, recalls how "Hawkwind were revered because of what they'd laid down. The way they wrapped the whole thing up really, the culture and everything." And Simon Williams, then of Mandragora and now with Earthdance, concurs: "There was a lot of respect for Hawkwind because they had been doing for years that great thing of being at the festivals. Everyone knew that Nik Turner was supplying the stage, or they'd be supplying the PA. I mean, some bands were seen as 'old duffers', bands like The Enid, but Hawkwind were seen as the chiefs of the scene. A lot of bands would do versions of their songs, punk them up a bit or whatever and I thought that was a great thing."

It's certainly possible to argue that Hawkwind lost their musical direction during the early 1980s but ethically they never compromised their willingness to turn up at the Stonehenge Free Festival or at a travellers' park-up – the smallest free gig was as important as the most high profile. They were the People's Band before Joe Strummer ever heard of such a concept. "People loved them because they were [at the festivals] and doing it," The Levellers' Jeremy Cunningham says. "People were just glad they were there, and Hawkwind, when they're doing 'hashish, hashish'… people love it, 'Hurry On Sundown' and that stuff, people love those tunes. Most bands that came out of the Festival scene, even the Punk bands, were indebted to Hawkwind with that kind of grinding, almost Heavy Metal, thing. Many of the travellers' bands, like 2000DS, you can trace back to Hawkwind."

That influence permeated throughout the Free Festival scene of the 1980s, as Claire Grainger, bassist with all-girl punk band The Hippy Slags confirms. "Hawkwind always seemed to appeal to the young boys, I think. They'd go off on their two-hour jams… though with the punk thing, people wanted a bit more lively stuff. But we're surprised, listening to our music, how much we were influenced by Hawkwind whether we like it or not!"

 

Hawkwind's sound in the early 80s changed from the psychedelic Spacerock of their early years and the clean new-wave sounds of Quark, Strangeness & Charm, to a heavy grunge that put them incongruously into the Metal genre with contrasting results. Bottled and heckled at the Donnington Monsters of Rock festival in 1982, revered as living legends for their headlining appearance at Reading in 1986. Jerry Richards at the time a member of Free Festival co-operative Tubilah Dog and later to play with both Brock, as guitarist in Hawkwind, and with Turner (as bassist in Turner's assemblage of former Hawks, Space Ritual), recalls seeing the band play at commercial events. "We'd seen Hawkwind at massive festivals, like Reading, and they'd got [lead guitarist] Huw Lloyd-Langton in the band and their direction at that time was along Metal lines, which had helped the band connect with the Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath audience; Huw's playing was always very English so in amongst that Metal they never tried to Americanise their sound. I admired that, because that would have been an easy route, to turn into Alice Cooper's band or something, which wouldn't have been Hawkwind."

Some believed that Hawkwind's foray into Metal had distanced them from their roots, but the latter days of the Free Festivals, from the collapse of the Stonehenge festival in 1985 through the remainder of the 1980s, saw them make a vital reconnection to their original ethos. Jerry Richards saw this at close quarters. During the summers of 1987 and 1988, Tubilah Dog members combined with Hawkwind's Brock and Harvey Bainbridge in an off-shoot variously billed as HawkDog, Dave Brock & The Agents of Chaos, or sometimes simply as Hawkwind.

Jerry Richards: "We found Hawkwind to be this monolithic beast that had become, I hesitate to use the word 'corporate', but they'd become this behemoth and a lot of us were simply wondering, 'Where are the Hawks at these festivals we're playing at? The Ozrics are here, the Levellers are here…' When I started getting involved with Free Festivals, what was important was going out playing, meeting people, having a really nice time… some of the gigs we went to, we were content to make a festival happen by taking our sound system and our lightshow, putting that up, we didn't even play."

This would totally switch itself around in the latter part of the 1980s when new band members would emerge out of the festivals environment with Dave Brock once noting of his newer recruits that, "I act like a teacher, a bit. They are like apprentices." In that case, what a fabulous apprenticeship to have for people like Richard Chadwick, like Bridget Wishart who came to Hawkwind having sung with festival favourites The Hippy Slags, or Ron Tree who been in and around any number of festival bands. Another facet emerges, Hawkwind as a vehicle for musicians to take a step up the later and experience life with a well-known outfit.

When Tubilah Dog's members staged the Rollright Stones Festival in about 1987, Brock and Bainbridge were there. Jerry Richards recalls how "Steve Mills, Tubilah Dog's singer, had bumped into Dave, who'd said, 'Liked what you were doing, I'm in a blue van over there, come and give us a shout in the morning.' So we went and had a chat with them and I hit it off with Dave, there was a mutual respect. I think I reminded Dave of himself when he was my age, really going for it, having loads of energy and wanting to get about and do things. I suspect it reminded him of how his band used to be when he was going out and trying to get it all together."

This 'new generation' of festival goers seem to have intrigued Dave and Harvey to the point where they decided, as Jerry puts it, to get involved. "Of course, we were quite happy to have Dave Brock and Harvey Bainbridge come and play with us! Getting immersed in all of this Hawk-lore and finding out about it from the grassroots up, was quite a thrill. All of this turned itself into Hawkdog or the Agents of Chaos, whatever we wanted to call ourselves on any particular occasion. In doing all of that, it really did draw people back to the band because it almost seemed to those travellers and festivalgoers we knew, that Hawkwind had… not abandoned the scene… but maybe a dereliction of duty, if I can call it that [laughs]. In their minds, in the travellers' minds, the people who were going to Free Festivals back then, Hawkwind had become another entity and moved into a stratospheric world with their big tours and their sort of semi-detachedness from the festival scene. Hooking up with us wide-eyed, amphetamine-fuelled, eager kids, I think, reinvigorated them."

"You see," Jerry ponders, "If you're doing something that people really like, then people will find you, and a scene develops. That's what Hawkwind did back then; the scene came to find them, which is fantastic. I think Dave wanted to reconnect with a grassroots audience and not have the pressure of having to do the massive rock shows. I'd revisit those days in an instant, because they were challenging and interesting and never boring."

There is no better place to look for Hawkwind than in the spirit with which they supported the festival scene in its heyday and in its dying embers. Hawkwind were effectively the 'house band' of the festivals, Nik Turner (whether with Hawkwind or in Inner City Unit) the archetypal festival musician playing with everybody and anybody… and Turner also had his legendary Pyramid Stage. "That would be my contribution to the Stonehenge Festival; putting up my Pyramid Stage and letting people perform in it. Then I gave it to the people that were going around the Free Festivals, to erect at their festivals. So what became the Convoy would take my stage around the festivals in the summer and bring it back in the winter to keep it dry and make sure it was maintained in serviceable condition. Then they'd come and pick it up from me the following spring; it was a useful piece of equipment."

That unstinting festival support ran from their legendary protest at the Isle of Wight in 1970 right through until the dreadful day in 1990 at a scruffy, down-at-heel and unappealing festival in Brighton when the band was physically attacked on stage and had to be smuggled off site, Dave Brock's vehicle trashed and the dream turned completely sour by those they'd worked so hard to support. The incident has entered the history books as the turning point in the festival movement that told people that it was all over, though the motivation behind the incident remains unexplained and contested.

Claire Grainger: "Once you'd had that incident in Brighton where Hawkwind got attacked you thought, 'Why waste time playing for these people when they don't even really want us to?'" And Club Dog organiser Michael Dog told me, "When I heard about it, for me that was the end. I don't remember going to a festival after that for many years. It wasn't so much 'Oh My God! These people attacked Hawkwind … have they no respect?' It was the fact that they'd attack anyone… that they'd attacked a band playing on the stage who had to be smuggled off the site in fear of their lives. But it was hugely disrespectful."

When the Free Festival scene parked itself up on the M25 and turned into the Rave and Free Party scene, Hawkwind's extended riffs informed trance and acid. Playing in individual tepees, so as to best reflect their trademark lightshow, they even contributed the use of Native America imagery to the British music environment. The connection was well articulated by Salt Tank's David Gates when I talked to him in 2004. "We hit this wave around 1988 when everything changed in music and acid house happened. I read an article, which reviewed In Search of Space which suggested this was the original trance record. Dance music has got to be that single repetitive beat. Look back at Hawkwind and it was pretty much what they did."

Alongside informing the acid house scene, Hawkwind's other legacy of the late 80s and early 90s was in encouraging and inspiring a whole new generation of Spacerock bands, particularly in the USA where tours by both Brock's Hawkwind and Nik Turner's alternative version (initially billed as Nik Turners' Hawkwind but re-titled as Space Ritual following legal proceedings) created a whole new Spacerock fraternity. This scene has continued to develop as an interconnect web of bands that has even incorporated many former Hawkwind musicians, check out Don Falcone's 'Spirits Burning' projects. Falcone, a States-based musician and composer has been skilful in assembling a revolving team of genre luminaries, most notably Gong's Daevid Allen, the most creatively successful release from which has arguably been his 2008 work with Hawkwind's former singer/poet Bridget Wishart (Earth Born by Spirits Burning with Bridget Wishart, Voiceprint Records). This release brought together a real festivals sensibility and included appearances by Hawkwind's Richard Chadwick, Alan Davey, Steve Swindells, Simon House and Jerry Richards.

Hawkwind themselves, with Brock and Chadwick as the long-time mainstays, still continue to receive well deserved respect and enthusiasm from their dedicated fan base. At the same time, it's pleasing to see the wide range of projects that spiritually link back to the eclectic and diverse Hawkwind catalogue, itself now undergoing a much needed and well put together reissue programme by Cherry Red. Though Nik Turner's wish to see the Hawkwind name available to all Hawk contributors as an all encompassing label is not going to happen, the true ethos of the band can be found in a myriad of projects, spreading the band's legacy far and wide and delivering to its fan-base the widest possible interpretation of its original meaning.

Turner's Space Ritual is the free-jazz influenced Spacerock legacy, Alan Davey's Gunslinger the heavier rock 'n' roll link. Bridget Wishart's work with Spirits Burning represents the lyricism inherent in Hawkwind, Jerry Richards's Earthlab project has the mix of world music with driving rhythms and visual stimulation. There are many others; Simon House with Dark Chemistry, Steve Swindells studio and occasional live band Dan Mingo, Adrian Shaw's new project with former Magic Muscle colleague Rod Goodway... the offshoots, and the approaches, are endless.

So, having gone 'In Search of Hawkwind', what's the ultimate conclusion on what Hawkwind means? Partly it's in their support for a myriad of causes and their willingness to play for free; Jimmy Savile, playing 'Silver Machine' on his Old Record Club radio show years ago ("a point for the band, another point for the name of the single") name checked them as, "A great bunch of lads, who did a lot for charity." Moorcock famously saw them as techno-barbarians and lent his name to a couple of novels that fictionalised the band 'rocking in the ruins'. Others, fans and band members alike, have seen their agitprop outlook as being a key influence on their own sense of living 'outside of the system', that attitude of independence and free thinking.

The first time I met Dave Brock, he told me that he gives "huge amounts of money and time to keep the whole thing going, because it's more than just a band to people." That's absolutely correct, but Hawkwind means many things to many different members, followers and scenes. That's its great value over the last forty years, adaptability through the vision of one and the input of many.

Tjyven – Tar Sig Friheten

Observant blog followers will know that this should be the 'eight' entry in this attempt to blog twelve days in the run-up to Christmas; regretfully I have to say that the austerity drive is now in full swing and where we should have eight we only have one review tonight.

This one is a bit of a mystery to be honest ... I can tell you absolutely nothing about the musician involved other than I believe he hails from Östersund, in Sweden. On his Last FM page there's an empty space where his biography should be, while his front page there declares "we've don't have a description for this artist yet." His MySpace page is no more revealing (though it does contain the tracks that I've received on CD) and, unless there's some biographical data supplied that I've missed somewhere, that's the sum total of the information that's in the public domain, as far as I can tell; a quick drop of the artist name in a translation engine, however, suggests that 'Tjyven' means 'Thief' and the album name translates to 'Takes Liberties'.

The music is dark, repressive and experimental - and may indeed be re-interpretations of others' compositions which perhaps might be where the artist name and album title derive from. It's unsettling stuff, like some weird exposition of subterranean experiences; hammers on anvils and other doom-laden noises that have a heightened sense of hopelessness and forebodings. I don't hear any light in these four tracks but instead I just feel and sense more blackness encroaching out of every corner, like shadows falling everywhere. So as a realisation of effect and affect it's very well composed.

That said, these four tracks are really not my thing – it's far too bleak, too depressing and too claustrophobic for my ears – but others of an ambient industrial persuasion might well find something of intrigue within.

Mars Retrieval Unit – Two Sides

Soooo, after one album that's not at all space rock, two 'proper' space rock bands, three psych-pop albums (well, two, but one is a double), four Hawkwind reissues, five links and six 'shout out' for friends ... we are back to a single review. But! To capture and keep the symmetry, and to make a posting that I've been intending to do for many months and hadn't so far had an opportunity to, it comes with seven photographs taken by Roger Neville-Neil who is no stranger to the blog, a contributor to Sonic Assassins and whose concept album with Don Falcone and Spirits Burning, Behold The Action Man, is, I'm delighted to say, now pressed and on-sale, just eighteen months after being previewed here! Best laid plans and all that, but I'm really chuffed to see that it's now available.

Roger's been photographing bands for many years – you'll see some of his Hawkwind studio photographs in Sonic Assassins – and continues to do so among his other creative interests which most notably include the 'Film Noir / Hard-Boiled' styled live reviews that have been appearing in Aural Innovations over the past few years. He sent over some of his Mars Retrieval Unit pictures after I'd reviewed the band's Soundcloud page quite some time ago, and also sent a copy of their Two Sides album.

Here's what I was saying about MRU back then. "I've heard from Joel Davis of Portland band Mars Retrieval Unit, or MRU, who recently had the opportunity to support Ozric Tentacles in Portland. They've just released a CD, Two Sides, and Joel's directed me to some tracks that he particularly thinks of as being space rock. I'll note these tracks here and plan to produce a proper review in due course. 'Amanita Dream' is a delicious mix of a rather clean and cool jazz sound mixed with a heavier spacey lilt in places, 'Osmosis' (featuring dual vocals that I believe are from Chelsea Luker, who is really good on 'Amanita Dream', and guitarist Rob Sipsky) is again a clean sounding, leaning almost to AOR, song with some lovely sax playing, also from Chelsea, extending out to ten and a half minutes so that MRU can lay claim to jam band status in the way that they extend and use the running time – though I don't know much about them aside from one live CD in my collection I'd say they touch a bit of the same ground as Phish. 'Ares' has space rock lyrical themes and resides to towards the modern progressive rock side of the genre, consummately professional in delivery and contemporary in feel. I've delved into their Facebook page and see that my old mate Roger Neville-Neil is a fan of theirs – that's a good enough recommendation for me and I'll follow up and cover this band in more depth in the future."

In writing up Two Sides, which I liked very much indeed, I can't really add too much to what I wrote back then, really. It's consummate and smooth progressive jazz rock that wanders into space rock imagery, principally lyrically but occasionally in its sounds, though certainly not in a heavy way. Instead the music is night-time jazz with a touch of the jam-band and, most everywhere, Chelsea Luker's sophisticated and silky sax blowing. What they have, they have a sound that is slick and, in a way, quite visual; not visual in any specific imagery but just a music that is bright and vibrant and extremely classy. Where a lot of the bands that get reviewed here are outfits for the great festival outdoors, MRU have a nightclub vibe to them – you'd hear them indoors – it's that sort of groove. Here are seven of Roger's excellent pictures for the seventh in this blogging sequence – huge thanks to Roger for both the photos and sending the album across! (Please note all photos (c) Roger Neville-Neil and used with kind permission; do not reproduce without Roger's knowledge and agreement).

Mars Retrieval Unit Website

Six ‘Shout Outs’ for Friends

No, I'm not making six appeals for people to be my friends! Behave! But, in keeping with the trend of the blog this week, here are six links to stuff friends have going on, some space rock related and some entirely divorced from the subject...

There's a plethora of music updated to Louise Bialik's Reverbnation page, as Louise has mentioned in her Facebook status today; I've only had a chance to scratch the surface of what's been made available here and plan to listen properly over the Christmas break but there are fifty songs posted including collaborations with Simon House under the Dark Chemistry name, recordings made with LM Potts as Loulees, collaborations with Jack Brewer, tracks by 17 Pigmies, Savage Republic and more in a whole range of styles. Go exploring!

One Eyed Wayne, featuring former Jamie Wednesday drummer Dean Leggett, have a Soundcloud page with five demo tracks. "We perform as an acoustic band with guitars, mandolin, melodica and cajon as the backing to the very different vocal styles of three and a half vocalists. Music that has a tale to tell, from serial killers to lovelorn drunken wretches, carried along by an awesome rhythm section. Enjoy the music, tell your mates to have a listen and come see us play," they say. I remember Jamie Wednesday best for their rip-roaring cover of 'White Horses' on their 12" 'Vote For Love' single back in the mid-80s, but they were also the band that, on splitting, spawned Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine wherein Wednesday members Jim Morrison and Les Carter became Jim Bob and Fruitbat. Great collection of initial songs here, sort of indie rock meets Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros meets The Pogues via The June Brides ... sort of ... and I see they've been playing some gigs in London so hopefully we'll hear a lot more about Dean's current band in 2012!

A quick mention for a blog that I read religiously, Keith Topping's From The North, which isn't music-related per se, though Keith does include a judicious choice of 45rpm vinyl in each posting; what it actually is, it's principally a television news and criticism blog that focuses on UK and US television with an eye on the politics of broadcasting and a withering take on where Keith sees the medium falling short (for the key joke in his coverage on Dancing on Ice under the title of Twatting About on Ice he does owe me a fiver ... though for his editing skills on Sonic Assassins I owe him so much more). In-depth, regularly updated, always informative, sometimes infuriating but always a must in the RSS feed of anyone who loves television. Keith is doing a 'Twenty Two Days of Christmas" sequence!

Anthony Thistlethwaite, saxophonist and bassist formerly of The Waterboys and now of the equally wonderful Saw Doctors has made his own solo catalogue available to purchase for download via iTunes, there's a link on his Facebook community page and includes a 'best of compilation', his Cartwheels, Crawfish & Caviar and Aesop Wrote A Fable records and a release which I don't think has been available before, Stinky Fingers, which is of some recordings 'Anto' made with his musical hero Mick Taylor.

My old school mate Francis Braithwaite who, tenuous space rock connection, I believe I last saw in person at Hawkwind's 1982 CND benefit at St Austell Cornwall Coliseum, plays drums in a London-based garage punk band called The Stabilisers who have a MySpace Page which features their boisterous 'I Feel Like Jimmy White', the lo-fi sci-fi 'Robot Doctor' and, hey it's nearly Christmas after all, a joyfully disrespectful cover of 'Stop the Cavalry'.

And finally, in my 9-to-5 life there was passed to me from the next office a copy of a long-awaited new CD from Craig Eason who is stepping outside of his beloved Southern Rock with his latest recordings, Endangered Clichés. Here's what I've written as a PR sheet for this really very good collection of songs, some of which are available to listen to on his Myspace:

"Cornwall-based guitarist, song-writer and band-leader Craig Eason has been playing his Southern / Country / Blues / Rock music for over twenty years and across numerous bands, some of which will be very familiar to West Country gig-goers and others that he'll confess had a shorter lifespan! Hot & Nasty, Dakota, Forbidden Fruit, Booze Band, Arizona, Blind Alley Blues Band, Eason / Thomas Project...

This, though, is Craig in the studio with an impressive collection of talented collaborators and fifteen new tracks that run the gamut of his musical interests. Yes, here's his life-long love of Southern Rock, but here's also the evidence of a wide-ranging taste and of Eason's dexterity in crossing genres because, as his writing elegantly expresses in the highly personal ballad 'Half A Life', the joy is in the music itself.

That's not to say that Craig Eason takes himself or his music too seriously though! We've got the glorious sights, smells, and sounds of the Mexican fiestas on 'Pajero Preludo' and 'Pajero Estupido' (Carlos Santana would recognise a little of his influence seeping in to these life-affirming opening salvos). We've got 'Last Gig In The Void', which manages to be a tribute to Pink Floyd and segue into a roaring Black Sabbath rock-out. And, appropriately enough given that this album was recorded in Cornwall, there's the acoustic 'Sunny Day', built on some open 'slack key' tunings, which both celebrates the joys of the sun and bemoans the desolation of its inevitable disappearance.

We have to mention the album's glorious centrepiece, 'Sinstrumental', where Eason takes his admiration for The Allman Brothers Band, specifically the melodic guitar of Dickey Betts, and, with all the lead parts recorded in a studio jamming session, produces an instrumental of breath-taking craftsmanship. Let's also take in the radio-friendly 'Would You Miss Me', with Helen Evans' gracefully wistful vocals the emotional heart of this melancholic acoustic / country musing.

But, really, all is here. The let-loose slide-guitar bar room rock of 'Serious Drinking Night Cap' and 'Serious Drinking Night', traditional country tune and charm of 'Here In My Heart', Eason's musical adaption of Robert Browning's dramatic romance 'Mesmerism', and the jazzy instrumental 'Kind of Weird' where every single contributor to the album gets his or her moment to shine. So, we've got an album that touches many bases – always with the same deft touch and a consistency of vision. A real melting pot of themes and styles but absolutely delivered in such a slick and stylish manner that the flow of influences is smooth and rewarding. No clichés here, just a totally engaging listen."

Right, perhaps we'll get back to some reviews tomorrow ... but not seven in one post I fear!