HW: Assassins and You Shouldn't

J Strobridge eset08 at TATTOO.ED.AC.UK
Fri Jul 19 00:14:12 EDT 1996


Stephen Swann writes:

> The song that disappointed me on the last tour (aside from sticking
> the ambient bit in the middle of Hassan I Sahba)

Can't understand why people dislike this so much!   Hawkwind have been
melding different tracks into seamless segues since almost their first
album and this is one of their finest.   ok - it breaks the flow from a
fast hard sound into a quiet reflective ambient mood and back again but
this is a fine intelligent piece of construction - from the aggression/
violence of the Assassins through the Arabic trance-scape and out again.
There's a tension in the ambient flow (or there should be if it's
done well) all the time since you are still aware of the memory of the
heavier rock track previously, while waiting - knowing - that it's going
to return... any minute... to destroy the tranquility.   Brilliant!


> was "Shouldn't Do
> That".  It's simply NOT the same, minus Nik's saxophone.  And even
> Dave, whose guitar work was otherwise wonderful, wasn't really doing
> the BLANGA thing, which that song screams out for.
>

Again I reckon this track ought to convey more menace than just BLANGA.
The vocals need to be kept to a minimum but the insistence of "Shouldn't
Do That" as a constant background refrain lends itself well to a modern
re-working but, yes, I agree it needs loads of guitar, played fast and
with power.   It does not however need the tootle of Nik's saxophone any
more - that's just memory playing tricks and tho' I'll always rate the
original in my top ten tracks (I think I did - perhaps we should repost
the poll results one day...?) I'm very happy to listen to a good tight
updated version.

Reflectivly

jill

obweather> being warm in Edinburgh.  It feels wrong - very wrong.

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J.D.Strobridge at ed.ac.uk                         eset08 at tattoo.ed.ac.uk
                                                ELIJSA at srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk

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