HW: Hawkwind, _The 1999 Party_ (Review)

[Carl E. Anderson]

    A never-before-released complete Hawkwind show from 1974, digitally remastered, in a 2 CD set which comes in a special cardboard box including a 9+ page booklet and groovy A3-sized mini-poster.

    And not before time.

    What can I say?

    'Phooowaaar' would cover it nicely I think.  This album unquestionably dwarfs every Hawkwind release since 1975, and that's despite a few quite good albums in the last dozen years.  This album is clearly up with 1973's sun-shattering _Space Ritual_ and *may* even edge it out slightly.  Indeed the sound is a seductive blend of _Space Ritual_'s archetypal space-metal and the more cosmic synth-layered workouts from _Hall of the Mountain Grill_ and _Warrior on the Edge of Time_.

    Recorded at the Chicago Auditorium, 21 March 1974, on the band's second US tour, this captures Hawkwind in full flight and taking no prisoners.  A nuclear-powered rhythm section of Dave Brock (guitar), Lemmy (bass), and Simon King (drums), propels the ship to relativistic speeds while Nik Turner (saxophone) Simon House (violin), and Del Detmar (synths) ornament the dimensions with swirling trails of aural chaos.  It's probably a mercy that the (in)famous Stacia (dancer) isn't visible in the mix or I might just faint dead away with the thrill of it all.

The track listing is:

CD1 (49.00 min)
Intro/Standing on the Edge
Brainbox Pollution
It's So Easy
You Know You're Only Dreaming
Veterans of a Thousand Psychic Wars
Brainstorm
Seven by Seven

CD2 (48.45 min)
The Watcher
The Awakening
Paradox
You'd Better Believe It
The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)
D-Rider
Sonic Attack
Master of the Universe
Welcome to the Future

    Ye gods.  It makes me weep.  It's difficult to pick high-points in an album made of high points, but certainly tracks like "D-Rider" and "Seven by Seven" stand out.  As does "You'd Better Believe It" and "The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)" (wot a title!).  And most of the rest of it, really.  The version of Lemmy's "The Watcher" is particularly interesting, standing somewhere between the original Hawkwind studio version and the later early-Motörhead versions--I'd pay good money to hear either the current Hawkwind or Motörhead tackle this tune!  Ah, yes, and this version of "Master of the Universe" is simply the best one ever ...

    On to the packaging ... Well, the recent EMI remasters of Hawkwind's first five albums broke new ground on their own, but _The 1999 Party_ probably scores slightly over them in terms of practicality; instead of the pretty-but-fragile digipacks, _The 1999 Party_ comes to us in 2CD jewel case.  Snazzy goodies are not forgotten. The jewelcase comes in a pretty cardboard box/slipcase with artwork drawn from the original Barney Bubbles tour promotional material.  The booklet is packed with backstage snapshots of the band and crew from the '74 tour--the backpage shot of wasted-looking Lemmy on-stage is priceless.

    The A3 mini-poster is also not to be missed.  It's front side seems to be more tour-promo artwork--and you can't go wrong combining dinosaurs, Aztec temples, and flying saucers--as well as a few photos recycled from the previous EMI remaster series.  The back side is the really groovy part, containing an acid-drenched manifesto on how the layout (and decoration) of the band's stage gear and lighting equipment is based on cosmic principles linking Pythagorean mathematics with the astrological positions of the planets in the solar system _and_ (for good measure) prismatic colours ... complete with accompanying diagram.  Spinal Tap, eat your heart out!

    No doubt about it: this is an album no less essiential for the newbie fan than for the hardened Kollector.  While confessing to Hawkwind influence isn't as fashionable in the UK as in the US, this album continues to highlight the debt--acknowledged or not--that so many 90s bands (Monster Magnet, Kyuss, Acrimony, darXtar, Mudhoney, Sky Cries Mary, Electric Wizard, Sons of Selina, to name a few) and an uncountable array of ambient/techno artists owe to the original space-rockers.

    Spaceship Hawkwind.  God bless all who sail in her.

Cheers,
Carl

Go directly to:
http://www.hawkwind.com/live74-ua.htm

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/