Say it as it is! (Re: HW: Did I really say that...?)

[david hall]

No need to apologise, you were right. Most of the Flicknife stuff was crap.
Huw was not too happy at the release of that live LP either. A pretty fallow
period for HW between Levitation and the Blacksword LP.

Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Gadd <lupercal at GEOCITIES.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list BOC-L <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
Date: 08 March 2000 17:46
Subject: HW: Did I really say that...?


>I just forced myself to sit through a very humbling and cringe-making
>experience; a bout with the 21-year-old me and my big mouth.
>
>Back in 1984/85, I co-edited 3 issues of a zine called the Hawkwind
Bazooka,
>with a guy in Holland. It was a really strange concept; partly written in
>Tasmania, sent to Holland, stapled together there with new bits added
(often
>without my knowing what they were going to be - which was really tremendous
>when the bloke in Holland took it into his head to publish a private letter
>I'd sent him in which I admitted to taking various drugs, while at the same
>time discussing the draconian new Tasmanian drug laws). Anyway it was, in
my
>view at the time, a load of rubbish, but apparently it circulatd around and
>people read it. But I've just read it for the first time in nearly 15
years,
>and the things I wrote in it - eek!  :(
>
>I was speculating as to why I might have dropped out of circulation around
>1985, and mentioned that I was a bit disappointed in the quality of the HW
>releases in the early to mid 80's. Apparently I must have been more than a
>bit disappointed. The 3rd edition of this zine starts with an editorial
>lambaste of Flicknife, in which I call Friends and Relations 2 "a
disaster",
>Zones a thrown-together, opportunistic, mish-mash, and stated that
Flicknife
>had a cheek charging full-price for something as abysmally recorded as the
>live Huw-Lloyd Langton group album. Then this Dutch guy takes up the theme,
>with even less restraint or diplomacy, accusing Flicknife of being rip-off
>merchants. Then to cap it off, an article by Ande Tucker, where he calls
>Flicknife "Flickshit", and describes their releases as 'crap'.  That
appears
>to have been the bomb I set off under myself to mark my departure from the
>Hawkwind fold. In retrospect, whereas I still can't admit to being any
>fonder of Zones and Friends and Relations 2, I think I might have been a
bit
>more supportive of the band. 15 years down the track I confess myself in
awe
>of Brock's ability to keep the thing rolling,  and hope the hawkwind crowd
>of the time can forgive that younger me for his total lack of appreciation
>of the trials and tribulations of keeping a rock band on the road through
>lost record deals, personal tragedies and god knows what else.   It's a
>shame I wasn't around to congratulate them on their return to vinyl form
>over the following 5 years, but would anyone have wanted my opinion anyway,
>after that outburst?  Ah well. At least I didn't get sued by Frenchy. Geez,
>me and my big mouth :(  If anyone still has any of those things, would you
>burn them?
>
>--
>Tim Gadd
>Hobart, Tasmania
>