Nik thoughts

[Doug Bates]

It disappoints me to see Nik have these perceptions attached to him,
although I certainly understand how/why. Nik is the spirit of HW, but
Dave is THE MAN I think we all agree. In that context, my take is
this.

Nik latched on to the nihilistic punk thing from the beginning.
When he came back in '82, he did not fit into HW with that mindset.
It seemed to me he intentionally went against the grain musically and
with his relationship with other members of the band. If MotU was
being played in "E", its as if Nik would drop a his sax down a half
step to rub everyone the wrong way. His shanigans on the stage
turned some off forever. I think many bridges we torched during
this era, most important of all the one with Dave. In retrospect it
was a mistake for Nik to rejoin HW at this point in time.

But Nik eventually grew out of that "phase", by '95 when he did the
Space Ritual 95 tour with Helios Creed and Tommy Greanas some
punk elements were left, but the space/psych was coming back. The
US tour the next year was even better, the punkish attitude was gone
and some great space rock was created. In '97 when Nik played with
Farflung at Strange Daze I though they were awesome. If you've never
heard this show, you should. For me, on that night, I enjoyed them as
much as any HW show of the '97 US tour (I saw them all). It seemed
to me Nik had come full circle, recognizing his true home (spacerock)
and left the "fuck it shtick" behind. I do think he cares if the fans are
entertained and is willing to work hard to pull it off. Some of these
recent gigs with ex-hawks sound more like an informal jam at a
party, than a professional concert. I don't judge Nik or anybody
at those gig as an indication of what they can do musically. Nik
seems to be stuck in "one off" purgatory at the present. I wish he
would get in a real band full time (you know *practice*, puts out CDs,
tour). Its my impression he's back to his old self (like when he was
young in the early '70's). :-) He seems to be a born-again space rocker.

Nik has done most of this to himself, but it seems he has been sent out
into the dessert for good. I wish Dave would reconsider. Didn't Lemmy
say some crack about Nik during the Brixton gig? Whats the deal, is
he still pissed about being sacked all those years ago?

>one has to remember that nik was only in the hawks for a short time, thus
>his contribution is not as great as some of the more recent members.
       ^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^
Huh? Before we revise history could you give examples? Alan Davey
and ....I guess Chadwick to a certain extent.

> And therefore 1982-1984 was HAWKWINDs darkest period

Maybe, but couldn't we find an equally "dark' period in the 90's?
For me the MIDI/sequencer automations that replaced exiting
band members was somewhat of a lull. More people, more analog
synths the better for my tastes.

> I really liked Nik during 1969-1976 but later he was only a
> chaotic punker
> and HAWKWIND played lot of bad gigs

Very true, the tapes don't lie, not all bad though.

> After Nik left, HAWKWIND played one of their best tours (Black Sword).
> HAWKWIND woke up from a bad dream and are now better than ever
> before.

For me this was their Spinal Tap period, cheesy 80's metal without the
big hair, a bad dream indeed. I agree, as far as live shows, HW hasn't
sounded so good since the late 70's as they do now. Hey, wasn't Nik
involved in some of the early development of Chronicles? Before he
was sacked of course.


My fantasy HW lineup:

Dave AND Nik
Simon House (also playing synth!)
Lemmy
Richard Chadwick

--
Doug Bates