HW: Lucky Leif revisited (plus trivia Q)

[Doug Pearson]

As promised, actual Hawkwind-related content, about the joys of (re-)
discovering a great album ...

Yeah, it's the Calvert album that people always slag off or just ignore.
Fortunately, when listening with the correct mindset, the album is easily
up there with 'Captain Lockheed' and 'Hype'.  The trick is to treat it
like 'Captain Lockheed' and 'Freq' - that is, as a collection of songs
interspersed with "expository" material (with the 'Lockheed' sketches and
the 'Hype' interviews as the "expository" parts).  With 'Lucky Leif', it's
more difficult to recognize the "expository" parts because, unlike the
other two albums, they're *songs*, not sketches or interviews.

So ... if one takes 'Lucky Leif' and leaves out:
the fake surf-pop song ("Lay of the Surfers"),
the fake folk dirge ("Voyaging to Vinland"),
the processed poem ("Making of Midgard"),
the fake carribean song ("Magical Potion"),
the fake country song ("Moonshine in the Mountains"),
the avant-garde snippet ("Phase-Locked Loop"),
and the fake jazz ("Volstead Vodeo Do") ...
you wind up with an INCREDIBLE mini-album/EP.

Because on "Ship of Fools", "Brave New World", "Storm Chant of the
Skraelings", and "Ragna Rock", the Rudolph/Eno/Nichols (etc. but those seem
to be the three main players) band isn't faking anything.  It's not exactly
spacerock (although Eno's synth work is top-notch on "Ship of Fools"
and "Storm Chant"), but each of the four songs has its own identity and is
great in its own right!  "Brave New World" just might be the best *pop*
song to come out of anyone in the Hawkwind camp, catchier even than Bob's
best songs on 'Hype'.  "Storm Chant" is experimental AND rocks, with its
cool malevolent synth bed.  And "Ragna Rock" is appropriately apocalyptic.
Program your CD player for these four songs and let me know what you
think ...

The only problem with this approach is that the "real songs" take up about
2/3-3/4 of 'Captain Lockheed', about 4/5 of 'Hype', but slightly under half
of 'Lucky Leif'.
(Now, who can tape/burn me a copy of the "Cricket Star" flexi?)

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com

P.S. I've been listening to 'Captain Lockheed' and 'Lucky Leif' quite a bit
recently, because they fall into the same category as these albums:
Matching Mole - 'Little Red Record'
John Cale - 'Fear'
Nico - 'The End'
Lady June Campbell-Cramer - 'Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy'
John Cale - 'Slow Dazzle'
Robert Wyatt - 'Ruth is Stranger than Richard'
Phil Manzanera - 'Diamond Head'
John Cale - 'Helen of Troy'
TRIVIA QUESTION: who here (besides KK - which is a major hint!) knows what
these ten albums have in common?

P.P.S. This guy isn't our Dave(id) Brock, either:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,665933,00.html
But you already knew about that, right?