++++ HW: Studio album

[Doug Pearson]

On Mon, 14 Apr 2003 22:48:00 +0100, Jon Jarrett
<jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK> wrote:
>        "This album has been in the works" since it was announced that the
>next project would be on the Death Generator theme, on the old
>hawkwind.com.  That's where I remember it anyway, but in case I was wrong
>I searched the archives of this list and you'll find it was being talked
>of as early as August 1998, by Dave Brock, to the US press. See
><http://listserv.spc.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9808C&L=BOC-L&P=R2451>. You'd
>prefer "four years eight months" instead of "five years" would you? Fine.

Unfortunately, this link wasn't posted on this list (only the Yahoo! one),
but this interview with Alan Davey seems to include more "hard facts" about
the new album than I've seen from any other source (someone point me to it
if there IS a better source of information!).  I'm not sure of the date of
the interview, but it must be from earlier this year since it refers to the
Walthamstow Xmas gig in past tense ...

http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/alandaveyint.htm

A few highlights:
>Music Street Journal: How are things coming along with the new line-up?
>
>Alan Davey: Yeah, pretty good actually - just getting on with this
>album: the one that we started last year.

... so this would seem to indicate that anything recorded prior to 2002 has
been scrapped.  I would assume that anything close to being finished before
then would have come out on Family Tree or Spacebrock (or maybe even Star
Nation).

>Music Street Journal: Could you tell me something about it?
>
>Alan Davey: Well, it's all new tunes... Obviously! We're working on a
>sort of concept for it, but that isn't finalised yet. We've got loads
>of ideas floating around for it. It's about halfway through at the
>moment and we did get some stuff to Arthur Brown last week, 'cause he's
>going to put some lyrics to it. We're writing songs in conjunction with
>Arthur.

Actually, for new Hawkwind albums, Alan's first statement is usually not so
obvious ;^).  But if he's correct, that's a very good thing IMHO ...

>Music Street Journal: That sounds promising after what I saw at the Xmas
>gig in Walthamstow, London.
>
>Alan Davey: Yeah, that's a good band at the moment with me, Dave (Brock),
>Rich (-drummer Richard Chadwick), Arthur Brown and Tim (Blake). I think
>that's going to be the band that's working at the moment. It's a good
>line-up.

Which would seem to indicate that Huw and Simon *won't* be on the new album?

Mission Control (thanks for including navigation links right there on the
front page, Rik!  Greatly appreciated!) doesn't seem to indicate the full
lineup in its' paragraph on the album, but ...

"LATEST INFO : The new studio album is about finished now, and Arthur Brown
has contributed guest vocals on some tracks, with Lene Lovich also
appearing as an android !! A few downloadable clips will appear here in a
few days. Also in the immediate pipeline are a few more releases; 'Family
Tree 2' and a live release from the 2002 Xmas Party gig at Walthamstow in
London, to (possibly) be entitled 'Spaced Out In London'."

(HELLO!!! DID EVERYONE NOTICE THE SECOND SENTENCE OF THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH?
I don't recall seeing it when I first saw the bit about Lene Lovich, but I
could have just been skimming.)

Mission Control also says:
"LATEST STUFF: + Arthur Brown is currently serving aboard the mothership
and will also appear on the new album, and on a live release from the last
tour..... Arthur will most likely also be with us on the May dates we are
currently arranging."

(And back to the Music Street Journal interview - Alan also has some
*excellent* observations on singing, and regarding the likes of his &
Dave's voices vs. the likes of Arthur Brown's, although he also makes it
clear that he's never heard a Z. Vex Woolly Mammoth bass fuzz pedal, or he
wouldn't say, "I can tell when people are using distortion on the bass -
they've got no bollocks! It's just fuzzy.")

>        New tracks, leaving aside stuff released on _In Your Area_: `Anna
>Seed', `Spacebrock' & `Money Tree', whatever the name of Ron's rework of
>`The Owl and the Pussycat' was, `Earth Calling' in two different versions
>and I *think* there was another Ron one about aliens in 1999.

"Eeda-Karan" or something like that, which was just a spoken bit that
included a "genetic engineering" reference - surprise surprise ;^).  Is
that what you're thinking of?

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com