NIK - Space Ritual

[Maxine Wesley]

Hallo peeps,

I couldn't agree with Keith's summary of Nik's Space Ritual more. I saw
them play at the Brook Club last winter. The sound was very very very
(very) retro, more avant-garde jazz skiffle than progressive rock.

I was dissappointed ...but what was worse was the fact that, after 25
years of her knowing my penchant for HW, i had finally managed to
persuade my big sister to come along and see what i had been going
on about! Caroline herself doesn't get out that much....2.4 kids etc and
I think the last band she saw was actually Status Quo (in about 1977!).
She is also one of the most generous people i know; selfless, non-
critical, accepting of all etc - so to see her shifting from foot to foot in
abject boredom was almost unbearable - she may never venture out
again! Do SR give refunds or does anyone think we have a case for
compensation?


regards

Maxine

p.s. The only point i disagree with Keith is that they sounded anything
like Status Quo - the proof of this is that Caro would have been leaping
about.. probably doing "the shoulders".

> Date:    Wed, 20 Jul 2005 03:13:39 -0700
> From:    Keith Henderson <khenders64 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject: NIK: HW: Burg Herzberg etc.
>
> Hey Folks...
>
> How was the Dour Festival in Belgium?  (Not sure about that name...do
> they not know what dour actually means in English?  BTW, what does it
> mean in French?)
>
> Of course, it was the same weekend as Burg Herzberg, so there was no
> way I was going to be there.  BH'05 was excellent!  Many more people
> came this year than either of the last two years, and in fact there
> was talk amongst the promoters that they wouldn't continue because of
> how much money they lost last year.  I guess there's now just so many
> festivals around Europe, that many of them are finding it hard to keep
> up attendence with so much competition.  (Finkenbach, Guru Guru's
> festival, were in the same situation, but also have decided to
> continue...maybe I'll get down there for it, but perhaps not...I might
> go to Prague instead.)  Well, luckily, Herzberg turned out great this
> year, and that means good things for next year.
>
> I won't say much about all the bands that played, 'cause I hope to
> have a chance to write a full comprehensive review, but here's a few
> main points.
>
> ColourHaze, a great stonerish band from Munich, got things off to a
> very good start on Thursday evening, and I was surprised (never having
> showed up early enough for Thursday bands) at how many people were
> there (didn't realize at the time how crowded it would get on Sat.).
>
> Friday's lineup included Anekdoten, Mostly Autumn, Love (without
> Arthur Lee, who apparently went AWOL just before the gig), Big Brother
> & the Holding Co. (also without Janis Joplin, who is also AWOL), the
> Ozrics, and Nik's Space Ritual.
>
> The Ozrics are still very good, though it seems as though Eddie is
> just keeping the band going 'cause he doesn't have anything else to
> do, and only John is left from the original unit.
>
> Anekdoten were very good, and luckily they didn't get rained out like
> last year, just before Hawkwind.
>
> Space Ritual I think are really terrible, sorry to say.  I hadn't
> really thought about it much beforehand, but it just makes absolutely
> no damn sense whatsoever to have assembled this crazy band.  Yeah, OK,
> it has five people who were (nearly) original members of the band, but
> then why is the band called Space Ritual, and why do they play Space
> Ritual-era songs (almost exclusively) when none (apart from Nik
> himself) were ever actually *in* the band in 1972-73?  Unlike before,
> when Nik occasionally threw together a bunch of guys to play behind
> him without much rehearsal (if any), such that it was kind of a mess
> (but at least it was some kind of 'celebration' of Hawkwind
> music...that is to say, as classic Space Rock), this band actually
> could play reasonably well, with only an occasional clusterf*ck.  So
> the problem wasn't the *ability* of the band members to play, just
> that none of them (save perhaps Terry Ollis) know a damn thing about
> how to 'blanga.'  The style of the musi!
>  c was ALL
>  WRONG.  I couldn't even recognize half the songs until Nik started
>  singing.  I thought D-Rider was Golden Void (it was actually pretty
>  good, 'cause Golden Void is my favorite HW song), and Brainstorm
>  sounded oddly like Damnation Alley.  And Mick Slattery was playing
>  some f*cking kind of slide guitar solo in the middle of it...he
>  doesn't apparently realize that HW strayed away from blues music very
>  soon after he left.  I swear, the band sounds much closer to Status
>  Quo (or what I think Status Quo sounds like, given that they are
>  almost completely unknown in the states), ie. some kind of silly
>  party boogie-blues-like rubbish.  It was very surreal to hear
>  Hawkwind songs played in this style, and frankly rather disturbing
>  and almost painful.  OK, I admit that I thought Nik and Trev's
>  (silly?) punk versions of Brainstorm and MotU were enjoyable, so I'm
>  not entirely against reinterpretation of old HW classics, but these
>  versions were truly offensive I must say.
>
> Actually, Sonic Attack (no horrible bouncey blues rhythm) they did
> really well, oddly enough...and MotU as a finale wasn't too awful, but
> then Anderson (I never really liked him in AD2 either) and Ollis at
> least played on the studio version.  Other than that, they did no
> tracks that any of the members featured on.  Not even Hurry on Sundown
> amazingly enough.
>
> Anyway, sorry, but I can't give thumbs up to this band.  Nik has just
> gone off the tracks with this one...I would like to see what sort of
> excuse he might have for why anyone should care that he has a band
> with five 1969-1971 members, when the one thing they absolutely can
> NOT do is sound anything remotely like Space Rock.  At all.  And who
> the hell even knows/remembers that Tom Crimble and Mick were ever in
> the band?  What the hell is the point of all this?!  And why wasn't it
> obvious to me that the whole thing was silly before I even went to see
> them?  :)  (Well, I woulda gone to Herzberg no matter what, so...)
>