HW: Do Not Panic documentary

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Wed, Apr 04, 2007 at 08:17:32PM -0400, Stephen Swann typed out:
> I love Nik's mad squawking/honking sax in Space Ritual.  Wouln't
> have traded it for 20 dozen people who "play properly".

	I think _Space Ritual_ is one of the few places where you can 
really hear what nik contributed to that sound, back then. On the 
Castle _Best of_, and presumably elsewhere (it must be from SRII 
originally I guess?) there's a variant mix of `Space is Deep', which has 
Nik much more obvious in the recording, and the parts he's playing are a 
constant and musical, if rather unschooled, contribution, which gels 
marvellously with Del's offhand wanderings and is really a fully-
functional *part*. I don't know if on other things, like _1999 Party_, 
he was just wandering round too far from the mike, or if Dave mixed him 
out, and if the latter whether his playing had got worse and merited it, 
but that recording alone shows that Nik did actually *do* something for 
early HW. The trouble is that that doesn't excuse the eighties. But then 
very little will... Yours,
			   Jon

ObCD: Led Zeppelin - _Presence_
-- 
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
	    (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
 Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk