HW: Re: Hawkwind Onward

[stewartbas at AOL.COM]

I was kinda hoping the hawks would use the unexpurgated lyrics to Right to Decide.

bill s

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Horse <horse at DARKSTAR.UK.NET>
To: BOC-L <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
Sent: Sat, Aug 11, 2012 6:20 pm
Subject: Re: HW: Re: Hawkwind Onward


That's the one :)



Cheers



On 11/08/2012 21:25, Lucidsounds wrote:

> Albert Dryden.

>

> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Horse" <horse at DARKSTAR.UK.NET>

> To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>

> Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 8:50 PM

> Subject: Re: HW: Re: Hawkwind Onward

>

>

>> Does anyone out there remember the name of the guy that inspired the 

>> lyrics to 'Right To Decide'? I think he shot a council member over 

>> some planning permission incident.

>> I seem to remember that the band got a lot of stick for supporting 

>> him when they issued it the first time round.

>>

>> Cheers

>>

>> Horse

>>

>>

>> On 11/08/2012 15:57, Jonathan Jarrett wrote:

>>> On Wed, 9 May 2012, SHLL (Scott Heller) wrote:

>>>> I am really surprised that there has been no discussion of the new 

>>>> Hawkwind record. I still don't have mine but some of you out there 

>>>> must have it by now... What do people think compared to Blood of 

>>>> the Earth?? Has anyone heard the vinyl? They did a terrible job on 

>>>> the mastering of the vinyl on the last one, sound was very muddy 

>>>> (way too much low end) compared to the CD sound. Hope they sort 

>>>> this one out. I have not bought the vinyl yet as I don't listen to 

>>>> the last one on vinyl due to the sound issues.

>>>>

>>>> Anyway, I really look forward to hearing it and digging into the 

>>>> songs...

>>>

>>> I actually only got hold of this album in the last couple of weeks, 

>>> which is a bit poor for a fan I know. I'd been much encouraged by 

>>> the two tracks I'd heard on Aural Innovations webcasts, and I now 

>>> realise that in some ways those were the two tracks I was most 

>>> likely to like (`Seasons' and the hidden track). But I've given it 

>>> several spins now--I got the expanded edition--and have some 

>>> opinions, if anyone wants 'em. Overall, though, my current verdict 

>>> is that I actually like this album better than _Blood of the Earth_ 

>>> but can't easily explain why since I think the production is 

>>> unhelpfully dense and that there are fewer stand-

>>> out tracks. It just seems like a coherent piece of work by a band 

>>> that knew what it was after. That, also, seems strange when one 

>>> looks at who was on the tracks and realises that, for example, Tim 

>>> Blake's hardly there outside the tracks he wrote parts for, Dibs 

>>> only gets two writing credits even though he seems omni-present and 

>>> there's a sizeable part of the album which is all-or-mostly-Dave and 

>>> which doesn't sound radically different to the rest even so. So my 

>>> first impression was that this seems like a genuinely active and 

>>> coherent band, and that looking as it to see whether or not this is 

>>> `proper Hawkwind' or not is not going to be the right way to listen 

>>> to it. It's obviously what the band called Hawkwind is doing now.

>>>

>>> So, track-by-track? `Seasons' is to my ear mainly Dibs's work but 

>>> Richard actually gets lead credit so what do I know? Intense, fast 

>>> and hostile; the dense production actually an advantage here, and 

>>> definitely a highlight that makes one eager to hear more.

>>>

>>> `The Hills Have Ears'--a doomful Gaia-hypothesis prophecy on which 

>>> Niall gets lead credit, in which case he should do that more often. 

>>> The words aren't great but contain a Chrome reference, unexpected 

>>> but pleasing. On the whole this is no drop in quality from the 

>>> beginning.

>>>

>>> `Mind Cut'--all Brock, words music and playing, and none too bad but 

>>> neither is it stand-out among his work. We've kind of heard this 

>>> before, and the words are rather basic. (I care about this more as I 

>>> get older.)

>>>

>>> `System Check'--a `Psychosis'-style spaceship radio exchange, in 

>>> which Tim massively over-acts compared to the rest of the crew, 

>>> bless him. Entertaining filler.

>>>

>>> `Death Trap'--retread, obviously, but really quite good, up with the 

>>> _Alien4_ version as a justifiable rework and identifiably, as I say, 

>>> a different band; this is the point at which I came to the 

>>> realisation about this line-up's coherence that I set out above.

>>>

>>> `Southern Cross'--Tim's track, but it sounds like a Hawkwind one all 

>>> the same, and better-than-entertaining instrumental filler.

>>>

>>> `Prophecy'--Brock track with only him, Niall and Richard on the 

>>> recording. Again lyrics not the strong point but reasonably mantric, 

>>> which forgives that a bit; all the same this isn't a high point.

>>>

>>> `Electric Tears'/`Drive By'--technically two tracks but I can't 

>>> detect the separation between them without watching the CD player's 

>>> display, despite the fact that the line-ups differ, first being just 

>>> date and the latter being the trio from `Prophecy' again. The bit I 

>>> think of as `Drive By' is a bit like `Taxi for Max' would have been 

>>> if they'd stopped and completely rethought how to do something fun 

>>> in that general frame. There's more thought generally in this pair 

>>> than most of Hawkwind's synth interludes but they're very short.

>>>

>>> `Computer Cowards'--just Dave and Richard, and the lyrics uniquely 

>>> not given in the sleeve. They're not hard to figure out: Dave 

>>> doesn't like people sniping on the Internet and wishes them an evil 

>>> fate. Hi Dave! It's in the vein of `Behind the Face' from 

>>> _Spacebrock_ or `Comfy Chair' but darker, meaner and more musically 

>>> repetitive, not that I mean that in a bad way. This is Dave's dark 

>>> side coming out!

>>>

>>> `Howling Moon'--Brock solo and I've not really anything major to say 

>>> about it. Probably the least impressive piece of music on the discs.

>>>

>>> `Right to Decide'--a bonus track, and well, yes, it's about the same 

>>> as ever it was but with the sound of this new line-up, except in as 

>>> much as it's the 2008 line-up with Jason Stuart also aboard. I quite 

>>> liked Jason live but here the plinkety piano adds something 

>>> dangerously like Rockney to the feel of things, something I think 

>>> only `Brainbox Pollution' really copes with in the Hawkwind 

>>> catalogue. Still a good song but rightly relegated to bonus-ville here.

>>>

>>> `Aerospaceage Inferno'--another bonus with that same line-up, and 

>>> here again I don't find the piano much of a bonus. The lyrics are 

>>> printed here, for some reason, whereas none of the other songs from 

>>> before get this privilege; there's also a middle-eight poem from 

>>> Dibs, or at least he recites it and it has his general flavour, 

>>> about a bad re-entry by a spacecraft, which reads quite lamely on 

>>> the page but which works very well in the setting of the bigger 

>>> track, and definitely adds something. It's a good version but still, 

>>> plinkety-plink, I can't look back on that as a good idea however 

>>> good Jason was at it.

>>>

>>> `The Flowering of the Rose'--instrumental jam by the 2008 line-up 

>>> again, and this one quite fun, think `Flight to Maputo' or `Going to 

>>> Hawaii' or `Only Time Will Tell' but with a bit more going on that's 

>>> melodic. I'm glad to have got this in the package.

>>>

>>> `Trans Air Trucking'--a Brock-Blake joint effort, with only them 

>>> playing, Tim on bass as well as keys, and instrumental. I was hoping 

>>> for a bit more life and bounce from it given the title, I'd kind of 

>>> like to see the title taken off it and saved for something else as 

>>> there isn't so much going on here. Pleasant enough!

>>>

>>> `Deep Vents'--Brock solo piece, but weirdly like one of Alan's 

>>> pieces from the early nineties. Could have done with being longer! I 

>>> like these noises and would cheerfully have had more of them.

>>>

>>> `Green Finned Demon'--the Brock-Hone-Chadwick trio here and a 

>>> perfectly good version, but it's hard to say it really adds anything 

>>> to the song that we didn't have in other versions. By the end of 

>>> this album it's hard not to think that they powered it out so 

>>> quickly that they couldn't come up with enough conventional songs so 

>>> resorted to retreads to space out the synth work and poems.

>>>

>>> And then there's the hidden track, whose name I would like to know 

>>> because it's really quite good, lyrics not unlike `Blood of the 

>>> Earth' and ploughing the same kind of high-octane apocalypticism as 

>>> `Seasons' at the beginning. I suspect Dibs and Niall of being to the 

>>> fore on this one, and in general I don't understand why this one's a 

>>> secret, it should be a matter for pride. Excellent closer.

>>>

>>> So, there's some filler I think and I question the need for two 

>>> retreads (in fact I question the need for one but the `Death Trap' 

>>> is so good I will forgive it) but I'm very happy to have them still 

>>> active and *sounding like a band*. If they turned out another of 

>>> this standard in eighteen months that would be a cause for 

>>> celebration I reckon. So, there you go Scott, some thoughts :-) 

>>> Yours all,

>>> Jon

>>>

>>

>> -- 

>>

>> "Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring 

>> production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."

>> — Frank Zappa 

>



-- 



"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production 

deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."

— Frank Zappa