HAWKWIND`S SPACE ROCK TOOK PSYCHEDELIC ROCK TO THE EDGE OF THE EXPERIMENTAL UNIVERSE

There was nothing kocha about music in the seventies, even if most of it
had lost a lot of the rough edges and unrefined experimentation that was
the hallmark of flower power rock in the preceding decade. Britain was a
breeding ground for most of the post-60`s blues rock which dominated the
charts both in the US and UK, none more so than Led Zeppelin and eventu-
ally the mark 2 line up of Fleetwood Mac, which was enhanced greatly by
the addition of one most underated guitarist, Lindsay Buckingham. How-
ever the Mark 1 line up of the Mac, although less refined and easy on
the ear than the band post-Rumours, was a powerhouse of hard pumping
blues with a degree of substance inspired deviations which were both
artistically progressive and destructive in equal measure. If you go
digging for early 70`s British rock, you will find so much crazy and
weird stuff in the vein of Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, latter day Beat-
les and Pink Floyd to eat your heart out with. Psychedelic distortion,
guitar feedback, echoing overdubbing & a heap of other studio manip-
ulated trickery which was applied on so many psychedelic blues and pro-
gressive rock recordings to keep up with the trends of the time. There
was one band from Britain which was way out of its depth really, a real
band of wannabes, who nonetheless took psychedelic blues rock to a new
level, or as they termed it, `space rock`. They were or maybe are still
known as HAWKWIND. Lemmy Kilmister, who was the bassist & eventu-
al lead vocalist in HAWKWIND, would go on to form a very diffrent kind
of band following his dismissal in 1974, but he managed to hang around
long enough in HAWKWIND to create some inspired but technically flawed
`space rock` as well as a heap of controversy while on tour thanks to
the influence of mind altering drugs and bubbling tension between the
various band members. Lemmy, far & away the most well known mem-
ber of HAWKWIND, was fired shortly after being busted for poccession
of cocaine at the Canadian border while on tour. A friend of mine was
the one who suggested i have a listen to HAWKWIND to see for my-
self just how original and vital the band was for its time, they cer-
tainly weren`t the next Led Zeppelin or Jefferson Airplane as far as
flower power eccentricities go but they still held their own in the
stakes of open minded improvisation. The album i have of the
band is a live affair, `Live `74`, recorded at the Chicago Auditori-
um on the 21st March, 1974, but i should point out that the edition
of the album that i have is a shortened one with some omissions from
the original song list. Songs like `Brainbox Pollution`, `Brainstorm`,
`The Psychedelic Warlords` and `Master of the Universe` says it all,
it`s a very loopy affair with absolutely nothing to speak of in the
sophistication stakes, it`s characterised by lengthy jam-outs which
at times are barely listenable but are a headbangers dream. This is
as rough and tumble as psychedelic rock ever got, at least with the
stuff i have listened to in my life. HAWKWIND probaly owed a lot to
the likes of Zeppelin and Floyd for making progressive and progres-
sive blues rock fashionable on the US concert circuit, the band was
always unceremoniously panned by just about every rock music critic
in the big cities of america, but they always attracted a big crowd
to their gigs, especially outside the big cities where metal loving
fans were barely influenced by what the music mag critics were say-
ing was kocha and `cool`. Lemmy Kilmister`s new band by the way
was the unmistakable MOTORHEAD, an ear splintering metal band
which was light years away from the psychedelic brew of HAWKWIND.
Lots of drugs and lots of internal strife probaly would have prevented
HAWKWIND from achieving greatness with or without LEMMY, but for
a few years, it was one band which was capable of taking its fans to
places where no man had gone before, and Spock was nowhere to be seen.