HW: Brock and Davey are it (was: That HW Sound)

[cjohnson]

       Folks, I worship Dave Brock's ability to keep finding distinctive
       repetitive rhythm-variations banged out on a guitar which are not
       boring or even obviously derivative.  I don't recall where I heard
       it, but he has been called "the heaviest rhythm guitar player on
       the planet" (in space too?).  This man has been single-handedly
       responsible for the entire sound of the band Hawkwind [tm] ever
       since Bob Calvert left.

       I would argue that before the Hawklords, the band HW had numerous
       major contributors in the band, each changing the total sound with
       a type of synergy.  However, the Calvert-era HW (Hawklords, Sonic
       Assassins, etc) striped away the whole synergy-thing, and replaced
       it with a more traditional punk pop band -- with a helluva Space
       poet as the front man.  Calvert clearly defined the "feel" of this
       band every bit as much as Brock did.  Most songs from this period
       are a vocal extravaganza (Calvert), with a superb backing score
       (Brock).

       IMO, after Calvert left Dave Brock became the final arbiter of all
       things Hawkwind.  He brought in some hot players that he already
       knew from previous festivals/etc (Huw, Harvey, Alan, ...) and
       fleshed out a newer, more relevent to the times "speed metal"
       version of the band.  However, no matter how many quite-decent
       fantasy pop speed metal tunes that Huw wrote (and there were quite
       a few), the band sound was still Brock's sound.  His fast, heavy
       guitar could almost replace the percussion instrument at times.


       Whew!  Now that I got that over with :-), my real subject is Alan
       Davey.  This guy has been in the band since 1983, which is about as
       long as Nik was in HW (total), and about 3x as long as Lemmy was.
       Alan was heavily influenced as a bass player by Lemmy-in-Hawkwind,
       and still today is the most-Lemmy-like bass player that I know of.
       And we all know how much Lemmy contributed to the sound of the
       early Hawkwind.  Listen to Alan's playing on 'Electric Teepee' and
       see who it reminds you of?  LEMMY!

       Alan's bass playing has definitely evolved into a more significant
       influence on the HW sound than either Harvey or Dave Anderson or
       Adrian Shaw or any other former HW-bass except Lemmy himslf.  And
       with Brock's simi-withdrawal from full-on rhythm guitar in favor
       of synths in recent years, Alan's contribution to the "rock" part
       of the HW sound has increased even further.

       Alan is the man.  Brock is the god.  Richard is the friendly one.
       :-)

       Captain Cloud
       cjohnson at sur1a.hpsc.hisd.harris.com