BOC: Is it me (or did I watch too much TV)?

[John Majka]

>
>        Well, over the last few days I've been doing a bit of of BOC listening
>for the first time (I've listened to some before, but not very
>carefully). I've got Cultosaurus, and today bought Agents of Fortune.
>        Perhaps it's just not my thing, but most of the music sounds like poor
>rock - having little substance, sounding like much of the stuff you get
>on crappy popular radio stations. The only songs I can listen to more
>than once are Black Sword and (Don't Fear) the Reaper. I've also heard
>all of the other Moorcock ones, which I love, but that's about it.
>        Is there something I'm missing? Are these two albums not a fair
>representation of them? Or is it one of those things you get used to
>after a while?
>        At present, I really don't see any connection between HW and BOC,
>thematically, musically, etc., apart from Moorcock.


Yeah, I gave BOC the first serious listen as a result of being on this list
for HW for some time.  I bought "Workshop of the Telescopes" and I liked
"Don't Fear The Reaper" and "Veteran of the Psychic Wars," but had little
tolerance at all for anything else on the 2-disc set.  I'm not trying to
antagonize the BOC people, but some of these songs are really horrible, like
"The Marshall Plan," with its rock-anthem-cum-cliche about dreams of rock
and roll stardom.  It just seems dopey and tinged with an adolescent
romanticism.  Ditto with many of the other songs.  This kind of stuff is in
fact what I think of when I try to summarize bad 70's/early 80's Rock and
Roll (capital letters mandatory in this case).  I can't see any relationship
whatever between HW and BOC aside from Moorcock's involvement with both
bands.  They really have virtually nothing in common either musically or in
terms of general outlook/point of view.  BOC is ROCK, but Hawkwind is
certainly something very different from that term.  "Kick Ass Rock And Roll"
is thankfully not much in evidence these days (good riddance!), perhaps
evidenced by the lack of BOC's recorded output.  What's it been--ten years?
fifteen?--since BOC put out an album of new stuff?

John Majka
flossbac at wcic.org