HW: Blackheath

[Ron Jennings]

> > Sure, there have been some great Davey influenced moments which
wouldn`t
> > have been there if he wasn`t in the group
>
> IMO AD completely revitalised HW. In the early '80s they were
> in danger of disappearing up their own arses, the music was
> becoming too mellow, too simple. Partly that's a reflection of
> the times, there was new technology which sounded too clean and
> a lot of good bands began to produce bad albums. Basically
> quality studio gear seemed to make prog and hard rock musicians
> head straight for the AOR ground.

100% agreement here.

> Alan Davey was a HW fan, he understood what made HW tick and what
> appeals to  the fans and to some extent he reintroduced it. That
> something is a spirit of adventure, of danger, of perpetual change.
> In HW Brock is a catalyst who allows others to interact around him
> but the band began to ossify after Levitation. Alan brought change.
> Having said that it's good that he's gone because the band was
> again starting to stagnate, getting too electonic, relying too
> much on samplers and sequencers.

the sequencers and such were Brock's baby.
alan mentioned to me once how stifling it was that their set list was
unchangeable,
because it would mean dave would have to reprogram his machines.
the addition of a power-guitar will certainly liven things up. but a
certain percentage of
hawkwind's magic has departed.  (for me)

> > these moments were out-weighed by his slightly crude sub-Lemmy clone
> > style playing and singing. Lemmy is brilliant - he is one of the all
> > time greats of rock and his style is _his_ style - if you accidentally
> > stray too close to his style then you end up sounding bad.
>
> I think that you are just plain wrong here. Lemmy plays bass like
> a guitar, in fact like a guitarist. He doesn't just hold down the
> bottom end but uses the full range of the instrument to enhance the
> harmonic structure of the music. He uses arpeggios and intervals
> to add tonality. Great, but not unique. Lemmy plays very much like
> Jack Bruce, John Entwhistle and Noel Redding. Sure Alan is
> influenced by this (didn't he learn by playing along to HW records?)
> but it's not Lemmy's style, it's a generic rock bass style. Would
> you rather he held down root notes, usually on the beat a la Harvey?
> Or that HW had a bass player who played slap-funk on a fretless 5-string?

once again, lemmy is the reason alan learned to play bass.
dave is a part of the reason alan played bass like lemmy.
dave wanted a lemmy clone, and so he got it.
alan's solo stuff does not sound like lemmy.
it sounds like alan.

> > Now listen to Alan trying to sing The Right Stuff (for example) and its
> > painful
>
> Agreed

disputed.

> > Alan undoubtedly did contribute energy to the group at a time when they
> > needed it (after HLL left) but he brought in a new aspect of the sound
> > which to me always sounded lumpy.
>
> Not sure what you mean by *lumpy*, but AD had the misfortune to play
> with some awful drummers. Richard is very good but those anonymous
> morons before him who merely banged out a 4/4 beat... YUCK!

one drummer is as good as the next for me, i like richard as a person.
rj