HW: Blackheath

[Chris Bates]

Mark Edmonds wrote:

> This early 80s phenomina you refer to was indeed most puzzling and I
> never knew what the cause of it was. I felt that round about '83, they
> completely lost direction and for some reason couldn't get a major
> contract signed.

There's been a couple of these *lost direction* periods -
the time around *Church ...*, *Zones*, *This is Hawkwind* was
awful. I like *Sonic Attack* and CYM a lot and think that CotBS
is brilliant. It is badly recorded and has some of the worst
synth sounds I can imagine but I listened to it the other day
and it really *rocks*. Had me heaadbanging on the sofa until
my kids started giggling!

> if memory serves correct, the next studio album was Xenon Codex and it
> was here that I started to feel what I considered an uneasy quality of
> the sound which I earlier refered to as being "lumpy". The Davey penned

Ah, yes. I don't own *Xenon Codex* or *Space Bandits*,
they're just _too_ awful. I don't know why, I mean I hate
IITBOTFTBD (!) but at least it's creative, they were
trying to do something interesting. In fact around then
the live gigs were also awful.

> totally out of place. I was beginning to get disenchanted and things
> only got worse with Palace Springs! Three duffers in a row - what the

But Palace Springs is excellent, varied, exciting. Lovely.


Chris Bates