Hawkfan Gathering 98'

[Scott Heller]

357.  German Hawkwind Fan Meeting 1998, Tipsy Apes HM Club, Hamburg,
Germany 6/12-13/1998   gratis

6/12:  Tranquilizer
          Growing Seeds
          Nik Turner and Judge Trev from ICU with jam session

6/13:  Zone Six
          Bedoiun (Alan Davey)
          Mandragora Light Show Society

        This was one hell of a weekend. It is a 4.5 hr train ride to
Hamburg main station and then another 20 min train ride out to Heimfeld.
Walk down the hill and then down a road (Am Radeland) and the club is in a
sort of industrial area but away from all the houses so the music can go 24
hrs!   Had no problems getting there.  Met up with Feddo Reiners and his
girlfriend who had hitchhiked from Den Haag in Holland for this event. I
had a great time with them! Really great people.  Also met up with Bernhard
Pospiech, a great internet Hawkfriend of mine. We had never met and that
was quite a pleasure. We had a nice chat as well, but he did not camp out
and only came for the Saturday bands (even though I did meet him on
friday!). Lots of other great folks as well...Thomas Leonhardt, the
organizer is one hell of a nice guy and was quite happy to see all went
well.  The folks from the HM Club were all really great and were into great
old 80's metal, so i heard a lot of my favorites. I just wish  they could
have turned it down a little between 4-7 am.. Motorhead Ace of Spades,
Overkill, Bomber at maximum volume is really hard to sleep to..  Ok......
as for the weather, well, for the middle of june it sucked! It was cold and
rainy, although the rain stayed away when the bands played, which was nice.
It got down to nearly freezing each night and I was not quite prepared and
thus suffered..  They did have a nice bon fire you could warm yourself with
though.. As for the music....

        Tranquilizer are a young band with two rappers who switched off. I
had heard people compared them to Massive Attack, whom I don't know...
They played a slightly psychedelic funk with a rapper and a guy who made
synth noises and scratches, a DJ!  It was bass, drums, guitar, digeridoo,
Dj and two rappers who took turns, never together on the same song..  They
were alright... There last two songs were actually quite good and one could
have been an Ozrics tune...  They played for like 50 minutes..  I should
say now that the sound for all bands was excellent. They really had a guy
who know is shit and the mix was always great.   Congrats to this guy..
Makes it great for us who are trying to record.  I recorded most all the
music from the audience, while there was a german guy recording on MD also
but from the board and Feddo recorded from the audience as well.  Also,
they had an excellent psychedelic light show by Lucifer's Sun Dream.  Great
light show.....  A little hard to see until it got dark but only the first
band really played when it was light. Remember that it stays light until
10:30 in Hamburg at this time of year.

        Growing Seeds were next and I had read great things about them in
Crohinga WEll and the Freak Emporium catalog, so I had high
expectations...............and they were exceeded! These guys play just my
style of heavy psych.. Killer stuff.. Heavy fuzzed guitars, nice synths
sounds and great 60's sounding organ on some of the songs and great spacey
echoy vocals.... Spaced out...... long jams as well, with most songs 7-10
minutes in length.  I think they played for 75 minutes.  Funny how the
bands never seem to play as long as they could. All were given 2 hours and
only did Bedoiun and the friday night jam session go that long.   Anyway,
Growing Seeds are awesome and I highly recommend them. I bought their CD,
Miraculous Journey (73min).

        Next up was Judge Trev Thomas from ICU playing with Nik Turner.
They did a bunch of old ICU songs acoustic with sax or flute.  Then were
joined by various members from Tranquilier first and then Growing Seeds
later.  They did long jams on Silver Machine, Master of the Universe and
some others as well that were somewhat interesting but a lot of times the
guitar player did not know the riff for the song, so it sounded strange....
I thought everyone who was at this festival and was a musician would know
the chords for the classic HW songs, but I was wrong. It would be the other
way around, that most don't know the HW songs at all!  It was a bit windy
this night and there is a little bit of wind noise in the recordings of
this session here and there but overall the clarity is excellent!  I even
used the windscreens.....

Bucket on their Heads, Little White Egg,  Don't do it,  Spanish
instrumental, D-Rider, Bones of Elvis (incredible!)

Jam with Tranquilizer:
Sax and digeridoo intro> some 50's number but funked up a bit, Riot goin' On

(60 minutes)

Jam with dig player, Zone Six guitar player and drum from Growing Seeds?,
Organ player from Growing Seeds..  bass player comes on, Growing Seeds
guitar player replaces Zone Six... etc..

Sax solo, into mellow jam with flute, Heavy funk jam,  (Master of the
Universe*), Brainstorm jam (recorded from tent)
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,  Johnny B. Goode, Silver
Machine, space jam, more space......

*missing from recording

(75 minutes)

The whole set with jam session was like 3 hours long..  and now it is like
3 in the morning... and the loud heavy metal starts until 7am...

Day Two:

Nik and Trev are playing old 60's tunes outside their tent... I record two
half numbers: CS and N song. ??

Trev does an acoustic set with Nik at 5 in the afternoon. (20 Mintutes)
Mostly all new numbers which were quite cool. Incredible version of Candle
in the WInd but with totally twisted lyrics..

Trembling Hand, Set Free, ?, Candle in the Wind, Brew Crew

I really liked these folks songs a lot. Excellent stuff..

Zone Six starts about 9 I guess and plays three total improv numbers in
which Nik joins them on two of the numbers.  I think normally they are much
harder edged, Monster Magnet like, but this was really pretty cool and
interesting as well... Good band..   Guitar, bass, drums and the guitar
player from the Growing Seeds he played a bit of MOOG synth and did some
CAN like vocal chants......  Pretty cool. I spoke with the band and they
really had a good time in their set. They played for 45 minutes.

Bedoiun took a long time to set up and did not start until 11:30 I would
guess but boy were we in for a treat as Alan was quite psyched up and they
played an incredible set. 80 minutes of Bedoiun and HW numbers and then Nik
joined them for a set of classic numbers: LSD, Watching the Grass Grow,
Bucket on his head, Master of the Universe, Silver Machine, Assassins of
Allah, Brainstorm (bass, drums and sax only!)  The whole set was like 125
minutes!  Bedoiun are a very heavy band.. remind me of late 70's Motorhead
a lot... Sean, the guitar player is excellent. I was not really impressed
by the Bedoiun CD that much but live these guys really play and Danny
Thompson has really improved and is quite excellent.   Their set was
incredible and the light show put on to compliment it was incredible.. They
really gave the audience everything they wanted!!  The HW numbers with Nik
at the end were a bit frustrating for Sean on guitar as he did not always
know what to play, not being familiar with the songs. He finally gave up
for Brainstorm and they tried to get Trev to play it on acoustic (the
guitar part), but he was missing...so they played it without a guitar..
sounds very strange.

Opened with something off Captured Rotation, Mirage, Queen of the Night,
Sputnik Stan, Vision Quest, Arioch, Ancient Rite, Wings, Rock Palace, Elric
the Enchanter, Passion is an Animal, Sword of the East, LSD
Watching the Grass Grow*, Bucket on his head*, Master of the Universe*,
Silver Machine*, Assassins of Allah, Brainstorm

* recording missing these songs

117 minutes

        By the time they finished it was like 1:45 and I was totally
exhausted after only two hours of sleep the previous day.  I warmed myself
by the fire and then went to lay down but it was so cold and loud that I
did not get any sleep.. I was falling in and out of sleep while listening
to Mandragora Light Show Society and they sounded really really
incredible.. IF I had know that the recording of the last half of the Nik
set from the first night sounded as good as it did, I would have recorded
them from the tent as well.. They did not start playing until nearly 3 am.
I hope Feddo got a good recording of them as they sounded really great,
spacey 60's meets 90's psych stuff..

        Well, that was a hell of a weekend.   I am left completely
wasted... Good night....... I highly recommend this event and it was well
worth the travel.. I will for sure come again next year if they have it..
Ed, a huge Hawkfan from Iowa was there. Great guy!

Later.....


scott

R. Scott Heller PhD
Hagedorn Research Institute
Niels Steensensvej 6
DK 2820 Gentofte Denmark
(45) 44 43 91 96  or 44 3 91 38 Phone
(45) 44 43 80 00 Fax
shll at hagedorn.dk  or  heller at hagedorn.dk
Http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/stage/7713