HW: Tim Blake - opinions please

[M Holmes]

Martyn Lawrence writes:

> Do yourself a favour and buy New Jerusalem & Crystal Machine,magick is
> very different for the other two,and is fairly boring,although a
> couple of tracks were very good live..  New Jerusalem is one of my
> alltime favourite songs,and it was a delight to see him perform
> this,Lighthouse and Nati(from magick)when he was with hawkwind.  Its a
> shame he left the band during the 1980 tour,there was an article about
> hismusical career in Hawkfan 6,and I have to agree he was a bit
> popstarish.

> As for what he's upto now is a mystery,but he lives in france I
> believe.  He guested with hawkwind around '95 and played some solo
> shows in the uk and usa,then joined gong for the birthday reunion
> gigs.  Why he isn't still playing with gong,is a bit strange
> especially since on the cd for the gong birthday gigs ,he says
> something like it was great to play with gong again.

> There are a couple of video's around and FOFP has them,so he might add
> a few comments here.

Well OK, I'll have to fess up and say I was a huge fan of the title
track of New Jerusalem. I played it at least three times a day for a
couple of years while I was a student (not bad for a 20 minute track)
and quite often while cognitively different.

I missed his appearance with Hawkwind at the Brixton Academy in 1990(?)
but did catch him at the Brixton Fridge doing Majick the night
afterwards. It was great to finally hear him play NJ live, though I
heard him play it with Hawkwind in 1979.

I do have the Voiceprint video, due to having sent them the money on day
one, and pestering them to send me the video for a year. They were slow,
and slower still because Tim changed his mind about releasing it. About
50 made it out to those who'd prepaid. It's just Tim wearing his Glitter
Suit and playing one of those guitar shaped keyboard things and
imagining he could sing. It's overlaid with graphics which were pretty
obviously knocked up on a BBC Micro (I'm sure I once had the program
which made 'em).

I also have a bootleg video which I picked up from someone who recorded
the US tour of Majick and another bootleg tape of him in Baltimore.

I have a few Blake tapes:

Tim Blake
---------
Waterfalls in Space                                    C60         7
Live at Orsay                                          2xC60       9
Home Demos                                             45          7
Amsterdam 1979/ Leglise St Gervais 1975                C90         6
Oxford Poly                             1977           C60         9
Paris Hippodrome [from Gong reunion gig 28/5/77]       C90         8
Villejuit, Paris 20/5/78 (90)                          C90         8
Paris Hippodrome 1977 (60)                             C60         5
Palace Theatre, Paris 18/2/77 (90)                     C90         8
Home Demos                              1978            45         7
Blake & Agents of Chaos                 1989            45         9
Baltimore                               1991           110        10
Kennel Club, San Francisco              7/10/92        100        10
Gong 25 Years Concert, London Forum     9/10/94         35         8


What I'd kill for is a tape of him doing New Jerusalem at the Gong
reunion gigs. Anyone got such a beast?

FoFP