HW: Mixing It, 22-Jun-1992

[Dave Berry]

I'm clearing out a load of old tapes, and came across a tape of Radio 3's
"Mixing It" from 22nd June, 1992, which included Electric Teepee.  For
anyone who's interested, here's the brief discussion between the two
presenters (Mark Russell and Robert Sandall) about the track.

For context, Radio 3 is the BBC's serious culture station -- lots of
classical music, original compositions, etc.  "Mixing It" is a weekly
programme that plays music from all sorts of genres, especially music that
crosses genres or defies categorisation.  Immediately before the Hawkwind
track, they played a track by Percy Jones, who used to be in Brand X.  Then
came Electric Teepee, and then these comments:

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MR: Well, what was that second mystery item?  Well we're continuing the
"where are they now?" theme, and I'm sure you will be stunned when I reveal
that it was the title track from the new Hawkwind album.  Yes, they're
still going!  It's called "Electric Teepee" and it's on their own Castle
label.  [Before that...]  I was amazed that Hawkwind were still going.

RS: It's lovely to hear the old folks enjoying themselves, isn't it?  Yes,
I think that anyone who has a soft spot for the old space boogie team
really ought to go and listen to this new Hawkwind album.  There's only one
of the original members left -- Dave Brock -- all the others have either
died or left, and it's astonishing really to me that they can still sound
as convincing on this album as they did back in the 1970's.  There are
really only two sorts of songs on this album, I think it has to be said,
the more cosmic synthesisery track, that we just heard, and the driving
rockers, and the album basically falls into those two parts.  But I must
say that they really do pull the whole thing off.

MR: I suppose, as on that track we've just heard, they're in a way in vogue
with all this Ambient House music that's going around. Because mean The
Orb, which was fronted by Steve Hillage, was just that sort of music with
breakbeat drums.

RS: Exactly, and these people have obviously been messing around with
electronic sounds for a lot longer than a lot of the younger kind of techno
freaks.

MR: Shame about the title and the artwork.  It's real Roger Dean artwork
from the 70's, isn't it?

RS: Red Indians in outer space, yeah.

MR: Anyway, seeing as we're dwelling in the past, let's move back further
back still, to Charlie Mingus...

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If any of you completists out there want a copy of this tape, just drop me
some e-mail.

Dave.