HW: Poll results

[Andy Ball]

Guess I must be the minority of one then! First HW gig I went to was the 82
Choose Your Masques tour at Hammersmith Odeon, and it really blew me away.
I actually rate Levitation up there with Space Ritual as my all time
favourite albums, and I think Sonic Attack and CYM great too.
It was actually Huw leaving, and then "the Bridgett years" that really
turned me off HW. It wasn't until I bought Alien4 on an impulse buy that I
really got back into them. HW were great as a 3 piece (Dave,Alan and
Richard), but Ron really added that extra dimension and energy, especially
live. Although at Croydon 2 weeks ago Ron was so over the top, it almost
made me feel uneasy. He did seem rather troubled!
On the other hand Nik seemed rather subdued, and unsure of himself.
I'll also stick my neck out and say I like Rizz. I think on the 97 tour
Rizz doing his thing during the opener "Wheels" was HW at their best.

On a similar subject, what was Ron's anti Heroin speech about?, Well,
reading the Lemmy interview in Classic Rock, Lemmy seems to make an
indirect comment that the band at one point were pro Heroin. Also Lemmy
didn't rule out any reunion gigs, but wasn't exactly full of enthusiasm
either, wishing to concentrate on a new Motorhead album.

My wish for 2000 is a new HW studio album, and more gigs. Of course Ill go
to any reunion gigs, but in my mind Lemmy isn't (and maybe wasn't) so
important to HW. I'd like to see Harvey comeback on Keys, so that Dave can
actually come to the front a bit more, Alan on Bass, and Huw, Nick, Ron and
Rizz doing one or two numbers their way.

Regards,

Andy.



At 16:06 24/11/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Here are the unscientific results of the "favorite Hawkwind year" poll.
>Since some people were a bit vague about the actual year they were voting
>for, I broke the results into "phases" of the band's history, and in a few
>cases, had to split one person's vote between two phases.  Sorry, but votes
>for Huns, Visigoths and Vandals had to be disqualified, since they had all
>broken up prior to 1969.
>
>1969/71 (in the beginning)         0
>1972-75 (the Lemmy years)          4.5
>1976-78 (the Calvert years)        4.5
>1979-81 (Huw metal years - 1)      0
>1982-84 (return of Nik)            0
>1985-88 (Huw metal years - 2)      0.5
>1989/90 (Bridget & Simon)          6
>1991-94 (the trio)                 1
>1995/96 (Alien4/Love In Space)     1
>1997-99 (the present)              1.5
>
>declined to state/any and all      2
>hasn't happened yet                1
>
>
>The discussion also brought out some other opinions regarding certain band
>members (which I've grossly oversimplified relative to many folks' succient
>reasoning):
>
>likes Bridget          12
>hates Bridget           3
>
>likes Nik               3
>likes Nik's flute       2 (but not much of the sax/craziness)
>hates Nik               2
>
>likes Rizz              4
>hates Rizz              8
>
>likes Ron               6
>likes Ron as frontman   6 (but not as bassist)
>hates Ron               4
>
>Despite some strong disagreements in these categories (does that mean that
>these four people are the all-time "most controversial" members of
>Hawkwind?), there were a few things that just about everyone seemed to
>agree on:
>Alan's bass playing is missed.
>Simon House is the top Musician to ever play with Hawkwind.
>Richard Chadwick is a great drummer and probably the best thing about the
>current band.
>
>(me, I like all of Nik, Bridget and Ron very much, but NOT Rizz - I love
>deep, spacey dub Reggae, but IMO Hawkwind have never pulled that style off
>well enough to challenge masters of the genre like Lee Perry and King Tubby
>- but neither has any other spacerock band that I'm aware of - as of yet
>there are no "Beastie Boys of Dub")
>
>        -Doug
>         ceres at sirius.com
>
>