HW: 1975 Hawkwind Parody

[Tim Gadd]

This just sprang to mind, though I'e had the album forever...

Does anyone remember, or is anyone else familiar with the Hawkwind parody on
Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias first (ST) album, in 1975? It's actually a
huge, sprawling track called 'Mandrax Sunset Variations pts I, II & III',
which is a general send up of progressive rock, but tends to concentrate
most recongisably on Hawkwind and Floyd (the album is also dedicated 'to
Pink Floyd, 'for reminding us that music could be funny'.)

The vocals start with this space-ritualized declaration over synth doodling...

"This is your captain speaking
This is your captain speaking
You're captain is knackered

You are requested to immediately go to the shelters
Forget the sick and the infirm
the sick and the infirm
infirm
infirm
When you are inside the shelter, take the yellow pill marked "W"

It then proceeds into a Silver Machine send up, whose chorus goes "I've got
Venusian crabs"

Someone then declaims, in a fairly convincing imitation of Mike Moorcock

"As the great timelords sail around the cosmos in their eternal egg-yolk..."
There's some babbling here which is a little hard to distinguish, but is in
the same vein as above, and definately ontains something about 'the
mega-computers of Babylon the Barbarian'. At this point the song dissolves
into something that sounds conspicuously like Floyd's 'Echoes' (they do this
rather splendidly actually). And there's five more minutes to go, with
'Venusian Crabs' coming in again at the end.

Sorry if everyone already knows about this one, but I suppose it's a
relatively obscure album. IMO it's a must-have, if for no other reason than
it possesses the most garishly kitsch cover artwork of any lp ever released.
Be warned though, it was several years ahead of its time in general
offensiveness. But if the opening track 'Torture You', (the lyrics are
offensive enough, but the liner notes are worse) doesn't stop you dead in
your tracks, and if other song titles like 'Dead Meat' and 'Jesus Wept'
don't put you off (remembering these are the guys who later invented 'snuff
rock'), the album is a delight: a hilarious piss-take on everything 70's
(and 60's, since there's a paraody of the Velvet Underground's 'Heroin',
re-labelled 'Anadin')

"All right, I see the day go by
Could this be reality?
In my mind my memory
Reality... reality... YEAH!"

(Mandrax Sunset Variations)
--
Tim Gadd
Hobart, Tasmania