HW/OFF: while I'm at it...

[ANDREW GARIBALDI]

Dunno what prompted Jon to do this - maybe I missed something - but it does
throw up a few points that I'd like to answer - can't wait to see what he
says about the Starfield album - wonder if he'll feel the same about an
album done by a guy who actually plays in Hawkwind!!!
For those interested, read on, otherwise the rest of you move on to your
next e.mail..
Andy Garibaldi (the guy who runs Dead Earnest on which label the Krel album
is released)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Jarrett" <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 12:07 AM
Subject: HW/OFF: while I'm at it...


         Dear All,
                    and here is a review of Krel's _Ad Astra_. I
 particularly enjoyed the spot-the-HW-riff bit and recommend that everyone
gets a copy to play this game themselves :-)
REPLY>>>>Tad cynical but at least you're recommending it so thanks for that.
------------------------
         "Krel are one of the few remaining British space-rock groups. Or
they were. They started in the early eighties I believe, shedding various
people who went on to form Spacehead, PXR1 and Cellular Structure and some
time two or three years ago finally went pling leaving one Martin M with the
name. He is now Krel. And though they were apparently very highly thought of
on the scene in the early nineties, only now (well, 1999) has
 anything more album-like than limited edition cassettes emerged. And since
it's all Martin's work I wonder how much it's like proper Krel. But anyway.
REPLY>>>>>>>>>>>>No such thing as 'proper Krel' - the early albums will all
be released onto CD, so you can hear the old Krel for yourself and no doubt
compare it to the new Krel, and soon we may have the debut CD from
CyberKrel - it's all an ongoing process.
----------------------
         "This album is a very good example of a phenomenon that really
irritates me in the British underground. By which I mean that its a very
 good album within that phenomenon. That phenomenon is the inability of
British space-rock to do anything more than rip off, imitate and generally
fail to get over Hawkwind.
REPLY>>>>>>>>>There is no attempt to 'rip-off' Hawkwind on this album,
musically, but when you're a musician into Hawkwind and space-rock who is
very heavily influenced by them, what do you expect - Yes samples!!! The
accusation of imitation may irritate you but I have always said that if
something is worthwhile musically, even if it sounds like someone else, it
is still worthwhile musically and you simply can't argue with that. This
album is a worthwhile and highly enjoyable musical statement and you can't
say fairer than that.
--------------------------
Now, Hawkwind are a lgend, and though they do turn out some crap they are
capable of complete transcendence and no-one else does it the same way. But
Krel and Spacehead particularly seem to be unable to get further than
recycling those riffs and putting new lyrics on
 the old themes (Hawkwind haven't dedicatedly sung about space since the
early seventies)
REPLY>>>>>>>>Hang on a minute - Hawkwind can go from crap to transcendence
and that's OK, but every other band has to be transcedent AND original all
the time - not fair, that one - and Hawkwind still sing about space live in
concert, even if not on CD, although I'll bet that's arguable.
----------------------------
. Now, this is a good album. The keyboards are very nice, the textures good,
the samples well-chosen and placed, and the playing of the other instruments
cant be complained about. Even the sleeve is nice although the fact that all
the information is inside the booklet annoys me
 - it would be nice to check a track number without extracting it.
REPLY>>>>>>>>>>yes - blame me for that. It was the first CD we released and
we made mistakes - I should have put more on the back but we loved that
photo treatment - incidentally, without using any special lenses, the cover
is South of France and the inside and booklet back are looking over the
delights of Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Staffordshire from a higher point in
Etruria, a mile or two away.
---------------------------
 I am often hyper-critical of the stuff that gets claimed as "better than
Hawkwind" or "reminiscent of Hawkwind at their best so I'll try and make
clear again before I launch into the diatribe that there are lots of good
points about this album and I do like it
REPLY>>>>>>>>>Thanks for the comments - not sure if I ever claimed it was
'better than' (check that old promotion!!!) but compared to something like
'Distant Horizons', this is sensational stuff - all a matter of opinion I
suppose, but I go back to my previous statement - this is a class album
regardless of who or what it sounds like.
-------------------------
. The only musical argument I have with it per se is that Martin isnt a
great singer, and that he mixes his vocals too loud. This is a particular
problem on the second part of the first track, `Towers', which has a
deliberately arythmic vocal. So the riff just gets established (and its not
a brilliant riff, but it does) and you're just hooking onto it when the
words arrive and throw you off it. Once you know when they're coming in its
OK but on first listen that is not good.
REPLY>>>>>>>>Your taste, but what you are saying, in that it is an original
treatment of the style, while it may irritate you, goes against the
accusation of lack of originality. He's loud so you can hear the words - not
exxactly Shakespeare, but for us it all fits well together
--------------
         "The lyrics are not too bad. Spacehead have the wrst lyrics in the
world, the sort of junk spacerock set to Motorhead-like patterns that you
can generate for hours on end, rhyming `space' with `race' and so on.
REPLY>>>>errr......I don't release Spacehead for their mastery of the
English language - fair point but they freely admit a heavy Hawk influence
to the degree you say, but we like it and that is our only criteria for
releasing CD's.
--------------------
 This stuff is much better, the same pattern but unexpected words and things
that sound thoughtful. And though the early rock tracks have a bit too much
of the singalong bounce about them,
REPLY>>>>>ahh - commerciality - sometimes you can't do right for doing
wrong!!!!
---------------
REPLY: I won't bore you with replies to the specific tracks, just to say
that it is nit-picking in the minutest detail to say that a part of a riff
sounds like something out of a Hawkwind song and then sort of damn it with
faint praise, especially on an album where this has simply not happened on a
conscious basis, if at all.
---------------------------
"So, in conclusion, it's a good approach at doing Hawkwind classics in
nineties dressing, and if Hawkwind still put spacerock of this quality out
they would still be legendary. The fact that Krel too are drawing on
Hawkwind's past glories should not be allowed to detract from the fact that
they do it well. But so do Hawkwind. How many parrot acts do we need? And
when will someone do something new?"
REPLY>>>>>>>>>>>>>Need? It's not a question of 'need' - if a space-rock
group does a great album, it's greeted with acclaim and people buy it - if
Hawkwind do a poor album, people still buy it - if Hawkwind did an album you
hated, you'd still buy it 'for the collection' - and something new? After 40
years of the music industry in the 'modern era', there's very little 'new'
(in the sense that you've never heard anything like it before ) under the
sun - you could lay the ghost of many a Krautrock band of the seventies
against many of the USA space-rock bands in a similar manner!!) but there is
tons and tons of great music out there - always has been, always will be,
and hopefully we'll weigh in with a few along the way at Dead Earnest.
Andy Garibaldi (speaking for/as Krel/Dead Earnest)