Total Rock Radio

[Jon Jarrett]

On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Chris Appelt wrote:

> Well amazing sounds, but Moorcocks old fashioned voice-games were boring. I
> am always afraid when I listen to Hawkwind live recordings that this voice
> from that old fat baby comes crying through the PA. The last good
> appearance happened 1985 during the Black Sword Tour.
>
> But then it was always the fat crying baby. Hello Mike! Stop crying through
> the telephone. You ruin your own lyrics.

        I have to say, I thought he was excellent. Perhaps you had to be
hearing it in a big space, but I thouht he managed to modulate himself
much better than he does even on the NikWind _Past or Future_
performance. Yes, he did do the crying bit but he did every other kind of
vocalisation as well and for once I felt he did manage to get the horror
and the grandeur across. And the fizz from the phoneline actually made it
eerier. I also liked the "Texas Calling" interpolations to `Sonic Attack'
though so take that as a measure of my taste :-)

> Again a superb demonstration of Ron's vocals on Spirit of the age. He's the
> only one that can transform Calvert's spirit into new life.

        I also thought Ron was excellent. I'm beginning to twitch when I
see him and Calvert crop up in the same sentence, but here you can hardly
escape the comparison. And he did it entirely differently to how Calvert
would have done, I think, which is exactly how I think Ron should work. I
think he's much at his best when he's comfortable and being himself, not
sharing front-of-stage or under pressure to be part of the Space Ritual.

> So it was good fun between at last empty bottles, epty packages but a full
> tape of good music.

        I'm still convinced we'll be seeing a CD release of this. It's too
good not to and the sound quality is clearly top. I would even guess this
is why some tracks weren't played, so as to leave something in the can,
though I guess it might also be that there wasn't enough time scheduled. I
live in hope anyway, yours,
                            Jon

--
 |  Jon Jarrett (01223 514989)         jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk   |
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