HW: Conversion to the Church

[Stephan Forstner]

Back in the early 80's my friends and I would get together on weekends and
listen to all sorts of stuff - from Renaissance, Kate Bush, and Steeleye
Span, to Battlefield Band, Horslips, and Jethro Tull, to Genesis, Peter
Gabriel, and Gentle Giant, to BOC, Motorhead, and Saxon, to Venom, Mercyful
Fate, and Slayer, to Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and the FUs, to you get the
picture. Of course not everyone liked everything, and we had some pretty
lively discussuions regarding the musical merits of various artists and
albums. We listened to quite a bit of punk/hardcore where being 'authentic'
was a virtue, and occasionally someone would score a bootleg, so poor sound
was never a problem for me as long as something good and/or interesting was
to be heard - that's why I like Text of Festival for example (at least the
second part). When I got bit by the Hawkwind bug I naturally tried to get
the others into it, with varying degrees of success. One friend in
particular I tried to convince - our musical tastes  overlapped quite a bit
and even where they didn't we could usually see where the other guy was
coming from - he also happened to be the person who first got me into BOC,
though that didn't figure at the time - but he remained indifferent. I threw
everything I had at him, but even though he liked prog-rock and Sabbath not
even Warrior and Space Ritual were working - I was stymied. Then one day we
were lounging around and I put on Bring Me the Head of Yuri Gagarin, and as
Bob was howling "Ur-beh-he-he-he-he'an" during Urban Guerrila my friend
turned to me and said "Yeah, they actually are pretty cool". Just goes to
show you ... I'm not sure WHAT it shows you, but it must show something ...
Stephan