OFF/HW: double bass...who's on first? what's on second?

[Moonglum .]

Well, "one aspect" being the claimed arabic influence, does not discount
your undoubtedly correct observations about the blues influence and the
limitations enforced by fretted instruments.

So, add 2 parts electric blues, 1 part arabic vibes, 1 part folk music and
2 parts of electronic spaciness.  Stir well, and bring to the boil.
Voila!  Pot Hawkwind.

This reminds me that Dave Brock once said where 80's synth bands went wrong
was that there was nothing else underpinning the electronics: what results
is an electronic sugary mess.  Sounds right to me.

Where would we see these various influences?  The first album has plenty of
folky twists, which come again on Children of The Sun, Space Is Deep, and
The Demented Man.  I think it becomes subsumed after that.

The arabic influence already mentioned, if not totally accepted...

The spaciness is everywhere you look, of course.  And so are the blues, but
doing the underpinning.  One song where I think it runs close to the
surface is Needle Gun  A pumped-up, shuffling electric boogie type of blues
to be sure.  Who said it sounded like ZZ Top?  He/she hit that particular
nail right on the head!

My theory is that by the late 80's HW had successfully integrated these
influences to such a degree that it becomes difficult to pick them out.
And by the way, I'm not ignoring the elements of their music that later
came to be called "punk" and "techno"...I think these are spin-offs from
the evolution of Hawkwind.  They have been acclaimed as the originators of
techno, I think there's a powerful case for them influencing the
development of punk rock too.

Moonglum

------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 14 Oct 2001 20:46:47 +0100, Mark Edmonds <mmje at MMJE.DEMON.CO.UK>
wrote:

>Not sure I subscribe to that myself. I agree about the common chord
>sequences used in a lot of songs but narrow tonal intervals ? I'll bet the
>Hawks would have got a muted response if they had played Silver Machine in
a
>quarter tone scale - interesting thought though! Anyway, fact is that
unless
>you want to reinvent the electric guitar, you're stuck with semi-tones and
>surely the obvious harmonic root of all Hawkwind is "blues", not Eastern? -
>just think of Dave's busking songs.
>
>Mark
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: BOC/Hawkwind Discussion List [mailto:BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU]On
>> Behalf Of Moonglum .
>> Sent: 14 October 2001 17:22
>> Subject: Re: OFF/HW: double bass...who's on first? what's on second?
>
>> It's been said before, by whom I know not, that one aspect of Hawkwind is
>> an attempt to produce the narrow tonal intervals of eastern
>> (arabic?) music
>> in a western style.  If I recall the thesis correctly, this is
>> best seen in
>> the 3-chord run that Dave Brock uses a lot.  The one that forms the basis
>> of Magnu, Levitation, and Robot....
>>