HW: Re: HW: Brock Interview - Star One

[Hawkwind]

Huw is down here in Devon at the moment in the studio contributing away!
(with a healed arm!)

Kris :-)




----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Jarrett <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 4:36 PM
Subject: Re: HW: Brock Interview - Star One


> On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 12:22:45PM -0400, Chris Raymond typed out:
> > Heard the Dave Brock interview from totalrock that played last week.
Real
> > interesting. He said that Huw had an injured elbow and was not able to
> > contribute much guitar playing to the new album. Also that Mike Moorcock
is
> > doing some spoken word pieces.
>
>         That's not good news about Huw. On the other hand, it suggests
> that they're keen on getting it done quickly because otherwise presumably
> he'd have time to heal up. Hope he'll be all right by mid-next month. Good
> to hear Moorcock's cool not that Doug Smith is out of the picture,
> although I still don't think Marion is exactly a full substitute (and
> somebody's *got* to buy Doug's portion of EBS... ) But anyway.
>
> > They played the Hawkwind medley that Dave sang on for that Star One cd.
It
> > sounded really good. I would like to hear the rest of the disc. If the
rest
> > of the cd is anywhere as good as the medley, then it is probably
fantastic.
> > Has anyone heard the whole disc?
>
>         Yes. The medley's different to the rest in terms of, I don't know,
> it has more grit and less pretention, though not much less. There's a
> forgettable version of `Space Oddity' on the bonus disc too but otherwise
> it's pretty consistent, overblown power metal with masses of synth
> content. Most of the instruments are by the boy Arjen, who can't play as
> well as he thinks he can, I think, but there are some guest soloists who
> turn out plenty of yer power-metal widdling, including synth-guitar duels
> and stuff like that. Terribly terribly I-would-love-to-think-it's-tongue-
> in-cheek-but-I-don't-think-it-is. Like Rainbow with the teeth removed and
> extra hair. But no, hang on, I'm not being quite fair. Once you allow for
> the fact that it's decidedly operatic in aspiration and that though Arjen
> may think it's heavy I own some Electric Wizard albums that cause me to
> differ from him on this, it's (hush, look the other way) actually quite
> *good* in places. Some effective use of harmonies, some quite good pieces
> of music, lyrics not always terrible (I mean, they beat John Shirley's but
> you can tell Arjen doesn't have a very good grasp of what's a hideous
> cliche or skull-numbingly naif), and of course there's the fun of working
> out what films he's using. It's by and large obvious if you've seen them
> and in some cases even if you haven't, which means that if like me you
> hadn't seen any Blake's Seven you must avoid hearing the lyrics so as not
> to have the plot entirely exposed to you.
>
>         So, yes, it's terribly cheesy but I can't actually slag it off as
> fully as my sense of taste tells me I should because parts of it are
> really quite fun. The packaging is gorgeous. The music manages to stick in
> my brain so I can't say it's forgettable. The medley is lots of fun, but
> the actual album is no disgrace even if it's no _Imaginos_ either. Just
> ensure you have your poodle-metal sensors turned right down before
> listening... Yours,
>                     Jon
>
> ObCD: DarXtar - _Daybreak_
> --
>         Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
>                  jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
>         --------------------------------------------------------
>   "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)
>