HW: Sabbaticals

[nickmedford at HOTMAIL.COM]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2003 06:14:28 -0500, Dr _ Technical
<dr_technical at MCMAHON66.FSNET.CO.UK> wrote:

Perhaps
>someone could recommend the essentials from the last 20 years.

IMHO most of the truly essential HW over this period can be found on live
albums, rather than studio. 'Palace Springs' (1991) is the pick of the
bunch, probably my 2nd fave HW live album after 'Space Ritual'. As well as
gorgeous versions of some old faves, it contains the song 'Treadmill', the
best HW track of the last 20 years IMHO.

'This is Hawkwind- Do Not Panic' (released '84, contains live material
from '80 and '84) is another excellent live album. Indeed almost all the
official live releases are well worth owning, although 'Glastonbury '90'
has very poor sound quality apparently.

As for studio albums, I always liked 'Choose Your Masques' which you may or
may not have heard as it came out in '82, and also have a soft spot
for 'Chronicle of the Black Sword' ('85). But for me 'Electric Tepee' ('92)
is *easily* the best HW studio album of the last 2 decades, and is IMHO the
only studio album from this period which bears comparison with the HW
masterworks from the 70s.

Some people rate 'Alien 4' very highly but I've always thought it was
patchy- some good stuff there though.

Oh, and in answer to another q, Ron Tree was a free fest/punk character who
took on some of the lead vocals over the period 1994-2001. Also played bass
for a brief period when Alan Davey wasn't around. He left rather abruptly
and I'm not sure the circumstances of his departure have ever been made
public. I think it's safe to say opinion among the fanbase was divided as
to his merit- personally thought he was an erratic performer but certainly
had his moments. Problem was he was trying too hard to be a replacement for
Bob Calvert rather than putting his own mark on things. His lyrics were a
sort of poor imitation of Calvert's - wordy, sci-fi oriented, but not
actually very good unfortunately. OTOH he was a good rabble-rousing
frontman on his night.

Many people won't agree with the opinions expressed above, but that's why
we have a discussion list I suppose.

Nick