HW, NIK: Re: Old masters

[Jon Jarrett]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, M Holmes wrote:

> pauleatonjones writes:
>
> > Does anyone
> > else feel that they appear to have run out of steam, energy and, please
> > forgive me on this, ideas??

        <snip>

> If Hawkwind have run out of steam it's because they went nuclear.

        I think Hawkwind have settled into being a band for the fans. So
the core people, the "hardcore fans" get the Hawkfest, tours every now and
then, usually good one too don't get me wrong, and passport offers that
sometimes materialise. Has that "special CD for Passport holders" yet
appeared? But anyway.

        What they're not doing is behaving like a functioning commercial
band. I was, back in December this was, eagerly awaiting (knowing I
wouldn't be able to afford any of them) albums by a fair number of bands
who seemed set to get them all out at the same time:

        Hawkwind's _Take Me to Your Leader_
        Space Ritual.net's as yet un-named opus
        Monster Magnet's _Monolithic Baby_
        Orange Goblin's new one whose name I forget
        Clutch's _Blast Tyrant_
        Ozric Tentacles' new one
        and Litmus's eventual debut.

        The stoners have got them all out (except maybe Clutch, I've seen
no indication of it yet but I haven't been looking because of having no
money). Even the Ozrics, who are flat broke and couldn't manage to get the
band together enough to rehearse during its making, have their record
out. I'm inclined to go easy on Litmus, because firstly they've surely got
the material, and thirdly the closest I could press Martin to a timing was
"first part of next year if we're lucky", so they have time in hand. The
HW and Nikwind albums have both been `finished' for ages but still
haven't appeared. In Nik's case perhaps it's due to his apparently usual
fly-by-nite musical attention span and it's certainly due to a bust-up
with Oz-IT manager Chris Hewitt who is allegedly (someone alleged it to
me) trying to block the release, and in the case of Hawkwind heaven only
know why it hasn't come out yet but it hasn't. Nor a release date nor
nuffink. I threw a big strop about energy levels and accuracy of
information in the Hawkwind business machine last year at about this
time, and I'm not going to go over all that again, but I said then that
even if the album was `finished', mixing, artwork, distribution deals,
sorting out a *label*, and (okay, I didn't say this but I evilly
suspect) the members who've parted ways with the group in the course of
the recording refusing to sign release waivers because they can't get the
recompense they want (shades of the MC5 thread... ) could hold it up
*forever*. So I'm not, like, surprised, but I wonder what it is that means
this afflicts this particular part of the music-making cosmos so
persistently.

        What I have never understood, in the, what, eight years since a
full studio album was last released (or, if you like, ten, since one was
finished and released) is why the hell Dave doesn't just swallow his
dislike of surrendering creative control, get all the band members he's
currently on terms with down to the farm for a long weekend, spend it
*all* jamming, and release the fifty best minutes of it. It'd be cheaper
than normal recording, he could sell it over the website, we wouldn't mind
(though I might still bitch, because you know, what would I have to do
otherwise...) and through Andy G. and there's every chance it'd be bloody
marvellous, given how the band usually play (and how even better they were
playing in 2001 when I first came up with this notion). Minimum effort,
could be done every year without too much cost and apart from sorting out
who gets paid for what (which would really have to be done beforehand, on
a contract that was then stuck to whatever was finally included), I would
have thought it's an obvious way for a space-rock band to proceed, and
damn if it isn't more or less how the Ozrics write, I gather, save only
getting John in late on to add flute parts. But no. We get song-based
albums that never happen.

        If Hawkwind went nuclear, it must have been cold fusion, and we're
still waiting for replayable results. Yours,
                                             Jon


--
                Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College, London
    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk/ejarr01 at students.bbk.ac.uk
  "As much as the vision of the blind man improves with the rising sun,
       So too does the intelligence of the fool after good advice."
       (Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, late-eight/early-ninth century)