HW: Various

[eddie jobson]

Not me unfortunately.

Unless I've missed it, I presume no Hawkfest was arranged this year? Any
chance of the band playing Stonehenge next year as it is partially open?
Would be nice as a 21 year anniversary since the last time.

Eddie.


>From: "bernhard.pospiech" <bernhard.pospiech at T-ONLINE.DE>
>Reply-To: BOC/Hawkwind Discussion List <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
>To: BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET
>Subject: Re: HW: Various
>Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:41:16 +0200
>
>Hi
>
>OK, who else for the UK is comming ?
>Would be great to meet many of you there
>
>Contact me offlist if you want to arrange a meeting
>We can exchange our Handy numbers....
>
>
>Cheers
>Bernhard
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: BOC/Hawkwind Discussion List [mailto:BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET]
>On Behalf Of Henderson Keith
>Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 7:31 PM
>To: BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET
>Subject: OT: HW: Various
>
>
>Hi Folks...
>
>Very quiet here...suppose that everyone in the US has been waiting in
>line to see F9/11, and everyone in Europe has been watching football
>every night, yeah?
>
>Anyway, those who have really felt like talking have mostly been posting
>over at Yahoo, but I still have enough 'loyalty' to this list to mainly
>post here.
>
>I've seen quite a few good concerts in the last several weeks, and am
>looking forward big time to another Burg Herzberg event, this time with
>maximal space rock percentage, with Hawkwind, MQB, Guru Guru, et al.
>And the weather in central Europe so far this summer has been really
>wonderful, that is, if you prefer a bit cooler temperatures as opposed
>to last year's oppressive heat (such that the grass died and the dirt
>went airborne into eyes/ears/nose/throat).
>
>It took me a long time to realize that Herzberg is *not* at Wilhelmsthal
>this year, but rather back to where I think it was in 2002 (and some
>number of years before, I believe), but neither back to the very
>original site, that being Burg Herzberg itself (hence the name).  But
>the location has always been somewhere in the same region of Germany,
>that being essentially the Fulda Gap, of some importance to Cold War
>historians.  Anyway, as I haven't actually been to this particular site,
>I can't add much to the discussion about how to get there, etc.  But the
>site is pretty informative (if mostly in German), and has both a map of
>the grounds and an overhead photo, and so that should be helpful.  Looks
>like a better place than Wilhelmsthal actually!
>
>The confusion I've had (I guess) is related to the fact that 1) Burg
>Herzberg is under 'new management' this year (otherwise it would have
>died after last year), but 2) the old crew (Think Progressive, under
>Kalle
>Becker) seems to still be planning to have a festival at the
>Wilhelmsthal site the weekend *after* the "true" Herzberg, but called
>something like "Herzberg goes Wilhelmstal" (which is really the renamed
>(Kloster) Cornberg Festival, which was held just once (in 2001?), and
>then cancelled both in 2002 and 2003, when Kalle was trying to run both
>simultaneously).  He's got a great lineup for that one planned,
>including Tull, Amon Duul II, Outskirts Of Infinity, Bevis Frond, On
>Trial, and others.  But I hesitate to make serious plans for it, because
>of recent history.  So I might make a 'game time' decision about staying
>in central Germany over the four days in between the two fests, based on
>what I hear at Herzberg.
>
>Well, hope to see a few of you there...I know some folx are planning to
>make it.  (Doug P.?  Is it going to happen for you?  Schade, wenn
>nicht.)  The Finland one might have been fun though, with Dave W. and
>Lemmy both guesting.  Any idea what the "complete" lineup at Herzberg
>will be?
>
>So, lately I've seen...
>Judas Priest...Rob Halford back on stage with the Priest.  Can still
>sing the old tunes decent enough, and they had him mic'ed up so well,
>that he wouldn't have been able to hide it if he couldn't hack it.  The
>set was pretty much standard material, nothing new, and so Painkiller
>songs were the most recent stuff.  Beyond the Realms of Death and Victim
>of Changes both were highlights, and they did an acoustic Diamonds and
>Rust oddly enough. Strangest thing was that it was over at about 10 PM,
>and it was still just twilight.  The show was indoors (a sporthall with
>a few skylight windows in the roof) so it was awhile before it even got
>'dark' inside.  Nearly sold out (Frauenfeld is a *small* town, maybe
>10,000) with about 4,000 punters or so, mostly coming from Zuerich and
>nearby towns I guess.
>
>Marillion...well, I gave up on them years ago after that awful Radiation
>album...but they were coming to Winterthur (also close to Zuerich) and
>so I thought I'd see if they were still worthwhile.  I picked up the new
>(single CD version of) "Marbles," and I quite liked the first long track
>and a few other pieces.  Which I thought was promising.  But the show
>was very boring...they played a 65-minute first set *all* of "Marbles"
>material, and although it started out OK, there isn't much energy in the
>album to translate well to a live setting, so a little bit of that goes
>a long way. And then after a short break, they came back to play a bunch
>more laid-back rubbish that I didn't know (so it must have come from
>Anoraknophobia and the .com albums that I don't own).  Finally they
>played at least "Easter" at the end, which is still the best H-era song,
>and then started into something else I didn't know for an encore, at
>which point I had to leave to catch the last train.  I suppose they did
>at least "Market Square Heroes" (or something old) as a second encore,
>but that wouldn't have done much to save this terrible show.  I mean,
>the band is *all* Hogarth now, with the others just providing
>atmospheric accompaniment.  I saw Fish a couple months ago, and although
>he hasn't kept up the level of his music to the quality of "Sunsets on
>Empire" at least he had a nice sampling of not only his solo material
>through the years, but also a few "original" Marillion songs. Anyway,
>time to give up on Marillion once and for all now...they're done.
>
>Circle...the next night I went down to a small town near Fribourg to see
>the first night of a three day 'punk/alternative rock' festival.  It was
>called Kilbi-Bad Bonn, and they had both an outdoor tent stage, and an
>indoor club stage, and the bands alternated such that there was music
>non-stop from about 7 PM to 2 AM.  Circle (from Finland, if you didn't
>already know) played in the evening on the tent stage.  Mostly new
>material that they had just recorded at a studio in Germany a few days
>beforehand...only one piece I recognized, but then I think they only did
>three (or perhaps four) separate pieces during their one hour of stage
>time.  So this was much like typical Circle, and not really very much
>like the weird stuff all through the middle of their newest album
>"Guillotine" that must be considered some sort of temporary departure
>from their normal hypno-rock routine.  They still have just the
>four-piece going, so Jyrki Laiho has not rejoined since last year.  So
>just one guitarist now.  Enjoyable set, looking forward to yet more
>discs from these guys.  The other bands were also sometimes interesting.
>Beautiful Leopard were a decent Mogwai-ish post-rock band, and Unhold
>were a SG-playing, Orange-amped stoner rock band (good heavy sound,
>lousy vocals though).  And there were another couple weird 'progressive
>hardcore' (for lack of a better word) bands.  The so-called headliner
>were the Distillers (who I'd never heard of), who seemed to me to be
>Australia's answer to Hole.  They drew almost all the 800-1000 people
>into the tent for a spell, but I don't think the fans were so crazy
>about them.  Rather ordinary IMHO.
>
>Ah, Queensryche in Basel was next (following Monday)...they were
>opposite to Marillion!  A really well-designed set of material featuring
>both the best songs from the new album Tribe (not so terribly bad
>IMHO!), which are all the odd-numbered ones (opposite to the Star Trek
>movie phenomenon), and then old material including most of the Mindcrime
>'rock-opera.'  And they had a
>*real* Mary, which is cool, as opposed to the video version that they
>used on occasion when I saw them in the '90s.  Chris DeGarmo is not
>touring with them, so he's only 'half-returned' to the band, but instead
>had some ugly
>guy in a terrible shiny-faux-leather outfit who they never introduced.
>The
>worst thing was that I thought the sound was terrible...and having seen
>10 concerts (or so) in this club already (maybe 1,200 capacity,
>800-1,000 there?), I know that this place is not so challenging to get
>"right."  It's
>*not* echoey like some places I know (eg., Columbus' Newport). But
>Rockenfield's snare sounded awful...really loud but without any "depth"
>to it...just featureless thudding.  And the bass was a bit too bassy
>while the guitars a bit too blaring, and so they were too "separated"
>with a huge gap in the midrange.  I moved around a few times to find
>where it might be better, but it was never good.  Plus, the lighting guy
>kept flooding the front of the stage with blinding bright white lights
>*all* the damn time, and that was really annoying.  I noticed that *he*
>couldn't see them in his face where the 'island' was farther back, so I
>bet if he was 10 m farther forward, he wouldn't have been doing it so
>much!  Anyway, I enjoyed it mainly because they played such a good set
>of material, and themselves put on a nice performance, their crew
>notwithstanding.  Tate was able to sing just about everything still, but
>he doesn't project the high parts quite so much like he used to, but
>rather gets lost in the mix rather easily.
>
>Then this past weekend I went to Luzern to see a triple bill of
>Witchcraft, Grand Magus, and Orange Goblin in the Boa Kulturzentrum.
>These places are always nice 'clubs' to see gigs in.  Like Gaswerk in
>Winterthur, they have both a small intimate room and also a larger floor
>for maybe 400.  Since only about 80 showed, we were in the smaller room,
>so it suited just fine. I think either/both the first two bands were
>Swedish, the show didn't start until the EM2004 quarterfinal match
>between Sweden and Holland was finished (11:40).  And as some probably
>know, it was 0-0 after 120 min., and went (like England-Portugal, and
>STOP blaming Urs Meier for your own failures! :) BTW, he's from the area
>of CH just near me, and a friend of mine knows him.) to penalty
>shootout.  So, not only was the show getting started late, but the
>bandmembers were in a bad mood (Holland won 5-4).  Which is ok, if you
>play loud, angry music!  The first two bands were not bad, but I went to
>see Orange Goblin (aus Liverpool?) primarily.  They played most of the
>new album, and I think one or two from Big Black, but then also "Blue
>Snow" and "Solarisphere" (from Time-Travelling Blues) at the end of the
>set, which are both awesome songs.  Live they are much more
>balls-to-the-wall than psychedelic, but I can handle that.  The singer
>isn't as good live as on album, and he overdoes it a little I think,
>just to be heard.  The show ended about 2:30 AM (crazy late for CH!),
>but I had come earlier in the day and set up a tent at a nearby
>campground and so I didn't have to stay up all night to wait for the
>morning train home.  Luzern is a really nice city, and so you can't beat
>going there, especially if there's good music to boot.
>
>So, that brings us up to date.  But a few other things...has anybody
>caught these guys (also from Sweden) in the US yet?  I've heard their
>first album from 35 years ago, but not their reunion stuff.  They have a
>few more dates before they go home, so here they are...
>
>Trad, Gras och Stenar...
>29/6 Neumo's, Seattle, with Kinski among others
>1/7 Talking Head, Baltimore with Mighty Flashlight, Big Huge, Entrance
>2/7 Tonic, New York, with Bardo Pond and Mighty Flashlight 3/7 TT the
>Bear, Boston, with Sunburned Hand of the Man and Major Stars
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>And I don't know if everyone here heard (it was posted on Yahoo) that...
>
>Note from Jonny Greene (Gong-GAS):
>"Apparently Tim [Blake] has been involved in a bad car accident and has
>spent some time in hospital. A speedy recovery to him."
>
>Later post from Mr. Blake himself...
>"Ok Guys !
>1/ Yes, alive..
>2/ Not permanently maimed (yet)
>3/ But thoroughly 'shook up'
>4/ Connected in Hospital - now that's neat ... merci the French Health
>service !!!
>
>All activity halted 'till September though ...
>
>Now what was this about nurses ... ... ?
>Sacre Bleu!"
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>And then that there's this event planned...
>
>THE GONG FAMILY CONVENTION OCTOBER 23rd-24th GLASTONBURY ASSEMBLY ROOMS
>Basil (Zorch) Here & Now House of Thandoy (with Mike Howlett) Invisible
>Opera Company of Tibet Joie Hinton (DJ set) Thom the World Poet
>
>...though this lineup is not fully confirmed, so keep checking GAS...
>
>and OZIT has released a double Steve Hillage CD of a concert at Deeply
>Vale 1978, which is worth having IMHO.  Although I think I could do
>without the addition of extra music of Hewitt's own band Tractor, added
>(I guess) in order to promote himself.  Though there was space for it,
>so maybe it's not such a big deal...you can turn it off when you want.
>
>That's all I guess...see (some of you) soon...
>
>Grakkl (FAA)