HW: What's Happenin' Where is everyone?

[Doug Pearson]

On the other hand, I really like Harvey's vocal rants! :^)  I think he
does that more effectively than any HW member has except, of course, Bob.
(And he's a pretty good backup singer, although I seem to recall someone
mentioning that the excellent backup vocals on 'Live 79' are studio
overdubs.)

Tim's style these days (judging from the 'Out of the Shadows' DVD) seems
to be over-reliant on the sort of "auto-arpegiation" (who would've thought
that Duran Duran would be so musically influential!) that seems to be real
popular in today's techno/dance/remix music (at least the producer in the
studio next door is always doing stuff like that); I think one person on
the list referred to it as "virtual guitar" since it almost sounds like
picking out the notes of a guitar chord.  It can be an effective technique
(to some extent, HW pioneered it, or something similar, with stuff
like "Forge of Vulcan"), but on every song, it gets tiresome to my ears
(and gives validation to accusations of "inteptness" since it really is a
one-finger playing technique, but some of my favorite bands/musicians have
been utterly inept.  Darryl Hooper was one rockin' keyboardist!).

Harvey's keyboard technique, like Dave's guitar playing, is hardly
advanced, but also like Dave's guitar playing, seems to always work
perfectly with Hawkwind-style songs.  And he's talented at nagivating both
the notes/chords and the swooooosh (the ideal spacerock synth player will
do one with each hand, simultaneously), the latter of which seems to have
been not so evident from Tim recently (maybe that's just because the
sequencers are doing all the work ... these days that job would be best
suited to capt. Bl at ck, anyway).

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com

On Mon, 6 Sep 2004 19:50:42 -0500, John Majka <jmajk at INDY.RR.COM> wrote:

>I'd have to agree that Harvey's playing was an absolutely amazing thing
>during his last few years with Hawkwind.  He makes Tim Blake seem
>completely inept by comparison.  In my fantasy line-up, Harvey would
>be on keyboards and Huw would be on lead guitar, in addition to the
>trio of Brock, Davey, and Chadwick.
>John Majka
>
>
>
>> Harvey should have a website (or have someone set one
>> up for him)so he could maybe sell some of his CDs. I
>> bet he's got loads of material unreleased.
>>  I thought his keyboard playing with HW just prior to
>> leaving was amazing (Not crazy about his vocal rants
>> though)
>>
>> Mick
>>