NIK, Motorhead and other bits

[Jon Jarrett]

On Mon, 25 Jul 2005, Keith Henderson wrote:

        <snip>

> And to Stephe, I'd say it does matter (and I truly won't go to any
> more Space Ritual shows, you can be certain of that) in part because
> he's (presumably) trying to earn a living doing this.  I mean, yeah,
> if he were playing everywhere for free, then, not such a big deal.
> But I'm guessing that's not the case...and so it's a commercial
> enterprise, and it seems more likely than not that by calling his band
> Space Ritual, playing the songs from that album (and Cap'n Lockheed,
> since Calvert can't complain about it, presumably), and hiring anybody
> he can find who was ever in Hawkwind at one point irregardless of
> 'fit,' was all designed to maximize his attraction to potential
> punters.  I mean, why else does Space Ritual exist?  I think they
> played two tracks I didn't know, so perhaps they are writing a new
> song now and again, I dunno.

        Of course, Hawkwind have done tours where they played more off
_Captain Lockheed_ than they did off any of their albums, but they did do
the tracks slightly more justice...

        As for new tracks, one is not really new, it's a Sphynx out-take
as I've said, the chirpy-sounding `Chronological Crime'. I've never been
able to get hold of a decent copy of this but the fourth-hand or whatever
tape copy I have still makes it fairly clear that compared to Sphynx,
Space Ritual are *murdering* it. But you'd have expected that really.

        The other new one, `Sonic Savages', actually is new, and I think
surprisingly OK. But then they have an entire album of new stuff due, ooh,
any minute now, and I find the fact that they can only do one new track
live... worrying. Is all the rest retread and forgotten Moorcock
poems? (Though, you know, it's always good to hear more of his stuff done
live.)

>                            But they aren't playing the music that
> Hawkwind played in 1969-70, that's for sure...and why not?  The
> biography you forwarded, eg., talks about those days...Space Ritual
> doesn't *play* the soundtrack to those days, does it?  Therefore, it
> makes no sense.  And more importantly (to my ears), it manages to make
> my very favorite songs (ie., Space Ritual era HW) almost completely
> unattractive.  (Now, if he started over with Tommy & Len, and somebody
> like Steve Taylor on bass..then, after a while, I'm come back to support
> him.)

        I agree with this. I think if they were brave enough to try one or
two freeform jams like `Seeing It As You Really Are' or similar that would
be worth seeing as they have about that level of ability left. Terry's not
so lively any more, or rather he is but in fixed ways, but Sam would make
up for that (he not being the same sort of powerhouse rumble drummer that
Terry now is, so they complement each other well).

        I also fully agree that Nik needs to hook up with Tommy and Len
again. I would automatically try and see that if I could, but then I'm
still smarting about not having known about Farflung's one UK gig in
time.

> And anyway, Motorhead is a great band, and Lemmy is truly God.  :)
> Actually, Motorhead's musical legacy would be a lot better if Lemmy
> didn't crank out so many albums, and therefore refuse to throw out
> not-up-to-snuff tracks that effectively dilute his albums.  If he only
> released half as many albums over the last 30 years, with only the
> best tracks from successive pairs on each, then he'd have made a load
> of great albums.  But anyway, Motorhead has nothing to do with Space
> Rock, so there's no crime in not liking it.  I didn't for quite some
> time, just because back then (when I was 16), I didn't like sloppy
> music, and Phil Taylor (for instance) was a sloppy drummer.

        But so was Bill Ward :-) And like _Ace of Spades_ the whole thing
about that _Master of Reality_-era Sabbath sound that makes it so exciting
is that while they're all running at about the same speed they're not
actually quite together. They get away with it sounding as if everyone's
slightly ahead of everyone else and racing to the finish. I've seen one or
two bands capture this live, and it's a fabulous thing. I don't understand
how it works but it's why Phil Taylor was so excellent; he had that kind
of sloppy racing energy on tap.

        What I'm saying is, sloppy need not *necessarily* be bad :-)

> I don't know anything about Gmail, or whatever that whole discussion
> was about.  I don't have a home (let alone my own computer), and
> therefore no hardwired ISP connection, so I doubt any of that relates
> to my current situation.  I really just wanted to know if there was a
> way to have Yahoo mail preserve 'soft' returns in a message, or
> whether I needed to put in 'hard' returns in each paragraph (though
> that would cause problems, because the line lengths would almost
> certainly be different for different people, and then there's be one-
> or two-word stems between each line of text, which is also terrible to
> try to read).

        Gmail scans your mail for keywords so as to target
advertising. This causes some people privacy issues. I try to avoid
sending to Gmail addresses for this reason.

        Anyway! Yours,
                        Jon

--
    Jonathan Jarrett    "There is scarce any tradition or popular error
    Birkbeck College     but stands also delivered by some good author."
        London         (Sir Thomas Browne, "Pseudodoxia Epidemica", 1646)