HW: Upcoming Litmus Gigs (and a Space Ritual gig)

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Wed, Oct 26, 2005 at 12:40:14AM +0100, trev typed out:
> the only appeal of space ritual, and hawkwind, for that matter, is to remind
> people of their halcyon days - this is one of the things that music is very
> effective at doing. space ritual are all crap musicians (apart from nik),
> resting on fragile laurels, but lots of people like that.

        I suspect Dave Anderson of not playing at full strength most of
the time. He's clearly not the young man in 1971 Amon Duul II any more,
but at the Nik Turner's Space Unit gig he did at least show some energy
and speed he doesn't usually have to with Space Ritual. Nik too can
certainly deliver a lot better than he usually does, though he's almost
always fun to hear. Sam Ollis is I think pretty good. Terry is pretty
solid but only, it seems, within a very limited range of sound patterns
now. (This is very sad I think.) I don't think I'd want to defend any of
the others from what you say here though.

        The thing about Hawkwind, I don't agree with you there. For one
thing they've had several halcyon days, depending on when people first saw
them. I know some people (you know one of them, indeed, Melissa from
Pyramids of SNAFU) who identify with Hawkwind in the 1980s Stonehenge era
much more than they do with the Space Ritual one. Similarly, though I love
_Space Ritual_ *I* never saw any band come close to it live, except maybe
the second Hawkestra in a really unsubtle way, and to me tip-top live
Hawkwind is Hawkwind as they were in 1996, when I first saw them, or in
2001 when suddenly they had all their best musicians at once, everything
seemed to be going on and all kinds of potential swirling round them. But
they aren't currently doing much that sounds like either, and anyone going
out for a halcyon Hawkset is likely to be disappointed.

        If that means they aren't fulfilling their function, well, um, I'd
probably agree with you there because they seem to have mislaid the thing
that makes their sets a coherent experience rather than a series of songs,
which to me is definitely part of that ideal trip, but I don't know that
many other fans would say they're not delivering the goods right now. Are
they just seeing the old band on the stage anyway d'you think?

> this is not an age of acceptance of the unusual and when unusual gems
> appear, they are more often than not, ignored or denigrated.

        I don't disagree with this, but I'd be quite interested in what
recommendations you might make for stuff that's overlooked. Assuming we
put _God and Man_ and _Insect Brain_ in whichever of first and second
places you'd like :-) what else is there out there that you reckon should
be more heard than it is? Yours,
                                 Jon

--
        Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
                 jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
        --------------------------------------------------------
  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)