[Hawkwind] Hawkwind vs Porcupine Tree in photo popularity stakes

[Gordon Hundley]

Slow day at work, so off I go...

I only posted the link onto the Dark Matter mailing list - but I  
could probably generate a few more hits I posted it to the unofficial  
fan forum and the new Artist Arena operated official forum. :) Yes,  
Porcupine Tree are becoming quite popular now - long overdue some  
major success, IMO. They've adapted their sound quite a lot over the  
years, starting out as a one-man pastiche of psychedelic rock,  
migrating into glissando-based space rock as they became a band  
proper, becoming more song structured with first heavier space rock,  
then pop-rock, and more recently adding some metal veneer. Oddly  
enough, although I came to them from a Hawkwind background, it wasn't  
until they started to define their sound around Signify that they  
really took off for me. The Sky Moves Sideways and early work wears  
their influences on their sleeve a little too much. Already having  
hundreds of albums in that vein, they were a bunch of talented  
musicians doing stuff that was fun but overly familiar to me. For  
many years I much preferred Steven Wilson's "pop" band No-Man.

I feel that while Stupid Dream was very impressive, it took until In  
Absentia (their first real major label album) to meet the standard  
they showed on Signify. Deadwing contained some very good work, but  
wasn't up to the standard of In Absentia. Fear of a Blank Planet has  
seen the band again start to re-shape their sound, adding tones and  
arrangements reminiscent of 70s rock as well as grooves and patterns  
more familiar in more recent industrial rock. There's still some  
blinding double-bass drumming and a couple of metal riffs, but its  
not in any way a metal album, and all the old PT sounds are still  
there in the mix. What's exciting and compelling about PT's music  
today is that it fuses so many varied influences - heavy & gliss  
space rock, krautrock, psych, 70s heavy rock, pop-rock, etc. Its no  
longer as on the "Sky Moves Sideways" a bunch of talented buggers  
sounding too close to Floyd et. al. for comfort. Today I reckon that  
they're as good as they've ever been and writing and playing as well  
as they ever have.

PT are also working like crazy - burning the midnight oil to hit many  
towns in UK, Europe and the USA twice a year while writing new music  
and being involved in numerous side projects, some of which are also  
touring. They're working to a schedule that Hawkwind probably haven't  
since the mid to late 70s. And yes, PT's audience now has very many  
young people in it, which is good, because then there's a chance of  
there being an audience the size of Hawkwind's current cult following  
for PT in another twenty years when both PT and I are older, slower  
but still rocking. :)

Also, I would imagine right from the outset, the generations thing  
means that a greater proportion of PT's fans are more involved in  
using the Internet than Hawkwind fans. I got into Hawkwind before I  
got into computer networking... the younger fans of PT got into  
computer networking (on high speed broadband Internet no less) before  
they got into music at all. :)

It would be nice to see Hawkwind and Porcupine Tree on the same bill  
again, though I think its unlikely that we will.

Gordon.

PS: the 'Brentwood 7' pic of Alan is very cool. Caught him in a great  
smile.

On Sep 7, 2007, at 11:00 AM, Steve Freight wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> You may recall that I put some photo's of Hawkwind up on Flickr  
> last month and Porcupine Tree this month.
>
> Well, who are the most popular or have most fans?
>
> Me, I'd like to think Hawkwind but on the number of views the  
> various photos have had it has to be Tree (and not Ron).
>
> Out of interest the most popular photo is a Porcupine tree one with  
> 74 views followed by an "almost naked fireman" from the Maldon mud  
> race at 62 views and lagging well behind with only 26 views is a  
> photo of Chris which is only the 58th most popular photo. Dave is 2  
> places behind her.
>
> If you want to increase the Hawks standing the link to view the  
> photo's is
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/11738111@N03/
>
> Steve