HW: Re: Hawkwind Onward

[Horse]

That's the one :)

Cheers

On 11/08/2012 21:25, Lucidsounds wrote:
> Albert Dryden.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Horse" <horse at DARKSTAR.UK.NET>
> To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
> Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 8:50 PM
> Subject: Re: HW: Re: Hawkwind Onward
>
>
>> Does anyone out there remember the name of the guy that inspired the 
>> lyrics to 'Right To Decide'? I think he shot a council member over 
>> some planning permission incident.
>> I seem to remember that the band got a lot of stick for supporting 
>> him when they issued it the first time round.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Horse
>>
>>
>> On 11/08/2012 15:57, Jonathan Jarrett wrote:
>>> On Wed, 9 May 2012, SHLL (Scott Heller) wrote:
>>>> I am really surprised that there has been no discussion of the new 
>>>> Hawkwind record. I still don't have mine but some of you out there 
>>>> must have it by now... What do people think compared to Blood of 
>>>> the Earth?? Has anyone heard the vinyl? They did a terrible job on 
>>>> the mastering of the vinyl on the last one, sound was very muddy 
>>>> (way too much low end) compared to the CD sound. Hope they sort 
>>>> this one out. I have not bought the vinyl yet as I don't listen to 
>>>> the last one on vinyl due to the sound issues.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, I really look forward to hearing it and digging into the 
>>>> songs...
>>>
>>> I actually only got hold of this album in the last couple of weeks, 
>>> which is a bit poor for a fan I know. I'd been much encouraged by 
>>> the two tracks I'd heard on Aural Innovations webcasts, and I now 
>>> realise that in some ways those were the two tracks I was most 
>>> likely to like (`Seasons' and the hidden track). But I've given it 
>>> several spins now--I got the expanded edition--and have some 
>>> opinions, if anyone wants 'em. Overall, though, my current verdict 
>>> is that I actually like this album better than _Blood of the Earth_ 
>>> but can't easily explain why since I think the production is 
>>> unhelpfully dense and that there are fewer stand-
>>> out tracks. It just seems like a coherent piece of work by a band 
>>> that knew what it was after. That, also, seems strange when one 
>>> looks at who was on the tracks and realises that, for example, Tim 
>>> Blake's hardly there outside the tracks he wrote parts for, Dibs 
>>> only gets two writing credits even though he seems omni-present and 
>>> there's a sizeable part of the album which is all-or-mostly-Dave and 
>>> which doesn't sound radically different to the rest even so. So my 
>>> first impression was that this seems like a genuinely active and 
>>> coherent band, and that looking as it to see whether or not this is 
>>> `proper Hawkwind' or not is not going to be the right way to listen 
>>> to it. It's obviously what the band called Hawkwind is doing now.
>>>
>>> So, track-by-track? `Seasons' is to my ear mainly Dibs's work but 
>>> Richard actually gets lead credit so what do I know? Intense, fast 
>>> and hostile; the dense production actually an advantage here, and 
>>> definitely a highlight that makes one eager to hear more.
>>>
>>> `The Hills Have Ears'--a doomful Gaia-hypothesis prophecy on which 
>>> Niall gets lead credit, in which case he should do that more often. 
>>> The words aren't great but contain a Chrome reference, unexpected 
>>> but pleasing. On the whole this is no drop in quality from the 
>>> beginning.
>>>
>>> `Mind Cut'--all Brock, words music and playing, and none too bad but 
>>> neither is it stand-out among his work. We've kind of heard this 
>>> before, and the words are rather basic. (I care about this more as I 
>>> get older.)
>>>
>>> `System Check'--a `Psychosis'-style spaceship radio exchange, in 
>>> which Tim massively over-acts compared to the rest of the crew, 
>>> bless him. Entertaining filler.
>>>
>>> `Death Trap'--retread, obviously, but really quite good, up with the 
>>> _Alien4_ version as a justifiable rework and identifiably, as I say, 
>>> a different band; this is the point at which I came to the 
>>> realisation about this line-up's coherence that I set out above.
>>>
>>> `Southern Cross'--Tim's track, but it sounds like a Hawkwind one all 
>>> the same, and better-than-entertaining instrumental filler.
>>>
>>> `Prophecy'--Brock track with only him, Niall and Richard on the 
>>> recording. Again lyrics not the strong point but reasonably mantric, 
>>> which forgives that a bit; all the same this isn't a high point.
>>>
>>> `Electric Tears'/`Drive By'--technically two tracks but I can't 
>>> detect the separation between them without watching the CD player's 
>>> display, despite the fact that the line-ups differ, first being just 
>>> date and the latter being the trio from `Prophecy' again. The bit I 
>>> think of as `Drive By' is a bit like `Taxi for Max' would have been 
>>> if they'd stopped and completely rethought how to do something fun 
>>> in that general frame. There's more thought generally in this pair 
>>> than most of Hawkwind's synth interludes but they're very short.
>>>
>>> `Computer Cowards'--just Dave and Richard, and the lyrics uniquely 
>>> not given in the sleeve. They're not hard to figure out: Dave 
>>> doesn't like people sniping on the Internet and wishes them an evil 
>>> fate. Hi Dave! It's in the vein of `Behind the Face' from 
>>> _Spacebrock_ or `Comfy Chair' but darker, meaner and more musically 
>>> repetitive, not that I mean that in a bad way. This is Dave's dark 
>>> side coming out!
>>>
>>> `Howling Moon'--Brock solo and I've not really anything major to say 
>>> about it. Probably the least impressive piece of music on the discs.
>>>
>>> `Right to Decide'--a bonus track, and well, yes, it's about the same 
>>> as ever it was but with the sound of this new line-up, except in as 
>>> much as it's the 2008 line-up with Jason Stuart also aboard. I quite 
>>> liked Jason live but here the plinkety piano adds something 
>>> dangerously like Rockney to the feel of things, something I think 
>>> only `Brainbox Pollution' really copes with in the Hawkwind 
>>> catalogue. Still a good song but rightly relegated to bonus-ville here.
>>>
>>> `Aerospaceage Inferno'--another bonus with that same line-up, and 
>>> here again I don't find the piano much of a bonus. The lyrics are 
>>> printed here, for some reason, whereas none of the other songs from 
>>> before get this privilege; there's also a middle-eight poem from 
>>> Dibs, or at least he recites it and it has his general flavour, 
>>> about a bad re-entry by a spacecraft, which reads quite lamely on 
>>> the page but which works very well in the setting of the bigger 
>>> track, and definitely adds something. It's a good version but still, 
>>> plinkety-plink, I can't look back on that as a good idea however 
>>> good Jason was at it.
>>>
>>> `The Flowering of the Rose'--instrumental jam by the 2008 line-up 
>>> again, and this one quite fun, think `Flight to Maputo' or `Going to 
>>> Hawaii' or `Only Time Will Tell' but with a bit more going on that's 
>>> melodic. I'm glad to have got this in the package.
>>>
>>> `Trans Air Trucking'--a Brock-Blake joint effort, with only them 
>>> playing, Tim on bass as well as keys, and instrumental. I was hoping 
>>> for a bit more life and bounce from it given the title, I'd kind of 
>>> like to see the title taken off it and saved for something else as 
>>> there isn't so much going on here. Pleasant enough!
>>>
>>> `Deep Vents'--Brock solo piece, but weirdly like one of Alan's 
>>> pieces from the early nineties. Could have done with being longer! I 
>>> like these noises and would cheerfully have had more of them.
>>>
>>> `Green Finned Demon'--the Brock-Hone-Chadwick trio here and a 
>>> perfectly good version, but it's hard to say it really adds anything 
>>> to the song that we didn't have in other versions. By the end of 
>>> this album it's hard not to think that they powered it out so 
>>> quickly that they couldn't come up with enough conventional songs so 
>>> resorted to retreads to space out the synth work and poems.
>>>
>>> And then there's the hidden track, whose name I would like to know 
>>> because it's really quite good, lyrics not unlike `Blood of the 
>>> Earth' and ploughing the same kind of high-octane apocalypticism as 
>>> `Seasons' at the beginning. I suspect Dibs and Niall of being to the 
>>> fore on this one, and in general I don't understand why this one's a 
>>> secret, it should be a matter for pride. Excellent closer.
>>>
>>> So, there's some filler I think and I question the need for two 
>>> retreads (in fact I question the need for one but the `Death Trap' 
>>> is so good I will forgive it) but I'm very happy to have them still 
>>> active and *sounding like a band*. If they turned out another of 
>>> this standard in eighteen months that would be a cause for 
>>> celebration I reckon. So, there you go Scott, some thoughts :-) 
>>> Yours all,
>>> Jon
>>>
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> "Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring 
>> production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
>> — Frank Zappa 
>

-- 

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
— Frank Zappa