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2LP HAWKLORDS (Hawkwind)
Live '78
Live at Uxbridge Brunel University, U.K., 24th November 1978
Limited Edition of 1000 Copies In Clear Vinyl
RSD - Record Store Day Edition 2017
Country of release: UK, 2017
Original recorded: 1978
Label: Let Them Eat Vinyl
Catalogue number: LETV543LP
Barcode: 0803343125597
Klappcover/Gatefold Sleeve: Ja/Yes
Condition Records: MINT
Condition Cover: MINT
LP ist noch verschweißt / LP IS STILL SEALED !!!
(Photo von meiner eigenen LP / Photo taken from my own copy)
Tracks Side 1:
1. Automoton (1:37)
2. 25 Years (6:38)
3. High Rise (5:00)
1. Death Trap (5:37)
2. The Age Of The Micro Man (3:51)
3. Spirit Of The Age (9:20)
Tracks Side 3:
1. Urban Guerrilla (6:12)
2. Sonic Attack (7:09)
Tracks
Side 4:
1. PSI Power (6:08)
2. Brainstorm (8:20)
Listen At YouTube:
There’s something of a cliché around live Hawkwind albums that a
lot of people, myself included, have been in danger of slipping into when
discussing them, and that’s the notion that Hawkwind as a live band is a greater
concept than Hawkwind in the studio. So you have the argument, and it’s not one
that I’d subscribe to, that Live Chronicles is a superior release over
Chronicles of the Black Sword, to use an example where there is a direct
comparison. I think this concept of Hawkwind live albums being something special
really stems from Space Ritual, which is a great delineation of why some
Hawkwind material worked so much better live than it got laid down in the
studio, and it has gone on to apply to some other tour captures. The Love in
Space representation of the Alien 4 concept is vastly superior to a studio album
which at the time suggested it might be elevated to ‘classic’ status in due
course but which has actually become rather overlooked in the passage of time
and not without some justice. And, though I’ve never heard it, there’s a common
belief that the ‘Passport Holders’ Live 97 compilation rocks the socks off
Distant Horizons.
But I think it is a simplistic cliché to suggest that
Hawkwind per se are better assessed as a live act than as a studio band, and the
lie is given to this in a sense by the quality of the back catalogue reissue
programme, which so far has been absolutely cracking in its releases and has
done a huge service to the legacy of Hawkwind in the studio by creating the
situation where these albums are being looked at again and reassessed. Sometimes
it’s good to have a little time pass. I’d not listened to Hawklords since giving
up the ghost of vinyl in the mid-1990s, so listening to it again recently (and
having the opportunity to delve deeper into the recording of that album via
Esoteric Recordings’s magnificent assemblage of out-takes included on their
reissue) reinforced what a massive milestone that LP was in taking Hawkwind into
a highly literate and intelligent, practically art-school, place. That’s a
valuable rehabilitation or restatement of this album, dependent on your original
point-of-view. In this respect I remember noting in Sonic Assassins the moment
during a Hawkwind 1979 tour bootleg (Ipswich, I think), where someone close to
the recorder says quite openly of that tour’s proto-grunge, “It’s much better
than the fucking Hawklords, isn’t it?” The whole Hawklords concept clearly
wasn’t every long-time fan’s cup of tea.
Of the ensuing tour,
we’ve had precious little of real listening quality from which to assess and
evaluate its success in delivering the Hawklords concept in the live arena even
though it’s a tour that has a sense of notoriety about it in Hawkwind mythology.
People talk of the way in which the original plans were hacked-around and Barney
Bubbles’ concepts diluted, with particular reference to the dancers dismissed
from the tour in its early days. “They cost too much, and didn’t add to the
thing,” Steve Swindells once told me, deflating one Hawk-myth and stressing how,
“the show was much better stripped down and with the focus on Calvert.” There is
some existing live footage of the band in Hawklords mode; we’ve had a very small
taster of it and one would hope that more extensive film will eventually see the
light of day, though I’ve no insight into the practicalities of that whatsoever.
But aside from a collection of not especially high-grade bootlegs, and the
tracks from Plymouth Polytechnic included on The Weird Tapes, the Hawklords tour
has until now only been represented by the distinctly average at best Dojo album
Hawklords Live, principally recorded at Uxbridge University on 24th November,
1978.
This release ( ) somewhat steps out from the back catalogue in the
sense that it isn’t a reissue of an ‘old’ album, it’s not Hawklords Live with a
couple of bonus tracks, but is actually a ‘new’ album formed from the original
concert recordings. When I spoke to label boss Mark Powell for Record Collector,
he told me that, “from the point of view of Hawklords Live, the recordings made
at Uxbridge are there in their entirety with four tracks that haven’t been
released before. I’ve seen lists on the Internet where people have posted what
was played that night – I don’t know where they’ve got it from but they are
wrong. The recording quality of the gig is excellent, though the show itself was
troubled by several power failures; apparently the lighting rig was causing the
power to trip on stage. I know various members of the band that night have
described the performance as a bit lack lustre but coming in with fresh ears, it
sounds fantastic.”
The recording quality of the show is very good, and
I’m both impressed and delighted that Esoteric have taken their passion for this
reissue programme through to the extent of making what is effectively a new
album from the original tapes rather than simply doing a dutiful reissue of what
was already available. That the reissue programme was nominated recently for a
Mojo award (it lost out, but the sentiment is fantastic) is so special and is an
absolutely marvellous commendation for Mark and Vicky Powell and others are
working so hard to make these releases such a critical success.
But, in
the case of Hawklords Live ’78, does the reissue add anything to our
appreciation of the original studio album? Well, to be honest, only in so far as
it demonstrates what a good album the original studio LP was.
The
original studio LP is an intricate and clever recording, the rather bombastic
and clumsy ’25 Years’ aside, which has maintained relevance both in its lyrical
and musical content. The live album doesn’t really live up to that legend. For
once, the clean lines of the studio recordings stack-up as the superior
renditions to those included here, whilst the show as represented here doesn’t
play to the album’s strengths but instead mixes some of its lesser content, the
somewhat pointless ‘Automoton’ and the afore mentioned ’25 Years’, with only a
couple of its major successes (the exquisite ‘Age of the Micro Man’ and the
masterful ‘Psi Power’) and elsewhere joins-in established standards (‘Urban
Guerilla’, ‘Sonic Attack’, ‘Brainstorm’) with more recent non-Hawklords material
(‘Spirit of the Age’, ‘High Rise’). What comes out the other side, Calvert’s
ingenious ranting and Swindell’s very underrated keyboards aside, is a little
bit too much like the last generation trying to out-do the new wave kids on the
block and it’s hard not to listen and think that here is Hawkwind slightly
off-kilter and trying, and largely failing, to be relevant in the punk/post-punk
environment.
Dave Brock perhaps spotted that dichotomy when,
sans-Calvert, he took the band off in a totally different direction as the MKII
assemblage of Hawkwind and captured that as Live 1979. Perhaps he spotted that
by trying to hang-on to the coat tails of a different generation he was letting
something that should have stood outside of the music business, get caught up in
trying to follow a trend. Who knows? I can see much of Hawkwind’s fan-base being
absolutely thrilled with this retrospective look at Hawklords in live-mode, and
fair play to them, but I’m going to look upon this one as a reminder of how
great a studio concept Hawklords was. (Posted by Ian Abrahams at 16:24, Sunday,
21 June 2009 / spacerockreviews.blogspot.de)
Dave Brock - Guitar, Vocals
Robert Calvert - Vocals
Harvey Bainbridge - Bass Guitar, Vocals
Steve
Swindells - Keyboards
Martin Griffin - Drums
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