Sold Date: September 6, 2014
Start Date: September 6, 2014
Final Price: £20.00 (GBP)
Seller Feedback: 337
Buyer Feedback: 52

Well, the condition is VG on sleeve and disc, but that's not important here; what is important is related below:

If you remember, back in 1985 Nik Turner had just been chucked out of Hawkwind for a second time, even though we'd all heard that he had been working on research into the forthcoming Elric-inspired concept album, The Chronicle of the Black Sword.

Anyway, by now Nik was full-time into doing Inner City Unit, and I was full-time into hero-worshipping the Thunder Rider, whilst not forgetting my adoration for all things Hawkwind.

One Saturday Inner City Unit were due to play at the Manchester International and as I was only in Sheffield, a short train journey over the Pennines would see me just right.

However, before heading to the station I did my usual tour of all the record shops in Sheffield and headed for the Hawkwind rack just to see what new bootlegs had been given an official release this week.

Much to my amazement what I actually discovered was The Chronicle of the Black Sword, a whole two days before it was officially due out. Someone at HMV either didn't know or didn't care, so I headed to the counter clutching my new-found treasure before they changed their minds.

Once purchased I couldn't get on that train quick enough knowing that if I got a wriggle on I'd be at the venue just in time to catch Inner City Unit at Load In.

This proved to be the case, and sensitive soul that I am, I produced the latest Hawk-release from my bag.

"What the **** is this?" announced Uncle Nik with a certain amount of incredulity. He then spent a good ten minutes perusing the cover and its contents, being non-too complimentary about the artwork which he described as "amateur fantasy art" (we must remember that he was probably still pretty upset about the whole Hawkwind thing).

The rest of Inner City Unit had a good look too, and Dead Fred told me that Nik was probably quite upset as he'd put in a fair bit of work into the preparations for the album.

Well, regardless of whether he was upset or not, he still stuck me on the guest list in return for a bit of Belch-the-Roady, and heck, what a smashing gig it was.

In fact, I'll even put a photo from that gig up here, a pic I took myself capturing Nik in all his scrawny punky rockabilly hippie glory.

So there you have it; this 'ere vinyl holds its own little bit of Hawkwind/Nik Turner history, although I realise that our Nik isn't universally popular these days (I still love him by the way, but don't kill me for it!).

And one other thing, and I'd completely forgotten this; when I was studying the cover I noticed that there were signatures on it, barely visible because I'd got them done in blue biro, in the days before I realised the best way was to get your heroes to scrawl in big thick marker pen all over your treasured records.

I believe I got this signed when I somehow ended up in the dressing room after Hawkwind's gig at Sheffield City Hall on the Xenon Codex tour. Just in case you can't make them out on the photos the signatures are Alan Davey, Harvey Bainbridge and Danny Thompson.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this bedtime story. Love you all! x x x

Don't really want to sell it, but needs must. *sniff* Please look after it. *sob*