Psychedelic Warlords: Why Hawkwind Are Awesome

“They looked like a bunch of spacemen who had been on a ship for a thousand years and gone completely wacko.” Michael Moorcock on Hawkwind

I was astounded the other day when mentioning 70s space-rock titans Hawkwind in conversation with some of my more musically enlightened friends resulted in hoots of derision. Time and critical consensus have, sometimes unfairly, not been overly kind to much music produced in the early 1970s, and it seems that, in some quarters at least, Hawkwind have been unfairly lumped in with the droves of indulgent, Spinal Tap-esque dross that was so common in that era. So I thought I’d better clear up the confusion which appears to have built up around something that I thought would have been a given among the musical cognoscenti: that Hawkwind are unimpeachably awesome, and anyone who disagrees is wrong.
Born out of lead guitarist and lynchpin David Brock’s love of early Pink Floyd psychedelia, Michael Moorcock’s cult science fiction novels, a barrage of effects pedals and a truly heroic drug intake, Hawkwind were the original hippies who went too far. Eschewing the flashy musicianship of many of their contempories – for all I know, they may well have only known four chords – they played snotty cyberpunk, fuzzed-up spaced-out Kraut blues designed to blast you into the heart of the sun. Their classic albums, In Search Of Space, Doremi Fasol Latido, Space Ritual, Hall Of The Mountain Grill and Warrior On The Edge Of Time are classics of the first water.
In Search Of Space is Hawkwind’s second LP, but their first great one, coinciding with the arrival of Lemmy on bass. ‘You Shouldn’t Do That’ motors in from deep space on a cloud of whooshing ambient synthesizers to crash into a typical Hawkwind groove – think the Sex Pistols as a futuristic biker gang on their way to zap some hippies into oblivion, whilst sullen vocals mutter ‘Get nowhere’ over and over again. Malevolent, powerful and driving, it shows that the band had finally found the identity that their somewhat confused first album lacked. Listened to today, it’s hard to understand saxophonist Nik Turner’s assertion that Hawkwind were a ‘peace and love band’. ‘Master Of The Universe’ is another gem in the same mould, with the band raging full-on to the centre of drug-induced solipsism, but ‘You Know You’re Only Dreaming’ and ‘We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago’ are gorgeous slices of acoustic guitar-led pop to go cold to, laced in icy and glittering synthesizers twinkling like a field of lost stars. Meanwhile, the single ‘Silver Machine’, a sublimely daft piece of fuzzed-out space-rock with a backwards Chuck Berry riff, went to number 3 in the singles chart despite being recorder entirely on LSD. It never appeared on the album, naturally. Next up came Doremi Fasol Latido, which, despite being woefully titled, is an excellent record. ‘Brainstorm’ is eleven and a half minutes of Hawkwind at full throttle that, oddly enough, sounds a little bit like Joy Division’s ‘Interzone’, albeit infused with more Kraut-punk muscle, with the band’s echoey, spaced-out ambience eerily preempting Martin Hannett’s icy production. The effects pedal abuse on ‘Lord Of Light’ invents the swirling shoegaze of Ride’s Nowhere some 30 years too early, whilst ‘Time We Left This World Today’ starts off like the White Stripes in deep space before collapsing in on itself and turning inside out. This time, the great non-album single was ‘Urban Guerilla’, a snotty punk anthem celebrating terrorism which unfortunately coincided with IRA bombings in London, leading to the single being banned. With Lemmy now complimented on drums by Simon King, thus cementing the legendary Hawkwind rhythm section, the band then recorded their defining masterpiece, the all-time great Space Ritual, which is one of THE albums of the 70s and one of the few live records worth owning. Although capturing the true spectacle of these proto-punk monsters at their peak must have been a daunting task, with the shows becoming legendary as much due to the over the top laser shows and nude female dancers as to the music, Space Ritual delivers on all accounts. Originally a sprawling double LP, interspersed with fantastically daft sci-fi interludes spoken by resident poet Robert Calvert, recent reissues have expanded the original album with a shed-load of bonus material and a DVD, none of which feels extraneous. Basically, you need this record. Highlights abound, but personal favourites include a vicious ‘Masters Of The Universe’, the cosmic boogie of ‘Orgone Accumulator’ which sounds like Stereolab on steroids, and a bloodied, punked-up take of the originally delicate and shimmering ‘Down Through The Night’ from Doremi. Most bands would have seemed lost after such a peak, but Hawkwind bounced back with the fantastic Hall Of The Mountain Grill, a strong contender for their greatest ever studio album. Opener ‘The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke)’ wittily lambasts armchair revolutionary hippies who mistake drugged-out ranting for political action, replete with an almost dub-like middle section in which the guitars phase in and out of focus, leaving Lemmy’s bass to take the lead. ‘D-Rider’ is simply glorious, from the phasered guitars to the endless layers of synthesizers to some of the most enjoyably daft lyrics ever put to paper. The Lemmy-written ‘Lost Johnny’ is pure punk malevolence – drugged-out paranoia in hyperspace, whilst ‘Paradox’ and ‘You’d Better Believe It’, the latter recorded live, are classic Hawkwind – biker anthems for aliens on hallucinogens. However, their next album, the infuriatingly hard to find Warrior On The Edge Of Time, was to be the last Hawkwind classic. Unsurprisingly considering their drug intake, tensions began to run high in the band, and Lemmy was fired mid-tour in Toronto. The classic line-up was disintegrating, and though they would still have moments of greatness, they would never be this good again. The classic era had come to a close.
Hawkwind were ahead of their time, but have never really been given credit for it. Their concept of space-blues ties in nicely with Roxy Music’s retro-futurist kitsch, and was picked up by Stereolab in the 90s. Their delicate and shimmering acoustic ballads and brutal three-chord space drones paved the way for the likes of Spiritualized (Space Ritual is infinitely superior in my humble opinion to the somewhat bafflingly over-rated Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space, but that’s another story for another day), and their snarling bar-chord attack anticipated punk by almost half a decade. Their minimalist approach and love of repetition along with their chaotic improvisation and sense of barely controlled anarchy put them more in line with the Krautrock scene in Germany then any British prog group or lame heavy rock Purple Sabbath idiocy, and they were possessed of a subtle yet wry sense of humour. So snide indie snobbery and accepted notions of ‘cool’ can go and hang; Hawkwind were one of the all-time greats, and don’t let anyone try to tell you otherwise.