English space rock group Hawkwind formed in London in 1969 when singer and guitarist Dave Brock met bass player John Harrison. The first incarnation of the group included lead guitarist Mick Slattery and drummer Terry Ollis, who were soon joined by friends Nik Turner and Dik Mik Davies on saxophones and electronics respectively.
The group have been operative ever since, with only a one-year break when they surfaced under the alternate name Hawklords. Personnel changes have been regular and numerous, almost on a yearly basis, with only Brock being an ever-present.
Hawkwind also credited non-musician members of their crew, such as lighting engineer Jonathan Smeeton (known as Liquid Len); dancers Stacia, Renée LeBallister, Tony Crerar and Julie Murray-Anderson; lyricist and occasional guest Michael Moorcock. Hawkwind's distinctive graphic design in the 1970s was created by Barney Bubbles.
History
1969–1976
Dave Brock and Mick Slattery had been in the London-based psychedelic band Famous Cure, and a meeting with bassist John Harrison revealed a mutual interest in electronic music which led the trio to embark upon a new musical venture together. Seventeen-year-old drummer Terry Ollis replied to an advert in a music weekly, while Nik Turner and Michael "Dik Mik" Davies, old acquaintances of Brock, offered help with transport and gear, but were soon pulled into the band.
An Abbey Road session took place recording demos of "Hurry on Sundown" and others (included on the remasters version of Hawkwind), after which Slattery left to be replaced by Huw Lloyd-Langton, who had known Brock from his days working in a music shop selling guitar strings to Brock, then a busker.[1]Pretty Things guitarist Dick Taylor was brought in to produce the 1970 debut album Hawkwind.
Their use of drugs, however, led to the departure of Harrison, who did not partake, to be replaced briefly by Thomas Crimble (about July 1970 – March 1971). Crimble played on a few BBC sessions before leaving to help organise the Glastonbury Free Festival 1971; he sat in during the band's performance there.[2] Lloyd-Langton also quit, after a bad LSD trip at the Isle of Wight Festival led to a nervous breakdown.[3]
Their follow-up album, 1971's In Search of Space, brought greater commercial success, reaching number 18 on the UK album charts. This album offered a refinement of the band's image and philosophy courtesy of graphic artist Barney Bubbles and underground press writer Robert Calvert, as depicted in the accompanying Hawklog booklet, which would be further developed into the Space Ritual stage show. Science fiction author Michael Moorcock and dancer Stacia also started contributing to the band. Dik Mik had left the band, replaced by sound engineer Del Dettmar, but chose to return for this album giving the band two electronics players. Bass player Dave Anderson, who had been in the German band Amon Düül II, had also joined and played on the album but departed before its release because of personal tensions with some other members of the band.[4] Anderson and Lloyd-Langton then formed the short-lived band Amon Din.[5] Meanwhile, Ollis quit, unhappy with the commercial direction the band were heading in.[6]
The addition of bassist Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister and drummer Simon King propelled the band to greater heights. Dik Mik departed during 1973 and Calvert ended his association with the band to concentrate on solo projects. Dettmar also indicated that he was to leave the band, so Simon House was recruited as keyboardist and violinist playing live shows, a North America tour and recording the 1974 album Hall of the Mountain Grill. Dettmar left after a European tour and emigrated to Canada, whilst Alan Powell deputised for an incapacitated King on that European tour, but remained giving the band two drummers.
At the beginning of 1975, the band recorded the album Warrior on the Edge of Time in collaboration with Michael Moorcock, loosely based on his Eternal Champion figure. However, during a North American tour in May, Lemmy was caught in possession of amphetamine crossing the border from the US into Canada. The border police mistook the powder for cocaine and he was jailed, forcing the band to cancel some shows. Fed up with his erratic behaviour, the band dismissed the bass player[7] replacing him with their long-standing friend and former Pink Fairies guitarist Paul Rudolph.[8] Lemmy then teamed up with another Pink Fairies guitarist, Larry Wallis, to form Motörhead, named after the last song he had written for Hawkwind.
1976–1986
Hawkwind and Gong related personnel chart 1976 to 1983
Calvert made a guest appearance with the band for their headline set at the Reading Festival in August 1975, after which he chose to rejoin the band as a full-time lead vocalist. Stacia chose to relinquish her dancing duties and settle down to family life.
Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music is the first album of this era. On the eve of recording the follow-up "Back on the Streets" single, Turner was dismissed for his erratic live playing[9] and Powell was deemed surplus to requirements. After a tour to promote the single and during the recording of the next album, Rudolph was also dismissed, for allegedly trying to steer the band into a musical direction at odds with Calvert and Brock's vision.[9]
Adrian "Ade" Shaw, who, as bass player for Magic Muscle, had supported Hawkwind on the Space Ritual tour, came in for the 1977 album Quark, Strangeness and Charm. The band continued to enjoy moderate commercial success, but Calvert's mental illness often caused problems. A manic phase saw the band abandon a European tour in France,[10] while a depression phase during a 1978 North American tour convinced Brock to disband the group.[11]
On 23 December 1977 in Barnstaple, Brock and Calvert had performed a one-off gig with Devon band Ark as the Sonic Assassins, and looking for a new project in 1978, bassist Harvey Bainbridge and drummer Martin Griffin were recruited from this event. Steve Swindells was recruited as keyboard player. The band was named Hawklords, (probably for legal reasons, the band having recently split from their management).
King had originally been the drummer for the project but quit during recording sessions to return to London, while House, who had temporarily left the band to join a David Bowie tour, elected to remain with Bowie full-time, but nevertheless contributed violin to these sessions. At the end of the band's UK tour, Calvert, wanting King back in the band, dismissed Griffin, then promptly resigned himself, choosing to pursue a career in literature.[12] Swindells left to record a solo album.
In late 1979, Hawkwind reformed with Brock, Bainbridge and King being joined by Huw Lloyd-Langton (who had played on the debut album) and Tim Blake (formerly of Gong), debuting at the first Futurama (The World's First Science Fiction Music Festival) on 9 September in Leeds,[13] and then embarking upon a UK tour despite not having a record deal or any product to promote.
However, during the recording of Levitation King quit and Ginger Baker was drafted in for the sessions, but he chose to stay with the band for the tour, during which Blake left to be replaced by Keith Hale. In 1981 Baker and Hale left after their insistence that Bainbridge should be dismissed was ignored,[14] and Brock and Bainbridge elected to handle synthesisers and sequencers themselves, with drummer Griffin from the Hawklords rejoining.
In the early 1980s, Brock had started using drum machines for his home demos and became increasingly frustrated at the inability of drummers to keep perfect time, leading to a succession of drummers coming and going. First, Griffin was ousted and the band tried King again, but, unhappy with his playing at that time, he was rejected. Andy Anderson briefly joined while he was also playing for The Cure, and Robert Heaton also filled the spot briefly prior to the rise of New Model Army. Lloyd Langton Group drummer John Clark did some recording sessions, and in late 1983 Rick Martinez joined the band to play drums on the Earth Ritual tour in February and March 1984, later replaced by Clive Deamer.
Turner had returned as a guest for the 1982 Choose Your Masques tour and was invited back permanently. Further tours ensued with Phil "Dead Fred" Reeves augmenting the line-up on keyboards and violin, but neither Turner nor Reeves would appear on the only recording of 1983–84, The Earth Ritual Preview, however there was a guest spot for Lemmy.
1986–1999
Alan Davey was a young fan of the band who had sent a tape of his playing to Brock,[15] and Brock chose to oust Reeves moving Bainbridge from bass to keyboards to accommodate Davey. This experimental line-up played at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1984, which was filmed and release as Stonehenge 84. Subsequent personal and professional tensions between Brock and Turner led to the latter's expulsion at the beginning of 1985.[16] Clive Deamer, who was deemed "too professional" for the band,[17] was eventually replaced in 1985 by Danny Thompson Jr (son of folk-rock bassist Danny Thompson), a friend of Alan Davey, and remained almost to the end of the decade.
A headline appearance at the 1986 Reading Festival was followed by a UK tour to promote the Live Chronicles album which was filmed and released as Chaos. In 1988 the band recorded the album The Xenon Codex with Guy Bidmead, but all was not well in the band and soon after, both Lloyd-Langton and Thompson departed.
Drummer Richard Chadwick, who joined in the summer of 1988, had been playing in small alternative free festival bands, most notably Bath's Smart Pils, for a decade and had frequently crossed paths with Hawkwind and Brock. He was initially invited simply to play with the band, but eventually replaced stand in drummer Mick Kirton to become the band's drummer to the present day.
To fill in the gap of lead sound, lost when Lloyd-Langton left, violinist House was re-instated into the line-up in 1989 (having previously been a member from 1974 until 1978), and, notably, Hawkwind embarked on their first North American visit in eleven years (since the somewhat disastrous 1978 tour), in which House did not partake. The successfully received tour was the first of several over the coming years, in an effort by the band to re-introduce themselves to the American market.
Bridget Wishart, an associate of Chadwick's from the festival circuit, also joined to become the band's one and only singing front-woman. 1991 commenced with perhaps the most surprising Hawkwind tour in the band's history, without Dave Brock. Brock's temporary replacement was former Smart Pils guitarist Steve Bemand (who had played with Chadwick and Wishart in the Demented Stoats). The tour began in Amsterdam on 12 March and took in Germany, Greece, Italy and France before wrapping up in Belgium on 10 April after 24 dates.[18] In 1991 Bainbridge, House and Wishart departed and the band continued as a three piece relying heavily on synthesisers and sequencers to create a wall-of-sound.
Ron Tree had known the band on the festival circuit and offered his services as a front-man, and the band duly employed him for the album Alien 4 and its accompanying tour which resulted in the album Love in Space and video.
In 1996, unhappy with the musical direction of the band, bassist Davey left, forming his own Middle-Eastern flavoured hard-rock group Bedouin and a Motörhead tribute act named Ace of Spades.[19] His bass playing role was reluctantly picked up by singer Tree and the band were joined full-time by lead guitarist Jerry Richards (another stalwart of the festival scene, playing for Tubilah Dog who had merged with Brock's Agents of Chaos during 1988) for the albums Distant Horizons and In Your Area. Rasta chanter Captain Rizz also joined the band for guest spots during live shows.
1999–2008
Hawkestra—a re-union event featuring appearances from past and present members—had originally been intended to coincide with the band's 30th anniversary and the release of the career spanning Epocheclipse – 30 Year Anthology set, but logistical problems delayed it until 21 October 2000. The Hawkestra had set a template for Brock to assemble a core band of Tree, Brock, Richards, Davey, Chadwick and for the use of former members as guests on live shows and studio recordings. The 2000 Christmas Astoria show was recorded with contributions from House, Blake, Rizz, Moorcock, Jez Huggett and Keith Kniveton and released as Yule Ritual the following year. In 2001, Davey agreed to rejoin the band permanently, but only after the departure of Tree and Richards.[20]
Meanwhile, having rekindled relationships with old friends at the Hawkestra, Turner organised further Hawkestra gigs resulting in the formation of xhawkwind.com, a band consisting mainly of ex-Hawkwind members and playing old Hawkwind songs. An appearance at Guilfest in 2002 led to confusion as to whether this actually was Hawkwind, sufficiently irking Brock into taking legal action to prohibit Turner from trading under the name Hawkwind. Turner lost the case and the band began performing as Space Ritual.[21]
An appearance at the Canterbury Sound Festival in August 2001, resulting in another live album Canterbury Fayre 2001, saw guest appearances from Lloyd-Langton, House, Kniveton with Arthur Brown on "Silver Machine". The band organised the first of their own weekend festivals, named Hawkfest, in Devon in the summer of 2002. Brown joined the band in 2002 for a Winter tour which featured some Kingdom Come songs and saw appearances from Blake and Lloyd-Langton, the Newcastle show being released on DVD as Out of the Shadows and the London show on CD as Spaced Out in London.
In 2005 a new album Take Me to Your Leader was released. Recorded by the core band of Brock/Davey/Chadwick, contributors included new keyboardist Jason Stuart, Arthur Brown, tabloid writer and TV personality Matthew Wright, 1970s New Wave singer Lene Lovich, Simon House and Jez Huggett. This was followed in 2006 by the CD/DVD Take Me to Your Future.
December 2006 saw the official departure of Alan Davey, who left to perform and record with two new bands: Gunslinger and Thunor. He was replaced by Mr Dibs, a long-standing member of the road crew. The band performed at their annual Hawkfest festival and headlined the US festival Nearfest and played gigs in PA and NY. At the end of 2007, Tim Blake once again joined the band filling the lead role playing keyboards and theremin.
On 8 September 2008 keyboard player Jason Stuart died due to a brain haemorrhage. In October 2008, Niall Hone (former Tribe of Cro) joined Hawkwind for their Winter 2008 tour playing guitar, along with returning synth/theremin player Tim Blake. In this period, Hone also occasionally played bass guitar alongside Mr Dibs and used laptops for live electronic improvisation.
2009–present
In 2009, the band began occasionally featuring Jon Sevink from The Levellers as guest violinist at some shows. April 2012 saw the release of a new album, Onward, again on Eastworld. Keyboardist Dead Fred rejoined Hawkwind for the 2012 tour in support of Onward and has since remained with the band.
In February 2014, as part of a one-off Space Ritual performance, Hawkwind performed at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire featuring an appearance by Brian Blessed for the spoken word element of Sonic Attack; a studio recording of this performance was released as a single in September 2014.[22] Later in the year, former Soft Machine guitarist John Etheridge joined the live line-up of the band, though he had departed again prior to early 2015 dates.[23]
Following Hawkeaster 2015, Hawkwind made their debut visit to Japan, playing two sold-out shows in Tokyo. Hawkwind performed two Solstice Ritual shows in December 2015, with Steve Hillage guesting, and Haz Wheaton joining Hawkwind on bass guitar. Wheaton is a former member of the band's road crew who had previously appeared with Technicians of Spaceship Hawkwind, a "skeleton crew" spin off live band. Additionally, he had guested on bass for Dave Brock's solo album Brockworld released earlier in the year.
The band released The Machine Stops on 15 April 2016, a concept album based on E.M. Forster's short story of the same name.[24] Brock and Chadwick were joined on the recording by Hone, Dibs and Wheaton sharing bass duties, while Hone and Dead Fred contributed one solo piece each. The album entered the UK album chart at number 29. Dead Fred's last live appearance was at Eastbourne Winter Gardens on 1 April; Hone took on keyboard and synth duties until Blake returned for the summer shows.
The trio of Brock, Chadwick and Wheaton recorded the album Into the Woods, released on 5 May 2017, with additional contributions from Dibs, Magnus Martin (whose band Tarantism had supported Hawkwind on many occasions) and Big Bill Barry.[25][26] Martin and saxophonist Michał Sosna (from Polish group hipiersoniK) joined the band for a 16-date UK promotional tour in the same month.
A chance meeting with Mike Batt by Brock at the US Embassy brought him into the project contributing production, arrangement and additional orchestrations. The album Road to Utopia was released on 14 September 2018.[27] There were guest appearances from Hawkwind's former sax player, Jez Huggett, and Eric Clapton, who Brock had performed with as a duo in the 1960s prior to his rise to fame in The Yardbirds.[28] Batt conducted a series of concerts titled In Search of Utopia - Infinity and Beyond featuring the band and Docklands Sinfonia Orchestra in October and November, with Arthur Brown guesting.[27] After the recording of the album but before the shows, both Wheaton and Dibs left, while Hone rejoined on bass. Wheaton went on to join Electric Wizard, and Dibs stated "irreconcilable differences" on the Hawkwind fans Facebook page, Brock claiming "we propped the fella up and kept him in the band longer than he should have been, because we were genuinely concerned... about his state of mind."[29]
In October 2019 the group released All Aboard the Skylark, marketed as a return to their space rock roots. This was the first album with the line-up of Brock, Chadwick, Hone and Martin. The album was promoted with a 15 date tour of Britain in November, culminating in a final show at London's Royal Albert Hall. The group were augmented by keyboard player Blake, with guest appearances from Phil Campbell and Clapton.[30] A record of the live show titled 50th Anniversary Live, with the guest appearance from Campbell, is released on 4 December 2020 by Cherry Red in 3LP and 2CD formats.[31][32]
Brock had started work on new material in his home studio with some contributions from Chadwick and Martin when the COVID-19 pandemic spread curtailing any further band activity. Brock would continue work with remote contributions from Martin, and the album Carnivorous (an anagram of coronavirus) was released in October 2020 under the name Hawkwind Light Orchestra to reflect the reduced personnel.[33][34]
When the group returned to live performances post-COVID in late 2021, the line-up featured Brock, Chadwick, Martin and new members Thighpaulsandra on keyboards and Doug MacKinnon on bass, replacing Blake and Hone respectively. A new Hawkwind album, Somnia, was released in September 2021.
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