HAWKWIND - HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN GRILL @ 50

 

Celebrating its golden jubilee today, hitting the half century mark on its journey through deep space, the forth studio album by space-rock pioneers, Hawkwind, Hall of the Mountain Grill, was released on September 6th, 1974. The album saw the group going through one of its many lineup changes, with with lyricist/vocalist Robert Calvert and electronic effects wizard, Dik Mik departed and replaced with Simon House on synthesizer, Mellotron and electric violin. Future Motörhead founder, Lemmy Kilmister, was still with the band, though this would be his last time working with them before he got dumped while on tour in the US.

Despite the turbulence of the personnel changes, particularly significant without the conceptual guidance of Calvert, the album is still considered by many as a career highlight. In the wake of Robert Calvert's departure, lead vocals for the album were performed by Dave Brock, along with Lemmy on "Lost Johnny" and Nik Turner on "D-Rider". The band's line-up would continue to shift during the year. Del Dettmar left prior to the release of Hall of the Mountain Grill to live in Canada, and Alan Powell joined as an additional drummer. Science fiction author and friend of the group, Michael Moorcock, stepped in to read poetry at their concerts.[

The album's title was a nod to Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King", and to a Portobello Road cafe called The Mountain Grill (now closed), which was frequented by the band and their contemporaries from the Ladbroke Grove scene in the early 1970s. Hawkwind's frequent solo support act and occasional live guest musician Steve Peregrin Took had a song "The Ballad of the Mountain Grill," released in 1995 on a Cleopatra Records CD under alternative title "Flophouse Blues (in the Mountain Grill)". At one point, underground newspaper International Times had its print-works in the upstairs of the Grill.

Hall of the Mountain Grill reached number 16 on the UK album charts and number 110 in the US. Retrospective reviews have been generally positive. Though they were critical of the title track, AllMusic called Hall of the Mountain Grill "The band's best studio album" and "the quintessential guitar-oriented space rock record". Head Heritage were far less impressed, contending that the departures of Robert Calvert and Dik Mik were losses that Hawkwind could not remotely compensate for, and that the entire album "has the undeniable feel of a stop-gap album released half-desperately to keep the machinery of Hawkwind's constant touring well-greased". Regardless of the lack of critical consensus, it's one of the band's albums that I can return to repeatedly for a proper dose of their patented intergalactic musical excursions.

HAWKWIND - DOREMI FASOL LATIDO @ 50

 

Celebrating its 50th anniversary today is the third studio LP from space rock icons, Hawkwind, with Doremi Fasol Latido being released on November 24th, 1972. With the group experiencing one of its many lineup shuffles it would go through over the years, some changes in sound were afoot along with the new faces.

This album ushered in future Motorhead bassist, Lemmy Kilmister, along with new drummer Simon King. In the case of the latter, he was replacing Terry Ollis, who was more into a flowing jazz oriented drumming style while King was prone to a straight up thrusting rock approach. As for Lemmy, he original thought he was joining the band as a lead guitarist to replace Huw Lloyd-Langton, but Dave Brock had decided to take on the lead guitar bits and wanted Lemmy to play bass. Lemmy had no experience with the instrument and only really considered himself a barely competent guitarist who covered his lack of technique with volume and stagecraft. Nonetheless, Brock tossed him into the deep end and demanded he swim. The results were immediately successful with the Silver Machine single released on the previous album. Ultimately, the new rhythm section certainly gave the band a more driving proto-punk thrash that veered into Germanic "motorik" territory in some cases.

The album was recorded at the then newly opened Rockfield Studios, which proved to be somewhat detrimental to the overall sound. The facilities were in their infancy, so all the bugs weren’t quite worked out and things were a bit spartan in terms of the setup. The end result for the album was a sound that was often lacking depth and bottom end. The band tended to record with the core of bass, guitar, drums and vocals live in the studio, recording great long sessions and then going back to the tapes to hack and slash things together in the editing, using bits of synth to bridge sections along with additional overdubs of synths, sax/flute and effects.

Thematically, the group were continuing their exploration of some pretty heady themes, delving into concepts derived from hard science fiction sources. Michael Moorcock’s poem, The Black Corridor, became the basis for the lyrics in Space Is Deep. The Pythagorean concept of sound was an integral inspiration for the idea of the star-ship and “space ritual”. The title of the album is a reference to the “Sound of the Spheres” where the distance between Earth and the fixed "stars" represents the perfect harmonic interval. These spheres were believed to create a specific tone based on their vibrations as they moved through their orbits and displaced the “ether”. This is expressed thusly…

Do – Mars – red
Re – Sun – orange
Mi – Mercury – yellow
Fa – Saturn – green
Sol – Jupiter – blue
La – Venus – Indigo
Ti – Moon – violet

The cover for the original LP was silver foil printed with black in the form of a shield or crest, which became the principal symbol for the band going forward, being used on numerous future albums and singles. The back cover, inner sleeve and poster depict barbarian-type warriors in futuristic settings. The back cover includes the legend:

“The Saga of Doremi Fasol Latido is a collection of ritualistic space chants, battle hymns and stellar songs of praise as used by the family clan of Hawkwind on their epic journey to the fabled land of Thorasin.”

The legend tells of the Hawklords last and defeated stand against the "tyranny of the corrupt forces for law and evil", but the inner sleeve has redemption in the legend:

“And in the fullness of time, the prophecy must be fulfilled and the Hawklords shall return to smite the land. And the dark forces shall be scourged, the cities razed and made into parks. Peace shall come to everyone. For is it not written that the sword is key to Heaven and Hell?”

Upon its release, the album was well received by critics and peaked at #14 on the UK album charts. The raw edginess of its rhythm section would prove to be inspiration in a few years time for the burgeoning punk scene in the UK, with groups like the Sex Pistols eventually acknowledging Hawkwind as an influence. Though it may suffer slightly from weak production values, its songs and freaked out conceptual landscapes make it one of the band’s most essential albums.

HAWKWIND - QUARK STRANGENESS AND CHARM - @ 45

 

Marking 45 years in orbit, Hawkwind’s seventh studio album, Quark Strangeness and Charm, was released on June 17th, 1977. Coming in at a time when the UK was besieged by the punk revolution, it saw the group tightening its sound into a more concise attack while struggling to keep the cohesion of the group following a number of upheavals in personnel.

In terms of the group’s lineup, the biggest change was that this was their first album without co-founder Nik Turner. His departure was followed by drummer Allan Powell, while bassist Paul Rudolph was dumped from the band in the middle of recording the album. All these changes put the focus on Robert Calvert as the groups primary front-man, who stepped up to the plate in fine style, offering a distinctive voice for the group backed by inventive lyrics with a deft sense of humor. In fact, according to some critics, he upstaged the band with the quality of his work. But that’s a bit unfair as guitarist Dave Brock kept his riffs tight and economical in a manner that was appropriate for the times and Simon House offered up some fine violin parts. The rhythm section may have been a little disjointed as the replacement bass player had to overdub his parts, replacing the recordings Rudolph had laid down for the bed tracks with the new drummer. As such, the linking between the drums and bass may not have been as aligned as it could have been if they’d been able to record together.

Despite all the upheaval, the album was well received both critically and commercially and still holds up as a notable entry in the group’s canon. I find it sticks to its melodic hooks with a firm grip while steering clear of the jam band meandering which defined some of their previous works. For “space rock”, the "trips" feel to the point and solidly conceived. As an updated and slightly stripped down version of the band’s sound, I think it works exceptionally well and has stood the test of time, musically.

HAWKWIND - X IN SEARCH OF SPACE @ 50

 

Marking a half century since its release on October 8th, 1971 is the sophomore album by space rock legends, Hawkwind, with their first full blown excursion into the depths of the void, X In Search of Space.

While the album is not a concept album in the strict sense of offering a coherent narrative or theme for all the songs, the album’s elaborate die-cut fold out cover and accompanying “log” booklet ultimately imparted a lot of its conceptual weight. These were developed by cover artist, Barney Bubbles & poet Bob Calvert with input from sci-fi author, Michael Moorcock. Collectively, they go a long way in establishing a mythology around the group. Where their debut had hinted at these inclinations, their second album made their otherworldly predilections explicit. The use of fictional accounts of space missions and tales of lost civilizations added a sense of wonder and mystery to the group.

Recording of the album initially began at George Martin’s Air Studios, but that only lasted a week. The sessions were terminated after the band failed to get much done in terms of recording and the studio techs complained that friends of the band had broken into George’s liquor cabinet and pinched all his booze. There were also reports that the engineers found they’d been spiked with LSD, so things ended abruptly at that facility. From there, they were bundled off to Olympic Studios to do the rest of the album under a rather hurried schedule, no doubt with the hopes that a fast pace would keep them out of trouble.

The pace of production didn’t seem to hurt the material, however as the band managed to produce a solid album that would firmly set their course for their progress throughout the next few years. The sound became rooted in their driving rhythm section, which enabled the other players to spin off into the far reaches of improvisational acrobatics while being able to anchor themselves to the band’s relentless grooves. Taking a cue from “Krautrock” and its development of the “motorik” beat, the band were moving much closer to these new structures than traditional blues based rock.

Critical reception for the album was widely positive with Melody Maker comparing them to some of their German contemporaries saying that, while the Germans were more advanced on some musical fronts, Hawkwind’s use of electronics was without precedent. Gonzo reviewer, Lester Bangs, called it "monotone jammings with hypnotic rhythms and solos unraveling off into... well, space. The synthesizers warble, woof and scream and gurgle like barfing computers, the drums pound, and the singers chant Unknown Tongue rebops." Its legacy has placed it onto the platform of offering a definitive space rock statement, making it a foundation stone for the stoned who would trip out to its far-flung, far-out excursions.

Later CD & digital reissues added the seminal Silver Machine single featuring Lemmy Kilmister to the album to round out its greatness!