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 - 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!