With Atomhenge handling the golden-era of Hawkwind during their run with the United Artists label from X In Search of Space, Doremi Fasol Latido, Space Ritual, Hall of the Mountain Grill, and Warrior on the Edge of the Time, which was the last album to feature bassist and vocalist Lemmy Kilmister when he joined the band in August of 1971 replacing Dave Anderson, then leaving the band to form Motörhead after his departure from the band in 1975.
It’s time to return back to where it all started for the band with their sole self-titled debut. Originally released on the Liberty label in August of 1970, the album was recorded in two months between March and April that same year at Trident Studios and put Hawkwind on the map as one of the most quintessential cult bands to come out of the Ladbroke Grove scene in the underground movement.
This 3-CD / 1 Blu-Ray set consists not only the original album remastered which beats out the 1996 version, but includes the new stereo mix by Stephen W. Tayler on the second disc, followed by a rare live recording of the band in 1970 from Dave Brock’s archives. By this time, the band in its 1970 line up consisted of alongside Dave and Nik Turner, but guitarist Huw Lloyd-Langton, bassist John A. Harrison, drummer Terry Ollis, electronic mastermind Dik Mik, guitarists Mick Slattery and Pretty Things alumni Dick Taylor.
Listening to this album, as I did back in 2005 when I was introduced to Hawkwind’s music after reading about them in MOJO’s special edition issue covering the story of prog rock when I was in Junior College, was like going through my comic books, ranging from DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse. But it still sounds, fresh, powerful, eruptive, and like a stick of dynamite ready to explode at any second.
Hearing ‘Be Yourself’ in its new mix by Tayler, it is just as fresh, and as Robert Godwin mentioned in the liner notes, a subtle re-imagining of how it sounds. From the guitars going left and right, Ollis’ drums, Mik’s electronics, Turner’s sax, and Brock’s chant “BE YOURSELF!/SEE YOURSELF!/I CAN SEE!/OTHERS LIKE ME!/BE YOURSELF!/SEE YOURSELF!/TRY AND FIND!/PEACE OF MIND!”
You can tell that Brock is capturing the Dalek-like voices in this nightmarish world, capturing the world Richard Corben had envisioned with his Den stories from Heavy Metal magazine. But adding in that battle improvisation the band would put into the forefront with its blaring free-jazz and space rock attitude with its chugging arrangement.
For Tayler, he captures the re-imaging on this remix by turning it up to 11, putting the listener inside the monolith with its tripped-out exploration which would have made Kubrick blown away if he had used this track for the final segment in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both the new mix and live version of ‘Paranoia’, send shivers down your spine. On the archival live recording which featured Skin Alley’s Thomas Crimble on bass, you can tell the band were channeling Amon Düül II during their Phallus Dei and pre-Yeti years with tidal-waving effect.
There’s something in the realms of the doom metal territory in which the band tackle on the live show. Despite the quality it is in, you can’t deny the historical significance on what is to come. But when it comes to ‘Seeing it As You Really Are’, the craziness gets even more crazy!
Right away, I felt the pounding rhythms in what Dik Mik, Ollis and Crimble were channeling the wonders of CAN. Believe me, the sounds of krautrock come marching through with more spaced-out intensity that’s unfolding while ‘We Do It’ sees one of the early beginnings for what is to come on their second album, In Search of Space, and then the live album Space Ritual.
Turner’s wah-wah and Crimble’s bass patterns which has this train-chugging effect, creates even more blaring, more danger, more of the intensive fire that is on the live recording, seeing what was about to come next in the legacy of Hawkwind’s career. As we leave the live recordings, we enter the demo world of ‘Kiss of the Velvet Whip’ which you could remember they did a faster version of the track as a 16-minute version from the deluxe version of In Search of Space.
The 1969 demo is laid-back at first, but delving into that psychedelic descending chorus with its slivering arrangement, then back into the fast-paced jump to light speed momentum. That is how amazing Brock’s demo can see how incredible a lyricist he really is. This is Hawkwind at the peak of the beginning in the 1970s showing how much this band were ready for lift-off and preparing to hurl through the cosmos 56 years later. Ready? All together, “Well, hurry on sundown, see what tomorrow brings!” There, now you got it!
