Sonic Assassins
and Silver Machines
An introduction to the band
from the MELODY MAKER
7th. April 1973

Ever wondered how a bunch of stone crazy freaks got on Top of the Pops? What was it that changed a maniac speed-freak into a rock 'n' roll star? What was the mysterious influence that mad genius Bob Calvert exerted on the Ladbroke Grove hippies? All this and more is revealed below, in Let It Rock's elementary Hawkwind primer ...

In the years before Calvert, Hawkwind were your archetypal freak band - permanently broke, and perpetually boogyin'; doing the usual stoned round of festivals, benefits and small clubs. Their untogetherness was legendary: sure, they'd turn up at gigs (well most of the time), but just how large the band would be, or whether they'd be fit to play was another question altogether. On one memorable occasion, Hawkwind consisted of Nik Turner, Terry 0llis, Dave Anderson and Del Dettmar, fronted by Twink playing excruciating four-string lead guitar. Not that it mattered too much - nobody ever went for the music: a Hawkwind gig was more of a social event, and the audience could generally be relied on to provide as much excitement as the band.

In the beginning, Hawkwind were Group X, playing at the All Saints Hall in Ladbroke Grove. They were taken on by Doug Smith (photo by Phil Franks) of Clearwater Enterprises (the local happy little head agency), became Hawkwind Zoo, then Hawkwind, and eventually got a record company, Liberty/United Artists. Shedding and recruiting personnel at frequent intervals, they carried on in a generally haphazard fashion for a couple of years or so, bringing out an album along the way, and seeing Clearwater collapse in financial ruin around them. Doug Smith stayed on as manager, and although the band almost broke up on several occasions - a road accident in Scotland 18 months ago precipitated the biggest rift, when Dikmik announced his intention of leaving for India, forcing Del the roadie to join the band on synthesizer (needless to say, Dikmik never got further than Blackheath) - they managed to limp on.

At this point, Hawkwind's reputation was founded firmly on their idealistic attitudes towards music, and their indubitable talent for imbibing illegal substances. Together with partners in crime, the Pink Fairies and Skin Alley, they were the automatic choice for festivals and free gigs throughout the country. To me, Hawkwind have always been associated with festivals - playing in the dust and desolation of Canvas City at the Isle of Wight, Terry Ollis collapsed in his tent at Harmony Farm, with Pink Fairy Russ depping on drums, incredible scenes of debauchery and burnt-out brain cells in the Hawkwind tepee at Glastonbury - the list is endless. But despite the high esteem the lads were accorded by the freak community, on a wider level Hawkwind were losing out badly. Financially, things were desperate; the music press didn't want to know, their only radio outlet was an occasional play on the Peel - Drummond - Harris circuit, and their record company was barely tolerating them.

By late '71 though, things were starting to happen, and a large part of this was down to the influence of one Bob Calvert, madman of this parish. Calvert, poet, writer, and eccentric, was working at Frendz, and it was he who led the Sonic Assassins further into the previously little-charted areas of space rock. He introduced them to Michael Moorcock, who wrote a comic strip around the band, went to gigs with them, and generally gave much-needed help and encouragement. In Search of Space was released, and moved into the top 20 for a while, giving the first signs that Hawkwind were capable of reaching a much wider audience. By this time, Bob had joined the band as resident poet, singer and songwriter. It was he who introduced the - This is your Captain speaking - your Captain is dead - segment, and it was he who provided the base for Hawkwind's further meanderings through time, space, and the eternal mysteries of the cosmos. His mental instability caused numerous problems, but his endless supply of ideas, energy and wild schemes gave Hawkwind the kick in the ass they so obviously needed.

'Silver Machine' was now becoming their most-requested number; and when it was released as a single, Hawkwind confounded everyone by tearing up the charts. Top of the Pops became almost interesting for a while, with Alice Cooper playing with his snake, David Bowie going down on his lead guitarist, and Hawkwind appearing on film with light show, the bountifully-endowed Stacia, and a large audience of crazed and painted freaks. Happy times indeed!

The rest you know - almost overnight, the band became the biggest draw in the country, with over 2000 people turned away from one performance at the Rainbow alone, and the single made it as high as number 2. In Search of Space reappeared in the album charts, and, at the time of writing, is still there.

Now Hawkwind are taking their space concept even further. Bob's original Space Opera has become the Space Ritual, and the band is taking it on the road for 30 dates, using five roadies, four dancers, a four-man light show, and two stage and set designers - one, the ubiquitous Barney Bubbles, former Frendz magazine whizz-kid and designer of the In Search of Space sleeve. It's not yet known whether Bob Calvert will be actively involved in the tour, having performed only sporadically with the band in recent months. Bob has plans to do a solo album, Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters, with royalties going to the families of deceased fighter pilots. Barney has extensively re-modelled the Space Opera concept; the Space Ritual is loosely based on the dreams of astronauts in suspended animation, and takes in along the way nifty little items like the part of it, but Nik's going to be doing the poetry and he'll be the wizard. Barney's done all the designs, written the story, done the posters, things like that - all the design side. Two weeks ago, we were all really panicking. What happened is we're all very lazy - you know how lazy we are in this band - and I was sitting at home with me wife and kids in the country. We'd done the album, mixed it down at Rockfield, and I got really freaked out 'cause everyone from Liberty was phoning up, saying 'Is it ready?' because they're in a hurry to get it out and make them some more bread, so it was all done in a rush, and it really did me head in, at that point we all got really worried. Then suddenly it all slotted into place - everything in relation to everything else. "

" The single? Well, that's the one that we all thought 'rush that out, that's going to be a hit'. We'd probably still be struggling like fuck to get the Ritual together, if it wasn't for that. I'll tell you, everybody in this company now, all they do is boost your ego, they're all into saying all these fantastic things about you, all that load of shit. That's the change that's come over them, they're all over you all the time, you become a force. You know, ail the 'Ah, yes, if we get this together for them, it'll help the company, we'll sell a load more records' - that shit. That's how we managed to get the bread for it. We've been hustling them for over a year and a half to get this thing done. Only because of Silver Machine do we get a chance to do it. The single means we're pulling in lots of people everywhere we play, but they're so fucking stupid here man. They lay out bread on lots of stupid things, while we're struggling like fuck to do something. We could have been at this stage a year ago. But we're drawing the audience now, which in one way is a drag, 'cause of our old audience, the heads. Now they come down and see us and they can't get in. We're playing bigger halls and they're all sold out. The Space Ritual is the big one though, but it's a race to finish it. All this pandemonium that's going down is because we've got 8 days to get 12 new numbers together - a whole new set. It's chaos, man, real chaos."

Hawkwind 1972 - l. > r.: Nik Tuner / Renee (dancer) / Del Dettmar /
Stacia (dancer) / Lemmy / Calvert / Dave Brock / Simon King

So the carnival hits the road, the electronics get more and more complicated, and Hawkwind get further and further away from the untogether freak band that used to play under the motorway in the Grove. Not necessarily a bad thing - it's good to see the dopers making some money at last - but the parallels with the Pink Floyd are plain enough. The Floyd were the original hippy band; they came up through UFO and the Middle Earth, then ignored the community that spawned them as soon as they could afford to. I'm not suggesting that Hawkwind will go the same way, but I hope they don't blow out the small gigs entirely, which does look a possibility at the moment. The concept behind their music is heavy enough, though the band themselves are managing to avoid taking it too seriously. It'll be interesting to see how long they can sustain it.

MELODY MAKER; 7th. April, 1973