I don't go to as many Hawkwind shows as I could do – in 2010, I attended four and I regarded that as sufficient, given their current style. They're pretty good, and I enjoyed the shows, but I didn't bother with a few other possibles. Four was sufficient, as I still wish they'd do a bit more blanga... and being a 70's Dave Brock fan doesn't help, as grungy power-riffing on a rhythm guitar just hasn't happened in the last 20 years or so.
This century, I've tended to use some of my gig-going budget in exploring the Hawkwind alternatives.
Nik Turner's "Space Ritual"
Nik Turner's bands are an obvious option, but I've seen his Space Ritual band twice now, and found it fairly shapeless and it didn't really connect. Some people have said that Nik is the spirit of Hawkwind, and Dave Brock is the backbone. If I have to choose between the two then I prefer backbone every time. Brock's band is disciplined, solid and structured (albeit a shadow of its former self), whereas Turner's bands strive for those cosmic peaks but get lost in the foothills.
Assassins of Silence
In 2008, I went on a 300-mile round trip to see a tribute band called the Assassins of Silence. That's quite a journey to see an obscure bunch you've only seen before on the internet - and I would have regretted the trek, had it not been for the support band, Tribe of Cro.
Little did I know then that the Cro guitarist (Nial Hone) would one day join Hawkwind!
AoS have now ceased operation, but I wouldn't have gone to see them again anyway.
...and that brings us pretty well up to date.
This is Hoaxwind, do not panic... Hawkwind were playing at the Forum in London, 2010, and Hoaxwind had the bright idea of playing the same night in a pub just down the road – not competing with Hawkwind, but playing either side of them. So, fans could have their pre-gig drinks while watching a tribute band; then go up the road and see "the real thing," and then return for Hoaxwind's second set.It's a bold decision, a trib playing in a pub where fans are getting ready to see their heroes in action!
It worked. Hoaxwind were in a side room, so plenty of people stayed at the bar, as the place was packed... but I'd previously heard some of Hoaxwind's stuff on YouTube and fancied checking them out.
After the totally non-typical gig intro of squawking synths, that I felt didn't remotely resemble anything that Hawkwind have ever done, they suddenly settled down and their style thereafter was solidly modelled on the vinyl releases of 1976-77 - or the second Bob Calvert era, or the Charisma Records era, depending on how you like to categorise your space rock.
In some ways, this choice (1976/77) is a bit limited, really - it would be nice if they did a few tracks in the style of the "Mind Journey" shows ('75) and the rock energy of "Live '79" – and perhaps a prog instrumental from the first album and some blanga from the "Space Ritual" era. Now, that would be some show!As it was, though, they chose to paint on a pretty narrow canvas – just the '76 and '77 vinyl – but, yes, they did it well.
A chap called Julian dares to step into Bob's shoes, and he handles it with a nice mixture of panache and nervous energy. Voice is good... which is half the battle, but what about the visual performance?It would be easy to fall into the trap of over-egging the pudding, when taking on a job like this – but Julian went for understatement instead, and was all the more convincing as a result.
He'd sometimes step up to the microphone and clutch it, eager to deliver a vocal – and then think again and step back, or fretfully fiddle with the sweat towel that's draped over his shoulder. And I didn't feel that was mimicry, because Bob Calvert didn't do that – but Bob could appear similarly twitchy, from what I remember of those days. So, yes, as an emulation or re-interpretation of the Main Man, he does an excellent job.
The rhythm section sounds solid and authentic, and the sax honking by Eugene similarly rings true. I gather he's played with Nik Turner's band, so that would be a definite stamp of approval for him. Next step, play with Hawkwind?
Synth and keyboards... well, this is an area of Hoaxwind that I think could do with beefing up. If the band want to make their mark by being a retro-Hawkwind, then they might as well go for the jugular, and put the 'space' firmly back into 'space-rock'. The gig intro sounded promising (albeit damned peculiar, as I've already commented) but then those guys seemed to back off, and stay in second gear much of the time. Or perhaps it was just the mix.
And the guitarist who has the temerity to assume Brock's role? Phil's contribution was in line with the chosen era, ie solid background that seldom kicked ass or sought to drive the band or demand attention. That was authentic, within the '76/'77 remit... but maybe disappointing for those hoping for a Greasy Truckers type sonic freakout.
Verdict:If Hoaxwind covered a wider range of Hawkwind gig styles, I'd be prepared to travel quite a long way to see them in the future.
When they decided to embed one of my videos of the gig on their Hoaxwind MySpace page, I did feel rather proud and pleased, though!
. If a 'big act' like Muse or Paul McCartney is playing London then there well may be a reference to the upcoming show on daytime tv. However, the old space-rock bunch, Hawkwind, don't really register on the public or the tv industry radars.
I was in the capital recently, to see Hawkwind, and was pretty surprised to see this on Channel Five.
The Great British Barbershop Boys, doing a brief rendition of an old Bob Calvert song!
Matthew Wright's show is called The Wright Stuff, and so he probably had no problems persuading his producer to allow a snatch of The Right Stuff. Had he wanted Brainstorm, or Sonic Attack, I daresay it would've been a different story! Anyway, Matthew's a big fan of Hawkwind - he even sang on a single they released in 2005 - so it was fun to see him get away with it!
Hawkwind fans were given a heads-up that something Hawk-related would be happening on the show, which is why I tuned in. I usually completely avoid daytime tv. .
. There's an Emprex help forum but it seems there's no company engineers involved; it's merely a bunch of people who possess the item and who seek to help fellow-sufferers by sharing experiences and advice. A bit like a victim support group, for people who have been beaten up in the street!
Shoddy product?
Reading the forum pleas for assistance make me wonder whether the product is poorly designed and well built, or excellently designed and badly built. Of course, it might be badly designed and badly built, for all I know. I certainly won't buy an Emprex product again, for as long as I live.
Clearly, a good tip before buying a product is to look on the Internet and see what level of support there is. Search for Emprex complaints, or something. Had I done my homework before paying out good money, I wouldn't have gone ahead.
Still no word from Emprex themselves, so I'm now reformatting the hard drive. It's a bit drastic, but sometimes a completely fresh start is the best solution.
The Emprex ME1 is a digital media player / recorder; in effect, a kind of digital video recorder that "tapes" TV and audio to hard drive.
Got mine today, and plugged it in.
First recording was a 2-minute portion of BBC News 24, via my Sky box. Hit pause, and the unit promptly gave me an I/O Error - that is, an input/output error, and then said loading....
Five minutes later, it was still "loading" (loading what?) and the power button wouldn't let me do a reset, so I pulled the plug for a cold restart. OK, first impression is, reminds me of Windows 95!
Second recording (a 3-min clip of news) went OK, and I then saved it to the FAT32 area of the hard drive. And found I could watch it back on my computer, so that was fine: that's exactly what I wanted.
Third recording lost all colour after a minute. Was the Emprex recording in black-and-white or was this merely a display issue? It turns out the colour loss had actually happened at the time - as playback of the offending item showed the moment it had happened.
I've found the colour loss issue can be reversed by pulling the power lead out, just like the old days of a Windows 95 freeze-up. But naturally, I'd like to avoid this absurdity happening in the future.
Two more tests, and the same thing happened: the display jumps to monochrome (black-and-white).
Consulted Emprex FAQs and the support site, and could find nothing on this problem, so messaged Emprex support through their site. And thus Day One of the trial concludes.
- When things around you start crumbling... the plaster cast evaluation experiment of 2010... At the start of March, a week before Jon and Corinna went to Texas, we decided to check the ability of some builder's plaster to form a cast of impressions in mud, in case Jon wanted to immortalise any tracks while in Texas.
I wetted some sand and then, for testing purposes, pressed a skull into it. Then withdrew it, and poured plaster in.
We weren't very impressed to find that, on the day that Jon and Corinna left the UK, it still wasn't dry. Easter came and went, and then the MayDay holiday... and it was still soggy. I just left the tray to do its own thing, just to see how long the stuff really did require to dry. In June, it reluctantly summoned up some rigidity, and a couple of days ago I plucked the firmly-set plaster cast from the tray of sand and left it on a nearby bin, to let the July rains wash the sand off. The next day, I found a crumbly pile of soggy gunk, that looked like a heap of guano. So, a long-running evaluation of this potential CFZ resource finally came to an end after 20 weeks, and my official verdict on it was not very polite, when I told Jon about it.
Interestingly, Jon suggested we keep the rest of that bag of cement "in case it comes in useful, one day."
Perhaps we can run a CFZ competition one day, and find out the Top Ten best uses for the stuff. In the meantime, it's up in the workshop, if anyone wants to put in a bid for it!
. Staying in control, when running an unfamiliar operating system on an unfamiliar machine, can be a bit difficult sometimes.
Recently, I found myself getting increasingly exasperated by Windows 7 on my first laptop, where the touchpad would keep dragging things where I didn't want them to be dragged, or closing a viewing folder when I merely wanted to finger-tip-move to an adjacent folder.
It was like the system was second-guessing me, or making decisions on my behalf. Turned out that, all I needed to do was disable tap-to-click on laptop touch pad
Now, when I googled the problem, I'd never even heard of tap-to-click, so I googled for "mousepad second-guesses me," or "touchpad anticipates my clicks," or something like that, and found many pages about this damned "tap-to-click" thing.
All that's needed to cure it is START > Control Panel > Mouse > Device Settings > Settings > Tapping > disable tapping.
So it wasn't the laptop being rebellious, or Windows 7 being a pile of rubbish. It was just a default setting that didn't suit me.
It made me wonder, though:
I wonder how many people buy a computer from a shop and then struggle along with a problem, not realising that their life needn't be like that, and that computers are supposed to obey our every whim. We shouldn't have to accomodate ourselves to the computer's whims.
Hawkwind were playing at the Forum in London, 2010, and Hoaxwind had the bright idea of playing the same night in a pub just down the road – not competing with Hawkwind, but playing either side of them. So, fans could have their pre-gig drinks while watching a tribute band; then go up the road and see "the real thing," and then return for Hoaxwind's second set. It's a bold decision, a trib playing in a pub where fans are getting ready to see their heroes in action!
