CAROL CLERK - THE SAGA OF HAWKWIND
So here it is, the second Hawkwind book in almost as many months, like it's predecessor Ian Abrahams "Hawkwind - Sonic Assassins", it's not been officially sanctioned by the band, but that said, like Ian's book it features extensive interviews conducted with most of the major players, the one major addition to the cast, is, in my opinion the seemingly forever on-off manager of the band Douglas Smith, whom unsurprisingly has plenty to say and Brock and the rest of the Hawk crew.
I think kit's also fair to point out that I'm making a conscious effort to review the book on it's own terms, at one point I was thinking of calling this piece "Clash Of The Titans" and putting the two books head to head, but in retrospect I didn't think this was fair, however, that said, it's impossible to not make some comparisons.
As I sit here I'm in the process of sorting out the "last minute" things for my holiday and with that in mind a couple of weeks ago, not at the time knowing the exact release date of Carol's book I'd picked up some "vacation reading" in the form of the Motley Crue biography "The Dirt". It's one of those I'd been meaning to get for a while but hadn't got around to, but the fact that my local HMV had it for £4.99 in their latest sale I thought "that'll do". Why am I telling you this you may be asking? well I think it's true to say that with the Crue and so hence any publication concerning them you know what you're going to get, and all in healthy(!) doses - SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL!, Hawkwind on the other hand I expected to be a far more, shall we say "sedate". Sure we all know the band has a reputation, especially when it comes to chemicals and other substances, but I for one was off the opinion that a lot of it was "urban myth", which it's true usually has some air of truth about it but is invariably blown up out of all proportion, but reading carols book it shows that certainly up to fairly recently, individuals in the band still knew how to party!
What we get here is the full blood and guts story of Hawkwind, warts and all, and no that's not a reference to Lemmy! What it lacks in exact details of a certain incident at a particular gig it more than makes up for with, for me anyway, revelations regarding the band and it's members that I never previously knew about. I don't want to give things away but at times, I was seriously stunned and shocked at what people were saying, I'm not talking about the many arguments that constantly crop up regarding money, but simply some of the soul bearing that goes on in the book. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that especially these days Spaceship Hawkwind comes across as quite a pleasant place to be most of the time, whenever I've seem the band recently they seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves and both glad and secure in each others company. However what this book makes you realise that underneath their exteriors of "Cosmic Space Lords" they are just like the rest of us and as such have to deal with the same s*it that life throws at us.
Of course with the inclusion of Doug Smith it goes without saying that the subject of money, or more commonly the lack of it rears it's head on numerous occasions, I'll leave you to decide who's in the right or wrong (good luck) but it has to be said that to a man everybody's memory has suffered over the years, must be all the substances they've consumed!
It's, I feel only fair to point out a couple of criticisms in the book. Firstly I feel that sometimes Carol will go off on a bit of a tangent, and whilst this is often one of the "bl**dy hell" moments, I for one am not always sure that the timing for these revelations is right. The other thing I must pull the book up on is a lack of index, well in my copy anyway, to me this is far less of a reference tool than Ian's book but all the same it requires one as it makes it far harder to dip in for snippets of information, if it goes to a second print, which it deserves to this is something I would advise is rectified.
Having already mentioned my holiday commitments I need to keep this review short so I'm going to round it up here and now (oops another space rock pun!). My recommendation is, if you only buy one book this year, although obviously you're going to buy two because you've already brought Ian's then this is the one, it's a full on rollercoaster that is indeed full of SEX DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL (mind you this is Hawkwind, not the Crue so the sex part is fairly liberally scattered) and because of that it's a real fun read (most of the time).