CAPTAIN LOCKHEED AND THE STARFIGHTERS -   JAN 1974

I think it’s fair to say that this is Bobs finest moment (solo wise), I guess every Hawkwind fan has it (if not why not!), it is inspired, way ahead of its time using pure Hawkwind sound as the basis then mixing in a blend of humour, history and theatrics, the tape effects used all over the album are the forerunner of today’s samples. Having the actors throughout the album are pure genius, from the "Franz Joseph" freak out to the black comedy of the "Interview" it keeps me constantly amused. My group of friends spent many years occasionally coming out with "Is that makeup you’re wearing "and "G for Germany" sketches, mad I know, even my partner Lisa who hates all things Hawkwind says the "make up "saying, so the album is more than just some good rock music, it captures people on different levels, my good friend and co-curator Dave says that there are lots of aviation jokes hidden within the album (he used to have a fascination with all things aeronautical)and you just can’t beat tracks like " Aerospaceage Inferno" and "Right Stuff" they are just pure 70’s Hawkwind of the highest calibre, and of course the band are still playing these songs today and they always go down well. The rhythm section of Lemmy and Simon King which gives us the backbone of that sound we all love so much is well in evidence here, add to that Nik and Del making their familiar sounds, even the captains guitar on "widow maker" add to that a bit of" Pink Fairies" Paul Rudolph guitar playing and that makes this easily a favourite Hawkwind album in anyone’s book.

I must admit I don’t know anything about aeroplanes, I have never even been on one, but this album is really interesting and funny, the whole thing about these crap planes that were sold to the Germans by the Americans (no surprise there then) and the fact that so many pilots died in them becomes interesting in the hands of Mr Calvert. For more information on the F104G (G for Germany) visit starfarer's site and more specifically the page - http://www.starfarer.net/captlock.html

LUCKY LEIF AND THE LONGSHIPS April 1975

Well, what do you say about Lucky Leif and the Longships, the album tells the story of Leif the Lucky a Viking sailor who discovered America five centuries before Chris Columbus did .We all know that Bob had quite a thing for history which is cool. I assume it was Bobs intention to take us on a musical history tour of the tale but unfortunately this album goes all over the place and does'nt’t seem to know what it wants to be .It starts with" Ship of Fools" which is quite good a bit on the Pink Fairies side, not a bad thing. Then you get a Beach Boys parody on "Lay of the surfers" which is different, , then we are treated to some folk music with "Voyage to Vinland". Now it may be me coz I can’t stand that "finger in the ear"music no matter how well its done but I really can't get into it. Then you get this really bizarre spoken poem which sounds like six stoned people all saying the poem at different speeds, saying that it probably was six stoned people all saying the poem at different speeds, very weird."Brave new World takes us back to more familiar rock territory, albeit middle of the road. Then you get on to side two where Bob joins 10cc and releases "Magical Potion" with it's semi reggae feel that seems made for the charts. After that Bob gets more traditional again but this time dabbles with American country music, again it may be me coz I can’t stand country music either but it just doesn't hit the spot. Then comes a rather odd track called "Storm Chant of the Skralings" a sort of Bob becomes a Navaho Indian in a cool kind of way and years before anyone else thought of putting Indian chants to modern western rock music or dance music, then he's off to Jamaica or is it Brixton for some "skanking " its not good!,to round things off we have some adverts called "Phase locked Loop" not too bad and "Ragna Rock" which is a nice blend of funk and rock so he obviously saved the best till last.

All in all I don’t think this is a very good album and is a bit of a disappointment after Capt. Lockheed

HYPE 1982

I read the book long before I heard the album, I was always struck by how good a read it is, it is a proper novel, one which kept me wanting to read it and find out what happened to the characters, for me, the mark of a good book, it follows the adventures of Tom Mahler an up and coming rock star and the record company people that turn him into an over night sensation and just how far they would go to sell the product, now I’m not going to give anything away here about the story coz I think you should read it ,if you can get hold of a copy (so, you going to lend me yours then Si?), nothing hawk related but quite an eye opener on the record industry and the people that run it

Now I have a bit of a confession to make, when I bought "Hype" I played it once excitedly thinking it would be a kind of updated "Capt. Lockheed" but of course it wasn’t so it got filed, and has'nt’t seen the light of day since, so I played it to refresh myself with it and found that it’s quite a good album (doh!) .You can really hear the beginnings of Bobs later electronic sound .He had obviously taken note of the new wave / punk sound coz some of this album sounds to me quite like many bands from that era "Boomtown Rats" to name one, but it is never a copy just influenced by these bands, maybe it was the instruments they all used at the time, giving rise to similar sounding albums ,I don’t know enough about the technical side of rock 'n' roll to be able to say. . The highlights of the album for me are defiantly "Lord of the Hornets" the single from this album (remember the days when you only had one single off an album?) with its stark electronic sound almost Kraftwerk with Bobs trademark "wobbly voice" over the top, its just brilliant, really quite tense. Then I really like "Over my Head" quite "choppy" in its guitar playing, the lyrics tell the tale of Mahler trying to chat some girl up and finding he doesn’t really understand a word she’s talking about (ever been in that position?).

Next up is "Evil Rock" very much Bobs version of the stones classic "Its only Rock n Roll but I like it" but better, telling more of what these "Evil" rock n rollers and their fans get up to, and that we love it! HA HA then comes "The luminous green glow of the dials of the dashboard (at night)"what a long title, but a good mix of electronica and Trev Thoms guitar playing. I could go on to describe the whole album but you would do better to dig it out for yourself coz it is a good album, not quite "Capt. Lockheed " but well worth playing on a regular basis, as I have found out.

FREQ Aug 1984

Ahhh, now here we go, "Freq" it would be safe to say that I really love this album, the whole album is great, not one duff track, some of the recordings of the miners go on a bit and in my opinion could do with being edited, but hey who am I to say what’s right or wrong, musically it sounds quite like Fad Gadget a cool electro Goth band from the early 80s fronted by Frank Tovey, there are so many similarities it’s weird but Bob has given every song a unique sense of style and it sounds like there is so much space in the music. The whole album concerns itself with the 80s miners strike and being in the workplace in "Thatchers Britain". The first track on the LP is "Ned Lud"a homage to the 18^{th century luddite martyrs with a modern day spin on it, this ends in a recording of a miner talking to someone about being a pit worker and their thoughts on Arthur Scargill (leader of the National union of miners!) I get the impression the chap is talking to Bob, I just find the bit where he says that "Margaret Thatcher is just Hitler without the moustache" well funny, but all of the bits where the miners are talking, they all sound very passionate about their cause. Then comes "Acid Rain"no prizes for figuring out what this ones about, again we have heavy electronic sound set against Bobs voice, it works so well, again at the end of the track we have more sound clips, then we go into "All the machines are quiet"telling us how the management treat the workers and that the workers only want" a living wage "so they (the workers) walk out and how hard it gets for those people involved .You get the idea that Bob is some sort of observer of the whole affair watching the strike unfolding from afar and commenting to us, the listener .}

Side two is not quite as good as the first but is still of a high quality "standing on the picket line "starts with a person talking at a rally of some sort then has a tense synth going with a guitar low in the mix and almost Japan style noises spaced throughout the track but the whole track smacks of desperation then ends with a crowd chanting "Arthur Scargill we’ll support you ever more" Bob then tells us that a light aircraft flew over the crowd trailing a banner saying "Scargill get stuffed "this album is a real gritty commentary on our history ."The cool courage of the bomb squad officers" is my least favourite track on the album basically coz it’s the slowest one, it kind of drags for me and the ending is like that bit from "Lucky Leif" yeah the finger in the ear folky bit, fortunately it only lasts 30 seconds or so, the last track on this master piece is "Work Song" a quite low key track about working in a factory and how your mind wanders, I guess it’s for anyone who ever spent any time in a factory. And that’s it it’s over it’s quite short by today’s standards (I think it was originally marketed as a mini album) , just means you have to play it again ha ha .

TEST TUBE CONCEIVED 1986

Test tube conceived sees Bob with a complete band that includes Dave Anderson on bass (yeah I know boo, hiss) but although he has more musicians they seem to make less noise than on "Freq".This is a very down album, it hardly ever gets going, it is basically one pace the whole LP, with the exception of the track "online" which is only slightly faster than the others, the album concerns itself with scientists dabbling with DNA, the powers of the mind as seen in "psi power", computers and invasion of privacy, all Bobs favourite subjects ,but as I said it is very down, it feels as if Bob was tired when he wrote this, or p’haps that was the feeling he was after, it just comes across as quite depressing, having said that it is musically very polished there are some nice swirly synth noises ,some samples and the guitars are big and quite mid 80s indy bandish, think killing joke and psychedelic furs, but they are well down in the mix ,there is quite a good instrumental called "Fanfare for the Perfect Race". The oddest thing about this LP is that it starts with a track called" In Vitro Breed" and ends with the track "Test Tube Conceived" but they are the same track "Test Tube" is slightly faster and has some of the lyrics missing, well one line in each verse , very strange ,

Well this has been the hardest album to review whilst it isn’t bad it’s not great, play it see what you think