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This review is dedicated to Simon King, drummer-propeller of the Hawkwind spacecraft from 1972 to 1980, now employed in a London municipal company for urban waste disposal: thank you for all the hours of furious "air drum" we spent together.
The "Space Ritual Tour" turned out to be a kind of point of no return.
The intergalactic carousel, which between '72 and '73 had turned the heads of the space rockers of the land of Albion, represented the highest expression of the crew led by Dave Brock, not only from a purely musical perspective, but also and above all as a realization of that "cosmic experience" that has always been the foundation of the group's music. The band was experiencing what can be defined as its moment of greatest success, yet, once back at base, the Hawkwind spaceship found itself once again dealing with that sort of "revolving door syndrome" that had always influenced its affairs.
Since its formation (a few years earlier within the Notting Hill district), the band had, in fact, adopted the modus vivendi of the late '60s hippie communes, to the point of becoming a sort of extended family, from which anyone was free to leave and to which everyone was free to return. However, no one could have predicted what the consequences would be of the small revolution awaiting the group at the beginning of 1974, on the eve of the recordings for the fourth album of originals.
The band had to deal, first of all, with the defection of Robert Calvert, the writer-poet who, in his capacity as a lyricist, singer, narrator of space drifts, and steward of under-attack spaceships, had managed to bemuse more or less all the band members with his sci-fi-apocalyptic fixations, and who at that time was engaged in the solo project "Captain Lockhead & The Starfighters". For the record, it must be said that the temporary absence of their "spiritual father" did not cause much disarray in the band: legend describes Calvert as a character certainly endowed with great creativity, but with the mental stability of a young cobra, a nomadic spirit, restless, used to mysteriously disappearing even for long periods.
Far more traumatic, at least musically, turned out to be the second departure, that of Dik Mik: former drummer, a longtime friend of Brock, who joined the band as a "jack of all trades" and was later recruited as the operator of those strange gadgets called "audio generators" responsible for the effects, effectfuls, and effectuals that have always delighted Hawkwind fans. To replenish the thinned ranks of the combo, none other than the illustrious Simon House, former violinist of High Tide and Third Ear Band, was called in, whose arrival inevitably altered some of the balances that had developed within the group over time.
In a word: House brought "order" where there was chaos before.
Not by chance, "Hall Of The Mountain Grill" presents itself from the first listen as a much more "structured" album compared to its immediate predecessors. The musical center of the group seems to step away from the "non-song form" of the inexhaustible and "malleable" cosmic jams, to be brought back into more traditional sound frameworks, built on the orderly alternation of verses and choruses. From this album onwards, the Hawkwind sound is characterized by a decidedly more symphonic and orchestral angle: Brock's guitar seems almost wanting to stay in the background to leave space for melodic instruments, preferring to be expanded and diluted by delays, focusing on softer distortions and less aggressive riffing.
Thanks also to the temporary absence of the paranoid Calvert, the band seems to distance itself from certain obsessive atmospheres, from certain apocalyptic visions that characterized previous works: the "brainstorm" metaphorically gives way to a "wind of changes," where House's violin (also engaged on synthesizer and keyboards) marries with Nik Turner's horns and Del Dettmar's keyboards to paint epic and romantic soundscapes, pervaded by a completely new melodic poetry, at times even excessively emphatic, especially if compared to what the band had shown so far ("Winds Of Changes", "Hall Of The Mountain Grill").
Yet "Hall Of The Mountain Grill" is an album that does not entirely cut ties with the recent past. In "You'd Better Believe It" the band seems to momentarily rediscover its furious trademark made of endless and obsessive 4/4 beats, tight riffing and psychedelia, to be reworked and transformed live. The award-winning pair Kilmster-King gives us yet another demonstration of an exciting rhythm section, dynamic and with propulsive power. Indeed, Brock allows himself the whim of not even a too-veiled "self-celebration," replaying the melodies of two great hits like "Lord Of Light" (inspired for the vocal lines of the excellent "Paradox") and "Space Is Deep" (of which "D-Rider" seems to be the stoner version).
The truth, perhaps, lies in admitting that, at the time "Hall Of The Mountain Grill" was released, much had changed and much still had to change within the Hawkwind family. With Dik Mik's exit, the band lost much of its "freak," chaotic, and unpredictable component. Soon after, even Dettmar (perhaps aware that House's arrival had made his presence as a keyboard player superfluous) would leave. The subsequent album ("Warriors At The Edge Of Time" from '75) would be the last before Lemmy's dismissal. The last published by United Artists. The last before Stacia, the Great Mother Poppular of all space rockers, decided to retire to private life.
Perhaps the truth is just that the season of great interplanetary journeys was coming to an end.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke) (07:19)
Sick of politicians, harassment and laws
All we do is get screwed up by other people's flaws
World turned upside down now, nothing else to do
Live in concrete jungle that blocks up the view
And that ain't no joke,
You can disappear in smoke
And that ain't no joke,
You can disappear in smoke
I'm telling you, it ain't no lie
Think you know the answers, we don't tell no lies
We can take you any way, seven different highs
World turned upside down now, there's nothing else to do,
Live in concrete jungle that blocks up the view
And that ain't no joke,
You can disappear in smoke
And that ain't no joke,
You can disappear in smoke
And I'm telling you, it ain't no lie
Sick of politicians, harassment and laws
All we do is get screwed up by other people's flaws
World turned upside down now, nothing else to do
Live in concrete jungle that blocks up the view
And that ain't no joke,
You can disappear in smoke
And that ain't no joke,
You can disappear in smoke
I'm telling you, it ain't no lie
That ain't no joke
(repeat)
03 D-Rider (06:14)
We're children playing in the sun
A sense of freedom on the run
We never knew what time it was
We just knew how sublime it was
Our course determined by our stars
My momma knows just where we are
The Earth was forming from below
A dragon showed which way to go
Spacing out, we're spacing in
Phasing out, we're phasing in
Turning up by burning out
Lifting off and gazing in
Our luck, it changes with the tide
Our constellations changing side
Macro mirror-image fades
Our over-conscience colour shades
We're astral-planing, floating free
On our continuum frequency
A ring was formed out of the stone
Metamorphose, tetraform
Spacing out, we're spacing in
Phasing out, by phasing in
Turning up by burning out
Lifting off and gazing in
04 Web Weaver (03:10)
Larynx cries no longer heard
A chord was struck that chilled the nerve
It froze the time that we all lived
The roles reversed to downward spin
Is life finished or hung within
The voices pleading went unheard
And shattered membranes of our lives
Hung suspended from the hives
Where there's harmony the sad voice waned
05 You'd Better Believe It (07:14)
I wandered far in lands unknown until I came to
my earthly home
Far away I found life's dream drifting on a silver
beam,
You'd better believe it, It's so easy to say.
Travelling at twice the speed of light, Orion's stars
are high tonight
The gentle madness has touched my hand, now
I'm just a cosmic man.
07 Lost Johnny (03:28)
You only get a single chance
The rules are very plain
The truth is well concealed inside
The details of the game
You can see it coming
You can hear it from afar
It's pale and it flickers
Like a faded movie star
And up there in the castle
They're trying to make us scream
By sticking thumb tacks in her flesh
And cancelling the dream
Can you find the valium?
Can you bring it soon?
Lost Johnny's out there
Baying at the Moon
The time has come for you to choose
You'd better get it right
Berlin girls with sharp white teeth
Are waiting in the night
But you oughta really get some
It surely can't be hard
There's always trouble waiting
When you leave your own back yard
And underneath the city
The alligators sing
About how the puppets cannot dance
Since someone cut the strings
Run and get the morphine
For God's sake make it brief
Lost Johnny's out there
Looking for relief
Now Simon looks so evil
And you know he really tries
But every time he makes a play
That vital number dies
And Sally buys her underwear
From a store where no-one goes
She makes it big in photographs
On the strength of what she shows
And here inside the waiting room
The radio still screams
And we're all taking Tuenol
To murder our young dreams
Run and fetch your credit card
Try to make it quick
Lost Johnny's out there
Trying to turn a trick
09 Paradox (05:24)
The story that I'm telling you
Something that you can do
Ask yourself and try to find the answer
See the signs they're always there
But you know you never care
You're always looking for another reason
Try to reach it's not too far
See it as you really are
Ask yourself to try and find the answer
Always, always it's the same thing
Try it, try it, you just can't win
Circles, circles spinning round
People, people always bring you down and down
Round and round you go
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