HAWKWIND: SPACE RITUAL (Classic Live Albums)

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SPACE RITUAL Hawkwind

Released on May 11th 1973 on United Artists Records.

Recorded at Liverpool Stadium & Brixton Sundown, December 1972 by Vic Maile.

Mixed by Anton Matthews & Vic Maile at Olympic Studios, Barnes. Produced by Hawkwind.

by Mark Cunningham dominant in the music echoing around my pal Tony’s house. I was only nine – what did I know?

Almost a year later, I was making one of my regular browsing visits to Harlequin Records in Upton Park when a promo poster on the wall grabbed my attention. This intricate and colourful piece of art would look perfect on my bedroom wall, I thought, as its emblazoned words ‘Space Ritual’ triggered my innocent imagination. The record shop manager seemed to think so, too. He had already supplied me with numerous flyers and huge posters in the past, and happened to have a spare.

A weird obsession about an album I had not yet even heard, and wouldn’t for another year, began that day.

S

Recorded over two nights, Space Ritual Alive

ome time between Bowie’s ‘Starman’ and Sweet’s

in Liverpool and London, to give its full title, documented the

‘Ballroom Blitz’, I was briefly a Hawkwind fan,

creative peak of Hawkwind’s long, multifarious career, and

thanks to the long-haired brother of a school friend

specifically a tour intended to promote new album Doremi

who graced us with repetitive plays of his latest record shop

Fasol Latido, that ended up achieving a mythical status

purchase, ‘Silver Machine’, one summer afternoon in 1972.

amongst rock fans.

Previously unaware of the band and this, their only major

Led by mainstay guitarist and singer Dave Brock, the

hit, I was fooled into believing that someone had left the

ever-changing band – once described as “Star Trek with

kettle boiling. But no… it was a new-fangled EMS VCS3

long hair and drugs“ – then featured Nik Turner on sax, flute

synth that was creating the distinctive, high-pitched whistle so

and vocals, synth player Del Dettmar, electronic effects

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83 CLASSIC LIVE ALBUMS

wizard Michael ‘DikMik’ Davies and

Its main fantasy narrative married the

three relatively new members: freak poet

suspended animation of Starfarers as

Robert Calvert, future Motörhead icon

they travelled through space and time,

Lemmy Kilmister on bass and vocals and

with the ancient, metaphysical concept

ace drummer Simon King, who brought

of the ‘Music of the Spheres’. Are you

a harder edge to the band’s sound.

still with me, kiddies?

A nebulous audio-visual ‘opera’

As well as later designing the

created to surpass the live psychedelic

extraordinary double album package

‘freakouts’ of the mid-to-late ’60s, the

with the two discs housed inside a 3 x

Space Ritual show itself was based

2 foldout, Bubbles was responsible for

around lysergically-charged sci-fi themes

the stage presentation that toured Britain

invented by Calvert, Colin Fulcher, a.k.a.

in the November and December of ’72,

graphic art visionary Barney Bubbles,

and accommodated the trippy, naked

and introduced by Andy Dunkley, a

cavorting of Amazonian dancer Stacia

regular DJ at the Roundhouse and

Blake (above right) – Notting Hill Gate’s

Aylesbury’s hip venue, Friars.

answer to Barbarella – and

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84 CLASSIC LIVE ALBUMS

Left from top: Another on-stage scene; Jonathan ‘Liquid Len’ Smeeton; Lemmy and Dave Brock.

‘Molten Mick’ Hart, ‘Astral Al’ Alan Day and John Perrin.

Pioneering in many ways, ‘Len’ and his team frontprojected 3D images on to the stage, washing over the band, while a 61-key colour organ remotely controlled a mirror ball, creating a “direct relationship between colours, light and shade, and sound,” according Calvert’s menacing poetry recitals ‘The Awakening’, ‘10 Seconds Of Forever’

to Astral Al. For a short time, Liquid Len & The

and ’Sonic Attack’, a kind of cosmic

Lensmen was the brand name behind

information broadcast, penned by sci-fi

the UK’s leading light show, thanks to

author Michael Moorcock.

Space Ritual’s exposure. The press were unanimous in their praise: Disc magazine

CREATING THE AMBIENCE

reported that “…aside from Joe’s lights’

The Space Ritual shows were not so

collaboration with the Grateful Dead, this

much concerts as an attack on the senses,

is the first time that light and sound have

not least due to the work of esteemed

fused as a whole, each a part of the

lighting designer Jonathan Smeeton (later

other.”

to work with the Stones, Wham!, Marilyn

After ‘Silver Machine’ reached No.3

Manson and Taylor Swift) who conjured

in the chart and some real money poured

an unprecedented 20-projector light show

in, Hawkwind seized the opportunity to

under the guise of Liquid Len, with the

make some wise investments in

support of fellow Lensmen John Lee, Mike

hardware, following in the tradition of

Hawkwind seized the opportunity to make some wise investments in hardware, following in the tradition of Yes and Pink Floyd. winter.2017

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85 CLASSIC LIVE ALBUMS

Right: The Pye Mobile, shortly before the Space Ritual recordings.

Yes and Pink Floyd. Simultaneously bank rolling Smeeton’s light show and the visuals, Hawkwind ploughed cash into vehicles for transporting themselves and more than a ton of equipment that included their own PA and numerous items such as a headphone comms system for the crew, all designed and built with electronics guru Perrin in Belsize

RECORDING

Park.

The main figure behind the recording of Space Ritual was

The crew, known as the Roadhawks, also included

Vic Maile, who began his career as an engineer for Pye

manager Doug Smith, Alex ‘Higgy’ Higgins, Gerry

Records’ Mobile Recording Unit in the ’60s, capturing the

Fitzgerald, sound engineer Steve Casey and PA/backline

likes of Hendrix, Zeppelin, Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Small

tech Bob ‘Ginger’ Batty.

Faces and The Kinks for live releases.

the event industry’s leading

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Maile was also involved

Olympic Studios in Barnes early

in the recording of The Who’s

in 1973, preparing it for its May

monumental Live At Leeds in

release whereupon it climbed to

1970, and this fact alone was

No.9 in the UK chart. It remains

enough to inspire Hawkwind

the most commercially successful

to hire his services – and those

ralbum of Hawkwind’s 47-year

of the Pye Mobile – to record

history.

two shows at the end of the tour at Liverpool Stadium (the local

LEMMY: AN APPRAISAL

home of boxing and wrestling)

In the spring of 2009, I was

on December 22nd and the

fortunate to have a brief chat with

newly-opened Sundown venue in

Lemmy about the album that fired

Brixton on December 30th.

my pre-teen imagination all those

Pye had recently upgraded its mobile service, refitting its

years ago.

“Can you think of an LP sleeve

equipment into a new, articulated

that’s seen more skinning up

vehicle that by 1972 was in

than Space Ritual? No, I didn’t

direct competition with the better-

think so!” he laughed, with his

known Rolling Stones Mobile.

unmistakeable, Marlboro-stained

The truck offered 16-track

cackle.

recording via a pair of 3M

“It’s one of those albums that

M56 multitrack machines and

can really take you on a journey.

two Neve Series 80 desks, with

I haven’t listened to it in years

Tannoy Lockwood speakers

but I know that if you have your

providing the monitoring.

headphones on loud and take

With assistance from engineer

the right kind of chemicals, you

Anton Matthews and direction

can easily start to imagine what

from Brock and Dettmar, Vic

it was like to be at one of those

Maile mixed Space Ritual at

shows, which were probably

“CAN YOU THINK OF AN LP SLEEVE THAT’S SEEN MORE SKINNING UP THAN SPACE RITUAL?” winter.2017

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87 CLASSIC LIVE ALBUMS

more psychedelic than anything that was happening in ’66 or ’67. In fact, they were some of the best gigs ever. I just wish I could’ve been in the audience.”

“Dave Brock was definitely the captain of the dynamics.

We’d often play for three hours sometimes – a full-on, relentless show of free-form consciousness. We didn’t even stop between numbers. I’m just glad we had the foresight to get it on an album so the madness is preserved.”

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Of that original Space Ritual cast, Bob Calvert and Andy Dunkley have now sadly died. In December 2015, they were joined by Lemmy, whose loss will be mourned around the world for years to come. Today, aged 75, Dave Brock continues to captain the good spaceship Hawkwind.