VELVET THUNDER

The single disc variant here is still a nice sounding and well packaged release of the main album, and still a classic on its own – but the expanded version really is essential stuff for 1970s Hawkfiends.

On the heels of In Search Of Space, Doremi Fasol Latido, Space Ritual and the earlier reissue of Warrior On Tne Edge Of Time, another Hawkwind prime classic gets the Esoteric deluxe treatment. This time out there are two options at the diverse ends of the scale: a single CD with the remastered album and a bunch of bonus tracks, and the main attraction of the 9-disc extravaganza containing blu-ray surround discs and six live CDs, three of them previously unreleased. Now, the single CD set is very nicely packaged, and the bonus tracks (including a studio version of You’d Better Believe It and an alternate Wind Of Change, neither of which I had encountered before) are very good. But the real meat is to be had from that live material, so into the multiple disc edition we go!

Before talking about any of the new side dishes however, no matter how tempting they may be, we must begin with the reason we are all here today reading (or writing) this in the first place: the 1974 Hall Of The Mountain Grill album itself. I freely admit that, as a Hawkwind-obsessed teen some 50 years ago, and for many years thereafter, the Warrior On The Edge Of Time album from 1975 was the apex of the band’s ‘golden era’ on UA, and I would fight anyone who claimed otherwise (well, not literally, but I’d argue in a spirited fashion at least). As time has gone on however, my perspective has shifted a little over the years, and while I still feel that Warrior contains a couple of the band’s greatest ever high points at least, if pushed I might very well give the nod to Mountain Grill as the stronger and more consistent album, on a points decision. Opening with the magnificent Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke) – which really should have been a hit when released as an edited single – the classics just keep rolling in. The instrumental Wind Of Change (crafted by Dave Brock but brought to life by Simon House’s violin), Nik Turner’s contibution D-Rider, Lemmy’s greatest songwriting moment in the band in the shape of Lost Johnny, and the two monster live cuts You’d Better Believe It and the closing Paradox. Every single one a winner, and even the instrumental ‘bridging cuts’ such as Web Weaver and the elegant title track do their jobs perfectly. I will admit that the air of dark mystery surrounding the enigmatically titled D-Rider was punctured for me a little bit a decade or so later when I discovered it stood for ‘Dragon Rider’, but we’ll let that pass. It’s a great song, and perhaps Turner’s last real classic for the band. So it’s an album everyone really should own, especially in the excellent sounding remaster we have here, but let’s have a look at what else we are treated to…

Discs two and three here contain a previously unreleased show from January 1974 at Edmonton, a performance which was a benefit for imprisoned activist Timothy Leary, and featured an appearance from Bob Calvert (at that point not actually in the band), and also an impassioned introduction from Joanna Harcourt-Smith, who was Leary’s partner. Shorn of these trappings, the gig itself is an absolutely essential performance on its own merits, with highlights throughout a quite incendiary performance. Unusually even for a contrary band such as Hawkwind, they choose to open with Brainbox Pollution (the B-side of the Urban Guerrilla single), followed by It’s So Easy, which would do the same duty on the flip side of the Psychedelic Warlords single release. How many bands open a show with two B-sides? And yet it works, with the crowd more than happy and both versions outstripping their studio counterparts. There are excellent renditions of trusted warhorses like Brainstorm, Master Of The Universe, Seven By Seven, Silver Machine and Orgone Accumulator, but the more fascinating meat lies in some of the lesser performed album tracks. D-Rider is a performance to savour, as it was retired before too long without ever (to my recollection) returning, while Paradox and You’d Better Believe It are both stunning, and You Know You’re Only Dreaming is another definitive performance. Perhaps the absolute pick of the show, however, is the revelatory extended and rearranged version of The Watcher, Lemmy’s somewhat perfunctory contribution to the Doremi album, and omitted from the Space Ritual show. Here, it is longer, fuller and boasting a superb full band arrangement, with Lemmy eking every bit of claustophobic menace from the highghly underrated lyrics. (‘Where I come from no-one smiles, and every inch exists in miles’. Quite..). This is a show for the ages, and one which is astonishing for its failure to have gained an official release up to now, especially when considering some of the live Hawkwind barrels which have been scraped over the years on dubious compilations. There is also a very powerful original Calvert spoken word piece called simply ‘America Poem’, which demonstrates an uncharactaristically political slant and works brilliantly for that. To be honest, including this show in a three-disc version would have made a brilliant cut-down yet still essential variant here.

Moving on to the next two discs, we get some slightly more familiar content: the 21 March 1974 show from Chicago which was later released as The 1999 Party. Always one of the more impressive Hawkwind live recordings, yet always overshadowed somewhat by Space Ritual (and the misleading title!), it’s remastered here by Stephen W Tayler, and while I don’t have the original to hand for contrast, it sounds better than I remember it if my memory can be trusted! As an added bonus for those who are very familiar with, and own that album, we also get the whole of the show recorded the following night in Cleveland, which is previously unreleased and also comes with an extra encore of Orgone Accumulator. Both having the Tayler treatment, both recordings sound as good as each other, but as expected with Hawkwind, are far from just a re-run of each other – this isn’t Kiss or Status Quo we’re talking about here, or even Yes – some of these tracks are strikingly different. It’s impossible to say which show is the better, as some tracks work better on the first night and some on the second. Psychedelic Warlords for example (which had made the set by this time) is superior on the first night to these ears, whereas D-Rider is the opposite. Your own ears’ mileage may vary of course, but if you already have the 1999 Party release, the 22 March Cleveland recording is the real bait here.

There are also a couple of Blu-rays included, with 5.1 remixes – one of the original album, and the other of that Cleveland live show. I haven’t heard those at time of writing, but Steven Tayler has an exemplary track record on these things, I can say that with confidence. The single disc variant here is still a nice sounding and well packaged release of the main album, and still a classic on its own – but the expanded version really is essential stuff for 1970s Hawkfiends. If nothing else, it underlines once again just how important Lemmy was to the band in the live environment, both in terms of his innovative bass playing and his distinctive vocals. What a great shame the split with him happened when it did – although then again, it did give the world Motorhead (and yes, that IS a good thing!)