10 CD box set celebration of Hawkweed's output from 1977

Jan 22, 2024

Hawkwind – Days of the Underground – The studio & live recordings 1977-1979

Atomhenge

10 CD boxset

Out now.

These days Hawkwind are the undisputed kings of space rock, but over their 50 year career they’re tried a few different styles, and on this box set featuring their late seventies output they were dabbling with a more hard edged new wave influenced style.

It coincided with their signing to Charisma Records after an unexpectedly successful stint with United Artists, including their unlikely hit single Silver Machine. It also saw the departure of founder member Nic Turner, and the return of charismatic, but troubled, frontman and lyricist Robert Calvert.

Hawkwind were key players in the Ladbroke Grove scene that essentially created British psychedelia in the early 1970s. It's worth noting that the later wave of that scene saw the emergence of Motorhead, and even Joe Strummer in the 101’ers, so Dave Brock and co were not immune to the punk and new wave musical revolution going on around them.

For fans this lavish 8 CD/2 Blu-ray set represents a treasure trove of unreleased material and new mixes by Steven Wilson. Even better for the faithful it features 4CDs worth of rare live performances, including all the surviving recordings from the 1977 Sonic Assassin shows and Hawklords from Uxbridge University, all mixed from the original multitrack masters. For the really nerdy, the two Blu-ray discs feature Wilson's 5.1 surround sound and Stereo mixes of Quark, Strangeness and Charm, 25 Years Ago and PXR 5.

The box set is in chronological order so the first CD is Wilson's remix of the almost poppy Quark, Strangeness and Charm, which is an atypical Hawkwind album full of catchy riffs and Calvert's wonderfully fun and obtuse lyrics. The title track is a credible crack at another hit single, and the driving riff of Spirit of the Age remains a fan/band live favourite. Haasan I Sabha is a moving piece of eastern influenced music, as Days of the Underground takes a nostalgic look back at their days squatting around West London. CD2 is from the Rockfield sessions that produced the album offering never before released versions of some of those tracks, including a first take of the powerful Damnation Alley.

Wilson is at work on remixing 1978's 25 Years On which they released as Hawklords due to some legal issues. Typically perverse Calvert offers some unexpected lyrical content, including a long description of jumping out of a plane on Free Fall, and Aussie drug abuse in Flying Doctor – so a big departure from the sci-fi influenced work they’d been doing previously.

They are back to being Hawkwind by PXR5 on CD4 which is the most new wave (think Pere Ubu end of that genre) with Dave Brock's guitar central to the sound. Uncle Sam's On Mars had been around for ages, and Calvert's wonderful rant against US expansionism into the universe while people starve on earth was way ahead of its time. Calvert kept up the social commentary in the angry High Rise, based on his experiences living in Margate's tower blocks, and Robot commenting on the drudgery of a nine to five job, which this lot have never had, quotes Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. All the album CDs contain plenty of unreleased demos and live takes offering insights into their creative process.

The real gold is the release for the very first time of Hawkwind gigs from this period, recorded by Brock on 8 track tapes, and mixed from the master tapes by Ben Wiseman. Hardcore fans can wade through sets from Croydon's Fairfield Hall, De Montfort Hall in Leicester and the Gaumont in Ipswich as the band play really tight versions of tunes from all three albums.

A real bonus ball is a previously thought lost recording of a Sonic Assassins gig in Barnstable. This was a side project that Brock and Calvert did with a West Country rocker Ark, and this recording features plenty of improvising as the singer made up the words to Free Fall on the night. There's also a new mix of a Hawklords gig at Brunel University, recorded by the Maison Rouge mobile studio, that features some of their newer songs, plus interesting reinventions of older material like Sonic Attack and Urban Guerrilla.

The two Blu-ray disc include some very rare video material, including live recordings of PSI Power and 25 Years at the Brunel gig. There's also a recording of their typically eccentric appearance on Marc Bolan's short lived TV show Marc, where they played a version of Quark, Strangeness & Charm, minus Dave Brock show who didn't make the recording.

Even by Cherry Red standards this is a lavish and beautifully finished set with the discs, booklet and a free poster all housed in a solid box. Mark Powell offers some interesting titbits in his booklet notes along with song lyrics, rare photos, album covers and even a hand drawn family tree by the legendary Pete Frame that naturally extends over two pages given Hawkwind's revolving door of personnel over the years.

Not many bands last five decades, but this box set offers an insight into a pivotal moment in Hawkwind's history as they moved from pure space rock to something more complex and certainly a sound that was challenging for their fans. These harder edged albums that sit comfortably in the UK's musical revolution of the time might have seemed like a ‘bad trip maaaaaan’ for some of their growing band of diehard fans, but it was an artistic gamble that time shows really paid off.

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Words by Paul Clarke, you can see his author profile here

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