What can you say about an album that crosses space rock charge out with
Monty Pythonistic skitsexcept that its a hazardous rock and
with ever-darkening humour direct from the bi-polar brainpan of Hawkwinds
erratic vocalist/lyricist, Robert Calvert. It was recorded at about the
same time as Calverts first and only studio release with Hawkwind
during their tenure with United Artists, the Urban Guerilla/
Brainbox Pollution single. And Hawkwind all appear here (minus
the recently-departed Dikmik), co-joined by Paul Rudolph (on 6 string
and bass guitar), Twink, Arthur Brown, Adrian Wagner, Brian Eno, Vivian
Stanshall and Jim Capaldi creating a virtual Hawkwind ep split into spoken
word skits and the Arthur Brown tormented two-parter, The Song of
The Gremlin. The veritable Hawkwind tracks are all supremely mental
space rock outs of the highest order, giving a hint as to what Hawkwind
wouldve like if Paul Rudolph had replaced not Lemmy, but Dave Brock.
This concept album deals with the tragedy that occurred when American
made Lockheed Starfighter jets were purchased in the sixties by the West
German Air Force in a supreme act of folly. As stated in the gatefold,
the Starfighter was
originally used by the U.S. Air Force
as a light, single seater, fair weather fighter
[but the German Defense
Ministry had these hastily converted into]
heavy duty, atom bombers.
It was these severe structural modifications which rendered the jet unstable
and difficult to control. Calvert must have felt a strong affinity
with them, as he too was unreliable, difficult to control and unstable
as hell.
The sputtering of a trashed Luftwaffe plane starts up the album over Calverts
brilliant portrayal of the West German Defence Minister as a raging psychopath
who begins angrily berating his countrys air force power, which
mutates into a vainglorious fantasy of a reawakening of German air
supremacy as his raving overdubs into backward Strauss masking and
into the first of four 1973-styled Hawkwind hard space rock thrash outs,
Aerospaceage Inferno. Calvert calmly intones echoed lines
over Rudolphs swooping guitar lines AND his overdubbed, pumping
bass riffs and Simon Kings ever-stamina drumming. It links directly
into the hilarious Aircraft Salesman, where the wunnerful
American Starfighter salesman cons the still-uptight German Air Defence
Minister with buying his wares with promises not of safety or of adequate
ground crew support, but of a tasty-looking logo with an identifying G
(for Germany). The only non-Calvert composition (co-written
with Dave Brock) The Widow Maker follows, and its Hawkwinding
like crazy, all churning guitar and Rudolphs (or Lemmys?)
heat-generating bass over more Simon King drums and cymbal bashing. Side
two continues with vocal skits, and it is interesting to note the inclusion
of The Widows Song, which appears in the printed libretto.
It is nowhere to be found on the album, but turned up years later on a
crap Hawkwind collection with Calvert femme-vocalising. It was once recorded
that Nico was named as a possible contributing vocalist on Lockheed,
and in all certainty Widows Song was slated for her.
Between Calverts vocal rendition, the funereal nature of the song
and the overall Teutonic effect makes it seem more than a possibility).
A screeching electronic swirl crashes open the Hawkwind-styled Ejection,
with classic Calvert lyrics that rhyme every word with the title over
repeated rhythms and omnipresent Simon King high-hat and piston-like fills.
Im too high to die, intones Calvert, and Rudolph proceeds
to tear it up with yet again before the final crash. The dirge-like Catch
A Falling Starfighter is surrounded by ghostly electronics as Twink
beats a funeral march over the assembled moaning of blackened Starfighter
pilots. Calverts following album, Lucky Leif And the Longships,
was hardly as successful. Although it includes personnel from this album,
it was an outright disaster. But then again, Robert Calvert was never
exactly known for doing anything in half measures.
(www.headheritage.co.uk)
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