From: fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Michael Moorcock's Swords Trilogy
Date: 29 Jul 92 11:46:20 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

verbit@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:

>In article <24056@castle.ed.ac.uk> fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:

>	[ most of very interesting article deleted to save bandwidth ]

>>Moorcock's most famous connection with rock music though is undoubtedly
>>with the British band "Hawkwind".

>>Hawkwind started out in 1969 as very much an acid rock/hippie band. The
>>UK answer to the Grateful Dead. They played Free Festivals and layby's.
>>Their music had settled down by 1972 to a kind of soft metal with loads
>>of synthesisers. They varied it though, some tracks were just
>>straight-out acid rock jams and some were quite lilting snth tracks
>>featuring saxophone or violin depending who was in the band at the time.
>>They had one major hit single with "Silver Machine" in 1972.

>>Moorcock came across Hawkwind in 1973 simply because they were all
>>hanging around Portobello Road/Ladbroke Grove in London. through their
>>itinerant poet Robert Calvert (now deceased) Hawkwind had developed a
>>science fiction background to their music, often basing songs on a
>>mixture of SF and hippie mysticism. Moorcock appeared at a few gigs and
>>read poetry while the band played.

>>Eventually, in 1974 the Collaboration led to the album "Warrior on the
>>Edge of Time" based on Moorcock's Eternal Champion books.  Moorcock both
>>plays and narrates on the album.  It's one of Hawkwind's best albums by
>>one of their best lineups. 

>	Moorcock also wrote one of their best songs, "Sonic Attack", 
>	circa 72 or 73. Around 1977, he wrote a trilogy (in collaboration
>	with M. Buttersworth) about Hawkwind musicians in sf/apocalyptic
>	setting. The personages of the story have had the same aliases
>	as they have on Hawkwind records.

Yes. the books "Time of the Hawklords" and "Queens of Deliria" are
comic-book style novels and very badly written. Moorcock denies any
connection with them. Unfortunately I don't know more than that.

There was to have been a third book called "Ledge of Darkness". This
never appeared but around 1985 to 1988 Hawkwind were working on a
project to put this out as an album plus graphic novel. When the xenon
Codex album came out, Dave Brock stated in an interview that the project
had been abandoned. None of the fans know whether there are any tapes of
work on the project, or indeed if anyone has a half-finished graphic
novel lying around. It wouldn't surprise me if something eventually
turned up as a limited edition though.

>	A little correction: Robert Calvert is rather decayed than
>	deceased :(. He died in 1989 from a heart attack, being 
>	~ 40 years old. He put out several solo albums; the
>	list of guests included Moorcock, who played banjo,
>	and Brian Eno.

Calvert was very much the mad genius type of character with some quite
quirky interests in particular subjects. He quit Hawkwind/Hawklords in
1978 when the band split up (reformed in 1979 and still active). 

I'll try to list what I know of his solo work:

Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters: A very interesting album based on
the US sale to Germany of the Lockheed F104G aircraft after WWII. The
aircraft was unstable in flight and 169 piots were killed during
training. The whole thing was a macabre comedy of errors. The album
consists of several small playlets based on this with some very
black-humoured songs in various styles: Rock/Folk/Dirge. 

Lucky Leif and the Longships: less acessible. Obviously based on America
and again in various styles including an Indian chant.

Hype: Based on man versus machine. Ned Ludd, clips from political
speeches during the 1984 UK miner's strike. Mileage will vary a lot on
this one.

Test-Tube Conceived: More songs based on Man and Science. More
accessible.

Hype: Based on Calvert's novel satirising the music industry.

Calvert also did a play called "The Kid From Silicon Gulch" and various
readings of his poetry. Tapes of this stuff are available through
various sources. He also did a couple of poetry books: "Centigrade 232"
and .... (I forget)

There's a list discussing Hawkwind/Blue Oyster Cult/Moorcock etc at

 boc-l@edu.spc.spcvxa


>	Misha.

FoFP