A sad one to read about...

RIP

Thank you Nik, for your unique sound, enjoyed by so many, myself included. May you rest in peace.. 

RIP

Bought Doremi Fasol Latido, my first Hawkwind album, in 1973 in a delete bin for $3. Then eventually Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music because of the art work. By the mid/late eighties I was populating my CD collection and added several more titles.

My first exposure to Hawkwind was a Nik Turner interview I heard on the radio during the mid '70s. One of the things I liked was that "Opa Loka" was playing in the background during the interview. So, not only is "Opa Loka" a great track to listen to, but it is also a great backdrop to an interview of Nik Turner.

 

This interview played a significant role in me getting into Hawkwind. I have said before that it was a bootleg version of Pink Floyd - "Echoes" that got me into Hawkwind, but without the interview, that would never have happened.

 

R.I.P. Nik Turner. 

 

R.I.P.

Listening to Space Ritual right now.

Goddam it. Literally found out about this when I was looking up 'Bones Of Elvis' by ICU on Youtube.

Nik sent me a c-90 tape for my radio show in about 1984.  It was completely insane.  He was pretending to be some other person interviewing me, about Nik's career, and then replying by blowing extended freeform passages of sax. Or something like that.  It turned up just after I'd been kicked off air, and by the time I came back nearly three years later, it was still completely nuts and quite impossible to edit into anything coherent, but god it was funny.

Nik was also one of the few people at the time who realised the rather obvious connection between hippies and punks.

Tim Gadd.

Great post and lovely memory, Tim. Thanks for posting. 

No worries.  I'd been dreading this, tbh.   At the moment I'm transported back to the day way when a mysterious overseas letter turned up for me at work, which turned out to be someone telling me that Bob Calvert had died. I hope the two mad buggers are having fun together.   

Crushing news on Friday.

Listened to Nik's solo Space Ritual album...

That one time he almost got us arrested in Alabama...

I wish I had something to say about this ... it feels like a friend left us ... and no more music from him!

I've always liked the odd ball players in many bands because they added something that made it come alive and enjoyable and different than the commercial crap out there. Nik deserves some credit here, even though he ended up having a very sad relationship with Dave Brock ... and in the end, the material that everyone remembers and loves is the one that had Nik in it. I imagine that Dave might feel that is bad for him, since Nik will seem to be "bigger" than Hawkwind, but I think that's peaches and oranges stuff and not necessary. I would have liked Dave to say some nice things about all this ... even in the end, their work together has been massive and something that many of us love.

And some of the solo albums Nik did ... oh my ... they were outstanding!

Thats the 'elephant in the room' with any discussion about Nik Turner and Hawkwind. I personally think its really really sad that the exceedingly bad blood was not resolved, both made poor decisions and mistakes and in Nik's case, took bad advice and as old men could not have buried the hatchet. But that ship sailed long, long ago and Dave Brock's views about Nik are well publicized and recorded.. so....

On a happier note, i was recounting with an old friend seeing Nik busking at the Brecon jazz festival in Wales taking requests and chatting to the punters.. playing anything from Brainstorm to Teddy Bear's picnic..

I remember a time when it seemed most of the members of Hawkwind were immortal.  So many members, in a band with such a reputation as wasters.  For the longest time Bob was the only Space Ritual era member we lost. Now There's only Dave Brock and Del Dettmar, and possibly Simon King - does anyone have any remotely recent news about him?

And Stacia, of course.

Cosmiclawnmower wrote: The last mention i heard of Simon King was that he worked 'in the recycling business' and refused any attempts to be drawn into discussions or interviews on his previous career. I seem to remember also hearing that his health was not so good.

Yes, I'd heard something vague along those lines.  In other words, he could have passed away without it ever being reported. Which is really a sad situation for such a legendary drummer. I wonder if there's some bad blood over not passing that audition for HW in 1982, because as far as I knew, there was never any issues between him and other members.

Don't mean to hijack the Nik Turner thread, but can't help wondering.

I think he'd just had enough of music; i heard he was offered the drum seat in ICU but turned it down plus a few other projects which never took off. I think the failed 'Choose your masques' audition was the final straw.. but it did say in one of the HW related books that he'd had drug/ drink related health issues which was why his drumming was not up to standard.. knowing that some rather heartless/thoughtless comments like that get tossed out by certain HW members would be enough for anyone to say 'f*** it i'm out'.. bit of the pot calling the kettle black (are we allowed to use that analogy anymore??)

Yeah you're right. no more Hi-jacking Nik's Thread

I'm just going to say one other thing before I leave it be: in 1982 Hawkwind had been using drum machines, and drummers they had used were pretty straightforward thump-thud metronomic, which was nothing like King's style, so I could imagine him playing like he did in 1972, and not meeting Brock's requirements in 1982.

Hi,

I imagine that it might be difficult to stay "in tune" when someone is just not there, and of course, the guitarist will be the first to sound completely out of it! Thus, seeing all the bands in the past 30 years tied to the metronomic style ... boring and pathetic, and that includes Hawkwind for the past 20 years!

I don't have an answer. Music, to me, is a HUMAN THING and not meant to be "mechanical", but instead to be HUMAN and sound HUMAN. In this manner, a lot of the modern achievements in recording and musical equipment, have hurt the human ability to not only learn an instrument, but to EVER bother playing it with anyone ... without sounding stupid!

I have never met, or found, a single person complaining about a single cord at the Fillmore West in any band you can count on, including many of them out of time with each other, but adjusting beautifully to still come off excellent all around. Today's bands are too stupid ... their ego would stop the song (or rehearsal) so someone could get mad at soandso! The whole thing just shows the lack of ability to play with people to the point that a metronome or machine is better ... why the fudge do you have a high school drummer, then? Or a bass player that thinks his only job is supporting the drummer to help hide any errors and omissions?

I am not sure that it was the metronome that hurt Hawkwind, and they did have Ginger Baker once, and he left quickly, and the thought was that these folks were not (very simply) better enough musicians to be able to make better music than what they did! And, sadly the past 30 years have been really sad and just redo's and more redo's!

Nik, to his credit, kept doing different things ... and sound very good in them, too!