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Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
Forum Description: Discuss specific prog bands and their members or a specific sub-genre
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=99776 Printed Date: November 28 2024 at 13:23 Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Hawkwind's influence on gothic/industrial musicPosted By: Toaster Mantis
Subject: Hawkwind's influence on gothic/industrial music
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 14:32
This is something that has come up in a couple of threads but I haven't
seen remarked upon very often: When 1960s/1970s psychedelic forerunners
of the post-punk scene's darker and spacier practitioners, The Doors and the Velvet Underground are usually brought up in addition to certain Krautrock acts' bass-driven propulsive dark sparse sound, as well as David Bowie and Alice Cooper as having contributed to the image and visual aesthetic.
Yet Hawkwind
aren't mentioned very often - despite having been cited as inspiration
by Andrew Eldritch, Al Jourgensen, Siouxsie Sioux, Robert Smith and
others influential in that scene. HW also at some point toured with Throbbing Gristle's prior incarnation COUM Transmissions, who were kind of tangential to that milieu in terms of ideology and overlapping fanbase. TG's
synth-heavy droning soundscapes and dystopian futuristic atmosphere
certainly are somewhere in the similar aesthetic neighbourhood, as is Ministry's
from their third LP onwards combining that aesthetic with heavy guitar
rock. Even in the artists referred to before, though, there are certain
similarities: The often fantastic subject matter (if with different sets
of symbolism) combined with a pessimistic dystopian worldview in the
lyrics, the compositions being built around layering abstract guitars
and synths over driving hypnotic, as well as the rather camp type of
performance-art sensibility. Hell, consider this Christian Death song where the late Rozz Williams does a pretty blatant Robert Calvert impression right down to the accent:
Compare to this:
I'm guessing it's the rather different visual aesthetics, if you compare to VU or Bowie, that means the Hawks are neglected when it comes to this particular historical genealogy? (also being very "early-1970s" as opposed to "late-1980s")
------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook