- CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK
- Hawkwind "Space Ritual" 1973 (UK)
- The theme of this week's pledge special is the "heavy and progressive" 1970's, and so Hawkwind's 1973 double live album is this week's featured record. Heavy it certainly is -- Lemmy Kilmeister's pummeling bass drives the band's cromagnon rhythm section -- and progressive it kinda is too, at least in so much as the group was obsessed with science fiction mythology. Their mind-blowing shows included massive amounts of strobe lights, bubbles, projections, dancers (often nude or painted), and so on. Therefore a live album seems like the ultimate expression of Hawkwind in their glory days, and most fans seem to think this is the band's masterpiece.
- Here's a music video of the band's UK Top 10 single "Silver Machine" (the song is sung by bassist Lemmy Kilmeister on the record -- his vocal was overdubbed on a live recording from this same period in place of the original vocal by Robert Calvert -- in other words, this is a "fake live" clip.) And here's the first part of a BBC documentary about the band, with lots of clips & interviews with Lemmy and others. Here is the 1997 version of the band doing more Lemmy-era material (without Lemmy of course -- he's in Motorhead these days.)