Swell Maps/Space Rock....

*It's a funny thing I've never heard those Rowland S Howard & Nikki Sudden Records. Well as you can tell I was big on the Birthday Party but I'm also a massive Swell Maps (Sudden's band formed with his bro Epic Soundtracks in the mid 70s) fan. Swell Maps have got to be the most underrated British Post Punk band. Their debut LP A Trip To Marineville would be in my all time top ten. The follow up Jane From Occupied Europe is also ace and International Rescue is one fine compilation. Maybe they were too broad in their musical output to be truly considered a post punk band, I guess a bit like the Homosexuals in that regard. Wasn't the whole point of post punk though to be fearless and travel your own experimental path. Funnily enough in the early 90s when most post punk was seen as passe they were still having some kind of impact, their records were still in print and they had an influence on the indie scene ie. Pavement et al. So I guess their influence was beyond mere post punk revivalists that came later loving/impersonating their Gang Of Fours and Joy Divisions. Swell Maps having a much broader influential scope. I should check out those Howard & Sudden records.

**After watching that Hawkwind doco I obviously dug out the Space Ritual double live record which is one of the space rock peaks. One that never seems to make it to any lists is Warrior On The Edge Of Time which could be my fave Hawkwind record of all. Sonically it's not that far from Space Ritual -glorious deep, dark and mysterious space rock man with great bass and rhythm. It put me on a trip of acid/space/electronic rock classics Agitation Free's Malesch, Amon Duul II's Phallus Dei and Yeti, Lobby Loyde's Beyond Morgia, Tonto's Exploding Head Band's Zero Time, White Noise's An Electric Storm, Can's Unlimited Edition and further on and out.......

A grade space rock grooves

Hawkwind/Rave...it's all connected right?



What can I say?

Stumbled upon this last night on the Youtubes  Hawkwind doco ! Dodgy old VHS tape made it even better I reckon. Heaps of stuff I didn't know, pretty bloody good. What a trip they had- Drugs, guns, grenades, naked dancers, roller skates, mental illness, links with terrorism, a million ex members, regular sackings, sabotaging their own career and everything else in between. Didn't one of the Chrome guys join them once?, there was no mention of that. Just to mention everyone who went through the band would have taken up half the film. Who knew Samantha Fox guested with them once?! Ofcourse it made me dig out some Ye Olde Hawkwind to put on my ipod. How has Lemmy, who was in good spirits in the film, not got lung cancer? He's chain smoking in every interview I've ever seen him do. I guess he's up there with Keef in that regard. They're so hard. Apart from my Roxy Music fest I've also been diggin' this mixtape Slave To The Rave from Woebot. Which is an old school Rave mix and it's awesome. I missed this one a while back so it was a good find. Good gear up there with his others Brick Door Mix, Ambient Jungle Mix and Dr Wo Mix. Check Woebot at Soundcloud for these. I guess I got to that from listening to some New Skool Rave or is that nu skool rave or is it new old skool? I'm confused! ie. Skrillex's Bangarang EP, which has got some great stuff on there, almost as good as that Rustie LP from last year (midlife crisis or just awesome bangin' tunes?). I couldn't care less if this is cool or whatever. I like it! I guess I got to that by listening to this other Old Skool Mix 91 from Dara-blog to the old skool, this could be the best old school mix I've ever heard, (er..google that one) which is a fuckn' mental mix of Rave Trax from well 1991. I think the times we are in now culturally are perhaps akin the the Australian Aborigine concept of time, which if memory serves translates to something like 'everything is happening now.' IE. past, present and future are all happening at once! (feel free to let me know if I have that wrong)



This sounds awesome
on my ipod



Slave To The Rave
Woebot Mix