Jaxon on the front cover of Melody Maker! Hammill in his whippet fanciers hat! VdGG about to break big! Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad... (1 May 1971) www.rockandrole.net/about-the-book
Joe Banks
@joebankswriter.bsky.social
'Hawkwind: Days Of The Underground' - a MOJO, Uncut, Prog & Shindig book of the year. www.daysoftheunderground.com. 'Rock And Role: The Visionary Songs Of Peter Hammill And Van der Graaf Generator' out now. www.rockandrole.net
From Sounds, 2 Feb 1974... Certain sections of the press were slightly obsessed with how ancient Hawkwind were, with Nik Turner being the grand old age of 33 here...
So today, 4 August 2026, is when Ray Bradbury’s short story 'There Will Come Soft Rains' (included in The Martian Chronicles) is set. This animated Russian interpretation will destroy you... (though I must pedantically note that here, it's New Year's Eve 2026 instead)
SOBCOMIX@sobcomix.bsky.social · yesterdayNothing like starting the day off with an incredibly eerie and beautiful soviet cartoon: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxP...
Two ads from Melody Maker for VdGG's headlining show at the Royal Festival Hall, 1 June 1970. As I say in the book, it was "a noble idea in theory, but in practice, it turned out to be a critical disaster, particularly as Strat had invited the national press as well as the music papers." 1/2
Whoa, newly uploaded... From the same session that yielded 'Paperhouse', here's Can performing a pretty faithful ie. incredible version of 'Halleluhwah' on Germany's Beat-Club, 7/8/1971! Check out Irmin Schmidt going full-on keyboard wizard in the middle... www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Gs...
Can - Halleluhwah (1971)
YouTube video by Beat-Club
youtube.com
On the left is one of my favourite album designs from the early 70s (and one of my favourite albums!). It was by a guy called Alan Tanner, a friend of Nik Turner's from Margate, who also did some stuff for Clearwater and this early colour promo poster for Hawkwind...
Oh, there's a big Peter Watkins season on at the BFI in August: whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau... He's probably best known for The War Game, but he did lots of similarly challenging speculative docu-dramas and films, including Punishment Park and Privilege. 1/2
1972. One of the more interesting events that has happened at Watford Town Hall
Having just read DF Jones' Colossus, I thought I'd re-watch The Forbin Project (1970), the film based on the book. It's an entertaining depiction of technological hubris that feels particularly relevant to our current moment. You can read my thoughts here: www.facebook.com/joebankswrit... 1/2
I create end of year playlists in a vain attempt to remember what new sounds I've listened to over the previous 12 months. But here's a retroactive playlist I made for 2016... which basically confirms I've been listening to the same kind of stuff for the last decade! open.spotify.com/playlist/0B0...
Another best of 2016 playlist
Playlist · Days Of The Underground · 31 items
open.spotify.com
As you may have seen, myself and The Progressive Rock Show panel have been taking A Crash Course In Italian Prog for the past few months. If you'd like a taster of the music we've been discussing, here's a Spotify playlist featuring a track from each album: open.spotify.com/playlist/3td... 1/2
A Crash Course In Italian Prog
Playlist · Days Of The Underground · 10 items
open.spotify.com
Looks like Louder has shared my recent piece in Prog on Hawkwind's debut album... www.loudersound.com/music/albums...
“Our music comes from all the trips we’ve had”: The birth of Hawkwind
Hawkwind were built around making music from a radio testing device, impressing influencer John Peel and using subsonics to make drunk people physically sick
loudersound.com
An early and prestigious gig for VdGG with The Nice at the ICA, 4 February 1969. Described as a 'leading progressive group', which is interesting given they only had a withdrawn single and Peel session to their name at the time - but also because of the use of 'progressive' in the description...
From Sounds, 22 Dec 1973, a picture of the Third Doctor and his arch nemesis The Master (looking a little worse for wear...)
With neck-snapping rapidity, here's my next stop on my slow tour of classic SF: Colossus (1966) by DF Jones. This is very much 'mainstream SF' of the time, and the epitome of a 'big concept' story, in this case 'what if a super computer was put in charge of America's nuclear weapons?' 1/4
Here's Nick Kent's notorious review of Peter Hammill's Over from NME, 26 Feb 1977. It's a prime example of how PH was viewed by a lot of music writers at the time, who, IMO, felt uncomfortable with the feelings and emotions his songs contained, and particularly as articulated by a man...
The latest stop on my slow tour of vintage SF is The Palace Of Eternity (1969) by Bob Shaw. With a title like that, I was expecting something more than the initial pulp/military SF set-up of a lunk-headed-yet-sensitive guy who gets caught up with rebels when his planet becomes the unlikely HQ... 1/4
A sketch of Robert Calvert's shed, c/o of Phillip 'Dead Fred' Reeves 😉
Paul Callé's interior art for Ray Bradbury's "Impossible" (variant title: "The Martian") in Super Science Stories (November 1949) #scifi #sciencefiction #art
Another great piece from Kali Wallace at Reactor. As she puts it, "It is not possible to expect Zardoz". I had the same WTF reaction when I first saw it, but having watched it at the NFT a few years ago, I now genuinely rate it as a piece of visionary SF cinema... reactormag.com/zardoz-what-...
Zardoz: …What the F*ck Did I Just Watch? - Reactor
John Boorman brings us guns, sex, giant stone heads, and Sean Connery in a wedding dress.
reactormag.com
ROCK AND ROLE update... PH/VdGG fans in Europe can order the book through Blackwell's, who do incredibly competitive overseas sales: blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro... For instance, the cost to order the book from Germany, inc P&P, is just over 40 euros via Blackwell's!
Rock And Role
Rock And Role
blackwells.co.uk
50 years ago today, Hawkwind were special guests of Status Quo at Cardiff Castle, Wales. The Days Of The Underground site hosts an exclusive collection of amazing colour photos taken there by Yuji Kaida for Japan's Rock Magazine... www.daysoftheunderground.com/post/hawkwin...
Hawkwind at Cardiff Castle, 24 July 1976
In the sweltering summer of 1976, Hawkwind played a memorable open air show at Cardiff Castle, where they were special guests on a bill headlined by Status Quo. This is the concert where Robert Calver...
daysoftheunderground.com
Celebrating the legacy of renowned illustrator Virgil Finlay, born OTD 1914. Here’s a beautifully evocative piece (which I hadn’t come across before) representing J. G. Ballard‘s ‘The Crystal World‘, as advertised in a 1966 edition of ‘Things to Come’, the bulletin of the Science Fiction Book Club.
Thank's @burningshed.com for the fast and well-packaged delivery. Both books arrived safely here in Germany today :-) #PeterHammill @sofasound.bsky.social #JoeBanks @joebankswriter.bsky.social
Being unafraid to address the complexities of the human condition head on, Peter Hammill acquired a reputation as a bit of a downer within the music press, and was sometimes referred to as Dr Doom. I'm assuming this is the article - from Melody Maker, 23 March 1974 - where he first got that name?
Finished reading The Illuminated Man. While it offered at least semi-immersion in JG Ballard's universe, it also felt a little unsatisfying. There's been some mild controversy around the book's dual authorship, but I think it's just the biographical format itself that's the problem for me 1/2
Here's another excellent vintage Hawkwind cut, from Melody Maker, 23 March 1974, reporting back from their second US tour aka The 1999 Party with Man. Some interesting words from Doug Smith, who pulled this tour off in the face of record company indifference...
It's time for the third episode of The Hammill Chronicles, the occasional series looking at and listening to the PH back catalogue in the company of The Progressive Rock Show panel. This time, we're tackling 1977's Over. Listen here from 1:00:25 - progzilla.com/the-progress...
From Jim C on FB... Peter Hammill at the BBC Prog Prom a half hour ago, where he absolutely brought the house down with his vocal perf on "Refugees". The BBC radio announcer said there wasn't a dry eye in the house, and the applause was thunderous and long. Photo by Jackson Greaves
