60 albums
1982 - Church of Hawkwind

I got into Hawkwind, first, by picking up a copy of the ‘Silver Machine’ single second hand in the late 70s, and then as a Motorhead fan doing his Lemmy history lessons in the early 80s. So my first three new Hawkwind albums were Sonic Attack, Church of Hawkwind, and Choose Your Masques - none of which, at the time, I loved - but of the three the one I loved least was probably Church of Hawkwind.

Church of Hawkwind LP

The one of those three I now love most is Church of Hawkwind and it’s the one I go back to most, and probably for all the exact same reasosn I didn’t like it as a 17 year old headbanger. At least it doesn’t have the Moorcock bollocks that the other two have so it was inevitable that as I matured my desire to listen to jevenile sci-fi mumbo-jumbo declined. I love sci-fi, just not Moorcock’s sci-fi, I tend to tolerate his Hawkwind involvement and I don’t have to for Church of Hawkwind.

Over the years my love of the album has grown, it is one of my favourite Hawkwind albums, and certainly my fave post-Lemmy album. I’d always assumed I was alone in my adoration, until…

We'd listen to music and when I first heard this album, I was completely blown away. It has a track on it called 'Some People Never Die', which samples news commentaries of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. It was a combination of electronic music and samples of news broadcasts and I found it incredible.

[...]

I liked electronic music [...] but I was also really into heavy music. I liked heavy metal and thrash metal and also psychedelic rock, so this album was perfect.

Jane Waever - An Expanse Of Sound: Jane Weaver's Favourite Albums

Here’s Jane Waever’s The Electric Mountain that samples Hawkwind’s Star Cannibal

Jane Weaver - The Electric Mountain (play on YouTube)

I saw Hawkwind on the Sonic Attack tour in October 1981 and the Choose Your Masques tour in November 1982, both at the Guildford Civic Hall (where I saw most of my gigs back then, we’d pretty much see anyone who played there). I remember both gigs more visually than aurally because Hawkwind were always a great band to watch. I’ve seen them a few times since, every couple of years I get an urge to go and see them and, being Hawkwind, I rearely have to wait too long to satisfy that urge. They’re playing in Newcastle in April…

The last time was at The London Palladium in 2018 with Mike Batt (second mention in this series) and (The Crazy World of) Arthur Brown.

Hawkwind at The London Palladium