What can we say about Hawkwind? Certinaly nothing describes their prime-era better than Julian Copes words - "They were a collection of disreputable star rats fuelled by a battery of hallucinogenic influences and united only by an incorrigible sense of psi-powered, pre-1976 cosmic punk rock attitude broken off and gobbled as though it was their sole means of sustenance while playing riffs into the grooves with an relentless head of steam. The rhythmic repetitions offset by wordless trance-chants are hypnotic to the core and the whole mess is performed at raw and rambunctious paces as it blazes with one damn racket with nowhere to go but hurtling through space at the sound of speed, anyway. Towards anything and everything. With the jaws of black oblivion not far behind nipping at their respective asses they were already in process of playing off of so furiously. For they sank a couple hundred pounds of pressure into one square foot and punched it in with a single, swift and confident stroke of a psychic ball-peen hammer at the only point on reality’s windscreen overlooking the edge of oblivion where in its entirety, its safety glass pane turned into a sightless fog of equal, fracturing veins before shuddering weightlessly apart and floating gently outwards into the future".

Our cast of stellar devotees surely know all this and put it to good use in their interpretations of classic Hawktracks in the Sonic Attack triology of 7"s.

Sonic Attack (Motorheads) are Mudhoney and Mugstar. Mudhoney go for the jugular with their combustive version of Urban Guerilla. It takes the original's MC5-on-angeldust vibe and cranks the rama-lama into the red. In short Mudhoney make it their own - filthy, distorted, bluesy, hooky, droney, grungy, stumbling, ass-kicking rock and roll. Mugstar take Born to Go and lift-off into a roaring, brittle flight that threatens to never land. The instruments are wielded as weapons of psychic warfare as the Sonic Assassins tear into the track in the most reckless and stupor-fying ways.

Limited edition 7" in full colour picture sleeve.

Nov 2008, TR013.

Mudhoney - Urban Guerilla
Mugstar - Born to Go

Each band taking a Hawkwind favourite of their choice - Mudhoney opts to re-drill ‘urban guerrilla’ - this version is culled from a session set recorded for the late Mr Peel way back in September 2002 and aired the following month and sees Arm and Co on top of their game, a pile driving and scalding skulking beatnik blistered babe, the godfathers of the Seattle scene post their best cover since squaring up to Thee Milkshakes ’she’s just fifteen’ for the Mod Showdown split with the Halo of Flies, this no nonsense speaker spanker sounds like its just tripped through a rip in the time continuum straight outta a mid 60’s primitive Detroit garage beat scene rehearsal all prime packed and dandily adorned in all manner of hip hugging strides, toe tapping struts and hairy wig flipping beatnik grooves. Flip the disc and you’ll find Mugstar running the gauntlet through ’born to go’ and setting the controls to embark on a hulking cosmic bliss grooved odyssey to oblivion, this astral planed babe is riddled and wracked with a punishing array of head locked grinds and super charged kraut motifs that at times sounds like a seriously shit faced Sonic Youth fronting up the mite of Mountain, a stoned space titan whose intensity teeters towards supernova as it drags you kicking and screaming with its unrelenting skull bloodying ferocity through a mind evaporating white noise vortex. One for the aural astral alchemists among you.
Losing Today


The Mudhoney tune 'Urban Guerilla' is a no nonsense balls out rocker dripping with testosterone and reminding me of MC5. It's a gargantuan monster that's literally tearing up the office. They sound like they're about to explode such is the intensity. Proper on fire, full on raw as fuck rocker. Mugstar do 'Born To Go' taking no prisoners. Again this is a good old sweaty beer and leather rocker with a cosmic twist. The relentless riff just keeps going and at one point I thought the poor office stereo was going to take off. Bloody great.
Norman Records


Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was.
Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7":
The first of the three, subtitled "Motorheads", features two aQ favorites (as do they all), Mudhoney and Mugstar. Mudhoney tackle "Urban Guerilla" and totally make it their own, so much so, that minus a little chunk of extended droney space rocking in the middle, those not well versed in Hawkwind would certainly be forgiven for thinking it was a Mudhoney original. Mugstar on the other hand are a DEAD ringer for Hawkwind, their sound murky and muddy, squalls of psych guitar, clouds of swirling spaced out FX, droned out jams, all tangled up and slowly unwinding into a long sprawling space rock jamscape. Hawkwind would be proud.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, with naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED, and already sold out at the label, we have a bunch, but these will be the only copies we'll ever have!!
Aquarius Records


This is a series of three split 7”s celebrating the music of Hawkwind. Each of these bands, well known on the underground psych rock scene, give their own unique take to 6 songs from the 70s Hawkwind and some of them really are awesome at channelling that stoned spirit of Hawkwind. Both Mudhoney (Urban Guerrilla) in a slightly punked up version and Mugstar, with a killer version of Born to Go, slay. Bardo Pond, give a stoned nod to Lord of Light while Kinski take on Master of the Universe and take it really slow like the original version from the Dawn of Hawkwind CD. The White Hills take on Be Yourself from the first Hawkwind record and do a pretty cool and psyched out version coming into the theme of the song at the end. Acid Mothers Temple go full throttle into their psychic universe with Brainstorm. A brilliant set of three 7” records. Good luck finding them as they are sold out at the label source.
Aural Innovations


Ireland-based label Trensmat pay their respects to space-rock pioneers Hawkwind through the labels favourite medium: the 7". Over this trilogy of vinyl-only releases, six very different outfits cover their heroes and mostly keep things relatively faithful to the source material.
You can trust Acid Mothers Temple, talking on 'Brainstorm' (from the 1972 LP Doremi Fasol Latido) on their side of the split with White Hills, to go down the typically freak-out route. And seeing as they are the band most overtly inspired by Hawkwind - to the point of being their tribute band - their entry sounds like, well, Acid Mothers Temple. On the flipside, White Hills take on 'Be Yourself' in their own fuzz/psych-rock mode. As for the rest, Bardo Pond and Kinski go head to head with renditions of 'Lord of Light' and 'Master of the Universe' on the relatively straightforward split, as expected doing Hawkwind filtered through their signature styles, while Mugstar submit a facsimile of 'Born To Go' on their flipside with Mudhoney, whose MC5-style rendition of the 1973 single 'Urban Guerilla' stands out as a definite highlight.
A great idea all in all, and one that will have fans,collectors and Hawkwind junkies foaming at the mouth.
Rock-a-Rolla


This collection of split singles finds modern psych and hard rock bands, each owing some debt to Hawkwind in their own approaches to music, paying tribute with fairly faithful covers. They’re split up by mood: Mudhoney and Mugstar get the rockers, AMT and White Hills take the more abstract numbers (White Hills’ read of “Be Yourself” being the most revelatory of the entire set), and Bardo Pond and Kinski splitting up the weighty, psychedelic side of things. Reminiscent of the ‘90s in every way – in particular the Ceres Records’ comp Assassins of Silence/Hundred Watt Violence, in itself a double-LP tribute to said space rockers – this is a straight-up pleasure, somewhat of the guilt-studded variety. However, all the participants step up, Mudhoney’s Peel Session take of “Urban Guerrilla” having blown me away when I caught them live some years back, and you could certainly do worse than support high quality bands covering one of the touchstones of modern intelligent rock music in all its squalor. Lovely artwork.
Dusted


This is a series of three split 7”s celebrating the music of Hawkwind. Each of these bands, well known on the underground psych rock scene give their own unique take to 6 songs from the 70s Hawkwind and some of them really are awesome at channelling that stoned spirit of Hawkwind. Both Mudhoney (Urban Guerrilla) in a slightly punked up version and Mugstar, with a killer version of Born to Go, slay. Bardo Pond, give a stoned nod to Lord of Light while Kinski take on Master of the Universe and take it really slow like the original version from the Dawn of Hawkwind CD. The White Hills taken on Be Yourself from the first Hawkwind record and do a pretty cool and psyched out version coming into the theme of the song at the end. Acid Mothers temple go full throttle into their psychic universe with Brainstorm. A brilliant set of 3 7” records. Good luck finding them as they are sold out at the label source. I got mine on Ebay.
Lowcut


Three in Trensmats Sonic Attack Series of singles, on each of which two groups cover two Hawkwind tunes with stellar results. From the White Panther spuzz of "Urban Guerilla" (courtesy of Mudhoney) to the fully smoked squiggle-dive into "Lord of Light" (by Bardo Pond), this is a fantastic set of records, paying tribute to a group thats not as well remembered as they ought to be. The sleeves are excellent too - a nod to the departed brilliance of designer Barney Bubbles. My only regret is that they didnt ask Wurm to tackle "Silver Machine".
The Wire