Originally released in 1974 as a single album, and rereleased in 2005 with a bonus four track EP, this is now being put out again as a seven disc set, the original album plus outtakes, alongside ‘live’ sets from previously unreleased gigs in Chicago, Cleveland and London.
Mountain Grill (named after a café on the Portobello Road) is, for some fans, Hawkwind’s finest hour, an album showing the kind of anarchic genius which has allowed the band to continue into what is, now, its 56th year. But it was also an album which gave fans a shock to the system as the dramatis personae had changed. Dik Mik had left, and Robert Calvert’s sci-fi/fantasy poetry between songs was no longer present as he’d left the band for health reasons, though he was later to return to the fold. Also, the band’s sound had changed with the recently deceased Simon House joining, which added an extra dimension to their sonic palette with swirling mellotrons and violin, enhancing the ‘space-rock’ vibe.
The remastered studio album begins and ends with two Hawkwind classics – ‘Psychedelic Warlords (disappear in smoke)’ and ‘Paradox’, both of which the band still perform today. ‘Warlords’ is a classic, built around a catchy riff and Nik Turner’s sax, with ‘Paradox’ a not too dissimilar piece, though less propulsive. New boy Simon House contributed the piano and synth based title track ‘Mountain Grill’, which contains echoes of early seventies Tangerine Dream, as does the moody, atmospheric instrumental ‘Wind of Change’, with its soft ambient touches suggesting Hawkwind were attempting to lose their ‘Status Quo of space rock’ tag.
However, they could still rock. ‘You’d Better Believe It’ sees some killer guitar riffing and almost a wall of sound, ‘D Rider’ is a storming driving piece of music with fine vocal interplay, while ‘Lost Johnny’, allegedly about a ‘character’ in Ladbroke Grove, is a slower rocker, written by Lemmy and Mick Farren, both now sadly up in the great ‘Ladbroke Grove in the sky,’ with both later covering it in their respective bands, Motorhead and The Deviants. Two shorter pieces complete the album. Del Detmar’s ‘Goat Willow’ is a slow, synth type instrumental while ‘Web Weaver’, though short, features strummed guitar, piano and spacey synths.
The seven bonus tracks are alternate versions of ‘You’d Better Believe It’, ‘Wind Of Change’ and ‘Paradox’ plus the B-side of the single release of ‘Psychedelic Warlords’, ‘It’s So Easy’, which, by Hawkwind standards, is almost a straight-up rock song.
The other six discs are ‘live’ shows from the Edmonton Sundown, London, and Chicago and Cleveland, all between January-March 1974. The Edmonton gigs in January were used to audition Simon House, who’d previously played in High Tide, to replace Dik Mik, and his proficiency on Mellotron and violin improved the musicianship inside the band considerably.
The Chicago gigs were called the ‘1999 Party’ though, along with Cleveland, they were recorded in March 1974. All these recordings were made at a time when Hawkwind were beginning to make a name for themselves in the States. The songs performed were mostly from the Space Ritual and the soon-to-be-released Mountain Grill, and included ‘Psychedelic Warlords’, ‘You’d Better Believe It’ and ‘Paradox’, plus versions of ‘Brainstorm’, ‘The Watcher’, ‘Welcome to the Future’ and the inevitable ‘Masters of the Universe’, plus, at Edmonton, ‘Silver Machine’, amongst other favourites, with poetic between-song interjections from Robert Calvert, and, even remastered, the sound quality isn’t of contemporary standards, but these ‘live’ discs give the full flavour of a Hawkwind gig of 1974.
However, the full box set will set the fan back around £100, so purchasing this set will truly show super devotion to the Hawkwind cause.
