Product Details

Hawkwind first came together in 1969 formed in Ladbroke Grove London. The band very soon gained attention or notoriety for their willingness to perform concerts for free at numerous events in and around the Ladbroke Grove area. They were soon signed to a recording deal releasing their self titled debut album in late 1969 and have regularly recorded and released albums ever since. The band also scored a massive hit single in 1972 with the perennial rock track Silver Machine and a massively successful album Space Ritual in 1973. Although going through a number of line up changes over the last forty years the band have managed not only to keep the title of “People’s Band” but are still led by founder and guitarist Dave Brock and continue to play concerts and release regular studio albums. In keeping with their stance as a “People’s Band” Hawkwind have often released “Official Bootleg “CDs and continue to do so well into the twenty first century. The Weird Tapes were the first “Official Bootlegs” to come from Dave Brock in the eighties and the title of the series came from the fact that the releases were all originally on cassette. All of the recordings are previously commercially unreleased recordings from the Hawkwind and Dave Brock archives although the original series was available directly from Dave Brock. This of course was in the pre internet age so anyone wanting the series would have had to find out about them through the regular newsletters that emanated from chez Brock. The recordings however are all of very high quality in keeping with Dave Brock’s initial idea of giving the fans value for money and the best quality possible. The series is now being reissued with the albums packed together as “Twofers” Volume 7 is an album of Hawkwind leader Dave Brock’s demos. The demos were recorded between 1980 and 1982 and whilst being of interest to Hawkwind fans are completely different in style to the sort of material performed by Hawkwind. The album however does show a different side to Dave Brock and as such is of immense interest. Volume 8 contains a mixture of Live Hawkwind tracks recorded at various periods in the bands history and also includes tracks from 1966 featuring Dave Brock pre Hawkwind. The album however does include two Hawkwind tracks that will be of immense interest to the large Hawkwind fan base and these are Space Is Deep from a concert at the Brixton Sundown in 1972 and a BBC session recorded in 1971 featuring You Know You're Only Dreaming / You Shouldn't Do That Originally available on CD as separate releases the Weird tapes are being reissued due to demand from the fans. The original copies now deleted command high prices on the collectors market however now reissued they will find a warm reception with the still massive Hawkwind fan base.