As a junior high schooler and first taking a serious interest in rock-n-roll music, I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading every issue of Creem magazine that came out. One band the seemed to get mentioned on a fairly regular basis was Hawkwind. I used to laugh at the name and figured they were just some British dippy hippies doing some goofy thing I would not dig.
Fast forward to a decade later when I was in my mid-twenties and met a dude who was serious into Hawkwind? "Aren't they a bunch of dippy-hippie music?" I asked the first time he mentioned to me that he dug them.
"No way. They're like cosmic freaks making music that people on Mars would dig. Don't you know? Lemmy was Hawkwind. C'mom man! He'd never play in a wood nymph flute band or anything!"
He then played me their 1974 album Hall Of The Mountain Grill. Then and there, my mind got split open and I learned what I was missing.
The album was released 45 years today. It's spinning on my turntable this evening in celebration. What are you listening to tonight?
