By 1985 Dancing Shiva had finished as a band. With the best will in the world, it just wasn’t going anywhere; but Dewi and I continued a close friendship and our through our mutual love of Hawkwind, we had many great times going to see them (any the Lloyd-Langton Group) live over the rest of the decade. My first concert of the year took place on February 12th. It was a last minute opportunity to see The Stranglers at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall after my old friend, Martin, had a ticket going spare. To be honest I wasn’t really into The Stranglers by this time. To me, their music at this point was more like ‘elevator’, or ‘coffee table music. I found the gig fairly boring in all honesty. They had a brass section and backing singers, and to my ears; sounded nothing like the band I once loved.
On the Hawkwind front; the archival releases that started a couple of years earlier, started picking up the pace this year. Unfortunately, January saw the release of an awful, bootleg quality live recording put out by ex-Hawkwind bass player from 1971; Dave Anderson, on his own record label under the title; Bring Me The Head Of Yuri Gagarin. I bought this at the time and surprised that such rubbish could be officially released. It made me wary of buying other releases that started coming thick and fast over the next couple of years, but fortunately the vast majority were worth it. And fortunately, a proper new studio album was also released later in the year. In March of that year, the Lloyd-Langton Group released their first proper studio album; Night Air. This terrific album had a big impact on me, and this was followed up by my first Lloyd-Langton Group gig, at the Key Theatre in Peterborough on April 14th.
This was a tremendous opportunity to see Huw playing at close range. It was a brilliant performance and really showed what Huw could do. I was blown away. Smaller venue gigs like this provided a much easier opportunity to meet up and chat with him, compared to blagging our way backstage at Hawkwind gigs, and I enjoyed the chance to chat with him in more depth about music, bands, guitar playing and general talk. Huw was once again very friendly and easy going.
As mentioned, there were plenty of releases on the Hawkwind front. The good stuff started in April, with a great selection of tracks released on the third volume of Hawkwind: ‘Friends and Relations’, with its distinctive cover art by John Coulthart. Also, there was a big event for Hawkwind fans when they made a rare, live TV appearance on April 26th. Then in May, came the release of Space Ritual Vol. 2.
The first opportunity to see Hawkwind came along on June 4th at Nottingham’s Rock City. At the gig, I also bought a copy of Kris Tait’s book: ‘This Is Hawkwind, Do Not Panic’. Next on the gig front was another chance to see the Lloyd-Langton Group, when they played at the Mardi Gras club in Nottingham.
On July 19th, the Friday Rock Show broadcast a newly recorded Radio 1 session by Hawkwind. This was another exciting moment for Hawkwind fans, and it quickly became a ‘go to’ selection, as I had recorded it onto cassette.
There was more Hawkwind material to take in when the first Anthology volume was released on November 4th, which was swiftly followed on November 11th by their first new studio album since 1982; with The Chronicle of the Black Sword.
The Chronicle of the Black Sword was a creative peak for Hawkwind at this time, and a much needed boost to have an album showcasing the contemporary line-up. The album spawned one their best tours since the 1970s, and I saw them twice on this tour; first and Nottingham’s Rock City once again on November 12th, followed by Leicester De Montfort Hall, on November 28th.
On the band front, new directions would take place this year. I had spent much of the early part of the year practising and learning the six string guitar, but had grown very weary of the cheap Les Paul copy which made the guitar more difficult to learn. It was thanks to drummer Tony Ruston that I was finally able own a decent quality guitar, when he signed the HP forms for me; and I walked out of Carlsboro Sound Centre with an original Gibson Les Paul standard, tobacco sunburst, 1981. This made such a huge difference to my efforts to learn guitar, and I felt that I made much faster progress for having it.
In the meantime, a new pub called ‘The Malthouse’ had opened up, with live bands on Sunday nights. Local guitarist, Ty Garner, (who had originally introduced me to Dewi) had secured a regular gig there, and was looking for a bass player for a new blues band he’d put together, and asked me if I fancied the job. I told him that my heart was now in playing the guitar, but I agreed to join if he would allow me to do a couple of numbers on the guitar. He agreed, and so my first performances as a guitarist took place with his ‘Red House Blues Band’ at the Malthouse in 1985.Later in the year, the opportunity to play guitar full time in a band came along. Ex-Dancing Shiva drummer Glen Annable played with Ty in a rock covers band called Stoney Road. When Ty left to focus on playing the Blues, Glen also parted company; leaving their guitar and vocalist Dave Manley, and bass player Jim Ward, needing a drummer and lead guitarist. Dave and Jim were local buskers who I knew, and I called up drummer Tony Ruston, and arranged a get together and rehearsal for Stoney Road. Things seemed to gel, and soon we were ready to roll.
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