Carol Clerks' 578 tome is a superbly researched if not slightly overblown, blow by blow account of the career of Britain leading counter culture Space rockers Hawkwind.

Drawing on a wealth of extensive interviews with band members past and present, as well as their former manager and a coterie of more peripheral figures, Clerk builds up an objective account of a band who grew up as an integral part of the Notting Hill hippy scene and who over time successfully repositioned themselves in the vanguard of a broader counter culture that encompassed the festival movement, travellers, hippy's, bikers, punks, crusties, sci fi fans and psychedelic rock fans.

The subtext of the book lies in the ongoing conflict between founder members Dave Brock and Nick Turner, which culminates in a seemingly pointless and mutually expensive court case that did little for the reputation of the band. But Carol Clerk's strength is her ability to sift through the evidence, and pull together a series of consistent portraits of the leading band members. Thus we are introduced to Dave Brock as a hard a driven survivor who initially cut his teeth as a street blues busker, and who to all intents and purposes remains in character as a rock survivor and tough band leader throughout the trials and tribulations of an always interesting career. Similarly until the point where he appears to have nothing else to lose, save for access to the band's name, Nick Turner remains an idealist for whom occasional uncomfortable bouts of reality get in the way of his own ill defined dream.

Other characters such as Lemmy (forever it seems an amiable, street wise pragmatist) and the late, hugely gifted but volatile loon Bob Calvert comes across as a fireball of creativity, but prone to bouts of violence, selfishness. The slightly more marginal figure of guitarist Hugh Lloyd Langton spends much of the book overcoming personal turmoil's, and then realising that despite prevaricating as to whether to be in Space Ritual or Brock's Hawkwind, he needs the greater stability of the latter

At the core of the book lies not just our personal judgement of what we think of the apparent captain of the ship Dave Brock, but rather the thing that makes this tale of rock and roll dreams and treachery a true saga. The point is that once upon a time Hawkwind were a people's band before like so many before them, reality hit hard. And nothing hit harder than the suicide of Barney Bubbles, a hugely creative artist who was responsible for Hawkwind's early album covers.

The court case comes much later in the band's career but it casts a shadow over the whole book. Chris Hewitt who tried to manage Turner's later Space Ritual said after the Brock/Turner court battle over use of the band's name, 'This court case was all about idealism turning into reality, futility, over the course of 30 years. It's all about nothing.'

In fact it was really all about a Brock and Turner divide that Clerk astutely notes early in the book, when Brock on the one hand says, 'We were a bunch of spaced-out freaks, but, really, I was a bit of a band leader in terms of what was going on', while Nick Turner on the other hand saw things differently; 'I thought the band was a communal thing, a community project. Dave wasn't in charge anymore than anybody else was'

And as Carol Clerk superbly traces band's fast changing musical career, with its fluctuating membership, its stop-start relationship with maverick manager Douglas Smith, it really all seems to boil down to what you the fan believe Hawkwind to be.

Whatever criticism is levelled at Brock re his stewardship of the band, his handling of individuals and inevitably the question of the distribution of the money, he has proved himself to be an enduring band leader. Nick Turner's attempt to go back to the early Hawkwind musical roots with Space Ritual is an intriguing one.

Like many other bands, it is their early career music that many fans will tell you they like the best. But Hawkwind were more than just music, they had a show, a feeling, they jammed spontaneously, and there were very few lines of demarcation either on or off stage. And yet Hawkwind's durability seems to have been built on moving with the times, and dumping the organic concept of the band for something more tangible that can do business. And while Turner emphatically embodies the true spirit of what Hawkwind used to be, no one can realistically stay still.

Over the course of the book's interviews Brock takes a lot of the flack, but there does seem to be the classic case of a lot of moaning former band members who were previously all too willing to get stoned, and let Brock take over the responsibility. Significantly perhaps the Space Ritual project came to an acrimonious end, leaving former manager Hewitt to comment, 'they were as unmanageble as Hawkwind, a lot of 60 year old blokes who think the world owes them a living'.

So ultimately it seems, you pay your money and take your choice. Probably none of us ever can come to terms with the band as a keyboard led trio, but the music and mothership lives on, as does a great back catalogue, albeit with much attendant arguments regarding ownership, royalty payments, missing credits, and plenty of bootlegs. But as the book excellently makes clear, this is Hawkind, do not panic!

****

Review by Pete Feenstra