Dropped of the edge of the earth for a few days, yes it's true, certainly feels like that. Well the veiw from here is pretty good anyways, plenty of heat despite the space between us, plenty of space for playing.
So what's happening in my world, what stimulating information bounces around my synapses, releasing itself in this strange process via my fingertips and this keyboard. Well the region, a home office term for the asia pacific looks pretty fragile, earthquakes, war and outbreaks of bird flu, courruption in high and low places, global warming suddenly confirmed by the nuclear lobby, everyones an expert, the debate we have to have. Personally i feel slightly indifferent, why should we continue to trust these experts and nuclear people, after all they are all funded by the meat board, okay maybe not the meat board but everyone has an ulterior motive and if its not the carnivores its the drug companies.

I have been enjoying reading a book about the space rock band 'Hawkwind' a band i used to go and see quite regularly at Stonehenge and various other venues around London, pre punk. I even saw them one night play with Ginger Baker on drums, but the real brains behind Hawkwind was Robert Calvert the manic depressive poet who as far as i am concered wrote and sung their best stuff, 'Astounding Tales Amazing Music is a fantastic album, and listening to 'Refer Madness', still manages to make me smile. Credit to Dave Brock though who also made Hawkwind a more contempory band, he seemed to embrace technology way before any other musicians, and i would say even preceeded the rave stuff that became popular in the 80's.
The book is filled with endless bikering between the players, Dave Brock cretainly liked to assume control but generally it was pretty much a team effort, even Lemmy occasionally rejoins for shows. There's a few nice antedotes, one being when Jimmy Hendrix saw them play at the isle of wight and wanted to get up on stage and jam with them but experienced a conflicting emotion that if he jammed with them then he would steal the attention so he just watched and later congratulated them. I specifically liked the way the Hawkwind family just grew and grew and seemed everchanging. Anyway Calverts still my fave, he was regularly carted away to an institution when he was having episodes, he was so much larger than life. I vividly recall seeing them preform on the Marc Bolan tv show, under the name Hawks and Calvert was dressed up in a kind of air force piolets outfit from WW1. He had a stuffed hawk sitting upon his shoulder and a pair of goggles, along with these joppers and thigh high boots. Very cool.
One off my fave writers when i was a kid, a guy called Mike Moorcock was also in Hawkwind, he was a source of inspiration for the band but also played with them and wrote a few tunes. On of their best albums was based upon one of his books, the album is called Chronicles of the Black Sword and the charater is Elrich. The idea being Elrich drew his stregth and immortality from the victims of the sword, it was a sybiotic relationship, however the sword was indiscriminate and eventually killed Elrich's beloved.
Moorcock went on to write other books and slowley became one of Englands most respected writers, his non sci fi is excellent to but if you fancy something brilliant read 'The Dancers at the Edge of Time.'