Silver Machine was one of the oddest, and best, one-hit wonders of all time, the most notable contribution of Lemmy to Hawkwind before he formed Motorhead.
I remember buying the single (I can still picture its dull off-white United Artists label with the UA logo). Looking back, it was the first proper ‘rock’ record I bought.
Hawkwind were hairy, noisy, dirty, smelly, and looked as if they lived in a squat and took a lot of drugs. Which they did, although Lemmy, who sang this, was famously sacked soon afterwards for taking the “wrong” drugs (amphetamine, presumably, rather than LSD) and formed the rather more successful Motorhead.
Heaven only knows how they managed to make it to No.3 in a chart filled with Donny Osmond, The Partridge Family and New Seekers – probably just because it’s a great song and they were, if nothing else, different from the rest of the charts.
The band did indeed live in a squat in west London and had many interchangeable members, apparently selecting musicians for gigs largely on the basis of who was in a fit enough state to play on any given day.
They were celebrated, at least among older people than me who had actually taken drugs and didn’t buy T.Rex and Slade singles, for their jamming ‘Space Ritual’ performances.
And for having as their visual focal point a statuesque young woman called Stacia, who performed elaborate am-dram rituals while the band jammed behind her, and was thrillingly reported to take off her top on occasion.
Which explains why, back in those porn-starved days of Mayfair and Men Only, my mates and I braved apocalyptic weather to see Hawkwind when they gave a free concert in Harlow Town Park a year or two later.
It was something of a disappointment for those of us who only knew Silver Machine as it was essentially a group of hairy/dirty/smelly men with long greasy hair coming onstage in pouring rain and making a tuneless droning racket that went on for an hour or so without a break. It seemed longer.
They began by announcing that they had not played a gig for six months and went on to demonstrate how that sounds. No individual songs, let alone Silver Machine, were discernible amid the maelstrom of sludgy noise.One of the band, Nick Turner, wasn’t even there at the start, presumably having forgotten to turn up, though there were, for some reason two drummers. And Turner did eventually turn up, wearing a vivid green jump suit.
I’ve just found a rather marvellous reminiscence of the gig in which someone writes: “I remember very little except the guy in front of me being very stoned and thrashing his flag on the ground while his trousers were around his ankles. I reemmber enjoying the event and it overran so I was late back for my lift home.”
The main point of interest was a big fellow in a smock and an elaborate hat with a feather in it who recited ‘poetry’ every now again in doom-laden tones, solemnly intoning stoner stuff like: “We are all seated on the edge of time / We need you / It’s dark on the edge of time.” He was, apparently, the respected sci-fi writer Michael Moorcock. It seemed to go on for hours.
But at least Stacia was there, dancing barefoot and making peculiar gestures with her hands, which meant we stayed, suffering to the bitter end in the hope that she would take her top off. She didn’t.