Hawkwindforum

Hello Clumsy Alchemist!

I'd completely forgotten about Calvert's walkabout. Glorious. I miss him.

At the time of getting in to Hawkwind we lived off the Queensferry Road near Davidson's Mains. I moved out when I was student and decamped to Dalry Road - lived above a bookies opposite a 24 hour petrol station there which was extremely handy for skins, baccie and munchies in the small hours. The flat was a couple of doors up from the 'Auld Worthies' which later became the 'Balmoral Bar' and which burned down in July this year claiming the life of a fireman.

I've lived back in Edinburgh a few times since leaving and although I now work in Glasgow I am currently back living there again so I was lucky enough to be able to go the Hawkwind gig at The Caley earlier this year.

After being a succession of dodgy nightclubs it's great to see The Caley being put to a 'proper' use again. I thought it was an okay venue. Certainly I enjoyed the gig. The mate who got bounced at the Odeon was also there - it's a lifelong affair this Hawkwind thing. Your brother was a lucky man to see Hawkwind there in '72.

Cheers

Hey Scptty I lived in Ardmillan Terrace from 80 - 83 at the top of Dalry Road. You could catch the 44 outside my flat and go straight into town. They were great days. There used to be a nice little sweetie shop at the bottom of my road which was great for all my munchie needs. The Blue Lagoon pub was by the entrance to my flat, too convenient. And Diggers was round the corner. Did you ever go to the Heriot Watt Union bar circa 80? I had a band that used to play there about then.
You're lucky to be back in town.

Hiya lads - I was at college at Napier (Craiglockhart) in 85/86 and stayed at Bruntsfield and then in Gilmore Place just off Tollcross. I was already working but on block release so I had some spare cash and we were out every night.
The Canny Man up at the edge of Morningside springs to mind, plus Bentleys or Bennets on Tollcross, Long Tom's Hideaway and the Bull & Bush on Lothian Road, plus the Auld Hundred and the Brewery on Rose Street, the White Hart Inn at the Grassmarket and what we used to call the "Bermuda Triangle", the three pubs at the top of the Grassmarket that it was hard to get out of in the evenings (!) - Bridie's, the Western and another on I've forgotten. Plus there was a reat pub on (I think) Cockburn Street. Last time I looked it was some kind of Irish theme bar called Finnegans Wake but it used to be a great pub - a big ban of a place which had bands on all the time.
Cheers.

This is getting scary. Oz I went to Telford college and lived in Bruntsfield for a bit. What a location, beautiful. The Canny Man, great pub, the great dusty look with all the nik naks. And Bennetts just by the Kings Theatre right?
Its certainly a great place for great pubs. Thats what must have inspired me to work for Scottish and Newcastle for a few years. First at the bottom of Holyrood and then up in Fountainbridge. I got the sack, my work was slack.
Keep those memories coming, I'm enjoying this.

Nice one. Aye, Bruntsfield was great - like a little village in the middle of the south side, although plenty of other places could claim the same, Gorgie and Dalry among them. I remember the brewery well - I used to go out for a stroll around with my Walkman on some nights if everybody was too skint for the pub, and you could smell that place for miles! Quite often ended up further down around G&D and may well have been in one of the pubs you mentioned for a pint before heading back. I was sure I remembered The Balmoral when that fire occurred and was on the news. Years later I went out with a girl who had lived around Dalry too, although I didn't know her then, and had a few pints of 80/- in that neck of the woods in the mid 90s.
I was in the Canny Man one night in '86 and squeezing past some people to go to the bar for a round when I was bitten on the arse (for the first and last time to date) by a girl who ended up becoming a good mate of mine. Always good for a story when folk asked how we knew each other later!
Other memories - bought my first mountain bike from The Edinburgh Bicycle Company; the great chippy ("Ye want salt an' sauce?") round the corner from Gilmour Place (and across the road from that cracking wee cinema, which always seemed to have Betty Blue on); The Centre Court near the college, which was good for a beer at lunchtime, although Colinton was a bit more sedate than Tollcross); the Chinese supermarket just down from the Bruntsfield Hotel; loads of parties in big old flats around that whole area and later in East Crosscauseway and Great Queen Street...
Been back loads of times since, though not nearly enough, and I always get a great buzz in Edinburgh.

I take it the venue Hawkwind played this year was that former disco on Lothian Road near the Bull & Bush and the Usher Hall? Just remember it as been a real Hitman & Her-type place back then and full of wee neds.
We'd been raring to go after the Glasgow December show but had already arranged to be in Manchester where my Mrs has family and to go and see Barclay James Harvest.

I was still at school between Birmingham and Worcester and heavily into all things punk. Me and a mate went through a phase of trying to find bands to go and see that nobody thought we would be into (just for fun - Bucks Fizz nearly made that list!) and Hawkwind were one such band as we thought they were just a hippy band. Now we never made the gig (was the 86 tour) but another mate lent me the UA Masters of the Universe tape, which I can't say I loved straight away but it was weird, I'd never heard music like it before so I played it again ...and again and gradually got into it. Then I discovered what a massive back catalogue they had and being an avid Damned collector at the time but having bought pretty much everything I could get, what a joy it was to find another band with loads of stuff to get!

Prior to that though my dad bought me The Collection on cd from Makro, even though we didn't have a cd player in the house! By the time Xenon Codex came round a year or so later I already had a tidy collection and Brum Powerhouse in April 88 was my first Hawks gig, been going to see them ever since

Hey Oz, you've got me going now. The thing that sticks in my head about the Canny Mans was that I was in there with a mate and he said he needed a slash. Next thing I knew he was having one against the bar. It was crowded and noone noticed a thing. He was that kind of guy and it was that kind of pub.

The small cinema was the Cameo and it was great. I remember seeing Annie Hall in there. Yup Hawkwind played what is now The Picture House in Lothian Road but what used to be the Caley cinema. I saw Bedknobs and Broomstick in there when I was about 9 or something!

Edinburgh is one beautiful place. I left to come South in 85 but I still go up there at least twice a year, all the family is still there. Did you ever go into the Heriot Watt union bar in Grindley street?

I've just remembered I played tennis once up on the courts in Colinton. It was dead posh.

Hey guys! It looks like we've hijacked this thread. LOL

I know where the Blue Lagoon was so I guess I know where you lived. I used to drink in the Diggers a fair bit. Sensational pints. One of my mates went to Uni the year after me and he went to Heriot Watt. It was only then I started going to HW Union at Grindlay Street so that would be '82 probably. What was your band called?

I haven't been to the Canny Man's in a long time. I hear they still chuck people out if they look to straight A friend of mine manages the Rose Street Brewery these days so I pop in from time to time. When I was younger I used to avoid Rose Street. Drank mainly in the Preservation Hall (that may be the one you can't recall Oz - it was on Victoria Street though). Blues'n'Trouble and Tam White & The Dexters used to play there a lot). The Pear Tree and The Beehive were other regular watering holes - as was Bannerman's, Sneaky Pete's and La Sorbonne (saw The Clash do an acoustic set there once). The White Heart was pretty good for music I seem to recall. I still pop in to Bennets from time to time. Edinburgh has to be one of the best places in the world for pubs.

One of the most outrageous party's I ever went to was up in Bruntsfield. Everybody was smoking. It got broken up by the cops. When we were being chucked out three of them came bombing up the stairs with their truncheons out but one slipped in a pile of vom and down he went. Someone got thrown in the meat wagon for laughing. It could so easily have been me

'Hitman & Her- type place full of wee neds' is a perfect description of what the Caley became before turning into the Picture House. I have vestigal memories of being taken to see 'Thunderbirds Are Go' there when I was three or four!

Incidentally I found out on Satrurday that Greyfriars Graveyard has about 150,000 people buried in it. If you think about it Candlemaker Row wasn't carved out a hill - they just brought in earth, piled it up and built a retaining wall. Edinburgh's a good old place

I was heavily into Motorhead around the time of Bomber and bought HOTMG out of curiosity for Lost Johnny. About this time HW brought out Live 79 followed by Levitation. It was those opening chords of Levitation that did it for me, heard round a mate's one night when his parents were out! I bought it the next day with my paper round wages! The old Masters of the Universe comp soon followed, as did WOTEOT and Space Ritual. First saw them in Bradford on the Sonic Attack tour n'that was it!

Preservation Hall, great venue. I remember the sayings they had written on the walls and ceiling. The one that sticks in my mind was Dean Martin's "You're not drunk if you can hang onto the floor without falling off". that pretty much summed up Edinburgh for me between the years 80 - 85. We must really all have been wandering around the same pubs at roughly the same time. Its a funny old world.
My bands by the way were called Valhalla and Feuerprobe. Hawkwindy metal. We played around Edinburgh and down the coast a few times. My fave Edinburgh band of the time was my mates band The Green Telescope. they morphed into The Thames and I'm glad to be able to say they are still going strong.
More!

I was in town record shopping one day in 1985 when I saw that. Bought it because I liked the cover.

Scotty and Clumsy Alchemist: The Preservation Hall - that's the one I was thinking of. Terrific pub.

I remember Sneaky Pete's too - the only pub I ever saw someone punched OUT of, Wild West style! We were just arriving (after an REM gig at Murrayfield on the Monster tour) when he came flying out the door, just as I was saying to the people I was with: "This is a great wee pub, let's go in here... blimey!"

Cheers.

Went to gig in Southampton with school mates, spent most of the time smoking joints under the stage which was some sort of setup on small scaffolding. Didnt know what to expect and this was different music to what we were used to ( Sabbath, Led Zep, Camel, Wishbone Ash etc) and with the lights, lasers and the whole scene this just blew me away. The tracks were jam style not exactly as on the LPs, the fans were great and all the space/sci-fi feel to it appealed to me. Brillaint!

Hawkwind music is different you either like it or you dont (musics version of marmite, Hawkmite), but I got totally lost in the tracks. It was my first gig so Hawkwind got me on to to see bands and festivals like Reading (get a few mates in the boot/back for free), Knebworth.

Recently got back to watching Hawkwind in the Astoria gigs, Southampton at Brook and Hawkfest.

I first heard them when I was about 12 (im 31 now) one of my mates had them playing in his room, I remember buying a cassette off him that had a skull on the cover and it was a compilation, dont know the title.

Hey Vegan Zombie, that cassette would be 'The Collection' compilation, part of the collector series. Skull with flesh peeling off of it and a keyboard and a guitar and space invaders in the corners and a decent size poster of the same cover if you have the LP.

For me, my first taste of Hawkwind was in 1985 when I was 17. I worked with a 16 year old who was another hippie biker type who says to me one Saturday, "are you going to The Lawrenny tonight to see Nik Turner?"

"Who's that?" says I,

"Plays sax with Hawkwind" says matey,

"Who's Hawkwind?" says I,

So there we are watching Nik and his Fantastic Allstars and having a ball and he says, "Here ya go" and thrusts a cassette (which is a recording of a recording from a Roadhawks LP, complete with sound of needle touching down and scratching and hissing) into my grubby hand and says "Enjoy" INSTANTLY HOOKED. Subsequently goes round his house for the first time and enter his bedroom which he shares with his elder brother and it is split down the middle, flippin hell, his side his covered with bike posters and pics and his brothers side is totally covered with posters and pics and flyers and clippings and cuttings and anything and everything Hawkwind. Thus began my love affair with Hawkwind.