Martin Lee Stephenson Weblog

Much as the BBC's coverage is {mostly} much needed for those of you don't want to wade through the mud, swine flu and urine at Glastonbuy. is it really a good idea to allegedly send 450 staff on a bender,  on license fee money?

DEC

An interesting documentary on BBC4 {UK} covering the old space rockers Hawkwind....now, it seems cringy to ever admit to being a fan... but a fan I was.

 Looking back, they made music that was either on the edge of brilliance or downright silly, but at least almost always innovative...and now, I shall {almost} reveal my age by revealing that I went to the famous EARTH RITUAL gig at Stonehenge free festival.

You would think it was something from spinal tap looking at the footage, but what a gig...30,000 plus people must have been tripping in sync, the Hawks played for, well, it seemed like forever, but at least as long as it took the sun to rise, as I watched with the druids and drop outs and girlfriend{s!} within the stones. Whether you was a hippy or not {I wasn't!}you had to appreciate the energy, man. Total, working, anarchy.

 In my opinion, that was the last real festival of it's era, even Glastonbury quickly turned into a money machine, and the rave generation began to dominate the summers.

But ahh, what memories... 

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So, once again the BBC decided to waste time and money putting on a poorly reserched and next to meaningless series . 

This time , a series supposedly devoted to an imaginary seven ages of rock music...ok, so to cover rock and all it's genres into 7 hours of viewing was always going to be ambitious, but you got the overall feeling that they considered Rock started with Jimi and ended with Oasis.

Pychedelia was barely covered, likewise rock n roll {ffs!}, ditto, goth, shoegaze and punk even.

Heavy Metal was covered reasonably well, with the usual suspects {Maiden, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Sabs etc} getting the usual air time. 

"Kraut" rock, and "Acid" rock {a huge influence on bands in the 70's and 80's} was not touched upon, instead, just about everything from the 70's to mid 80's was defined as "prog" or "glam"...innovators such as CAN etc overlooked, while almost a whole episode {the final one} was devoted to Oasis and Blur.

 Nice to see Tim Abbott on there though {nice hair Tim!] and Rat .