Hawkwind emerged in 1969 from Ladbroke Grove, the heartland of London’s counterculture, to become a ‘people’s band’ supported by bikers and hippies alike as they staged free gigs, benefits and protests and welcomed the involvement of any number of creative people – writers, poets, dancers – from within their community. They insisted upon all these things even with the Top Three success of 1972’s enduring anthem Silver Machine and the pioneering Space Ritual projects. They have had more line-up changes than their only remaining founder member Dave Brock, can remember. Motorhead’s Lemmy and legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker were just two of the musicians sacrificed along the way as the band went head to head with the police, customs, the taxman – and each other. With the memories of many of those who were there, this is the story of an extraordinary 35-year career, the music and the band, whose fans still loyally turn out for conventions and are rewarded with ‘private festivals’, set against a background of sex, drugs, madness, writs, rage and revenge.

An account of the English rock band Hawkwind shows them to be one of the most innovative and culturally significant bands of the 1970s. Fifty years on from when it first formed, the English rock band Hawkwind continues to inspire devotion from fans around the world. Its influence reaches across the spectrum of alternative music, from psychedelia, prog, and punk, through industrial, electronica, and stoner rock. Hawkwind has been variously, if erroneously, positioned as the heir to both Pink Floyd and the Velvet Underground, and as Britain's answer to the Grateful Dead and Krautrock. It has defined a genre—space rock—while operating on a frequency that's uniquely its own. Hawkwind offered a form of radical escapism and an alternative account of a strange new world for a generation of young people growing up on a planet that seemed to be teetering on the brink of destruction, under threat from economic meltdown, industrial unrest, and political polarization. While other commentators confidently asserted that the countercultural experiment of the 1960s was over, Hawkwind took the underground to the provinces and beyond. In Days of the Underground, Joe Banks repositions Hawkwind as one of the most innovative and culturally significant bands of the 1970s. It's not an easy task. As with many bands of this era, a lazy narrative has built up around Hawkwind that doesn't do justice to the breadth of its ambition and achievements. Banks gives the lie to the popular perception of Hawkwind as one long lysergic soap opera; with Days of the Underground, he shows us just how revolutionary Hawkwind was.

Always enigmatic and outside of the mainstream, most people associate Hawkwind with 'whoosh' noises, ‘Silver Machine’, Lemmy and 'Space Rock' music. From the beginning, Hawkwind have been trailblazers, even when they have explored blind alleys and cul-de-sac’s, and have never been afraid to innovate and mutate into strikingly different musical arenas. The band have a unique history in the world of rock music and have inspired not just other bands but also an entire sub-genre of music: Stoner Rock. Hawkwind's stated aim was to be a substitute for mind-expanding drugs. Instead, they used music, poetry, lights, projections, theatre and dance in an assault on the senses. Albums such as X In Search Of Space and Warrior At The Edge Of Time as well as classic live album Space Ritual set a template for their astonishing take on rock music. This book is a track-by-track analysis of every studio album and major live release to date. Beginning with the highly-regarded early albums of the 1970s, it continues through the hard rock hardships of the 1980s and the sometimes awkward musical dalliances of the 1990s, finishing on the unexpectedly triumphant return of the band in the 2010s. It presents an illuminating companion to the extraordinary recorded works of a band no-one thought would achieve any longevity. Duncan Harris started as a music journalist and interviewer in the 1980s, writing for fanzines and magazines. He contributed to the Rough Guides to Music series and, until recently, maintained a long series of reviews for the website The Dreaded Press. One of his proudest achievements is to have interviewed graphic novel guru Alan Moore in the late 1980s, just after the rise of Watchmen. Amongst other subjects, Alan and Duncan had a long talk about Hawkwind. Duncan lives in Wiltshire with his adorable wife, dog Willow and two cats named Loki and Lilith.

This is Hawkwind... Soyez prudent ! Chaos, drogues, sexe, bagarres, complots, menaces, mutineries et vengeances sont au menu. L'histoire d'Hawkwind est une histoire incomparable où tous les coups sont permis. Lemmy, futur leader de Motörhead et Ginger Baker, légendaire batteur de Cream, ont été tous les deux recrachés comme des noyaux par ce groupe livré au chaos perpétuel. Ils se battaient contre le pouvoir, mais aussi entre eux, comme des chiffonniers, et souvent pour des pacotilles. Mais cette histoire regorge aussi de poésie, de fantastique, de science-fiction haut de gamme, de danseurs et de costumes extravagants, de spectacles hors normes, de sons électroniques et de stridences, de folie psychédélique et de grosses lignes de basse, de light-shows et de riffs hypnotiques. Hawkwind, c'est tout cela jeté dans un énorme shaker, et même beaucoup plus encore. Cette saga chaotique s'étend sur quatre décennies. C'est l'histoire d'un groupe issu de l'underground anglais des années soixante et qui, jusqu'à aujourd'hui, s'est bâti une solide réputation, en jouant dans les festivals gratuits et en donnant des concerts de soutien. Avec l'invention de la transe à base de riffs hypnotiques, Hawkwind était diablement en avance sur son temps. Mick Slattery, premier guitariste du groupe, en frémit encore : « Dikmik bidouillait son générateur, Nik soufflait comme un dingue dans son sax, Dave et moi on jouait en feedback, comme Jimi Hendrix, et Terry massacrait ses fûts. Les stroboscopes jetaient dans ce chaos une pointe de folie furieuse ! » Ce space-rock psychédélique et électronico-punkoïde unique au monde qui flirtait avec l'avant-garde va d'ailleurs initier la scène électro en Angleterre. Les fans de metal et les bikers sont toujours venus grossir les rangs d'un public resté fidèle. Comme par miracle, Hawkwind a survécu. Tel un vieux capitaine de flibuste, Dave Brock maintient le cap, l'œil rivé sur l'horizon.

In 1975 legendary bassist Lemmy decreed that Motörhead would be “the dirtiest rock’n’roll band in the world. If you moved in next door, your lawn would die.” Overkill: The Untold Story Of Motörhead tells the whole story of the ultimate rock trip. The Omnibus Enhanced edition includes a Digital Timeline spanning all four decades of Motörhead's reign, packed with audio, video and images of tour nights, memorabilia, music videos and interviews. Additionally, throughout the book are links to curated playlists allowing you to hear Motörhead's finest rock n' roll gems, their early influences and more. Overkill: The Untold Story Of Motörhead is based upon original interviews with those closest to the action and is packed with fresh insights. Joel McIver presents a more philosophical view than most of Lemmy and the band without shying away from the turbulent excesses of a life lived on the road. Updated in the wake of Lemmy's death, and with an introduction by rock legend Glenn Hughes, this is the definitive book for those wanting to sit at a bar with Lemmy, Whisky-in-hand, and listen to his odyssey.

Crass was the anarcho-punk face of a revolutionary movement founded by radical thinkers Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant. When punk ruled the waves, Crass waived the rules and took it further, putting out their own records, films and magazines and setting up a series of situationist pranks that were dutifully covered by the world's press. Not just another iconoclastic band, Crass was a musical, social and political phenomenon. Commune-dwellers who were rarely photographed and remained contemptuous of conventional pop stardom, their members exhausted the possibilities of punk-led anarchy. They have at last collaborated on telling the whole Crass story, giving access to many never-before seen photos and interviews. The author has written for Sounds, Melody Maker and Amnesty International amongst others. His previous book was a biography of the Levellers: State Education/No University.