We noticed two things on arrival at LAX, the main airport of Los Angeles. Firstly, the thick layer of smog that almost hid the city as we landed and, secondly, the heat that greeted us as we left the plane. After all the freezing weather we had encountered, this was a real treat. And, having arrived at the concrete and glass blockhouse that was the Continental Hyatt hotel on Sunset Strip, one of the first things we did was go up on the roof on the umpteenth floor where there was quite a large swimming pool. Few of us ventured in but we enjoying sunning ourselves on the transits around the pool. Looking down on the street below it was noticeable that there were very few pedestrians and those that were, were women of a certain style. Jeff Dexter said,"In LA, if you see a woman walking it's a whore, if it's a man, it's an Englishman."
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| The pool on the roof of the Continental Hyatt Hotel |
Most of our rooms were on the 6th floor if I remember rightly, and, although I was sharing with Dennis again, he said he was off to stay with a friend of his up one of the vallies. My disappointment must have shone: a single room again!! I should perhaps point out at this point, that Dennis has had a successful career since leaving Hawkwind, in particular being very involved with the success of the group Muse. I'm not surprised because, outside of being a bit of a stuck up prick, he took his work very seriously and knew his stuff. In a similar vein, Jeff Dexter had been the man behind the success of the group America in the mid-seventies and it was this claim to fame that made him a bit know-it-all. At the same time, I need to apologise to all the crew who helped me a lot during the tour and with whom I got on very well: I'm afraid I can't remember any names at all although I seem to remember bumping into a couple of them in later years.
The first night, several of us set off by car for the Rainbow Bar and Grill, well known hang out of passing rock groups and where Lemmy (ex-Hawkwind bassist and leader of Motorhead) used to hang out when at home right up to his sad death early in 2016. The bouncers on the door took one look at us and let us in: we obviously smelt of rock band. We took a table in the dark downstairs, ordered drinks and food from quite glamorous waitresses (groupies) and settled down to look around and be looked at. That first night the only celebrities we saw were the very tall and thin Kim Fowley and his protégées, the Runaways. But we had a good night, a good laugh all in all.
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| The famous Rainbow Bar and Grill |
Two things I should mention. The first was that when we came to park the car in a lot opposite the club, we paid a group of young Hispanics, a gang who took over the car park when the normal attendants went off shift early in the evening. Secondly, when crossing the street which was well crowded, a shot rang out and like lots of others, we turned round and walked towards where we thought the incident had happened. A couple of guys coming back the other way said to us, " It's nothing. A cop just shot a black guy coming out of a window." Doh!! As if nothing had happened. Unbelievable.
We got back to the hotel and headed for the bar where there were sounds of music. It was quite crowded and there were lots of English accents. It was the Blockheads, Ian Drury's band, who had taken over the house band's piano, bass and drums, added a guitar and some percussion and I seem to remember a sax at some point, and they were playing some really funky stuff. Apparently, Ian was staying in a different hotel with his lady, a smarter place, but the lads were having a great time here. We were mainly drinking Tequila Sunrises, the local favourite which is a nice long drink and goes well with the temperature.
The next day, after a late breakfast at the hotel diner, nothing much for me, toast and jam and a large coffee or two, Dave appeared and suggested we went to Disneyland, about 10 miles away down the freeway. On the way, we stopped off at a VD Clinic because Dave wanted to check he was free of any nasties (this was before AIDS so nothing was that nasty). This was mainly because his wife, Sylvie was flying in to join him in a few days time. He suggested I did the same but my wife wasn't arriving so I figured I'd leave that till the tour was actually over. When he said that they put something down inside your dick I thought, no that is not for me: I'll take my chances.
We hadn't realised it was Easter weekend or some sort of public holiday and the highways were really rammed, in spite of being about a dozen lanes wide. And then when we got to Disneyland, the queues were horrific, as were the entry prices, and it was boiling hot with no shade anywhere so we decided to give it a miss and go to a famous music store where Dave tried a couple of guitars, I watched a black guy playing some marvellous stuff and I tried yet again to get Dave interested in my lack of effects pedals. He just nodded and said that we must but did nothing.
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| The group DETECTIVE.....pretty poor. |
I recently bumped into a recording of one of our gigs in LA at The Starwood, a mob owned club which held 800 and later in 78 became perhaps the biggest Punk club in LA. It's the first time I have listened to a whole gig with Hawkwind in which I was playing (outside of Sonic Assassins). I was immediately struck by the fact that the missing effects were clear right from the start where I would have used phasing on the 'violin' solo on the first number, and from then on. I think some people, particularly Bob Calvert and Dennis the sound engineer, expected me to reproduce the sounds on the original recordings, particularly as the new synth was state of the art, was polyphonic and had 4 memories for created sounds. But in fact, the pre-set sounds were very poor and 4 memories is a drop in the ocean, particularly when playing with a band like Hawkwind. I also noticed that Dennis, if he didn't like the sound I had found would sometimes drop me out of the mix altogether. Anyhow you can give it a listen at https://youtu.be/KsFHrcljxp4
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| Nic Guilder - good backing band |
We were playing 4 nights here in The Starwood with an opening act, British/Canadian, Nic Guilder, who I found to be quite good and had a big hit with his song 'Hot Child In The City' that year, and top of the bill, Detective, an Anglo-American band with Tony Kaye of YES on keyboards. They were managed by the KISS management and great things were expected of them but they were pretty tedious and disbanded after a couple of years. I'm pleased to say that we pretty much blew them off the stage each night.
But I am jumping ahead. That night it was back to the Rainbow with Simon and Adrian where I found my way upstairs to the night club full of dancing people, lots of beautiful women and that is one thing California has a lot of. But as we will discover in the next chapter, most of them were Space Cadets. And if you don't know what I mean you will find out in the next chapter.
TO BE CONTINUED. Next time......Space Rock and Space Cadets.
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