On This Day 26/09/1976 Hawkwind

On this day, 26 September 1976, space rock band Hawkwind played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre. The band had just released their sixth studio album Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music

The title makes references to old science fiction magazines (Astounding and Amazing Stories), the concept being that each piece of music (and its title) would be interpreted as an individual science fiction story. The record cover is a parody of the cover of these magazines, while the inner sleeve carried small ads, with each band member having their own product (e.g. Dr Brock's cure for piles, Paul Rudolph's Manly Strapon, and Simon King's Pleasure Primer). The cover was double-sided, one side illustrated by Calvert's childhood friend Tony Hyde, the other by Barney Bubbles signed as Grove Lane, with initial print-runs having either as the front cover. Bubbles original design was to have been Steppenwolf looming over the city.

This album marked the start of a new era for Hawkwind, having left the management of Douglas Smith for Tony Howard and changed record companies from United Artists Records to Charisma Records. Musically, the dirty heavy metal lead bass guitar playing of Lemmy was replaced by the cleaner, formally trained bass playing of Paul Rudolph. All members of the band were now contributing to the writing and arrangement of the music leading to more width in style, and the recording and production is better defined than previous albums.

On This Day 15/02/1973 Hawkwind

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On this day, 15 February 1973, space rock band Hawkwind played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre.

Formed in 1969 Hawkwind have gone through many incarnations and have incorporated many different styles into their music, including hard rock, progressive rock and psychedelic rock.

They are also regarded as an influential band with theit lyrics favouring urban and science fiction themes.

Hawkwind are best known for the song "Silver Machine which became a number-three UK hit single in 1972, but they scored further hit singles with "Urban Guerrilla, another Top 40 and "Shot Down in the Night.”

The band had a run of twenty-two of their albums charting in the UK from 1971 to 1993.

Hard rock musician Lemmy of the band Motörhead gained a lot from his tenure in Hawkwind. He remarked, "I really found myself as an instrumentalist in Hawkwind. Before that I was just a guitar player who was pretending to be good, when actually I was no good at all. In Hawkwind I became a good bass player. It was where I learned I was good at something."

Members

Dik Mik

Dave Brock

Del Dettmar

Lemmy Kilmister

Simon King

Nik Turner

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On this day 24/07/1976 Status Quo

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On this day, 24 July 1976, rock band Status Quo played Cardiff Castle, headlining a package that included Strawbs, Curved Air, Hawkwind and Welsh rock band Budgie, compered by DJ John Peel.

The concert was part of the group’s Blue For You tour, promoting their Blue For You Album. The band had played two concerts at the City’s Capitol Theatre earlier in the year before returning for their prestigious Cardiff Castle gig.

Blue for You was their ninth studio album and was released in March 1976, and was the band’s last album until 1980's Just Supposin' that they produced themselves, which resulted in subsequent albums having a noticeably lighter, more pop oriented sound.

Rick Parfitt's "Rain", the first single from the album, reached No. 7 in the UK charts after its release in February 1976. Its B-side was the non-album track "You Lost the Love", written by Francis Rossi and Bob Young.

The album was released the following month. It entered the British album chart at No. 1 and stayed there for three weeks, making it one of their most successful long players.

Link to interview - https://youtu.be/rGFTR-1LCMc