This is Nik Turner, speaking for everyone involved, and I wish to apologise most humbly to all concerned for the cancellation of what was going to be an epic Barney Bubbles Memorial Concert, which was scheduled as an all-day 'Sunday Implosion' happening at The Roundhouse, London on June 7th, and was to feature The Hawklords performing the original 'Hawkwind - Space Ritual' (both the Hawklords, and Space Ritual shows were designed by Barney) along with Amon Duul 2, Quintessence and others.

This event was cancelled, not once, but twice.

The first scheduled event on March 8th, 2009 was cancelled when I damaged my back, whilst recklessly chain-sawing some large heavy logs. I'm better now, and have learnt my lesson!

The second, re-scheduled event on June 7th, 2009 has now been cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control.

Because of the rescheduling, many necessary artists and performers were not available, owing to their own commitments, and consequently the whole concept would have worked out extremely unsatisfactorily for all concerned. All ticket holders are being re-imbursed.

Despite all these setbacks, we are currently working on putting together another Hawklords gig (seriously! Really! Look into my eyes!) as soon as is humanly possible. The legendary, unrehearsed 'Hernia Bay' show proves that we really should continue to play with that punky, space-rocking-spontaneous madness that epitomises the original spirit of The Hawks . This one will be promoted by us, and will be completely under the band's own control, featuring all the major players, spacey visuals and divinely decadent dancers, as well as some spacetastic surprises.

Please do not lose heart, and continue to 'space this watch'.

Following the now legendary 'Hernia Bay' tribute/memorial gig dedicated to Robert Calvert in September 2008, The Hawklords have reformed to headline an all-day Implosion dedicated to the memory of the late, great and visionary designer Barney Bubbles. The show will recreate his designs for the original Space Ritual show, which were never actually used. This performance is also dedicated to the memory of the brilliant Bob Calvert.

'Pythagoran music of the spheres: a spaceship powered by the audience, for the audience.'

The original date was postponed due to Hawkwind co-founder Nik Turner having an accident. He's now fully recovered. Nik thanks the many people who sent their best wishes... from the heart of his bottom.

The re-scheduled show will be an awesome audio-visual, multi-media spectacular, featuring a classic line-up featuring the cream of ex-Hawklords/Hawkwind members. That's Nik Turner, Harvey Bainbridge, Terry Ollis, Steve Swindells, Jerry Richards, Ron Tree, Martin Griffin, Alan Davey and Ade Shaw. The band will be ably assisted by stunning visuals from Liquid Len And The Lensmen , deliciously dramatic dancing from The Bubblettes, and support acts including Amon Dull 2, Quintessence , The Brian James Gang and Tracy Curtis.

There will also be a performance of Calvert's play 'The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice' by The Pentameters Theatre Company, heavy metal installations by The Mutoid Waste Company and the legendary Andy Dunkley (the living jukebox) on the veritable wheels of steel.

The reformed Hawklords have only been in existence on myspace for a few months and have already gained over 20,000 hits, nearly 15,000 plays and over 1,000 friends. They say: 'Thanks for the love and support everybody - and hope to see y'all @ The Roundhouse on June 7th'.

Tickets are available at: http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/productions/hawklords-2925

http://www.hawklords.com
http://www.myspace.com/hawklordsinmyspace
Media enquiries: hello@hawklords.com

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Talking about the Barney Bubbles Memorial Benefit Event at the 229 Club, and Barney, my inspiration, collaborator and friend.

In September last year I was involved in organising a memorial benefit concert for Robert Calvert in Herne Bay, to celebrate Robert's life and his creative work. Featured was a band comprising of people who had worked with Robert, Steve Swindells, Martin Griffin, Harvey Bainbridge (basically the original Hawklords), plus myself (the 'Mighty Thunder Rider' of the original 'Time of the Hawklords' book), and Adrian Shaw, Jerry Richards, Alan Davey, Ron Tree, the lovely Miss Angel,and guest appearance by Commander Jim Hawkman. Also included at the event were two of Robert's plays, 'Cattle at Twilight' and 'Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice' performed by Pentameter Players), and a performance by Krankschaft. The event was used to raise some money for Robert's wife, Jill Calvert, and was an unqualified success.

Then, a 'Sunday Implosion Concert', at the Roundhouse, was mooted, which I was involved in organising, featuring the now 'Hawklords' '09, performing the original Hawkwind 'Space Ritual', as performed in 1973, but the 2009 version. Barney Bubbles had devised and designed the '73 Space Ritual stage show and presentation, with Robert, who had conceived the idea. The Space Ritual '09 would be inspired by Barney's original concept, where the stage and the band were the space ship, and the audience were what powered it to other worlds and dimensions, and incorporating Barney's use of the Pythagorean Music of the Spheres, where a chord stretches across the cosmos, from base matter at one end, to pure spirit at the other, and revolving upon it are the planets of the Solar System, each producing it's own tone as it hurtled through space, and thus producing the basis for the western scale. Also incorporated would be astrological signs, ruling planets, and corresponding colours of members of the band, for use in the light-show, The Liquid Len And The Lensmen inspired Lightshow Pattern, as it was in the original '73 version, and featuring the New Bubblettes Dance Entity.

Barney had also designed the stage presentation around Robert's concept for the original 'Hawklords' show, and had also designed the stage set for Robert's play, 'The Stars that Play with Laughing Sam's Dice', as well as artwerx for Quintessence, and The Brian James Gang, all of whom were on the bill. Amon Duul and D.J. Jeff Dexter were also to be featured. A book had been recently put together about Barney and his fantastic artwerx, called 'Reasons to be Cheerful' by Paul Gorman, and I thought that it would be a great idea to make the Roundhouse Concert into a Memorial Concert for Barney, to celebrate and highlight Barney's life and wonderful creative werkz, and bring him to the attention of a wider public. He is an unsung hero of the visual arts and media, inspiring many current young cutting edge artists with his work, many of whom have been unaware of who he was.

To cut a long story short, the Round house event, sadly, was ultimately cancelled, so i thought it would be a good idea not to let Barney down, and to promote the event myself, as The Barney Bubbles Memorial Benefit Event, at a rather smaller venue, and try to incorporate within it more things relevant to Barney, projects of his, some of which I had been involved in with him: so i managed to book the 229 club, G't Portland St., London W1, on Nov 29, 09, 2-10.00 p.m., and featuring the Hawklords performing the Space Ritual'73, Quintessence, the Brian james Gang, and Robert's 'Stars That Play', but also Inner City Unit, The Imperial Pompadours, Gerry Fitzgerald/Lol Coxhill's Fre-ex, my mate Trikimiki's 3-D Space Warp, inspired by Barney, and Barney's old mate Jeff Dexter, D.J.ing, and adjusting the price of tickets accordingly. The idea also arose of trying to organise an annual Barney Bubbles Album Cover Design Award, rather akin to the annual Mojo Music Awards, and possibly have a Blue Memorial Plaque to Barney, placed somewhere relevant.

I first met Barney, through Robert, in the early days of Hawkwind, and we struck a chord in each other. I used to sleep on his floor quite regularly, and we had inspiring times together. He came to a Hawkwind gig and was awestruck. My vision of the Spirit within the band embodied a lot of concepts and ideals that Barney related to, and he was happy to put his creative energy into it, designing the 'Peace and Love' poster, and then the 'Xin Search of Space' album cover, log-book, and concept. and later the 'Space Ritual' album cover and stage concept. He painted my motorcycle
jacket, naming me 'The Thunder Rider', and went on to design the extraordinary Hawkwind album covers for, 'Doremi Farsol Latido', 'Hall of the Mountain Grill' and 'Astounding Sounds Amazing Music'. When I left Hawkwind and went to Egypt, partly inspired by our common interest in Egyptology and Ancient Civilizations, and recorded flute music inside the Kings Chamber of the Great Pyramid, and turned it into an album, Barney offered to design the album cover, named 'Nik Turner's Sphynx - Xitintoday', on condition that he could design it as concrete poetry/art, and use it in his exhibition, and that he could choreograph the stage show, which he did, at the Roundhouse for the free all-day concert which he and i put together, as 'Nik Turner's Bohemian Love-in'. At that time Barney was involved with Stiff Records.

After touring free festivals with my Egyptian-esqe show, with my pyramid stage, I formed another band of high energy punk cabaret comic strip music, with Barney's help, and which he named 'Inner City Unit' (he got the name from the Islington Council Community Organisation). Barney was given some studio time by Nick Lowe, with whom he worked, in his capacity as art director at Stiff Recordsin Nick's U.K. Pro Studio, and Barney gave this time to me to make a single with Inner City Unit. Trying never to miss a trick, I used the time to record the album, 'Pass Out'. Barney of course named and designed the album cover, doing part of it by throwing the photographs in the air, and using them wherever they landed, and randomly spraying ink on the cover. Wonderful stuff. I put this out on my own record label, Riddle Records (you know, Sphynx, like!!?). I later made another 2 albums with Inner City Unit, Barney-titled and cover-designed - 'Maximum Effect', and then 'Punkedelic'. During this time Barney asked me to work on an album project with him, which became 'the 'Imperial Pompadours - Ersatz'. One side was whacky impressionist (we only heard the songs long enough to cop the lyrics) expressionist rock and roll (Barney designed and produced it like visuals), and the other side was expressionist/costructivist political comment about King Ludwig of Bavaria [King Louis, the dream king], Hitler, Wagner, and the woman in all their lives, all completely wild, whacky, and off the wall, the lost psychedelic album.

During all this time I lived with Barney off and on, in various studios and houses, whilst he worked with Stiff Records, and then F-Beat Records. We always had wonderful times together, full of inspiration and creativety, weird, wild and whacky. He was a great fan of object trouve, and had agreat sense of humour, and I feel a debt to him for all his help and inspiration over the years. It is therefore both a privilege and an honour to be part of this memorable Memorial Concert in honour of the great talent, artist, creative genius and man, my awesome friend, Mr.Barney Bubbles. Barney we love you and miss you, my brother.

MESSAGE ENDS