Hawkwind’s Space Ritual

Do Not Panic

Hawkwind is not a band I play often. It’s music that takes no prisoners. You have to be in the right mood. Er.. the right space. But when you are…
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It was on my seventeenth birthday, I broke my space rock virginity by going to the record department of Newbury‘s WH Smith to buy their mighty Space Ritual live album. It doesn’t come any better. I then went to the supermarket and bought a bottle of whisky. I know, something more psychedelic would have been more appropriate. More esoteric. But at that age you get what you can and be grateful. Not many peyote buttons in Sainsbury’s at the time.

I went home, strapped myself in and took off with a metallic heavy whoosh. A few hours later I was crashed out on the sofa in my girlfriend’s flat in a godsaken village outside of all known civilisation – somewhere in space.

I needed water. Nicolas Parsons had died in my mouth and was decomposing at an alarming rate. Probably because he always had been an alien. I staggered to my feet just as my consciousness caught up with my self propulsion. Something was horribly wrong. What was it? I was bathed in blackness. And it wasn’t just because it was night and the lights were out. This dark was more profound. Much more. I was fucking blind. Totally. I felt my way to the kitchen, crashing into things…