Between now and August the 14 I will be releasing a collection of rarities, poems, curiosity’s and an unreleased song, for free, in order to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. This new material is the work of my father, Robert Calvert, who died 25 years ago this year.

 *** Update 14/08/2003 ***

"Lots of stuff has gone on this Youtube page, including lots of Kid From Silicon Gulch clips

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcz_MdT2bR0hG4J4_OXnGdg?feature=watch

"

 *** Update 14/08/2003 ****

The first thing I've released is a rare interview with Bob and Dave Brock discussing the music industry.

 

Very kindly recorded by Mark Patterson. This is the recording of Robert Calvert and Dave Brock’s “revolutionary chit-chat” on Tommy Vance’s Friday Rock Show, June 18, 1977. In Mark's words "I recorded most of it, only missing Tommy’s endorsement of ‘Quark..’, and reading from the LP liner notes, right at the start. It’s strange hearing it again after all this time. As usual Robert is very perceptive and prescient; recognizing HW as a proto-punk band in the middle of the ‘77 ‘New Wave’ music explosion, and wary of uk talents being diluted in the “backwash of American culture.” Interesting stuff." Many, many thanks to Mark for this.

https://soundcloud.com/nickcalvert/robert-calvert-and-dave-brocks

 

The second is an unreleased demo, the song “The Day of the Quake”, which can be found here:

 

In Keith's words:

 

“An interesting tale how I came upon this. At one time I had the job of going through Dave Brock’s tape archive, digitising and cataloguing along the way. I’d bring the tapes here and run them through a Revox and see what was there. After completing a tape of Dave’s solo stuff, I noticed a splice had broken and left a small amount of tape stuck to the supply reel. I carefully unpicked it, and re-threaded the tape and this is what I found.

 

Quite how it ended up on the reel in the first place I have no idea, and Dave didn't recall it either.”

 

https://soundcloud.com/nickcalvert/robert-calvert-day-of-the-quake

More will follow, hopefully leading up to a gig in August... More information can be found here:

 Update #3 

https://soundcloud.com/nickcalvert/robert-calvert-a-disagreement

A 1978 interview reagrding the formation of the Hawklords. 

 

I cannot thank Mark Patterson enough for this, this is the second of three things he has sent me. In his words:

 

“Right, here we are then, after much furtling and foraging.  Not much info about this recording, I’m afraid, other than it’s a radio interview with Robert from 1978.  It’s interesting as a follow on to the Capital Radio ‘77 ‘Quark..’ related interview, dealing as it does with Robert’s account of how and why Hawkwind morphed into The Hawklords in 1978.  Once again he runs the whole gamut, from tea envy through to an interesting analogy of how a bands dynamics is similar to the sound mixing process.  Nice to hear his ‘peoples band’ sensibilities are still to the fore, too.  I can’t help but chuckle when I hear him describe The Hawklords as less a musical “collective” and more a “management and workers” scenario.  Wonderful.”

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Update #4

 

A new photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickcalvert/9105703789/

A new poem: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickcalvert/9107935250/

 

The audio stuff I have released can be found here:  https://soundcloud.com/nickcalvert

You can donate and find more info here: http://www.justgiving.com/Bob-Calvert

 

I found this photo of Bob last week while picking through our last remaining family album, while on a fleeting visit to check up on my ‘ma. 

It says “1970?” on the back in what looks like my handwriting, but it isn’t, so I can only assume it is Bob’s. He looks like the Johnny Steele bounty hunter from Stephen Herek’s seminal film ‘Critters’; not a man you’d often put in tassels, but I guess at this point in the 70s we were still kind of still in the 60s. It is quite reassuring that I’ve found a photo where my father looks a little bit like me, it’s probably because across the lines of time a space, between 1970 and 2013, we have reached a form of parity in terms of male pattern baldness .

The second thing released as part of this update is an (unfinished\unreleased) poem; I don’t think it appears in any of the published collections or anthologies. I may be wrong here, but I don’t have any personal copies of my own and am using the The Clyvedon Press drafts as a guide. I have a few copies of this poem, I like this one in particular as it shows two or three rapid drafts.

 

After a couple of weeks the total we have raised stands at about 250 quid. I’ve still got two things to eBay, which I should get sorted next week, and I would still like to arrange a gig, I’m working on it. It  would be nice to see the total increase over the next 53 days. 

I am hoping beyond hope that the big thing I can release in July will be the full video of the Kid from Silicon Gulch. I am trying hard. I do not know if this will happen, but I suspect it will. If it does come home and the quality is not appalling I will create a YouTube account especially for this, we can move Ramblings at Dawn there, have perma links to the Just Giving page. I say this not to tease, just to communicate.

What has been amazing is the response to Day of the Quake, fans have had t-shirts printed, Steve is working it into the Kranshaft sets with a kinda Krautrock cover. I’m glad it has been so well received – it’s what he would have wanted. 

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Update #5

Again, given to me by the fabulous Mark Patterson and sonically restored by Keith Kniveton. I can’t thank them enough, both for letting me hear this stuff and for giving me more content to release as part of the project.

A thanks to Hawkind’s Dibs too, who helped put me in touch with Dave Brock – I wanted to ask Dave’s permission to post this on the Soundcloud page, and such permission was swiftly given in the best possible way. Hawkwind family in full effect.

Mark says:

“This recording is from the first night of The Hawklords tour, Oxford New Theatre, 6-10-78.  As far as I can gather, from the gigs I’ve been to, and the recordings I’ve heard, this is Robert’s only live performance of (Only the dead dreams of) The Cold War Kid with Hawkwind/Hawklords.  It doesn’t appear to feature on the rest of the ‘78 tour.   I‘m sure it’s Robert playing guitar here.  He definitely played guitar, alongside Dave, when I saw them at Croydon, ‘78, during ‘Uncle Sam’s on Mars’.”

 

Bob was a terrible camp-fire guitarist, but I think he holds his own here with the chord(s) at his disposal. I personally love this song, I have no idea if this widely circulated as a bootleg, and perhaps others can enlighten me.

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Info:

The Robert Calvert Facebook group, which gave me the idea, maintained by Paul Smith:

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/6479143180/

 

The Wikipedia page with additional links for the curious:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Calvert

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