BRING ME THE HEAD OF YURI GAGARIN

The worst live Hawkwind album in the universe NOT an official release. Recorded at Wembley, yes they were that big, the sound is awful. the only reason for geting this is to hear the Calvert poems Gaga, The Egg and Wage War

You know, if you type "Bring me the Head of Uri Gagarin" into Google, you'll find an awful lot of bad press about it. It was way down on my 'should probably take a few minutes to listen to' list. Perhaps thats why, when I finally sat down and listened to it I didn't think it was that bad - low expectations. I was expecting to hear Dave Brock singing through a twenty foot thick blancmange, feedback swirling up the ying and oversized drums being hit by sofa cushions blatting out everything. Its rough, I'll admit it, the sound is pretty ropey, but its not unlistenable and the lineup and track list is pretty special. Probably for collectors only - if this had been the first Hawkwind album I heard I'd have been a very different person today...

Erm, what is this recording? I have the complete gig sourced from this album ,and another audience recorder, but I feel that both sources are audience recordings. The Gagarin album is made from a random tape of really cruddily mixed performance, maybe a soundboard (thinks, high vocals, low instruments, lower drums). Really not worth anything special. Don't think you are getting a rare alternative to Space Ritual either. Get Space RItual V2 and be amazed at the fact that Nik Turner is actually a compitent musician, who can play the sax and flute coherently. This is a terrible album though, really not worth shelling out any money for. Don't get it. Ok, do get it, but be glad I told you first. I read reviews that slated it and still got it... hey...

I bought this back in the nineties when a lot of unreleased Hawkwind was being issued and there was nothing to warn me about the bootleg quality of the recording. I thought the cover was pretty cool unfortunately they chose such a mediocre album for it. The only thing of interest here, perhaps for the hard core fan of the early seventies Hawkwind is the Rob Calvert poetry recital on the first two tracks which is more or less understandable given the fact the whole album sounds like it was recorded on an old 4 track located the men`s room. Actually, it would be cool just to hear Calvert doing a whole show like this. However before writing this off consider the classic lineup and track selection . I`ve listened to it right through a few times and there are some good alternate versions of songs which appeared on Space Ritual as well as live versions of Urban Guerrila and Silver Machine. But my overall recomendation is to stick to the Space Ritual Live album unless you absolutely absolutely have to own everything and anything Hawkwind has ever recorded.

I was not sure if this is an official release, but it surely is in all aspects done on very poor bootleg quality. I bought it only on basis of its weird name and really nice home-drawn fantasy-themed cover picture (not the one being presented on ProgArchives album page). The audio quality of the record was a big disappointment, and I admit the album has not offered much listening enjoyments, only residing as strange artifact in the record collection. The audio recording levels have been too big for the loud noise of the concert, and sometimes it is quite difficult to hear what is going on at the stage. What's interesting about the show captured here is the big amount of Robert Calvert's poems backed up with sonic ambience by the band. But for example when "Orgone Accumulator" kicked in, it took me over a minute to comprehend that the formless static fuzz was actually a song with a rhythm. So if you want decent live of this band from the 1970's, stick to the "Space Ritual" classic or some other release. If you are a die-hard collector, you may want to check this out, but don't expect very much from its quality. Quite funnily obscure album though.

Space Rock overlords Hawkwind present yet another live album. "Bring me the Head of Uri Gagarin" is almost universally condemned due to incredibly distorted production and an echoed sound that may have been recorded off a fan's tape deck that he sneaked into the stadium. We are talking about an incredible concert though set in Wembley when Hawkwind were colossal and not just some cult band for a bunch of stoned hippies.

The sound is appalling on this release though you can still hear what Brock is singing about, mind you these songs are part of my DNA so I know them anyway. I have to agree with other reviewers that this release is perhaps best left alone. It is a part of some archival material with bootleg quality and not really worthy of a mainstream release. The main drawcards are perhaps Bob Calvert's delirious rendition of 'In The Egg' that is hilarious and parts and disturbing in others; a genuine acid laced speech if ever there was one. The rest of the material is the usual fair, Masters is here, Orgone and Sonic Attack, but none hold a candle to the versions on the brilliant "Space Ritual" gem. They are fuzzy and screechy and sounds drop out, a real tragedy given how great these songs sound usually.

Another point to consider is the album features a new live version of 'Silver Machine' that is quite interesting as is 'Urban Geurilla', however after a few listens the sound is nauseatingly dreadful and one will long for a cleaner sound that is found on most other Hawkwind live albums.

You have been warned but do not panic? do not panic? think only for yourself.