If the 1960s in Britain was a time of increasing prosperity and optimism, the 1970s was one of confusion and crisis, the decade that gave us the “Three Day Week”, the “State Of Emergency” and the “Winter Of Discontent”. The post-war dream of social and economic re-development had collided head-on with political inertia and industrial unrest, with the country now constantly on the brink of chaos. Threats to humanity’s very survival also loomed on all sides: the oil crisis, international terrorism, pollution, the population bomb, and the ever-present prospect of nuclear war. It felt like the world was spinning out of control, with fear and conspiracy dominating popular culture. After the Age of Aquarius had come the Age of Paranoia…

Hawkwind were a band made for these times. While most artists peddled rock & roll banalities or were too wrapped up in their own self-importance, Hawkwind connected with the world at ground level. The dark, dangerous noise they made reflected the turbulence of the age back at their audience, ‘sonic attack’ as a form of self-defence against a messed up straight world. Anti-establishment to the core, Hawkwind delivered a unique brand of ‘radical escapism’ to society’s disillusioned and disenfranchised.

***

In terms of dogma or ideology, Hawkwind never claimed to be political. Yet Hawkwind clearly were political through their proactive opposition to the mainstream, with their commitment to playing innumerable benefit concerts making them standard bearers for the alternative society. And who else was releasing singles like “Urban Guerilla” and “The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke)” – sample lyrics: “I’m society’s destructor, I’m a petrol bomb constructor” and “Sick of politicians, harassment and laws”?

They refused to pander to traditional rock music narratives of finding solace in love or boasting about sexual prowess. And at a time when instrumental mastery was viewed as a prerequisite for success, their lack of interest in virtuosity, and the inclusion of ‘non-musicians’ in the band, was deeply provocative to the status quo.

Yet the truly oppositional statement that Hawkwind made was the music itself: unruly and hypnotic, it was unlike anything else being made in Britain at that time, a point which can’t be emphasised enough. Hawkwind created a unique strain of existential protest music that eschewed direct engagement with ‘issues’, but channelled the queasy atmosphere of paranoia and anxiety that loomed like a black cloud over the 70s.

More than any other band, attendance at a Hawkwind gig is synonymous with “getting out of it” and “taking a trip”. But it’s a journey that feeds on the darkness outside the concert hall rather than the Aquarian impulses of just a few years previous. Hawkwind’s shows are fired by an apocalyptic urgency that reflects both a disgust at the state of the world and a determination to leave it behind as soon as possible. Their songs criticise the oppressive nature of society, while embracing space as a site of new possibilities. The radical escapism they offer is revelation plus liberation: not just fleeing from the world, but envisaging a new reality as well.

The fact that Hawkwind used the imagery of science fiction and space travel to express their disillusionment with the straight world shouldn’t detract from their message. As the Michael Moorcock-helmed New Worlds magazine was demonstrating, SF was ideally placed in the early 70s to interrogate the new existential and psychological challenges facing the human race. Hawkwind were one of the very few artists of the time who understood how SF could be used to dramatise and critique what was happening in modern society.

***

Hawkwind develop this notion of radical escapism, increasingly expressed in science fictional terms, over the course of their first four albums. Hawkwind still trades in 60s platitudes, urging us to “be yourself” while fatalistically accepting that the new day “may bring war”. But the music itself conveys the message, nagging motifs that worm into the sub-conscious like phantoms lurking behind the façade of polite society, ‘Paranoia’ in particular.

In Search Of Space ups the ante, the shuddering, pulsating groove of a craft achieving escape velocity, its very title a call for physical and psychic freedom from enclosure. “You Shouldn’t Do That” is explicitly anti-authoritarian while “We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago” anticipates our impending doom. And the “Master Of The Universe” makes clear his disappointment with us: “If you call this living, I must be blind.” This first excursion into science fiction proper comes with packaging that’s a tour de force of cosmic mysticism and New Wave SF-derived philosophy.

By Doremi Fasol Latido, Hawkwind have become the definitive SF rock band, with a dense deep-space sound and songs that directly address “this planet’s erosion” (“Brainstorm”) and the Orwellian “brain police” (“Time We Left This World Today”). It’s time to free yourself from your earthly bonds before “The Watcher” issues his stark decree: “This is the end now.”

And then Space Ritual turns radical escapism into galactic psychodrama, with Hawkwind as renegade colonisers, hurtling headlong into the eternal night on a one-way mission to oblivion. The crazed evangelism of “Born To Go” blasts a “new clear way through space”, but by “The Black Corridor”, we’re staring into the void, and the void is staring back…

***

With Britain itself staring into the void, riven by strikes and power cuts, and seemingly on the point of some catastrophic collapse, Hawkwind travelled ceaselessly around the country to bring their show to the huddled masses. A liberation mythology quickly built up around Hawkwind, nurtured by both the band and its audience. For many fans, they were the literal harbingers of a new way of life, “a way out of the maze that held the human race.”

As Andrew Means reported in Melody Maker in August 1972, “There’s a Hawkwind cult now that’s almost as vital to their gigs as the music… Hordes of dedicated teenagers regard them as the revolution personified, and with ‘Silver Machine’ slicing through the chart, some of them must be ticking off the days to the take-over with increasing impatience.”

Hawkwind: Days Of The Underground: Radical Escapism In the Age Of Paranoia by Joe Banks is reviewed by Daniel Spicer in The Wire 439. Subscribers can read that on Exact Editions.