This is one of my most loved records,a mad Space Rock concept album conceived and written by one time Hawkwind frontman Bob Calvert,and performed by various members of Hawkwind and The Pink Fairies with contributions from Brian Eno, ex Bonzo Vivian Stanshall,Adrian Wagner and the crazy,crazy Arthur Brown.
The basis of the story of Captain Lockheed is the botched sale of a large number of Lockheed F104 Starfighters to Germany.In the German Air Force,Starfighters had an appalling safety record,the second worst in the history of aircraft,loosing more than 200 aircraft with over 100 pilot deaths.Generally this is blamed on several reasons…
Lockheed mis-sold the plane to Germany,the Starfighter was developed as a fair-weather fighter,Germany wanted an aircraft for heavy duty fighter roles including use as an atomic bomber.So Lockheed made some hasty modifications to the design,without proper testing,to push the sale through.
The aircraft itself was very difficult to fly,even for an experienced pilot,it could become unstable at high angles of attack,was over sensitive to control inputs and very unforgiving of pilot error.
Pilot and ground crew training was also an issue,German pilots were trained in the deserts of the US,a very different landscape from that of Germany.Many German ground crew had never worked on a jet aircraft and had to be retrained to do so,unfortunately,quite minimally.
The album itself is a mixture of Hawkwind style driving Space Rock and Monty Pythonesque searingly satirical comic sketches.A sputtering plane engine starts things off as The German Defence Minister,played by Calvert,builds up a rant about remodernising the German Air Force to messianic pitch and then were off into the first of the tunes,Aerospaceage Inferno,this goes directly into perhaps the funniest of the sketches in which a Lockheed salesman clinches the sale by promising to change the name of the aircraft to the F104 G…”G for Germany”.This is followed by The Widow Maker,classic Hawkwind rock.Two test Pilots chatting about the aircrafts’ performance is next up,linked into another classic tune,The Right Stuff.Side one ends with the first of two Arthur Brown vocal contributions,Song Of The Gremlin is a standout track,Brown is like a man possessed as he takes on the character of The Gremlin,ranting over an almost Techno soundtrack.
Side two opens with a hilarious skit involving two aircrew discussing a loose part they have found inside the engine of the aircraft.The folk rock of Hero With A Wing follows as Calvert, perhaps wistfully imagines himself as an Icarus figure,this links into maybe my fave skit,in which Ground Control are talking a pilot through what drugs to take before flying.The Prog/Punk of Ejection follows,with a classic Hawkwind/Brock repeating rhyme scheme.The longest sketch on the album follows,an interview for the post of Starfighter Pilot is blackly twisted into something quite perverse,Arthur Brown’s second contribution is next as he reprises the Gremlin song,then the album is pretty much wound up with a tiny skit..
Sounds of singing,glasses clinking
Voice of German Youth:”Do you want to buy a Starfighter?”
Silence
“Then buy an acre of ground……..and wait”
You can find a rough transcript of the album on Starfarer’s site,it’s interesting to note one of Starfarer’s asides on how he mentioned the album to an RAF officer who had been based in Germany,the RAF guy was well aware of the album,but said it was considered a piss take of their German counterparts and no more than that.The satire was totally wasted on our Forces apparently.
Buy it
