- Audio CD (31 Dec 1993)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Bgo
- ASIN: B0000011L7
- Other Editions: Audio CD | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 100,579 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Product details |
Track Listings
| 1. Franz JosephStrauss, Defence Minister, Reviews The Luftwaffe In 1958. Finding It Somewhat Lacking... |
| 2. The Aerospaceage Inferno |
| 3. Aircraft Salesman (A Door In The Foot) |
| 4. The Widow Maker |
| 5. Two Test Pilots Discuss The Starfighter's Performance |
| 6. The Right Stuff |
| 7. Board Meeting (SeenThrough A Contract Lense) |
| 8. The Song Of The Gremlin (Part One) |
| 9. Ground Crew (Last Minute Reassembly Before Take Off) |
| 10. Hero With A Wing |
| 11. Ground Control To Pilot |
| 12. Ejection |
| 13. Interview |
| 14. I Resign |
| 15. The Song Of The Gremlin (Part Two) |
| 16. Bier Garten |
| 17. Catch A Falling Starfighter |
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slapdash snapshot of an album from much missed visionary,
By A Customer
This review is from: Captain Lockheed & The Starfighters (Audio CD)
Firstly - it's most of Hawkwind playing on the album for chrissakes 'cos they were the only 'musicians' (and I use the term cautiously) that Bob knew. Also Bob considered Hawkwind's effects laden techno-space rock to be the perfect backing for the album's lyrical themes which, as many have noted, were Bob's only real concern often telling session men to play whatever they wanted so long as it didn't detract from the written material. Secondly - since when was musicianship a concern for Hawkwind's friends and relations? Hawkwind were a proto punk group (and favourite of Johnny Rotten!) where the ideas mattered much more than the music and it's the same if not more so with Bob - this doesn't mean these aren't great tracks - 'Widowmaker' and 'The Right Stuff' are corkers, the latter still appearing in Hawkwind's live set from time to time. It's a great, funny, intelligent classic rock album from a man who was variously a novelist, a recognised and award winning poet, a great theatrical performer and a visionary - prefiguring the politics and sensibilities of punk and predicting things like the internet in 1973!! Bob - like another of the album's featured performers - the late great Viv Stanshall (ex-Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band), was above all a great English Eccentric and it is particularly lamentable that rock and pop seem to throw up so few mavericks these days. As ex-Hawkwind compatriot Lemmy said on Bob's demise 'I loved Bob - he was the only person I knew who was madder than me...' So take off your Brian Appleton amateur musicologist head, sit back and enjoy a rip-roaring, self-contained masterpiece of Vaudevillian rock & roll theatre from a time when rock was intelligent, dangerous and seemed genuinely filled with infinite possibilities. Think we'll be discussing the relative merits of S Club 7 albums in 20 years? Ahem...I think not.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
witty heavy rock,
By A Customer
This review is from: Captain Lockheed & The Starfighters (Audio CD)
This record is what they used to call a "concept album" in that it is a series of themes linked by dialogue. The subject is highly unusual and yet it all works together very nicely which is more than you can say about some other concept albums.I saw Bob Calvert when he was with Hawkwind and he was one of the unique english eccentrics in rock in terms of his lyrical ideas and performances. Too subtle for the thrashing racket that Hawkwind used to put out. Some of their best albums are those which feature RC. The later ones lack his imagination and originality not to mention his humour. Sadly Robert is no longer with us - like one of the star turns on this album, Viv Stanshall, we have been robbed of their talents by premature departure for the next world. Some people burn twice as brightly for half as long I suppose. Anyway, this LP will have you in stitches (or at least grinning) in between enjoying some well delivered, well arranged rock songs. In a way I doubt that anyone but RC and his cronies could have carried this off. It deals with the post-war Luftwaffe and how they were conned into buying a supersonic jet which really wasn't quite up to what they wanted to do with it - reassert their pride. As a result, they experienced a lot of mishaps with what could only be described as a "hot ship" - it lands at well over a hundred miles an hour. But their accident rate was not unique nor the highest, they had a lot because they bought a lot of planes. Getting to grips with such a machine taxed the best airforces of the world (because a lot of people bought them) and they lost a lot of good pilots too. So buy this album (pity there aren't some extracts to listen to) listen to it in a darkened room with the stereo up really loud. Laugh along with the mad mechanics as they discuss how to mend a broken plane (and don't) or overhear a greenhorn jet jock countdown to take-off as he pops pills to calm his nerves... I could go on and on. It's unique, It's inspired. It's brilliant - buy it, for Bob's sake!
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bob Calvert Satire, Lemmy driven Rock!,
By tim@buckley.cx (Manchester, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Captain Lockheed & The Starfighters (Audio CD)
Captain Lockheed is, on one level, an excellent heavy rock album steeped in Hawkwind roots. On the other hand its also sharp satire in short scenes and commentary on the background to the Lockheed Starfighter. The album is based on the premise that the "Widowmakers" with their flawed design and a constantly changing instruction manual, were more of a danger to the pilots flying them than the enemy. "The play is a comical tragedy - it's a good way to put across a heavy idea, although 159 crashed jets is no joke."
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