Joe Banks
@joebankswriter.bsky.social
'Hawkwind: Days Of The Underground' - a MOJO, Uncut, Prog & Shindig book of the year. Visit www.daysoftheunderground.com.
'Rock And Role: The Visionary Songs Of Peter Hammill + VdGG' out 04/12/25. Pre-order: https://kingmakerpublishing.com/rock-and-role/
'Rock And Role: The Visionary Songs Of Peter Hammill + VdGG' out 04/12/25. Pre-order: https://kingmakerpublishing.com/rock-and-role/
Excited to hear that people are starting to get the book. Here's a picture of one delivered with all due care and attention...
November 27, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Excited to hear that people are starting to get the book. Here's a picture of one delivered with all due care and attention...
Saw Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos' remake of the pleasingly crackers Save The Blue Planet! Very enjoyable, looks and sounds brilliant, and Emma Stone delivers a coolly ambiguous performance - but still not sure whether the whole film is just one black joke or if it has anything 'serious' to say...
November 27, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Saw Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos' remake of the pleasingly crackers Save The Blue Planet! Very enjoyable, looks and sounds brilliant, and Emma Stone delivers a coolly ambiguous performance - but still not sure whether the whole film is just one black joke or if it has anything 'serious' to say...
Sad to hear that Andrew Lauder has died. Such an important figure in the British music industry. He signed/released many fantastic bands: Hawkwind, High Tide, Can, Amon Duul II, Dr Feelgood, Buzzcocks, Stranglers etc. And he gave me a great interview for Days Of The Underground.
November 26, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Sad to hear that Andrew Lauder has died. Such an important figure in the British music industry. He signed/released many fantastic bands: Hawkwind, High Tide, Can, Amon Duul II, Dr Feelgood, Buzzcocks, Stranglers etc. And he gave me a great interview for Days Of The Underground.
OK, this is starting to get a bit spooky now - apparently the phones are still down between Athens and Crouch End, so my chat on Greece's Channel 1 will have to wait again for another day...
November 25, 2025 at 5:38 PM
OK, this is starting to get a bit spooky now - apparently the phones are still down between Athens and Crouch End, so my chat on Greece's Channel 1 will have to wait again for another day...
I was at Burning Shed yesterday signing 400 pre-order copies of the book😉Thanks to everybody who got in early. It was amazing to finally get my hands on the physical result of all those months of researching and writing. I think it looks fantastic, and it weighs a blummin' ton (1.5kg to be precise)!
November 25, 2025 at 12:16 PM
I was at Burning Shed yesterday signing 400 pre-order copies of the book😉Thanks to everybody who got in early. It was amazing to finally get my hands on the physical result of all those months of researching and writing. I think it looks fantastic, and it weighs a blummin' ton (1.5kg to be precise)!
If this style/story sounds a little familiar, then yes, I too had some trouble believing that Douglas Adams hadn't just ripped it off wholesale for HHGG, but apparently not. Yet the final paragraph of Chris Priest's Sheckley obit for The Guardian says it all:
www.theguardian.com/news/2005/de... 3/3
www.theguardian.com/news/2005/de... 3/3
November 21, 2025 at 3:34 PM
If this style/story sounds a little familiar, then yes, I too had some trouble believing that Douglas Adams hadn't just ripped it off wholesale for HHGG, but apparently not. Yet the final paragraph of Chris Priest's Sheckley obit for The Guardian says it all:
www.theguardian.com/news/2005/de... 3/3
www.theguardian.com/news/2005/de... 3/3
With Sheckley happy to entertain whatever amusing idea or scenario comes into his head from chapter to chapter. It's occasionally a bit smart-alecky, but often very funny, with demi-gods and planet makers alike revealed as insecure narcissists, while reality itself is entirely malleable 2/3
November 21, 2025 at 3:34 PM
With Sheckley happy to entertain whatever amusing idea or scenario comes into his head from chapter to chapter. It's occasionally a bit smart-alecky, but often very funny, with demi-gods and planet makers alike revealed as insecure narcissists, while reality itself is entirely malleable 2/3
Back on my slow tour of classic SF with Robert Sheckley's Dimension Of Miracles (1968). It's an absurdist, space-hopping romp about a man who accidentally wins a galactic lottery, with its talking, sentient prize just one of the plot's MacGuffins, as the book is more a series of comic episodes 1/3
November 21, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Back on my slow tour of classic SF with Robert Sheckley's Dimension Of Miracles (1968). It's an absurdist, space-hopping romp about a man who accidentally wins a galactic lottery, with its talking, sentient prize just one of the plot's MacGuffins, as the book is more a series of comic episodes 1/3
Saw Sleeper last night @tpfilmclub.bsky.social. It's one of those films that's not as funny as when you saw it as a teenager, and Woody Allen's charms have diminished substantially, but spotting the SF film refs is diverting - lots from THX 1138, but also Fahrenheit 451 and 2001...
November 12, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Saw Sleeper last night @tpfilmclub.bsky.social. It's one of those films that's not as funny as when you saw it as a teenager, and Woody Allen's charms have diminished substantially, but spotting the SF film refs is diverting - lots from THX 1138, but also Fahrenheit 451 and 2001...
I don't really follow modern literary fiction at all, but I was pleased to see David Szalay win the Booker Prize last night with his novel 'Flesh'. I haven't read it, but his 2008 debut 'London And The South-East' is a terrifically funny/dark satire which I highly recommend...
November 11, 2025 at 12:38 PM
I don't really follow modern literary fiction at all, but I was pleased to see David Szalay win the Booker Prize last night with his novel 'Flesh'. I haven't read it, but his 2008 debut 'London And The South-East' is a terrifically funny/dark satire which I highly recommend...
How did Hawkwind get their name? The official line from 1972... (Melody Maker, 5 Feb 72) @breakfastruins.bsky.social
November 10, 2025 at 10:07 AM
How did Hawkwind get their name? The official line from 1972... (Melody Maker, 5 Feb 72) @breakfastruins.bsky.social
Whoop, the first review of Rock and Role: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator is here, and it's a cracker from @mikebarnesjourno.bsky.social in MOJO...
November 8, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Whoop, the first review of Rock and Role: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator is here, and it's a cracker from @mikebarnesjourno.bsky.social in MOJO...
Happy birthday, Peter Hammill (pic by Paul Denby)
November 5, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Happy birthday, Peter Hammill (pic by Paul Denby)
Hooray, have been looking for an image of this Hawkwind piece for a while, from short-lived monthly inky Album Tracking. Chas de Whalley was your typical 70s hack, but Calvert is more than a match for him. Don't think I've seen this version of the Atomhenge promo pics before...
November 4, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Hooray, have been looking for an image of this Hawkwind piece for a while, from short-lived monthly inky Album Tracking. Chas de Whalley was your typical 70s hack, but Calvert is more than a match for him. Don't think I've seen this version of the Atomhenge promo pics before...
A couple of amazing pictures from Theo Joosten showing the fall of the wall at the Isle Of Wight festival 1970. More here: www.facebook.com/groups/stone...
November 3, 2025 at 10:34 AM
A couple of amazing pictures from Theo Joosten showing the fall of the wall at the Isle Of Wight festival 1970. More here: www.facebook.com/groups/stone...
Clip from NME's 'What's On' guide, 23 Sept 1972, featuring proto-metal heroes Bodkin and Iron Claw, alluding to both bands' lack of success in securing industry attention. But they finally had their day during the archival recordings boom of the 90s/00s... 1/2
October 31, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Clip from NME's 'What's On' guide, 23 Sept 1972, featuring proto-metal heroes Bodkin and Iron Claw, alluding to both bands' lack of success in securing industry attention. But they finally had their day during the archival recordings boom of the 90s/00s... 1/2
The days of the underground clearly hadn't reached Hitchin according to this piece on Principal Edward's Magic Theatre from Zigzag, Nov 1969. Hawkwind's dancer Stacia was a big fan of PEMT and you can see the influence from the picture...
October 30, 2025 at 5:56 PM
The days of the underground clearly hadn't reached Hitchin according to this piece on Principal Edward's Magic Theatre from Zigzag, Nov 1969. Hawkwind's dancer Stacia was a big fan of PEMT and you can see the influence from the picture...
Hawkwind interview from Music Scene, December 1972, with some terrific pictures by Pennie Smith...
October 30, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Hawkwind interview from Music Scene, December 1972, with some terrific pictures by Pennie Smith...
Sad news. Pete drew this terrific pic of Michael Moorcock, as featured in Hawkwind: Days Of The Underground @breakfastruins.bsky.social
October 30, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Sad news. Pete drew this terrific pic of Michael Moorcock, as featured in Hawkwind: Days Of The Underground @breakfastruins.bsky.social
Now exiled to Iceland and Ireland, and brutally reactionary. The SF element is fairly perfunctory, in what's basically a slight but entertaining ripping yarn. Kornbluth is perhaps best known for The Space Merchants (with Frederik Pohl), but while there's some zingy writing, this is a lesser work 3/3
October 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Now exiled to Iceland and Ireland, and brutally reactionary. The SF element is fairly perfunctory, in what's basically a slight but entertaining ripping yarn. Kornbluth is perhaps best known for The Space Merchants (with Frederik Pohl), but while there's some zingy writing, this is a lesser work 3/3
With taxation replaced by 'protection' money, though serving essentially the same purpose, and the Syndic of the title overseeing a sexually permissive, laissez-faire society. But following a series of assassinations, the plot revolves around a naive but capable hero infiltrating the ex-US govt 2/3
October 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM
With taxation replaced by 'protection' money, though serving essentially the same purpose, and the Syndic of the title overseeing a sexually permissive, laissez-faire society. But following a series of assassinations, the plot revolves around a naive but capable hero infiltrating the ex-US govt 2/3
Latest entry on my slow tour of classic SF is a bit of an oddity, C.M. Kornbluth's The Syndic (1953). It's an alt future vision of America where big government has been ousted by organised crime syndicates as the glue holding the country together. There's clearly an element of satire here... 1/3
October 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Latest entry on my slow tour of classic SF is a bit of an oddity, C.M. Kornbluth's The Syndic (1953). It's an alt future vision of America where big government has been ousted by organised crime syndicates as the glue holding the country together. There's clearly an element of satire here... 1/3
Re-watched The Thing last night @princecharlescinema.com. What a strange and extraordinary film it is, a nihilistic gauntlet throw in the age of ET, which utterly refuses to conform to traditional Hollywood storytelling. And those effects are still something else...
October 20, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Re-watched The Thing last night @princecharlescinema.com. What a strange and extraordinary film it is, a nihilistic gauntlet throw in the age of ET, which utterly refuses to conform to traditional Hollywood storytelling. And those effects are still something else...
Just popped up on the Sounds FB group, Alan Moore's priceless interview with Hawkwind from Nov 1982, inc Dave Brock being kicked out of RCA's offices... (and yes, it's *that* Alan Moore)
October 19, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Just popped up on the Sounds FB group, Alan Moore's priceless interview with Hawkwind from Nov 1982, inc Dave Brock being kicked out of RCA's offices... (and yes, it's *that* Alan Moore)