Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I think I got the Oxford Blues

Last summer Bob Petric [TJSA] and I were discussing the recent news that Brian May just received a degree in Astrophysics at Oxford I think, which for a guitar god is pretty impressive, don't think Eric Clapton could've done that shit. Ecstatic about the idea we took the role upon ourselves to try to make this thing happen. With a relentless barrage of emails, phone calls, and letters we finally persuaded May and Hawking to at the least rehearse and see what they could cook up in them big brains of theirs. You would think it would sound like some Math Rock shit but it was more like listening to Sergious Golowin on mescaline in a space ship with dirty little aliens doing dirty little things all over your equipment. A Wookie Gang Bang of a time.

The name Hawking and May alone sounds like a fuckin' supergroup, or like a really academic Hall and Oates cover band. May plays the searing guitar leads that drove Queen to the top of the Arena Rock scene all the while the motionless Hawking plays laptop electronics and sings through his vocoder thing. "Hawking is the vehicle in which my guitar tone travels in." May says,"Without Hawking it would just sound like me dicking around in summer home while I was drunk off cough syrup." It really is the best of both worlds in that case, hot licks and cold clicks, if you know what I'm saying. I tried to interview Dr. Hawking about his musical influences and it took weeks for a reply in which he stated, "My music is a singularity that transcends time and space, to quantify it into a specific earthly genre would be a vastly miscalculated scientific error." With that being said move over Hawkwind Space Rocks' got a new name and a new game. I have heard through the catacombs of cyberspace a Mr. Tom Lax intends to release Hawking and May "Oxford Blues" sometime next year on Siltbreeze records.

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