1983 - Motorhead rock on, whilst Hawkwind soar....

Whilst 1982 was a significant year for being the beginning of my immersion into the world of Hawkwind, which lasted for the rest of the decade; For the first year or so, it was a more gradual process, and during 1983 they very much had to share the limelight with Motorhead.
By then, Hawkwind had amassed a 13 year back-catalogue for me to delve into and discover more albums. Whilst I enjoyed the more contemporary albums like 'Church of Hawkwind', and 'Zones' I was still very much in 'Lemmy mode', the common denominator between Hawkwind and Motorhead; and was  obviously more heavily influenced as a bass player at the time, by the earlier albums featuring Lemmy; like 'Hall of the Mountain Grill' and 'Warrior on the Edge of Time'.

Meanwhile, Motorhead had not gone away, and the high point of that year, besides seeing Hawkwind live again; was seeing Motorhead live on at least 3 occasions, and actually meeting Lemmy himself. Such a fan was I that I had all the band sign their autographs on my arm, and had them tatooed over the next day.

Fast Eddie had left Motorhead the previous year, and in 1983 they made an album and did a tour with replacement guitarist; Brian Robertson, formerly of Thin Lizzy. While this line up did not last, the album 'Another Perfect Day' had some great tracks on it, like 'Back at the Funny Farm' and 'Die You Bastard', with Lemmy's growling bass still underpinning the overall Motorhead sound.
With the mix of contemporary Lemmy, via Motorhead, and 'classic' Lemmy via Hawkwind, plus his 'rock and roll' personality, he was definitely the defining influence on me, musically and otherwise, throughout 1983 and into 1984.

Forming the band 'Dancing Shiva' with Dewi Taylor in the summer of 1982, was an important step for my musical development, even though I was completely focused on playing like Lemmy. It's fair to say that the band was completely modelled on Hawkwind anyway, and we had already recorded three cover versions of their songs (along with my first song of my own) on our first demo, and I began to write songs especially for the band, including one named after the band itself.

Unlike my first band 'White Heat', Dancing Shiva was a band in which I had much more creative input, along with Dewi who also contributed songs and ideas which shaped the band.
Having dropped the original guitarist, and replaced him with my old friend Andy Ashley from 'White Heat', the next demo tape we made was all original material; three songs of my own, and one by Dewi. We also began doing our first gigs, with the band augmented by another friend Cheg Cox who provided the synthesizer effects to complete the Hawkwind styled sound.

On a personal level, it was the solidification of a long friendship with Dewi, and we were close not only as friends, but in the creative aspirations of Dancing Shiva. There would be further line up changes before we called it a day the following year, but it was always the core of Dewi and myself, and our shared passion for Hawkwind would fuel our friendship for the rest of the decade and beyond.