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The musical career of Dave Brock began with the wild music of the late 1950's, namely Jazz. This interest resulted in Dave taking up playing the banjo rather than the guitar, and he frequented many hip bars and clubs in and around the Soho area of London. Clubs such as Ken Colyer's Jazz Club and The Ballads And Blues Folk Club.
By 1959, with his enthusiastic interest in Jazz, Dave Brock joined the "Gravnier Street Stompers" for about five months, playing banjo in a band performing New Orleans jazz music. One of their gigs was supporting Ken Colyer's Jazz Band, who at this time were a top band and had even toured America.

After leaving the "Gravnier Street Stompers" in 1960, Dave became more and more interested in the guitar, and bought a Michigan guitar that replaced the banjo. The early sixties saw Dave busking and performing solo spots in clubs. By this time Dave had moved to Putney and one of his favourite hang-outs was in Richmond and Twickenham, both hip places to be and on the banks of the River Thames just southwest of London.
Here, Dave could often be found playing at Eel Pie Island Jazz Club, either on his own or with Jeff Watson and Eric Clapton, both friends of his with an interest in the same type of music. Dave and Jeff played many gigs around this time but by 1964 they began to drift apart.

Dharma Blues

It wasn't long however, before Dave joined up with Luke Francis, who sang and played harmonica, forming a duo that started performing in the clubs of London. Later in the year, they were joined by pianist Mike King and became a trio that named themselves the "Dharma Blues Band". The band recorded four songs in 1965, two of which, 'Dealing With The Devil' and 'Roll 'em Pete' later appeared on vinyl. The other two songs have unfortunately been lost to memory and time.
Dave Brock left the band in 1966, although the band carried on and released an album 'Dharma Blues' in 1967 with a line-up of Mike King, John Hillary and Gary Compton.

Like many musicians in the mid to late sixties, it was a case of out of one band and straight into another. So, following the "Dharma Blues Band", Dave joined up with harmonica player Pete Judd to form a duo.
Again, they played mainly pubs and clubs, although the duo did manage a performance at the famous London Roundhouse backing 'Clodagh Rogers'. They also appeared on a few radio shows, including a stint on a John Peel show as backing musicians for a number of sessions.

•  ?? 1967     London, Chalk Farm, The Roundhouse

Famous Cure

They were soon joined by guitarist John Illingworth and during the Spring, the band toured Holland as the "Famous Cure". The tour was quite successful, with the Dutch press writing a few reviews and the band being joined by top musicians like Dutch pianist Rob Hoeke.
On returning to Britain, Pete Judd left the band and was replaced by another old friend of Dave's, Mick Slattery. The new line-up continued gigging and during the Summer recorded the single "Sweet Mary", that was backed by "Mean Mistreater".

By September, the band had secured a record deal and returned for a second tour of Holland. The "Sweet Mary" single was released as the tour began and reached number five in the Dutch Singles Chart. It was also on this tour that the "Famous Cure" met up with a mobile Rock'n'Roll Circus called 'Tent '67' and joined as support act.

It was a huge touring entourage of musicians, roadies and circus acts that included 'Mobile Freakout', an act that had Nik Turner with them. All was going well, the press was more than favourable, they had a high ranking single in the charts and were able to perform regularly.

While in Amsterdam, Dave Brock performed two live tracks, 'Dust My Blues' and 'Dealing With The Devil', that featured a guest drummer. These two numbers later appeared on the 'Harlem Blues Festival' album.
However, potential fame was cut short during November, when the whole band got caught up in a drugs bust and found themselves ejected from the country.

Back in Britain, the 'Famous Cure' continued gigging, including a support slot for a 'Deviants' gig at the beginning of December. This was a sign that the band was leaning away from folk and blues and moving more into psychedelic music. Also around this time, the band cut a demo single of "Have You Ever Been Mistreated" and "Wee Wee Baby", though sadly, the single never reached the final pressing.

•  02 December 1967     (supporting the Deviants)

Street Busker

By the Spring of 1968, the 'Famous Cure' finally split up and Dave returned once more to busking in order to earn a living.
During late October, he phoned the BBC and asked for an audition, with the view of recording a radio session. By this time, Dave had got together with Mike King again and another old friend Mike Griggs. They began to rehearse and were known simply as "Dave Brock And Friends", playing gigs and busking the streets.

By January 1969, everything started to happen. The busking scene was booming, mainly due to Don Partridge and his success with the single 'Rosie' and for once, buskers were enjoying a brief spell of limelight.
Buskers became fashionable and even T.V variety shows slotted time in for a busker to perform. The highlight of this era was a 'Buskers Concert' at the Royal Albert Hall, with Don Partridge as the main attraction. The event was part of a national tour, with a host of buskers including Dave Brock, tap-dancers, spoon-players and accordeonists.
The London show was recorded and an album 'The Buskers' later appeared. It featured many of the acts, including a rendition of Willie Dixon's 'Bring It On Home' by Dave Brock.

•  18 January 1969     London, Chalkfarm, The Roundhouse
•  30 January 1969     London, Royal Albert Hall

Three days following a gig at Chalk Farm's Roundhouse, Dave Brock, Mike King, Mike Griggs and Pete Judd entered BBC Maida Vale 3 studios and recorded a session. The session was broadcast a week later on 29th January during John Peel's 'Night Ride' radio program, airing 'Diamond Ring', 'When I Came Home This Morning', 'Hesitation Shuffle', 'Illusions', 'Ripley's Blues' and 'Roll 'em Pete' to a late Wednesday night audience.

Pre – Take Off

The amount of buskers playing the venues and streets of London grew to mammouth proportions by the Spring of 1969. Dave continued to busk and perform with friends around the streets and clubs, though due to the swelling numbers and the effect it had on making enough money, Dave began to look for something new.
He started to experiment with the guitar, using echo units and effects pedals. This all inevitably led to an increased interested in psychedelic music and electronics. Dave was fascinated by the sounds he was conjuring up and knew this was the path to go down.

By mid 1969, Dave was focused on what he wanted for the future. He began to look for musicians to form an electronic rock band and soon recruited old friends Mick Slattery and John Harrison on lead and bass guitars. Later came drummer Terry Ollis, saxophonist Nik Turner and Dik Mik on electronics.
The Summer was spent rehearsing in Putney, under Bob Kerr's music shop and "Group X", "Hawkwind Zoo" and then finally, "Hawkwind", was born and unleashed.

Solo Ventures

During a break on the September 1975 European Hawkwind tour, Dave Brock took advantage of some studio time and laid down a selection of solo tracks. The music press relayed in an article that Dave was soon to release a solo album. This never happened, although tracks like 'Wipe Out In The Streets', an accoustic version of 'The Demented Man' and a few instrumental piecess did make it onto tape as rough demos.

By the Summer of 1978, within the smouldering ashes following the disasterous American Hawkwind tour, Dave had time to form ideas in the studio at his place in Devon. The callaboration with Geoff Hocking and 'Weird Records' at 'Wolden Studios' in Devon, were to later bear the fruits of most of Dave's solo recordings during the year and into 1979, when again, a lull in Hawkwind activities were to reach an all-time low.
A selection of tracks were recorded, all reflecting topics Dave was interested in and concerned with. They would eventually appear on the first Weird Tape, alongside a selection of tracks from the 'Sonic Assassins' gig from Christmas 1977.

Between 1980 and 1983, Dave's solo recordings increased in frequency. It was during the recording of the Hawkwind album 'Sonic Attack', and again later during the sessions for the 'Church Of Hawkwind' album, where they became snowed in at Rockfield Studios, that Dave recorded and mixed a series of tracks that he had down as rough demos. This material would be released as the seventh 'Weird Tape' in October 1982

Elsewhere, Brian Tawn of 'Hawkwind Feedback' was keen to press a Dave Brock single, and got Dave to supply some material for this. The result was a limited edition one-sided single featuring 'Zones' and 'Processed'.
In spirited fashion, it was decided to release the single as by "Doctor Technical & The Machines" and was released in June 1983 by mail order only.

Another song, 'When The Going Gets Tough', had been recorded the previous year but wasn't included on the album. However, this later appeared in 1985 on the 'Hawkwind Friends And Relations (Volume 3)' album, together with another version of 'Earthed To The Ground', that appeared here with the title of 'Wired Up For Sound'.

•  23 June 1984     Stonehenge, Free Festival (with Snorkwind)

Chaos Agent

The Summer of 1987 saw Dave touring round the free festivals and with the area around Stonehenge blocked off by police, Dave ended up at the Bristol Custom Bike Show and performed with 'The Lloyd Langton Group'.

•  20 June 1987     Bristol, Custom Bike Show (with Lloyd Langton Group)

It was another fairly quiet year for Hawkwind on the live front, so Dave began working on his second solo album. He was assisted during recording by Julian Crimmins, a keyboard player and friend who was also known as Crum.
The album was released by 'Flicknife Records' in April 1988 and was followed a year later by a CD called "Dave Brock & The Agents Of Chaos", which featured all of Dave's 'Earthed To The Ground', plus all but the last two tracks of 'The Agents Of Chaos' album.
There was also another solo track that never made it onto the album called 'Damage Of Life'. However, all was not lost, as the song appeared on the 'Travellers Aid Trust' compilation, released by Flicknife as Hawkwind embarked on their Winter 1988 tour of Britain.

•  01 August 1988     Bath, Moles Club (with Magic Muscle)

Meanwhile, Hawkwind kept Dave more than busy until the mid 1990's, when he began work on his third solo album.
By the beginning of 1995, Dave was in the studio putting the final touches to his album that was to be called "Strange Trips And Pipe Dreams". The album was released only as a CD digipack by the newly established 'Emergency Broadcast System' in the Summer of 1995, although 'Griffin Records' released a standard jewel case version in the Autumn.