Space Hawks tribute to Nik Turner and Mick Slattery Mandala stage Glastonbury 2023

Nik Turner was one of the founding members of Hawkwind, which formed in 1969, alongside Dave Brock, John Harrison, Terry Ollis and Mick Slattery.

He played with the band for seven years, including with Lemmy, who joined in 1971 and would later go on to be the frontman for Motörhead. Turner left the band in 1976, before returning in 1982 and playing with them for another two years.

Hawkwind are best known for the song Silver Machine, which reached No 3 in the UK singles chart in 1972, as well as Urban Guerrilla and Shot Down in the Night.
Motörhead’s official Twitter account posted: “We lost Lemmy’s old bandmate Nik Turner today. Play some Hawkwind nice and loud! Brainstorm here we go!”
Between his two stints in Hawkwind, Turner travelled to Egypt and recorded flute music inside the pyramids. The recordings became the basis for a group called Sphynx, which released the album Xitintoday in 1978.
Turner also recorded songs under the names Inner City Unit, Nik Turner’s Fantastic All Stars, and Space Ritual.

“I have a very casual attitude to all this – to me, it’s entertainment,” he told the music website the Quietus in 2013. “But entertainment with an agenda, really. Of spreading joy and love and that sort of thing. I mean, I worry about being too overtly hippy, but peace and love are not fashionable sentiments in some quarters and I think they should be.”

Mick Slattery formed Hawkwind with his Famous Cure bandmate Dave Brock in 1969. They joined forces with John Harrison (bass), Terry Ollis (drums), Nik Turner (saxophone/flute) and Michael “Dik Mik” Davies (keyboards) and initially went by the name Group X.

Brock wrote in the tribute on Facebook: “Me and Mick played together in a band called Famous Cure in 1967, touring Holland before going on to form Hawkwind in 1969 The band originally performed at All Saints Hall in Notting Hill, London before they had a name. They came up with Group X because they didn’t have a title at the time of first playing live, eventually landing on Hawkwind.

Slattery played on an original version of early Hawkwind song ‘Hurry On Sundown’, which was recorded by the band as Hawkwind Zoo during some initial studio time to record demos.

The track was eventually released in a 1996 reissue of Hawkwind’s self-titled 1970 debut album.

Slattery left Hawkwind in 1969 and was replaced by Huw Lloyd-Langton. He continued to make music with musicians who’d played in Hawkwind (with Turner in the group Space Ritual, and with Hawkwind’s former bassist, Alan Davey, in his Hawkestrel project).

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