Steve Swindells - Fresh Blood

"Fresh Blood" - the second solo album from ex-Hawkwind keyboard player Steve Swindells. Previously with Pilot, Steve joined the Hawklords for their 1978 studio album "25 Years" and subsequent tour. He can be heard on various bootlegs of the period, and on the two (official) live Hawklords CDs - "Weird Tapes - Live 1978" and "Hawklords Live". He also plays keyboard on a few non-album session tracks recorded in 1979, "Douglas in the Jungle" and "British Tribal Music" among them (and probably "Time Of...", "Who's Gonna Win The War" and "Valium Ten").



Had a second Hawklords album surfaced during this time Steve would probably still be with the band, and "Shot Down In The Night" would undoubtedly be on it (and quite possibly a single). However by the time 1979 drew to a close, the Hawklords were no more, and Hawkwind was a radically different beast. Steve was no longer with the band, the studio album having not got past the recording of the few tracks listed above.



"Shot Down In The Night" was however still in the band's set, appearing on the album "Live 79", and becoming a live standard for the next decade.



In 1980 Steve released his second solo album "Fresh Blood", with Van der Graaf's Nic Potter on bass, and Hawkwind's Simon King & Huw Lloyd Langton on drums & guitar. This featured the first studio recording of "Shot Down In The Night", and the song was released as a single with the non-album track "It's Only One Night Of Your Life" (erroneously printed as "Love" on the record label). Neither were very successful and to date this remains the last of Steve's recorded solo output. However he has worked with Roger Daltrey, and two of the tracks on this album have surfaced on Daltrey albums - "Don't Wait On The Stairs" (from "Parting Should Be Painless") and "Bitter And Twisted" (from the "McVicar" soundtrack).



My copy of "Fresh Blood" is a rather battered US Promo copy that I've finally managed to digitise. I've run through each track and manually removed every click I could find, as well as smoothing out crackles at the start and end fades. Apologies if I've missed any, but I'm in my 40's now and my hearing isn't what it used to be!



Here's the original track listing:



Side One:



Turn It On, Turn It Off (3:10)

Fresh Blood (3:31)

I Feel Alive (3:43)

Low Life Joe (4:13)

Bitter And Twisted (3:48)



Side Two:



Don't Wait On The Stairs (3:19)

Is It Over Now (4:05)

Down On Love Street (5:29)

Figures Of Authority (5:09)

Shot Down In The Night (5:09)



B-side of Shot Down In The Night:



It's Only One Night Of Your Life (3:11)



MP3 are VBR using the LAME Alt-Preset-Standard setting.