Starship 18

t took about 35 years, and no-one would have believed that this would happen one day – but it has: Starship 18, the legendary psychedelic rock pioneers from Germany are back. Two members of the original line-up, Ernst-Hermann Göbel and Gerhard Hasse met up in 2006 after not having seen each other for years, and immediately decided to revive the band that was once mentioned among the likes of Amon Düül II, Popol Vuh or Grobschnitt. Even the late Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd is believed to have counted Starship 18 amongst his influences. It is strange that, 35 years after the split-up, Starship 18 recorded a bunch of tracks for the first time ever. For what made them special – and famous – in the late 1960s was the fact that they strictly refused to record albums at all. But, for those who might be new to Starship 18, here’s the whole story: STARSHIP 18 – THE PAST Ernst-Hermann Göbel, born in 1941 in a mining town in Northrhine-Westfalia, Gelsenkirchen, of course, started workin in a coal mine just after he had finished school when he was only 14. Heavily influenced by the beat music the British Forces' radio stations played at that time, rock'n'roll, skiffle and beat, he was lucky enough to get hold of an electric guitar. Actually, as he now admits, he stole it from a British soldier after he secretly attended a concert and waited until all the performers were heavily drunk much later on. Having been technically interested, he soon built his first amplifier by himself. Not very surprisingly, it exploded when he first tried it. So he gave up playing the guitar and turned to studying the organ instead, which he used too do each Sunday after service, hiding inside the church until everyone was gone. Luckily, one of his mining mates, Gerhard Hasse (born in 1947) was a more gifted guitar player, and he even owned a proper, non-exploding amplifier. It didn't take long for both of them to team up and form a sort of band, rehearsing secretly in a church each evening when all their fellow miners (and the priest as well, so the they wouldn't be detected) met up in local pubs after work. There and then they composed what was to become a psychedelic rock classic, the song ' a spaceship came and carried me away'. It is believed that two incidents led to this historic moment: The ever-present smell of incense inside the church that they were exposed to for very much longer than the average church-goer and repeated listening to side two of an album by an American band called 'Iron Butterfly'. The only song on that side of the LP was called 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' and, as Göbel recalls, 'it immediately and over and over again blew our fucking minds away. Fuck it, what a bloody fucking song that was!' This experience made them form a real band, including a drummer, a percussionist, a bassist and ten naked female dancers. 'Unfortunately', Hasse recalls, 'I can't remember any frigging name of none of those bloody people, for I used to be way too stoned every time we rehearsed or performed.' Nevertheless, according to statements of contemporary witnesses, the band went on tour in 1969 for the first – and also the last time ever. Each night, Starship 18 would perform only the song 'A spaceship came and carried me away', simply because it was the only song they had ever written. Maybe at this point it has to be mentioned that they extended that very song to an unbelievable amount in order to meet the concert promoters' requirements of playing at least for 60 minutes. Eventually, the concerts turned out to last not less than 4 hours each nights, sometimes even until the early morning, when the everyone on stage simply collapsed, each of them exhausted from trying to be faster and louder than everyone else for hours. Before the band got to record an album, they already broke apart in 1969. The official statement was that the band intolerable developed musical differences (Hasse tended to include more and more of Bavarian folk music into their live performances, at one point even played an alpenhorn, dressed in traditional costumes which Göbel on the other hand thought wouldn’t meet his rather psychedelic approach). But actually, it had rather to with arguments connected to relationships with the dancers. STARSHIP 18 - THE PRESENT However, now they are back with the first recording of their classic epic ‚(On the 18th Of January) A Spaceship Came And Carried Me Away)’ – edited down to only 17 minutes, and featuring no alpenhorns whatsoever. Watch out for the upcoming album and tour – rumour has it that the original dancers’ daughters will be with them on stage … Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.