Robert Calvert, Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters (side A)

Robert Calvert was in Hawkwind, and 1974's Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters borrows some qualities from that stay.  The album tells a story involving a failed German fighter plane and a megalomaniacal military official, with spoken narrative sections performed by performed by musical figures like Viv Stanshall and Jim Capaldi.  The short spoken sections alternate with longer songs that relate to the military tale.  The unifying trait of the songs is Lemmy's unmistakable driving bass, which ties neatly to Calvert's time with Hawkwind.  The songs are structurally and harmonically simpler, with more direct references to rock music, than Hawkwind's often-sprawling explorations.  Calvert had obviously developed an impressive social circle during his time on tour — Twink, Paul Rudolph, Arthur Brown, and even an awkwardly-credited Brian Eno turn up to help out.  The rock songs sound pretty typical of 70s English rock, and an impressive amount of time was spent crafting foley and effects for the dramatic sections.  The cover painting and font give an iconic character (neatly referenced by the Hey Drag City compilation 20 years later), but the large sticker on my 1977 US copy unattractively interrupts the cover.