Twink's involvement with Calvert was only on a minor scale - he banged the 'Funeral Drum' on Catch a Falling Starfighter, the brilliant closing track of Calvert's first solo-album Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters.

But they met quite often before this occassion as The Pink Fairies were also very closely related to HAWKWIND. Twink often used to be Hawkwind's stand-in drummer, when their own one, Terry Ollis, was - yet again - too stoned to even sit on his stool...
The bands also very often appeared together on the same bill and used to jam together during the time of Calvert's first time with Hawkwind.

Paul Fraser Rudolph was one of the main and most important collaborators of Robert Calvert throughout most of the 70's.
Calvert knew him as well from his time with Hawkwind and, after his first departure from the band, asked him to play lead and bass guitar on Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters.

Paul Rudolph on the recording process:
"I used to work a lot with Bob at my place in London and get the basic changes and arrangements to try to jive with his 2-string guitar playing. Bob would spend a lot of time planning and rehearsing and still always be open enough to ride the cosmic surf of the moment and let his music have a certain feel and flow that was Bob.
He was great to work with and loved stuff with a good marching beat." ...(get more memories of Paul)

Paul Rudolph was also a mutual friend of Robert Calvert and BRIAN ENO, who also played synths on Captain Lockheed.
At this time Eno was producing his first solo-albums after the split from Roxy Music and Paul Rudolph played bass on most of them.
Eno was also earning his first merits as a producer - and as they all had obviously enjoyed their latest collaboration they did it again in 1975 on Calvert's 2nd solo-album Lucky Leif and the Longships.
This time Eno worked as a producer. Paul Rudolph was again the main musical collaborator and guitarist on the album:

"It was very interesting working with Bob & Brian Eno (on Lucky Leif and the Longships) -- two very artistic people on the sound front.
Lucky Leif started with the idea of making a concept-type album about Vikings -- then Robert decided to continue with the idea that as the Vikings discovered America they encountered different american things, travelling around the country, exploring. (...)

We travel through the 30's in Chicago when prohibition was in place and Volstead was the city mayor -- through to moonshiners brewing up illegal whiskey to the surfers on the west coast of California:
'I guess you could call us barbarians -- Bar-bary-Annes' -- fashioned after the Beach Boys song

> LISTEN   to one of the album's highlights: 'Barbara-Anne' -
according to Mr. Calvert and his merry gang - entitled: THE LAY OF THE SURFERS

"A lot of the ideas Bob and I got together and then gelled things together in the studio with Eno. Once Bob started thinking of America a whole style opened up and we would just ride his thoughts. Really, i can say that it was one of the most spontaneous projects I've been involved with." ..(...get more memories of Paul)

Lucky Leif is certainly one of the most creative and many-faced albums from that period - commercially, however, the album failed.
The collage of inspired eclecticism that brought together a wild variety of musical styles on Lucky Leif was just too much for the greater part of the audience and the music press.

Meanwhile things were going pretty well for HAWKWIND, but following an ill-fated tradition, their current US-tour was under a bad spell... - their current bass-player, the legendery Lemmy was busted at the Canadian border for having some quite harmless white powder in his pockets, that the officials mistook for cocaine.

In a not-too-nicely manner the rest of the band decided to finally sack their notorious speed-eating bassist and continue the tour with a friend of theirs who luckily had a valid working permit: PAUL RUDOLPH.

Shortly after HAWKWIND's return from this tour Calvert's and Rudolph's path's crossed again - as Calvert, after a guest appearence with Hawkwind at the Reading Festival, decided to rejoin the band.

With Calvert being back in the band Hawkwind's most creative and innovative period began.

And yet again it were Calvert and Rudolph who set one of the first landmarks for the new direction of the band's development when they wrote Back on the Streets, the new line-up's first single-release. The song introduced quite a dramatic change to the style and overall sound of one of the psychedelic bands: sharp rhythms, distinctive verse and chorus changes - in short: a definitive fore-runner of the New Wave sound and songstructure.

But the band at that point consisted of seven members - with everyone contriubting song-material, the following album Astounding Sounds; Amazing Music became quite a mixed assemblage of songs - in style and quality.

The strongest material was written by Calvert and Dave Brock - delievering a.o. the Hawkwind classic STEPPENWOLF. They soon developed into the main songwriting team and "captains of the motherboard...with some 'fatal' consequences for 3 (!) of the members.

But before the band went on a major UK-tour on which they premiered their impressive ATOMHENGE stage-set and also tried out their new material - to enthusiastic responses from huge audiences.

Following you'll find an extract from a HAWKWIND GIG REVIEW (at Cardiff Castle, 1976).
This was written for the N.M.E. by the chief-Deviant / ex-Pink Fairy Mick Farren:

"Three or four brandies later, Hawkwind take the stage. A soupcon of amphetamine from a passing hippie enables your loyal correspondent to remain vertical and pay strict attention.

This is what you might call the new model Hawkwind, and one that I've never seen before. Lemmy has of course gone and been replaced by ex-Pink Fairy Paul Rudolph.
Bob Calvert has returned to take up the vocal chores and play trumpet along with Nik Turner's tenor on what I guess must be their new single, 'Kerb Crawler'.

There's no doubt the new model is a good deal more sophisticated than any of the previous combinations. One of the band's major advantages was always its unstoppable rhythm unit. Now, with drummers Simon King and Allan Powell, plus Paul Rudolph on bass, it is, to use a well worked cliche, shit hot. (...)

One of the high spots of the set comes when House takes over the bass, and Rudolph actually plays some guitar. There have been times when I've heard Paul Rudolph stretch out and demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the he is one of the best guitar players in the Hendrix tradition that we have around today. Unfortunately that's when he stretches out.
He's one of those individuals who, for most of the time, would rather stay in among the boys than strut his stuff as a guitar king.

Visually Hawkwind are still the mutations you know and love:
World War I aviator goggles seem to be the order of the day. Turner wears them with a long John Silver tricorn hat and Dave Brock with the debonair grace of the first man to swim the Atlantic.
Bob Calvert, however, must take take the prize.
In black leather jodhpurs riding boots, head scarf and flying helmet, he comes on like a cross between Biggles and Lawrence of Arabia with definite S&M undertones."

So, under Calvert's direction, the shows became a major rock-theatrical event and the band was - at least live - in better shape than ever.
Calvert and Rudolph wrote another (but their last) song together - a sad, but certainly the best way to end a long and fruitful collaboration: Hassan I Sahba (aka 'Assassins of Allah') became one of the band's all time classics: a frantic, rocking sabre-dance with an equally impressive oriental melody-line - at times almost onomatopoeic lyrics and a menacing vocal style of Calvert.

Despite these highlights and the success of the tour, Brock and Calvert agreed on a 'stalinistic purge' to get the band on their musical course. Successively Nik Turner Allan Powell (the 2nd drummer) and Paul Rudolph were shown the door.

Calvert in an interview:
"Paul Rudolph and Allan Powell were blamed by me and Brock for trying to introduce a funky style. Well, funky music and Reggae were two styles I was never very fond of..."

Powell and Rudolph then formed the short lived band Kicks - after that...sorry, I lost track of his musical activities .... until recently!

One sunny day a few months ago I found an e-mail of Mr. Rudolph in the virtual postbox. Not only he has his own FRASER SOUND HOMEPAGE running - he also catched up again with his old mate TWINK!
Yes, they have re-formed THE PINK FAIRIES and 1996 saw the release of their new album Pleasure Island. And they don't rest on their new laurels - another album is underway and currently in the mixing-process.

The 'TROUSERPRESS' page on The Social Deviants / Twink / The Pink Fairies