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David Anthony Brock (born 20 August 1941) is an English musician and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the founder, the sole constant member and the musical focus of the space rock group Hawkwind. – Dave Brock biography Brock was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the annual Progressive Music Awards in 2013.
After leaving school in 1959, he undertook several jobs including work as a Turret lathe, before moving to an animation company, Larkin Studios. He pursued his interests in music at night, although with no initial intentions of it becoming a career, attending clubs such as Eel Pie Island, playing New Orleans trad jazz and blues, and busking with friends such as Eric Clapton, Keith Relf, Jeff Watson and Mick Slattery.
He formed a trio with pianist Mike King and harmonica player Luke Francis (born 1943, Newcastle-upon-Tyne) called the Dharma Blues Band; this group recorded versions of Sonny Boy Williamson II's "Dealing with the Devil" and Pete Johnson's "Roll 'Em Pete" for Blues Anytime Vol. 2 (Immediate, IMCP015) in 1966, and backed travelling American blues singers such as Memphis Slim and Champion Jack Dupree. The band would continue without Brock, recording an album in 1967.
Quitting his daytime job, he travelled around Europe earning money by busking, sometimes with harmonica player Pete Judd. With guitarist John Illingworth, Brock and Judd formed The Famous Cure, touring in the Netherlands, and again after Slattery had replaced Judd in 1967, also having a hit single with "Sweet Mary"/"Mean Mistreater". With the Psychedelia scene burgeoning in London and the band using LSD, their music changed with them starting to use electric instruments and effects units.
In 1968 he resorted to busking for a living and, on the back of the success of Don Partridge's hits "Rosie" and "Blue Eyes", performed in January 1969 at the Buskers' Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, contributing "Bring It On Home" to The Buskers album (Columbia, SX6356). In April and May, Brock joined the Buskers tour of the UK, which travelled around the country to each venue in a red London Transport double-decker bus.
From the outset, Brock's intentions for the band was to marry simple three-chord rock music with experimental electronic music. He cites his influences for the band at the time as the Moody Blues, Steve Miller Band and the krautrock scene of Kraftwerk, Neu! and particularly Can. New Musical Express, 5 August 1972 – Whatever turned me on
Doctor Technical was an "alter ego" created by Brock for his production credit on "Silver Machine". He has regularly used the alias since at various times, notably for the album Church of Hawkwind. He has also used the aliases Dr Hasbeen and Sylvia Macmanus (his second wife's name).
Brock has remained Hawkwind's musical focus and primary songwriter throughout their existence. He has little interest in lyrics and much of the time has benefited from collaborating with lyricists such as Robert Calvert and Michael Moorcock. Although being the only ever-present member of the band, there have been times, particularly in the early days when the line-up was fluid, when he would miss gigs such as the 1971 Glastonbury Festival. On stage, his preference is to remain at the back and let others take centre stage and be the focus of attention, to the point where he will often employ dancers, mime artists and fire-eaters to fill that space. At other times (particularly in their early days), the entire band was totally obscured by their light show.
The band are based in Devon, where they rehearse and record in a converted barn named Earth Studios.
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