Robert Calvert ● Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters

I’ll assume you’ve been coming here long enough to realize I’m not making this up: A mesmerizing mix of rock, pop and early punk combined with comedic spoken word bits, Robert Calvert’s Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters is a concept album based on Germany’s 1960s purchase of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter airplane. First released in 1974 on United Artists Records, this 17-song lp focuses on the Starfighter’s faulty safety record. “Hits the ground as fast as sound/700,000 pounds of little pieces lying around,” exclaims Calvert in “The Widow Maker.” “The widow maker/is a real brain shaker.” Songs like the absurdly titled “The Aerospaceage Inferno Aircraft,” “Salesman (A Door in the Foot)” and “Board Meeting (Seen through a Contract Lense)” help advance the record’s satirical storyline, but it’s “Ejection” and “The Right Stuff,” two unbelievably great moments of high-speed hard rock, that stress the record’s more mainstream elements. Calvert, a longtime member of Hawkwind, released a 1975 follow-up album called Lucky Leif and the Longships. Another conceptual project, the record tells the story of what might have happened had the Vikings successfully discovered and inhabited America. In this case you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Notes: Robert Calvert died of a heart attack in 1988. Here’s an audio-only YouTube clip of his song “Ejection:” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on8eM4kYDHk.