Saturday Clubs

 

At the end of this short series, I must mention a club where I experienced some of my most memorable concerts. The Wagenburg Tunnel connects two districts in the north of Stuttgart. In 1985, a club called “Die Röhre” (The Tube) opened in a side arm of the tunnel. It was a long tube with a large bar on the left-hand side. Initially, it was used almost exclusively for parties at the weekend and occasional concerts. It was not until the late 1980s that concerts began to be held there regularly.

A defining experience was a double concert in 1989, when Spacemen 3 and The Wedding Present performed. The latter impressed with their indie guitar sound, but were able to keep up with the psychedelic-tinged guitar feedback, as a bootleg shows.

Frank Tewald · Spacemen 3 - Stuttgart, Röhre, 14.05.1989

This club has always been a good venue for indie bands and new independent bands, even if they haven't always been to my taste. I still remember many gigs by bands I had never heard of before and who later went on to have great careers. One example would be Rammstein, who were still unknown at the time but already used massive guitars and pyrotechnics back then. In a sentimental retrospective, I think back to concerts by Meat Puppets, fIREHOSE, The Mekons, Chumbawumba and Mark Lanegan. Unfortunately, the club had to close its doors 10 years ago as part of the massive renovation of Stuttgart Central Station.

Monday's Long Song

 

In 1988 Spacemen 3 released Performance, their first live album, recorded during a gig in Melkweg, Netherlands. It shows them at the climax of their musical work between their studio albums The Perfect Describtion and Playing With Fire when they gave as their great combination of distorted guitars and maybe the best psychedelic music since the Velvets. 

The concert was more dedicated to the likes of Pete Kember and Jason Pierce than promoting their last album because they played cover versions of their likes. Songs by MC5 and Roky Erickson. Their version of Rollercoaster shows everything Spacemen 3 were famous for. 

Spacemen 3 - Rollercoaster

November

 

Another month has passed and the end of the year is fast approaching. The first Christmas decorations are already being put up in the cities and sweets are being draped in the supermarkets. For me, however, it means that my annual holiday is not too far away.

A song with the month of November in the title was not difficult, as Andres A song with the month of November in the title was not difficult, as Andres Trentemøller quickly came to mind. The Danish musician and producer released Fixion in 2016, his fifth album on which he indulges his passion for the post-punk and new wave of the 80's. Instead of intelligent bass lines, organic band sounds take centre stage here.

November sounds as if The Cure had rediscovered a piece from their early days. A song that could easily have been released on Disintegration and is more a further development of The Cure than a copy.

On Sinus, he changes the sound by starting with a powerful bass and then creating a dystopian sound that is strongly inspired by Vangelis and Blade Runner and conveys a retrofuturistic metropolitan atmosphere.

Phoenicia is a song that builds up a hypnotic tension with psychedelic organ loops, which are fulminantly released at the end. Spacemen 3 may have been the inspiration here.

Hey You

 

Brighton's Higher Love Records are always good for surprises. This time with a new interpretation of a forgotten song by a band from the C-86 generation. 14 Iced Bears are from Bristol and lead by Robert Sekula and played an jangly indie-pop and got known by their love ballad Hey Fever they recorded on a Peel-show.

Now Kent's Puerta Montt City Orchestra, the project of Angus Murray and Tim Salter, recruited the original singer Robert Sekula to reorganize this song and transfer it as Hey You. The result is a song that could be from many albums by Spacemen 3, Spiritualized or Velvet Underground. Strung-out backwards guitar and sitar strains accompanying the fragile breathless ballad. 

And as if that wasn't enough, Jesse Fahnestock remixed the song and spiced it up with handclaps and synthesizers. 

Amazing Grace

 

20 years ago Jason Pierce aka Spiritualized released their fifth album Amazing Grace probably one of his most underrated albums in his career. I came back to this album when he announced a remastered version to release early next year. You can find variations of his space-rock in tradition of Spacemen 3 as well as soul and gospel influenced songs. A perfect balance of spaced out rock in combination of traditional ballads were new and great decades ago. It is great to hear these songs again after a long time and I have to say that this album should have more credits than it had. Not only a sentimental trip back to the old days - more an experience of how much time he was ahead.

Walking With Jesus

 

                                        

Pete Kember and Jason Pierce formed in the early 80's Spacemen 3 and brought back (neo-)psychedelia to our ears. Starting on their first album with covers by 13th Floor Elevators, The Stooges and Juicy Lucy to find their own psychedelia road on their second album The Perfect Prescription in 1987. They said about their concept album it is "a vision of a drug trip from inception to its blasted conclusion, highs and lows fully intact.". This is a very good description how to describe their sound. Trained by psychedelic heroes from the past both transformed it in a unique sound other bands live on this sound until today. Songs between Walking With Jesus a song with two chords and almost close to a perfect song and Take Me To The Other Side a psychedelic song starting slowly and turning to a feedback orgy. Probably one of the best second albums ever.

Spacemen 3 - Walking With Jesus

Fire Doesn't Grow On Trees

 

Half a year is over and I still ask myself where the time went and I look back to the records I purchased this year. One of those are the latest release by Brian Jonestown Massacre, a band formed in the early 90's by Anton Newcombe in San Francisco and during the last decades they made their unique kind of neo-psychedelica mixed with British shoegaze sound. They were always amazing but their new album hit me in a way that I didn't expected. A sound between late 70's psychedelic, early Spacemen 3 and Spiitualized. An album I got a few days ago and it was on heavy rotation at my place. I am not sure if it will reach a place in my years end list but now it only sounds great to me.

Monday's Long Song

 

There are bands you can trust to their sound for years. One of those are Bardo Pond, a psychedelic rock band from Philadelphia in 1991. Their earliest root lay with avant-garde noisemakers and New York's no wave movement. During the years they developed their sound into space rock but added their Hawkwind inspired sound with early krautrock like Amon Düül and experimental giants like My Bloody Valentine and Spaceman 3. Since 2000 they've released a numerically titled series of improvisation sessions in addition to their studio albums. Before is from their album Volume 1 and this song could be played on every live show by Mogwai.

Bardo Pond - Before

2021 - Short

 

I featured the other days albums that impressed me much and was played often at my place and I thought it was the time to write down the best songs of this year. Many of them you can find on the long posts and I have to admit that I am not the one that is able to finish the list because there were so many songs I heard the first time this year that made me happy once or several times. Other songs crossed my attention weeks later when I listened to them on my yearly playlist on Spotify where I collect new songs year by year. Looking at this playlist I find more than 200 songs and the more I think about it I can't decide which one would reach a top ten. So here are some songs, subjective of course and not showing the full range of music I listened too but still worth to be named when you look back on this year.

How Does It Feel

 

Jesse Fahnestock a Swedish producer and DJ is the mastermind behind the project 10:40 who brought us with Sleepwalker one of the best EP's from electronic beats. On Sleepwalker he re mixed another song by Spacemen 3 after after How Does It Feel almost six month ago. Both songs were released originally on Spacemen 3's third album Playing With Fire. Both songs were remixed on a down-tempo dub floor and both worth to give them more than a listen. Another remixes by great songs from an underrated album.

Monday's Long Song

 

Almost 30 years ago Jason Pierce formed Spiritualized after the split of Spacemen 3 and released their debut Lazer Guided Music. I have to admit that I had a spot on Spiritualized with their epic Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space and digging deeper into their spaced out sound I came to their debut and I can say nothing more that from this time on I love the kind of their unique and never boring sound. A classic album that will be re-released on vinyl during the next weeks. A must have.

Spiritualized - Shine A Light 

Monday's Long Song

 

Almost one year ago the first album by Autoelia was released by Demian Castellanos and Tom Relleen. I missed their debut and got aware by recommendation from a friend. Autoelia, as originally coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, describes a process by which someone has a purpose in, rather than outside of themselves. Those who are autotelic depend less on external rewards for their satisfaction, being driven instead simply by purpose or curiosity. Their project was started as an opportunity to play more freely, with less of the process, consideration and production we both associated with our main projects. And that is what you can hear on this record - a free form of kosmische music based on the floor Cluster, early Spacemen 3 and a modern Brian Eno prepared. It is a 13 minute journey into space. Seems like another overlooked band.

Things Like This

Peter Kember aka Sonic Boom released another song from his forthcoming album in June. I followed him from his works as a part of Spacemen 3 when they made a few of the best fuzzy and psychedelic albums in these decade. Now his music is a bit softer but never boring. Guitars were replaced by 70's synths, the bass-line brings back memories from an 80's Yamaha and you will get satisfied if you dig deeper into the various layers of his sound.

Lunatics At The Edge Of The World

While listening to a lot of new psychedelic music especially from Scandinavia in these days I remembered the pioneers of this genre. The 13th Floor Elevators were active from 1965 until 1969 and led by Roky Erikson who passed away almost one year ago. The Elevator's sound was dominated by using two guitars and including a lot of reverb and echo into their music. As far as I know they were one of the first bands calling their music psychedelic rock. And if somebody can take up this for itself, then this band. Their first album is still an all time favorite of mine and you can listen to their legacy by Spacemen 3, Primal Scream or Echo and The Bunnymen.

13th Floor Elevators - Roller Coaster
13th Floor Elevators - Reverbation
13th Floor Elevators - You're Gonna Miss Me

Splendid Racket Monday

Last Monday I wrote about noisy music that came from over the Atlantic ocean. But also Great Britain had in its music history many periods of bands that made loud music that had great influence to many other artists. Best example for me is Spacemen 3 as one of the most revolutionary UK guitar bands. Revolution marks it at the best. A few chords, feedback and it's psychedelic mood makes this song in this genre.

Spacemen 3 - Revolution

From many other bands that made wonderful noise only a few examples for today. One of those who should be named here is Dublin's My Bloody Valentine with a superb example how to create explosive soundscapes with guitars.

My Bloody Valentines - Sometimes

Another one are Oxford's Ride, a band that is with various breaks active from the early 90's on and still good for surprises in new sounds but still on a great rhythm ground. Still and always a pleasure to listen to them.

Ride - Leave Them All Behind

Searching For The Perfect Riff

Back in 1989 Spaceman 3 released their third record Playing With Fire an outstanding record in this time for this music. When all the other music drifted away mostly in singer-songwriting or club-sounds these guys took a walk back into psychedelic areas with heavy guitars and riffs galore. It is still a pleasure listen to the sound of a record that was released almost 30 years ago. I remember the first time Spacemen 3 got on my radar was when Alan Bangs, one of the only radio-DJ's played their songs on his late night show. He produced his show for a greater radio station in Germany and as well for BFBS. Some folks called him as an epigone for John Peel but for me he introduce me to the music of Lucinda Willams and Cowboy Junkies. He was always contrarian to mainstream and they stopped his show when he offered the music of Frederic Chopin in his two hour show. I remember when he made his last show playing all the music he agreed with and one of the songs was Revolution a highlight of the upcoming psychedelic sound. Another story I heard was that he had a record collection of 11.000 albums. At one time he announced that he will go for holiday for a couple of weeks and some guys caved into his home stolen more than 3.000 of his albums. What a loss for him, because I am sure they stolen just one of the records he loved much.

Revolution

I think I have posted this song minimum one time and I hope that you're not bored to death showing up once again. It is just the fact that I am sitting on my balcony on a beautiful summer evening with a glass of vine listening to music that accompanied me for ages. Spacemen 3 was one of them. I really love their raw, mean psychedelic sound especially Revolution which is only based on a few chords. But what they made out of it was genius. I remember when German DJ Alan Bangs had his two hour weekly radio show on broadcast in the 80's playing new and old music. I used to listen to his shows because I got new inspirations. You may call him the poor men's John Peel but he did a very good job in these days. Sadly German broadcast closed his show because it wasn't mainstream at all. Me and a couple of friends met for his last show knowing that he was sad about not going further with his show. In regular wise he announced the artists he played but on his last show he just played the music from the last decades he liked much. And I will never forget that he played this song at his last show. Still great after all the years and worth to be played from time to time.

Hypno-Beat

In the mid 80s a band impressed me much because they brought the music from the psychedelic era and pre-punk into nowadays music. Someone described their music like colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the 1960s; instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia. There are no more words to add. Spacemen 3 was a band that should never be forgot. Without them Spiritualized wasn't possible.

Spacemen 3 - Hypno-Beat