The Spacerock Continuum

Don't be a fool...

2009-11-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

...stay in school.

Pay attention, class... school is still in session. Here we are with the third and final installment of Spacerock School before we break for the winter solstice holidays. I hope you've been studying!

Quiz #1: What the heck is this?!?!?

Quiz #2: What do spacerock and the musical genre known as americana have in common? Trick question? Nothing, you say? Wrong! Despite the inherent earthiness or implied groundedness of americana, as it were, many of its practitioners over the years have dabbled in the spacey and psychedelic sides (outer space and inner space, respectively) of rock music, and this set should illustrate that beyond dispute.

Starting off with a bang of a Neil Youngian stomp from MV & EE (aka Matt Valentine & Erika Elder) in one of their many incarnations (here with The Golden Road - see Tower Recordings below) and leading into the neotraditional 'Merican southern gothic ravings of Nick Cave, on his first solo album from back in '85, and the beloved Gun Club (RIP Jeffrey Lee Pierce) and you should be getting an inkling of where this journey's headed. Next up a triple dose of the defunct but influential "Paisley Underground" scene of mid-80s Los Angeles where many of the loosely affiliated bands also had a cowpunk edge (see also The Long Ryders, Rank & File, The Knitters, et al.), here represented by the inimitable first draft of The Dream Syndicate (well, second if you count a bass player change), their frequent stagemates Green On Red (bandleaders Steve Wynn and Dan Stuart even collaborated on the barroom bluster one-off effort as Danny & Dusty), and Davis, CA's mighty True West (sadly I have no Thin White Rope, their hometown brethren, to offer you at this time, although they would fit nicely). *

Next up, Memphis' gritty Grifters showcase the explicit connection between these genres with one of their many space-twang epics, and New Jersey's Velvets-via-southern folk originators The Feelies take us to a space rodeo. Things take a turn for the truly psychedelic with two of Portland, OR's most enigmatic experimental ensembles (and there are many, make no mistake - what's in the water in Portland?), the currently prolific Jackie-O Motherfucker with a nod to the traditional side of their "music", and the manic hippie bluegrass of 60s-era absurdists The Holy Modal Rounders. Can it get even weirder? Any regular Spacerock Continuum subscriber knows the answer to that. Howzabout a Belgian faux-Appalachian solo guitar mangler known only as Pumice? Or the peyote-saturated wisdom of Arizona postpunkers The Meat Puppets?

Many a hand
Began to scan
Around for the next plateau
Some said it was Greenland
And some said Mexico

Others decided
It was nowhere
'Cept for where they stood
But those were all just guesses
Wouldn't help you if they could

The vast vista of the western horizon is audible in the wide-open expanse of the music of sideshow snakeoilers Spindrift, surf cowboy harmonizers Beachwood Sparks, and desert-fried minimalists Earth. Then we're a-goin' folky with Ben Chasney's Six Organs of Admittance, Matt Valentine (aka MV)'s Tower Recordings and the godfather of experimental acoustic guitar John Fahey. Vancouver, BC weighs in with The Sadies' twist-n-twang, and a band I never thought would grace this podcast, The Grateful Dead, illustrates the direct lineage between American traditional music and free-space jams.

A quintessential example of the genre of americana, Wilco, is also at times one of it's most avant-garde explorationists (especially since inviting spazzjazz guitar hero Nels Cline into the fold), here bringing a krautrock noise drone to the mix. Avant-folk refugees from the Chicago post rock scene Califone see fit to take us on a 16-minute trance-inducing ramble through the brambles. Sardonic indierock stalwarts Pavement start off with an epic twang-guitar workout and devolve into a nightmarish motorik hellride up the canyon. And to lighten the load just in time, everyone's favorite space cowboys (aren't you glad I didn't include the Steve Miller Band?) The Byrds, of "Eight Miles High" fame, here jangle their way through a sprightly ditty requesting a ride on a UFO. And honestly, who wouldn't want that?

* UPDATE: Since having come across some digital manifestations of the aforementioned Thin White Rope it was impossible for me not to include a track from them, and I chose one that couldn't be more aptly named to illustrate our point. In the process I have also decided to undo a couple glaring omissions in the form of southern-fried spacerockers My Morning Jacket and desert atmospheric spaghetti-westerners Calexico, which I have peppered throughout the original set below. Enjoy!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Susquehannah (Sole Art Trample) - MV & EE And the Golden Road - Gettin' Gone
Tupelo - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - The Firstborn Is Dead
Watermelon Man - The Gun Club - Miami
The Medicine Show - The Dream Syndicate - The Medicine Show
Abigail's Ghost - Green On Red - Gravity Talks
It's About Time - True West - Hollywood Holiday
Americana - Thin White Rope - Sack Full Of Silver
Get Outta That Spaceship And Fight Like A Man - The Grifters - Crappin' You Negative
The Last Round Up - The Feelies - The Good Earth
Rockaway - Jackie-O Motherfucker - Flags Of The Sacred Heart
Mobile Line - The Holy Modal Rounders - The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders
Eyebath - Pumice - Pebbles
Plateau - The Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
The Wind - Spindrift - The West
Run Thru - My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
Once We Were Trees - Beachwood Sparks - Once We Were Trees
Rise To Glory - Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull
Shelter From The Ash - Six Organs Of Admittance - Shelter From The Ash
Other Kinds Run - Tower Recordings - The Galaxies' Incredibly Sensual Transmission Field Of The Tower Recordings
Portland Cement Company At Monolith, CA - John Fahey - Days Have Gone By
Translucent Sparrow - The Sadies - Favourite Colours
Mid-Town - Calexico - Hot Rail
Cosmic Charlie - The Grateful Dead - Aoxomoxoa
Spiders (Kidsmoke) - Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
Heron King Blues - Califone - Heron King Blues
Half A Canyon - Pavement - Wowee Zowee
Mr. Spaceman - The Byrds - Fifth Dimesnion

Back To School Part II

2009-09-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

First, a report from one of your classmates on how to school a wingnut evangelist:

Bravo, young lady! You deserve an A for atheism.

Okay, attention class, this next subject is a fun one! It's a survey of the plethora of cover songs within the spacerock realm, whether it's spacerock bands covering songs not normally considered to be part of the genre, or bands not normally considered to be spacerock indulging in a little lysergic pleasure. It allows us listeners and aficionados to peek into the psyches of these artists and discover more about them by exposing their personal tastes and influences - after all, you wouldn't cover a song you hate, would you? Except ironically, of course, and there's a modicum of irony or satire in spacerock (look at Hawkwind, for example), but it's definitely not the modus operandi. Seeing which covers these bands choose, and how they choose to cover them - whether in sincere homage or by completely dismantling the song to reassemble it their own way - helps us to discover the lineage between these musical movements, develop contexts and histories, and better understand the solar systems and larger galaxies of spacerock.

In this segment we also get to break three rules of the Spacerock Continuum: we can play the same artist in the same set, and we can play two versions of the same song in the same set. AND, we'll be going a bit over the two-hour mark this time, so get comfortable class, this will be journey of discovery for us all.

Ready? Begin:

We start in an obvious place (at least for those of us familiar with the LA supergroup featuring members of Failure and Tool who formed purely to put out a one-off collection of radically reinterpreted cover songs) with The Replicants and their take on a "silly" Paul McCartney & Wings ditty, and a track from Pink Floyd's spacey soundtrack for the obscure 70s film 'More'. Speaking of the Floyd, we follow with Japanese electronicists Color Filter and their dreamy version of one of my favorite Floyd songs ever from the Meddle album, and Red Temple Spirits doing another track from 'More' as well as a track from 'Umma Gumma'. We then have two drastically different versions of a 13th Floor Elevators' chestnut from Oneida and Primal Scream. Red Temple Spirits put out more than their fair share of covers and here we have another one from them in the form of their version of a Spacemen 3 gem, which was actually a cover of a 13th Floor Elevators track. Confused yet? How about Spacemen 3 themselves (who put out and album coincidentally called 'Sound of Confusion') with an unrecognizable cover of a Sun Ra song? Speaking of the Spacemen, next up are two of the best tracks from a tribute album to the opiated astral travelers from Frontier and Asteroid #4.

Okay, let's get a bit more down to earth (as much as we ever do in spacerock): next up, The Gun Club's fitting rendition of an oldie-goldie from Creedence Clearwater Revival, followed by True West making their acquaintance with Syd Barrett's friend Sam and Bauhaus meeting an entirely different Sam, a friend of Marc Bolan and T. Rex. Paying tribute to The Rolling Stones' ill-advised foray into sci-fi rock are 80s goth favorites Danse Society, then Maynard James Keenan from Tool feting Bauhaus survivors Love & Rockets with his side project Puscifer. Also from that album of L&R covers is Film School sounding reverential to their obvious forebears. Also proudly displaying their influences are Jessamine covering Suicide and Loop doing Neil Young. We then have a bizarre take on another Neil Young classic from The Flaming Lips, as well as their surprisingly faithful rendition of Queen's quintessential (if overplayed) rock opera. Another surprise choice is Husker Du, here mangling a slice of Byrdsian psychedelia. Then Th' Faith Healers demonstrate where they tuned up their motorik by covering vintage krautrockers Can.

In addition to Pink Floyd and the 13th Floor Elevators, another iconic band to cover is, of course, The Velvet Underground, and here are just a couple from 80s experimental stalwarts Clock DVA and Japan (REM was too obvious). Another is, even more obviously, David Bowie, and here we have the late, great Zen Guerilla paying debt to a classic Ziggy Stardust glamrocker (which I had the tearjerking pleasure to witness live on the very day of Spiders From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson's untimely death). Then we come full circle back to the Replicants with their reinterpretation of Bowie's finest epic.

Last, but certainly not least, Built To Spill's Doug Martsch conjures the god of thunder guitar on Neil Young's most torrential opus. Exhausting but not exhaustive, this set is by no means meant to be comprehensive - there are simply to many choice covers from which to choose. What are some of your favorites not included here, class? Discuss.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Silly Love Songs - Replicants - Replicants
Ibiza Bar - Replicants - Replicants
Fearless - Color Filter - I Often Think In Music
Nile Song - Red Temple Spirits - Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun - Red Temple Spirits - If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa I Wouldn't Stay A Minute More
Slip Inside This House - Oneida - Come On Everybody Let's Rock
Slip Inside This House - Primal Scream - Screamadelica
Rollercoaster - Red Temple Spirits - If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa I Wouldn't Stay A Minute More
Rollercoaster - Spacemen 3 - Sound Of Confusion
Starship - Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription
Hey Man - Frontier - A Tribute To Spacemen 3
Losing Touch With My Mind - Asteroid #4 - A Tribute To Spacemen 3
Run Through The Jungle - The Gun Club - Miami
Lucifer Sam - True West - Hollywood Holiday
Telegram Sam - Bauhaus - In The Flat Field
2000 Light Years From Home - Danse Society - Heaven Is Waiting
Holiday On The Moon - Puscifer - A Tribute To Love & Rockets
An American Dream - Film School - A Tribute To Love & Rockets
Cheree - Jessamine - Another Fictionalized History
Cinnamon Girl - Loop - A Tribute To Neil Young
After The Gold Rush - Flaming Lips - A Tribute To Neil Young
Bohemian Rhapsody - Flaming Lips - A Tribute To Queen
Eight Miles High - Husker Du - single
Mother Sky - Th' Faith Healers - Lido
Black Angels Death Song - Clock DVA - Advantage
All Tomorrow's Parties - Japan - Quiet Life
Moonage Daydream - Zen Guerilla - Trance States In Tongues
The Bewlay Brothers - Replicants - Replicants
Cortez The Killer - Built To Spill - Live

SPACE JAZZ...?!?!?

2009-09-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

It's back-to-school time, kids! And our first lesson is about the intersection of spacey sounds and high-minded JAZZ! Now it's no secret that the illustrious Sun Ra claimed to be from outer space (Saturn, I believe), as have many African American auteur/musicians from George Clinton to Dr. Octagon (aka Kool Keith who insists, "Earth people: I was born on Jupiter")... what IS it with that, anyway? So this month's installment is a bit of an inter-disciplinary study, deviating from the decidedly rockist format of this spacecast; a chance to explore the spacier tangents of jazz from the bop era to the space age, from free jazz exploration to avant garde science fiction.

We begin with the band who brought jazz (along with dub, latin rhythms, spaghetti western and experimental electronics) to the nebulous genre known as post rock, the mighty Tortoise, standard bearers of the Chicago sound. Following them are their Chi-Town schoolmates Pit Er Pat who bring a skewed melodicism and scattershot rhythmic edge to the proceedings. Next up, a very a-typically jazzy track from no-wave avant gardist Rhys Chatham who's more known for postmodern orchestral pieces (if a composition for 100 electric guitars is your idea of orchestral) as well as inspiring the likes of Sonic Youth. And how could this playlist be complete without drum-and-bass DJ and all-around madman Squarepusher, who alongside his prodigious programming talents just happens to be one berzerk mofo on electric bass. Another entry from the realm of electronica, the former drum-and-bass experimental duo Spring Heel Jack have morphed in recent years into extreme avant garde jazzists along with many trad jazz players and other unlikely guests including Spiritualized's J. Spaceman.

Another couple entries from the Chicago school (are they dominating this genre?), Exploding Star Orchestra and Isotope 217, both feature an alchemical mix of trad jazz and avant players, from cornetist and composer Rob Mazurek to multiple members of Tortoise. Next we trip lightly through a segment featuring the godfathers of space jazz, the always angular Ornette Coleman, the free jazz pioneer Pharoah Sanders, and the spaceways exploring Sun Ra.

Continuing the theme of melding electronic to organic, we have the familiarly monikered Spacetime Continuum from San Francisco, the polyrhythmic dub-jazzniks HiM (not to be confused with the thoroughly awful Finnish goth-metal band Him), and a collision between British electronica composer Kieran Hebden (aka Fourtet and 1/3 of post rockers Fridge) and old school American free jazz drummer Steve Reid. And if that doesn't leave you exhausted, prepare to wrap up this astral traveling set with New Zealand motorik-monotonists The Necks.

Okay class, school's out! Time for a nap...

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

TNT - Tortoise - TNT
I Am The Jungle - Pit Er Pat - Emergency
Flash - Rhys Chatham - Hard Edge
Delta-V - Squarepusher - Just A Souvenir
Autumn - Spring Heel Jack - The Sweetness of the Water
Sting Ray and the Beginning of Time, Part 1 - Exploding Star Orchestra - We Are All From Somewhere Else
Luh - Isotope 217 - Utonian Automatic
Civilization Day - Ornette Coleman - Complete Science Fiction
Astral Traveling - Pharoah Sanders - You've Got To Have Freedom
Lanquidity- Sun Ra - Lanquidity
Manaka - Spacetime Continuum - Double Fine Zone
A Verdict of Science - HiM - Sworn Eyes
Morning Prayer - Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid - The Exchange Sessions
Fatal - The Necks - Chemist

WAKE UP, SPACEMONKEYS!!!

2009-08-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Let us now celebrate the most uncompromising bands of our time from within and around the genre known as psychedelic. Surely it would too easy for me too just play All Pink Floyd, All The Time. Instead you're in for a dose of the obscure, noisy, and unrelenting.

I hope you enjoyed the above video from the all-time psych-pop masters of Oz, the Church, who just released their 23rd album this year (!). This track was recorded live very recently but comes from their second album of their mid-80s heyday (album title pun intended), back when I must've seen them at least a dozen times. These guys are pushing 60 (!) and rock like nobody else out there. There must be something wrong with me but this video brought tears to my jaded eyes.

So on to the blitz: there's a lot more I could've included in this set, but it started out just as any other, and only later did I attempt to classify it. I hesitate in my hasty inclination to call this my Best. Set. Ever. But whatever... "it is what it is" (to quote the most inane phrase ever coined in the English language)... and it RAWKS.

We start with the prolific favorite sons of Wales the Super Furry Animals, and the opening slab of psych/glam from the their latest (and greatest?) album, and follow them with their countrymen Future of the Left, who rose from the ashes of the mighty Mclusky, that postpunk juggernaut that was the Welsh answer to Fugazi but with a wicked sense of misanthropic humor. Both they and Death From Above 1979 could hardly be called psychedelic per se (although an argument could be made for their spacerockingness), but I thought they fit well in the set, so don't question it - you'll thank me later.

We then take a turn toward the dark side with spaghetti-western psychesters Spindrift, trance-inducing Texans The Black Angels, nerve-fraying Sacramentoans the Ganglians, raucous troglodytes Cave, and motorik madmen Circle, with a stomping tribute to their Finnish home town.

When it comes to uncompromising... with their proclivity for reinventing the same circular song pattern over the course of dozens of releases and a plethora of microgenres, all the while toiling in obscurity, Circle wrote the book. Other contributors to various chapters of this tome include Brooklyn's Oneida, and this monster of a track is culled from their umpteenth recording, an ambitious 3CD sprawl that succeeds in melting my mind easily 90% of the time. And with only 10% filler it's better for you than most American-made foodstuffs. The next chapter is writ large by Chicago postrock OGs Tortoise who, judging by this track, haven't decided to mellow into the tepid smooth jazz fusion of some of their contemporaries. They certainly backed that statement up at a stellar San Francisco show earlier in the month which I was lucky enough to witness. And of course, the foreward and epilogue to this anthology would have to be written by 70s-era krautrock pioneers Faust who are still at it today (this track coming from 1997, one of their many "comebacks"), and who continue to be more challenging and uncompromising than ever.

From there we tackle some analog synthtronica from Cluster-philes like Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, who is really a solo composer dedicated to the Teutonic arts (Mozart, anyone? gene-splice it with some modern drone theory? add some Fahey-esque guitar? yes please!), Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas, space-technoist Norwegians who occasionally fall off the dance floor and rise into something more cerebral, and Sinoia Caves, the keyboardist from Black Mountain getting his Cluster (aka Kluster) on.

Yanking us, sleep-deprived from our reveries, is everyone's favorite spacepunk superheroes the Trail of Dead with a devastating track from their latest magnum opus, which then leaves us in the hands of the unarguable godfathers of hyper-dynamic post rock, Tokyo's Mono, who show us how to go from very quiet to VERY LOUD to even LOUDER to LOUDER STILL, but Glasgow's mighty 'Gwai take it further still, to the heavens and back, with their side-length biblical epic that one-ups even their other lengthy classics like "Mogwai Fear Satan" and "Like Herod". Apocalyptic times indeed, but squint a bit and you might see that elusive light at the end of the long... dark... tunnel.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Crazy Naked Girls - Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years
The Hope That House Built - Future of the Left - Travels With Myself And Another
Turn It Out - Death From Above 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
Goin' Down - Spindrift - The West
Black Grease - The Black Angels - Passover
100 Years - Ganglians - Monster Head Room
Gamm - Cave - Psychic Psummer
Back To Pori - Circle - Pori
10:30 At The Oasis - Oneida - Rated O
Yinxianghechengqi - Tortoise - Beacons Of Ancestorship
Liebeswehen 2 - Faust - You Know Faust
Feuerprobe - Eine Kleine Nacht Musik - Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
Rothaus - Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas - II
Evil Ball - Sinoia Caves - The Enchanter Persuaded
Bells Of Creation - ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - The Century Of Self
Com (?) - Mono - One Step More And You Die
My Father, My King - Mogwai - My Father, My King

Space travel is fun...!

2009-07-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

And we're traveling all over the place this month, which should explain my tardiness in posting this installment. I briefly touched down on terra firma for summer vacation the last couple weeks, ports o' call within my orbit from San Diego to Portland, but I'm back in the satellite now with a set of the heavy, the majestic and the obscure, just for you.

Attention metalheads! The first meaty chunk of this set is for you! If you're not so metallic don't let that frighten you off - this is only the most progressive of modern day post-metal, from Harvey Milk, Torche, Helms Alee and Oceansize. The once-defunct but recently regrouped Athens GA trio Harvey Milk bring the heavy to closeted metal lovers in the oft-effeminate indie scene. Torche, who I saw on a bill with Red Sparrowes and Isis (two bands that would fit perfectly in this set, but time doesn't permit), bring a surprising melodiousness to their manic punk-metal hybrid. Helms Alee came to me through the impeccable taste of my cohort Sully, who caught the Seattle three-piece at their recent stop at Petaluma's illustrious Phoenix Theater. Oceansize is a band I struggle with pigeon-holing, because despite hailing from Madchester UK, their drift and crunch conjurs not only their namesakes Jane's Addiction, but everything from Radiohead to Tool to vintage grunge circa Alice In Chains. Confusing? But not necessarily a bad thing.

We then transition to a proggier segment with the vintage keyboard saturated space travels of Zombi, the spaciest track from the stellar new Tortoise album, some shoegazin' bliss from Ulrich Schnauss, a motorik-inspired selection from the Phantom Band, and a Phil Spector worshiping slice of melodrama from Pink Mountaintops (side project of Black Mountain stalwarts Stephen McBean and Amber Webber).

Then it's time for a couple left-field departures, where Japan's Mono bring postrock ever nearer to neoclassical proportions on their latest release, and Australia's Necks launch jazz instrumentation into Space 1990. That's when things get really weird: Black Eyes are not for everyone, and can be just as painful as their namesake to those unaccustomed to the abrasive textures where ART meets NOISE. But fear not, after the band broke up their helium-voiced singer formed a new band Mi Ami that melded the sandpaper skronk of his previous outfit to mind-melting echo chamber dub! And as icing on the noise cake, three epics of endurance: one from the enigmatic Majik Markers, one from the latest installment of the saga that is Sonic Youth, and a lengthy closer from Kiwi atonalist Birchville Cat Motel a man who straddles the line between aural and textural as well as anyone in the history of spacerock.

I hope this reaches you in time to annoy the neighbors at your Independence Day BBQ and ignite fireworks in your brain. Happy Birthday America! May your current trajectory carry us like a comet, arcing ever higher and never crashing to earth!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Death Goes To The Winner - Harvey Milk - Life... The Best Game In Town
Amnesian - Torche - Meanderthal
A New Roll - Helms Alee - Night Terror
Catalyst - Oceansize - Effloresce
Earthly Powers - Zombi - Spirit Animal
High Class Slim Came Floatin' In - Tortoise - Beacons Of Ancestorship
On My Own - Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
Throwing Bones - Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
Axis: Thrones Of Love - Pink Mountaintops - Outside Love
Battle To Heaven - Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind
Next - The Necks - Next
Yes, I Confess - Black Eyes - s/t
Echonoecho - Mi Ami - Watersports
Axis Mundi - Majik Markers - Boss
Antenna - Sonic Youth - The Eternal
Chi Vampires - Birchville Cat Motel - Chi Vampires

June Gloom?

2009-06-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

Got politics? What a clusterfuck this world is in! Ah, nevermind... the weather's great up here on the satellite, let's forget about petty human affairs and blast off into SPACE!

We start this month's installment with some seriocomic glam/prog entries from the Crazy World of notorious British eccentric Arthur Brown (circa 1968) and a tongue-in-cheek slice of "social commentary" from vintage Roxy Music ('73), winding out with THE all-time space-glam epic from our beloved spaceman Ziggy Stardust ('72) and a classic from little-known but highly influential analog synth oddballs the Silver Apples ('68). Our progression shifts to quasi-shoegaze with San Francisco's Halcyon High (a one-man psych-guitar extravaganza), and Chicago's notoriously "difficult" Labradford proudly wearing their influences on one of their most linear and accessible tracks.

From there it's a decidedly motorik affair with Swedish retro-futurists The Low Frequency In Stereo, the UK's The Horrors (suddenly dropping their Cramps/Birthday Party goth tendencies in favor of smooth krautrock for their second album), and San Francisco's Wooden Shjips from their fine second full-length release. Splintering off from that realm, the Phantom Band shows the motorik/instrumental side of their Beta Band/Super Furry Animals-style psych-pop which leads us to some acid-soaked Americana from Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, from their long-lost first album (look next month for a track from their just-released third album, a contender for best of the year!), MV & EE, The Tower Recordings, Dead Meadow and Comets On Fire. Aussies The Dirty Three then uplift us from the morass with an upbeat instrumental love-ditty composed of guitars, violins and... bagpipes?!?!?

Finishing this set on an up note, musical breathren Oneida and Pterodactyl drop some spaz-prog science, Fridge put the chill on post-rock and Unwound take their moniker to heart. All in a day's work, folks... enjoy!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Prelude/Nightmare - Arthur Brown - The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
In Every Dream Home A Heartache - Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Moonage Daydream - David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Oscillations - Silver Apples - s/t
Close Your Eyes And See The Light - Halcyon High - Live on KDVS
Soft Return - Labraford - Prazision
Solar System - The Low Frequency In Stereo - Futuro
Sea Within A Sea - The Horrors - Primary Colours
Down By The Sea - Wooden Shjips - Dos
Crocodile - Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
Creeping Spirits & Talkonaut - Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound - s/t
Canned Happiness - MV & EE - Green Blues
Other Kinds Run - The Tower Recordings - The Galaxies' Incredibly Sensual Transmission Field Of The Tower Recordings
One And Old - Dead Meadow - Howls From The Hills
Brotherhood Of The Harvest - Comets On Fire - Blue Cathedral
Doris - Dirty Three - Cinder
Up With People - Oneida - Happy New Year
Share The Shade - Pterodactyl - Worldwild
Astrozero - Fridge - Early Output 1996-1998
Side Effects Of Being Tired - Unwound - Challenge For A Civilized Society

May Day!!! May Day!!!

2009-05-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Beltane!!! That's all I got by way of topical or witty banter this month. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

We start slow with some stream-of-consciousness motorik from Psychic Ills, whose great new album has a more improvised-in-the-studio feel, and Wooden Shjips from their debut album (I'll be back next month with a track from their brand new one!). Then an oddball track from Mercury Rev's new one, a free download on their website, which is entirely instrumental! Just as you're drifting off you'll be startled out of your reverie by a blistering track from the incredilbe new Trail of Dead album, their best in a long line of great albums and a true return to form (thanks to Kevin at Pandora Studios for the invitation to a private Trail of Dead taping - that was AWESOME!). We move on into a set of some proggy polyrhythmic pandemonium from our beloved Animal Collective (new one's brilliant!), Marnie Stern (last track from her for a while, I swear!), and Lucky Dragons (file under WTF?!?!?). Then we have some Chicago-school jazz-prog from Pit Er Pat (sounding alot like Pram, who I've been playing a lot of lately) and some full-on space-kraut from Japan's Rovo (always amazing).

Then, as I am wont to do, we drop shear off the cliff into oblivion, with Birchville Cat Motel, a one-man experimental "outfit" from New Zealand, lo-fi San Diego noisemonger Wavves, also a one man band, and a meandering krautrockin' track from late-great San Francisco absurdists Chum Frink (hi Derek!). Speaking of absurd, if I wasn't familiar with the individual members' pedigrees (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Le Fly Pan Am... basically a who's who of the Montreal post-rock scene) I wouldn't know what to make of the next band, Pas Chic Chic, but suffice it to say their "trippy Francophone pop" is meant to be both tongue-in-cheek AND spacerockin'.

And I daresay the remainder of the set is a collection of the most linear stuff I've ever compiled on the Spacerock Continuum (barring the more free-form January best-of editions): Crystal Stilts' surfin-'in-Motown psychedelia, Sian Alice Group's PJ Harvey-esque minimalist post-rock, the Cocteau Twins-esque retro-futurist leanings of School of Seven Bells (featuring an ex-Secret Machines guitarist and the two lovely sisters from On! Air! Library!), a vintage shoegazing classic from Slowdive, the aforementioned Secret Machines whose third album, from which this track is taken, is not as bad as their miserable second but not as good as their stellar debut, and one of the greatest tracks from the sorely-overlooked and long-defunct Chameleons (UK), circa 1985. Of course I have to leave you with a mind-melting show closer, so in this case prepare to be utterly transported by Germany's Daturah (fittingly named after the traditional name for the powerful hallucinogen jimson weed). Work for you? It did for me...

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Mantis - Psychic Ills - Mirror Eye
We Ask You To Ride - Wooden Shjips - s/t
Because Because Because - Mercury Rev - Strange Attractors
Far Pavilions - ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - The Century Of Self
Lion In A Coma - Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Grapefruit - Marnie Stern - In Advance Of The Broken Arm
Givers - Lucky Dragons - Dream Island Laughing Language
I Am The Jungle - Pit Er Pat - Emergency
Cisko - Rovo - Tonic 2001
Damn Infinity Hair Tie - Birchville Cat Motel - Four Freckle Constellation
Sun Opens My Eyes - Wavves - Wavvves
Palimony - Chum Frink - EP
Vous Comprenez Pourquoi - Pas Chic Chic - Au Contraire
The Dazzled - Crystal Stilts - Alight Of Night
Way Down To Heaven - Sian Alice Group - 59.59
Sempiternal Amaranth - School Of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
Morningrise - Slowdive - Catch The Breeze
Have I Run Out? - Secret Machines - s/t (third)
In Shreds - The Chameleons - What Does Anything Mean, Basically?
Ghost Track - Daturah - Reverie

And how's about a bonus video? One for Mogwai's biggest mindfuck ever? Well, okay then:

Mogwai - Mogwai Fear Satan from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Is there spring in space?

2009-04-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Okay we're back to the random spacerock this month after a couple exhausting lessons in experimental rock history... no theme this time, no focus, no plot, just a cluster of stars that spun itself off into yet another galaxy in the Spacerock Multiverse! We begin with a bit of epic ridiculosity from the ever-reliable Germans, the lost-to-obscurity Agitation Free and the freak commune known as Amon Duul II (vintage krautrock can always be depended on for some kitsch psychedelia and in these two tracks our intrepid Teutonic explorers head to Eastern outposts), and then off into some Gabriel-era Genesis, who unfortunately are not actually intending to be tongue-in-cheek here, but are still notable in this context. We then delve into some polyrhythmic pandemonium from the early 80s (23 Skidoo) and just last year (Mahjongg), and then transport to some acid-fried Americana from Tobacco (also from last year, spun off from Black Moth Super Rainbow) Religious Knives (also last year), The Gun Club, Green On Red and Red Temple Spirits (all three are originators from the 80s and as such these recordings are poorly mastered, so turn 'em WAY up, especially the Gun Club!). Then we settle into an extended passage through some pastoral psych/folk weirdness, beginning with a track from Black Mountain to commemorate their recent passage through the Bay Area to which I was lucky enough to bear witness - mind blown? check! - culminating in the new single from the almighty Circle's latest album... with vocals in English even (courtesy of one Bruce Duff, former singer for the Jesters of Destiny, an obscure and long-defunct LA prog-metal also-ran)! Will wonders never cease? In there we hear from the very enigmatic Jane, the very French Benoît Pioulard, a pair of tracks from Ulann Khol and Hala Strana, who are basically the same person (Steven Smith from San Francisco's Thuja), a solo guitar workout (in keeping with the two previous tracks) from Charalambides, minus the usual soaring vocals of Christina Carter, and a couple of tasty morsels from freak-folksters Wooden Wand and Akron/Family. Last but not least: settle deep into yer oooohhhhmmm... with the indescribable sounds of the man known as Lichens.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Malesch - Agitation Free - Malesch
Deutsch Nepal - Amon Düül II - Wolf City
Riding The Scree - Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
The Gospel Comes To New Guinea - 23 Skidoo - The Gospel Comes To New Guinea
Rise Rice - Mahjongg - Kontpab
Backwoods Altar - Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends
Downstairs - Religious Knives - The Door
Walking With The Beast - The Gun Club - The Las Vegas Story
Narcolepsy - Green On Red - Gravity Talks
Exorcism / Waiting for The Sun - Red Temple Spirits - Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon
Bastards of Light - Black Mountain - In The Future
Berserker - Jane - Berserker
Ragged Tint - Benoît Pioulard - Temper
Untitled 1 - Ulaan Khol - II
Wood Scree - Hala Strana - These Villages
Pasé el Agora - Charalambides - Our Bed Is Green
I Am the One I Am And He is the Caretaker of My Heart - Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice - Buck Dharma
Raising The Sparks - Akron/Family - Akron/Family & Angels Of Light
Connection - Circle - Hollywood
M St R Ng W Tchcr Ft L V Ng N Sp R T - Lichens - Omns

More Legacies and Influences

2009-03-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Okay class, this is another history lesson like last month. Pipe down, pipe down... it's for your own good. A little education goes a long way into understanding space rock. Specifically, the experiMENTAL side of rock music. It's basically what happens when you remove the blues influence and start incorporating esoteric ideas like, dissonance, drone, undertones, overtones, just intonation, atonality, microtonality, harmonics, xenharmonics and a whole lotta other concepts with fancy names that aren't really necessary to for you to know. You'll understand this music when you hear it... you'll KNOW it because you hear it all the time. This kind of music is more in tune with the natural rhythms and melodies of your body's own chemistry than any western blues-derived motif could ever be. It's the music of the cosmos!

Before this begins to sound dry, just listen to the tracks. We start with a relatively rockist number from Rhys Chatham, who has composed songs (or movements) for up to 400 electric guitars, all tuned slightly differently, and created a number of sprawling pieces like this one back in the 70's and 80's. He and his contemporary Glenn Branca, another multi-guitar proponent and "symphony" composer, begat Sonic Youth who incorporated a little punk rock and attitude into the mix, with screwdrivers jammed under the strings of their guitars, unorthodox tunings and a complete lack of cymbals on the drum kit. They're represented here with an aptly-named track from their seminal 1988 classic. The more formal side of this ethos is demonstrated by Steve Reich and Terry Riley, who really are more modern classical composers but have heavily influenced experimental rockers like Stereolab, Spacemen 3 and Brian Eno, whose collaboration with treated guitarist Robert Fripp (from King Crimson) is one the most quintessential non-rocking "rock" experiments of all time. I've thrown in some lesser-known devotees like French-Canadian sonic pranksters Le Fly Pan Am who add the element of recording manipulation (yes those little glitches are intentional), the godfathers of motorik Neu! (who in turn influenced Stereolab), fretboard sorceress Marnie Stern whose own downtown NYC milieu has strong ties to the legacy of their forebears (Branca, Chatham, Sonic Youth et al.), Texas psych duo Charalambides (just guitar and voice) and enigmatic whatchamacallits Glissandro 70 (delayed guitar and electronics). Confused? Just sit back and LISTEN...

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Die Donnergötter - Rhys Chatham - An Angel Moves Too Fast To See
The Sprawl - Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Swimming Pool - Charalambides - Glowing Raw
Partially Sabotaged Distraction Partiellement Sabotée - Le Fly Pan Am - Ceux Qui Inventent N'ont Jamais Vécu
Electric Counterpoint 1 - Steve Reich - Electric Counterpoint
Something - Glissandro 70 - s/t
Shea Stadium - Marnie Stern - This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That
Hallogallo - Neu! - s/t
Analogue Rock - Stereolab - Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements
A Rainbow In Curved Air - Terry Riley - A Rainbow In Curved Air
Swastika Girls II - Brian Eno & Robert Fripp - No Pussyfooting
Second Movement (The Horror) - Glenn Branca - Symphony #10
Ecstasy In Slow Motion - Spacemen 3 - Dreamweapon

By the way, I recently felt the need for a little terra firma (it gets lonely up here in the spacerock station) so I beamed myself down to earth, Petaluma specifically, and this is what I saw:

The Classics, Their Legacies & Beyond!

2009-02-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, back to the Space Rock! This one's about EVOLUTION: the evolutionary transitions bands make and the influence they have on other areas of musical evolution. Starting with the modern hipster shoegaze of the Dandy Warhols and the post-krautrocking haze of Psychic Ills, to vintage Loop, sounding like a sum of their influences from Spacemen 3 on down to J&MC, then a track from Main, the stripped-down project into which Loop devolved. Then it's personal fave Grails (Hey Emil!), sounding so much like mid-period Floyd that, well, I just had to back them up with mid-period Floyd, from their stellar soundtrack to the obscure French film 'The Valley (Obscured by Clouds)' that is so freekin' awesome that it stands on its own as one of their greatest albums, albeit one most people haven't heard.

Then we venture deep into the realm of the near-kitsch, the almost-but-not-really tongue-in-cheek world of vintage PROG, and, dare I say, Classic Schlock, with Queen, Hawkwind, BOC, King Crimson and... The James Gang!!! Yes, that's Joe Walsh's first band - remember "Funk #49"?!?!? This track slays, with a dubby Noel Redding-style bassline and spacey delayed slide guitar of a David Gilmour bent. But I'm not spoofing when I say I dearly love all of these bands (especially Queen, whose early material is ridiculously underrated). However, I draw the line at Yes or Rush, so don't even ask. Ech...

Then it gets... WEIRD. From the atonal avant rock of the Velvet underground, to vintage (and very, VERY obscure) Eno, to modern practitioners of WTF?!?!?-rock like Health and Shit & Shine. Then we delve deep into epic, cinematic post rock with Germany's Daturah, and finish up with pure STONED improv from O.G. "Philladelic" maestros Bardo Pond. I "highly" recommend some sort of mood-altering substance for this, one of my most hardcore mindfuck sets, even just a small afternoon or late night toke or two...? You've got two hours... what you do with them is up to YOU.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Nietzche - The Dandy Warhols - 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia
I Knew My Name - Psychic Ills - Dins
Straight to Your Heart - Loop - Wold Flow (The Peel Sessions)
Flame Tracer - Main - Hydra-Calm
Acid Rain - Grails - Doomsdayer's Holiday
Mudmen - Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds
The Bomber - The James Gang - Rides Again
Psychedelic Warlords - Hawkwind - Psychedelic Warlords
7 Screaming Diz-Busters - Blue Oyster Cult - Tyranny and Mutation
21st Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
European Son - The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Juju Space Jazz - Brian Eno - My Squelchy Life
Triceratops - Health - s/t
The Germans Call it A Swimming Head - Shit and Shine - Kuss Mich, Meine Liebe
Shoal - Daturah - s/t
Lomand - Bardo Pond - Selections Vol. 1-4

2008...

2009-01-01T11:08:00.000-08:00

...could be looked back on as the Crystal Year, because it was the year we saw fabulous debuts from the Crystal bands: the abrasive underground techno-punk of Crystal Castles, the Phil Spector does kraut-damaged surf-rock of Crystal Stilts, and the ballistic acid-fried proto-psych of Crystal Antlers. However, despite the tastiness of all three acts, only the latter made it into my playlist of the best music of 2008. It was also crystalline in its clarity last year that THINGS MUST CHANGE. Otherwise I'm leavin' this dirtball planet BEHIND, and headed for SPACE! Join me?

This New Year's installment features songs from the very best releases of 2008, and as usual it's the least spacerock, per se, of any set. The motto is, after all, "not ALL spacerock, and not all the time". That said, it's got loads of heavy-deavy, freaky-deaky material for those connoisseurs of such, as well as some diverse and even poppy tracks from fairly well-known and plenty of lesser-known artists. Also, bein' a little less spacerock results in less-lengthy songs so you've got, count 'em, 27 of 'em!

First, a video from THE band of the year:

A snapshot of 2008: we start with Indian Jewelry, of course - their neoprimitive agit-prop shoegaze absolutely SLAYS me. TV On The Radio can seemingly do no wrong, and this album's their most soulful, if least spacey. Icelandic eccentric Mugison continues to refine his unabashed Bolan/Lennon worship. Two "sunny" songs, one from Glasgow's mighty postrockers Mogwai with their best release in a decade and one from Long Beach's acid-punkers Crystal Antlers from their eponymous debut EP (can't wait for a full-length!). Boris put out their most accessible album yet (relatively speaking) with two very different versions in Japan and the US, but both seriously RAWK! LA's prog-punk duo No Age continue to amaze while the Raveonettes offer more of their exquisite gauzy Phil Spector meets Jesus & Mary Chain ditties. The Dears were more concise, hard-edged, and slightly less melodramatic than usual, and Beck (?!?!?) was pretty much par for the course, great-sounding and fun yet slight, but this track's kinda psychedelic - me likey. Deerhunter put out their most cohesive effort yet while Portishead made a comeback bar none - their best record EVER, and one of the top ten albums of the year. M83 sweetened up their analog synth excursions with a nostalgic wistfulness, while Au captured the ecstatic joy of their live collaborative chant-a-longs. Abe Vigoda, Gang Gang Dance and Marnie Stern shared New York City's current obsession with African polyrhythms (and phenomenal guitar playing), while Collections of Colonies of Bees brought transcendence to elaborate and oblique postjazz/rock. Black Mountain return with a fresh-cut slab of their monolithic psych, and White Hills appear with a squall of frenzied acid-kraut, Ulann Khol take us on a fuzzed-out journey through the soul and The Black Angels into a psilocybic pit of hell. Jucifer managed to make a 21-song tribute to Marie Antoinette rock by careening from hardcore punk to sludge metal to acid-tinged balladry, and Nick Cave proved his continued relevance with a textured and varied work worthy of all his past output with elements of both his Birthday Party and Grinderman forays into artpunk angst. Sun City Girls returned with another installment of their spazz-rocking "ethno-forgeries" (to paraphrase Can), their best since Torch of the Mystics, probably because it contains outtakes from those very sessions, the prolific Grails put out two amazing albums and this track is from their very best yet, and Fuck Buttons manage to make utter noise seem beautiful, a catharsis for bright new year. ENJOY!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Swans - Indian Jewelry - Free Gold!
Halfway Home - TV on the Radio - Dear Science
Mugiboogie - Mugison - Mugiboogie
The Sun Smells Too Loud - Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling
Until the Sun Dies - Crystal Antlers - s/t ep
Buzz-In - Boris - Smile (Japanese Version)
Cappo - No Age - Nouns
Hallucinations - The Raveonettes - Lust, Lust, Lust
Disclaimer - The Dears - Missiles
Chemtrails - Beck - Modern Guilt
Nothing Ever Happened - Deerhunter - Microcastle
Silence - Portishead - Third
Highway of Endless Dreams - M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Are Animals - Au - Verbs
Skeleton - Abe Vigoda - Skeleton
First Communion - Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna
Transformer - Marnie Stern - This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That
Flocks I - Collections of Colonies of Bees - Birds
Stormy High - Black Mountain - In The Future
Radiate - White Hills - Heads on Fire
Track 7 - Ulaan Khol - 1
Doves - The Black Angels - Directions to See a Ghost
L'Autrichienne - Jucifer - L'Autrichienne
We Call upon the Author - Nick Cave - Dig Lazarus Dig!
Souvenirs from Jangare - Sun City Girls - You're Never Alone with a Cigarette
Predestination Blues - Grails - Doomsdayer's Holiday
Bright Tomorrow - Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing

Ho ho... huh?

2008-12-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

Well, we did it! We were such good boys and girls this year that Santa Claus brought us the president we wanted (and in California the trains we wanted!). Hip-hip-freekin'-hooray - it's about time already! In fact I'm so dang happy I'm gonna put on my OWN Santa hat and give you deserving spacerockers not ONE, but TWO full playlists this month!

But wait a minute, it looks like some of you HAVE been misbehaving... and apparently Santa Claus is bringing gay people lumps of coal this year:

I must say I am truly ashamed of 52% of my fellow Californians, who are nothing but hateful BIGOTS, especially the other minorities who've long known identical discrimination but let their churches and their fear guide them instead of their hearts and minds. The rest of us sane, loving people will repeal Prop 8 eventually because you cannot mandate HATE, or discriminate via popular vote, and we'll move on with the evolution of the human species, while the bigots can go the way of the dodo.

Meanwhile, some more thanksgiving:

Now on to the playlists!

Playlist #1 begins with a smirkingly-titled track from contemporary (and half-German) duo Cloudland Canyon, who are in direct lineage with the O.G. krautrockers, Brit practitioners of said art The Early Years, and the inventor of the motorik style himself and founder of Neu!, Michael Rother. We then sidestep into some quintessential space rock with Seattle's Voyager One and one half of Spacemen 3, the inimitable Spectrum (aka Sonic Boom aka Pete Kember), and modern psychedelic with Sacramento's Low Flying Owls and Brooklyn's White Hills. A brief foray into intricate instrumental (post)rock with Souvaris and it's off to exotica with a sitar-drenched Echo & The Bunnymen classic, an homage to Cambodian psych with Dengue Fever, and an abrasive and arty track from Pram in their earlier more experimental phase (before they followed their brethren Stereolab into lighter-weight Space-age Bachelor Pad themes). Continuing we dive into herky-jerky art skronk with the one and only Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits sideman Marc Ribot and the illustrious Mr. Tom Jenkinson, aka drill 'n' bass jazzmonster Squarepusher, before tripping headlong into deep, deep psychedelia with early kraut kollectives Amon Düül and Tangerine Dream, as well as acid-saturated pioneers The Pink Floyd. And we wrap up with British shoegazers Loop and their stellar cover of Can's drone classic "Mother Sky".

But hold on to your hats and glasses folks, we're not done yet! We're only halfway to infinity! The SECOND two hours features some serious head-clobbering from the likes of Mogwai (from their latest and best album in years The Hawk Is Howling), some nightmarish prog-metal from Neurosis, a classic Butthole Surfers nugget, and some transcendent psych from Norway's Serena-Maneesh, Philly's Bardo Pond and San Francisco's Ulaan Khol. After an expansive interlude from old school krautrockers Neu! the mindfuck continues with the nearly unclassifiable acts Growing, Holy Fuck and Neptune until we again sandwich the aforementioned Dengue Fever and Pram together... not that they have anything in common, it just seems to work (see previous playlist). Clattering out of dim basements in Belgium and Austria come dEUS, Ignatz and Pumice before we're bludgeoned between the ears with the "repetition and nonsense" of Shit & Shine before being left battered and bleeding from the ears by the classic acid-kraut trio Ash Ra Tempel.

And THAT, my sugarplum dreamers, should satisfy even the most hardcore spacerockers until we return next year with an installation featuring the very BEST of 2008. Have a great holiday season, and while you're spacing out on the couch with the headphones on, keep an eye out for those devious little elves... Santa's helpers? Or Satan's? You decide.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Krautwerk - Cloudland Canyon - Lie In Light
So Far Gone - The Early Years - s/t
Feuerland - Michael Rother - Flammende Herzen
Ocean Grey - Voyager One - After Hours In The After Life
How You Satisfy Me - Spectrum - Soul Kiss (Glide Divine)
Glad To Be Alive - Low Flying Owls - Elixer Vitae
Under Skin Or By Name - White Hills - Glitter Glamour Atrocity
Quit Touching My Ass - Souvaris - A Hat
Heads Will Roll - Echo & The Bunnymen - Porcupine
One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula - Dengue Fever - Escape From Dragon House
I'm A War - Pram - Gash
Electricity - Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Safe As Milk
Digital Handshake - Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog - Party Intellectuals
Planet Gear - Squarepusher - Just A Souvenir
Dem Guten, Schönen, Wahren - Amon Düül II - Phallus Dei
Interstellar Overdrive - Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Journey Through A Burning Brain - Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation
Mother Sky - Loop - Fade Out

And the next player will feature these tracks:

Batcat - Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling
Water is Not Enough - Neurosis - Given To The Rising
Something - Butthole Surfers - PCPP EP (Live)
Blues Like Beehive II - Serena-Maneesh - S-M Backwards
Yellow Turban - Bardo Pond - Amanita
Untitled #2 - Ulaan Khol - 1
Weissensee - Neu! - s/t
Innit - Growing - All The Way
Super Innuit - Holy Fuck - s/t
Blue Glass - Neptune - Gong Lake
Space Siren - Pram - Telemetric Melodies
Seeing Hands - Dengue Fever - Venus On Earth
Fell Off The Floor, Man - dEUS - In A Bar Under The Sea
Rebound Off The Cliff - Ignatz - s/t
Heavy Punter - Pumice - Quo
The Rabbit Song - Shit & Shine - Cherry
Freak 'n' Roll - Ash Ra Tempel - Join Inn

Get out and VOTE...!!!

2008-11-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

...or you'll be lost in SPACE! During the last eight years we have come perilously close to global devastation so unless we WAKE UP we are all FUCKED!!! The only place of refuge will be outer space; in the meantime we can take solace in the bliss of SPACE ROCK! And this month's installment is a heavy one indeed, but as long as it takes you on a journey then I've done my job. I won't say any more about politics except OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA!

On to the playlist: we begin with a couple obscure classic epics, "The Width of A Circle" from David Bowie's lost gem from 1972 The Man Who Sold the World (ask Kurt Cobain about that one... oh, wait), and Patti Smith's "Abyssinia" from her least-known (and my personal favorite) album Radio Ethiopia (1976). Acting as a transition track (and filed under WTF?!?!?) is Clipd Beaks with their dying wish, a great idea if you ask me.

We then venture into a segment exploring many aspects of the motorik genre. First invented by the kraut rock pioneers of the early 70's and further explored by diverse modern practitioners, this style's main feature is a forward-rushing momentum (think Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" et al.): we have Clinic from Liverpool, Vivian Girls from Brooklyn, The Early Years from London, and the veritable originators of motorik, Neu!, featuring members of Kraftwerk and Cluster, culminating with Stereolab's expansive "Jenny Ondioline", from their earlier more experiMENTAL years.

Shocking us out of our reverie is a set of the rockier side of shoegaze with Swervedriver, Loop (indebted to the influential Spacemen 3), Singapore Sling and their primary influence The Jesus & Mary Chain, then going off the deep end with Seattle's Hypatia Lake from their epic concept album (can you guess the theme?), and the inimitable wall-of-sound of My Bloody Valentine (I'm still reeling from their reunion show last month) here showing their punkier side, albeit with a crazy time signature.

We conclude this installment with three lengthy tracks: Brooklyn's Oneida with a portion of their recent magnum opus Preteen Weaponry, little-known vintage krautrockers German Oak, also-rans from 1972, and Montreal's post rock classicists Godspeed You! Black Emperor. These three tracks have in common rather, um... apocalyptic military themes, for some reason.

Whew! Hope you enjoy it, and I'll see you on the other side!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

The Width of a Circle - David Bowie - The Man Who Sold the World
Abyssinia - Patti Smith - Radio Ethiopia
Smoke Me When I'm Gone - Clipd Beaks - Preyers
Gideon - Clinic - Visitations
Tell the World - Vivian Girls - s/t
All Ones and Zeros - The Early Years - s/t
Lilac Angel - Neu! - Neu! 2
Jenny Ondioline - Stereolab - Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements
99th Dream - Swervedriver - 99th Dream
This Is Where You End - Loop - Fade Out
Overdriver - Singapore Sling - The Curse of Singapore Sling
Catchfire - The Jesus & Mary Chain - Honey's Dead
Joseph and the Divine Intervention - Hypatia Lake - ...And We Shall Call Him Joseph
Feed Me with Your Kiss - My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything
Preteen Weaponry 2 - Oneida - Preteen Weaponry
Raid Over Dusseldorf - German Oak - s/t
Motherfucker = Redeemer (Part 2) - Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O.

Words cannot express...

2008-10-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

...my anticipation of the events occurring this month throughout the US and elsewhere, events of such magnitude as to shake the planet loose from its orbit and launch us all into farflung galaxies, exhilarated by the prospect of the long-awaited reunion of one of the most important bands of all time:

The triumphant return of MY BLOODY VALENTINE!!!!! And of course I will be bearing witness to it - will you? In fact, I've decided to catch this epic moment in history at a venue that I have a lot of history with myself, the fabled Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Word on the street is the Concourse Exhibition Center, the site of MBV's San Francisco stop, is a horrible venue for live music - all tinny, echoey sound and horrible sightlines. And besides, the Civic in L.A. is a place where I've attended many history-making rock shows, including the first US tour by Public Image Ltd., in their original lineup, with the flamboyant chaos-inducing fire-breathing Butthole Surfers (among others) as their support. It was the hugest mosh pit I've ever experienced, and if I remember correctly this was probably in '82. I know it was in '89 that I first swooned over My Bloody Valentine - and '91 when I caught their first and only US tour at the Hollywood Palladium. They were absolutely DEVASTATING. In all honesty it took me and my musical peers a bit of time to "get" this monumental band, as it often does with most artists with any longevity. This is the band who forever changed the way guitars could sound and how, when you get to the rudiments of it, pop songs could be written. Their music has stood the test of time; there has never been and will never be another band like them. Yes, I will be bringing ear-plugs - this band is LOUD. I'm drivin' down I-5 tomorrow - wish me luck!

And now to the playlist for October:

Opening the set are a couple motorik juggernauts from New Zealand noise trio Grey Daturas and paisley underground also-rans True West, then we revisit two of the finest of Birdman's Records' recent releases, Pittburgh garage-psych monsters Modey Lemon and Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis (busting out a Mudhoney cover!), in slot 3 and 4 just like last month. From there we launch into a segment of shoegaze and droney psychedelia with the usual suspects (SF's Lumerians, LA's Warlocks, the aforementioned MBV, fellow Paisley undergrounders Green On Red and the Rain Parade, and slipping in jangle-psych classicists the Feelies), before things get really weird. And by weird I mean some truly unclassifiable shit: Clipd Beaks, Crystal Antlers, Liars, Snowman...?! What do you call this stuf? Arty, noisy, punky... inspired. I guess the broader definition of space rock will have to do. And of course none of it would have existed without Nick Cave and Co.'s contributions back in the 80s with The Birthday Party. Also hard to classify is German electronic absurdists Mouse on Mars (with their tribute to O.G. krautrockers Amon Duul?), the mighty Polvo whose reunion last month still rings in my ears, and SF avant-folkies Dodos. Another recent reunion occurred between Brian Eno (Roxy Music et al.) and David Byrne (Talking Heads et al.), but since their new collaboration is merely okay I decided to pop in a track from their first meeting, the seminal My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981) in case anyone would like to know what they're really capable of. We then make an awkward (but less so than you'd think) transition into neu-metal realms with the slab-tastic Isis, Torche and Russian Circles, then drift off gently with slo-mo troubadours Brightblack Morning Light and an homage to Pink Floyd's Rick Wright and one of his many indelible contributions to space rock.

And it is here we must make tribute to the sad passing of founding member of Pink Floyd, keyboardist Rick Wright. Although further from the limelight than his cohorts David Gilmour and Roger Waters, Wright was indispensable as a composer, arranger, and foil for the much larger egos in the band. He wrote two of the strongest tracks from the undisputed spacerock epic Dark Side of the Moon, "The Great Gig In The Sky" and "Us And Them", as well as contributed to some of the group's most transcendent pieces such as "Atom Heart Mother," "Echoes" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." The following video is for my personal favorite Rick Wright song, the overlooked chestnut "Summer '68" (although it's only a fan video without live footage, the sentiment is still there):

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Beyond and Into the Ultimate - Grey Daturas - Return to Disruption
I'm Not Here - True West - Hollywood Holiday (Revisited)
The Peacock's Eye - Modey Lemon - Season of Sweets
When Tomorrow Hits - Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis - Indian Giver
Corkscrew Trepanation - Lumerians - s/t
So Paranoid - The Warlocks - Heavy Deavy Skull Lover
Only Shallow - My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Slipping (Into Something) - The Feelies - The Good Earth
The Blue Parade - Green On Red - Gravity Talks
This Can't Be Today - Rain Parade - Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
We Will Bomb You (We Will) - Clipd Beaks - Hoarse Lords
Parting Song for the Torn Sky - Crystal Antlers - s/t
Let's Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack - Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Our Mother (She Remembers) - Snowman - The Horse, the Rat & the Swan
The Friend Catcher - The Birthday Party - Hee-Haw
Duul - Mouse On Mars - Varcharz
Thermal Treasure - Polvo - Today's Active Lifestyles
Jodi - The Dodos - Visiter
Regiment - Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
Not in Rivers, But in Drops - Isis - In the Absence of Truth
Fat Waves - Torche - Meanderthal
Harper Lewis - Russian Circles - Station
True Bright Blossom - Brightblack Morning Light - Ala.Cali.Tucky
Remember a Day - Pink Floyd - A Saucerful of Secrets

PS. Although I'm usually not much for videos (despite the plethora included in this month's post), I thought these were some nifty little nuggets of visual psychedelia to match the tunes (from Portland's enigmatic Au and the file-under-WTF? Ponytail, both featured in last month's playlist). Hope you do too:

The School of Spacerock...

2008-09-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

...is now in session! I realize nobody's ready to let go of summer, the lazy hazy daze of hammocks and soothing bodies of water... it just seems too dang soon to go back to school! Well, never fear, because the education provided herein will stimulate the senses and allow you to free your mind and relive your halcyon days under the sun (or in my case, surfin' the slipstream under the stars).

We begin in homage to tomorrow's double-header at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco: the much-anticipated reunion tour by those 90's math rock absurdists from Chapel Hill, NC, the one and only POLVO! And since they'll be supported by everyone's fave techno-RAWKers Trans Am, I've opened the set with one of their most heady epics.

We follow with a duet from the illustrious Birdman Records (Hi Matthew!), with Pittsburgh's garage-psych specialists Modey Lemon, and the collaboration between Spectrum (aka Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3) and legendary producer/provocateur Captain Memphis, which finds them mining Sonic's back catalog as well as the hypnodrone of proto-synthpunks Suicide. Then to scramble the senses while cleansing the palate I've popped in avant-freekjazzist Marc Ribot's (Tom Waits, Lounge Lizards, et al.) desecration of an alltime classic by the Doors.

From there it's an excursion into instruMENTAL post rock with Berlin's Heaven And, Montreal's Do Make Say Think and Glasgow's mighty Mogwai. Then we shift gears into a five-song set of unclassifiable modern music from diverse artists (Au, Sigur Ros, Animal Collective, Abe Vigoda and Ponytail) that are tied together by an innocence, a primal joy, a child-like obsession with mantra and manic frenzy, and a penchant for undiscernable vocals meant more for their sound than any precise meaning. It's the equivalent of spiritual ecstasy through the healing powers of "rock" music (using that term in only the loosest sense).

Electro-organic powerhouse the Octopus Project provide a transitional track, then tracks from the most recent, and stunning Portishead release and from late 80's psych duo Opal (Kendra Smith from the Dream Syndicate and Dave Roback from the Rain Parade, pre-Mazzy Star) show a striking resemblance. Continuing in that vein, from the blink-and-you'll-miss-it musical movement of psychedelic classicism centered in 80's Los Angeles known as the paisley underground comes tracks from True West, the Rain Parade, Green On Red and the Dream Syndicate. Taking us for one last leap into the depths of space is a chilling opus from the recent comeback album by L.A. dark-psyche outfit the Warlocks.

Whew! That was exhausting. But pay attention class! Don't be caught napping. There's still a lot more to learn about space rock! After studying this month's installment it might be a good time to review all of our previous lessons in preparation for a surprise pop quiz! Just kidding - school is for fools. All you'll ever need to know is right here in the Spacerock Continuum!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

The Dark Gift - Trans Am - Red Line
Rock Post Rock - Polvo - Shapes
The Bear Comes Back Down the Mountain - Modey Lemon - Season of Sweets
The Lonesome Death of Johnny Ace - Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis - Indian Giver
Break on Through - Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog - Party Intellectuals
Parade - Heaven And - Sweeter As the Years Roll By
Fredericia - Do Make Say Think - Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn
2 Rights Make 1 Wrong - Mogwai - Rock Action
Sum - Au - Au
Gobbledigook - Sigur Ros - With A Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly
Leaf House - Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
Dead City / Waste Wilderness - Abe Vigoda - Skeleton
Beg Waves - Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual
An Evening with Rthrtha - The Octopus Project - Hello Avalanche
Small - Portishead - Third
Rocket Machine - Opal - Happy Nightmare Baby
Steps to the Door - True West - Hollywood Holiday
No Easy Way Down - The Rain Parade - Explosions in the Glass Palace
Five Easy Pieces - Green On Red - Gravity Talks
The Days of Wine and Roses - The Dream Syndicate - The Days of Wine and Roses
Moving Mountains - The Warlocks - Heavy Deavy Skull Lover

Not all spacerock...

2008-08-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

...and not all time. That was the original motto of my previous webcast and it still stands today for this monthly podcast. Just to clarify, spacerock is the blanket term I use to describe the majority of my taste in music, whether it's more accurately described as psychedelic, post rock or just plain trippy shit, THAT's what I like (along with a modicum of straight up rock, pop, jazz and/or electronica), and I hope you do too. This installment is full of hard-to-categorize esoterica that only loosely qualifies as spacerock even under my guidelines, and although it's all over the place I hope it all makes sense together and is sequenced to flow into your cerebral cortex and release it into the stratosphere. As the Beatles once said, "Turn off your mind, relax and float..." into the Spacerock Continuum.

We start with the enigmatic Akron/Family - are they a cult? a commune? well they're definitely more than a band - whose unique take on freak folk takes a cue from the more lysergic moments of said Liverpuddlians (if you're not acquainted with or enamored of free-form noise then I must advise you to please bear with this song past the first minute mark) and then abruptly dropping in on vintage Butthole Surfers in atrack from a 1989 live performance that rips both The Doors' "The End" and Black Sabbath's *cough cough* "Sweet Leaf" a new one. Then in honor of tomorrow night's San Francisco appearance (which yours truly will be attending) a track from mighty Japanese sludge-rawkers BORIS, from their fantastic latest release Smile, which finds them really stretching their own boundaries (there's a Japanese version and an American one which feature different songs, different mixes of the same songs, different titles for the same songs and a different sequence, both of which are indispensable).

From there it's deeper into undefinable esoterica with No Age and Indian Jewelry, two hot young undie rock bands that write their own rules, then a dip into the sublime with Mogwai's subdued take on the Spacemen Three chestnut "Honey" (a rarity included on the new remastered version of Mogwai's seminal Young Team album), followed by the rockier side of shoegaze from Swervedriver and Eric's Trip, one of whom recently reformed and the other who definitely should. The next sequence of tracks really expands the limits of my spacerock definition by dabbling in English electronica (Fourtet), Finnish free-folk (Paavoharju), French pop-tronica (Air) and two groups who have gone so far past blurring the distinction between electronic and organic that I could coin the term post-triphop to describe them (The Notwist from Germany, Portishead from the UK), but I won't.

Next up, some modern psych with roots firmly in the past (The Black Angels, Grails), some forward-looking postrock (Collections of Colonies of Bees, featuring members of the late/great Pele, and Chicago O.G.s Tortoise), some modern kraut-tronica from Cloudland Canyon - think Cluster or Tangerine Dream - and some classic Japanese acid rock influenced by the krautrock school from Acid Mothers Temple - think Amon Duul or Guru Guru - bringing this set full circle. I won't claim it's always an easy listen, but it's not supposed to be. It takes work to free your mind, and I'm always happy to assist!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Moment - Akron/Family - Akron/Family & Angels of Light
Sweatloaf - Butthole Surfers - Double Live
Statement - Boris - Smile
Sleeper Hold - No Age - Nouns
Seventh Heaven - Indian Jewelry - Free Gold!
Honey - Mogwai - Young Team Remastered
Duel - Swervedriver - Mezcal Head
Belly - Eric's Trip - Love Tara
Sun Drums and Soil - Fourtet - Everything Ecstatic
Valo Tihkuu Kaiken Läpi - Paavoharju - Yhä Hämärää
Surfing On A Rocket - Air - Talkie Walkie
On Planet Off - The Notwist - The Devil, You & Me
We Carry On - Portishead - Third
Never/Ever - The Black Angels - Directions To See A Ghost
Take Refuge - Grails - Take Refuge in Clean Living
Untitled - Collections of Colonies of Bees - Fa.ce (a
Gamera - Tortoise - A Lazarus Taxon
Silver-Tongued Sisyphus - Cloudland Canyon - Silver-Tongued Sisyphus
5 Seconds Demon - Acid Mothers Temple & Cosmic Inferno - Demons From Nipples

Happy In-independence Day!

2008-07-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

As the smoke from forest fires and celebratory fireworks clears - and the floods pass and the twisters subside and the disasters of biblical proportions diminish somewhat - did you take the time, earthlings, to ponder the fate of your country on your Independence Day? Or the fate of your world on this upcoming Election Day? The future health of your blue-green planet (which is getting browner all the time) hangs in the balance. Please take the time to educate yourselves and vote accordingly. Meantime, I'll provide a spacerock soundtrack to sooth and inspire!

This episode begins with some mind-altering pummeling (that would be the brown acid) from stalwart weirdos like The Butthole Surfers from a classic '89 live performance, 2-piece newbies No Age channeling a prog-damaged version of vintage SST Records, noise transcendentalists Fuck Buttons, and the arch-drude hisself, Julian Cope, performing his most bombastic tour-de-force ever. Pay especially close attention to the brain-frying Jucifer track from their astoundingly diverse and delicious latest album, one of the best of the year so far (every song is about Marie Antoinette!), and the somewhat stunted yet sincere cover of Pink Floyd's sprawling epic "Echoes" by David Yow's Qui (Scratch Acid, The Jesus Lizard, et al.).

From there we move into some classic/modern psych from the Chameleons (covering the Beatles' spacerockingest song) and Austin's Black Angels, who effortlessly blew minds, mine included, in their Chicago appearance with The Warlocks for which which I beamed down last month. Then into some languid love songs of the lysergic variety from shoegazers Slowdive and M83, as well as... Queen?!?!? Next up, a track from Brad Laner's latest solo album back-to-back with a track from his finest work with nineties noisegazers Medicine, followed for good measure by a track from one of the many collaborations between ambient pioneer Brian Eno and krautronica originators Cluster, circa '78.

The last third of the sets goes from weird to weirder to weird-and-HEAVY, with some esoteric instruMENTALists and the monsters of post rock. Pay particular attention to the tracks from offkilter agitprop primitivists Indian Jewelry and psilocybic psychrockin' Portlandians Grails, whose respective latest albums are among the very best of 2008. Hang on to your hats and glasses kids, it's gonna be a wild ride...!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Behind Every Great Man - Jucifer - L'Autrichienne
Teen Creeps - No Age - Nouns
Ribs Out - Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
Dum Dum - Butthole Surfers - Double Live
Echoes - Qui - Love's Miracle
Reynard the Fox - Julian Cope - Fried
Tomorrow Never Knows - The Chameleons - Strange Times
Deer-Ree-Shee - The Black Angels - Directions To See A Ghost
Some Velvet Morning - Slowdive - Souvlaki
She Makes Me - Queen - Sheer Heart Attack
Graveyard Girl - M83 - Saturdays = Youth
June Gloom - Brad Laner - Neighbor Singing
Aruca - Medicine - Shot Forth Self Living
The Belldog - Cluster & Eno - After the Heat
Recent Bedroom - Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
Carolina Foxtail/Sea Chirp - Cloudland Canyon - Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004
B - Ecstatic Sunshine - Way
Embryo Imbroglio - Thank You - Terrible Two
Too Much Honkytonking - Indian Jewelry - Free Gold!
Death Rides A Horse - Russian Circles - Enter
Stoned at the Taj Again - Grails - Take Refuge in Clean Living
Ex-Cowboy - Mogwai - Come On Die Young

Summertime...

2008-06-01T18:14:00.000-07:00

...and the livin' is easy. I just got back from beamin' myself down to the vineyards and valleys of Sonoma CA to laze about in hammocks with a chilled glass o' earthly (yet heavenly) vino. What a day of fun in the sun... a spacerocker could get used to this. But instead I zapped myself right back to my cold, metallic orbiting satellite to bring YOU some serious spacerock! Cuz it's time for another installment of the Spacerock Continuum, and this set really brings the RAWK!!! From the ballistic motorik juggernauts of Finland's Circle, Japan's Solar Anus and the American sister bands Turing Machine and Maserati (with their irreverent piss-takes on the Synchronicity tracks by... The Police?!?!?) through the neu-metal of The Sword from Austin, Boris from Tokyo and Danava from Portland, and on through some slinky/sinuous American post rock and some classic "unclassifiable" (especially note the track from the always amazing and enigmatic Sun City Girls, from a recently-released collection recorded at the same time as their 1990 epic Torch of the Mystics), culminating in some experiMENTAL electronica from the ancient kraut masters, Cluster and Kraftwerk (80's-style robot rock this is not! So very psychedelic these fine young Teutons once were!). So, pour yourself a cold one, lay back in the sun, and enjoy...

Is it summer where you are?

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Andexelt - Circle - Andexelt
The Extreme North - Solar Anus - Skull Alcoholic
Synchronicity III - Turing Machine - Zwei
Synchronicity IV - Maserati - Inventions for the New Season
Next Saturn (My Neighbor Satan) - Boris - Smile
To Take the Black - The Sword - Gods of the Earth
The Emerald Snow of Sleep - Danava - Unonou
Hippies - Tall Firs - Too Old to Die Young
Hanging from the Rafters - Human Bell - s/t
Disco & Haze - Do Make Say Think - The Whole Story of Glory
The Dog's A Vapour - Bauhaus - Go Away White
Drugs - Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Out in the Kitchen - Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - Wormed by Leonard
100 Pounds of Black Olives - Sun City Girls - You're Never Alone with a Cigarette
Nice Butterfly Mask - Sunburned Hand of the Man - Fire Escape
Hollywood - Cluster - Zuckerzeit
Kling Klang - Kraftwerk - Kraftwerk II

April showers bring May flowers

2008-05-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

...but not in SPACE. Out here all you have is vast expanses of distance, the better to fill with the very best in mind-expanding music. This month's installment blasts off scattering red-hot shards of shoegaze, both original-era and 21st century, then careens throughout an asteroid field of psychedelia in all its guises, from underground garage psych to Madchester rave-psych to vintage krautrock and modern motorik... get the idea? If you don't, you will. So just sit back, smoke 'em if you got 'em, and enjoy your journey!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Need - Pacific UV - Longplay 2
Come In Alone - My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Sugar Crystals - Airiel - The Battle of Sealand
Everso - The Telescopes - As Approved by the Committee to Keep Music Evil
Drain Cosmetics - Serena-Maneesh - s/t
Hurricane Heart Attack - The Warlocks - Phoenix LP
That Timothy Leary Shit - The Volta Sound - This Is the Yin and the Yang
Brainstorm Interlude - The Verve - A Northern Soul
The Woods - Tall Firs - s/t
Mars Ascendent - Souvenir's Young America - An Ocean Without Water
Mosquito Lantern - Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound - Ekranoplan
Forever - Racoo-oo-oon - The Cave of Spirits Forever
Raw Backwards - Sunburned Hand of the Man - Fire Escape
Pulses - White Rainbow - Prism of Eternal Now
We'll Never Make It Out of Here Alive - The Shalabi Effect - Pink Abyss
Slip Inside This House - Primal Scream - Screamadelica
Donkey - Working for a Nuclear Free City - Businessmen & Ghosts
Don't Mind If I Don't - The Turing Machine - Zwei
Will You Smile Again for Me - And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Worlds Apart
Amboss - Ash Ra Tempel - s/t

Okay, we're back!

2008-04-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

No theme this time, just a random assortment of tunes representing the spectrum of spacerock, chosen and sequenced for maximum listening pleasure. We start with some blissed-out Pacific Northwest artists, from Portland's sadly defunct Yume Bitsu, to their spinoff collaboration with members of Landing heavily-conceptualized as Surface of Eceyon, to their homegirl Honey Owen's enthralling Valet (look for her video at the bottom of this post!), to former Yume Bitser Franz Pritchard's solo work as Version (keep an eye out next time for White Rainbow, featuring his Yume co-conspirator Adam Forkner, who also plays with the aforementioned Eceyon gang), to Seattle's Voyager One's take on Spacemen 3-inspired rawk. A foray north of the border for Canada's finest including Valley of the Giants (a supergroup featuring members of Montreal's postrock elite), The Besnard Lakes and Sam (Osama) Shalabi's Shalabi Effect. A quick side trip to Norway for Salvatore's tribal stomp and down to Belgium for the strangest-ever nonamerican New Weird Americana from Ignatz. We then venture into a somewhat motorik set from artists both new and old, San Francisco's Tussle and Wooden Shjips, krautrock OGs Can (with Malcolm Mooney's stream-of-consciousness vocal ranting, straight outta 1969!), and the mighty motorik triple-threat of Trans Am, The Turing Machine and Quickspace, followed by the "8-bit shoegaze" of the Depreciation Guild. Then things get weird, with the loopier side of psychedelia from Black Moth Super Rainbow, Animal Collective, and a kraut-psych gem from 1972 by Guru Guru. Whew! That should keep you busy for a bit! Expect another installment sooner than later - we've got to make up for lost time!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Song One - Yume Bitsu - Golden Vessyl of Sound
The Open Sea - Surface of Eceyon - The King Beneath the Mountain
Kehaar - Valet - Naked Acid
Come Out (K-Hole Version) - Version - Comeoutoshowdem
Asleep In A Stereo Field - Voyager One - From the New Nation of Long Shadows
Westworld - Valley of the Giants - s/t
Devastation - The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse
Imps - The Shalabi Effect - Pink Abyss
Roots and Weather - Salvatore - Luxus
The Dreams - Ignatz - II
Kindermusik - Tussle - Telescope Mind
Father Cannot Yell - Can - Monster Movie
Losin' Time - Wooden Shjips - s/t
Cologne - Trans Am - Surrender to the Night
Bleach It Black - The Turing Machine - Zwei
Coca Lola - Quickspace - Precious Falling
Digital Solace - The Depreciation Guild - In Her Gentle Jaws
Sun Lips - Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum
Peacebone - Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
Oxymoron - Guru Guru - Kanguru

Valet - "Kehaar" Live 2-19-08 in Atlanta @ drunken unicorn from analogmonkey.tv on Vimeo.

Curses!!!

2008-03-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

Foiled by technology again! Why is it that I am eternally battling that which mankind has made to help mankind?!?!? My external hard drive (the LaCie d2 Quadra), the one that contains my entire space rock library, has CRASHED! Is this, as my lovely wife asserts, some sort of karmic retribution? What have I done to deserve THIS?!?!? I've got my orbiting tech support satellite working on it, but, obviously, there will certainly be a delay in my delivery of the next installment of the Spacerock Continuum. I sincerely apologize. Tune in again soon! In the meantime I hope to quench your endless thirst for quality space rock with this, THE greatest space rock song OF ALL TIME, by the almighty godfathers Pink Floyd, shown here shirtless and unwashed in the dust of the ancient coliseum, 'Live at Pompeii':

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

What IS Space Rock?

2008-02-18T23:11:00.001-08:00

Space Rock means many things to many people, but here it will be our blanket term for rock music that, sonically, takes the listener to outer realms... takes the listener on journeys, not to urban conflagrations or pastoral settings, not wild jungles, glacial wastelands, desert highways nor epic mountaintops, for, while those are all well and good, as the true devotee knows, "space is the place."

Space rock takes you to the cosmos and back again, and while the subgenres abound... psychedelic, acid rock, post rock, progressive rock, shoegaze, experimental, et al... the Germans had a term to encompass it all: KOSMISCHE. And that's where we're aiming for here in the Spacerock Continuum: sharing the truly COSMIC music of this world with the eyes-and-ears-wide-open listeners who are ready to ride that rocket into outer space.

We start, of course, with the Spacemen 3 and their progeny, Spiritualized and Spectrum, who, while they didn't invent it by any means, managed to create the best-ever simulacrum of space rock of the post punk generation: "Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To", although the music is all the drugs one really needs. Going back further, the obvious choice is Pink Floyd, who took us to the dark side of the moon, as well as their peers in the 1970's, the krautrockers, who skewered the po-faced psychedelians with a healthy dose of the absurd (Faust, Amon Duul) and the transcendent (Can, Tangerine Dream).

In the 90's we had a dose of fashionable space rock with the "shoegazers" (My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse, Ride, Slowdive), introverted noisemongering British stoodents who worshiped the Velvet Underground and never left home without their fuzz pedals. Throughout the post-rave era a handful of electronic artists, especially those lumped in the unfortunately-monikered IDM (Intelligent Dance Music?!?!? an oxymoron?!?!?) movement, endeavored to "take you there" without a guitar in sight. The new millennium brought us the dreaded journalist's coinage POST ROCK, a meaningless yet somewhat apt classification to describe new instrumental music (from Tortoise to Mogwai to Godspeed You! Black Emperor) whose sole similarity is a complete lack of concern for the pop charts, as was true with their predecessors. And of course, experiMENTAL music has always been around - say no more!

All in all, it's all SPACE ROCK. Here's a snippet, a taste, a wholly inadequate 2-hour representation of where space rock came from, and where it's going. It's only the tip of a vast iceberg, as subsequent episodes of the Spacerock Continuum will illustrate. But it gives this silly podcast some sorely needed CONTEXT, in case there was any confusion. Enjoy!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Revolution - Spacemen 3 - Playing With Fire
If I Were With Her Now - Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies
A Housewife Love Song - Starflyer 59 - Gold
Tall Winds - Paik - The Orson Fader
Sad and Lonely - Secret Machines- Now Here Is Nowhere
Young Men Dead - The Black Angels - Passover
Interstellar Overdrive - Pink Floyd - Relics
Run Run Run - The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
We Ask You To Ride - Wooden Shjips - s/t
The Chocolate Maiden's Misty Summer Morning - Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound - Ekranoplan
Oh Yeah - Can - Tago Mago
Christmas Steps - Mogwai - Come On Die Young
Over The Wall - Echo and the Bunnymen - Heaven Up Here
Rave Down - Swervedriver - Raise
Soon - My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Le'espalace - Do Make Say Think - s/t
Belgian Wake-Up Drill - Grails - Black Tar Prophecies
One Million-Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Morning - The Flaming Lips - Oh My Gawd!
Arctic - Pan Sonic - Kesto

What listening to spacerock will do to you!

2008-01-31T11:34:00.000-08:00

Dramatic Lemur

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Testing... testing... are we reading...?

2008-01-17T12:20:00.000-08:00

Welcome, everyone, to the new home of BeeDub's Spacerock Continuum! By popular demand - and because of the limitations of my previous home as a weekly netcast - I've decided to go podcast! First off, the motto around is here is still NOT ALL SPACEROCK, AND NOT ALL THE TIME. That's because I focus on a wide variety of music that may or may not fall under the wide blanket of the term spacerock. But the vast majority of the music will fit just fine within that categorization, be it PSYCHEDELIC, PROG ROCK, POST ROCK, KRAUTROCK, NOISE ROCK, SHOEGAZE, NO WAVE, EXPERIMENTAL, AVANT GARDE, etc.

I hope to do this monthly. Or semi-monthly. Or whenever I can. The difference is, here you won't get to hear my charming voice periodically describing the music you've just heard. That's okay - I'm no DJ, and I think the music will speak for itself.

The first installment is a little different in that it includes a wider variety (less "spacey", if you will) of musical styles than usual. For January we take a look back at the very best music of last year. One song each from the very best albums to hit my ears in 2007. So hold onto yer hats and glasses ladies and gentlemen - it's gonna be a wild ride, here on... THE SPACEROCK CONTINUUM-UM-UM-UM-UM...!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Is There A Ghost - Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin
Welcome To My Room - Vietnam - s/t
Myth Takes - !!! - Myth Takes
Atlas - Battles - Mirrored
+81 - Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
Plaster Casts Of Everything - Liars - s/t
Melody Day - Caribou - Andorra
Mermaid In A Manhole - Airiel - The Battle Of Sealand
Super Inuit - Holy Fuck - s/t
Melt Me - Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum
Visage Sous Nylon - Feu Thérèse - Ca Va Cogner
To Fix The Gash In Your Head - A Place To Bury Strangers - s/t
Fuzzy Reactor - Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow
No Pussy Blues - Grinderman - s/t
Bodysnatchers - Radiohead - In Rainbows
Spring Hall Convert - Deerhunter - Cryptograms
LLL - Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter - Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls Of The Soul
Bros - Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Come Ahead Then - Society of Rockets - Our Paths Related
Ed Is A Portal - Akron/Family - Love Is Simple
Shrinking Moon For You - Wooden Shjips - s/t
Silk Rd - Grails - Burning Off Impurities
Seahorse - Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon