the of mirror eye

* spacemen 3: take me to the other side (7 mb) | walkin’ with jesus (7.5 mb) | soul 1 (8 mb)
from the perfect prescription : taang! records : taang! 94

back in 1987, the boys of spacemen 3 demonstrated rather convincingly that songs were getting way too complicated. there was absolutely no need for five, four, or even three chords for one whole song. instead, everything could really be accomplished with just one or two chords. drawing on inspiration from trash rockers like the velvet underground, suicide, and the stooges, they put the simple song structure asthetic under a microscope and really examined and dissected it.

i first heard this band around 1994-ish, and i was completely blown away. i think the spacemen 3 were pretty much my first experience with primal, repetitive music. i suppose the natural progression of things would be to start with the velvet underground, who i consider to be the granddaddy of this type of music, and then work your way out from there, but i can’t remember which band came first for me. but i do remember that from the very first pulsings of the fuzzed out guitar in take me to the other side, i was totally into what they were doing. and not only was the music new to me, but they took part in a world that i never really participated in as they proudly proclaimed that they were taking drugs (to make music to take drugs to) everything about their music though, resonated with me. vocals bathed in reverb, distorted guitars, minimalist drones and pure, radiant rawk ‘n’ roll.

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i’ve been reading this great book called 40 watts from nowhere by sue carpenter, which chronicles the rise/fall and the woman behind two pirate radio stations. she started out in san francisco with the station, kpbj. and when she moved to los angeles, she changed it to kblt, where it became fairly influential. it’s a pretty funny book and sheds some light on the pirate radio scene.