Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To

Personnel
Sonic Boom: Burns Jazz guitar, Vox Conqueror, vocals
Jason: Fender Telecaster, vocals
Pete Bassman: Bass vibrations
N Brooker: Percussion

Releases and Tracklistings
Released on Father Yod in 1990. LP (FYP-L25).

1. 2.35 (Kember/Pierce)
2. Mary Anne (Glenn Campbell)
3. Sound Of Confusion (Kember/Pierce)
4. Losing Touch With My Mind (Kember/Pierce)
5. A-Men (Kember/Pierce)
6. That’s Just Fine (Kember/Pierce)
7. Come Down Easy (Kember/Pierce)

Reissued on Bomp! Records, October 1994. CD (BCD 4047). The first seven tracks are the original Father Yod release resequenced.

1. The Sound Of Confusion (Kember/Pierce)
2. 2:35 (Version 1) (Kember/Pierce)
3. Losing Touch With My Mind (Kember/Pierce)
4. Amen (Kember/Pierce)
5. That’s Just Fine (With Vocal) (Kember/Pierce)
6. Come Down Easy (Kember/Pierce)
7. Mary Anne (Glenn Campbell)
8. Feel So Good (Kember/Pierce)
9. 2:35 (Feedback Version) (Kember/Pierce)
10. Hey Man (Kember/Pierce)
11. It’s Alright (Elias McDaniel)
12. 2:35 (Version 2) (Kember/Pierce)
13. Things’ll Never Be The Same (Kember/Pierce)

8 is described as an outtake from Sound Of Confusion, but it is the version from the B-side of the Walkin’ With Jesus single in its entirety (i.e. not cross-faded from ‘Rollercoaster’). 9 is the same recording as the first version, with overdubbed feedback. 10 is desccribed as an outtake from Sound Of Confusion. 11 and 12 are from a February 1987 rehearsal session. 13 is described as being live in 1987; it is from the 22 October 1987 gig at the Mean Fiddler which was released as ‘Revolution Or Heroin’.

Reissued on Space Age Recordings, May 2000. CD (ORBIT 023CD), with the same tracklisting as the Bomp! CD, plus:

14. Transparent Radiation (Organ Version) (Thompson/Cunningham/Barthelm)

This is taken from the same February 1987 rehearsal as ‘It’s Alright’ and ‘2.35 (Version 2)’.

Reissued in November 2010 on a label that claims to be Father Yod, but this is a bootleg (of a bootleg!). 2xLP (FYP-L25). The first LP is black vinyl and has the same tracklisting as the original Father Yod LP, The second LP is on white or clear vinyl, and has the extra tracks from the Bomp! CD.

Reissued on Spage Age Recordings in 2018, with the original artwork coloured blue (2xLP, ORBIT061LP) or deep pink (CD, ORBIT056CD), with the same tracklisting as the previous Space Age release. The vinyl version adds:

15. Repeater (Demo) (Kember)

This demo was previously released on the Space Age compilation The New Atlantis.

Reissued on Superior Viaduct, June 2018. 2xLP (SV154), with the same tracklisting as the 2018 Space Age vinyl edition.

Other Information
Original demos recorded at Shutlanger, Northamptonshire, Winter 1985/86. Engineered by Carlo Morocco. Produced by Sonic & Jason.

A release that was originally semi-official at best. Described on the back cover as being rehearsals in Rugby, this is actually the second Spacemen 3 demo tape, recorded in Northampton in January 1986. The original plan for the cover was to feature drug paraphernalia in the style of the Bomp! and Space Age reissues, but this was substituted for a piece of drug art from the 1960s (the full story is told by Byron Coley on the insert to the Superior Viaduct issue).

Both Pete Kember and Jason Pierce have said that they were happier with these demo versions than the ones that appeared on Sound Of Confusion. The version of ‘Walkin’ With Jesus’ (here called ‘Sound Of Confusion’) was used as the debut Spacemen 3 single when attempts to record it as part of the first album sessions were unsuccessful.