February 2018 – Louder Than War 14

FUELLED BY DRUGS, INTERNAL TENSION AND A LOVE OF A WIDE RANGE OF MUSIC, RUGBY’S SPACEMEN 3 WERE AT THE FOREFRONT OF BRITISH SONIC ADVENTURES FROM THE EARLY ’80S TO THE EARLY ’90S. EVOLVING FROM THEIR EARLY GARAGE, DRONE ROCK TO THE MINIMAL, SHOEGAZE INFLUENCING SOUND OF THEIR LATER MATERIAL, THEY HAD SOME CRITICAL SUCCESS AMONGST ALL THE CHAOS AND DYSFUNCTION BETWEEN FOUNDING MEMBERS PETER KEMBER AND JASON PIERCE. GOING ON TO PLAY WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE PROJECTS SONIC BOOM/SPECTRUM AND SPIRITUALIZED, THE SEMINAL “MINIMALISTIC PSYCHEDELIA” OF SPACEMEN 3 WAS CREATED THROUGH AN ATMOSPHERE OF TENSION BUT STANDS THE TEST OF TIME, AS IAN CHADDOCK LOOKS BACK AT THEIR DECADE OF CREATIVITY.

NOISY, psychedelic, hypnotic, melancholic, soothing – there are a lot of terms that have been used to describe the weird and wonderful music of Spacemen 3 over the years. Over the course of four LPs – ‘Sound of Confusion’ (1986), ‘The Perfect Prescription’ (1987), ‘Playing With Fire’ (1989) and ‘Recurring’ (1991), and a string of independent chart hits from ’86 onwards, they laid the path for everyone from My Bloody Valentine and Ride to Mogwai and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Their story is dense, crazy and full of in-fighting, but let’s scratch the surface on the incredible decade or so of Spacemen 3.

Formed in Rugby, Warwickshire in 1982 by co-conspirators, songwriters, vocalists/guitarists and the only consistent members for their entirety, Peter Kember and Jason Pierce, they met at Rugby Arts College aged 16. Changing their name from The Spacemen to Spacemen 3 to sound, as Kember explained less “like a ’50s rock ‘n’ roll group”, their first live shows happened in the winter of ’82/’83 (as a four-piece with Pete Bain on bass and drummer Tim Morris) and included a 20-minute version of the one-chord song ‘O.D. Catastrophe’. They recorded a demo tape called ‘For All the Fucked Up Children of This World We Give You Spacemen 3’ in 1984 (later released unofficially through Sympathy for the Devil). In their raw, embryonic stage it was droning and bluesy psychedelia with sparse instrumentation. Over the next couple of years they became known for their “anti-performance” – sitting down as they played guitar, ignoring the audience and being lit by cheap disco lights. Catching one of their gigs in Northampton in 1985, The Jazz Butcher band leader Pat Fish said that Spacemen 3 were “extraordinary” and “like nothing else”. Recording a new demo tape in November 1985, encouraged by the support of Pat Fish and with a more honed sound, they upgraded their equipment, rehired Pete Bain and laid down what would later be unofficially released as the vinyl album ‘Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To’ – which seems like an apt title. Spacemen 3 would become known as a “drug band” due to their drug use and Kember’s outspoken interviews about the advantages of drugs to making music – everything from cannabis and mushrooms to LSD and cocaine.

In early 1986 the band signed a deal with indie label Glass Records after Pat Fish gave a copy of their demo to owner Dave Barker. Although they had already started to pen some softer material, the band decided their debut album should feature their heavier, earlier material. The resulting album, the heavy and psychedelic ‘Sound of Confusion’ was full of fuzzed up drone and pounding guitars, wearing their love of the Stooges on their sleeves. If they were confused then they’d focused their minds (and possibly dosage) with second album, ‘The Perfect Prescription’. The band financed new studio equipment for VHF Studios near Rugby and return received over eight months there to work on the record. Looking back on the album in the liner notes of a reissue, Kember stated the record was “Spacemen 3 in bloom, midsummer before the seeds were scattered, right at the point where we worked together well and in compliment to each other. I still have strong memories of the days where we would crash out listening to nothing but one song over and over… Mattresses were installed into the studio’s lounging space and our kaleidoscopic light show stayed on throughout the session.”

With its blissed out garage psychedelia, ‘The Perfect Prescription’ was a big step forward, with a more mellow and sparse feel. However, by 1987 the relationship between Kember and Pierce began to deteriorate as Pierce’s romantic relationship with Kate Radley meant he was spending less time with his songwriting partner. In 1988, they recruited new drummer Will Carruthers and released third single ‘Take Me to the Other Side’ to critical acclaim. After releasing a live album, ‘Performance’ (1988), recorded in Amsterdam, they entered a contractual relationship with Gerald Palmer as their manager.

On 19th August 1988 Spacemen 3 played a strange and memorable gig, with Palmer having booked them to provide “An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music” in the foyer of the Waterman’s Art Centre in Brentford, London before a screening of the film ‘Wings of Desire’. The sitars were not there and instead Kember, Pierce and Carruthers, along with Rugby musician Steve Evans, played a 45-minute drone based around a single chord, baffling and offending the audience. Recorded and released as 1990’s live album ‘Dreamweapon’, Space Age Recordings is now reissuing this unique and uncompromising gig recording in February.

Distance between Kember and Pierce was increasing at this time, despite them being tipped as an “indie phenomenon” in late ’88. Fierce arguments over songwriting credits and whether Radley could join them on the tour bus or not even turned into scuffles between the pair at times. At this time Kember also recorded a solo album under the moniker of Sonic Boom, ‘Spectrum’, but it was put on hold to avoid clashing with the next Spacemen 3 album. Their third album, 1989’s ‘Playing With Fire’ followed (on their new home at Fire Records) and would feature now favourites such as ‘How Does It Feel? ‘, the noisy ‘Revolution’ and ‘Suicide’ (the latter named after one of their major influences, NYC proto-punks Suicide). It was met with critical acclaim and went to no. 1 on the indie charts. Our very own Editor In Chief said about the album when he reviewed back then for Sounds magazine, “Each ditty drives along a tidal wave of filthy sound, an effortless drone featuring the crispest slices of guitar sound since the Stooges…Spacemen 3 are better at this carbon monoxide garage trip than a thousand overrated US geetah schmucks. Weird, wonderful, frightening and out of their sheds.”

Touring the UK and Europe extensively at this time, they concentrated on their older, heavier material live. Despite the buzz and success of ’88/’89, things took a turn for the worse as the band began to disintegrate. Tension between Kember and Pierce over the former accusing the latter of copying his songwriting and Palmer picking out new single ‘Hypnotized’ without consulting Kember or Pierce overshadowed the single’s success. With new guitarist Mark Refoy on board, the band played their biggest headline show to date on 23rd July 1989 at London’s Town & Country Club and would play their first festival performance at Reading Festival that summer. It would also end up being their last ever gig.

In September 1989 the band were preparing for an extensive US tour, but after intense arguments with manager Palmer the band sacked him. However, as a result he decided to withdraw his financing of the US tour, which fell through. However, the recording of a fourth studio album, ‘Recurring’, which had begun in August slowly continued. With Kember and Pierce working on a side of music each separately by this time, the band’s future was in doubt.

January 1990 saw the delayed release of Sonic Boom’s ‘Spectrum’ and the formation of Pierce’s then side-project Spiritualized, featuring his Spacemen 3 bandmates Will Carruthers, Jonny Mattock and Mark Refoy, but obviously not Kember. The first Spiritualized single, ‘Anyway That You Want Me’ was the first that Kember knew about the band, deepening the divide between him and Pierce. Spiritualized toured around the UK in late 1990, with Kember still working on his half of the next Spacemen 3 album.

Finally released in 1991, ‘Recurring’ showed the two songwriters pulling apart. Kember’s side showed his love of pop and ambient sounds, while Pierce embraced a more gospel and blues influenced music. In a TV interview at the time Kember explained “it’s totally finished. The album was recorded before the band split and we’ve agreed to differ.”

With that Spacemen 3 imploded acrimoniously, with Peter Kember (aka Sonic Boom) going on to play solo under other monikers like Spectrum and E.A.R., as well as producing bands, while Jason Pierce’s project Spiritualized have enjoyed commercial and critical success. However, the drug and carnage-infused psychedelic, fuzzy and hypnotic music of Spacemen 3 has left a lasting impact on many bands since. It was one hell of a trip.

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