Chicago pop-punk trio Retirement Party have announced the details of their new album, “Runaway Dog”, out on May 15 via Counter Intuitive Records. Title track and lead single “Runaway Dog” grapples with the temporary loss of inspiration and motivation, but singer and guitarist Avery Springer sounds as formidable and catchy as she ever has. “I won’t, but I think they told me so / I will never pave the road that I want to,” Springer sings over perky, zippy guitars.
title track of the Chicago rockers sophomore album.
Singer-songwriter Coutney Marie Andrews shares the latest single from her forthcoming album Old Flowers, the beautifully melancholy “Burlap String.” The single is accompanied by a music video, featuring Andrews hiking a nature trail, picking flowers and laying in fields as the sun eventually sets.
You can’t water old flowers. Yes, you fall in love, you make mistakes, and so do they. You run through blackberry fields in the summer of your youth, dream in passenger seats gazing past towns and fields, imagining a future life where everything works out. I fell head over heels in love at nineteen. The kind of love where you call up your best friend and say, “I think I’ve found my soulmate.” The pull towards that first true love is strong. It consumes you, makes you question your own dreams.
We taught each other, grew up together, we were family. We fit just right, for a time. Then one day, after a long and rocky nine year road, life changed and became a complicated mess too hard to untangle. We couldn’t get our love back, no matter how many dreams that shadowed this hard truth. We grew resentful, selfish, harboring past mistakes and holding them up like armor from every blow. We grew up and our paths diverted.
‘Old Flowers’ is about heartbreak. There are a million records and songs about that, but I did not lie when writing these songs. This album is about loving and caring for the person you know you can’t be with. It’s about being afraid to be vulnerable after you’ve been hurt. It’s about a woman who is alone, but okay with that, if it means truth.
This was my truth this year – my nine year relationship ended, and I’m a woman alone in the world, but happy to know herself.
These songs came to me alone, late nights in Bisbee, Lisbon, Nashville, and London. Sometimes I’d just cry and sing, and a song would come out. I drank too much wine while writing this record, lit too many candles. You could say this was my attempt to summon the muse, but that’s bullshit, because she was just standing there naked looking me in the eyes. So I told her the truth.
Bad Company were a so-called ‘Super Group’, that is, a band made of members from previously successful bands. In this case, Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke from Free, Mick Ralphs from Mott the Hoople and Boz Burrell from King Crimson. Their 1974 self-titled debut included recycled versions of some songs from their previous bands, Mott’s ‘Ready for Love’ from ‘All the Young Dudes’ (1972) and Free’s ‘Easy on My Soul’ from ‘Heartbreaker’ (1973). Paul Rodgers had one of the best rock voices of the 1970s and is definitely the best thing about the album. The songs are fairly standard rock ‘n’ roll fare. The first album released on Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song Records label, if you compare this to Zeppelin’s brilliant ‘Physical Graffiti’ released in the same year, it’s clear that they weren’t in the same musical league. The follow up album ‘Straight Shooter’ (1975) was a little better. Bad Company rocked fine and ‘Can’t Get Enough’ and ‘Ready for Love’ sounded good on the radio but they were second tier rockers compared to Sabbath, Purple, and Zeppelin.
One of the most important advances in the field rock ‘n’ roll marketing was the invention of the term, “Supergroup. A supergroup is a music group whose members are previously successful as solo artists or as part of other groups or well known in other musical professions.” Most people believe that Cream was the first supergroup, though there is an equally strong argument for The Steampacket, a mid-60’s U. K. band whose members included Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger.
Bad Company was marketed as supergroup from the get-go, Bad Company had their fare share of detractors when they burst on to the scene in the mid 70s. Ex-Free men Paul Rodgers (vocals) and Simon Kirke (drums) were criticised for following a more commercial path, despite the fact that their former band had enjoyed several hits. Completed by Mick Ralphs (guitar, ex-Mott The Hoople) and Boz Burrell (bass, ex-King Crimson and Snafu), Bad Company had Zeppelin’s Peter Grant as their manager – and the American market in their sights. They struck the bullseye. “Can’t Get Enough” might have had a tasty Top 40 sheen but it was expertly rendered blues rock to the core. None of them were “name” musicians at the time of Bad Company’s formation; they had played in bands who generally familiar to the listening public but hardly top-tier (Burrell’s time with King Crimson came long after In the Court of the Crimson King). All are now more famous for their work in Bad Company than their other engagements, so while the supergroup label may have been prematurely applied at the start of their journey, one could say that they earned the label through their work. They were an enormous commercial success
Supergroups often fall short of their potential, but the four guys who made up Bad Company – originally Free, Mott the Hoople and King Crimson vets – were still young and hungry enough to add some muscle to their debut album. Later records would get more bloated under the strain of their rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, but ‘Bad Co.’ still sounds lean after all these years.
Even if the song hadn’t dealt with the constant edge of sexual desire, “Can’t Get Enough” would still appear on my playlists because the music is so sexy. After Simon Kirke’s count-in and cue, Mick Ralphs lets it rip with a clean, sustained power chord using open C tuning, riding Kirke’s slap-that-bitch beat before downshifting into the rest of the three-chord pattern that ends on the bite of the Bb-F repetition. That tiny bite feels even sharper because Kirke shifts to cymbals, clearing the way for Mick’s power chords to be heard at full intensity. After a second go-round, Mick and Simon retreat to background to allow Paul Rodgers to do his thing.
Paul Rodgers’ voice gives me the tingles—up and down my spine. Paul Rodgers singing a sex song is an orgasmic experience, Paul Rodgers is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and intentional singers I’ve ever heard, in any genre. A lot of guys have sexy voices but they fail to discipline the talent with intent. Paul Rodgers pays careful attention to phrasing, understands the critical importance of build and is the master at creating a mood. As he explained in one interview, “To me, that’s what music is: creating a mood, and taking the listener to the place that you’re going. on “Can’t Get Enough” he’s going to drag you to the bedroom and do all sorts of wonderful things to you. The first verse is all about command. Rodgers sings the lines with confidence and precision, making it perfectly clear what he’s after. On the second verse, he eases up slightly on the word at the end of the opening line—“Well, it’s late, and I want love.” That wicked little twist communicates the sweet side of love, the opening salvo in the seduction. It’s a disarming line that makes the clarification all the more erotic: “Love that’s gonna break me in two.” Rodgers gets looser in the second chorus but what really grabs my attention here are the slightly syncopated cuts where Kirke applies the high-hat, this Mick Ralphs composition was rejected by his former band, Mott the Hoople. That means they rejected two Bowie classics (“Suffragette City” and “Drive-In Saturday) and one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs ever!
They had no choice but to dial it down a bit from that killer opener, and the Paul Rodgers composition “Rock Steady” was a good choice—it keeps the intensity high while foregoing the dramatic cuts and pauses of “Can’t Get Enough.” The song is about taming the wild beast who showed up in “Can’t Get Enough,” and though Rodgers tries to convince us that he’s capable of keeping his libido in abeyance, his gritty vocal expresses the opposite. He covers the range of dynamics, attenuating his vocal when telling himself to ease up on the testosterone accelerator (“When my love . . . gets a little bit too heavy”) and breaking into all-out passion when he discovers that there is indeed erotic opportunity in the slow, deep one. Virtually missing on “Can’t Get Enough,” (low bass levels are a problem throughout the album), Boz Burrell provides some nifty bass runs and strong rhythmic support throughout this piece.
“Ready for Love” was a Mick Ralphs composition that appeared on Mott’s All the Young Dudes, and anyone who has heard that version has to conclude that Mick Ralphs was not the right guy for the vocal—this is a passionate, erotic song, and Mick’s thin, reedy voice was incapable of expressing the depths of those feelings. Enter Paul Rodgers, the best rock voice in the business when it comes to setting the mood for an erotic evening at home. The arrangement is much cleaner than the Mott version—the introduction of piano into the mix adds a touch of balancing tenderness to offset the guitar and organ, and its use as the solo instrument in the break reinforces the melancholy psychological state expressed in the opening lines Bad Company gives “Ready for Love” the treatment it always deserved—it really is a superbly written piece.
While the opening segment with its dramatic drum rolls is a bit over the top, this “Don’t Let Me Down” isn’t half bad because it doesn’t wallow in insecurity as much as express dissatisfaction with the current partner. The best parts of the arrangement occur when Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie provide background vocals to support Paul Rodgers’ soulful approach, giving the song a gospel-like feel. The band is far off the mark, though, with Kirke paying way too much attention to the snare and Mick Ralphs dropping in with a fairly weak solo.
We’ll flip it over to side two and explore the curious title track and band anthem, as promised. There are various and competing stories about its origins, including the Jeff Bridges western flick Bad Company and a seedy character Paul Rodgers saw in a book on Victorian morals used as a warning to the young to “beware of bad company.” I have no problems whatsoever with his Rodgers vocal, with his portrayal of the character, with the haunting piano refrain, with the eerie sounds in deep background or with Simon Kirke’s POW-POW that cue the chorus.
The rest of the album is pure filler. The follow-up piece “The Way I Choose” is a slightly lumbering song with a guitar counterpoint somewhat reminiscent of George Harrison’s work on “Don’t Let Me Down” and a supporting horn section that falls far short of soulfulness. Paul Rodgers sings it well but his voice is completely wasted on the shallow lyrics celebrating independence, stupidity and mistrust. It’s followed by the equally vacuous rock-star-whining-about-life-on-the-road song, “Movin’ On,”.
The album closes with what became sort of a tradition for many hard rock bands of the era: the “deep” song. This was a slow number presented in a way to suggest to the listener that hard rockers weren’t just all about fun and games but that they had a serious side and thought about meaningful things. “Seagull” is Bad Company’s “deep” song. The lyrical content is just as confused as that alleged masterpiece, with the songwriting team of Ralphs and Rodgers taking a page out of Donovan’s songwriting handbook and attempting to imbue the seagull with meanings far beyond its status as a nasty, squawky bird. Bad Company is a fairly decent debut album, all things considered. Listening to Paul Rodgers is always an engaging experience, and despite a couple of out-of-sync moments, the band is tight and relatively tight and disciplined for a hard rock band.
Bad Company’s – ‘Can’t Get Enough,” and Honey Child.” This is what a real Rock band sounds like – even after nearly 50 years – with three of the original members: Paul Rodgers, one of a handful of great Rock singers (vocals), Mick Ralphs (guitar) and Simon Kirke (drums) with Howard Leese (guitar (late of Heart). If you want to hear the band at its absolute pinnacle check out Bad Company: Live at the Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. It is a masterpiece.
Austin, Texas rockers Pure X have announced their first album in six years, a self-titled LP out digitally on May 1st and physically on July 3rd via Fire Talk Records. Today, they’ve also shared its two lead singles “Middle America” and “Fantasy.” “Middle America” tap into the languid, distorted sounds that fueled their rise, falling somewhere between warbled slowcore and dreamy heartland rock.
Pure X is the last band, has always been the last band. Not that there won’t be future acts, more that Pure X understands that all this pageantry, this civilization is wrapping up. It burned hot and bright like thermite used to bust a safe open, but now is the age of radiating waves, each one buckles the foundation more than the last.
It would be understandable to express such forbidden fatalism in a brittle, harsh nihilism, the stark echo of a stone rattling down an endless well. But on this album, their fourth and first in six years, there is a pre-dawn kindness. It may be funereal, but it is a Viking pyre ablaze in the middle of a river, one of those moments when the water seems to pause and reflect the clouds blooming like smoke from an invisible glass pipe.
Recorded live in the bucolic Texas Hill Country, this is their clearest, most focused work. The rhythm section is locked in–a night train through the desert. There is more singing, the weary wisdom of the lyrics ringing like Tibetan bowls. In 38 minutes, Pure X weave a culmination, all the delays and distortion, the grinding mortar of touring, the low-tide pulling them out from a cult band, to a legacy band, it’s here, understood and forgiven.
Band Members
Nate Grace, Jesse Jenkins, Austin Youngblood, Matty Tommy Davidson
‘Earth’ is an album of rediscovery and adventure by Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, being released under the moniker EOB. Written and recorded over five years during any possible break from the making and touring of Radiohead’s ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’, the album deftly veers from moments of delicate folk to euphoric house, its songs seamlessly pinned together by unswerving melodic hooks and candid lyricism. Portishead’s Adrian Utley appears on two tracks, whilst Laura Marling duets with O’Brien on stirring closer “Cloak of The Night.” But every group of collaborators needs a leader, and Earth is all O’Brien’s vision.
The album deftly veers from moments of delicate folk to euphoric house, its songs seamlessly pinned together by unswerving melodic hooks and candid lyricism.A spirit of collaboration runs through ‘Earth’ from the production team of Flood, Catherine Marks, Alan Moulder and Adam ‘Cecil’ Bartlett to the extraordinary musicians O’Brien assembled to bring these tracks to life; bassist Nathan East, drummers Omar Hakim and Glenn Kotche, and The Invisible’s multi-instrumentalist leader David Okumu.
“I wanted to make a record from the heart,” he says. “I wanted to make something direct. I wanted to talk about love, your family in the immediate and the wider sense, where we are on the planet, the bigger picture, life and death. I wanted to make a big hearted, warm and colorful album… something hopeful and full of love.”Featuring the singles “Shangri-La”, which sways between syncopated beats and twisted rock, and “Brasil”, a track that morphs from a tender opening into a heightened-state rhythmic banger, ‘Earth’ marks a new beginning for Ed O’Brien.
Spacemen 3 were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire, by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce, known respectively later under their pseudonyms Sonic Boom and J Spaceman. Their music is known for its brand of “minimalistic psychedelia”. The creative and song-writing force throughout Spacemen 3’s history were Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. They met at the (now defunct) Rugby Art College on Clifton Road, Rugby, in Autumn 1982, both aged 16, and became close friends. Pierce was in a band called Indian Scalp, but he left them near the end of 1982 in order to collaborate with Kember. The two guitarists recruited drummer Tim Morris, who played with a couple of other bands and had a rehearsal space at his parental home which they used. Shortly afterwards they were joined by an acquaintance, Pete Bain, on bass. Morris and Bain had previously played together in a band called Noiseon Independent Street. Pierce handled lead vocal duties. Now a 4-piece, the band originally adopted the name The Spacemen. Sonically, Spacemen 3’s music was characterised by fuzzy and distorted electric guitars, stuttering tremolo effects and wah-wah, the employment of ‘power chords’ and simple riffs, harmonic overtones and drones, softly sung/spoken vocals, and sparse or monolithic drumming.
Their earlier record releases were guitar ‘heavy’, sounding Stooges-esque and “a bit like a punked-up garage rock band” whilst their later work was mostly sparser and softer with more textural techniques and augmented by organs, resulting in “their signature trance-like neo-psychedelia”. Kember was a keen record collector from the early age of 11 or 12; some of the first records he purchased included albums by The Velvet Underground. Pierce: “When I was 14, I bought The Stooges’ Raw Power and I listened to nothing but that for a year”. Spacemen 3’s early gig posters would often make explicit references to their sound being inspired by The Stooges, The Velvet Underground and The Rolling Stones.In 1988, Kember said, “Groups like Suicide or the MC5 are like my favourite stuff in the world” Pierce said, “Early on, we were listening to The Stooges, then came Suicide,
Their first live performances occurred around winter 1982/83, playing at a party and then at a couple of gigs they managed to get at a local bar; at the latter their set included a 20-minute version of the one-chord song “O.D. Catastrophe”
This prompted Bain and Morris to leave and join a new local band, The Push, being formed by Gavin Wissen. Kember and Pierce recruited a replacement drummer, Nicholas “Natty” Brooker. They continued without a bassist and Pierce would regularly return to Rugby for rehearsals. In early 1984, they only performed at a few local, low key venues. Still a trio, they changed their name to Spacemen 3.
Kember explained:The “3” came about completely by mistake. We did a poster which was just for The Spacemen, which we were for a while. But it was “The” Spacemen and I hated that, it sounded like a 50s rock ‘n’ roll group – that’s all very well, but we didn’t want to be imagined as…one of those surf bands. So we stuck the 3 on afterwards – that came about from a poster we did which had “Are Your Dreams At Night 3 Sizes Too Big?” with a very big 3 on it and it really worked as a logo, it just fell into place. It’s really for the third eye.
Despite having played fewer than ten gigs, Spacemen 3 decided to produce a demo tape. In 1984 they made their first studio recordings at the home studio of Dave Sheriff in Rugby. This material – which included early iterations of the songs “Walkin’ with Jesus”, “Come Down Easy” and “Thing’ll Never be the Same” – was used for a short demo tape entitled “For All The Fucked Up Children Of The World We Give You Spacemen 3”. They got a few hundred cassette copies made and produced their own artwork and booklet to accompany it, selling the tapes for £1 at a local record shop. Spacemen 3’s music at this stage had a loose, swampy Blues feel; some songs included harmonica and slide guitar, and their style sounded akin to The Cramps These early demo recordings, which Kember later recalled as being “really dreadful”, would later be released unofficially in 1995 on the Sympathy for the Record Industry label, thus providing an insight into the band’s embryonic sound.
Around 1984 and 1985, Spacemen 3 were doing gigs every two or three months on the local Rugby/Northampton/Coventry circuit, and had a regular spot at The Black Lion public house in Northampton. Their gigs had an ‘anti performance’ element: Kember and Pierce would play their guitars sitting down and would barely acknowledge the audience. They would illuminate the stage with some cheap, old optokinetic disco light-show equipment which they had acquired, providing a psychedelic backdrop. At one of their gigs at The Black Lion in 1985, they came to the attention of Pat Fish, the leader of the recording band The Jazz Butcher; he felt Spacemen 3 were “extraordinary” and “like nothing else”. By this time they had reconfigured and honed their musical style, and their repertoire consisted of newer songs and re-worked older ones. “The band’s sound had crystallised into the intense, hypnotic, overloaded psychedelia which characterised their early [record] output, and which would serve as a template for their live act throughout their existence” . Spacemen 3 signed a three-year, two-album recording contract with Glass Records in early 1986.
Kember and Pierce opted to upgrade their guitar equipment ahead of recording the new demos. Kember purchased a Burns Jazz electric guitar and 1960s Vox Conqueror amplifier; whilst Pierce bought a Fender Telecaster and a 1970s HH amplifier. Both of their new amplifiers included distortion/fuzz and tremolo; these two effects were key components of Spacemen 3’s signature sound. Spacemen 3 had their first independent chart hits in 1987, gaining a cult following, and going on to have greater success towards the end of the decade. However, they disbanded shortly afterwards, releasing their final studio album post-split in 1991 after an acrimonious parting of ways.
They gained a reputation as a ‘drug band’ due to the members’ drug-taking habits and Kember’s candid interviews and outspoken opinions on recreational drug use.Kember and Pierce were the only members common to all line-ups of the band. Both founding members have enjoyed considerable success with their respective later other subsequent projects: Sonic Boom/Spectrum and Spiritualized.
Sound of Confusion (1986)
Spacemen 3’s debut album “Sound Of Confusion” released in 1986, was a blistering affair – establishing their love of the two-chord song and also expressing their admiration for the likes of MC5, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Stooges. Spacemen 3 were sent to record their first album, Sound of Confusion, at the studios of Bob Lamb in the King’s Heath area of Birmingham. By this time, they had already started to write some ‘softer’ songs, but they decided that the album should consist entirely of ‘heavier’, older material. With a recording budget of less than £1,000, they completed the album in five days, with the last two days dedicated to mixing. Attempts at recording the title song “Walkin’ with Jesus (Sound of Confusion)” were unsuccessful and abandoned. Both Kember and Pierce were unhappy with the final production on the album, feeling it suffered from Lamb’s unsympathetic production;Sound of Confusion was 7 tracks of overdriven assault, with a strange bleakness and despair creeping through the hypnotic sprawl. R Hunter Gibson would later say: “It boosts the value of unlit rooms, unpaid debts and unfeigned terror and it would rather tackle the gradients than settle for level best.
The seven-track Sound of Confusion album had a heavy psychedelic style with a strong Stooges influence. It was “a full on, fuzzed up drone of relentless guitar pounding” with a “rough garage energy ” and “minimal, bluntly entrancing riffs” (Ned Raggett, AllMusic/NME review of the 1990 re-release recalled of the album: “It’s a lo-fi, mostly low-key affair, the sound of the band finding their feet… It doesn’t quite attain the critical mass to transcend its basis in the most rudimentary garage punk of the Sixties… Side Two is pretty much one long tribute to The Stooges..Sound of Confusion probably felt like a revelation, to the few who heard it at the time.
To follow up their album, Spacemen 3 made their first single: “Walkin’ with Jesus”. This was recorded at Carlo Marocco’s studio outside Northampton. For the title track they re-mixed the version they had previously recorded for their demo tape. For the B-side, they recorded “Feel So Good”, a newer composition, and re-recorded a 17-minute “Rollercoaster” (a cover of the 13th Floor Elevators). This single was the first Spacemen 3 record that Peter Kember and Jason Pierce produced; the duo handled all future production. The “Walkin’ with Jesus” single was released in November 1986. It received decent reviews from NME and Sounds.
Guitarist Peter Kember started to use his long-term alias ‘Sonic Boom’. He had earlier employed the aliases ‘Mainliner’ and ‘Peter Gunn’. Bassist Pete Bain also adopted his alias: ‘Bassman’ or ‘Pete Bassman’
The Perfect Prescription (1987)
Spacemen 3’s second album is a remarkable departure from the band’s 1986 debut, Sound of Confusion Reduced to a trio (guitarists / keyboardists Pete ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember, Jason ‘Spaceman’ Pierce, and bassist Pete Bassman) following the departure of the first album’s drummer, Spacemen 3 makes an asset out of the newfound lack of percussion, giving the album a considerably less rock-oriented sound with much more open space in its varied, subtle arrangements.
Spacemen 3 commenced work on their second album, The Perfect Prescription. This was recorded at Paul Atkins’ VHF Studios, near Rugby. VHF had been recommended to the band by in-house sound engineer Graham Walker with whom they had worked previously when recording their first demo tape. The first set of demo recordings they made at VHF Studios relating to the new album were dubbed the ‘Out Of It Sessions’. Procurable only as bootleg, this work shows the transition in Spacemen 3’s musical style that was occurring around winter 1986/87
Spacemen 3 would spend over eight months at VHF Studios. Importantly, this allowed them generous time to experiment, and develop and refine their sound and material in a studio setting, assisted by Graham Walker. In the album liner notes of Forged Prescriptions, a re-release of The Perfect Prescription, Kember recalled: this is 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 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… We spent several months…recording and re-working these pieces until we felt they were ready, slowly learning more about the studio and its techniques as we went.
Whilst working on the album, “Transparent Radiation” — a cover of a song by the Red Crayola — was recorded, and released as a single in July 1987. “Transparent Radiation” was awarded ‘Single of the Week’ by Sounds, and matched the previous single in reaching no. 29 on the independent chart. The B-side included “Ecstasy Symphony”, a new experimental piece using an organ drone multi-tracked and fed through various effects (this would presage some of Peter Kember’s later work and his interest in analogue synthesisers).
The Perfect Prescription “marked a serious artistic development, drawing deeper from gospel, ambient, and spiritual music, granting a serenity and depth to their spaced-out garage psychedelia” (Stephen Erlewine, AllMusic). Although retaining the same minimalist approach, Spacemen 3’s sound was now sparser and mellower. Extra textures and complexity were evident, provided by overdubs and additional instrumentation, with the organ sound of the VHF Studio’s Farfisa being a significant introduction. The instrumental palette was also extended with acoustic guitar, violin (from local musician Owen John), saxophone and trumpet (from members of The Jazz Butcher) being used on some songs. Much of the album did not feature drums. This was the first album on which Kember contributed lead vocals.
Relations between Peter Kember and Jason Pierce were beginning to suffer as a result of Pierce’s romantic relationship with Kate Radley, whom he had been dating since Summer 1987. Kember resented the amount of time his song-writing partner was spending with her at his expense and the fruition of the band.
In July 1988, Spacemen 3’s third single, “Take Me to the Other Side”, was released, from The Perfect Prescription album
Spacemen 3 were keen to be freed from their recording contract with Glass Records who were in financial difficulty and owed them royalties. Although they had produced the requisite two albums, there was still a year remaining on their contract. A deal was reached whereby, in return for providing a live album, their contractual obligations would be deemed to have been met and they would be allowed to leave. Accordingly, Performance was released in July 1988. This seven-track live album was a recording of their gig at the Melkweg venue Amsterdam, on 6th February 1988.
Playing with Fire (1988–89)
Peter Kember had purchased an unusual electric guitar near the end of 1987: a Vox Starstream made in the late 1960s. This guitar incorporated several in-built effects, including fuzz and Repeat Percussion (or Repeater) The latter was a unique tremolo type, almost delay-like effect, and Kember would use it heavily on Spacemen 3’s future output. One of his first compositions featuring this effect was the eponymous “Repeater” (a.k.a. “How Does It Feel?”). “Repeater” and two other new songs also composed by Kember – “Revolution” and “Suicide”.
Recording for Spacemen 3’s third studio album, Playing With Fire, started in June 1988.
New bassist Will Carruthers made his first live appearance with Spacemen 3 at London Dingwalls on 20th June, where they were supported by My Bloody Valentine. It was after this gig that a confrontation occurred between Kember and Pierce and his girlfriend, Kate Radley. Tired of Radley’s persistent presence around the band of late – at recording sessions, touring and backstage at gigs – Kember enforced an agreed ‘no girls on the bands bus policy and barred Radley from boarding the tour van, leaving Pierce and Radley to make their own way home.
Peter Kember and Jason Pierce were formulating new song ideas entirely separate from one another. Both their personal and working relationships were beginning to disintegrate. Pierce’s romance with Kate Radley was impacting on his time with the band and his contributions. Of the eventual tracks on Playing With Fire, six were Kember’s compositions, whilst only three were Pierce’s. The recording process for this album was different: individual parts were recorded separately, which meant band members did not have to be present at the same time, After initial plans to use drummers from The Weather Prophets and Thee Hypnotics for the recording of Playing With Fire, a permanent drummer was recruited in late August: Jonny Mattock. Despite this he does not appear on Playing With Fire – a drum machine was used on all of the songs and no drummer is credited on the album.
Mattock had been playing in a Northampton band called ‘The Apple Creation’. He was recommended by future Spacemen 3 guitarist Mark Refoy. Mattock made his live debut on 24th August at a gig at the Riverside in Hammersmith, London, and contributed to the new album. The new rhythm section of Carruthers and Mattock would remain constant for the rest of Spacemen 3’s existence
Spacemen 3 managed to obtain a two-album deal with independent label, Fire Records. Kember and Pierce argued over the choice of song for their first single with Fire. Agreement was eventually reached on “Revolution”. At a gig 15th November 1988, advertised as ‘Sonic Boom and Jason of Spacemen 3’, only Kember and Carruthers performed; Pierce spent the whole time at the bar with Kate Radley, whom he was now living with. The single “Revolution” was released in November 1988. The title track was a powerful, anthemic “mind-melting crunch”.
Spacemen 3’s eagerly awaited Playing With Fire album was finally released in late February 1989. The album’s front cover sleeve bore the slogan, “Purity, Love, Suicide, Accuracy, Revolution”. Playing With Fire was Spacemen 3’s first record to chart and one of the breakthrough indie albums of the year. Within weeks of its release, it was No. 1 in both the NME and Melody Maker.
Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To (1990)
Spacemen 3 “became the indie phenomenon of late 1988”. They were receiving more media attention and got their first cover story, in Melody Maker‘s November 1988 issue. Peter Kember effectively become the sole spokesperson for Spacemen 3, giving numerous interviews. These provided for controversy and journalistic focus due to Kember’s candid openness about his drug taking habits and his forthright views on recreational drug use.
Spacemen 3 at their most raw and powerful, the album being almost exclusively demos from the mid-80s and other alternative versions of songs produced along the way. The lack of glossy production which eventually met some of Spacemen 3’s later material really brings out the in your face garage style of play they were pushing for here. Both Jason Pierce and Sonic Boom reckon they are better then the ‘proper’ versions!!.
The album was re-issued as a (2LP – Berry) coloured heavyweight 180 gram vinyl double LP in a gatefold sleeve with new artwork layout. Remastered by John Rivers at Woodbine Studios especially for vinyl release.
Performance (1990)
Recorded in Amsterdam in 1988, the live ‘Performance’ documents a set from the Perfect Prescription tour; the emphasis here is on the group’s loud, noisy origins – only the closing ‘Feel So Good’ hints at the more subdued atmospheres and textures which emerged as Spacemen 3’s primary focus as they approached ‘Playing With Fire’. Among the highlights: ‘Take Me to the Other Side,’‘Walkin’ With Jesus’ and ‘Come Together.’
At the beginning of 1989 Spacemen 3 had been one of the “hottest indie bands in England. The personal and working relationship between Peter Kember and Jason Pierce, still the principal members of the band, would completely disintegrate, leading Spacemen 3 to eventually disband. Spacemen 3 used the short break between the UK and European tours in Spring 1989 as an opportunity to record a new single. Two songs were recorded, at VHF Studios: “Hypnotized”, a new song by Pierce, who had recently acquired his own 4-track recorder; and “Just To See You Smile”, by Kember. The songwriters spent a day’s session on each other’s song, although Kember’s contribution to “Hypnotized” was not ultimately used on the released version.
Dreamweapon (1990)
On the August 19th, 1988, Spacemen 3 traveled down from their homes in Rugby—a manufacturing town 80 miles northwest of London—to play a show at the Watermans Arts Centre in the West London suburb of Brentford. It wasn’t even a show, really: The group was to play in the venue’s lobby, while patrons lined up to get into that evening’s screening of art-house auteur Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire. Only 15 or so fans actually watched them play.
At that time, Spacemen 3 were so peripheral to British independent music that they were barely a curio. Without the support of the weekly music papers, the band was purely the preserve of psychedelic heads. No one had it in mind that they might one day rival the Smiths as one of the most profoundly influential British bands of their era.
The performance at Watermans Arts Centre was billed as “An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music,” despite the complete absence of sitars. It consisted of Peter Kember (aka Sonic Boom) playing a single E chord, while guitarists Jason Pierce and Steve Evans picked notes around him, and Will Carruthers anchored everything on bass. That was the plan, at least; in practice, Carruthers forgot to turn on his amp. As he put it in his terrific memoir, Playing the Bass With Three Left Hands: “A monkey could have done what I had just done. A non-existent monkey could have done it.”
The 45-minute performance was recorded and served as the main attraction of Spacemen 3’s 1990 album, Dreamweapon. Superior Viaduct’s new edition, augmented by three more drone pieces, is testimony to the live document’s continued allure, despite its oddly comical nature (around the 16-minute mark, you hear a voice in the background over a PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, the cinema is now open and you can take your seats for this evening’s showing of Wings of Desire.
“An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music” is one of the most extreme pieces of music to find a fairly large audience. It’s not that it is confrontational, or difficult. It is just so completely unyielding. It offers no concessions to listeners, demanding they embrace the drone, or leave. Despite the lo-fidelity and the background noise— along with the PA announcements, there is clattering tableware, chatter, and a crying baby—it is beautiful, in the same way, that watching clouds rolling across the sky is beautiful. It offers no navigation points, no waystations. It is absolutely captivating because it refuses to expand. “An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music” would have the same impact at 10 minutes, or 20, or 30. It lasts 45 minutes only because that’s how long Spacemen 3 had been hired to play.
The three other pieces on this new Dreamweapon reissue are variations on a theme: “Ecstasy Live Intro Theme” takes a single synth bass note, with a high, piercing, dentist’s drill tone sliding around the scale at the top end of the keyboard. Does it build and subside in volume? It’s genuinely hard to tell, yet there are places when, for no apparent reason, it suddenly feels startlingly more intense, anxious, and claustrophobic. It is, at times, verging on terrifying in its physicality. “Ecstasy in Slow Motion” is more of the same, but less intense. (Both are close cousins of “Ecstasy Symphony” from the band’s 1987 album The Perfect Prescription. The concluding “Spacemen Jam” is the filler here: 15 minutes of guitar doodles that are precisely as interesting as you would expect from a couple of young men messing about on their guitars with a tape recorder running.
Had the voiceless drone been the sole interest of Spacemen 3, then it’s likely that Dreamweapon would never have seen the light of day. But in November 1988, Spacemen 3 released the more traditional psych-rock explosion of “Revolution” the song that changed everything for them. “Revolution” became UK indie’s ubiquitous theme of autumn 1988, hailed by the critics, and featured on television. The album “Playing With Fire”, released in February 1989, confirmed their new status. Suddenly all the mythology Spacemen 3 had built up for themselves—typified by their slogan, “Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to”—stopped being the self-aggrandizement of unknown provincials and became mission statements of a major band. They spent most of 1989 slowly unravelling, finally officially disbanding in 1991 after the release of Recurring, their fourth and final studio album. Their whirlwind trajectory only contributed to the mystique, prompting an array of live albums and unofficial and semi-official releases that started in 1990.
More than any of their contemporaries, Spacemen 3’s legacy depends on that elusiveness, the sense of them as voyagers through a psychedelic netherworld. They were a band who promised to open doors, and who did so for scores of bands who followed John Dwyer’s Thee Oh Sees and the whole of the San Francisco psych scene, The-warlocks, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Black Angels, through to the War on Drugs and pretty much anyone else with a taste for hallucinogens and the drone. What Dreamweapon reveals is how quotidian the origins of that mythology were: four blokes earning a few quid playing for people who weren’t even listening. As the silent bassist Carruthers wrote of the performance: “To this day, I’m not sure if it was art or not.”
Recurring (1991)
Recording for Spacemen 3’s fourth studio album, Recurring, had commenced at the beginning of August 1989, again at VHF Studios. According to Mark Refoy, Kember and Pierce rarely appeared at the studio at the same time and there was “quite a tense atmosphere” between them. When work recommenced after the Reading Festival, Kember and Pierce were recording separately from one another. Pierce contributed guitar parts to Kember’s songs, but Kember did not play on any of Pierce’s songs. When Kember heard Pierce’s demos, he again renewed his claim that he was copying his sounds and effects, and accused Pierce’s“Billy Whizz” of being a composition he had written several years prior. The two were now estranged and working completely separately. They agreed to have separate sides of the album for their own songs, all of which they had written and composed individually. Pierce’s side of the album is effectively his next project ‘Spiritualized’, and Kember’s side of effectively his next project ‘Spectrum’ with Richard Formby Kember’s partner in Spectrum playing guitar on his side. The other three band members – Carruthers, Mattock and Refoy – who all went onto join Spiritualized, were called in to contribute sessions when required.
The recording of “When Tomorrow Hits” was the last occasion Kember and Pierce would work together. A disconsolate Will Carruthers left the band at this point, fed up with the discord and lack of remuneration
In January 1991, the Spacemen 3 single “Big City”/”Drive” was released. Both songs from the double A-side single were from the soon-to-released Recurring. Kember and Pierce had been due to be at the studio for the mastering of the single, however Pierce did not attend. At that point the two had hardly spoken face to face in over six months. Kember decided to fade out several minutes of Pierce’s song from the single, “Drive”.
The last Spacemen 3 album, Recurring, was finally released in February 1991. Although the band had not officially disbanded, for all intents and purposes it was a posthumous release. The two sides of the album – one by Kember (A-side), the other by Pierce (B-side) – reflected the split between the band’s two main personnel.
Spacemen 3 recorded and performed numerous covers and re-workings of other bands’ songs, particularly earlier on in their history, and this was indicative of their influences. Examples include songs by the following bands and artists: The Stooges, MC5, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Roky Erikson, The Red Krayola, Glenn Campbell (of The Misunderstood), The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Suicide, Bo Diddley, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs, The Yardbirds, and The Sonics. The song “HeyMan” (a.k.a. “Amen”) is based on a Gospel traditional. The song “Come Down Easy” is derivative of a Blues traditional. Spacemen 3 performed an instrumental song live with a pronounced Bo Diddley style rhythm, dubbed “Bo Diddley Jam”.The Spacemen 3 song “Suicide” was a clear acknowledgement of one of their influences: when performed live it was usually introduced as “this song is dedicated to Martin Rev and Alan Vega – Suicide”.
“Spacemen 3” were one of the most revolutionary UK guitar bands” , They produced “some of the most visceral and psychedelic music of all time…and set a sonic template that influenced a generation, inspiring countless bands”
I’m sure I’m not the only person subscribing to this page who yearns for a contemporary band with a similiar Spacemen 3 sound. Personally, I have to admit I’ve gone through phases of obsessively searching for an adequate Spacemen 3 listening replacement. Plenty of artists attempt it, very few succeed. Sure to appeal to fans of Spacemen 3. If it’s genuinely good music with a sound that I think Sonic and Jason would be proud of.
From Swansea in Wales, the mighty White Noise Sound. Released in 2010, the self titled debut album is a ripper, with Pete Kember contributing to production during the recording process. I highly recommend the whole album, with this being the standout track: ‘Sunset’.
May I suggest you dim the lights, set this to full screen mode, get your device playing through either your best speakers or headphones, crank the volume, and enjoy.
check out some of the following for further listening pleasure:
Forged Prescriptions
To say that this is my favourite Spacemen 3 other album would be stretching it a bit, but this gets a spin just as frequently as any of their major releases. The demo version of ‘Come Down Easy’ really is sublime, and everything I could ever want it to be. By far the best version of this song in my opinion.
I see that Gerald ‘Cunt-guts’ Palmer re-released this in 2018 in a digipack with nice new artwork. Thanks, Uncle Gerald!. So plenty of copies knocking around for anyone who is yet to invest! If you are a fan of this band, and this compilation is absent from your collection, then your collection is incomplete. Trust me. buy it. It’s fantastic listen. Spacemen 3 – ‘Forged Prescriptions’.
For months now, Fiona Apple has been telling fans that a new album is coming. She teased a 2020 release date last fall, said she’d be ready “in a few months” back in January, and finally announced she’d completed the LP earlier this month. In an extensive and wide-ranging new interview with The New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum, Fiona Apple shared details of her long-awaited new album. Apple has never been one to deliver approachable melodies or catchy choruses—she repeatedly serves us the abnormal, in all its twisted glory, with minor chords and off-kilter rhythms, often constructed with everyday objects rather than musical instruments. As a woman who lives mostly secluded from society and releases music so rarely, Fetch the Bolt Cutters is exactly what so many expected it to be: brilliant. In a surprise to probably no one, Fiona Apple is now five for five. Over the last 25 years, she has made five albums that have all—in due time—ascended to holy text status, even if it took some longer than others to come around to her genius. Her most recent, the staggeringly good The Idler Wheel… arrived in 2012. Before that: Extraordinary Machine, in 2005. But Apple isn’t just sitting on these songs during the long gaps between albums; she’s buffing them to perfection. Fetch the Bolt Cutters is finally here, and it’s another miraculous case of bottled lightning.
The record is called “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”, and it consists of 13 songs whose titles include “Newspaper,” “On I Go,” “The Drumset Is Gone,” “Rack of His,” “Kick Me Under the Table,” “Ladies,” “For Her,” “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” “Shameka,” “Heavy Balloon,” and “I Want You to Love Me.”
In the profile, the new album is described as sounding “raw” and “percussion-heavy,” with a focus on drums, chants, and bells. Apple composed and recorded the album at home, handling production duties herself. Her band on the record includes drummer Amy Aileen Wood, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and guitarist Davíd Garza. Steinberg notes that Apple was interested in recording her band “as an organism instead of an assemblage—something natural.” Garza adds, “It felt more like a sculpture being built than an album being made.” It can be difficult, at times, to make out what exactly she’s getting at in any given verse, but there’s an overwhelming sensation that what she’s singing is vastly important. In Fetch the Bolt Cutters’ case, these psalms beam clearer than ever before. “Evil is a relay sport when the one who’s burnt turns to pass the torch,” she offers on the characteristically enraged “Relay,” before whisper-singing an anecdote about a ferris wheel that comes across like a sequence from a horror film. In an even more brilliant couplet, she playfully sings, “I would beg to disagree / but begging disagrees with me” before adding, “Kick me under the table all you want / I won’t shut up” on “Under The Table,” a protest of bored, stuffy dinner parties everywhere—and the people who drag you to them: “I told you I didn’t want to go to this dinner / You know that I don’t go for those ones that you bother about,” she sings casually, “So when they say something that makes me start to simmer / That fancy wine won’t put this fire out.”
The album title is a reference to the British crime show The Fall starring Gillian Anderson; the phrase is uttered during a scene where a sex-crimes investigator finds a “locked door to a room where a girl has been tortured.” “Really, what it’s about is not being afraid to speak,” Apple says of the title. According to the piece, Apple considered using a sketch of Harvey Weinstein and his walker for the album cover.
On the bass-heavy (provided by Sebastian Steinberg, who cultivates ace bass, production and sometimes percussion throughout the record) title track, which benefits even more from Apple’s restless, spoken-word wisecracking, she literally meows before dropping a nod to Kate Bush: “I grew up in the shoes they told me I could fill / Shoes that were not made for running up that hill / And I need to run up that hillI / I will, I will.” Borrowed from a line on British TV show The Fall, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” is this album’s rallying cry, and, as it happens, a clairvoyantly apt one for our isolated moment, too: “Fetch the bolt cutters / I’ve been in here too long,” she sings over and over, like a prisoner who hasn’t seen the light of day for years (or, just like Apple herself, who willingly isolates herself all year long).
You might need to resist the urge to get totally lost in this album’s lyric sheet, because you don’t want to miss a sonic stroke of genius, either. Apple’s devotion to unexpected sounds remains steadfast: Pots (or, maybe baking sheets?) clatter against one another on the title track and the spooky “Newspaper”; cascading piano (one of Apple’s trademarks) takes center stage on “Shameika,” in which she recalls a childhood bully who poked fun at her “potential.” When Apple’s not singing her own backing vocals, or some choir isn’t chanting wildly in the periphery, the role usually goes to a dog (presumably from her own dog, Mercy, a pit bull/boxer mix?). On the album opener “I Want You To Love Me,” Apple sings “Time is elastic,” over staccato piano while she describes the kind of love that swallows you whole, akin to the passion she described on “Hot Knife” back in 2012. It’s all frantic and skittering before climaxing in an uncomfortable fit of Apple’s wimpers, forcing us to be beholden to whatever pain or evils she’s emoting so ferally.
On the complicated yet clearly #MeToo-inspired “For Her,” she manically chants, “Good morning!” before singing, “You raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in.” Apple has always known just where to add extra punch to grab attention, but this isn’t for pure shock value: There are a multitude of layers to any one of her expressive fits or sermons.
While these songs ultimately capture not only a decade of Apple’s life, but also American life, they also feel classically timeless. The one that seems to elude era and description the most is “Ladies,” a word which Apple repeats drowsily throughout the song. Apple nearly ushers in a new wave of feminism with this verse alone: “Ruminations on the looming effects of the parallax view / The revolving door which keeps turning out more and more good women like you / Yet another woman to whom I won’t get through.” Another highlight is the brooding “Heavy Balloon,” in which she chants, “I spread like strawberries! / I climb like peas and beans!” like a deranged Joanna Newsom, complementing that line with, “We get dragged down, down to the same spot enough times in a row / The bottom begins to feel like the only safe place that you know.” It sounds like a searing protest slogan, but more than anything, Fiona Apple just sounds fed up with everything.
Elsewhere in the article, Apple discusses her relationships with Paul Thomas Anderson, Louis C.K., and Jonathan Ames. She also shares thoughts on her back catalouge (“That’s just a great album,” she says of When the Pawn…) and her least favorite song she’s written (“Please Please Please” from 2005’s Extraordinary Machine).
Official audio Fiona Apple off her new album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”
We hope you are all getting through these unusual times and washing your hands a lot. Unfortunately, we don’t have an update on rescheduling Minneapolis, Nashville, Atlanta or Denver, but rest assured as soon as we do, we will let everyone know what is happening.
In the meantime, we’re continuing with Unified Fridays and releasing another live show on Bandcamp today. Part of the proceeds from your Bandcamp live show purchase go to various venue employee funds of places we’ve played recently and, in some cases, released live recordings from. In the past month, generosity from The Unified Scene has led to donations to the employee funds for Brooklyn Bowl (Brooklyn), White Eagle Hall (New Jersey) and The Crocodile (Seattle).
We will continue contributing to these funds together until we’re able to play live shows again. Many of the people who work across all the venues are responsible for helping foster the environment to make Constructive Summer, The Weekender, and Massive Nights such amazing experiences. You can also donate directly to these funds below:
Our last shows before this lockdown happened over The Weekender III – an incredible weekend in London in early March. The Weekender has become a fantastic part of the THS calendar, and the audiences in London are simply amazing to our band. For our next live release, we’re flashing back a year ago to the second night of The Weekender II- March 9th, 2019 at Electric Ballroom. We got on stage to “All The Young Dudes”, opened with “Stations” and the night unfolded. This one contains the live debut of “Denver Haircut” and a “Discouraged’ dedicated to our friend Scott Hutchison. Pretty rocking four song encore to close it out too. Thinking lovingly of The Weekender and how awesome it will feel to do this again. In the meantime, check out this show.
Recorded live at Electric Ballroom in London, United Kingdom on March 9, 2019.
For each Bandcamp “Unified Fridays” live recording THS releases, we’ll be donating a portion of the proceeds to a staff fund from one of the past shows.
released April 17th, 2020
The Hold Steady are: Bobby Drake, Craig Finn, Tad Kubler, Franz Nicolay, Galen Polivka, Steve Selvidge
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay Positive. The Hold Steady.
The latest track from American Aquarium’s highly anticipated album, Lamentations, released this week. Listen and watch the moving video for “Six Years Come September”. “Lamentations” is a 10-song rumination on the current state of the world around me. I was raised in the faith and the book of Lamentations was always one that caught my attention. A broken man crying out to the heavens, asking why God sat back and let his country fall apart. Questioning the sheer existence of a higher power in the lowest of times. How could an all loving God sit back and let an entire nation’s cry for help go unanswered? I saw many parallels in that story and the current climate of this country in 2020. There are a large group of people who were promised something in 2016.
On the one hand, the newest single from alternative country band, American Aquarium, is as straightforward and unambiguous as they come. “Six Years Come September” isn’t a metaphor; the length of time in question refers to the arrival of six years of sobriety for band founder BJ Barham, since making an unintentionally permanent announcement about “never drinking again,” amid the crowd in a Texas bar.
Conversely, the song’s biggest element of significance – that the journey of getting sober doesn’t culminate in a single victory but comes with its own sets of trials – is a sentiment one could say is anything but straightforward or obvious to those outside looking in.
While the major chord resolutions from Barham’s guitar and a higher octave melody played by crisp and polished piano do give “Six Years Come September” a mildly uplifting quality, there is serious reflection and a sense of penitence unfolding in the lyrics that very subtly but effectively displays the kind of obscure adversity built into an otherwise happy looking existence staying on the wagon.
They are still waiting for those promises to be fulfilled. This is a record about the things that break people. Religion, politics, addiction, love, money, family, history. I believe it is an empathetic look at the other side. A group of stories about losing everything and still finding the will to stand back up and fight for the things that matter the most.”
BJ Barham:
Stacked with his signature storytelling, which is deeply personal and instantly relatable, the album is an introspective reflection of personal growth and change, which also touches on the current social climate in our country.
Band Members:
BJ Barham – Vocals/Rhythm Guitar
Shane Boeker – Lead Guitar
Adam Kurtz – Pedal Steel
Ben Hussey – Bass
Joey Bybee – Drums
From the new album ‘Lamentations,’ available May 1:
The Airborne Toxic Event has released “Hollywood Park,” the title track to their forthcoming sixth album, and their first in five years. Today they are releasing the title track to the record, “Hollywood Park”, five weeks early. There are many reasons for this: we had to push the release date due to the Covid-19 crisis, we’re all locked indoors so we think it’s best to share as much as we can at this time, etc.. But this song is very very special to me.
At 6 1/2 minutes long, it’s a sprawling, Boss-like anthem, with Mikel Jollett’s lyrics painting a picture of the time spent with his father at the now-demolished Hollywood Park racetrack. It’s kind of a musical Cliff’s Notes to the parts of Jollett’s book “Hollywood Park: A Memoir” about his difficult relationship with his father. “I wrote this song for him,” Jollett says. (He waxes philosophical on the song here.) When I was child, when my father was still alive, I would talk to a voice in my head. If something good happened, like I got on base at a little league game or landed a trick on my skateboard, I would look up to the sky and silently say “thank you.” I talked to the voice. I reasoned and negotiated with it. I understood this to be the voice of God. Since he died, this voice, this presence in my mind, has become the voice of my father. This song is about him and the seedy racetrack they tore down after he died where I learned what a family was.
The release dates for both the album and the book have been pushed back because of the COVID-19 crisis. The album is now out May 22nd; the book published on May 26th.
Jollett will do a virtual book tour for the memoir, kicking off May 1st with an event hosted by Book Soup.
In his book “Hollywood Park: A Memoir” and in his band’s accompanying album “Hollywood Park,” Mikel Jollett of the Airborne Toxic Event raises the curtain on his troubled childhood, which included being born into an infamous cult, his family’s escape from it and the long healing process that followed him into adulthood.
Director Silvia Grav’s new video for the single “Come on Out,” its narrative culled from a chapter in the memoir, follows an 11-year-old Jollett (portrayed by Jacob Sandler, who played Brad Pitt’s childhood character in the film “Ad Astra”) as he runs away from home to escape an abusive stepfather. In an incredible performance as a young Mikel. We are very proud of it. Visually stunning, emotionally poignant, at turns uplifting and heartbreaking, it’s more like a short film. The video is a dramatic adaptation of the chapter in Mikel Jollett’s memoir which was the inspiration for “Come on Out,” in which a 11 year-old Jollett runs away from home due to an abusive step father.
In addition to Sandler, the video stars amazing child actors including Bryce Patterson as a young Daren Taylor, Milo Borghello as a young Steven Chen and Jeremiah Gonzales as a young Adrian Rodriguez.
So this is the story of the song “Come on Out.” It’s a true story about running away from home when I was 11 years old, going in search of my first step father who had disappeared (or died) after an incident in the home where we lived in Salem, Oregon. I found myself standing on the West Salem Bridge, over the Willamette River, smoking cigarettes and thinking about jumping. I’m going to try to be real with all of you here, that’s sort of the nature of this project, so this is the unfiltered story, which is also in my book. (though told differently).
Hollywood Park was the very last book to be printed at the plant before production was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. There are still some issues though so we are moving the release dates back to Friday, May 22nd for Hollywood Park, the Album and Tuesday, May 26th for Hollywood Park the Book.
Hollywood Park – the new studio album out May 8th (Rounder Records) Hollywood Park – Mikel Jollett’s debut memoir out May 5th (Celadon Books)
