Spacemen 3 - classic or unutterably shite?

XP HOLY SHIT I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY FOR LIKE 9 YEARS, AAAAAAAAA I AM SO EXCITED

It's not all their albums tho but still better than nothing and does have Forged Prescriptions which has the glorious full length version of Ecstacy Symphony

honestly I'm just going to be stuck listening to "Big City" on repeat so I'm fine with that

Just seeing their stuff on Spotify now. I see the first two albums are missing but “Taking Drugs” and “Forged Prescriptions” are there. Is that just a rights thing or do the band/fans consider these to be the more definitive documents of that era?

Separate but related question - as someone who has never heard those early albums (especially Perfect Prescription), am I gonna get a diluted/distorted vision of the band if I start with these?

Of those available, I would start with Playing With Fire

Listen to all of it because it’s all good. Taking Drugs is a collection of demos that got them a deal with Glass Records. I think Glass still owns the rights to those first two albums which is why SOC and Perfect Prescription aren’t on Spotify. Taking Drugs is great, the versions are rawer than SOC in a very good way. I’d start there to get a sense of where S3 started (Stooges/Cramps/MC5).

Forged Prescriptions collects the original recordings of songs that wound up on PP but for the most part they are not demos. They initially recorded these songs with lots of overdubs and studio trickery but decided not to go that direction because they wouldn’t be able to replicate it live. The FP version of Walking With Jesus is incredibly beautiful.

Dreamweapon has now been added!

Listen to all of it because it’s all good. Taking Drugs is a collection of demos that got them a deal with Glass Records. I think Glass still owns the rights to those first two albums which is why SOC and Perfect Prescription aren’t on Spotify. Taking Drugs is great, the versions are rawer than SOC in a very good way. I’d start there to get a sense of where S3 started (Stooges/Cramps/MC5).

Forged Prescriptions collects the original recordings of songs that wound up on PP but for the most part they are not demos. They initially recorded these songs with lots of overdubs and studio trickery but decided not to go that direction because they wouldn’t be able to replicate it live. The FP version of Walking With Jesus is incredibly beautiful.

― Cow_Art, Friday, July 31, 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Thanks, I think this answers my question. I will listen to it all of course - I was just trying to understand if there was some revisionism going on based on what they were making available. Like, Forged Prescriptions is not the director's cut.

Correct. It’s sort of an alternate version of the album that has been cobbled together. I like many of the FP versions as much as their PP counterparts, and they are different enough to be worth seeking out. But those versions never cohered into a finished album which is where PP succeeds. Sonic considers FP to be the ultimate version of that material fwiw.

BTW, supposedly the master tapes for PP were lost long ago. All digital versions are sourced poorly. Sonic has said that FP is as close as we will get to a proper remaster of PP. Fucking stoners.

I would say Playing w Fire is their "best" but that Recurring is my "favorite" and that also Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music is fucking incredible even if there not actually any sitar on it lmao

I love this band but getting a handle on how their discography all fits together has always been so goddamn confusing

I bought Sound of Confusion when it first released and have no idea how it all fits together either lol

I've spent thirty years trying to figure it out and I still quite can't. But I'm glad I've got everything one way or another.

Nice piece by Will here about An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/26/spacemen-3-will-carruthers-playing-the-bass-extract

I love this band but getting a handle on how their discography all fits together has always been so goddamn confusing

SP3 is my favorite band, I've worked for Bomp, worked with Sonic, even have my name on a couple of releases - but I don't even know where to start with this. I suppose it's erroneous to consider any track to be the final/definitive version of itself and more of a snapshot of where it's at. There's hours of outtakes from all four albums - no extra songs, but plenty of differing directions something could have takes: real drums vs. drum machine, reverse reverb or not, lyrical changes, etc. etc.

they really “got” minimalism and understood how to properly exploit its power

For All the Fucked Up Children of this World...: Early (first?) recording session. Copied to tape and distributed around town by the band who are not terribly proud of it now. Their sound hadn't formed yet, it's historically interesting but they are baby spacemen toddling about. Bluesy.

Taking Drugs to Make Music To Take Drugs To: Demos which secured a record deal with Glass. Sometimes I like this as much as Sound of Confusion. Released unofficially and later officially with bonus tracks on Space Age Recordings. Only unique song is "It's Alright" which was later recorded by Spectrum.

Sound of Confusion: First proper album. All UK versions end with "OD Catastrophe." All US versions append the Walking With Jesus single and a demo version of 2:35 that is also found on TDTMMTTDT. Taang! Records put out their early albums on CD in the US. The Taang! covers are ugly and the sound quality is shit. The bonus track "Rollercoaster" has about 20 seconds trimmed off. WTF

Perfect Prescription: Second album. Early versions ended with "Call The Doctor." Since then all versions append "Soul 1" and "That's Just Fine" which are b-sides of the Take Me To The Other Side single. These are nice, if a little slight and they dull the impact of the original ending. Taang! version has a gap between "Ecstasy Symphony" and "Transparent Radiation" where the songs should flow together seamlessly. Unforgivable. Best way to hear it is probably the original Glass vinyl.

Forged Prescriptions: Two cds of alternate takes and demos from PP. A couple of unique songs which aren't terribly exciting, but the alternate versions are sometimes lusher and better than the PP versions. Highly recommended. Demo version of "Come Down Easy" is terrific.

The Singles AKA Translucent Flashbacks: Collects the first three singles including all the SOC & PP bonus tracks, with "Rollercoaster" at its proper length (17:24!!!). "Walking With Jesus" single version is a remix of the TDTMMTTDT track. Good shit.

Playing With Fire: Third album. Should end with "Lord Can You Hear Me?" but most versions add bonus tracks afterward. The 2cd version has loads of great stuff.

Dreamweapon: Technically a live album, sort of the fourth album but not really. Originally just the one track it now always comes with instrumental bonuses that fit nicely. "Spaceman Jam" credits Jason but he's not really on it. Some other dude Sonic was jamming with. It meanders.

Recurring: Fourth album. When I had full on Spacemen fever this was IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND. It drove me nuts and went for $$$. Proper ending is "Billy Whizz." All CD versions have the same bonus tracks. I think.

DJ Tones EP: Random rare tracks that hold together well. Notable for Spacemen 3's version of "These Blues," later performed by Spiritualized.

How The Blues Should've Turned Out: Barrel scrapings sold by Sonic Boom. CDRs maybe? Only a hundred were released and later he could be found on the Spiritualized forum berating people for sharing copies. Some good stuff, but this is where I started losing interest in MORE Spacemen 3.

LIVE STUFF

Performance: An abbreviated PP era show. Taang! version adds the Threebie 3 ep which has live tracks from the same gig.

Live In Europe AKA Spacemen Are Go!: Later live album. Collects tracks from different dates, including a couple of the more delicate PWF cuts. "Bo Diddley Jam" is badass.

Live At The New Morning: Unofficially released and then later put out as a needle drop on Space Age. Avoid the Space Age version. Good show from the PWF tour, although the focus is on the noisier songs.

There are other bootlegs, B-sides, and bits and pieces that I haven't bothered to hunt down. Is there something good I'm missing?

Outstanding guide thank you! I have a few CDs and a folder of mp3 albums of which half seemed like bootlegs - now I can figure it out!

I'd add the Losing Touch With Your Mind comp to that list.

Forgot about that one! More alternates, demos, etc.

There's a live boot that I've seen for sale but never grabbed: Revolution or Heroin.

The tribute album is VERY good. All the way through.

1. Bowery Electric - Things'll Never Be The Same
2. The Asteroid #4 - Losing Touch With My Mind
3. Mogwai - Honey
4. Flowchart - Ode To Street Hassle
5. Accelera Deck - I Believe It 3:31
6. Arab Strap - Revolution
7. Bardo Pond - Call The Doctor
8. Frontier - Hey Man
9. Low - Lord, Can You Hear Me?
10. Amp - So Hot (Wash Away All Of My Tears)
11. Piano Magic - How Does It Feel
12. Transient Waves - Billy Whizz

I discovered about five of those bands via the tribute album, I can't speak highly of it enough.

There's the All Fucked Up boot in my collection too:

https://www.discogs.com/Spacemen-3-All-Fucked-Up/release/3141260

Per the Discogs notes:

Live recording from Germany during the tour of 1988, or probably recorded live on 11th January 1988 at The Rose Club in Koln, Germany.

There's also Out of It, which I think is just a selection of stuff found on Forged Prescriptions but I'd need to check to be sure. Not even Discogs has that one I think.

And here's the Revolution or Heroin info again via Discogs:

Though sometimes thought to be "live 22. October 1987 University of London", this is actually the soundtrack from a video of a show at The Mean Fiddler.

There was a 3 CDR project of various songs from live shows over the years but I only have a basic rip of the first disc.

Highly recommend the cassette (or a digital playlist version) of 'The Perfect Prescription'. The entire proper album is on side A while the flip contains the epic covers from the period - the 17 min version of "Rollercoaster" and the 11 min version of "Starship".

Interesting to see the love for Recurring. I remember being slightly horrified when it came out and found it a big let down after what had come before. Big City in particular seemed cheesily ludicrous. I haven't listened to it in about 25 years - maybe I should give it a chance.

Recurring's their best album! That album and the subsequent first albums by Spiritualized, Spectrum, and the Darkside are the high water mark of everyone involved.

And "Big City" ended up in The Simpsons so hey.

xp "Big City" is like... their best song

Wasn't there a sonic boom LP (confusingly called spectrum) before a spectrum lp (soul kiss)? Which one do you mean fhazel?

(oddly, despite having about 20 LP's by this bunch in various guises, I have nothing by darkside. What am I missing?)

I do not get “big city” :-/

probably 15 years or so ago i thought i had a shitty mp3 rip of "the perfect prescription" so i bought the taang! cd version and realized nope! it's actually that bad. also, if i remember they had a truncated version of "starship" on there even though they had the space on it for the full 11 min version which always pissed me off.

“Recurring” is cool but c’mon ... there’s no way “Big City” stands out as special. Not even the best thing on that album which, in comparison to their preceding albums, stood out as the weakest.

Sonic's solo album was recorded before Recurring, I'm talking about Soul Kiss by Spectrum which was post-S3 breakup...

I have relistened a little on Spotify. Recurring is still poor. Big City is still awful. No offence, but claiming Big City is their best song is crazy....

To say Recurring is better than PP or PWF is equally crazy, IMO

this may be missing the point with Spacemen 3, but always thought the Recurring version of Big City is just too long. the 12" version is about 8.5 minutes and that is just right

Recurring was my first S3 album so I do like it but my heart belongs to Sound of Confusion. listened to Losing Touch With My Mind just now because seemed kind of apt

Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here), in which Sonic notes the kinship between Dandy Livingstone's Big City and Kraftwerk's Neon Lights and makes a song about it.

Recurring: Jason's side >>>>>> Sonic's side.

I like Big City quite a bit.

Feeling Just Fine is one of my favorite songs out of all the Spacemen projects.

The only track that I feel inclined to skip is I Love You.

I really appreciate some of the recent breakdowns re: pressings and sound, I have Taking Drugs CD on US Bomp, SOC CD on UK Refire, PP CD & LP on US Genius, PWF CD and LP on US Bomp, Dreamweapon CD re on US Sympathy (I regret selling my Fierce OG) and OG Recurring CD on US Dedicated. so I think I'm good except for picking up FP and the singles comp someday. I never really clicked with any of the live stuff but damn do I love their studio work.

Recurring: Jason's side >>>>>> Sonic's side.

Yeah, this was the album where Sonic ran out of ideas and began an exercise in self-parody

Damn y'all I had no idea "Recurring" and "Big City" were so controversial! As a massive Kraftwerk/electronic music stan, it just scratches a very particular itch for me, I guess

yeh I'm surprised too, every S3 fan I've ever known loved Big City. when those farfisa chords come in halfway thru, it gets me every time.

As a massive Kraftwerk/electronic music stan, it just scratches a very particular itch for me

This is 100% OTM. It's funny because I think I actually went backwards? That it was Sonic Boom's interest in analogue synths way back in the 90s, that actually opened up the world of krautrock in general and Kraftwerk in particular to me.

My memory of what happened around Recurring was it came out at a point where Spacemen 3 were already breaking up, and there were already solo albums and 12"s floating around. So that in comparison to what had come before, and what came out just after, it felt a little bit of a letdown. It definitely had a sad undercurrent to it, like, "wow, my favourite band is breaking up? Bummer." Which affected my impressions of the album at the time, followed quickly by "wow, I now have TWO favourite bands and they're both amazing?"

I also distinctly recall that when I swapped my (bought on release) vinyl of Recurring for a later CD a few years later, I listened to it again and had a much more positive impression of it - and realised I had been overly harsh towards it. And Big City has aged incredibly well, it has got better with time.

Cow_Art thank you for that release breakdown, been dreaming about a simple cribsheet for S3 releases like that for a while

My own introduction to S3 was the solo Spectrum album Sonic released as discussed a few posts back -- it was a new release at the time and one of the first things I reviewed for KLA at UCLA as a DJ preview. I'm not really sure I'd heard anything quite like it before, honestly, but I was listening to a lot of stuff for the first time all around then, and it was enough for me to get very interested in who he was and this band of his was. Prompted by all this I gave it a relisten yesterday and it holds up very nicely.

I'm kicking myself because my first exposure to S3 *was* the fabled Glass vinyl - purple swhirlies, black vinyl - and I have no idea what happened to my record collection, if it's still sitting in a box, or if my Mum has thrown it away. Because it has never quite sounded right in the reissues. (I'm going to cry if I start thinking about all the rare Spacemen/Sonic/Spz vinyl I used to have 30 years ago.)

I didn't hear the solo sonic LP until the reissue, hence my timeline confusion above (thanks for clarifying fh). A friend had a copy with the swirly thing on the front but I'm not sure he ever played it in my presence.

(2013 it says. lists Jason in the credits. And Jo wiggs)

yeah I remember seeing that pinwheel Spectrum LP at the record store but it was too pricey to take a chance on (I snagged the reissue and... it's not my favorite Sonic Boom work)

The only Sonic stuff that I'm fully on board with is Soul Kiss & Highs, Lows, Heavenly Blows. There are lots of other good things scattered across his releases but his range is pretty limited. There's a comp of singles and whatnot called What Came Before After that is pretty good.

I stumbled upon a huge wad of used EAR cds at the Amoeba in LA and I was SO STOKED. Worked my way through them and it was a bit of a slog. Mesmerized is the only one I kept.

Yeah that one is my fallback -- I do love the rest for different moods but Mesmerized just seemed to get Sonic's ability to embrace warm drift perfectly, not having to worry about creating songs as such.