March Madness!

Helloooo down there...! What on earth is going on down there...?!?!? From my vantage point up here on the satellite it appears your world is literally turning upside down. Up is down, black is white, Republicans and Democrats living together... it's ANARCHY! Fierce partisanship, corporate hegemony, blatant greed, blind ideological allegiance, Darwinian economics, and utter disdain for the very ecosystems that give it life is emanating from the human "race" (is this a contest?), the only earthly animal that thinks itself above all matters mundane. It's so big it's visible from space...! And it's an ugly aura folks. Too big for your britches is what the human race is... it's time for your mama (Mother Earth) to deliver a beat-down.
(UPDATE: I wrote this BEFORE the Chilean earthquake.)

And down the rabbit hole we go...

Ah well, might as well have a cathartic dose of the ol' psychedelicious space rock as a soundtrack for your armageddon, eh?

We begin with a double shot of downhome Oklahoma psychedelica, with the Flaming Lips' front man Wayne Coyne's nephew's new band Stardeath and White Dwarfs (sic). Rumor has it the two bands recently collaborated on a song-by-song cover of the Pink Floyd's bar-setting epic Dark Side of the Moon... well, it's not rumor - I streamed it a while back and it's phenomenal - but I can't seem to get my hands on a hard copy. Yet. You'll be the first to know when I do. Continuing the juggernaut pace is SF's Citay, returning with their triumphant third album of sunshiney spacepop, replete with homages to Queen and other classic rockers of the multi-tracked guitar persuasion (here supplied by the talented Tim Green of the Fucking Champs). Closely following is a band I just can't seem to get enough of, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, also from SF, with yet another track from 2009's album of the year (I had the distinct pleasure catching them WITH Citay last fall at the glorious Frisco Freakout festival). Up next is a departure for the enigmatic Woods, a band mostly dedicated to folksy yet unhinged pastorals, who here meander on a lo-fi spacerock improv worthy of an Ash Ra Tempel jam.

The always-reliable Joan of Arc put out a gem last year, which I somehow overlooked, perhaps attributable to multiple reviews calling it a cynical collection of outtakes from their previous album Boo Human, and while it does include a modicum of throwaways and instrumental workouts, it's still chock full of the usual oblique lyricism, abstruse guitar figures and downright Kinsella-cious weird rock that Tim Kinsella and the ever-revolving Last Supper of cohorts that contribute to Joan of Arc recordings. This track is a rare-enough foray into folky/freaky/Faheyesque good-timey rags from a prolific and unique outfit. I keep stumbling across sporadic gems among the catalog of Piano Magic, a loose ensemble of British musicians in various combinations that come off like a post-millennial post-ROCK This Mortal Coil, and here's another one of those gems.

And that's where this set really plummets deep down the rabbit hole, with the uncategorizable Bear In Heaven, here from their first album, a track from the amazing new Clipd Beaks album, and a self-released recording from my personal buddy Professor Ben's project Guitar Vs. Gravity. Another of 2009's winners was Japandroids' bro-rawk opus Post-Nothing, so I dropped another standout from it here. Also blowing minds last year was the side project of Portishead's Geoff Barrow known mysteriously as Beak> (unclipped), sounding absolutely nothing like his main band and showing off his diverse influences. And we pretty much hit rock bottom of the WTF dimension with a limited-release CDR by experiMENTAL improv weirdos Scantily Clad.

Then... howzabout a long-awaited space-tronica section for you oft-neglected 'lectro lovers...? Joakim diverges from its more dancefloor-friendly postpunktronica with this noisy leadoff track from its new album. The Field, with its very live-sounding bass and percussion sequenced in with the warm electronics, owes as much to the klassic kraut of Kluster and Kraftwerk as it does to the postmodern techno of Underworld. Oldschool noisemongers Black Dice take us on a speaker-blowing journey through Beaches And Canyons, and Portland's White Rainbow lulls us into ecstatic bliss with his amniotic waves of sound.

Okay... the world seems a bit less chaotic now. Better keep my distance.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Spacerock Continuum Intro - bRambles - BeeDub's Spacerock Continuum
The Birth/Those Who Are From The Sun Return To The Sun - Stardeath And White Drawfs - The Birth
Careful With That Hat - Citay - Dream Get Together
Two Stage Rocket - Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound - When Sweet Sleep Returned
September With Pete - Woods - Songs Of Shame
Flowers - Joan Of Arc - Flowers
You Can Hear The Room - Piano Magic - Disaffected
Bag Of Bags - Bear In Heaven - Red Bloom Of The Boom
Blood - Clipd Beaks - To Realize
World Of White Walls - Guitar Vs. Gravity - City Of The Future
Heart Sweats - Japandroids - Post-Nothing
Blagson Lake - Beak - Beak>
Mint Volcano - Scantily Clad - Two
Back To Wilderness - Joakim - Milky Ways
Sequenced - The Field - Yesterday And Today
Things Will Never Be The Same - Black Dice - Beaches And Canyons
Tuesday Rollers And Strollers - White Rainbow - New Clouds

Okay, You Asked For It...

Well, somebody did. Although anyone as deeply involved, nay, IMMERSED in music as I am knows, it's exceedingly difficult to nail down any kind of Year End list (or really any "Best Of" list for that matter) to merely ten. But, since personalities like mine are also compulsive list makers, for the sake of argument/discussion I will do so here. Obviously these lists exists in a constant state of flux, as the nebulous winds of the ether blow them this way and that, and they are as hard to pin down as a starry smear of night sky as one entry twinkles, then the next and the next and the next until it's impossible to tell which one is currently shining brightest, especially what with the speed of light and all. Anyway, here goes...

THE TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2009 (PLUS SOME):

1. Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound "When Sweet Sleep Returned"
2. Sleepy Sun "Embrace"
3. And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead "Century Of Self"
4. Super Furry Animals "Dark Days/Light Years"
5. Flaming Lips "Embryonic"
6. Oneida "Rated O"
7. Cave "Psychic Psummer"
8. Fuck Buttons "Tarot Sport"
9. Volcano Choir "Unmap"
10. Japandroids "Post Nothing" / Ganglians "Monster Head Room" (tie)

Yes, that's a tie for 10th - I really can't decide. Honestly. You choose. And also because narrowing it to only 10 is just so very unsatisfying, here are the runners up (just five, uh, or six, er, seven...? wouldja believe...?)...

Honorable Mention:
11. Helvetia "Helvetia's Junk Shop"
12. Dan Deacon "Bromst"
13. Stardeath and White Dwarfs "The Birth"
14. Tortoise "Beacons Of Ancestorship"
15. Health "Get Color" / Woods "Songs Of Shame" / Real Estate s/t / Pterodactyl "Worldwild" (four-way tie, sorry, it's all so good!)

Okay, enough of that, on to the playlist! Featuring the Very Best of 2009 (to the best of my omniscience)... PART DEUX! (see last month's post for the first installment).

We begin with a rambunctious romp through the urban jungle with Animal Collective, with their latest album seemingly influenced by the African music so du jour with their Brooklyn peers. A math rock ensemble (called Meneguar) gone folky, Woods put out an album of sublime little ditties that bite and scrape like campfire equivalents of early Flaming Lips. Volcano Choir is a match made in heaven between the elaborate experimentalism of postrockers Collections of Colonies of Bees and the heavily treated vocal stylings of avant-folkster Bon Iver. Speaking of heaven, apparently there be bears there, and this Bear In Heaven has some of the dreamiest, most enigmatic and oddly arranged symphonic shoegaze I've heard in a long while (not to mention that their band name evokes the great Space Needle song "Beers In Heaven").

Deerhunter maestro Bradford Cox moonlights as the more stripped-down Atlas Sound and put out a strong second full-length, with the track included here quite possibly the finest on the album, featuring vocals by none other than the inimitable Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab. L.A. dark psych afficionados The Warlocks have also streamlined their sound with this new album, and to great effect, especially on this track with its melty My Bloody Valentine guitar swoon. UK goth weirdos The Horrors have undergone a complete transformation from cartoony Birthday Party hairfarmers to spaced out shoegazers with their second album. And A Place To Bury Strangers continue their self-described vocation as The Loudest Band In New York - despite the bandleader's day job as guitar effects entrepreneur, their Joy Division roots are showing.

Underground noisemongers Health return with a follow-up to their debut that's stronger and more focused, and dare I say it, more accessible. The same could be said for O.G. noize boys Black Dice, although in their case it's been a slow transformation over many albums, this being their strongest since Beaches And Canyons. No-fi guitar scuzz gets a sunny kaleidoscopic makeover by Wavves on his sophomore release. And Future Of The Left return with an album that's both as furious as their previous incarnation as Mclusky, the most pissed-off postpunk Wales has ever seen, and somehow more refined.

A lot of talk has circulated through the uber-underground community concerning the preponderance sloppily psychedelic (if you can imagine vintage Black Flag as an LSD-enhanced soundtrack for tripping beachtown slackers) guitar-and-drum duos like No Age and the aforementioned Wavves, but none has seized me as immediately as Japandroids, perhaps because they trigger memories of late-greats from outside the genre as diverse as Swervedriver and The Archers Of Loaf. So on the subject of obscure musical genres, please allow me to now coin the term spazz-jam. To be a spazz jam band you should be less than the standard rock and roll four piece, care nothing about your outward appearance, work entirely from improvisation, and preferably reside in Brooklyn. While none of those are prerequisites, it certainly applies to originators Oneida on their umpteenth release, a three-CD progrock cornucopia of epic proportions that spans the gamut from free-noise freakouts to grinding motorik repetition and nonsense. It also applies to Pterodactyl who return with another slab of shrieking start-stop insanity. And Cave continue their Krautrock-infused neanderthal noodling while Wooden Shjips offer more of their hypnotic neoprimitive groove.

Sometimes well-known and respected musicians form super groups, and oftentimes the outcome is less than super, the whole being less than the anticipated sum of its parts. But in the case of Them Crooked Vultures it works - it sounds exactly like you'd expect singer/guitarist Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age with Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones on bass and the ubiquitous Dave Grohl back where he belongs behind the drum kit. Rawkin'! Prolific multi-intrumentalist and musicologist (and Friend Of The Spacerock Continuum) Emil Amos of Grails put out his sixth and seventh releases as his solo project Holy Sons last year and they're the best work he's ever done, IMNSHO. And while we're on the subject of moonlighting, Beak is an against-type side project of Portishead's Geoff Downes and it's absolutely confounding and entrancing.

Real Estate is a young New Jersey ensemble that's more Feelies homage than Jersey Shore guidos, and their crystalline jangle pop is absolutely refreshing. Hardworking Seattleite Jason Albertini put out his fourth self-produced album as Helvetia, named for the country (what's now Switzerland) not the font, and to my mind he stakes his place as the poor man's Broken Social Scene (and that's a compliment!). And in the most startling of comebacks, everyone's favorite North Carolina warped and twisted mathrockers the mighty Polvo return to both pick up where they left off and expand on their already impressive, if abstruse, unique vision.

We get heavy at the culmination of this set, but for me if it's metallic it's gotta be progressive, and that aptly describes both the trodding dirges of Pelican and the lofty flights of Russian Circles. Philly-delic stalwarts Bardo Pond is sandwiched between these two heavyweights in order to showcase a track from a record company sampler that perfectly encapsulates their modus operandi. And longevity seems to have paid off for Austin prog-punks And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead as they released their strongest album in years. I've concluded this set with a mind-altering excursion from one of the most sonically inventive bands in recent memory, the elusive Fuck Buttons, and hopefully it's enough to propel you starward, away from earthly concerns, at one with the cosmos.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Spacerock Continuum Intro - bRambles - BeeDub's Spacerock Continuum
Summertime Clothes - Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
To Clean - Woods - Songs Of Shame
Island, IS - Volcano Choir - Unmap
Dust Cloud - Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth
Quick Canal - Atlas Sound - Logos
The Midnight Sun - The Warlocks - The Mirror Explodes
Mirror's Image - The Horrors - Primary Colours
In Your Heart - A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Die Slow - Health - Get Color
Ultra Vomit Craze - Black Dice - Repo
Get In The Sun - Wavves - Wavvves
Arming Eritrea - Future Of The Left - Travels With Myself And Another
Crazy/Forever - Japandroids - Post-Nothing
No Sugar - Pterodactyl - Worldwild
Ghost In The Room - Oneida - Rated O
Encino Men - Cave - Psychic Psummer
Motorbike - Wooden Shjips - Dos
Elephants - Them Crooked Vultures - s/t
Arranged Release - Holy Sons - Criminal's Return
Backwell - Beak - s/t
Suburban Beverage - Real Estate - s/t
All The Money Is Gone - Helvetia - Helvetia's Junk Shop
Dream Residue/Work - Polvo - In Prism
Strung Up From The Sky - Pelican - What We All Come To Need
Lord Of Light - Bardo Pond - Every Noise Has A Note
Malko - Russian Circles - Geneva
Isis Unveiled - And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - The Century Of Self
Surf Solar - Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

All Hail 2010!!!

That's got a nice sci-fi kinda ring to it, without the apocalyptic overtones of 2012, or the blink-and-you-missed-it dystopian vision of 2001. It will surely be the Year Where Things Could Only Get Better, with hope, faith and diligence from all of us terrestrial or extraterrestrial. Luckily 2009 was a fantastic year for the space rock, so much in fact that, rather than bombarding my faithful listeners with an epic length set, as some of the more recent installments have been, this one will be divided up into two month's worth of playlists, in January and February. This should make these stimulating slabs of soul-sustaining sustenance much more digestible. Longtime fans of the Continuum know also that the Best Of editions stretch the definition of space rock to its breaking point, as I am apt to include as much of the music that moved me this year as possible without regard to how much it can be squeezed into the space/psych/prog/post/acid/experimental etc. pigeonhole. You might even find bits of electronica, jazz, pop, straight-up indie rock or even underground hip hop (well, maybe), but it all sums up the music that kept BeeDub alive last year, and I hope it nourishes you as well.

So! On to the VERY BEST TRACKS OF 2009! (in no particular order, of course)

We start off, as I am apt, in a post rock vein, with two of the legacy practitioners, Montreal's Do Make Say Think, here with a 4-song essential distillation of their modus operandi, each song titled after, and evocative of, one of the verbs in their name, and Chicago legends Tortoise still showing up the naysayers with their most vital album (and subsequent tour) in a long while. Would it be odd to transition into classic krautrock here? Not when the band in question is the seminal Faust, who are stronger than ever after nearly four decades of confoundingly inventive music, even in 2009. Sit down children, and LEARN.

Speaking of legacies, The Flaming Lips have constantly reinvented themselves, from Butthole Surferish acid-punk, to psych-noize extremists, to indie pop darlings, and with their 2009 release they have come full circle back to dark beginnings, but with a fresh and brand new musical approach. I call them the godfathers... and the young prince of this family line is young Dennis Coyne, nephew of the Lips' Wayne Coyne, who, along with his former Lips roadie pals, has his own project off to a great start with Stardeath and White Dwarfs... another entry in the heritage of OK City's finest. Their whimsical lysergic tendencies have been absorbed through osmosis by one Neon Indian, an unhinged electronica producer who shares a similar a taste for the blotter. Not to be overshadowed in this sort of beatific frenzy, the one man band (with laptop and outboard effects) known as Dan Deacon has a myriad of influences to wear proudly on his sleeve then shake out and hang on the laundry line to be absorbed by the cosmic winds of devotional audience participation. And so... why not round this segment out with yet another classic from the prolific longevity and ever-mindblowing enduring creativity of Jersey oldschoolers Yo La Tengo?

Shifting gears toward the Welshmotorikpsych (there was one?) we have a couple winners from newbies The Phantom Band and stalwarts the Super Furries, bringin' the brogue to outer space. A sonically smooth but geographically abrupt transmogrification brings us to Sacramento CA for the Ganglians' lo-fi Brian Wilson worship, and San Francisco's Assemble Head's Crazy Horse/Laurel Canyon devoutness. Another Neil Young acolyte, Built To Spill's Doug Martsch harvested yet another fruitful batch of beauty this year (this track could be his response to Do Make Say Think's imperative above)... may his travelin' boots never wear thin.

Which brings us into a bit of the oft-occurring alt-country/psych crossover with Chicago pluck and crank artists Califone, SF guitarist Ben Chasney's otherworldly folk in Six Organs, a "supergroup" featuring the one dude from The White Stripes and that chick from the The Kills known as the The Dead Weather, with their high profile take on some dark amalgam of voodooswampblooz, and the enigmatic and explosive Sleepy Sun, who very well may have released the album of the year. Stay tuned!

More psychamericana from everyone's favorite party pixie Devendra Banhart, and jam cult Akron/Family's continuing series of anthemic mantras, stripping down to worn and bare southern gothic with newcomers UUVVWWZ. A left field twist brings the next track from Mercury Rev covering, of all people, Black Sabbath, in a rather faithful yet unsettling rendition of one of their more atypical tracks, at a crossroads of Eastern malady and stargazing melody. So why not round out the set with a sitar-drenched bass & drum drone from the latest and best Om album, this one featuring Grails & HolySons alumnus and friend of the show, drummer/multi-instruMENTALIST Emil Amos, followed by workhorse Montrealite Sam Shalabi's Land of Kush, an album with a track-by-track/chapter-by-chapter correlation (supposedly) to Tom Pynchon's recent novel of the same name. Heady stuff, eh? Well, that's why yer here, innit?

Also for 2010 I've dusted off the original opening theme from when this podcast/blog/thing was a webcast on internet radio, courtesy of BAGel Ted's Live 365 station bagelradio.com... 'member when? And don't forget: if you don't see all that you wanted here, there'll be Part 2 continued in February!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Spacerock Continuum Intro - bRambles - BeeDub's Spacerock Continuum
Do - Do Make Say Think - Other Truths
Prepare Your Coffin - Tortoise - Beacons Of Ancestorship
Kundalini Tremolos - Faust - C'est Com...Com...Compliqué
See The Leaves - The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
The Sea On Fire - Stardeath And White Dwarfs - The Birth
Deadbeat Summer - Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
Snookered - Dan Deacon - Bromst
Here To Fall - Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
Folk Song Oblivion - The Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
Cardiff In The Sun - Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years
Valient Brave - Ganglians - Monster Head Room
The Slumbering Ones - Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound - When Sweet Sleep Returned
Done - Built To Spill - There Is No Enemy
Giving Away The Bride - Califone - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
The Ballad Of Charlie Harper - Six Organs Of Admittance - Luminous Night
3 Birds - The Dead Weather - Horehound
New Age - Sleepy Sun - Embrace
Rats - Devendra Banhart - What Will We Be
Everyone Is Guilty - Akron/Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free
Berry Can - UUVVWWZ - s/t
Planet Caravan - Mercury Rev - Peel Sessions
Creation Ghat II - Om - God Is Good
Iceland Spar - Land Of Kush - Against The Day

December Double Play!

Last year when the holiday season rolled around, I felt compelled to offer up a double playlist, in the spirit of giving and all that blah blah blah. So why not do it again this year? It's not like there's a shortage of stellar music to choose from. So pour yourself a hot toddy, sit back by the fire, spark one if ya got one and enjoy your double dose of spacerock. In fact, these two playlists are absolute monsters, a nonstop barrage, no punches pulled, no holds barred. In fact, I'm not even sure you people are ready for this... ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?!?!? Okay then...

A funny thing happened after Mercury Rev's second album Boces: they lost their lunatic frontman David Baker, and guitarist Jonathan Donahue, upon seizing the reigns, seemed to have lost his distortion pedals. The lighter, more mercurial Mercury model has done some great work since then, but nothing comes close their first and best album, represented here with our lead-off track. Completely unrelated come Portland's mysterious freejam ensemble Eternal Tapestry with a track from some limited-release CDR. Next up, yet another track from Oneida's sprawling triple CD from this year, one of '09's best releases.

So with last month's epic and ever-expanding americana set I finally realized that Memphis' gritty lysergic blooz punx the Grifters have been sorely underrepresented here, so I'll be making up for that in the future, and here we have a quintessential stomper from them, followed by more dark South(west)ern Gothic from from Spindrift, and another of this year's best, Sleepy Sun (more to come from them!). Another band I dearly love that I had to shake free of the mothballs and give new life is the mighty Snowmen, from San Francisco's pre-dotcom musical renaissance, circa '95. Transitioning nicely, Sonic Youth have yet another entry from their best album in years, also from 2009, followed by the refreshingly noisy Wavves and the jarringly berserk Mahjonng.

Right about there we get a taste of African (and African-American) psychedelia with Johannesburg, South Africa's BLK JKS and Brooklyn, NY (by way of Cleveland, OH)'s Dragons of Zynth. Where else to go but with one of the greatest bands of all time, The Flaming Lips, this track culled from their current release, another contender for Best of '09. Okay, so I can't get enough Cave, so sue me - this track's from this year as well, as are the next few contenders for the year-end roundup, slightly mellowing noisemongers Fuck Buttons, lo-fi garage trippers Crocodiles, and the "loudest band in New York", A Place To Bury Strangers.

Demented and demonic prog-metalist Maynard James Keenan gets alternate ends of his career represented with his recent side project Puscifer and his full time band Tool's very first album. Keeping it heavy is metallic postrockers Russian Circle, then a psychedelic tribute to an obscure 80's porn star by non-Seattlites (they were from Providence, Rhode Island) Space Needle. Wrapping up our first set is one of the dreamiest-ever tracks from sadly overlooked Aussie psych-pop godfathers The Church.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Chasing A Bee - Mercury Rev - Yerself Is Steam
Brain Drain - Eternal Tapestry - Mushroom Owl
Luxury Travel - Oneida - Rated O
Holmes - The Grifters - Crappin' You Negative
Colt's Crime - Spindrift - The West
White Dove - Sleepy Sun - Embrace
V-8 Vega - The Snowmen - Soundproof
Anti-Orgasm - Sonic Youth - The Eternal
Vermin - Wavves - Wavvves
Blivable Dogggiiiieeeee - Mahjonng - Raydoncong
Lakeside - BLK JKS - Mystery
Breaker - Dragons Of Zynth - Coronation Thieves
Silver Trembling Hands - The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
High, I Am - Cave - Psychic Psummer
Rough Steez - Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
Refuse Angels - Crocodiles - Summer Of Hate
Ego Death - A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Vagina Mine - Puscifer - V Is For Vagina
Sober - Tool - Undertow
Geneva - Russian Circles - Geneva
Hypatia Lee - Space Needle - The Moray Eels Swallow The Space Needle
Is This Where You Live? - The Church - Of Skins And Heart



Ready for Round 2?!?!?

This one starts off with an extended motorik motif featuring enigmatic lo-fi deconstructionists Blues Control, continuing with Cave (YES AGAIN!) off their first album this time, Eternal Tapestry (see above), jangle-psychsters The Feelies (circa 1980), and early Can, with original vocalist Malcolm Mooney at his most unhinged. Speaking of Can, and speaking of Thin White Rope (weren't we? see the November installment!), the next track, a Can song, would have fulfilled both the americana and spacerock cover versions sets in one fell swoop! Well, better late than never. And no spacerock set would be complete without an homage to a particular line of guitar fuzz effects pedals, this time from skullfucker extraordinaire Skullflower.

From this point on I relinquish all responsibility as to the damage the next couple tracks are capable of inflicting upon the unsuspecting listener's mind. Suffice it to say, it's an extended mid-set mind journey courtesy of free-folk improv ensemble Sunburned Hand of the Man, and oscillator-'n'-tapes pioneers White Noise (featuring 60s-era BBC composer and temptress Delia Derbyshire - Dr. Who anyone?!?!?!). To bring us out of the analog synth morass is a feedback symphony from electronica producer Nathan Fake, the bliss pop of a digitally forged variety from Delorean, and a slip into an electronic epiphany with Mountains.

A slow return to consciousness via Piano Magic, then being transported into the ether with yet another self-referentially titled track from the stellar new Oneida collection, and finally taking it into the stratosphere with Iowan shamans Raccoo-oo-oon should be about all you need to ring in the new year and hang in there until January's BEST OF 2009 installment! Bon voyage.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Good Morning - Blues Control - Local Flavor
4.24.06 - Cave - Hunt Like Devil
Temporal Starshine Voyager - Eternal Tapestry - Mushroom Owl
Forces At Work - The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
Uphill - Can - Delay 1968
Yoo Doo Right - Thin White Rope - Sack Full Of Silver
Big Muff - Skullflower - Ruins
No Magic Man - Sunburned Hand Of The Man - No Magic Man
The Black Mass: An Electric Storm In Hell - White Noise - An Electric Storm
The Sky Was Pink - Nathan Fake - Drowning In A Sea Of Love
Seasun - Delorean - Ayrton Senna
Summer Of Dub - Color Filter - I Often Think In Music
Add Infinity - Mountains - Choral
Waking Up - Piano Magic - Low Birth Weight
O - Oneida - Rated O
Forever/In The Woods - Raccoo-oo-oon - The Cave Of Spirits Forever

Don't be a fool...

...stay in school.

Pay attention, class... school is still in session. Here we are with the third and final installment of Spacerock School before we break for the winter solstice holidays. I hope you've been studying!

Quiz #1: What the heck is this?!?!?


Quiz #2: What do spacerock and the musical genre known as americana have in common? Trick question? Nothing, you say? Wrong! Despite the inherent earthiness or implied groundedness of americana, as it were, many of its practitioners over the years have dabbled in the spacey and psychedelic sides (outer space and inner space, respectively) of rock music, and this set should illustrate that beyond dispute.

Starting off with a bang of a Neil Youngian stomp from MV & EE (aka Matt Valentine & Erika Elder) in one of their many incarnations (here with The Golden Road - see Tower Recordings below) and leading into the neotraditional 'Merican southern gothic ravings of Nick Cave, on his first solo album from back in '85, and the beloved Gun Club (RIP Jeffrey Lee Pierce) and you should be getting an inkling of where this journey's headed. Next up a triple dose of the defunct but influential "Paisley Underground" scene of mid-80s Los Angeles where many of the loosely affiliated bands also had a cowpunk edge (see also The Long Ryders, Rank & File, The Knitters, et al.), here represented by the inimitable first draft of The Dream Syndicate (well, second if you count a bass player change), their frequent stagemates Green On Red (bandleaders Steve Wynn and Dan Stuart even collaborated on the barroom bluster one-off effort as Danny & Dusty), and Davis, CA's mighty True West (sadly I have no Thin White Rope, their hometown brethren, to offer you at this time, although they would fit nicely). *

Next up, Memphis' gritty Grifters showcase the explicit connection between these genres with one of their many space-twang epics, and New Jersey's Velvets-via-southern folk originators The Feelies take us to a space rodeo. Things take a turn for the truly psychedelic with two of Portland, OR's most enigmatic experimental ensembles (and there are many, make no mistake - what's in the water in Portland?), the currently prolific Jackie-O Motherfucker with a nod to the traditional side of their "music", and the manic hippie bluegrass of 60s-era absurdists The Holy Modal Rounders. Dropping off the cliff into somnolent valleys are kinfolk Brightblack Morning Light and Sleepy Sun, before we are jolted back to "reality". Can it get even weirder? Any regular Spacerock Continuum subscriber knows the answer to that. Howzabout a Kiwi guitar mangler known only as Pumice? A Belgian faux-Appalachian bloozist who takes his name from a cartoon cat named Ignatz? Or the peyote-saturated wisdom of Arizona postpunkers The Meat Puppets?

Many a hand
Began to scan
Around for the next plateau
Some said it was Greenland
And some said Mexico

Others decided
It was nowhere
'Cept for where they stood
But those were all just guesses
Wouldn't help you if they could

The vast vista of the western horizon is audible in the wide-open expanse of the music of circus sideshow snakeoil salesmen Spindrift, transcendent brother 'n' sister-led SF rockers Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, LA surf cowboy harmonizers Beachwood Sparks, and desert-fried heavy minimalists Earth. Then we're a-goin' folky with Ben Chasney's Six Organs of Admittance, Matt Valentine (aka MV)'s Tower Recordings and the godfather of experimental acoustic guitar John Fahey. Vancouver, BC weighs in with The Sadies' twist-n-twang, the enigmatic psych-rock traveling commune Akron/Family drops another lengthy epic, and a band I never thought would grace this podcast, The Grateful Dead, illustrates the direct lineage between American traditional music and free-space jams.

A quintessential example of the genre of americana, Wilco, is also at times one of it's most avant-garde explorationists (especially since inviting spazzjazz guitar hero Nels Cline into the fold), here bringing a krautrock noise drone to the mix. Avant-folk refugees from the Chicago post rock scene Califone see fit to take us on a 16-minute trance-inducing ramble through the brambles. Sardonic indierock stalwarts Pavement start off with an epic twang-guitar workout and devolve into a nightmarish motorik hellride up the canyon. And to lighten the load just in time, everyone's favorite space cowboys (aren't you glad I didn't include the Steve Miller Band?) The Byrds, of "Eight Miles High" fame, here jangle their way through a sprightly ditty requesting a ride on a UFO. And honestly, who wouldn't want that?

* UPDATE: Since having come across some digital manifestations of the aforementioned Thin White Rope it was impossible for me not to include a track from them, and I chose one that couldn't be more aptly named to illustrate our point. In the process I have also decided to undo a couple glaring omissions in the form of southern-fried spacerockers My Morning Jacket and desert atmospheric spaghetti-westerners Calexico, which I have peppered throughout the original set below. Enjoy!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Susquehannah (Sole Art Trample) - MV & EE And the Golden Road - Gettin' Gone
Tupelo - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - The Firstborn Is Dead
Watermelon Man - The Gun Club - Miami
The Medicine Show - The Dream Syndicate - The Medicine Show
Abigail's Ghost - Green On Red - Gravity Talks
It's About Time - True West - Hollywood Holiday
Americana - Thin White Rope - Sack Full Of Silver
Get Outta That Spaceship And Fight Like A Man - The Grifters - Crappin' You Negative
The Last Round Up - The Feelies - The Good Earth
Rockaway - Jackie-O Motherfucker - Flags Of The Sacred Heart
Mobile Line - The Holy Modal Rounders - The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders
Hologram Buffalo - Brightblack Morning Light - Motion To Rejoin
Sleepy Sun - Sleepy Son - Embrace
The Radiant Sheen - Ignatz - II
Eyebath - Pumice - Pebbles
Plateau - The Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
The Wind - Spindrift - The West
Run Thru - My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
Kolob Canyon - Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound - When Sweet Sleep Returned
Once We Were Trees - Beachwood Sparks - Once We Were Trees
Rise To Glory - Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull
Shelter From The Ash - Six Organs Of Admittance - Shelter From The Ash
Other Kinds Run - Tower Recordings - The Galaxies' Incredibly Sensual Transmission Field Of The Tower Recordings
Portland Cement Company At Monolith, CA - John Fahey - Days Have Gone By
Translucent Sparrow - The Sadies - Favourite Colours
Mid-Town - Calexico - Hot Rail
There's So Many Colors - Akron/Family - Love Is Simple
Cosmic Charlie - The Grateful Dead - Aoxomoxoa
Spiders (Kidsmoke) - Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
Heron King Blues - Califone - Heron King Blues
Half A Canyon - Pavement - Wowee Zowee
Mr. Spaceman - The Byrds - Fifth Dimesnion

Back To School Part II

First, a report from one of your classmates on how to school a wingnut evangelist:



Bravo, young lady! You deserve an A for atheism.

Okay, attention class, this next subject is a fun one! It's a survey of the plethora of cover songs within the spacerock realm, whether it's spacerock bands covering songs not normally considered to be part of the genre, or bands not normally considered to be spacerock indulging in a little lysergic pleasure. It allows us listeners and aficionados to peek into the psyches of these artists and discover more about them by exposing their personal tastes and influences - after all, you wouldn't cover a song you hate, would you? Except ironically, of course, and there's a modicum of irony or satire in spacerock (look at Hawkwind, for example), but it's definitely not the modus operandi. Seeing which covers these bands choose, and how they choose to cover them - whether in sincere homage or by completely dismantling the song to reassemble it their own way - helps us to discover the lineage between these musical movements, develop contexts and histories, and better understand the solar systems and larger galaxies of spacerock.

In this segment we also get to break three rules of the Spacerock Continuum: we can play the same artist in the same set, and we can play two versions of the same song in the same set. AND, we'll be going a bit over the two-hour mark this time, so get comfortable class, this will be journey of discovery for us all.

Ready? Begin:


We start in an obvious place (at least for those of us familiar with the LA supergroup featuring members of Failure and Tool who formed purely to put out a one-off collection of radically reinterpreted cover songs) with The Replicants and their take on a "silly" Paul McCartney & Wings ditty, and a track from Pink Floyd's spacey soundtrack for the obscure 70s film 'More'. Speaking of the Floyd, we follow with Japanese electronicists Color Filter and their dreamy version of one of my favorite Floyd songs ever from the Meddle album, and Red Temple Spirits doing another track from 'More' as well as a track from 'Umma Gumma'. We then have two drastically different versions of a 13th Floor Elevators' chestnut from Oneida and Primal Scream. Red Temple Spirits put out more than their fair share of covers and here we have another one from them in the form of their version of a Spacemen 3 gem, which was actually a cover of a 13th Floor Elevators track. Confused yet? How about Spacemen 3 themselves (who put out and album coincidentally called 'Sound of Confusion') with an unrecognizable cover of a Sun Ra song? Speaking of the Spacemen, next up are two of the best tracks from a tribute album to the opiated astral travelers from Frontier and Asteroid #4.

Okay, let's get a bit more down to earth (as much as we ever do in spacerock): next up, The Gun Club's fitting rendition of an oldie-goldie from Creedence Clearwater Revival, followed by True West making their acquaintance with Syd Barrett's friend Sam and Bauhaus meeting an entirely different Sam, a friend of Marc Bolan and T. Rex. Paying tribute to The Rolling Stones' ill-advised foray into sci-fi rock are 80s goth favorites Danse Society, then Maynard James Keenan from Tool feting Bauhaus survivors Love & Rockets with his side project Puscifer. Also from that album of L&R covers is Film School sounding reverential to their obvious forebears. Also proudly displaying their influences are Jessamine covering Suicide and Loop doing Neil Young. We then have a bizarre take on another Neil Young classic from The Flaming Lips, as well as their surprisingly faithful rendition of Queen's quintessential (if overplayed) rock opera. Another surprise choice is Husker Du, here mangling a slice of Byrdsian psychedelia. Then Th' Faith Healers demonstrate where they tuned up their motorik by covering vintage krautrockers Can.

In addition to Pink Floyd and the 13th Floor Elevators, another iconic band to cover is, of course, The Velvet Underground, and here are just a couple from 80s experimental stalwarts Clock DVA and Japan (REM was too obvious). Another is, even more obviously, David Bowie, and here we have the late, great Zen Guerilla paying debt to a classic Ziggy Stardust glamrocker (which I had the tearjerking pleasure to witness live on the very day of Spiders From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson's untimely death). Then we come full circle back to the Replicants with their reinterpretation of Bowie's finest epic.

Last, but certainly not least, Built To Spill's Doug Martsch conjures the god of thunder guitar on Neil Young's most torrential opus. Exhausting but not exhaustive, this set is by no means meant to be comprehensive - there are simply to many choice covers from which to choose. What are some of your favorites not included here, class? Discuss.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Silly Love Songs - Replicants - Replicants
Ibiza Bar - Replicants - Replicants
Fearless - Color Filter - I Often Think In Music
Nile Song - Red Temple Spirits - Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun - Red Temple Spirits - If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa I Wouldn't Stay A Minute More
Slip Inside This House - Oneida - Come On Everybody Let's Rock
Slip Inside This House - Primal Scream - Screamadelica
Rollercoaster - Red Temple Spirits - If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa I Wouldn't Stay A Minute More
Rollercoaster - Spacemen 3 - Sound Of Confusion
Starship - Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription
Hey Man - Frontier - A Tribute To Spacemen 3
Losing Touch With My Mind - Asteroid #4 - A Tribute To Spacemen 3
Run Through The Jungle - The Gun Club - Miami
Lucifer Sam - True West - Hollywood Holiday
Telegram Sam - Bauhaus - In The Flat Field
2000 Light Years From Home - Danse Society - Heaven Is Waiting
Holiday On The Moon - Puscifer - A Tribute To Love & Rockets
An American Dream - Film School - A Tribute To Love & Rockets
Cheree - Jessamine - Another Fictionalized History
Cinnamon Girl - Loop - A Tribute To Neil Young
After The Gold Rush - Flaming Lips - A Tribute To Neil Young
Bohemian Rhapsody - Flaming Lips - A Tribute To Queen
Eight Miles High - Husker Du - single
Mother Sky - Th' Faith Healers - Lido
Black Angels Death Song - Clock DVA - Advantage
All Tomorrow's Parties - Japan - Quiet Life
Moonage Daydream - Zen Guerilla - Trance States In Tongues
The Bewlay Brothers - Replicants - Replicants
Cortez The Killer - Built To Spill - Live

SPACE JAZZ...?!?!?

It's back-to-school time, kids! And our first lesson is about the intersection of spacey sounds and high-minded JAZZ! Now it's no secret that the illustrious Sun Ra claimed to be from outer space (Saturn, I believe), as have many African American auteur/musicians from George Clinton to Dr. Octagon (aka Kool Keith who insists, "Earth people: I was born on Jupiter")... what IS it with that, anyway? So this month's installment is a bit of an inter-disciplinary study, deviating from the decidedly rockist format of this spacecast; a chance to explore the spacier tangents of jazz from the bop era to the space age, from free jazz exploration to avant garde science fiction.

We begin with the band who brought jazz (along with dub, latin rhythms, spaghetti western and experimental electronics) to the nebulous genre known as post rock, the mighty Tortoise, standard bearers of the Chicago sound. Following them are their Chi-Town schoolmates Pit Er Pat who bring a skewed melodicism and scattershot rhythmic edge to the proceedings. Next up, a very a-typically jazzy track from no-wave avant gardist Rhys Chatham who's more known for postmodern orchestral pieces (if a composition for 100 electric guitars is your idea of orchestral) as well as inspiring the likes of Sonic Youth. And how could this playlist be complete without drum-and-bass DJ and all-around madman Squarepusher, who alongside his prodigious programming talents just happens to be one berzerk mofo on electric bass. Another entry from the realm of electronica, the former drum-and-bass experimental duo Spring Heel Jack have morphed in recent years into extreme avant garde jazzists along with many trad jazz players and other unlikely guests including Spiritualized's J. Spaceman.

Another couple entries from the Chicago school (are they dominating this genre?), Exploding Star Orchestra and Isotope 217, both feature an alchemical mix of trad jazz and avant players, from cornetist and composer Rob Mazurek to multiple members of Tortoise. Next we trip lightly through a segment featuring the godfathers of space jazz, the always angular Ornette Coleman, the free jazz pioneer Pharoah Sanders, and the spaceways exploring Sun Ra.

Continuing the theme of melding electronic to organic, we have the familiarly monikered Spacetime Continuum from San Francisco, the polyrhythmic dub-jazzniks HiM (not to be confused with the thoroughly awful Finnish goth-metal band Him), and a collision between British electronica composer Kieran Hebden (aka Fourtet and 1/3 of post rockers Fridge) and old school American free jazz drummer Steve Reid. And if that doesn't leave you exhausted, prepare to wrap up this astral traveling set with New Zealand motorik-monotonists The Necks.

Okay class, school's out! Time for a nap...

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

TNT - Tortoise - TNT
I Am The Jungle - Pit Er Pat - Emergency
Flash - Rhys Chatham - Hard Edge
Delta-V - Squarepusher - Just A Souvenir
Autumn - Spring Heel Jack - The Sweetness of the Water
Sting Ray and the Beginning of Time, Part 1 - Exploding Star Orchestra - We Are All From Somewhere Else
Luh - Isotope 217 - Utonian Automatic
Civilization Day - Ornette Coleman - Complete Science Fiction
Astral Traveling - Pharoah Sanders - You've Got To Have Freedom
Lanquidity- Sun Ra - Lanquidity
Manaka - Spacetime Continuum - Double Fine Zone
A Verdict of Science - HiM - Sworn Eyes
Morning Prayer - Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid - The Exchange Sessions
Abillera - The Necks - Chemist