4. Spacemen 3The Perfect Prescription
I discovered them via a review of the first album, Sound Of Confusion. It was a bit like when I discovered Pulp, I just couldn’t believe that something so original and seemingly cool was happening at that moment. I loved that record. I wrote to them to see if they were playing any concerts nearby. I was young. I couldn’t travel very far afield. They were not, so I organised a concert. I was 16 years old. They came and played in Chesterfield, blew everybody’s minds and from that point I just got to know them. I would go to visit them in Rugby, travel with them in their Transit to concerts. Confusion is just like a wall of fuzz. Then, when we first started to hear the recordings that became The Perfect Prescription, it was amazing to have this light and shade, and acoustic, gentle tracks that balanced out the amazing, heavy songs.
Then they started playing ‘Revolution’ [from 1989’s Playing With Fire], first as an instrumental, and then with the lyrics, and that just became an anthem for me and my friends, our generation of psychedelic warriors. Sonic would send me mixtapes. This was my other gateway after David Bowie and the Velvets. He introduced me to Suicide, The Beach Boys, 13th Floor Elevators, Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Red Krayola, all of these things that I’d never heard of but that became really important for me.
