Spacemen 3
Sound of Confusion
Label: Taang! Records
Released: 1994

Sonic Boom – guitar, feedback
Jason – guitar, vocals
Bassman – Bass guitar
N. Brooker – Percussion

1. Losing Touch with My Mind
2. Hey Man
3. Rollercoaster
4. Mary Anne
5. Little Doll
6. 2.35
7. OD Catastrophe

Bonus Tracks

8. Walking With Jesus
9. Rollercoaster
10. Feel So Good
11. 2.35

One of the biggest things I forgot about, from my days of being a little punk rocker was the constant showering of criticism, the threats, and name calling from people who hated punk. I remember a kid in my 9th grade science class that, whenever he saw me, would say “Punk is bunk, let’s get drunk.” He’d laugh every time. Then there was the people who’d throw full Coke cans out of their cars as they drove by.

My love for punk rock was, pretty much, under the radar until I cut my hair in 9th grade. Then I opened the gates for every dimwitted hump to voice their opinion on a musical genre that was still being created.

One afternoon when I was walking out of the P.E. yard, after lunch, some girl, who I had never seen before, decides to chase me down and explain to me what she felt punk rock meant. “It’s when you’re in jail, and one man decides to lie on top of another man . . .” I suggested she shut-up, and I booked on out of there. She was one of the many school security guard groupies that would annoy me over the years. You probably had a few of these chicks yourself, they would sit of the guards laps, and spew out all these creepy innuendos.

Anyway, the longer I was into punk, it got to the point where I wouldn’t get along with, about, a quarter of the punks in my school. I didn’t go to enough shows, my leather jacket wasn’t painted “Oi enough,” that kind of crap, since I’ve been putting the Los Angeles Punk Con together, I get weird emails from people complaining about who I’m inviting or people complaining that it seems like it’s going to be “too commercial.” Well, here’s the best email I’ve received so far, I might have let this chick in the Con for free:

”I am quite surprised that you haven’t included Rikk Agnew in your important people of American Punk Rock. Rikk was just the first punk musician to have a solo album ( just ask Lisa of Frontier). Hell, you will probably ask Rikk’s former bands to play but not Rikk. I think it’s a travesty. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for your time.

Sarah”

Like Shakespeare once said “Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.”

On to the review . . .

I don’t know how to explain this album . . . it’s as if the Doors learned to play better, and their music was more hypnotic, then you’d have Spaceman 3.

Sound of Confusion is the first studio release by influential space rock group Spacemen 3, released in 1986 on Glass Records. It was later re-released in 1994 by Taang!, and later released to include the Walking with Jesus EP and a demo of the song “2.35.”

Thanks again to Curtis over at TAANG for passing this one to me!

If you get the chance to get a copy of this, check them out.

Rating: ** *** Two out of five stars.

Currently:
Reading: A Love is a Dog from Hell Poems 1974-1977 by Charles Bukowski
Listening: Devo – B-Stiff EP
Watching: The Decline of Western Civilization Part III directed by Penelope Spheeris