The Pound
November 4, 2001
It ain't no accident that the founding members of the legendary Spacemen 3 are so all powerful that they each pilot revered solo projects. But where Jason Pierce's Spiritualized has shot forth into uberstardom with gospel choirs and sold out gigs at the Royal Albert Music Hall, Sonic Boom has always opted for the more experimental and obscure side of things.
Billed as Sonic Boom and Spectrum in a Tribute to Spacemen 3, the band featured Spacemen 3/Spiritualized bassist Will Carruthers. Thanks to our crack team of Spaceheads (ie, Carrie, Steve, and Chris Stratford) we can confirm that we were treated to Tranparent Radiation (originally by the Red Krayola), Revolution (featuring a nod to War Sucks), Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You In The End", which Spectrum put out on, in Steve's words, on "fancy shmancy vinyl", Suicide's 'Che'. Chris loved every minute of it, noting that his personal high point of the set was,'All Night Long',"where HE EVEN LIT A CIGARETTE at the same point that he does on the album! brilliant."
Sonic Boom is the unflagging champion of Sound For Sound's Sake. At each of show you wait for the hallmark moment when he forgets the audience and becomes immersed in what some call 'playing the room': tweaking dials, listening, tweaking more, shifting sound almost imperceptably until he's satisfied. Eliot put it best when he said, "I think in a way that's why (his other project) is called E.A.R. He's creating things based solely on what he's hearing at that moment." While this sort of techno-geeking may seem a little out of place in the world of stoner rock, Sonic always maintains his street cred with those dirty layers of drone that you've come to expect. After all, they don't call this genre "Stone and Bone" for nothing.
Sonic Boom & Spectrum
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