Experimental Audio Research
at the Middle East
by Nik Rainey
The Moment:
I never expected to have a Moment that night, least of all in a cramped back room mere feet from the stage at the Middle East. But it happened. A Moment like dancing with Fred Astaire, trading sunglasses with Lou Reed, or shopping for extra-extra-extra large frocks with Divine – in other words, sharing (however briefly) in the primal essence of what becomes a legend most. Moments like this are few, far between, and fleeting, which makes them loom all the larger once they happen. I had such a Moment that night.
I shared a joint with Sonic Boom.
True, it was just a couple of puffs and I didn’t feel anything (just in case Ma and Pa Rainey should be reading or I decide to run for public office later on), but it still felt like a kind of communion. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Boom (as The New York Times might call him), he is as responsible as anyone in this modern-rock era for distilling the ecstatic feeling of a drug rush into pure, clock-stopping sound. Spacemen 3’s most transcendent moments turned the adrenal fury of the Stooges and MC5, and the electronic metronomia of Kraftwerk and Suicide, into burning vertical ascensions. And after S-3’s acrimonious split, Boom went even farther in his quest for the perfect prescription for the Ecstasy Sound, forming both the acid-feedback Spectrum and the ad hoc conflagration that was to be this evening’s entertainment, Experimental Audio Research. (Think loud ambient music, if such a thing is possible.)
Boom is an explorer, a navigator on the alpha waves, and drugs are but one of his many motors. So when he passed the dutchie, of course, I took it. When in Rome, etc.
As I took the sweet smoke into my lungs, all I could think was, My God. This man has the best cheekbones in all of rock. So much for cosmic revelations.
The Interview: So Wes, who works at a radio station in Connecticut and was kind enough to let me use his tabletop tape recorder, set the machine up and checked the levels. He switched it on and Boom and I launched into a splendid discourse, me asking deep probing questions which dug right into the marrow of the matter, Sonic responding with previously unheard-of insights on the nature of art in an entropic universe…
Actually, my questions were hopelessly inane and Boom, to his credit, parried them with an amused sort of tolerance, but you’ll never know that because soon after my first question, opening act Juneau kicked off a loud set of improvisatory space-rock, all but drowning out our conversation. This is what I can make out: yes, E.A.R. and Spectrum do have new albums coming out soon; no, there’s no hope for a Spacemen 3 reunion; yes, he’s still friends with the Jazz Butcher; no, The New York Times has never referred to him as “Mr. Boom” or anything else for that matter; no, I can’t have any more of his dope. The rest is lost to posterity underneath an avalanche of loud local space-rock.
Oh, well, at least Juneau sounded good.
The Other Interview: After Boom politely excused himself, I started to chat with one of the other members of E.A.R. After a short while, I realized that he was none other than Pete Bassman, former S-3 bassist (duh) who was serving the same function for the East Coast leg of the E.A.R. tour. He was tired but accommodating, sharing his glee at the Sex Pistols reunion, his frustration at the cynicism in English music and English music journalism, his bad experiences with his post S-3 group, The Darkside, his good experiences with his new band Alpha Stone, and on and on for some time. Unfortunately, Wes and his tape recorder had left and I didn’t think to turn on my own micro-cassette unit. So that too was lost.
Oh, well, at least Bowery Electric sounded good.
The Gig: It was almost twelve when E.A.R. finally took the stage. Well, maybe took isn’t the best of all possible words – no rockstar posturing here. Boom simply set up his onstage soundboard and fiddled with some knobs, Pete strapped on his bass and stood there, Tom Prentice (a sweet-natured, laconic Scot who seconded Pete’s pro-Pistols stance earlier) took up backless viola and bow, and Alf Hardy worked the board from offstage. A tsunamic drone commenced. High whistling noises emanated from the stage, varispeed effects alternately sped up and slowed down the roar, the viola came off like the unholy congress between ’67-era Cale and the Tasmanian Devil, and Bassman liquidly grounded the whole thing with the set’s only Spacemen echoes (bits of “How Does It Feel?” and “Walkin’ With Jesus” poked out). Boom, meanwhile, made like the calmest of mad sound scientists, twirling dials, playing with what looked like a plastic toy theremin, and providing the only percussion of the evening (a ride cymbal borrowed from Juneau’s drummer which he tapped all of six times in forty-five minutes). It was an awesome racket, the first time any music (live or otherwise) actually made my brain squirm in my head, even if the majority of the crowd didn’t seem to agree (flinging fingers into ears and filtering gradually out). It seemed as if we all could have left and come back a day or two later to find Boom’s boys still playing in perpetuity. But it did end, ebbed more like, leaving the third of us that remained cleansed, joyous, and practically deaf. It was my second Moment of the night, one I’ll carry with me longer than the first – dope wears off, but tinnitus is forever.
Thanks to Wes Dymoke of WMUS radio for technical assistance, the tape recorder, and the lift back to the office. In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby.
