How did you get turned onto Spiritualized?

[Stuart X.Hunter]

Something that has been of increasing interest to me for a bit now; is how fellow board memebers arrived at Spiritualized, from a musical perspective.
I'm sure a fair amount of those 'fortunate' people will have taken the logical progression from Spacemen 3.
What about the rest of you?

I stumbled across Spiritualized; I had been into bit of the 'shoegaze' scene and tail end of 'baggy' bands like Slowdive, The Telescopes, MBV, The Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses and Rave (yeah, Rave!!!) acts like Suburban Delay, Ultra-Sonic and the plethora of one-off 12" that were high tempo Piano driven anthems (I think they were an offshoot of the Italian House scene in Rimini among other places and loosely termed 'love-beats'!).
Anyway, about 93-94 started getting into IDM (very diminishing genre title; but serves the purpose here) mainly through the artificial intelligence releases on Warp. In addition FSOL, Jam & Spoon, Joey Beltram, Sven Vath....
So, purely by chance my local music shop, which was an HMV had the S Section of it's Pop/Rock genre fairly close to the Dance Section.
Every once in a while, when I had enough 'paper-round' money, i'd nip in and pick something up. This one album kept catching my eye; purely for the lava-esque form of the figures on the front cover. I never thought much of it; just thought it would be some 'run of the mill' rock band that had got decent art direction...but the name, the name intrigued me.
Took me a while to pick it up and turn the cover over to read the back; 4 different colours, for 12 tracks.
Then I found out the name of the album; Lazer Guided Melodies. So the title along with the band name had me even more intrigued. Then I read some of the titles of the tracks; Shine a Light, Step into the Breeze, Symphony Space and Sway...
Well, it took me a bit of time too make up my mind, I wasn't one for standing in shops with headphones on listening to music and it wasn't really until I spoke to a friend who had started to get into Schulze, Eno, Tangerine Dream also through the IDM route that I thought 'take a chance'....so I did
Must've been about the end of '94 when I finally got it and then Pure Phase was released 28 Mar '95. So in the space of 5/6 months I had this whole new idea of what music could really be within a pop/rock format.
Now, now we've got the internet and things move much faster but i'll never forget the first time I heard the subtle/blissed-out start to You know its True dripping in warmth...felt like such a victory

[JPB]

A mate of mine tried to get my into Sp3 for ages. I couldn't get my head round them but I did catch their Reading set in '88. He then turns up with LGM and played my Shine A Light. I was hooked. I then bought the record and the early singles and was practically in love.

[clewsr]

LGM Came out in 1992 didn't it. I was 17, and after starting with AC/DC I was on a rapid trajectory away from Dodgy Heavy Metal, Steve Via, Living Colour and such like, Jane's Addiction was the key I think, a handy bridge between metal and indie, After Jane's Addiction split Smashing Pumkins was the favourite. Picking up the Coventry Evening Telegraph I found a glowing review of Lazer Guided Melodies. That paper was always supportive of Spriritualized, I remember cutting out quite a selection of live gig reviews, but they could never spell their name right.

The review was enough to get me out to Our Price in Rugby. It must have been a Friday because I remember trying to explain without success what it was like to my mates in the pub. At that point it really was totally different to anything I'd heard before. From then on LGM was played to death. the noise that I'd liked before took a total dive, and it was a couple of years before I got back into anything very rocky - the whole grunge happended about that time scene passed me by because of it which was a shame as a year earlier I would have probably loved it. But at the time for me, Quiet was the new loud. Tracking back into Spacemen 3 Perfect prescription and particularly Recurring had the same level of obsession. Obsession that has never really ceased. As the Spiritualized shows got louder and more mental I got dragged back into the nosier stuff, but I remember getting into more electronic bands as they were the only things comparable to the atmosphere of lgm, One Dove and Insides - Euphoria and that kind of stuff.

Also have a fantastic memory of being away on holiday in Norfolk with mates, getting completely wasted listening to spz, and particularly Medication over and over, before at about 4 am going out to watch the Sun rise in some sort of RAF shooting range. An absolutely spectacular night.

[spzretent]

i give full props to the employees at my record shop(RIP). i started out wanted to sell second hand records and hard to get imports(ie: U2 singles, Police Singles, Kate Bush etc.). This was back in the early to mid 80's.
They turned my shop into a British Indie specialist. First it was the C86 stuff then when the Jesus & MAry Chain came out we were full on into the noisier stuff like Spacemen 3.
Things progressed from there.

[Stuart X.Hunter]

Excellent stuff: as well as getting a little insight into each other, the approximate age of posters can also be interpeted.

[spzretent]

As the Spiritualized shows got louder and more mental I got dragged back into the nosier stuff, but I remember getting into more electronic bands as they were the only things comparable to the atmosphere of lgm, One Dove and Insides - Euphoria and that kind of stuff.
.

Gotta love another One Dove mention.
Great record! Still sounds as good today as it did back when it came out.

[natty]

It's a funny one. I broke my finger at school when I was about 13, just the time SP3 were in their death throes. I was just getting into the Stone Roses and a bit of Indie stuff, just discovering proper music really. I was in so much pain I was up all night watching late night TV and they were on a late night TV show and I thought they sounded really good, so went into town the next day and borrowed "Playing With Fire" from the library and the rest as they say...

Insides were fucking ace, by the way. If I'm thinking of the right band they had a lyric which always stuck in my head. "I hate lovers. I hate the way they go to the bathroom after they've fucked". "The Darling Effect" I think the track was called. Think I'll have to track "Euphoria" down. Nice one, Clewsr.

[sparta72]

I heard a Uni mate playing Sonic Boom - Spectrum in 1990 and was completely transfixed. Noticed there was a sticker on LP about him being in Spacemen 3. Then saw The Darkide in Cambden summer of 1991 and found out some of them were in Spacemen 3 as well. Heard 'Revolution' on a Indie 10 LP about the same time and started collecting as much stuff as I could. Only got into Spiritualized later in 1991 when I obtained a copy of Anyway Way That you want Me -which also had a Spacemen 3 sticker on it. Have loved / collected all these bands ever since. Still amazes me that when lots of people ask me who my favorite band is & I say " Spiritualized" they give a blank epression and claim never to have heard of them.

[purespace]

Via the JAMC. 2nd time seeing them live. Spiritualized and Curve opened and it was all over for me. ridiculously obsessed.

[jadams501]

I was a big Radiohead/Pink Floyd fan in high school (just graduated university) and was on the look-out for bands with similar control of spacy textures within the context of real songs. I had noticed the name Spiritualized on a few Amazon links from "People who bought this also buy ____" so I bookmarked the Amazon pages for LGM and LAGWAFIS and, after two or three months dithering with other stuff, finally bought LAGWAFIS after reading about the love triangle aspect with The Verve, another band I was getting into.

Except for "I Think I'm In Love," I didn't like it. I felt (and still think) that the production is overly heavy-handed and drains many of the songs of oomph. Other tracks grew on me a little and I liked "Think I'm In Love" so much that I decided to invest in LGM, which had been called more "blissed out." I was disappointed with that too because there was no real percussion and the 4 track suite system made it a pain in the ass to reach "I Want You," the only song that I actually liked on the album.

I tried listening a couple of times but pretty much consigned them both to sit on my shelf indefinitely. A few weeks later, I woke up in the middle of the night with the saxophones from the end of "Shine A Light" in my head. I was entranced and wanted to hear it again but I made the mistake of thinking they were from "Feel" on the Verve E.P., so took me a couple of days to actually find the piece. From then on, I bought LICD, Amazing Grace, Royal Albert Hall, Pure Phase, and the Complete Works, picking up on Sp3 sometime in there with my TAANG copy of Perfect Prescription. The rest is history.

[mh]

Hearing Hypnotized on the radio around about the time it came out, I was totally enthralled by the overall sound. Like nothing I'd ever heard before. Shortly after (or was it before?) I saw some Spacemen stuff on Rapido, but it didn't really click with me. Time marched on, and via an "Indie Top 20" comp I got to hear Hypnotized again, as well as Angel. I loved both, but still didn't spend any money (not actually having any money at the time might have been a factor here). Fast forward another little bit, and the split was very publicly happening throughout the pages of the weekly music papers, with lots of dirty laundry being aired, and some of the pettiest squabbles imaginable. I think Why Don't You Smile Now was the next track I heard, which I didn't like at all. However, a few interviews with both Sonic and Jason shortly after whetted the appetite somewhat better, and I finally splashed out on PWF. Everything else was a natural progression from there.

[SpacemanRob]

As teenagers we used to have Wednesday nights getting stoned and playing cards with different soundtracks each week. Somebody had a copy of Come Down Easy and it sparked off a great love affair. Lucky enough to see SP3 at the Notre Dame Hall and the rest is history.....

[twentysixdollars]

As teenagers we used to have Wednesday nights getting stoned and playing cards with different soundtracks each week. Somebody had a copy of Come Down Easy and it sparked off a great love affair. Lucky enough to see SP3 at the Notre Dame Hall and the rest is history.....

I would've never expected someone as ignorant as you to be that old!

Anyway, my story's not that interesting. I was working as a critic at the time LGM came out so my copy was free. I thought it was amazing, and for the sake of research I sought out Spacemen 3. I got Recurring (at the time it was the easiest Spacemen album to find - little did anyone know it would end up out-of-print and difficult to find for more than ten years afterwards!) and found it uninspired and uninspiring (still do, more or less) but persevered and secured a Bomp (I think) copy of PWF, which I loved (still do - though there was a time a couple of years ago when I was OD'd on it in a big way). It took a few more years for me to appreciate SOC and Perfect Prescription, and also Performance etc. Anyway, I saw Spiritualized several times between LGM and Pure Phase and was duly impressed; by the time Pure Phase came along I was already a huge fan and more or less thought they (they really were a "they" then) had hung the moon and could do no wrong.

[alan_cohaul]

I think that I saw a video for something off of Pure Phase, but it didn't really register. Fast forward to the era of LAGWAFIS, where the album was hitting alot of number one positions on campus radio. It was getting quite the attention. I read a review with Jason where he stated things like "you'll never get an album as good as Al Green's by using the studio that he did" and "you hear about all these bands saying 'well, this is the album we always wanted to make!'. Well, why did we just shell out a bunch of quid for a warmup to something that you didn't get quite right? We aim incredibly high, and we don't put out records until they're finished. We take the time to get it right".

He basically sold me on the album on those quotes. And he wasn't wrong....LAGWAFIS is an amazing, amazing album. I don't think that there's been anything--barring the Flaming Lips' "Zaireeka" and "The Soft Bulletin" and maybe Dirty Three's "Ocean Songs" and Mercury Rev's "Deserter's Songs"--as good as that in quite some time, at least in a lush, grand musical vein.

[darynm]

I got into the Spacemen through the Electric Prunes and that garagey scene - Pebbles etc. Loved the Electric Prunes 2nd album "Underground" which had a song called Big City on it. HEard the Spaceman song "Big City" on SnubTV and thought there were a lot of similarities. Bought Recurring and then started to work my way backwards. Was working as music editor of a student newspaper by the time LGM came out so was mailed a free copy and got the chance to interview Jason, MArk, Sean, Willie and Kate backstage before a concert in May 1992.

[Gruff]

Around the time of Pure Phase I was in a phase of buying albums from the local record shop that had interesting covers and seeing what they were like. Found loads of great stuff that way-I still do it, though less often as it seems chain shops (and you can't seem to find small locals that are any good these days) always seem to put everything in a genre-so you kinda know what you're gonna get.

Anyway-Pure Phase has that fantastic glowing sleeve, it was dark (must have been near the christmas hols...) and I was on my usual walk home from school. And, I'm not kidding, I could see it glowing in the rack as I walked past. Now if that's not an essential purchase then what is?

Been hooked ever since. Can't wait for the new one!

[jack white]

thats a cool story. the hand that fate dealt so to speak.


i had first come across Spiritualized as a name dropped during my Radiohead fandom. i didn't real understand or get the band at the time and instead focused on the electronica influences of that band and in the direction they were going. after a while i realised i was intensely unhappy and that this wasn't the music for me.
right around this time Spiritualized came to play live (as recent as their last Belfast QUB Students Union show in 2002/3). nothing more to say since that night.

[BzaInSpace]

It was almost ten years ago. Was still findiing my way musically - I still am I suppose - and first heard Primal Scream around this time as well. I read a rave review of Ladies and Gentlemen in NME, and it caused me to pick it up, I also heard Pure Phase around then on the recommendation of the article...
Took some time to appreciate the vastness of these albums but once you're in you're in...

Saw them live later that year on the LAG tour and was completely blown away. I had picked up Lazer Guided Melodies around then so was getting completely addicted. First time I ever heard 'Walkin' with Jesus' was that night, so afterwards I went backwards and tracked down The Perfect Prescription.

[MUFCSPACEMAN]

...

[andyblacktoo]

LGM Came out in 1992 didn't it. I was 17, and after starting with AC/DC I was on a rapid trajectory away from Dodgy Heavy Metal, Steve Via, Living Colour and such like, Jane's Addiction was the key I think, a handy bridge between metal and indie, After Jane's Addiction split Smashing Pumkins was the favourite. Picking up the Coventry Evening Telegraph I found a glowing review of Lazer Guided Melodies. That paper was always supportive of Spriritualized, I remember cutting out quite a selection of live gig reviews, but they could never spell their name right.

The review was enough to get me out to Our Price in Rugby. It must have been a Friday because I remember trying to explain without success what it was like to my mates in the pub. At that point it really was totally different to anything I'd heard before. From then on LGM was played to death. the noise that I'd liked before took a total dive, and it was a couple of years before I got back into anything very rocky - the whole grunge happended about that time scene passed me by because of it which was a shame as a year earlier I would have probably loved it. But at the time for me, Quiet was the new loud. Tracking back into Spacemen 3 Perfect prescription and particularly Recurring had the same level of obsession. Obsession that has never really ceased. As the Spiritualized shows got louder and more mental I got dragged back into the nosier stuff, but I remember getting into more electronic bands as they were the only things comparable to the atmosphere of lgm, One Dove and Insides - Euphoria and that kind of stuff.

Also have a fantastic memory of being away on holiday in Norfolk with mates, getting completely wasted listening to spz, and particularly Medication over and over, before at about 4 am going out to watch the Sun rise in some sort of RAF shooting range. An absolutely spectacular night.

hehe, i discovered them after a select review of LGM, and got my copy from the fantastic and much missed berwicks records in rugby.

[nukisarocknrollstar]

lagwafis nme 100 best albums, the review must have caught my eye, bought it, listened to it, was hooked from the very 1st note and listened to it all day and they rest as they say is.....

[throb]

Through the NME review of LGM. From memory the reviewer said that, conceptually at least, it was in the same league as "Screamadelica". I loved that album so thought "interesting" and bought LGM. The rest, as they say...

[angelsighs]

I got into the band around Ladies & Gents time.. First of all heard Broken Heart on a free CD with a magazine, thought it was beautiful. Also saw the band do a very intense version of Come Together at Glasto on telly. I was amazed that a band could do two different things so well.

Then I bought L&G, but it took me ages to get into it, I thought it was droney and boring for a while (i know, i know!). But one day it just clicked (now its possibly my favourite album of all time), then I bought LICD on day of release and worked my way back through the catalogue, amazed that every new(old?) album was so good.

I still remember the first time I heard Lazer Guided... it was a scorching summer day, a shaft of sunlight was creeping through the curtains and I was knackered laying on my bed... it was like floating away into another world.


Since then of course, has come the ridiculous obsession- bootlegs, B sides, live shows, all endlessly rewarding.

[Flathaddock]

Went to see Mercury Rev who were supporting Spiritualized had too many magic mushrooms and lager, had heard Spiritualized previously and been listenting to SP3 and then at Riverside 91 (I think) had a moment of bliss and that did it for me. Next time I saw them at Riverside around 91 or 92 with Electrichead or maybe flowered up not sure which order the support acts came and we all went back stage got some records signed which were freebies at the gig and chatted with the band whilst they drank copius amounts of Jack Daniels (before playing). I was about 18 when I went over to the darkside (saw them as well).

[One Asian Under A Groove]

I was another one whose musical world got a lot better in the summer of 1997 at the age of 16 - LAGWAFIS, OK Computer, Vanishing Point (espeically since I'd just discovered Screamadelica earlier that year) , Urban Hymns, When I Was Born For The 7th Time... I was aware of the NME review of Ladies And Gentlemen but I was more focussed on OK Computer and Vanishing Point coming out. I believe there was an NME cover feature on Spz, but before I started buying it regularly (it's ok, I've stopped now).

All of this may have registered sub-consciously, but ultimately it was the stunning packaging that really grabbed my attention. It doesn't explain why I bought it on cassette though, does it? Maybe the £3.99 price tag does... Anyway, that summer I had work experience and so I used to come home all tired and fall asleep on my bed with the sun shining through the window, and either OKC, VP, UH or LAGWAFIS playing. LAGWAFIS stuck with me since then - I sought out LGM and PP (I wasn't aware of the Spacemen 3 connection until I had the internet for the first time at uni a year later) and recorded a live set of theirs off the radio at Sound City in Oxford...

I made compilation tapes for all my friends and got them into Spiritualized (I suspect it was my painstaking recreation of the medical theme of the cover in my own computer-created tapes that swung them!), and then I saw them in Manchester in early 1998, and was utterly blown away (and then nearly in tears when we had to leave early to catch the last train home). Spiritualized sealed the deal as my favourite band when they rescued my first Glastonbury experience (a tent that drowned, fell out with my best friend, but it all went away when the choir started singing on Ladies And Gentlemen). LAGWAFIS is still my favourite album of all time, and it is still my number one album to put on when the sun is beating down. That was a life-changing summer!

(Great idea for a thread, my favourite story so far is "their album was glowing in the dark, I had to have it" )

[warmgun.]

I actually rented Pure Phase from a groovy little indie video store in the Annex neighbourhood of Toronto (Suspect Video...)

I don't know if it's still there or not, but they used to have a bunch of cds for rent and you could walk out with 3 for $5.00, or something like that... I didn't do it very often, but when money was tight during those student years, it was a good way to experience new music.

I picked up Mars Audiac Quintet by Stereolab and A Northern Soul by The Verve on that very same trip. Needless to say, that particular trip would make a lasting impact on my listening habits...

Other great artists that I was introduced to via the rental system were The Boo Radleys, Girls vs. Boys, Nick Cave and Tom Waits, amongst others...

[twentysixdollars]

I remember Suspect Video! I hope it's still there.

[ryansocash]

I saw them open for Radio head on the Ok Computer tour.. blew my mind.

[Flathaddock]

I believe those oh so funny headline writers at NME came up with this for the Spiritualized front cover 'Lager guided melodies' oh how I laughed, infact I am still laughing now.

[throb]

Can't find the review, but here's the artwork the NME used above it. Interesting

[Shaun]

I can't remember stuff like that. However the first time i ever heard a Spiritualized song was at Glastonbury 1993, unless i had heard Anyway That You Want Me previously which i think is possible. The problem was it became a very lost weekend and after 3 or 4 days and nights of total obliteration i didn't remember very much about it afterwards. So perhaps subconsciously that's how i got turned onto them. Spaceman must have been relaying subliminal messages in my direction off of that stage that night.

(Subconsciously suggest to the viewer that he (or she) is seeing a fragment of continuing life, not a staged scene with a visible framework;- [Edward Dmytryk])

[nimatiks]

First time I listened to Spiritualized was when a friend from school (we were 16 at the time) made me a tape of LAGWAFIS...I was impressed...I had just started discovering "real" music (I only listened to The Cure or Pink Floyd before that and some other stuff)...Then I saw them live in '98, at a festival in Athens [Greece, not georgia ]. They were playing before Portishead...I was completely blown away...I became a big fan...I've seen them twice since, in 2002 (with horns and stuff, about 14 people on stage) and 3 weeks ago again in Athens...The Royal Albert Hall live album is my favourite...Definitely in my top 5 lp's of all time...well, I think I can not narrow the list down to only 5lp's but well hum...

[nickh]

Just a progression really from Spacemen 3 who I hooked onto around mid 88. After a couple of years seeing the Spacemen as often I could it seemed only natural to see a band who were (with one obvious exception) Spacemen 3.

How I got into Spacemen 3 is a better story.

Well, not that much better.

[canucklhead07]

I have been enjoying everyones story on how they got into Spiritualized so I'll go ahead and tell mine...
I was at a friends house and we were always raiding his brothers cd collection for just cool stuff to listen to as we laid around & got high & I was always intrigued by a poster on their wall that was between the kitchen I think & the hallway. If I remember correctly it was bright red w/ two spooky looking spirits? I loved the font used to write out "Laser guided melodies" and asked my friend who they were. He quickly sought out the cd in from his brothers bedroom and it played in the background for awhile kinda unnoticed. I was intrigued but not enough to want to hear it again.
So my paths crossed w/ spiritualized again and this time in a live setting I had nothing to do that night and was invited to see Siouxsie & the Banshees & it just so happened Spiritualized were opening up for them.
I got there in plenty of time to see them open. They had so much goddamed fog on the stage you could not see a soul not even a silohouette! well maybe a glimpse here & there. I was floored, I had never heard anything like it I remember them playing let it flow and was amazed at how big & massive it sounded it was nothing short of spectacular this band had everything I liked about live music and have been listening ever since even though I have not p/u the last two albums. I will however be going to see them in July, Can't wait!
Maybe this will re-kindle my interest in Jason's new music.

[shalloboi]

i got into them as i assume a lot of americans did- i first heard about them when they were opening for radiohead on that last 'ok computer' tour in spring of 98. i was going to school here in chicago at the time and i went to buy tickets for the show, but it sold out in 15 minutes. after i moved away back to kansas city i think i bought 'ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space' and listened to it once, declared that i didn't like that 'free jazz crap' and put it away for about two years or so. something encouraged me to dig it out and listen to it again in 2000- i think i saw a spiritualized t-shirt in a record store when i was living in london. for some weird reason i had 'ladies and gentlemen...' with me even though i never listened to it- it became a mainstay in the computer in the flat i was staying in- i had no cd player with me in london- just a walkman that picked up cell phone static and i could only listen to cds on our computer- it didn't even have internet on it, just a word processing program for writing papers for class. when 'let it come down' came out i never bought it because i believed the reviews (i was too young to know better back then). they even came to play in lawrence, ks (which is near kansas city- quite a longshot as most british bands pass the entire state by when they tour) in 2002 a few nights before i moved to portland. i didn't go because of those stupid reviews and now i wish i had because it would've made me a permanent convert much faster.
when i moved to portland i used to spend a lot of time at everyday music because it was open until midnight every night and they sell mostly used cds and if you went at the right time you could really get away with murder as far as getting good records for ridiculously cheap. after about two months i had found all of the spiritualized albums there used. that was when i finally got into spacemen 3 as well. i went and saw spz in 2003 when they played in portland too and it was one of the best shows i've ever been to- the volume, the strobes- it was fucking awesome. it was also at the roseland (about a 2000 person capacity venue) and practically no one showed up for the show. i was in a main throng of maybe 100 people right in front of the stage. when we walked in there were 15 people watching the soledad brothers playing, so i was right up front for the whole thing. it was kind of a shame that more people weren't there, but they still put on an amazing show.

[Stonedutch]

I basically stumbled onto Spiritualized fairly recently, right around the time Let It Come Down was released. I read an intersting article or review in either Mojo, Q, or Uncut at the time, and my curiosity got the best of me. I went down to Borders to see if they had the new release. I was able to listen to a preview on the headphones they supplied, and I was instantly blown away by the first track. I immediately bought it and was transfixed for days on end. I then went to Hawaii on holiday for a few weeks, and bought a new copy of Live At Albert Hall while I was there. I have vivid memories of driving around the islands with Spiritualized as the soundtrack. It pretty much snowballed from there. I bought everything they released, did some research, and bought all of the Spacemen 3 stuff. I was able to see them live at The Mayan Theater (a very small venue) here in Los Angeles on that tour in '02, and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. I've been to hundreds of concerts by hundreds of different bands in my life - from the Clash to Pink Floyd, from Bowie to X, from Buddy Guy to Willie Dixon, from gigantic 3 day festivals with dozens of bands to the Stones in a small club...I've seen alot. But this concert ranks at the top of the heap next to all of the best. Standing there front row, mesmerized by the musicianship and sonic ecstacy...I was literally "floating in space". They had become my favorite band for awhile, and it was strange, because none of my other family or friends had ever heard of them either at the time. I've turned on alot of people since then, but still find joy in the fact that I discovered them pretty much on my own, simply by reading a magazine article. I recently saw the accoustic mainlines in Santa Barbara, and the simplicity and intimate atmosphere was really special. Aside from the upcoming Hollywood Bowl show, I hope they play a small club or theater somewhere here in the LA area. I really look forward to the full blown electrical onslaught...I'd like to relive the experience I had the first time I saw them.

[rameses]

Many decades ago me and a mate decided it'd be really cool if we were in a band (who doesn't?). He bought a bass and I got a cheap second hand guitar and a Marshall amp.

We were rubbish.

The only things we could play (badly) were Sp3 Revolution (in the wrong key) which we had heard on the TV - we didn't have any Sp3 records and what we though was passable take on VU's White Light White Heat. After several weeks of that we got bored and decided to try to learn somethingelse. I found a copy of Step Into The Breeze in HMV which I bought (without first hearing it) thinking if we could do Revolution we could do this.

Oh, how wrong I was.

The band folded soon after (ambition far out stripping talent) but my love for Spiritualized remains.

[ebbsandflows]

It's like a whole thread of epiphanies in The Wire but with words I can understand.

I've said it before and i'll say it again:

Glastonbury '98 a whole weekend of mud madness and no sleep. Only went to see them to follow a girl i was desparate to pull. (now Mrs ebbsandflows). They played and they finished with oh happy day and a stage full of angelic looking gospel singers. Set to the sounds of the glastonbury fireworks (strangely absent in past years) .

My idea of what music could be, of what music could achieve was blown to pieces. I've always had music around me but finally after that hour long set i "got it".

I also knew that i would now HAVE to do and be involved in music as long as i was physically able.

That year, that festival, that girl, that field, that band and that gig, irreversably changed my life. And i've since been eternally grateful to them all!

[BzaInSpace]

This is a fantastic thread! Some amazing memories

[ryansocash]

I saw them open for Radiohead in 98ish.

[mc]

This'll be a pretty similar story to many others here, but never mind.
It was a letter in the NME someone had written about Spz just after L&G was released. I'd missed the issue with the review, and had never heard of them before. I can't even remember the content of the letter, but the editorial reply ran something along the lines of "L&G is an album anyone with a heart and soul should listen to." Then a couple of months later I was browsing in HMV for music, and something fancy caught my eye in the 'S' section. Yep, it was the pill package we know and love. I remembered that letter, thought ''anything that looks this cool must be bought,'' and it was only £10.99 too. I bought 2 other CDs that day; Can's 'Future Days' was one of them, can't remember the other. Anyway, got home, popped L&G out of its foil packaging and into my stereo. The title track came on, and I'd simply never heard anything like that before. I'd never been so floored by anything on first listen, and never have since; nor has it ever sounded so good as that one perfect first time. The rest of the album was incredible too, so I soon had Pure Phase and LGM, and less than a year later I had virtually all of SP3's albums too. 1997 was a great musical year for melancholy 16-year olds...

[t0kdag0n]

Through the Grateful Dead's message board, of all places. There was a poster who would go on about Spiritualized and that peaked my interest. I caught them on the LiCD tour (Riverside Church gig). I thought they were good but I wasn't blown away by the show or LiCD. Later me and this guy became pals (we were both in NYC then) and one night we were hanging with Morpheus. He put on Pure Phase and it was during "Let It Flow" that I zoned right out. From that moment on, I was, heh, turned on.

[Broc]

snub tv, bout 87-88 ( think alan mcgee interviewed them), the time revoultion was out, got playing with fire and went form there.....

still think side 2 of Recurring is possibly jason's best work...

[ThiefofFire]

If my memory serves me well I got into Spiritualized around the turn of the millennium, when I was 16 or so. At that time I listened almost exclusively to 60s/70s classic rock: Doors, Beatles, Stones, Who, etc. Most of my friends at the time were useless in terms of getting music suggestions as they were all into top 40 hip hop, nu-metal and so on; alt-rock radio here in San Diego was also pretty dull for the most part and I rarely went online in those days. So I had this big 1500 page book of album reviews ('Musichound Rock Essential Album Guide') that I would go through page by page looking for new (or at least new to me) artists similar to those old groups. The entry on Spiritualized compared them to Velvet Underground and 'Syd Barrett / Pink Floyd' and the review for 'Ladies and Gentlemen' mentioned both 'sonic garbage' and 'gentle gospel', so I felt that was promising enough to pick it up. I fell in love with that album on the first listen (something that doesn't always happen for me) and soon got ahold of the others as well as the Spacemen 3 stuff

Seeing them play the Wiltern in LA on the 'Let It Come Down' tour is what really pushed them to the top as my favorite modern band

[sonic124]

14 years old in 88 and just started to discover proper music through a cousins boyfriend (some NME comp tape had joy division weddeos other c86 type stuff, id never heard of 'indie music' before) Started listening to Peel ,Heard You Made Me Realise and Revolution and my world was changed for ever.That year i got for Christmas Playing With Fire Isnt Anything and Daydream Nation but it was playing with fire that stuck with me. Then left school got a job as an electrician worked away from home new friends wanted to fit in with my workmates and had a very dodgy music peroid between the summer of 90 till early 93 (proper crap indie dance stuff!) Luckily came back to the spacemen and then remember the NME in 93 doing a series of best albums of 60's 70's 80's and alltime (this was in pre internet days when for me the only way to find out about music was through the NME!) Lazer Guided Melodies was one of the few 90s records to made it into the alltime list.So bought it and from then on this has been my touchstone along with Performance. Infact pretty much 90% of my music faves have been found through links to the spacemen (Stooges Velvets Elevatore Nuggets Stones Suicide Can Neu all seemed to get mentioned in a lot of them Spacemen/Spz reviews) Even now when i see a band namedrop and a review with the Spacemen mentioned ill be checking it out Thank you Pete Jason and everyone for all pleasure youve given me cannot imagine life without your music

[mjtown]

A friend at the University Of Adelaide had a cool glow-in-the-dark LGM t-shirt, which was impressive. I saw the 'Good Dope Good Fun' split 7" with Mercury Rev in the new release section at Big Star Records soon after that and bought it. It blew me away - repetition from a far away planet! I bought LGM soon after that, and then the singles, and then the Let It Flow 10" and cd sets... and by that time I was thoroughly hooked. I had to wait until 2003/2004 and I was living in Manchester to get the chance to see them live on the Amazing Grace tour. I racked up four shows in one tour - Sheffield, Brighton, Manchester and Nottingham. Crazy stuff.

[alan_cohaul]

My story: I read an interview in Chart magazine with Jason around the LAGWAFIS time in where he said something like "you hear about all of these bands that say 'well this is the record that we always wanted to make'. Well, why should we shell out a bunch of quid for some sort of warm up to you getting something right".

Sold! I bought LAGWAFIS and never looked back. Still my favorite--and their best, IMHO.

[scratch]

autumn 92 my drummer lent me the record saying "think this is stuff you probably will like" (we played hippie music or whatever but tried to do it more elegantly like in some sort of post-punk style..)
I had heard spacemen3 before but thought they were a punk suicide kind of band from the seventies. (that semi-pirate compilation?)
then i saw SPZ live twice in 93 - no turning back! they are good without horns but .. oh i want the horns and well you know the old effects back.. ; choirs and strings are nice but i guess i ´m one of those "spacemen3 deluxe" fans even though i never was a big fan of sp3 before spz but maybe you know what i mean..

[swinny]

I knew of them around the time of L&G...Electricity and Come Together seemed to be played alot in the clubs I went to, and I liked them, but never really thought about getting an album or whatever. Then I got mad-fixated with the Alabama 3 (odd, but there ya go), and bought the Big Issue as it had a free CD on it with a new song on it...listened through the rest of the CD, and Broken Heart was in the middle of it...absolutely floored me, and I listened to it loads - but still didn't buy the album (idiot).

Then forgot about them until Let it Came Down came out and I really liked Stop Your Crying so picked up the album - loved it, and started looking around for older stuff - including finally buying L&G!

[ebbsandflows]

Ahh those wasted opportunities.

I remember in '92 (or '93) both my brothers went to glastonbury but my parents deemed me too young. I quizzed them about the bands they saw on their return.

Later on I distinctly remember passing notes in english class between myself and Lou Hunt where I wrote a list of all the bands my brothers had seen. She passed the note back with a line next to spiritualized saying "I've heard of them, they're ace!"

Took me another 5-6 years to follow up on that top reccomendation. Damn my lazy heels!!