Uncut Magazine

[spaced]

Jason Pierce talks through his Spacemen 3 & Spiritualized back catalogue. It's a really interesting read.

sorry if this has been posted already.

[MODLAB]

Could you elaborate on it for the people who do not have access to Uncut mag?


Best,

M

[spaced]

I've skimmed through it as it's been delivered to my office on a particularly busy day. keep trying to sneak a peak.

I think it's been mentioned on here before but it starts by saying JP is in the process of recording a duet with Mark Lanegen (something i'm very excited about).

It covers perfect prescription, playing with fire, and all the spiritualized albums, talking about the making of these and JP's situation/state of mind at the time.

It starts withThe Perfect Prescription, he talks about his early musical relationship with Pete Kember "he always claimed he had written alot of the songs before he had met me, but when i met him he had guitar with 2 strings and he couldn't play it"

Jumping forward a bit for LICD , JP says that his daughter was born at Abbey Road "she's the youngest ever visitor to that studio" (somthing i didn't know)

Sorry i haven't got time to elaborate too much at the moment, and i'm probably not the best at picking out the bits people will want to read - i'm happy to mail a copy to those who cannot get this.

Cheers
M

[MODLAB]

Thank you!

I'll pick up a copy when I arrive to Heathrow in the morning.


Cheers,

M

[simonkeeping]

I always wonder how much of these interviews about the early days are based around facts and not him trying to work out what happened in that blank from 1982 - 1991 If that Spacemen 3 book is to be believed I cant imagine anyone remembering too much about it. Chain smoking dope in a van isnt normally condusive to a good memory. But hey, what do I know? the mans made of strong stuff and i'm sure its a good read.

[runcible]

There still seems to be a lot more bitterness on Jason's side rather than Pete's these days. Pete's guitar playing has always been, by his own admission, basic. It's the howling noise he was able to get on early Spacemen records and live that was so key to the sound, and allowed Jason to run amok all over it. A perfect combination in many ways. Some of the live recordings sound almost out of control but when you listen closely you can hear that they know exactly what they are doing and, more importantly, just where the other one is.

[They Transmit]

I thought the bit about the matress was pretty funny.

[flamingrev]

Argh, I want to read this!

[angelsighs]

The Let It Come Down bit was the most interesting definitely- yeah the mattress thing was pretty funny! He seems slightly ambivalent about the making of the album but happy with the results.

[mkb]

There's a good feature on Roky Erickson as well in the magazine.

[JPB]

He mentioned that LGM was recorded for £3K. I thought it was made for £30K from previous interviews.

I agree that Amazing Grace was 'missed' at the time. It took me until hearing the songs live alongside the A&E stuff to realize how good it was. They really do compliment each other in a live setting.

Also interesting to hear that Pure Phase could have been so different. He made two mixes of it and didn't want to drop either hence the left / right channel mix. It would be quite something to hear a 'straight' mix of that record.

[Multi]

.

[Noddy]

Really great feature, I dont have a scanner though. I have not seen as good an article re. Pierce/Kember since the Record Collector feature in 2003.
I never realised Playing With Fire was recorded @ Cornwall, I always thought it was Rugby. I certainly think this feature puts paid to any slim chance of an old Spacemen collaboration! Despite the writing credit arguments both still produced nothing but outstanding tunes on Playing With Fire, I cant think of a weak link, pure gospel/drone/fuzz bliss. I love reading how each album was recorded, that Pure Phase recording/mixing technique baffled me, I think Uncut may have got a bit wrong by saying Jason sacked the LAGWAFIS line up after the October 1997 Albert Hall gigs? That line up def. played the 1998 festivals. Looked like they made a huge loss on that album with packaging, it says actual medicine producers had to make the tin foil and red sticker to go on the front. Lets hope we do get that vinyl re-issued this October, it would look stunning. I have not got the coin for the original!
Thinking back, the 3 12" releases for Amazing Grace was a stroke of genius, I remember getting the local Virgin to reserve them, I had not heard any of the tunes on radio either, sadly you cannot by any new vinyl in Carlisle. Fucking grim.
Only drawback on the feature is that they never covered Sound of Confusion/Recurring.

[BzaInSpace]

Great article - loved reading about the Spiritualized albums and the making as most of it was straight up!

Things that jumped out for me was J's recent revisitation of the original mix of 'Take Good Care of It' minus all the phase and effects which sounded really good apparently - bizarrely enough is this not mentioned/wished for in the current 'Pure Phase: Underated?' thread? Sounds like a stripped down version exists! Maybe just vocal, guitar and Rico...

Total disbelief to find out that in order to create the 'Pure Phase' sound through the whole LP it required each channel to be sampled for 8 or so bars each time, and then the tape was cut, and then the next 8 bars done...over and over again for the duration of the entire album!!!

No wonder that album has a completely unique sound....wow.

However, sounds like that was a walk in the park compared with 'Let It Come Down' - personally would love to hear what one of the "two...or maybe three" earlier mixes sounded like! Mixing process was close to "the mad wind". J reckons it's difficult to listen to.

Also interested to hear that he think Amazing Grace was underated.

[simonkeeping]

Total disbelief to find out that in order to create the 'Pure Phase' sound through the whole LP it required each channel to be sampled for 8 or so bars each time, and then the tape was cut, and then the next 8 bars done...over and over again for the duration of the entire album!!!

I was the same. Thats verging on Brian Wilson creative vision. It must have taken ages. WOW!

[Broc]

Lots of needless digs towards Sonic.

What a bitch.

[D.]

is this the June issue with Springsteenon on the cover or the July ish? may be a lttle behind cuz i'm in Canada

[D.]

nevermind. went to the website, saw the yardbirds.

[solarflarez]

tried to post a scan, says file too big, can anyone help please?

[solarflarez]

if anyone wants scans of the article, pm me, i can email them if required. im useless on a computer, so dont know how to "shrink" the files, they are way to big to upload on here

[Luminescence]

Really interesting article. I like the way he mixes it again just to know the first way was the best. The mark of a perfectionist, i reckon.

[Multi]

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[TheWarmth]

I don't really think J was being a bitch in the interview, as someone mentioned, but I also don't think it's safe to say that Sonic, Kate and the L&G-era band all fucked up and J was simply a victim. We'll never know all the details. I suppose the way I see it is that J did what he thought he had to do.

I know it's premature, but I'm dying to hear some new Spiritualized material. Guess it could be awhile, but maybe J will surprise us.

[toomilk]

Lots of great bits in this article. Finally we get a better glimpse (although a small one) of Spz's recording processes. It's interesting to know that the original takes on LAGWAFIS were live. Legacy addition bonus tracks?

[Melmoth]

Here are the scans. Thanks Solarflarez.

http://www.divshare.com/download/7843924-641

[solarflarez]

Here are the scans. Thanks Solarflarez.

http://www.divshare.com/download/7843924-641

no problem, happy to help, as people on here have been happy to help me, peace n out

[scratch]

Here are the scans. Thanks Solarflarez.

http://www.divshare.com/download/7843924-641

no problem, happy to help, as people on here have been happy to help me, peace n out

Thank you!!

[flamingrev]

Woo hoo! What a great article!

Seems like Jason opened up a lot, for him anyways. He normally seems pretty reluctant to divulge much good info.

The digs at Sonic seem like the standard stuff. At this point it's a given that each of them will poke the other when given a chance.

[mkb]

I don't think he said anything too out of order - if he's asked about the making of Spacemen albums then the split is inevitably going to come up. It didn't seem like he was jumping on any chance to have a go at Sonic, just saying how he viewed events.

[Horrorflick]

Thank you for this. (The scans, I mean.) It's a really great article!

[spzretent]

I don't think he said anything too out of order - events.

Realizing he was speaking to a national magazine i'm sure he held back a bit. This is the first time, if ever, I have ever heard Jason comment on his releationship w/Sonic. So much time has passed, they both seem over it(for the most part). But in an article structured like that, going back i'm sure it jogged his memory. Luckily we have what we have for the glorious noise they made together. Not sure I saw is digs or bitching though Sonic may disagree.

[shalloboi]

thanks for the scans- it was nice to not have to wait a month for the magazine to come out on these shores. fantastic article!

[Laz69]

nice article about Roky Erikson too in this very same issue...

[radioshack]

I can't get the scans to open on my laptop Help anyone?

Seriously, If I knew this was in the magazine that month...

[toomilk]

Hopefully you'll find what you need here:

http://www.tech-pro.net/howto-open-rar-file.html

[noOne]

downloading now.
thanks for sharing.