Coventry music museum curator Pete Chambers writes for The Observer
NEXT Friday, October 25, sees Rugby legend Sonic Boom (Pete Kember) make a very rare appearance on his local turf, playing a gig at Fargo’s Box venue, which is promised to be punctuated with a laser light show as part of the Tin’s Deliaphonic promotions.
It looks to be something a bit special, thanks to Sonic’s impressive career as a member of Spaceman 3, Spectrum and having worked with Coventry electronic music legend Delia Derbyshire.
Here is a brief résumé of his career. Indian Scalp split and heralded the creation of Spacemen 3.
Consisting of Rugby Public Schoolboy Peter Kember or Sonic Boom AKA Mainliner, Jason Pierce on vocals and guitar and with Sterling ‘Rosco’ Rosswell on drums and Pete ‘Bassman’ Baines bass.
It would take some time before the throbbing fuzzed-up novae-psychedelic sound we associate with the band would be formulated.
The band played the likes of Rugby’s Blitz in Church Street, Benn Memorial Hall.
Their original approach saw them securing a recording contract, releasing the album Sound Of Confusion and secured a growing fan base.
By the time the Spacemen 3 album Recurring (charting at number 46) was released, the relationship between Boom and Pierce had become cold.
Before the end of the band, both were working on solo projects
Jason, along with John Mattock and Will Carruthers, worked on Spiritualized and Sonic on Spectrum.
With Spectrum, Sonic was able to experiment with sound pretty much unhindered, calling on such influences as Coventry’s Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshops (famous for creating the Doctor Who theme).
I asked Sonic how his collaboration with Delia came about.
He said: “I first called her in the mid/late 1990s – we were recording ‘Forever Alien’ in Coventry’s Cabin Studio and it includes a song called ‘Delia Derbyshire’ .
“We had become phone buddies. She would call and we would discuss the finer points of harmonics in sound etc.
“Some calls were four hours or more.
“Anyway, she was making her first public appearance for a good while at a Doctor Who convention being held in Coventry around summer 97.
“She was very nervous about it all, so I said I would turn up for moral support.
“From then on, we built up a closer and closer relationship with her helping me with production on a couple of things and trading info.
“I updated her on the ‘now’ possible things in sound.
“She taught me much about the general principals behind her thinking with many long and funny stories about things in her life.
“I miss her dearly and felt a very definite kinship.
“She was capable of being a little fiery at times – but mostly was a very gracious, graceful and beautiful lady.”
Spectrum (that included Mike Stout, Geoff Donkin and Richard Formby) would release a series of glorious (and collectable) albums, plus the single True Love Will Find You In The End.
In between times, Sonic would also give time to his ‘other’ project Experimental Audio Research or EAR. a loose guitar based assembly of musicians headed by Boom.
I asked him how influential he felt Spacemen 3 had become.
He said: “It’s surprising, It has turned out to be fairly influential here and especially in America.
“I think we were one of the most influential artists of the 80s.
“It’s weird it’s been kinda’ constantly growing like a plant.”
His recent credits as a producer include: Blair 1523, MGMT, Panda Bear and Moon Duo.
