Electric Blues Kicks Off With Sonic Boom!

• 18th Apr 2005

Electric Blues Presents…

SONIC BOOM (Spacemen 3/ Spectrum/ E.A.R) – DJ Set

THE SECOND FLOOR – Live Set

Club night 9pm-3am with extra DJs playing electronic and psychedelic delights

Saturday 7th May 2005 @ Dry Bar, Manchester. Tickets £5, info: mail

Electric Blues, a monthly clubnight alternating between Manchester and London, announces its debut night with a first appearance in Manchester in around a decade from one of the most important figures in British alternative music in the last 20 years, Sonic Boom, and a live set from fellow sonic visionaries, Manchester’s excellent The Second Floor.

SONIC BOOM link
It’s impossible to overstate the influence Pete Kember, aka Sonic Boom, has had on the British alternative/psychedelic rock scene in the last twenty years. Through his work initially with Spacemen 3 and latterly with Spectrum and Experimental Audio Research (E.A.R), Sonic has been an omnipresent presence, continually pushing the boundaries of melody, production and performance.

Formed in 1982 with schoolfriend Jason Pierce, who would go on to achieve further success with Spiritualized, Spacemen 3 released four albums of beautiful, brutal psychedelic space-rock between 1985 and 1991. Albums such as “The Perfect Prescription” and “Playing With Fire” saw them venerated as important a band as their sonic forefathers (The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, Suicide) and their peers (Sonic Youth, Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine) and earned the band a large cult following which has grown significantly since their acrimonious demise at the start of the nineties. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Warlocks, Radiohead, The Verve, Stereolab, Primal Scream and countless others would all surely acknowledge a debt to Spacemen 3’s pioneering legacy.

Since Spacemen 3, Sonic has issued a series of acclaimed and prolific releases under the Sonic Boom and Spectrum guises and gathered some of the leading lights in the alternative/psychedelic rock scene (among them My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields) to form the innovative freeform collective E.A.R.. Along with production and remixing work, Sonic has occasionally DJed and performed live, with recent appearances in London and several in New York, this being a rare and welcome Manchester appearance of a seminal figure in recent musical history.

THE SECOND FLOOR link
Following successful recent dates both locally and in London to satisfy the growing buzz around the band and an intense period of recording, The Second Floor look set to fulfil the promise that has seen the band labelled as the sonic and spiritual heirs to the space-rock throne. With the band turning heads with major interest from the industry and music fans alike with their refreshingly diverse and innovative mix of dynamic, atmospheric rock n’ roll, three years of hard work perfecting their sound is set to bear fruit.

Since their formation on the outskirts of Manchester in 2002, the band have earned a sizeable following and critical reverence with a string of local and national gigs. Always looking to expand their sound, the band added a synth/guitarist/percussionist at the start of last year and have honed a body of songwriting that would put many established acts to shame, playing with the depth and assuredness of a band at their peak and with all the edge and impetus you’d expect of a fledgling act.

At the heart of the band’s appeal is their embracing of conventional and unconventional structures and styles. From one song to the next it’s possible to hear extremes of melody and dissonance, with flowing rhythms contrasting locked-in grooves, going from succinct pure-pop to epic psychedelia, forming a focussed and modern sound that has seen the band compared with the likes of The Velvet Underground, Doves and Spacemen 3. The band further stand out by refusing to resort to the empty lyrical imagery or adolescent moaning of many of their peers, writing passionate, inspiring songs that resonate with anyone living life’s journey of peaks and troughs.

“They sound like three or four of our favourite bands stuck in a musical blender and served up by Jason Pierce, while Kevin Shields tries to figure out how to switch on the strobe light.” aKouStiK AnaRKhY panel- City Life magazine.

“Three great tracks point The Second Floor in a firm direction and even by their standards it’s early days, which opens the door to some exciting and mind expanding possibilities.” JA- manchestermusic.co.uk.