HW: Space Rock/ST-37 Article

[Chuck Rosenberg]

Came by this via Keith Henderson's Aural Innovations page and thought it'd be
worth posting here, in case not everyone had happened upon it...


By Ken Lieck

JANUARY 20, 1998:  As the days of 1997 drew to a chilly end, the scientists
and engineers at NASA in Houston were finishing up work on a project to be
realized early in 1998. Their goal was a feat that would appear to some as yet
another great leap for mankind, and to others as the ultimate demonstration of
America's obsession with "retro." Seems that for the first time in a quarter-
century, NASA was cobbling together a rocket to launch to the moon.
Unbeknownst to NASA, however, another crew -- one with a very different
engineer -- was busily working less than a three-hour drive away, readying its
own re-entry into the Space Age. Seems that ST-37 were cobbling together a new
album in Austin, one scheduled to land in stores mere days away from the
launching of the new moon rocket. In a sense, ST-37's third LP/CD (and fifth
full-length studio effort) Spaceage was another giant step forward, and in a
manner of speaking, a trip 25 years into the past.

 "Space Rock," the general term for the type of music that ST-37 gets lumped
in with, is difficult to define, and getting increasingly more so. For some,
it refers mainly to the newly resurging field of ambient music originally
pioneered by Brian Eno in the early Seventies. To others, "Space Rock"
represents the type of music epitomized by Hawkwind (also in the early
Seventies) wherein vast space operas were put to music that bears a distinctly
futuristic sound -- no great stretch, considering that famed science
fiction/fantasy writer Michael Moorcock was a member of that band for a time.
It's this latter version of "Space Rock" to which ST-37 adheres.

"When hippie stuff was phasing out in the states," explains founding member
and keyboardist Carlton Crutcher, "is when the Germans took it up, and carried
the torch into the mid-Seventies."

"They just got a good three/four-year dose of LSD," adds Crutcher's brother
Joel, also the band's guitarist. "Then they got enough cash to buy coke and
started sucking."

Even as the Space Age deteriorated, fans of the genre never quite vanished,
they just aged, although at a typical local ST-37 show, there's not a
preponderance of balding Germans in the audience.

"Our basic fan is a 35-year-old unemployed acidhead male," says Carlton, who,
in the decade since he started ST-37, has seen his share of space cases turn
up at the local band's shows. Co-founder and vocalist/bass player Scott Telles
remembers the time they played with founding space oddity, the immortal band,
Hawkwind.



photograph by Marlene Hanlin



"We played with Nik Turner [of Hawkwind]," recounts Telles, "and a bunch of
the old hippie Hawkheads came out, expressing appreciation that we were doing
it these days, as a younger group. Then we went up to New York and both
Hawkwind and Nik Turner's Hawkwind were playing."

In fact, that's the way most newer fans of an older generation of space rock
have been introduced to the musical form; there seems to be at least one
version of Hawkwind on the road at any given time, and the Nik Turner version
has even been known to turn up at places like Emo's.

"That's how people know about ST-37 now," explains Telles. "It's that, 'Oh,
you were on the Hawkwind tribute.'"

"The association is with Hawkwind," continues Carlton, "which is kinda odd
because before we were kinda punk rock, kinda art rock shit."

In truth, ST-37 tends to surprise fans of space rock with bursts of
comparatively aggressive rock that pop up frequently in their live shows and
albums. In the case of the group's more ambient followers, perhaps "shock" is
a more appropriate word. This writer and ST share a common confusion over the
typical audiences at live ambient music shows, however. Rather than being laid
back, they tend to be very protective of the bands, and don't like to be
distracted from the long, droning notes coming from the stage.

"It's so funny, because to me, 'Ambient Music' means like, 'in the
background,'" says ST-37 guitarist Mark Stone. "If I'm talking over it, it's
like I'm adding to your art!"

"Experimental music people are fanatical that way," adds a somewhat less
baffled Carlton. "They act like they're at a U.T. class or something."

"I call it 'sleep-core,'" says Joel. "I like it a lot, but it does make me
fall asleep almost all the time when I hear it. All the new space rock bands
sound like they all listen to the same album. It's amazing how they all sound
the fuckin' same from band to band. I mean, we went on the road with some, and
I like it, but... I think the difference is that they were all influenced by
Spacemen 3, and we were all influenced by Hawkwind. Ours is more rockin' and
like punk rock and theirs is more ambient."

Basically, then, the creed of ST-37 is that there's no reason you can't have
some hormone in with your drone. The more popular modern space rock band, for
instance, isn't likely to whip out a cover of the Haters "No Talk in the
Eighties" in between Can-type retro-spacers and long meandering instrumentals.
But along with the key Hawkwind connection, new drummer Dave Cameron, who has
served time with Brave Combo, Glass Eye, Dizzy Luna, and many others, points
out an influence that might explain the basic uniqueness of ST-37 in the space
rock field.

"To me our core influence is the 13th Floor Elevators," states Cameron, who
also played with Elevator Roky Erickson's Evil Hook Wild Life E.T. band. And
he's not likely to hear too much disagreement from the others, as the band
members' shared musical tastes are another important element of ST-37.

"I used to see ST-37," recalls Cameron, "and I used to say, 'Man, they're
great. Maybe someday I'll play with them -- and it worked out that I did. Then
I realized that they had listened to all the same bands that I had listened to
in school: Can, Amon Duul, Elevators, Eno... When me and Scott got together,
our record collections were almost identical."

One element shared by both types of space rock bands -- modern and old-school
-- is a proclivity for flashy light shows and other hippie/rave trappings, but
such bells and whistles are rarely seen at an ST-37 show. Instead, the band is
positively frumpy. While not in the age range of their heroes, the members are
well into that point in life when bellies become more prominent and hairlines
less so. They don't wear garish clothing, preferring the working man's T-shirt
and jeans look, and having singer Telles showing off his requisite bass
player's slouch doesn't exactly add glamor to the proceedings, either. Why
does the group eschew the more visual side associated with space rock?

"We used to use stuff like that," says Telles, "but everyone was doing it, so
it got a bit too cliché."

"It seemed like, 'We can't play so well, so we've got this distraction for
you,'" adds Joel. "It's nice just to do something musically that blows
people's minds."

He pauses a moment, then reasons: "They'll be seeing that shit anyway, whether
it's there or not!"

Telles is almost apologetic about the lack of lightning to go with the band's
thunder, however: "Since I have three different instruments that I play, I'm
busy preparing so I can get all the sounds I want. I wish I could get someone
who's willing to mess with all the lights and stuff for us. We do seek to
create a psychedelic experience."

When all is said and done, though, this is 1998, not 1972. Where space rock
bands, like the space expeditions of that time, were big, sprawling arena
affairs, reaching the world via major record labels, ST-37 must remain content
for now to preach from the pulpit of clubs like the Hole in the Wall, often
without even the benefit of a sound man to guide their endeavors.

They also have to rely on a myriad of small, eclectic record companies to put
out their albums, and the numerous compilations on which they've had tracks
appear (Spaceage, for example, comes via the Italian label Black Widow).
Telles has no problems with the band's current situation; after all, ST-37's
visibility has done nothing but grow, albeit slowly, over the decade since
they began stepping in the shoes of Robert Calvert and the like.

"I would just like to be able to continue to release records," Telles
confides. "That's really the main enjoyment that I get out of it. We've
managed to release just a tremendous amount of stuff, and it's kinda like a
snowball: The more we put out, the more we seem to be able to put out. I just
wish that we could work it out to where I could get more copies of the damn
records!"

Sorry, Scott, but in 1998, even NASA has a lot smaller budget than they'd
like.





Review of ST-37's Spaceage - A review from The Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle's Music Feature Archives
Ken Lieck Archives