Lid >> The atmosphere is somewhere very, very close to here

Lid - "Up"

(Brilliant Records, 1992)

In early 2010 I was at The Mushroom and picked up a compilation CD called Something Pretty Beautiful from the pile of free used CDs that they sometimes stack up at the top of the entry stairway.  (They give away CDs that have gone unsold for years, sometimes for over a decade.)  When listening to the track by a band called Lid, something sounded very familiar to me.  I was all "This is like a bluesier, more psychedelic version of Poem Rocket!"  Well, it turns out Lid was P.R. singer / guitarist Michael Peters' previous band, and as far as I know, this was the only song they ever released, though hopefully I'm wrong.  Doing an online search for "lid" + "up" does not exactly return many music-related results.

"The atmosphere is somewhere very, very close to here" is a pretty unique way of saying that one is at a high altitude.  All the elements of Poem Rocket's genius are present here.  This song really takes the major-label suits on a wild rollercoaster courtship ride in the confusing wake of Nirvana, and makes them get out their pens and start clicking them to test if the ink works before fishing around in their pockets for a piece of paper on which to scrawl a multi-album contract for Lid to sign.  That's how good of a song it is.  The production values are simply stunning, with some of the most "3-D" surround-sound I've ever heard.  The closing guitar onslaught (3:58 mark) all but leaps out of the speakers; I really can't emphasize the coolness of this last part enough.  You have to listen to this song on a good stereo or with headphones, but it does sound rather massive even on small speakers, without relying on simple loudness.  I made this a high-quality 224 kbps file for maximum shock and awe.

Poem Rocket's press kit .pdf (see two posts ago), says that Peters lived in both Ohio and Virginia before moving to NYC and forming Poem Rocket.  Brilliant Records was based in Richmond, so it makes sense that this compilation has a good amount of VA bands, especially since the northern VA / southern MD area was really fertile with great bands at the time... Not that I knew this when I went to the Univ. of Richmond for a year in the mid-'90s, sadly.  The Virginia bands on this comp. are: Fudge (Richmond), The Knievels (Chester), Lid (Richmond), Lorelei (Arlington), The Petals (Richmond), Schwa (Richmond), The Technical Jed (Richmond), The Tribbles (Richmond), Twitch Hazel (Richmond), Ultra Cindy (Chesapeake), The Waking Hours (Midlothian).  The booklet says Lid also put out some stuff on a label called Radioactive Rat, which I really need to hear.  Unfortunately, the liner notes don't list the members of the bands.  I found out that Something Pretty Beautiful was the name of a band on Creation Records, so this comp must've been named after them.

Speaking of the word "Lid" and the mid-'90s, I once went on a date with this girl Lydia in May '95, my last month of high school.  (That was also the month I got accepted into the Univ. of Richmond.)  We went to a women's beach volleyball match at Coconut Beach (R.I.P.) and then went to Blockbuster Music, where I bought Jeff Buckley's Grace on cassette.  I popped it in the tape deck, and it was kind of awkward listening to "Last Goodbye"'s line "Kiss me, pleeeease kiss meeee" during the car ride back to her place to drop her off.  And no, we didn't.  Strangely, the last time I ever saw her was on the morning of 9/11/11, walking across the campus of Loyola Univ. in New Orleans.

Planets with similar climates: Swervedriver - "Deep Seat" (1991) & "Duress" (1993), Juno (with Jen Wood) - "A Listening Ear" (1998), Acetone - "Sundown" (1993), Temple Of The Dog - "Reach Down" (1990), Nudeswirl - "Three" (1993), Big Head Todd & The Monsters - "Circle" (1993), Screaming Trees - "Shadow Of The Season" (1992), Soundgarden - "Blind Dogs" (1995).

Currently eating or drinking: Vincotto orange velvety condiment (fermented grape & orange must), BelGioioso mascarpone, Rouses polder goat gouda, Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout, Naturally Delicious banana bread.

Poem Rocket >> At the point of impact, don't rule anything out

Poem Rocket - "Levy 9 R.S.V.P."

(Magic Eye Singles, 1998)

So by now you know what Poem Rocket was capable of in terms of harnessing atonality and melody into oddly memorable and gripping songs.  What would happen if they really let their hair down and drifted off into the outer realms, like a non-sucky version of Hawkwind?

You have to admit that "At the point of impact, don't rule anything out" would make a great tattoo or Nike slogan, as would "If it hits us, we'll say 'I told you so' with no regrets."  Stick around until the last minute for some eerie, softly spoken vocals concluding with the epitaph "Deep in the dense layers of hydrogen."  This song's lyrics are presumably based on the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, whose collision with Jupiter in July 1994 was a huge event amongst astronomers worldwide.  I don't personally remember it, but I vividly remember the Mars Pathfinder rover in '97 and Halley's Comet in '86.  I can't say whether Levy-9 was in the same general category of public excitement causation as those two, but I doubt it.

This song is from the Rocket's hard-to-find 1999 EP The Universe Explained In Six Songs.  According to the liner notes, it was recorded and mastered by the band itself, no small feat for such a sprawling, sonically-adventurous song.  The members of the band at this time are credited as: "Sandra Gardner (bass guitar, bowed bass, organ, violin, marimba, vocals), Peter Gordon (drums, piano, tape loops, harmonica, assorted mayhem) and Michael Peters (guitars, vocals, star shaker, drums)."  It comes in a cool mini clamshell (DVD-style) case with an interesting booklet.  I bought a copy ca. 2004, but the CD broke, so I bought another; I think I got both on eBay.  I have no use for the one containing the broken CD, so if someone wants it and is a somewhat-longtime reader of this site, drop me a line.

What you're looking at above is both of my booklets (front side; back side), the intact CD, the broken CD, and both cases (showing the white band / EP name stickers on the outside).

Inside the little Magic Eye Singles mailorder catalog (just one piece of paper folded in half) that came inside one of my Universe Explained CDs. (Pic added 2/23/13) Anything that contains the phrase "way better than Elliott Smith" gets a thumbs up in my book!

If you want to hear another Poem Rocket song in this spacey vein, check out "Contrail de l'avion" from their Into The Aether 10" (1994).  I actually was going to post that one instead, but opted for the longer, less hummable, more sui generis "Levy."

Illustration by Michael Peters from his book Vaast Bin; n Ephemerisi.  (The book has no page #s, but this pic is right in the middle.)

The happiest person on the planet right now has to be LL Cool J's manager.  His client just hosted the Grammys on Sunday, released (sorry, "dropped") a new single the next day, and is a dead ringer for the hopefully-late terrorist Christopher Dorner & is hence a lock to play him in the inevitable upcoming biopic.

Wed. 1/30/13: Saw Onuinu and Terrain at Siberia. I'm not sure if instrumental rockers Terrain are local, but the guitarist told the crowd it was their first-ever performance.  While Onuinu was performing (entirely solo) his catchy chillwave anthems-in-waiting, my sister and I kept telling each other "He's gonna be huge."  We bought a little too much merch after talking to him, just because of how nice and down-to-earth he is.

Thur. 1/31/13: Saw Chelsea Wolfe at the Spanish Moon.  Unfortunately, it was her "acoustic tour," and the crowd grew very antsy and belligerently talkative as it went on.  An actual quote I overheard: "It was amazing for the first 10 minutes, but after an hour I'm starting to hate it."  (It was an early show, with some sort of 80's Night beginning right afterwards at 10, so lots of obnoxious people were filling up the club.)  I was surprised C.W. didn't leave the stage due to all the talking and pool playing.  A local singer / songwriter named Erin Miley and her band opened with a set of post-Ani Difranco introspective pop.

Fri. 2/1/13: Termite treatment began.  Turns out one of the guys is a YouTube mogul who makes rap videos in New Orleans, but I forgot to ask for his YouTube name.

2/2/13: Went to the Mushroom for the first time since Nov. and learned my favorite employee and dear music buddy had quit.  Was crushed, speechless, etc.  I fittingly, and joylessly, bought Placebo's "Without You I'm Nothing" (one of my favorite songs ever) CD single for a buck.  Managed to go to the NFL Experience at the Convention Center with a bunch of my sister's friends and her fiancée right afterwards, but was sort of walking around in a depressed funk.  It didn't help that My Bloody Valentine released a dud of an album that night.  Was in much better spirits the next day on my birthday, though my prediction of Super Bowl tickets as a gift did not materialize.  Local product Jacoby Jones should've won Super Bowl MVP after setting the S.B. single-game yardage record, but he did earn a spot on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

2/8/13: Saw a sold-out show by the XX at House Of Blues with Em, Damion, Tace, and Alex, via free VIP lounge tickets.  I wore my School Of Seven Bells t-shirt, since their guitarist's cancer diagnosis was announced that day.  Opening act Austra went on at 9:30 instead of the heavily-advertised start time of 10:00, so we completely missed them.  I was looking forward to seeing them do their one good song, "The Beat And The Pulse," so I was pretty mad, especially since I missed a Toro Y Moi concert a few days earlier due to it being a sellout.  (In other words, I missed 3 bands on Wed. night, plus the opening band on this night, meaning I missed 4 of the 5 bands I ought to have seen in the week.)  After a long wait, the XX went on and delivered a very professional set with lots of cool lighting effects.  I'll admit I was skeptical about their ability to translate their hushed, "small" songs to the stage, but they really impressed me.  After hanging out in the posh upstairs lounge and listening to a DJ (forgot his DJ name, but it's 4 letters, maybe Flex?) spin such cutting-edge stuff as One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful," Beyoncé's "Single Ladies," and Lenny Kravitz' "American Woman" on CD "turntables," and talking to Jenn Howard for the first time since high school, we bailed.  Met Oliver XX and Romy XX outside afterwards (since most of the crowd had dispersed to the Quarter to check out Mardi Gras madness) and got our posters signed.  This is one of my sister's top 5 fav. bands, so it was pretty momentous for her.  A girl from Baton Rouge named Emilie and a guy in a wheelchair named Fuji were both elated after meeting the band, and Emilie honestly looked like she needed a cigarette afterwards.  Oliver XX even climbed over the barricade to talk to us (well, mainly to talk to Fuji), and was later blatantly propositioned by a leggy fan wearing an all-white denim outfit.  Also talked to their tour manager after I noticed his Beak shirt and told him we (Em & I) had seen Portishead at this very club in 1998.  Turns out he was Portishead's manager or tour manger up until 2007.  A very cool guy. We saw Jamie XX carrying a bag of records he had just bought at Louisiana Music Factory directly across the street, but never found out what exactly he bought.  We walked around amidst the thongs on Bourbon Street for a while and went in some mediocre bar, then I spent about 45 mins. trying to catch a cab.  Saw an obese African-American woman in a Misfits skull t-shirt walking in front of the Joy Theater while I was waiting.  The increasing ubiquity / market saturation of early punk bands ceased to surprise me long ago, but I have to admit this sighting made me do a double-take, mainly because she was walking with some decidedly non-punk friends.  As usual, sorry for the excessively detailed descriptions; just trying to capture some of the little moments that make up a night like this one.

Planets with similar climates: Bardo Pond - "Rumination" (1996), The Church - "Chaos" (1992), Juno feat. Jen Wood - "A Listening Ear" (1998), Verve - "Butterfly" (1993), Sonic Youth - "Expressway To Yr. Skull" (a.k.a. "Madonna, Sean And Me") (1986), CAN - "Father Cannot Yell" (1969), Polvo - "When Will You Die For The Last Time In My Dreams" (1996), Morphine - "Down Love's Tributaries" (1993).

Poem Rocket >> I am creating you to be with you

Poem Rocket - "Appeal To The Imagination"

(Atavistic Records, 2000)

This song wastes no time in grabbing one's attention with a simple, Stones-y riff and Michael Peters' unmistakable yelp.  Sandra Gardner contributes a killer bassline and spooky feline vocals, as always.  At about 1:55, the song shifts into high gear, with speed-metal drumming and more emphasis on bass.  At 2:40 the bass just takes over the song, and the guitar briefly disappears at 3:30.

Note: I'll be taking this song down and putting up an edited (shortened) version of it at some point.

Most bands don't understand how important it is to stumble onto a simple lyric and repeat it over and over in an unorthodox way, since people have short attention spans.  "Appeal to the imagination" is an evocative phrase on its own, but the way Peters sings it is jarring and very memorable, since he puts emphasis on syllables that are not expected to be emphasized.  Black Francis / Frank Black was quite good – okay, masterful – at this, which rescued a lot of so-so Pixies songs from lameness and made them into classics.  Ditto for David Byrne.

I have this promo poster

On October 3, 2000, a band called Radiohead released an album called Kid A and a band called Poem Rocket released an album called Psychogeography.  One was full of sterile electronic noodling and lyrics of Caucasian ennui, and one had quirky, catchy, knotty Songs with a capital S (plus, to be fair, plenty of difficult meandering).  Guess which one went on to be voted the best album of the decade by an array of "reputable" music publications?

Undated live photo of Sandra that I found on Tumblr. Anyone know where this is?

This mp3 was given away on eMusic.com and (I think) on Atavistic's website, so it's presumably Poem Rocket's best-known song, and it should've propelled them to godlike indie mafioso status.  It's the song that got me into P.R. in spring of 2003, when I joined eMusic.  (I had read about them in '97/'98 in Alternative Press, and probably in Magnet too, but never actually heard them.)  Hearing this song was one of those "Whoa, where has this band been all my life?" moments.

Amazingly, this song was not released as a single, and there was no video for it.  The only video from the album was for the moody and slow-burning masterpiece "Dirigible":

The album title refers to the study of how urban environments shape the psychological lives of their residents.  I recently snagged a book at a thrift store about this topic called The Image Of The City by Kevin Lynch (M.I.T. Press, 1960).  I have another in a similar vein called Architecture In A Crowded World by Lionel Brett (Schocken Books, 1971).  As a plant geek / grower, I'm more interested in the psychological impact of landscaping than of buildings; for example, I refer to palm trees as "green Prozac."

In addition to the above pic, I found this cool description of Poem Rocket by Melody Maker on Michael Peters' website: "...a band with guitars and more than one idea. If Poem Rocket were English they’d probably be Flying Saucer Attack... a dense sonic fog of apocalyptic drones... dig the atmospherics and the vibes, piano and cello that creep out and back in again like audio leprechauns..."  He also has lots of rare photos of Poem Rocket there.  (Including the black & white one that I bragged about being the first to upload last month... Oops.)  Check out the amazing Abbreviated Poem Rocket Press Kit.  It's by far the greatest .pdf ever.  I was kinda shocked to see my review from Cold Comfort in there amongst all the reviews from "real" publications... It also shows a review of Psychogeography from Pitchfork which I never knew existed.  I dunno why Pitchfork purged it from its archives; presumably to make room for Arcade Fire dating tips or a Kanye West Twitter feud timeline.

In late 2003, Atavistic was taking preorders for Poem Rocket's upcoming 3rd album, and early buyers were promised a free CDEP as a bonus.  So I sent in a check for $18.00 and waited.  A year went by and no album.  Okay, so my favorite band is a bunch of perfectionists, no big deal.  Another year went by, still no album.  Hurricane Katrina had happened and I had to move away from New Orleans, so I wrote a letter to Atavistic asking for my money back, since $18 would go a long way for someone in such a situation.  I still had every intention of buying the album the day it came out, of course.  They never sent my money back or even wrote me back.  This, combined with the fact that they did little to no promotion for the album, left me with some choice words that I wanted to say to them.  I guess I thought they'd be somewhat grateful that I'd done an interview with this particular band (well, with its singer), which would of course help to get the word out about said obscure band, but they treated me like I was nothing.  I guess my $18 was needed for Lydia Lunch's mascara budget or something.  No, I don't think that record labels owe us fans anything; we in fact owe them for financing the recording of albums by bands that aren't very commercially viable.  But, as the bike path signs in Jefferson Parish say, "Courtesy Is Contagious."  If we're all in this battle against lame corporate music (or in my case, against lame indie music), we should look out for one another every once in a while.

Well, I think it's safe to say this is a really mediocre and disjointed post, but at least the song is good.

Mon., Jan. 7: Saw the movie Life Of Pi in "RealD 3D," which was my first-ever 3D movie.  It was quite breathtaking at first, but the effect wears off as the movie goes on.  Then watched as Alabama won a 4th national title for smug cyborg Nick Satan.  Fuming mad all night over this.

Last night: Saw True Widow with D.O.C. (Disciples Of Christ) and Glish at the Spanish Moon in Baton Rouge, in the little upstairs "Green Room."

Planets with similar climates: Bright Channel - "Final Stretch" (2004), Pixies - "River Euphrates" (1988), Orbit - "Come Inside" (1995), Drop Nineteens - "Delaware" (1992), The Black Watch - "Come Inside" (1994), Swervedriver - "Rave Down" (1991), A.C. Temple - "Miss Sky" (1988), Moonshake - "Spaceship Earth" (1992), Catherine Wheel - "Chrome" (1993), Smashing Pumpkins - "Quiet" (1993).

Poem Rocket >> Nothing is stopping me

Poem Rocket - "Small White Animal"

(PCP Entertainment, 1995)

Every great band has a song on which it eclipses its influences and creates an entirely new form of music, and for me this is that song for Poem Rocket.  The guitar feedback seems to levitate and take on a life of its own, like a cobra swaying to lull its prey to sleep.  A sinister, Ron Carter-esque bassline churns away underneath, and a robotic drum pattern forces the listener's mind into lock-step.  Michael Peters' lyrics are as confounding and dense as ever: "Thousands of incorporeal pieces / Fragments of the new form / So lucky you will never forget me."  It seems that he's singing about feeling insignificant in this big universe, and the cover art of the 7" (sort of a faceless take on Munch's The Scream) does nothing to dispel that.  The "small white animal" in question could be the moon, though, considering the line "I've seen the moon sink to the ocean."  Sandra Gardner's backing vocals add an element of disembodied coolness and mystery that most bands would kill for.  How has she not become a go-to vocalist for today's leading trip-hop bands?  There are no leading trip-hop bands today, but there could be, if only they would enlist Sand-Gar's services.

To see two short clips from the (apparently stunning) official music video, go here.  These clips should give us all impetus to pester the band to upload the full video (and the video for "Ka-boom") to its YouTube channel.  Even if this song is not your cup of tea, you have to take your hat off to the band for having the balls to actually release a song like this as a single, and to shoot such a cinematography-intensive video for it.  Though unthinkable to budding young noise rockers of today, back in the mid-'90s MTV would occasionally play videos by bands like this.  So I guess it was worth a shot for Poem Rocket to make several videos.

As for what I said about "an entirely new form of music," that might sound hyperbolic, and I thought about changing it until I stroked my chin and pondered the collision of space rock guitarscapes + industrial-style drumming + rubbery basslines + high-art lyrics + diametrically-opposed coed vocals.  This recipe is very different from the one used by most bands that could be classified as "noise rock."  If they had dumbed their sound down for the Neanderthal crowd, they could've easily become stars of the AmRep, Skin Graft, or Touch & Go stables, but instead they signed to PCP Entertainment, which was apparently a subsidiary of Matador Records that focused on NYC bands.  I'm not sure if PCP started off on its own and then was incorporated into Matador, or Matador created it out of thin air, but it had quite a varied roster.  Peters said he was a fan of The Church, which would explain his knack for cryptic lyrics.  The Church's Steve Kilbey is probably my favorite or 2nd-favorite lyricist ever, mainly because decoding his verbal webs is part of the fun.  The simple line "Nothing is stopping me" could be a high school football team's weight room motto, but if you look deeper into the phrase, it could also mean "The only thing that is stopping me is the concept of nothingness / insignificance."  Maybe I'm just reading too much into it and I should go back to rocking out on air feedback guitar while jumping up and down.  And that's the real beauty of a creation like this: Anyone, regardless of his or her care for, or knowledge of, specific types and subgenres of music, can just let his or her ass get rocked by a song like this.  It speaks in a primal, unspoken language, the one that impelled our amphibious ancestors to crawl out of the primordial ooze and head for higher land to build some sort of proto-life.  It has that visceral edge that the brain subconsciously craves in order to sharpen its fight-or-flight response.  Try getting that from a song by Guided By Voices, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Spoon, or any other Pitchfork favorites.  (My hatred of Pitchfork is deep and longstanding, as you might know by now.  That site has literally never printed a single thing about Poem Rocket, at least not since 1999.  Maybe they did sometime between 1996-98.)

This is such a great photo, and one of the few live pics of the Rockets that can be found on the web.  All I know is that it's from Brownie's in NYC, dated 1994:

I've been wanting a semi-hollowbody guitar like that, since they are notorious for their tendency to create unwanted (or wanted) feedback, and having three pickups rather than one or two would obviously help with feedback creation too.  Then again, maybe he used a totally different guitar to record this song in the studio.  Plexi's Michael Barragan is the only other guitarist I know of who had such a consistently abstract, feedback-laced guitar sound, and he always used Gibsons with P-90 pickups.

Here are my two invaluable Poem Rocket t-shirts, bought as a lot on eBay in late 2003:

I have recently been able to determine that the design on the left shirt is by Michael Peters himself, an accomplished visual artist (as well as singer, songwriter, guitarist, experimental author, college literature professor, biographer, etc.).  See / buy more of his art, and watch him give a rather intimidating book reading, here.  I miraculously stumbled onto & bought his incredibly bizarre book Vaast Bin; n ephemerisi at a bookstore in Houma earlier this year.

The shirt on the right is based on the striking cover art of the band's Into The Aether (a.k.a. Blue Chevy Impala) 10" EP.  And their old website uses a similar design for site navigation.

Noth'd Rookery by Michael Peters

Sorry to scatter out so much stuff about Poem Rocket, but like I said, any bit of info that can be shared about them is important, since this was not a band that practiced much self-promotion.  Those types of "secretive" bands, including many of my all-time favorites (e.g. Unwound, Hovercraft, Bailter Space, Bare Minimum) are the ones for which I am proud to take up the promotional mantle, to help "pay it forward" to the next generation of music fans.

Planets with similar climates: Live Skull - "Fort Belvedere" (1986), Bare Minimum - "Night We Streak, Divine Failure" (1995) & "Swim In Anxious Moment" (1997), Bright Channel - "Final Stretch" & "Night Eyes" (2004), Helmet - "Sinatra" (1990).

Poem Rocket >> I don't want to be your satellite

Note: In order to declutter this site and keep it more focused on the specific musical artist at hand, I'll be posting most of my personal photos, musings, etc. on a conveniently-URL'ed Tumblr page from now on.  This is just one of the many services that is provided to the Blowtorch Baby reader.  Subscribers of course get free landscaping advice (USDA climate zones 8 & 9 only) and the ability to stop time for up to four days.

Poem Rocket - "Flaw"

(Bear Records, 1994)

If you've been paying attention to the little "Planets with similar climates" sections at the bottom of every post for the last two years, you've seen this band pop up constantly.  And the previous post probably tipped you off to what was coming next.  I think the reason I haven't gotten around to posting anything by a lot of my all-time favorite bands yet is that I get sort of paralyzed by what to do, since I often have to decide between several photos, maybe a promo poster, a live pic that I took long ago and have on some disc somewhere, a review from some zine that's being stored in a closet, a music video that got yanked from YouTube, a tour t-shirt, etc.  The problem is that I want so badly to do a band justice that I don't want to leave any pertinent info out.  This especially applies to a band like Poem Rocket, about whom information & photos are quite scarce.  Any tidbit of information that can be unearthed about them is important.  So if you know of any review or live gig listing or photo, etc., please post it online somewhere so that it doesn't become buried beneath the mists of time.  This song is a great representation of Poem Rocket's quieter side.  It's the b-side to their "Period (Punctuation Or The Interval Of Time Required For A Cyclic Motion)" 7", which came on orangey red vinyl pressed at the audiophile-friendly speed of 33 rpm.  Like most of the band's chameleonic early non-album tracks, it can be found on the great compilation CD Felix Culpa.

Maybe due to the opening lyric "I'm waking up," as well as the sluggish tempo, this song makes me think of an alligator or capybara emerging from hibernation.  The drumming changes dramatically over the course of the song, and for what it's worth, Poem Rocket had a ton of drummers.  The core of the band was always singer / guitarist Michael Peters and bassist / singer Sandra Gardner.  They got married in 2003.  I think my online zine Cold Comfort was actually responsible for "breaking" that news in 2003, when I did an email interview with Peters, but for some unknown reason, it didn't shake the indie rock world to its core.  I'll post excerpts from that interview soon.  Peters' slide guitar brings a bluesy, desolate, wounded feel to the song, in an era when slide guitar was probably the most uncool thing on the planet.  (Juned also used it that same year in their great song "So White.")

As you can tell by the band's name, the cover art of this 7", and the use of a satellite as a lyrical metaphor, this band was kind of obsessed with outer space, but not in an overt or obnoxious way.  I think they viewed it as a good prism through which to deal with the subtleties of human relationships, e.g. the (real or imagined) distance between two people, rather than in a simplistic "Hey, let's jump on a rocket and go to Mars" way.  People who actually know about space know just how stupid most of those ideas are, mainly due to the fact that most cosmic distances are measured in a little thing called the light year.

Some publication called Sound Views praised this single's "guitar-powered concoctions that slowly bloom into atmospheric/noise-rock":

This came in my Into The Aether 10" EP. Flower was a mighty fine Wipers-esque band that evolved into Versus, by the way.

L-R: Michael Peters, Sandra Gardner, Andy Nelson (I think), someone (probably Dennis Bass, a.k.a. Dennye)

I bought this 8x10" promo pic on eBay about 5 years ago, and, amazingly, it seems that it has never appeared anywhere on the internet.  Way to go, Poem Rocket's publicity team / person.  I even asked the (really nice) guy at PCP Records mailorder for one in 2003 to use in my interview, and he sheepishly told me they didn't have any.  If that is indeed drummer Andy Nelson, the pic must be from the mid to late '90s, since he was apparently in the band from 1993 to '98.  I know this because I created P.R.'s Wikipedia page and lots of people proceeded to add lots of details that I never knew about, such as exact years of tenure in the band.

Check out this hilarious review I found in the April / May 1995 issue of the California skatepunk zine Flipside:
"These guys could take up a whole side just with their guitarist's introduction and just as his guitar work was approaching a solo on the level of Led Zeppelin, in jumps the singer who has a rather annoying style of purposely changing the inflection in his [sic] voice in a manner which makes him [sic] sound very off-tune.  In jump the other instruments as the songs play on and this whole scenario appears so overly self-indulgent as to make one want to vomit.  They bring new meaning to the word 'obnoxious.'"  The review was by their usually-reliable scribe Michele, who must've mistaken them for some sort of classic rock-influenced grunge band angling for a major-label deal.  (Flipside was obsessed with trying to valiantly sniff out and expose those types of bands.  If you thought that review was harsh, you should read some of their Lollapalooza reviews.)

Song credits from the inside flap of the Felix Culpa Digipak:

Planets with similar climates: Live Skull - "Bootcamp" (1986), Bardo Pond - "Tantric Porno" (1996), Opal - "Supernova" (1987), Bleach - "Crimson 'O'" (1990), Warpaint - "Warpaint" (2010).

Currently drinking: Three intriguing dark beers - Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout, Sierra Nevada Narwhal Imperial Stout, Fuller's London Porter.