Terrastock 5 was an outrageous weekend-long nostalgia fest. By the evening of Sunday I'd really had enough of musty old psychedelic rock. The day had been disappointing. I was mostly hanging out at the bar, happy for any distraction from the music that came my way when suddenly, in the middle of it all, SubArachnoid Space made my day. They punched through all the dross, chatter, space and bodies and captivated my attention. At last, here was the prog rock aesthetic demonstrating its superior durability by sweeping away all the psych cobwebs of the weekend. Despite some technical issues, their sound was excellent—very loud but tight, punchy and clear. The first rate drumming, which reminded me of Police-era Stuart Copeland and of Trans Am's second album, combined with massive wedges of bass (sufficient to cause a perceptible draft) to lay down the groove while ingenious guitar figures and washes filled out the well delineated compositions. This was so good that, in a guilty, devil-may-care frame of mind, I broke the terms of my unemployment and bought a couple of their CDs. The first, "These Things Take Time" on Release was recorded live at KFJC in Silicon Valley in 1999 and the second "Play Nice" is a self-released 2002 tour CDR comprising bootleg-quality recordings from rehearsals and concerts. To be candid, if SubArachnoid had played like they did on these CDs in their T5 set, I wouldn't have bought any CDs. "Play Nice" holds some of live set's powers (check the samples) but overall the material is, unfortunately, much more psych than it is prog. While SubArachnoid's set at T5 was (blessedly) on the fringes, the music on these CDs would have been right in the middle of the T5 spectrum, almost definitive: lugubrious noodling jams with lashings of space echo on the guitar — pleasant enough in their own right, sometimes breaking the barrier into interesting, a long way from being enthralling and almost memorable. The good news is that SubArachnoid Space are working on a new album.
samples (from "Play Nice"):
