Monday, February 21, 2022

The 1981 Listening Post - The Astronauts - Peter Pan Hits the Suburbs

 The Astronauts - Peter Pan Hits the Suburbs


#273

1981 Housekeeping

The Astronauts

Peter Pan Hits the Suburbs

Genre: Electic DIY FolkPunk

3.25 out of 5






Sometimes I find that I hear so much music that I lose the ability to find similes. 4000 albums in 5 years will do that to you. So, I was really grateful when I researched this band a bit and someone mentioned Martin Newall. Because, yes, that’s what I am definitely reminded here. There’s a Cleaners from Venus vibe coming off this weird photo-psychedelic nigh-folk record that seems to have come down from space after being recorded in the 70s but quickly adapted for it’s new future. 

You get an epic like “Protest Song” abutted up against a merry-go-round of “Sod Us” and both belong here. 


I knew a guy. He was my manager at the video store I worked at in NY in the 80s. Wanted to be a screenwriter. Hooked up with some interesting C-list celebrities. Produced a couple reality shows for Showtime. Sold a handful of screenplays. He hosts a movie night every once in a while. I was invited a couple times but I didn’t really fit in. He had an actual telephone booth in his apartment. He was the oddest of ducks. 

One day we reconnected just after my band got off the ground. I went to his place to catch up. “I also write songs!!!” And he pulled out his guitar and started to play. 

It was a series of chords that made no sense and he just warbled over them at breakneck speed. These were not songs. Just chords that he played, sometimes all the chords he seemed to know, and he just said stuff over them, with his lisp and inability to sing on key.

I left him there, kind of gobsmacked. 

He very politely asked to be removed from my band’s email list shortly after that. Maybe it’s because we wrote actual songs. I don’t know.


The Astronauts remind me of his music. Especially “Amplified World”. But that’s still better than his stuff. 


https://music.apple.com/us/album/peter-pan-hits-the-suburbs/985729472

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