Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Flying Saucers - Startime ep (1993, Unclean) & s/t ep (1995, Propeller)

I'm sure that many outfits past, and perhaps even present, have usurped the rather ubiquitous term Flying Saucers for their moniker, so if these recordings were made by a different Flying Saucers than you had anticipated, I'm afraid all I have to offer are my utmost apologies...and some enjoyable music to boot.  It's safe to say that these Saucers did not emanate from a different galaxy, rather Austin, TX - at least that's a safe assumption based on the label addresses for both disks. 

On Startime (the one with the Prozac on the sleeve) the quartet delivers lean, polished pop, with some fuzzy guitar effects to keep things interesting.  Sharing a similar airspace with contemporaries the Belltower, School of Fish, and to a lesser extent Fudge, the Saucers exude no shortage of winsome hooks, even if their execution isn't particularly innovative.

Things got a little more adventurous on their 1995 self-titled ep, due in part to more robust arrangements and a reshuffled lineup.  They may have dropped a few dream-pop hints on Startime, but take those inclinations to a loftier atmosphere on "Winning Wash" and "Starball Contribution," where the flange enjoys a little bit of a workout.  Song for song, the first ep beats this one, but both are worth investigating.

Startime ep
01. Wait & See
02. Amphetamine
03. Insensitive
04. Melt

The Flying Saucers ep
01. Fitting (Come in For a)
02. Starball Contribution
03. Egg
04. Winning Wash
05. One More Try

7 comments:

joseph kyle said...

this reminds me of another great Austin band, Sixteen Deluxe....

Michael said...

Thanks for recognizing one of the mid-90s great lost Austin bands. Add their 7" single (my favorite music by them) and you've got the whole package.

For the curious, FS leader Jon Sanchez went on to lead a cool psychedelic country rock band called the Summer Wardrobe.

spavid said...

Thanks for commenting folks. Hopefully I'll find that single someday.

Anonymous said...

Saw these guys many times at Emo's and Electric Lounge. They had an unreleased demo I taped off of the radio, songs they recorded on behalf of a major label deal that fell through, like to get my hands on that again it was definitely their best. Thanks!!

Anonymous said...

Saw these guys many times at Emo's and Electric Lounge. They had an unreleased demo I taped off of the radio, songs they recorded on behalf of a major label deal that fell through, like to get my hands on that again it was definitely their best. Thanks!!

Anonymous said...

Any chance of a re-up on this?

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for both of them re-uploads! Fantastic!