"The Ventures In Space" by The Ventures (December, 1963)

Brad's Take:


So... one time, The Ventures decided to make an experimental spacey surf rock record. On this album, they wanted to create strange organic sounds out of several kinds of instruments which would overlap a typical surf rock album. They succeeded.

This album is pretty crazy. It's very busy. Hardly any songs are stripped down. Instead, they're mostly overdressed for the occasion, in my opinion. This is "Walk Don't Run" being covered by extraterrestrials. I may be over-exaggerating a little bit because there are some good old fashioned Ventures songs on here, like "Love Goddess Of Venus" and "Penetration." Although "Penetration" is a bit too spacey.

They did get some really awesome sounds on this record though. It's cool that they're all organic and that no sounds on this album were digital at all.

For being an experimental, instrumental surf rock album, they nailed it. Is it something I want to listen to again? Not really. It's not bad, by any means, but it's a little too "out there" for me. I like The Ventures a little better when they're on Earth.

Dad's Take:

It's the space race was in full force by the winter of '63, and who better than the Ventures to celebrate it with their instrumental guitar treatment?

"Out of Limits" is the classic here. It was a big hit, and still sounds nearly perfect, almost forty years later. Several other songs help to make this a fun album. They space up one of my favorite surf songs, the classic "Pipeline" clone, "Penetration," a little too much, but it doesn't detract that much from that great piece of music.

There's a bigger variety of music here than you might expect. There's the toes-on-the-nose lunar surfing punch of "Out of Limits," the spooky sounds of "Fear" and "Exploration In Terror," and lots of spaced-out fun, ending in a classic version of the theme from "The Twilight Zone."

Sometimes, the Ventures sound almost two perfect for me. I like the crunchy sound of some of the rougher surf bands better. But that doesn't take anything away from this record. It's pure fun, with cool songs, and is a brilliant artifact of those early days of the space race, when our culture focused so heavily on the stars that toys, TV, movies, juice, even breakfast cereal, all had a space theme.

This is a brilliant record, start to finish. It'll make you want to ride the waves in Malibu, and moon the movie stars from your board.