Tell Me When I'm Home: Thirty Years of Spacehog's Resident Alien

Tell Me When  I’m Home

Thirty Years Of 

Resident Alien

By Ethan Brennan

        “And in the end we shall achieve, in time, the thing they call divine.”  To begin the first song of your first album with such ambition denotes that four Loiners, living in New York City in 1995, knew they were on to something.  That something turned out to be the band Spacehog, and its classic debut LP: Resident Alien.  The lyric is derived from the the record’s leadoff single “In The Meantime,” which is another mark of the ambition of the project.  In the days before streaming, album sequencing was a meticulous process, it was rare for a radio single to start an album.  Resident Alien calls your bluff right off the bat by dropping the single first, and daring you not to listen to the rest of the album.  For three quarters of my life now I’ve been rewarded for taking that journey.  

In 2025, Resident Alien is thirty years old.  It’s hard to believe I was nine when this album debuted.  It was the first album I bought with “my own money.”  As an actual child, it was arguably someone else’s money, gifted to me in some form or another, but regardless, it marked the first time I opted to exchange such a rare and precious resource as spending money (we were broke in the suburbs of Oakland, California) on a music album.  I had been taken to Tower Records, or received albums as gifts before, but Resident Alien was the first time I decided, “I’d rather have this album than anything else this twenty bucks could get me.”  It remains one of the least disputable decisions I’ve made.  That album has traveled with me ever since (I literally still have the actual CD), through bad times and good, and I’ve only grown to love and appreciate it more in the last thirty years.  I’ve bought the record at least twice since, here in Long Beach.  Once, at Fingerprints, two locations ago, I bought a duplicate CD, because the original had gotten slightly scratched.  I put the clean disc in with the original liner notes, for sentimental reasons; though I can’t speak to the jewel case, as those things drop like flies, and other albums would be sacrificed to keep my prized ones crispy.  At Toxic Toast I found it on a gorgeous pink vinyl, and never considered for a second leaving the store without it.

I’d heard “In The Meantime” on Live 105 and KOME, obviously, but I instantly realized there were so many good songs here.  No skips, as the kids say, and not just because my OCD demanded I listen to it all the way through (yes, including the eleven minutes of silence and the secret track) every time I put the CD in.  I remember laying on the couch next to the stereo system, watching the blue numbers on the face of the CD player count off for the first time: sixty-nine minutes of sci-fi rock’n’roll.  Throughout the next thirty years, that sixty-nine minutes would measure my joy and sorrow, accompany my triumphs, and console my broken heart.

I was originally attracted to the songs with big riffs, the sweeping emotion of tracks like “Zeroes” and “Cruel To Be Kind”, but soon found Royston “Ray Sprinkles” Langdon’s unique vocals to be just as big a draw.  (In 2008, I stopped reading Rolling Stone in response to the omission of Royston Langdon and Sublime’s Bradley Nowell from their “100 Greatest Singers Of All Time” list.  I gather a certain degree of subjectivity is to be expected with regards to these types of media rankings, but the inclusion of Bob Dylan on a list of greatest singers was absurd to me.)  As a nine/ten-year old, the loud and charging distorted guitars were a thrill, but over the years (decades), I’ve grown to appreciate the warm acoustic tracks, and the stripped-down vibe they offer.  I especially enjoy the journey on tracks like “Starside” and “Ship Wrecked” where a slower tempo lulls one into a false sense of serenity, before the songs pick up and fly.  Antony “Tone Down” Langdon’s grittier punk-infused vocals and biting humour stand out on “Spacehog” and “Space Is The Place,” bookending the first section of the album, after the intro of “In The Meantime” with two energetic, driving jams.  

The sequencing is ingenious, finding the perfect balance of upbeat and contemplative throughout, making the experience of listening to the album, beginning to end, a real treat. It was a bold gambit to make the radio hit the first track.  The prevailing wisdom of the time often had track three as the sweet spot, but “In The Meantime” slides seamlessly into “Spacehog,” creating a momentum that sustains through the two more experimental tracks that follow: “Starside” and “Candyman,” which ends with an interlude that serves as a whimsical trigger warning for the bizarre lyrics to come and launches into the closing statement of the album’s first thematic movement “Space Is The Place.”

I almost wanted to resent “In The Meantime” for being the only song that most people remember from an album I consider a masterpiece, but it is just too damn good of a song.  It is a cordial salutation that claps you on the back with an exquisitely funky bassline paired with a phasing, spacey synth.  As it’s the first track virtually any new fan will hear, Icarus references fall by the wayside and one may bask in the sentiment of “we love you.”  The tones and vocals meld to form a sonic massage, but what stands out more than anything is the simple bent note that highlights each line of the chorus: “AH-WAH-OH-WAH-OH-WAH-AH-OH.”  It is a well deserved smash-hit of a song that whets the pallet for the rest of the album, and indeed the entirety of Spacehog’s catalogue.  

“Spacehog” is an autobiographical track about the cosmic swine whose passport graces the album cover.  We are propelled along at near-light speed to experience the unpredictable nature of life under intergalactic capitalism.  In just over two minutes we touch on the instability of a career within a naval hierarchy, the overview effect, and the yawning chasm of the unknown which lies just beyond our atmosphere.  The sophomore track is introductory, cinematic, and concise.

“Starside” follows, and has become my favorite song on the album (possibly just my favorite song).  I can’t quite put my finger on why I love it so much, but it has such a majestic scope and emotional depth.  In under four minutes this tune manages to evoke a sense of vastness that conjures the infinite isolation and loneliness of space travel.  It echoes the themes of the prior track, exploration and uncertainty, but where “Spacehog” propels the capsule forward in a lighthearted fashion, “Starside” is brooding and guarded.  We have a sense of duty and obligation, but also the explicitly expressed desire for escape.  We also have one of the best guitar solos ever recorded.  I know it’s coming, but I’m still always kind of blindsided by “just like in Hutch and Starsky.”  It’s funny and irreverent, and it fucks with the lonely sci-fi vibe in just the right way.

“Candyman” was an early favorite because I assumed it was about a drug dealer (I still do), and that’s just cool and timeless.  Over the years it got demoted as other songs on the album opened up to me, but in recent listens I love it more than ever.  It undoubtedly contains the best wordplay on the album:

“There’s more than stones and sticks at stake/

If you pull a rope tight WILL create a/

Tension like a brick will break 

If thrown against the road”

You can picture this as it’s sung, and the music builds in such a way that you feel it too.

“In come the assholes who/Smell the money/As they/

Chase the blood and flesh/As though they/

Only ever had enough/To keep their withered spirits up”

is straight-up verbal gymnastics, and it is fascinating that it arrives so melodically.  The verses display such poetic aplomb that it’s almost shocking how simple the chorus is: a repetition of Candyman that invokes a movie/urban legend that absolutely terrified me as a child. The juxtaposition works to great effect.  The outro features a posh interlude that primes the listener for a bewildering lyric in the closing song of the album’s first act: “Space Is The Place.”

I loved this song right off the bat because I was ten and they say “fuck” (twice even).  There is also a defiance in the face of loneliness that doesn’t devolve into misogynistic (or homophobic?) misanthropy that I really appreciate as an adult.  “Space Is The Place” lets you know that it’s okay to be a misfit.  If you’re more comfortable apart from the madding crowd, that doesn’t necessarily make you damaged.  And if you are slightly damaged, that’s okay too.  There is a place for you, even if it feels extra-terrestrial.

You get a sense of the range Spacehog possesses in these first five tracks.  They can jam, they can blast, they can build, and explore.  The more I learn about music, through education or my own attempts at artistry, the more impressed I am with Resident Alien.  It is a debut record that establishes an immediately recognisable sound.  A big part of that is the guitar stylings of Richard “Rich” Steel.  He carves a groove throughout the record, tiptoeing or sprinting through sonic landscapes with the deft fingers of an artisan.  In the second portion of the record Rich’s mastery is apparent in a diptych of longing:  “Ship Wrecked” and “Only a Few.”  These two tracks round out the middle of the album with a sense of isolation in the barren expanse of space/the soul.

Before arriving at the nadir of human connection, we pass through the the first of twin songs “Never Coming Down” (parts I and II).  “Never Coming Down Part I” and it’s likely drug references were lost on me as a youngster, even though I had deciphered “Candyman.”  Maybe it was the chimp-like hooting of the backing vocals that had young me imagining the band up in a tree, refusing to climb back down to Earth.  I originally preferred the harder, louder reprise, but with age, and a few mind-altering experiences of my own under my belt, I came to appreciate the acoustic version.  Both the “big riffs” of Part II and Part I’s stripped down intimacy are appropriate, and I’m glad they both made the album.

“Cruel To Be Kind” was the second single, and a worthy successor at that.  My original perception took it as a simple exhortation to be a little nicer in one’s daily dealings.  When I moved out on my own, I found solace in “you don’t have to be a down-and-out to be down sometimes” whenever the world was a little too much for me.  Now in my forties, I contemplate the concept of the “jail of the mind” when I listen to this one.  All three interpretations have merit, and I love that three guys in their twenties infused a depth into a catchy song that has evolved in the palace of my mind over three decades.  And you can’t beat a dirty piano on the hook.

“Ship Wrecked” and “Only A Few” work very well back to back.  Like the previous track, I’ve had different experiences with this duo over the years.  “Ship Wrecked” is a phenomenal exercise in musical progression.  It is also steeped in an aching longing.  Starting slow, with almost whispered guitar licks, it continues apace until the bridge that roars to life.  After the final chorus their is a stunning, cacophonous outro that crashes like a wave into the next song.  “Only A Few” comes on as a sweet ode to a prospective lover.  The lonely lad from “Ship Wrecked” found his “captain’s wife” after all.  There is some spectacular slide guitar, that helped me learn to appreciate the more subtle nuances of the six-string.  It soothes without the delightful abrasion that “louder” songs draw me in with.  So one could see these songs as a pair about longing and discovery; the struggle with loneliness, and the ecstasy of finding what’s been sought so long.  Or.

There is a more sinister side to this couple.  “As lonely as a sailor” implies the narrator is something other than a sailor.  “As the stars fly by me/ as the ocean it binds me” suggests an actual sailor and also, at the same time, a celestial navigator.  A timeless ballad about love lacking and the anguish that ensues.  “Only A Few” would seem to imply a resolution to this dilemma, but it’s not quite right.  There is a one- sidedness to the narration that is unsettling on a closer listen.  Most would be familiar with the shyness and anxiety that come with courtship, but there is a suggestion of unrequited obsession present, that echoes the previous song’s covetous praise of the captain’s wife.  So, on a casual listen, you get longing and resolution.  When delving a little deeper, you experience the disturbing drama of a person that doesn’t know how to relate to people, and has fallen into delusion.  This synth is so funkaliscious over the closing refrain of “and when I get there/I will find you” that it’s easy to ignore how creepy that actually sounds.  This chilling pair of tracks give way to “The Last Dictator” which rides the antisocial theme that has developed and transitions to the third and final leg of the journey that is Resident Alien.

As a long-time fan of R.E.M. I mean no disrespect in saying that the opening jangles of “The Last Dictator” remind me of an R.E.M. song.  (Michael Stipe does a feature on the next album, so he clearly didn’t mind.). The song displays its true Hogness in short order.  I actually took it quite literally, as the titular despot bragging of his generosity in allowing a dissident a few moments outside of the dungeon.  “You saw the son today,” as the liner notes revealed to me is more reflective of the type of megalomaniacal ego that would insist that “you wanted me this way.”  I still haven’t quite figured this one out, as the grappling with honesty that rounds out the verses could apply rather literally to a governmental figure, or just as easily the struggles of dating an asshole.  The fact that there aren’t a thousand interviews with members of Spacehog and thinkpieces on all their songs, is tough when researching a long-winded ode to their beloved debut album on the thirtieth anniversary of its birth, but is actually kind of cool because it makes your relationship to the music that much more personal.

“Never Coming Down Part II” is impressive in that it takes the same words and notes from Part I, and creates an entirely different mood with them.  Perhaps we’re never coming down from a different drug at this stage of the album.  Royston’s voice operates as an instrument on this one, modulating the word “oh” to serve as a semi-chorus.  It’s put to similar effect on “In The Meantime,” “The Last Dictator,” and the forthcoming “Zeroes” (substituting repetition of the word “zero” for the oohs and ohs), but on “Never Coming Down Part II” Ray plays a lead with his vocal chords.

“Zeroes” is another upbeat gem, great riffs, and I was confounded not so much by the fact the lady’s number featured so many zeroes (0 is directory assistance in the US, for those outside the imperial core, or it was in the nineties anyway) but the fact that she only gave him five digits.  Is she brushing him off!?  Another track that retains some ambiguity, but “please excuse me, I meant no harm in being born” is such a hard line, and the guitars are at such an impeccable swell especially at 4:53 where the crunchy lead is indecipherable from a vocal roar for a few seconds, that I am just pumped to be along for the ride.

“To Be A Millionaire” was a struggle because I didn’t like that Terry killed his mother.  It’s not as heavy as later stuff like “Lucy’s Shoe,” but it’s a straightforward and tragic fable.  Trading one’s humanity for greed is as relevant a theme today (probably more so) as it was in ’95.  The real struggle for me, however, was with OCD.  So I could know I’d listened to the complete record, I’d find myself listening to a twenty-one minute track, that was mostly silence, to get to “…Was It Likely,” a secret song (tragically bereft in modern albumcraft) featuring a breathy groaning synth accompanied by a hypnotic bell progression.  It’s like someone made an instrument out of letting the air out of a balloon.  The bells are almost counting down to something, and there is a sample of dialogue murmuring in the background.  It’s haunting and it’s weird and it makes such an unpredictable cap to close out the record.  Overall I rate the experience 13/13, will do it again soon!

Jonny “Jonny Cragg” Cragg seems to be the beating heart (see what I did there?) of Spacehog.  His fills punctuate the transitions of songs, and infuse an energy at just the right moments, lending an urgency that elevates the rest of the piece.  Drummers don’t get much shine, keeping the beat sometimes means staying out of the way so flashier instruments can do their thing.  Cragg is the jet, propelling the hog ship, he knows when to hit the gas (“Space Is The Place”) and when to roll evasive manoeuvres (outros to “Ship Wrecked” and “Zeroes”).  I swear I heard a gong at one point on a recent listen-through.  I finally had the privilege of seeing Spacehog live this year, and all puns aside, Cragg really did appear to be the glue that holds the four massive talents that comprise the ‘Hog together. 

At one point in my life I “got into rap.”  I was at an age where I didn’t realize that musical genres were not mutually exclusive.  I never really came back to some of the bands I loved in my “rocker era,” but Spacehog I never let go of.  Every time I would put on Resident Alien after some time apart, it was like being reunited with an old friend.  The conversation picks up just where it left off.  The jokes all still hit. Over the past three decades, there have probably been entire years when I didn’t listen to  Resident Alien, but I always came home.