Starship Beer

Improvisational rock trio Starship Beer was formed in the summer of 1972 by Kevin Whitehead, Pat O'Brian and Wes Mingin, then students at New York's Oswego State University. Founded primarily as a means to annoy their dormitory neighbors, the group drew equal inspiration from <a href="spotify:artist:2ebK4ueGwhVaXUm060m1BS">Captain Beefheart</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:2wn2nqzITvJ1vcMRO8Wzv6">Albert Ayler</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:74oJ4qxwOZvX6oSsu1DGnw">Cream</a>, creating free-form, chaotic skronk-jams topped off by O'Brian's stream-of-consciousness ranting -- the group proved decidedly unpopular on campus, unofficially disbanding when its members graduated in 1974. But in the years to follow, Starship Beer occasionally reunited, and in 1979 the trio recorded an LP, pressing 1,000 copies of the self-released Nut Music: As Free as the Squirrels. By this time Whitehead was earning attention as a jazz critic, first for the Baltimore City Paper and in 1987 for National Public Radio's Fresh Air; he later wrote for the Village Voice and in 1998 published a book, New Dutch Swing. In 2000 Whitehead relocated to Chicago, giving friend and fellow writer John Corbett a copy of Nut Music: As Free as the Squirrels, by then long out-of-print -- Corbett reissued the album in an expanded edition the following year on his Unheard Music Series label, an event commemorated by Starship Beer's first ever Chicago performance. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi