Baby Chaos – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #17 : BABY CHAOS

Baby Chaos formed in 1992 in the town of Stewarton which is just over 20 miles south-west of Glasgow. A four-piece consisting of Chris Gordon (vocals/guitar), Grant McFarlane (guitar), Bobby Dunn (bass) and Davy Greenwood (drums), they were very much influenced by the rock sounds from America that were so popular at the time. I saw them back in 1994 on an eclectic bill that was part of Sounds In the City type event that Glasgow was host city to and they were very good at what they did, albeit it felt as if the increasing growth of Britpop would soon see them pushed somewhat to the margins and into hard rock/Kerrang territory. Which turned out to be the case….

Over a three-year period between 1993 and 1996 they recorded and released a handful of singles and two albums, all of which were given the thumbs-up in the specialist rock publications but which were mostly ignored by the more mainstream music weeklies.

The departure of their drummer through a heart problem led to the band breaking up but frontman Chris Gordon remained active in other bands as well as at the production desk which was partly the reason why Baby Chaos remained a band that many up and coming rock musicians namechecked as being an influence.

Like many other bands from that era, the idea of reforming was an attractive and reasonably lucrative one and so earlier this year, the first new material in almost 20 years from the band was released, again to a fair amount of critical acclaim.

I’ve a couple of their early singles on CD sitting on the shelf. This was their fourth single which came out in late 1994 around the time of their debut LP, the brilliantly titled Safe Sex Designer Drugs & The Death of Rock’n’Roll:-

mp3 : Baby Chaos – Hello Victim

Enjoy

Associates, Aztec Camera, Baby Chaos, Ballboy, Bathers

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Parts 11-15)

Back on 8 October 2011, I started a series called ‘Saturday’s Scottish Single’. The aim was to feature one 45 or CD single by a Scottish singer or band with the proviso that the 45 or CD single was in the collection. I had got to Part 60-something and as far as Kid Canaveral when the rug was pulled out from under TVV.

I’ll catch up soon enough by featuring 5 at a time from the archives..

(11) Associates – 18 Carat Love Affair b/w Love Hangover : WEA 7″ (1982)

Read more about Aztec Camera here

(13) Baby Chaos – Hello Victim b/w Rotten To The Core b/w Skinny : East West CD single (1994)

Formed in 1992 in the town of Stewarton by a group of school mates, Baby Chaos consisted of Chris Gordon (vocals/guitar), Grant McFarlane (guitar), Bobby Dunn (bass) and Davy Greenwood (drums). They were discovered by former Happy Mondays turned A&R man, Nathan McGough and after an appearance on a BBC 2 music programme were signed to East West with debut single ‘Sperm’ being released in late 1993.

Three more singles and an LP followed over the course of 1994, a year which saw them play the inaugural ‘T In The Park’ as well as at the week-long Sound In The City event in Glasgow (which is where I saw them for the first and only time).

They were described by some as Scotland’s answer to the sound of post-Seattle grunge and were compared by others to Manic Street Preachers. They never quite got a distinctive enough sound of their own to stand out. Perhaps the best indication that they wouldn’t get much of a local following was when they were briefly championed by Kerrang magazine at a time when Glasgow really didn’t have all that much of a hard rock scene. Tell you what though, their hometown isn’t all that far from where Biffy Clyro have their roots. Perhaps Baby Chaos were just a decade or so too early. Not the sort of stuff normally featured on TVV but it’s a CD single that sites on the shelf. One that I paid 25p for…

(14) Ballboy : All The Records On The Radio Are Shite b/w Stars and Stripes b/w Building For The Future b/w Welcome To The New Year : SL Records 7″ EP (2002)