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Tuesday 22 January 2013

Glaxo Babies - Nine Months To The Disco (1980, Heartbeat records)


MUTANT SOUND: " Sonically almost the archetypal Cherry Red band, over the course of this LP, Glaxo Babies wide-ranging post punk admixture manages to take in everything from mutant funk, nebulous atmospheric jams, sax squawk-driven post punk improv, dub technique, and itchy-scratchy Gang Of Four angularity and fuses it all in a way thats beautifully un-obvious."

WIKI: Glaxo Babies were a Bristol-based UK post-punk group, formed in late 1977by Tom Nichols (bassist), Dan Catsis (guitarist) and drummer Geoff Alsopp (previously Nichols and Alsopp had been in another Bristol based band called The Vultures). The initial band line-up was completed by Rob Chapman (singer) joining in November 1977, and their first gig was held just 3 weeks later in The Dockland Settlement, St Pauls, Bristol. The band signed to local label Heartbeat Records (marketed by Cherry Red), with their first release being the This Is Your Life EP in February 1979. This led to them recording their first session for BBC radios John Peel the following April,[2] and the track "It's Irrational", from this session, opened the seminal 1979 Bristol Compilation album "Avon Calling". For this release the band had been forced by pharmaceutical company Glaxo to change their name, and this resulted in the use of "Gl*xo Babies", with an asterisk replacing the "a", although subsequent recordings have used a mixture of the two forms.
Tony Wrafter (saxophone) had joined the band in early 1979, and in May 1979 drummer Geoff Alsopp was replaced by Welshman Charlie Llewellin. This line-up had just started to record their debut album in June 1979 at Crescent Studios, Bath with David Lord as engineer. However, due to artistic differences Rob Chapman promptly left the group after the recording of just a couple of run through tracks (including a song about Christine Keeler, former Prime MinisterHarold Macmillan and the political scandal known as the Profumo Affair).Following the abrupt departure of Rob Chapman the other four members, supplemented by Tim Aylett (and later Alan Jones), took the band "into a more experimental area, leaning more towards a free-form fusion of jazz and dance rhythms",[3] which resulted in them recording, in one day, the album Nine Months To The Disco. By the time this recording was released in March 1980 and reached No. 8 in the UK Indie Chart,[4] the Gl*xo Babies had disbanded. Initially Tony Wrafter left, then Dan Catsis and Charlie Llewellin, all three of them going on to found Maximum Joy with Janine Rainforth, and John Waddington formerly of The Pop Group (Dan Catsis had also played in The Pop Group during 1979 and 1980 as a replacement for Simon Underwood). Rob Chapman joined The Transmitters, with whom he recorded one LP, “And We Call That Leisure Time”. The single of Rob Chapman singing on Christine Keeler was released in 1979 on Heartbeat and in 1980 Shake (The Foundations) was released as a single off Nine Months To The Disco. Another Peel session had been recorded in February 1980[5] and the 4 tracks were released later that year onY Records as the “Limited Entertainment EP”. Heartbeats final Glaxos’ release was a compilation album of early demos and unreleased tracks from the Rob Chapman period, called “Put Me On The Guest List”. In 2007 the Japanese label Birdsong reissued both of the bands albums on CD: “Nine Months To the Disco” included the extra track Swampstomp and “Put Me On The Guest List” had Christine Keeler, Nova Bossa Nova and Because Of You (Live) as bonus tracks.

STREAMING (Full Album) RamacureNotDead Youtube Channel
TRY http://thethingonthedoorstep.be/blog/2011/11/glaxo-babies-nine-months-to-the-disco/

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