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 Babyhead
Interview
interview 0247 added
11.10.04 words:
LadyCook
technical:
QED
In true Lady Cook style, I chased down an interview
with one of my favoritest groups, then let it languish on my computer for
months, my bad, and sincere apologies to ace Bristolian’s Babyhead. Having seen
them tear it down nightly at Glastonbury 2003 I was intrigued to find out
whether the show was as impressive when not in the maniacal surroundings of the
MeccaDonalds marquee, so checked out their show at the long-running Gaz’s Rockin
Blues weekly Notting Hill aristo ska-fest in London, and can reliably confirm
that Babyhead are the liveliest live show you’ll see, ever!
I interviewed vocalist ManCub from Babyhead via e-mail:
LC: Who are Babyhead?
 MC: We are the sworn enemies of the TV real estate, hard working cellar
dwellers, dance floor steppers, speaker stack wreckers, sexual health checkers,
rogues and gentlemen alike travelling hillbillies, travelling the length and
breadth of this fallen empire in all manner of beat up and broke-down vehicles.
LC: When did Babyhead form?
MC: We crawled out of the West Country swamps, an ugly punkrockHip Hop mutant
baby, all of 10 years ago. Set up camp in Bristol and started our noisy attack
on the deaf ears of the music industry. Our infant years were spent
disillusioned and unnoticed, we were finding our feet. It wasn’t until 2002 that
the horn section came to the table and things started to cook, the stages that
we played got bigger, the figures we were paid got larger, the farther we
travelled the harder the battle to rattle the cattle cage..um, bla ..bla. sorry
.where was I?. Next!
LC: Why are you called Babyhead?
MC: The baby head is an enlightened mind state induced by the ritual smoking of
the Iawaska plant used by the shamen of the Amazon, ask me on a different day
and you'll probably get a different answer.
"...We
see self-parody spoof or self-obsessed chip on the shoulder rubbish..."
LC: What musicians/groups do you feel have inspired/influenced your sound?
MC: There's nine minds, egos and influences at any one time in the writing
process. They range from punk to New Orleans jazz to funk to brag rap, the whole
spectrum really. The common ground we found through a process of de-selection
was ska and Hip Hop. We have more influences than you have space for but I will
state this - we are often credited with the ska/Hip Hop marriage but it was
happening long before we ever made a ripple in the pond. It is at this point
that we pay utmost respect to the fallen "sublime", a west coast band who were
looking set to go world wide when the front man overdosed in a hotel room.
Bradley rest in peace.
LC: You put on a really impressive live show, the general interaction between
the group, the masks and showmanship, did this take a long time to achieve, and
how do audiences respond?
 MC: The audience is the best teacher a performer can have. All the elements have
been there since day 1, we worked them hard and it's been a fairly organic route
to the live show we have today. We are a live band, it's our full intention to
stay live, it seems to be going down very well indeed.
LC: I saw Bubba Louie perform with you at Glastonbury, how did that come
about? and do you have any more Hip Hop collabos planned?
MC: Bristol is a very small place, I just bumped into Bubs over the years, he
was at a loose end so we hooked up. He's actually the second member of Aspects
that we’ve worked with. We did a fing with Probe Mantis in 2001 and Monkey Moos
incredible beat box features on our new album "the geek show" we will collar El
Eye one day, but they are signed and set to blow up so we'll probably have to
make some wedge first.
Look out for "rock bottom", a track we do with the legendary "stepchild". I've
just put down a track for local nu jazz act Unforscene. there loads of people we
want to work with. It's one of the only perks of celebrity, that you might get
to work with your heroes.
"...We crawled out of the West Country swamps, an ugly punkrockHip
Hop mutant baby..."
Incidentally, I had a gurnerd fuelled rant in a field at six in the morning
about setting the world to rights, with Anthro from Def Tex, plans of travelling
the schools of the land dressed as Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. (Mark call me,
there's a lot of work to do!)
LC: What do you think of the U.K Hip Hop scene?
MC: Ask me in 2 years, to my mind the "scene" is still feeling its' way for its'
own identity. Look around, as the industry desperately searches for an act to
cash in on and champion U.K Hip Hop. We see self-parody spoof or self-obsessed
chip on the shoulder rubbish; That said, the "underground" is a gene pool of
talent and it will breed something. It's probably already happening and I'm not
aware of it. To be honest I don't get out or hang out in record shops enough to
comment with any real confidence.
LC: Are all the songs lyrics by you, what do you draw inspiration from?
 MC: The human condition. We live in inspirational times. My lyrics are a
personal response to the world around me. That said, it's not all deep. I am
constantly referencing other lyricists, I write about nursery rhymes, women,
characters I meet, imaginary friends, beers, fears, steers and queers, all sorts
really, I just try to tell a story.
LC: What are your favourite Hip Hop artists?
MC: I came to Hip Hop in a back to front sort of manner. As a teenager I wrote
it off as homophobic, misogynistic, macho self-postulating and got psychedelic
and listened to my parent heroes like the Doors, Bowie, Pink Floyd and the like.
The first MC I ever really felt was from a group called the School of Hard
Knocks, then came the Disposable Heroes and Consolidated, the first Gravediggaz
album. The second experience to really change my idea of what you can do with
words and a beat was a project called the "Isolationist" by Vadim and the
Anti-Pop Consortium, that blew open my whole perspective. Now the artist I
listen to most is "Slug", stepchild played me "the woman with the tattooed
hands" and it had pretty much the same effect.
Now I give Hip Hop more air play than it deserves and will listen to pretty much
anything but some of the other people that I respect and\or like are Public
Enemy, Josh Martinez, Roots Manuva, Eminem, Young Blood brass band, Sage
Francis, Outkast, Beastie Boys, Mike Ladd.
LC: Any other comments/plugs/gig details?
MC: We have an album "the geek show" buy it from the web site
WWW.BABYHEAD.CO.UK.
We have a dub reggae show called Baby Dub and we're working on a sample based
album that could maybe squash into the pigeon-hole of U.K Hip Hop if you
listened to it through a hypermentalathon.
Check us out when we're in your neck of the woods. Cheers. Mancub.
Do as the Mancub says, check out their site, buy their CD, but most of all
aim to see them play live and get your socks rocked off, and if you see a lady
in the audience dancing on a table it’s not me honest well okay it will probably
will be me, but isn’t that an indication of how awesome they are? To get the
most cynical journalist in Hip Hop dancing on tables is pretty cool…
-
Ladycook
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