Sounds From The Junkshop #69: Deckard/Baby Chaos

 

"I get the feeling someone's fucking with me/They're trying to drain me of my dignity" - Baby Chaos - Ignoramus

Hands up, I probably should have done this column a lot sooner than I did. I was actually considering writing an SFTJ on Baby Chaos some time around the very early days of the column around the time I covered Kerbdog, the Almighty and part 1 of the ongoing Wildhearts retrospective but because they had an album out around this time (the excellent Ape Confronts Cosmos) it kind of fell through the cracks. However, as we're now approaching the time where the group resurfaced under a different name (similar to how Kerbdog did with Wilt), it seemed a good time to finally cover them.

Similar to Kerbdog, Baby Chaos were a band I encountered a LOT as a support group in my early days of going to gigs - they were on same label as the Wildhearts, EastWest (and predictably got absolutely stiffed by said label the same as the 'Hearts and Voice of the Beehive both did around this time) and so toured with Ginger and co a lot and I also remember seeing them supporting Terrorvision on more than one occasion. Yet somehow the frequent shout-outs from Britrock's best selling bands didn't help them and they didn't even reach Kerbdog's moderate level of success with only one of their singles, Buzz, reaching the Top 100.

A real shame because they were a good band - I seem to remember Ginger describing Baby Chaos as being about the unluckiest band in the world  when the Wildhearts covered Rearrange You on their covers album many years later and they had a real knack with a vicious punchy tune. Their second album, 1996's Love Your Self-Abuse produced two absolutely killer singles in the paranoid Hello and the scathing Ignoramus ("I'm the last born ignoramus/I'm the runt that made the A-list"). I think the problem might have been that their added aggression worked against them - a lot of reviews at the time unfairly maligned them as a poor man's Wildhearts which can't have helped matters but the truth is that while there were definite similarities there, there were also enough differences for anyone paying any sort of attention to tell the two bands apart.

Baby Chaos were probably the first of the Britrock bands I followed to fall when the tide started to turn - they were dropped by EastWest after Love Your Self-Abuse failed to sell and the line-up imploded soon afterwards. However, they would reconvene in 1998 with a different drummer (Gen Matthews formerly of early '90s indie-techno-rock types Jesus Jones) and a new name, Deckard. They put out an album in the States, Stereodreamscene, not a bad effort at all but again, label instability sunk it. Returning to the UK, the group put out their second album, Dreams of Dynamite And Divinity and after seeing them supporting Ginger at a solo gig (I think it may have been on the Valor del Corazon tour but as I've said before, my memory of the early noughties can be a bit waxed at the best of times due to intake of alcohol and, um, other stuff) I was suitably impressed to pick a copy up.

The first thing to bear in mind is that Deckard and Baby Chaos may have shared three quarters of their membership but by this time their sound had changed massively - if anything they'd gone full on Radiohead/Muse with the wailing vocals and epic arrangements. It takes a bit of time to get used to but once you do, both Dreams Of Dynamite... and its predecessor Stereodreamscene both have plenty to recommend them. Unfortunately, by now the law of diminishing returns was well and truly kicking in and Deckard split up very soon after the one time I saw them live. Lead singer Chris Gordon would go on to indie-dance types Regency Buck whose Monkey Girl single I remember hearing at the time and thought was okay but it didn't inspire me to check their album out. Again, something I might put right at some time in the future.

However, this story does have a happy ending - Baby Chaos would reform at the behest of Ginger to support the Wildhearts on their Chutzpah tour and it went well enough that the group have been back together ever since (they've frequently gigged with the equally excellent and unsung Eureka Machines as well) and even put two new albums out. Hand on heart, I wasn't quite as jazzed about 2015's Skulls Skulls Skulls Show Me The Glory as a lot of my friends were but 2020's Ape Confronts Cosmos (review here) was a fine effort and even made it into the Top 10 of our end of year albums list. If you haven't listened to that one yet then you really should do - it's the sound of the group taking all the best elements of their raw '90s sound and the more epic spin on things they had as Deckard and blending them brilliantly to create something genuinely special.

Baby Chaos definitely deserve to have their catalogue revisited if you're unlucky enough to have missed them first time out - both their debut album Safe Sex, Designer Drugs And The Death Of Rock 'n' Roll and Love Your Self-Abuse are great angry slices of piss 'n' vinegar Britrock. Don't expect the pure pop hooks of yer Terrorvisions or similar in there but if the idea of a much angrier take on the formula appeals then these should be right up your street. While the two Deckard albums are arguably more growers with repeated listens than instant classics, they definitely deserve investigation as well. And of course, as we've already discussed, Ape Confronts Cosmos was a fine effort which you really should listen to. The unluckiest Britrock band in the world? Maybe. But maybe that's all the more reason we should give 'em a listen and give 'em the respect they deserve.