MELODY MAKER
23 DECEMBER 1995
1995 SINGLES
BABY BIRD: Fatherhood
“…sometimes fiction, even at its most fantastic, cuts closer to Truth than truth itself”.
Fatherhood
I Was Born A Man
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
I 7 DECEMBER 1995
Baby Bird: I Was Born A Man
(Baby Bird, CD only).
Just how much space can there be inside a four-track tape recorder? This first in a series of five bizarre and magical albums compiled from Sheffield-based Steven Jones’s library of over 400 songs suggests that the answer to that question is “quite a lot”.
Fatherhood
WHAT’S ON
13 DECEMBER 1995
BABY BIRD
Fatherhood (Baby Bird Recordings)
Steven Jones certainly churns ‘em out. This is the third album in four months from the songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. Not that we’re complaining, of course. At least, not when they’re as good as this. Like Bad Shave, its predecessor, Fatherhood is haunting, wistful, and home-studio raw.
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FATHERHOOD – BABY BIRD
OBSERVER
10-17 DECEMBER 1995
FATHERHOOD – BABY BIRD
Baby Bird’s Stephen Jones is another Sheffield eccentric with talent and lo-fi tunes to burn. Fatherhood – his third LPof 1995 – is a potent exercise in Band Maths, managing to marry Beck and AR Kane to the Go-Betweens without sacrificing a shred of originality or low-rent panache. Clearly, Jones’ perverse pop makes perfect nest-feathering material for 1996.
SUSAN CORRIGAN
Tweet as a Nut (Melody Maker)
MELODY MAKER
9 DECEMBER 1995
TWEET AS A NUT
Surprise, surprise? Ummm, not today thank you. See, beneath that glamourous, explosive, glorious exterior The Pop Monster has turned into a reactionary old sod. Hotel bars may still be guzzled dry. Tasmanian talcum powder may still be vigorously inhaled. Like, snorted, geezer.
The rock beasts’ more dysfunctional offspring may indeed still persist in toppling over the most premature of hurdles.
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Fatherhood
INDEPENDENT
8 DECEMBER 1995
BABY BIRD
Fatherhood
After three independent releases in under a year, and another two planned for January, Steven Jones (aka Baby Bird) has signed a deal with a slightly bigger label, which will release all his subsequent recordings. It’s something of a shame: inspired, whimsical amateurism of this sort deserves less, in the most positive way.
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