BABY CHAOS IN '96

Less of the Baby, more of the Chaos

After the ups and downs of last year, especially as regards the US tour, our collective emotions and patience have been tested once more. But more of that later. Let us try to tell you what we’ve been up to in some kind of chronological fashion.

The year started well with us nursing our Hogmany hangovers in the back of the van, on the way to Parkgate Studios, near Hastings, to record the final additions to the second album. These songs, "Hello" and "Ignoramus", were ably co-produced by Al Scott and were to become the singles from the album. Although, "Ignoramus" never quite made it to the shops. We also recorded a third track at Parkgate called "Get Along" which made it onto the album, which was eventually entitled "Love Your Self Abuse". This session was followed by a brief visit to Parklane Studios in Glasgow, where we mixed down songs such as "Fetch" and "I Want to be Your Friend", amongst others. Which, not due to inferior quality I’m sure you’ll understand, were earmarked as b-sides. Our last visit to the luxury of a studio environment came in late February when Chris went down to London to edit "Hello", in my opinion unwisely cutting the end from the single version (it’s one of my favourite bits).

The year was going according to plan and we were all beginning to get that buzz that hits you just before the next single or album is released, especially after discussing artwork and video ideas with Nathan, Blam at Stylorouge, and a variety of video directors. We eventually decided on using Craig McCall as the director on the video for "Hello", as we all felt he’d done a great job on "Hello Victim". The plan was this…..get a reasonably well known actress, get her to peer in at us through a hole in the wall in a voyeuristic fashion, and finally, get her to knock down the previously mentioned wall with a number of different hammer-type implements. Then stare at Chris nude in the bath. The actress we managed to acquire for this demanding task was the lovely Kelly MacDonald, fresh from her successful role in "Trainspotting".

"Hello" was released to healthy reviews all round, as we started our first UK headlining tour in what seemed like ages. This is where the "more of the Chaos" part comes in. Following the gig in Edinburgh, Dave was very quiet and very pale faced. I think we all knew what the eventual outcome was going to be, but we went ahead with the following nights gig in Hamilton. Inevitably, Dave (having consulted with his Doctor) decided to pull out of the remaining shows. He felt as though he was going to collapse, like he had done in Philadelphia last year if he didn’t stop drumming. This meant the end of the UK tour (it started in Dundee and finished in Hamilton four days later), and as most of us thought, the end of Dave’s long-term involvement with the band. This was bad enough, but we were also becoming more infuriated and frustrated with the way East West were handling the single release. The album was released on the 29th April, again to excellent reviews in most quarters, but with mixed feelings from us.

May arrived unwelcome but we went about the business of making the video for "Ignoramus", a power-rangers type affair which never really lived up to our expectations. The suits were bloody smart though. By this time Dave had made it absolutely clear that, despite our protests, he would have to give up the band, Doctors orders and all that. He agreed to take part in the shooting of the video but couldn’t manage the tour of Germany with Die Toten Hosen that we had had lined up for a couple of months. For this little excursion we enlisted the help of our occasional drum/lighting tech, Steve MaCalmont, to fill in for Dave. We all felt, including Dave, that we should really try to do this tour as it involved playing to crowds of between 5,000 and 14,000 per night, and was probably the biggest introduction to Germany we could hope to get. Die Toten Hosen are massive there. Steve did a great job in Germany, really getting it together towards the end of the tour. This tour in itself was a fantastic experience, a world apart from most other gigs we’d played or tours we’d been on. So getting the opportunity to play live for French TV in Cannes, when the film festival was in full flow, was so much icing on the cake that a dentist was required to deal with the ensuing tooth decay. We played on a purpose built stage that had been erected on the Cannes beach, no more than 25 feet from the sea. This was the second time we had played on national prime time TV in France, both times on the "Nulle Part Ailleurs" show on Canal+. Sadly, Antoine Des Caunes was not presenting this time, but hey, never mind.

After the relative highs of May we were deflated slightly in June, our trips abroad to Amsterdam for the London Calling festival at the Paradiso, and our visit to Sweden for the Hultsfred festival being the only relief from utter boredom. We were restricted in what we could do due to Dave’s health. We managed to do these two gigs because there was enough time in between for Dave to recuperate, but other than that we did very little.

It was in June that our involvement with East West was supposedly ended. We were told over the phone, by someone in the business affairs department, that we were being dropped by the label. Just a week after Nic and Chris had a meeting with Max Hole, the head honcho, where they explained our grievances as regards the way the label was handling our releases and he had agreed that "Ignoramus" would be released. We were definitely glad that our ties with East West were going to be severed, but we were a little concerned to be without the financial security a record deal can sometimes offer. The next thing was to pursue the interest that US label Atlantic had shown over the last few weeks.

Whilst all this had been going on, those lovely people at Kerrang were nice enough to award "Ignoramus" the honour of Single of the Week. Cheers ladies and gentlemen. It’s just a shame it never got released.

July brought with it more transatlantic conversation, which much to our horror East West had caught wind of, thus rekindling their interest in us. You see, they hadn’t actually dropped us from the label. So since East West now wished to keep us, and they and Atlantic are both parts of the big mother that is Warners, legal issues concerning the transferring of the contract and money issues had become more complicated. Fortunately, Atlantic remained keen to have us.

During July Dave played his last two gigs for the band, at the London Astoria 2 on a Metal Hammer night, and on the Guardian Stage at the Phoenix Festival. Phoenix was a great 5 days of excessive hedonism, but the gig itself was a very emotional (and bloody hot) affair. (Were we funny?). We should perhaps have chosen Glasgow to stage Dave’s last appearance with the band, but we knew Phoenix would be a good high point for him to leave. Janice Fike from Atlantic came over from America especially for this gig and left with a big grin on her face, promising to get us o’er the watter as soon as possible.

The following months held for us the unenviable task of auditioning drummers to take up Dave's position in the band.....a position we desperately didn't want him to give up. I think because our regard for Dave was so high, our expectations of the auditioning drummers were very high also. We tried out a few, almost giving one guy the green light, but really we weren't a hundred percent convinced of anybody's suitability. Then, fortunately, we heard of Gen Matthews interest in the job. If you haven't already read the biog then..... Gen, drummer with Jesus Jones, helped the band out in 1995 when Dave fell ill in America and was already a good friend of the band. His brother, Andy, did a lot of tour managing etc. for us. After lot's of grovelling by the three of us remaining, Gen finally gave in and signed the dotted line, thus committing his future to the Chaos way.

As you'd probably expect, our time was then devoted to teaching Gen as many of our songs as we could possibly expect him to handle. We wanted Gen to learn as many songs as possible because we planned to do a small, low key set of dates in the UK around September, and a headlining tour of France. We also rehearsed four new songs, which made the rehearsals all the more pleasurable for Chris, Bobby and I, and eventually, in October we found ourselves being whipped into shape by Mr Zmago Smon once again, at the Pierce Rooms studios in London. The four songs recorded were "Swimming Trunks", "Kicking Things", "Had Enough", and "Always the same".

Gen made great progress in learning the live set and new material so these two tours went ahead with great success, despite truck strikes threatening to keep us in France longer than expected. My own main concern, or hope, was that Gen would settle in to the extent where I wouldn't find myself being overly conscious and worried about his performance. I should have remembered that most gigs I'm to busy trying to hit more than two consecutive correct chords to be worried with anything else, and that judging by his American efforts everything would be just fine. In fact, Gen raised our collective ability to communicate whilst in France due to his good grasp of the language, something Davy would never lay claim to possessing!

The last noteworthy occurrence of 1996 for the band was the opportunity to support The Wildhearts again, on the 21st December at The Garage in Glasgow. The last time we had seen The Wildhearts was at the Pheonix Festival earlier in the year so it was good to see them again. It being so close to Christmas as well as a hometown gig meant that much celebrating was undertaken, celebrations which didn't really come to a halt until the 2nd January, by which point we had all sworn off alcohol, nicotene etc. New Year resolutions.......what a load of shite!