ORGAN THING: Nevermind the blur of all that 20 years ago Britpop bollocks, 20 years ago the greatest band you never heard of happened right here in brit-pop-infested London

Someone asked who the best band we ever saw or put on or released was, well the answer to that is obviously Cardiacs… But there was a time, for about six months, back there, back in the middle of the summer of all that dreadfully dull Brit pop, back in 1994, back there, for  six or so glorious months, something very very special happened..

Someone just brought the fact that someone has put these tracks up on bandcamp to our attention. So much stuff from back there lost now, people who remember still talk in hushed tones about that time at the Falcon or the days before the flyshit took down the original Monarch, or that night at the Bull and Gate…..  people who know still talk of Huge  Baby…

I haven’t heard any of this stuff for years, whooooooooooo this is going straight up my spine, this still sounds fresh, this is Deathgrips fresh!  (ah damn, stop press, the band took it down)

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Here’s some words I wrote and a biog I put together back there, did I put this together? Doesn’t matter, the words get close to nailing it, for once the music press bothered to look and well Huge Baby just couldn’t be ignored…. and the frightening thing is, these recordings aren’t anywhere near as good as those original ORG ones on that 10″ 9no I haven’t got the masters).  Did we do 500 of them or 1000? We did hand print and spray paint all the covers, a big gold leafheart! (dues have been paid there was well!).  A blockprint, a blockprint we just dug up to do things with again this summer   The gigs were as intense as these recordings, no, they were far more intense – fire rituals, hands burnt on candle flames before the start of a song, equipment flying (yes I did have to get people to hospital and get cut heads fixed, blood really was spilt, some of it mine, it was the Monarch, Panixphere as well, Tim from Cardiacs, now that was a gig).

hugebaby_monarchFor six months it was as intense as it could get, these recordings get close, nothing could get as close as actually being there at the time….  Grinding the Organ was exciting back there, very nearly worth all shit we took over it….  Really hope Huge Baby are still out there somewhere, hope they made it. They meant every word, every note, they were very real, I loved it.

Here’s the words from their Bandcamp page that appears to have gone up in February of this year… Go download that album right now.

hugebaby_marqueeHUGE BABY quite literally exploded on to the scene in a hail of mystery, chaos, rumour and counter rumour in 1994….. There first release was a 10″ EP on ORG and you just could not avoid them around the capital for six glorious venue crushing months –

“Aaaah, the great smell of brute force. Huge Baby may look like archetypal rap-metallers (shorts, dreadlocks, a guitarist so intense he makes Henry Rollins look like Evan Dando) but they cut the crap. They prefer full-on instrumental overload, cranking it up to near-breaking point and topping it off with an impressive array of guttural grunting noises. You’d need a chainsaw to cut through all this tension…….. One suspects they’ll all be dead from stress within a year, but for for now Huge Baby are coolly cruel”
Mark Sutherland (NME) “Beginning nonchalantly with Van Morrison-esque stream-of-conciouusness liltings. Huge Baby grow into toothgrinding, deranged, semi-improvisational Can-casualty meanderers. Sweet. “Well Far Out” shouts some wag after an angelic, serene skip through fields of daisies with Miranda Sex Garden, Pink Floyd’s “Cirrus Minor”, William Burroughs and some Butterflies. Right! The guitarist burns his hand over a candle flame, psyching himself up like an Olympic weightlifter to be off like the wind as Singer Sal stage-dives into the floor and does upside-down beetle impressions…….” Carl Loben Melody Maker

“Huge Baby, in a perfect world, should provide the soundtrack to Omen III….. This is an evil, malevolent and unspeakably scary record which you should only play in the hours of daylight, if accompanied by a priest, do not be fooled my children by the seemingly frivolous title. Growling satanic bass, grinding guitar which can often sound like it’s actually sacrificing a live goat in the studio, whiningly inhuman vocals, horribly grimy violin-ish squeaks and somewhere along the line, macabre ambient tunes to ensure you sleep in your mum’s bed for the next week” Johnny Cigarettes – NME Single Of The Week (the ORG debut)

hugebaby_photo“Y’know how every now and then, when your faith in music is waning, a record seems to come out of nowhere and shows you a whole new infinity of possibilities that need exploring? Happened with Public Enemy, Throwing Muses, LFO, The Young Gods and now Huge Baby. This band are most intriguing. “Black Mama” turns from a Main-ish feedback wall into the dirtiest scuzziest blues I’ve heard in years, before stopping, starting again and finishing on a crescendo that even had the cat pinning her ears back. “Hopscotch” is a terrifying Slint-ish lullaby that will send you to sleep clinging to the sheets and bracing yourself for a restless night, and “Voodoo” is a cross between Pram and AC Temple, featuring a most astonishing vocal performance. Thinking the record was warped, I got up to take it off but it wasn’t, she was doing that shit naturally! As I stepped back from the hi-fi, already a little spooked. whoevershemaybe’s voice abruptly mutated from a light croon into a frankly horrifying blast of vocal rage that actually physically sent me jerking away in fear. Good job I hadn’t eaten. Fascinating stuff, and one to keep an eye on, albeit a widely dilated, shit-scared one.” Neil Kulkarni in Melody Maker (not quite sure of singer Sal’s sex – he’s male.)

“Huge Baby are responsible for some of the most ferociously intense live shows London’s ever seen. From the minute they hit the stage, it’s virtually impossible to predict whether band or audience will survive the night…….” Virginia Black Melody Maker

“The rumours are spreading. Again. Two punters have apparently been helped out of the Monarch. covered in blood……..” Simon Williams NME

Ah look, it’s hard to remember it all now, for six months in 1994 the rumours flew, it really was over the top “It’s getting ridiculous!” blusters guitarist Kay “More people are saying they were taken out with injuries now – there’s been another three since the last gig! People are actually queuing up to tell us they were injured at our last gig” – interview in the NME

– There’s loads loads more of these press cuttings, it was really like the Pistols must have been, it was getting out of control…. it couldn’t last of course, record companies crawled all over them.. and they made all the wrong moves, told one major label that their massive offer wasn’t good enough then got in to bed with Beggars Banquet and scared the shit out of them after one single and a mini album (which stupidly featured mostly new versions of the songs we’d already released on Org, along with a Cro-Mags cover?!)…. got themselves thrown out of EMI’s offices when the deal had almost been done, hooked up with Acid Jazz (what the hell were they doing there?) Refused to turn up for a tour with Killing Joke and finally got whisked in to a studio with AC/DCs people over at Alberts…. they recorded an album…. whether it will ever come out is open to question… they came back and played a handful of shows in ’99 (mostly Organ shows), the magic wasn’t there anymore though, toured with Napalm Death – the magic was still there but…. it’s different…. and in typical Huge Baby fashion, they fought their way through the chaos left by several managers and record labels to get their album made only to have frontman Sal quite the band a couple of days before they were supposed to play a show for us at the Garage and the week after they’d finally finished the thing…… They tell me they’ll be back…… see you in five years? 1994 was one hell of a Summer/Autumn! (Sean Worrall – Org Records,, years ago)

Huge Baby were, Sal: Vocals, Kay: Guitar , Az: Bass , Matt: Drums.  (There was another line up or two, another singer, wasn’t anywhere near right though…). Whooo, I loved this bands, loved these guys, twenty years ago this summer, I hope they made it… Maybe the Organ was worth it after all (Sean Worrall, 2014).

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5 thoughts on “ORGAN THING: Nevermind the blur of all that 20 years ago Britpop bollocks, 20 years ago the greatest band you never heard of happened right here in brit-pop-infested London

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