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Stephen Jones (Babybird)

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Stephen Jones is a British musician and novelist, born on 16 September, 1962, in Telford, UK.

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Lo-fi period

After studying at Nottingham Trent University, Stephen Jones became involved with an experimental theatre company, Dogs in Honey, in Sheffield in the late 1980s, writing songs for productions.

Amassing over 400 home demo recordings, produced in his and other people's homes, he gained a publishing contract with Chrysalis Music in 1994. However, he was unable to gain a recording contract, and self-financed the release 5,000 copies of an album under the name Baby Bird, I Was Born a Man, comprising 13 of the best from his collection of home demos.

The LP was a lo-fi indie affair, with voice, guitar, keyboards and drum machine recorded on 4-track tape recorder. The reception for the record was extremely positive after it was picked up by the British radio DJ John Peel, leading quickly to a decision to release, over a period, four further albums of demo recordings and to form a band in order to tour.

Babybird the band

During the second half of 1995, Stephen toured relentlessly with Huw Chadbourne (keyboards), Robert Gregory (drums), John Pedder (bass) and Luke Scott (guitar), and released two further collections of demos Bad Shave and Fatherhood (a fourth album, The Happiest Man Alive was released in early 1996). At this time, Stephen as a solo artist retained the name Baby Bird, whilst the work of the band was distinguished by the name Babybird.

By the end of the year, a decent public following had been built up, as well as quite considerable excitement within the press and music industry. Babybird were signed to Echo Records (a division of the Chrysalis Group), and the first "proper" single, a full-band recording of "Goodnight", which had appeared in demo form on Fatherhood, was eventually released in the summer of 1996, becoming a minor chart hit in the UK.

"You're Gorgeous"

The second single, "You're Gorgeous", reached number 3 in the UK singles chart in October 1996, and was also one of the biggest selling singles of the year, going on to chart around the world. This remains the song for which Stephen Jones, and Babybird, are best known.

However, it presented a much more commercial face to the public in comparison to Jones' previous work. The early demo albums won Jones great credibility with those who heard them, but had had not reached a wide audience (each one being a one-off pressing). Arguably, the commercial sound and success of "You're Gorgeous", which received massive exposure by comparison, made it hard for many to take Jones seriously as an indie artist. Essentially, what he was best at was no longer what he was best known for.

After "You're Gorgeous"

The album Ugly Beautiful was released to a warm reception, but was not the unmitigated critical triumph that some had anticipated from Babybird's first studio-recorded album. The album produced two more hit singles, "Candy Girl" and "Cornershop". Shortly after Ugly Beautiful, a fifth album of demos was released - Dying Happy, a perhaps pointedly non-commercial selection.

Babybird returned in 1998 with There's Something Going On, preceded by a single, "Bad Old Man". The album was a modest success and was followed by further minor hits, "If You'll Be Mine" and "Back Together".

The 2000 album Bugged was well-received critically (it might be suggested that it is an album of the right quality, but four years later than expected). However, sales were poor and the two singles from it, "The F-Word" (later the theme tune to a UK TV cookery show of the same name) and "Out of Sight" barely dented the charts. Babybird were dropped by their record label soon after. A third single from the album "Fireflies/Getaway" was released on Animal Noise records, but sold few copies. The band subsequently split.

After Babybird

In the following years, Jones returned to where he had started - releasing albums of demos (under his own name) to a small but appreciative audience. This time round he produced two albums of instrumental music designed to help him develop a career in film music. Stephen Jones 1985-2001 was released in 2001, and Plastic Tablets came out in 2003. Stephen created the soundtrack for the film Blessed in 2004.

Between the two instrumental albums, Stephen collaborated with the Manchester-based dance artist Aim on a single, "Good Disease", and worked on an album of demo songs. This became the hip-hop influenced Almost Cured of Sadness, on Sanctuary Records. Again, Stephen was to score a critical success, but legal problems over samples delayed its release. It and the single "Friend" received little promotion and sold few copies.

In October 2005, a posting on the official Babybird website announced that the band had reformed, and would be releasing new material in 2006.

Fiction

Stephen Jones has produced two works of fiction, The Bad Book in 2000 and Harry and Ida Swop Teeth (also the title of a Babybird b-side) in 2003. He also collaborated with DED Associates, who have designed many of his CD covers, on a 2000 art book Travel Sickness.

Published works

UK Baby Bird discography

Singles

  • Snake Caves/Lemonade Baby (Gorgonzola Records, October 1995)
  • Drunk Car (Easy! Tiger Records, July 1999)

Compilation tracks and guest appearances

  • Larry Bright (on Mortal Wombat EP, Fierce Panda Records, October 1995)
  • Alan Ladd (on Volume 15, Volume Records, February 1996)
  • Plastic Diamond (with All Seeing I on Pickled Eggs and Sherbert, FFRR, September 1999)

Albums

"I'll just say that I Was Born A Man is the only record I've heard this year with lyrics worth remembering and music that's impossible to forget, because I'd rather you listen to it than me talking about it." - Melody Maker

"...whatever ultra-naff low-­fidelity keyboard tinklings he undertakes; he carries with him incredibly touching pieces like Dead Bird Sings that create, in the middle of this tank top of a record, an altogether different kind of sadness." - NME

  • Bad Shave (Baby Bird Recordings, October 1995)

"...unique, customised but never self-indulgent or irritatingly inaccessible. It's as off as it's beautiful, as rich as it's lo fi... imagine Ray Davies emerging, blinking and bearded, Howard Hughes like, after years in the darkness and you'll have some idea of the deeply, deeply English yet marvellously, utterly alien world of Baby Bird." - Melody Maker

"...a mixture of whimsy, egotism and madness with a good bit of talent stirred in...his puzzled world-view is unique. He fills the 20 tracks with strangenesses. Weirdly wonderful." - The Guardian

"Fatherhood is another unpredictable and magical journey through the thoughts of Stephen Jones, a man who is clearly in love with sweet melodies and the millions of ways you can fuck them up...you might find the whole experience as cigar-puffingly satisfying as becoming a dad." - The Independent

"...an oblique sadist of spectacular talent. The Happiest Man Alive has an entire central nervous system of its own. It's a Frankenstein's monster of an album, gruesome and miraculous, stitched together from what would appear to be fragments of a dozen different psyches lodged inside one head." - Melody Maker

"Halfway between songs and instrumentals, some of the tracks on Dying Happy just don't work at all, but some of them are riveting." - The Times

"The five albums in question form a song-cycle tracking the life-cycle from birth to death. The sheer wealth and diversity of music crammed into this tiny box makes it an absolute bargain." - The Independent

"The Original Lo-Fi should cement Baby Bird's reputation as one of the finest experimental pop artists of his time...Written, performed, and produced as only Stephen Jones is capable of, the songs compiled on The Original Lo-Fi are easily among the finest musical confections of a generation." - All Music Guide

UK Babybird discography

Singles

  • Goodnight (Echo Records, June 1996)
  • You're Gorgeous (Echo Records, September 1996)
  • Candy Girl (Echo Records, February 1997)
  • Cornershop (Echo Records, May 1997)
  • Bad Old Man (Echo Records, April 1998)
  • If You'll Be Mine (Echo Records, July 1998)
  • Back Together (remix) (Echo Records, February 1999)
  • The F-Word (Echo Records, March 2000)
  • Out of Sight (Echo Records, May 2000)
  • Getaway/Fireflies (Animal Noise, September 2000)

Compilation tracks

Albums

"Jones can't decide whether to sell out by writing polished, shamelessly catchy pop like You're Gorgeous or retain his street cred by affecting to despise the genre. Babybird's best is yet to come: this time he's laid a curate's egg." - Daily Telegraph

  • There's Something Going On (Echo Records, August 1998)

"...an album that - at the risk of sounding like the kind of armchair psychologist who thinks Ally McBeal contains Freud-like wisdom - deals with what it means to be a man in the late-20th century...self-pity, self-loathing and staggering narcissism...you know you'll love it." - NME

  • Bugged (Echo Records, June 2000)

"Bugged is an immaculate, complex, bursting-at-the-seams pop delight. You won't hear it on the radio, so there's only one thing to do: go and buy this record. You won't regret it." - Sunday Times

  • Best of Babybird (Echo Records, February 2004)

"...chart success isn't everything. Listening to this collection what strikes you is that BabyBird's sound still sounds very 2004. There's nothing that really dates these songs...but from a presentation point of view this should have been so much better." - BBC

UK Stephen Jones discography

Singles

Compilation tracks

  • We Make All the Flowers Grow (with Luke Scott on Total Lee, a Tribute to Lee Hazelwood, City Slang Records, June 2002)

Film score

Albums

  • Stephen Jones 1985-2001 (Easy! Tiger Records, October 2001)

"This isn't the best introduction to Stephen Jones. Nonetheless, '1985-2001' is another interesting dispatch from the no-frills renaissance man." - NME

"He was always an affecting songwriter as well as an extremely able band frontman, but it is these solo lo-fi tinkerings that really provide the keys to his soul. His latest LP is a delight, an effortless charmer on which the childlike sweetness of his voice perfectly serves 19 deceptively simple songs that together make a series of multi-textured gems." - The Times

  • Plastic Tablets (Delf Music, September 2003)

"This vast collection of poignant, evocative instrumental work - like soundtracks for imaginary movies – reminds you why there was so much fuss about him." - Daily Telegraph

UK Stephen Jones fiction

  • The Bad Book (IMP Fiction, London, March 2000)

"Stephen Jones is capable of something great. This is just not it." - Bookmunch

  • Travel Sickness (Die Gestalten Verlag, Berlin, September 2000)

"...maximalism at its most memorable and unnerving. Find it." - I-D Magazine

  • Harry and Ida Swop Teeth (IMP Fiction, London, April 2003)

"Nightmarish and weird, but unsettlingly compelling" - BBC

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