Impala Café 1996.11.24 [Los Angeles, CA]

Live fan show review by "Miss Eva" - found in the digital archive. [-AArtVark]

November 23, 1996 - Impala Cafe, Los Angeles, CA

  The evening of the last Babyland show for 1996 started for your humble narrator by watching LA based band THC. The stage setting was very appropriate for the mind-blasting (mind-numbing?) beats they assaulted to crowd with... all smoke machines and strobe lights, and a little equipment on an otherwise barren stage. The music definitely had its techno-oriented drums, loops, and samples drawing attention, but with the lack of activity on stage, it didn't manage to keep me focused. A few songs into the set, it felt more like a party with good music as a background to conversation, not in the foreground as they, and I, might have hoped. 

  One might say Babyland got a start on the wrong foot this night... before their set one of their speakers went out and Dan's vocals had to be piped through monitors, meaning he had to scream the vocals for them to be heard all the way around the cafe. Also, Dan was feeling a bit under the weather, and the combination was just enough to keep an energetic set from lasting too long.

  After a good twenty minutes of setting up, Babyland jolted us with 'Stomach', working the audience into a spastic frenzy. Dan and Smith followed up with 'Plain Talk', a great song to get older fans of the band riled up into a punk-minded riotous dance. Added as a twist was the sound of Dan screaming at the end of the song "I will never give in, I never did". New songs 'Omaha' and 'Five Fingers' were on the list as well, dancy, groove-oriented songs that fit in well with the rest of the set, including 'A Slow News Day' and 'Begin Again'.

  The definite high-point of the night was 'Arthur Jermyn', before which Smith chanted 'HPL HPL HPL'(the initials of author Howard Philip Lovecraft, who wrote the story 'Arthur Jermyn') after introducing as 'a song no one ever requests'. It was a rare moment where no one was thrashing around and all attention was diverted straight to a writhing Dan and a manic Smith.

  With a noticeably short set, it was a pull in two directions: satisfaction at seeing an incredible set and disappointment that it was so fleeting. But all good things come to an end... Good luck to the boys in 1997.

Sacred Grounds 1996.11.09 [San Pedro, CA]

Live fan show review by "Miss Eva" - found in the digital archive. [-AArtVark]

November 9, 1996 - Sacred Grounds, San Pedro, CA

  The Sacred Grounds show offered Babyland as the 7th of 8 bands to play at a show starting at 3 in the afternoon. My friend and I, however, did not arrive at the show until 9pm, so I was only able to catch E. Coli and Babyland. E-Coli wasn't at all bad... They had an interesting take on the too-often stagnant guitar pop-rock genre... nothing mind-blowing but the band members seemed honest and kept the music interesting. Their set was noticeably short, whether for lack of time or for lack of interest by the audience (most of the people at Sacred Grounds were outside smoking) I can't be sure.

  Babyland took longer than usual to set up, Sacred Grounds being so small all of their equipment had to be stored outside until they went on. They opened with the crowd rousing 'A Slow News Day', and even more crowd rousing came from Smith's shower of small toys and whistles to "bribe" the crowd out of sitting on the chairs. The climate was good, Babyland being well-received; though they weren't headlining it seemed most of the crowd came to see the band, or at least knew who they were. We were offered the oft-played single Omaha, a spark-inducing Dismissal, the dance-urging Begin Again, and two new songs; appreciation was shown with bouncing and interactive audience drumming.

  Unfortunately the evening took a bad turn and the set was abruptly ended after only 6 songs. More of the crowd toy fare were cans of fake snow, which ended up being sprayed in Dan's face by a small boy and caused great pain and the set's close. All in all, though short, the show was great. Yet another Babyland satisfied evening.

Faultline, The 1996.11.02

Live fan show review by "Miss Eva" - found in the digital archive. [-AArtVark]

November 2, 1996 - Faultline, Los Angeles, CA

  Well, I would have a review of the show here, BUT I WASN'T OLD ENOUGH! Feh. I'm 20. Why can't there be any 20 and over shows :P Anyway, I'm trying to coerce one of my elders to give me a summary of this show so you left with more than just my ranting and raving.

 

Troubadour, The 1996.10.14 [Los Angeles, CA]

w/ Foreskin 500


 Live fan show review by "Miss Eva" - found in the digital archive. [-AArtVark]

October 14, 1996 - Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA

  Tonight's show was (as described by Smith) a 'grab bag' of opening bands... we luckily only caught the tail end of the first band (whose name escapes me, with reason no doubt). Way too much easy-alternative-listening influence on these people, and the crowd showed the after effects.

  The second band (again I forget name) is a bit confusing to make a statement on. Their first few songs were moody ala Portishead without the trip-hop. The singer, all a-glow in seventies siren regalia, had a bad habit of pushing her voice too far too fast, and sounding sharp on a lot of key moments. I think she was showing off her range a little too much, and while her enthusiasm (and that of the rest of the band's) helped the crowd really get into it, the constant climbing and descending of scales killed it for me. But, as Smith said, it would be interesting to see them again in 6 months or a year or so, with a lot of hard work.

  After what seemed forever, our heroes took the stage. They opened with Kill Bugs, just high-energy enough to get the always overly-rambunctious Troubadour crowd romping around. It seemed that Dan and Smith were excited about the show, and were running around and having fun as usual. We were again treated to quite a few songs off You Suck Crap, including Mask, which whipped everyone into a frothing, stomping, knee-bashing (ok, maybe just my knee) frenzy. Also showcased was a new song that they have only been playing the past couple of shows, which was still in the vein of the electro-punk sound Babyland seems to own.     Unfortunately, somewhere along the line technical problems put a damper on things (though only for Dan and Smith; we were still eating it up with a spoon) and the show ended somewhat abruptly.

  The overall experience was wonderful (I mean they are Babyland), but a little disheartening, if only because of Dan and Smith's apparent disappointment.

 

Corona Showcase Theater 1996.10.12 [Corona, CA]

Live fan show reviewby "Miss Eva" - found in the digital archive. [-AArtVark]

October 12, 1996 - Showcase Theatre, Corona, CA

  I dare say tonight's show was sprinkled with some opening bands a bit better than average... my friend Matt and I missed the opening band (apparently we didn't miss anything from the crowd's buzz)... the second band, whose name was something like PsychoFuzzMachine, was not too bad; danceable guitar-addled industrial at some points, more rocking at others. Spastic Colon was next, a very experimental hands-on industrial sound; their pieces were impressive but ultimately the common problem of not being able to keep an audience interested without some kind of interaction befell them.

  Next came local band 29 Died... I'll stop myself from saying too much seeing as I didn't start this page to slay other bands; only a few words. Faux arrogance with a poor delivery does not an interested audience make (tho I could be wrong; they might very well be arrogant). The music sounded quite a bit like a Nitzer Ebb rip-off, but an interesting cover of Soft Cell's Tainted Love saved them.

  As for our main attraction, they were heavenly ! They treated us all with a number of songs off You Suck Crap: Structure Fall, Do You Feel Lost?, Reality, and Logan's Run being my personal favorite; one of the rare instances when you can see Smith come out from behind his percussion goodies and prance and sing like a madman. An added treat was seeing the re-emergence of black paint as an accesory for Dan; a blink might have caused one to miss Dan crawling underneath his computer only to come back with his mask we've missed so much.

   I dare say Smith seemed more relaxed than he has been the past few shows; he appeared to be having a lot more fun than at the last LA show at the Impala Cafe, and that really helps the audience get into it. Dan was on target as usual, and his audience interaction was more focused, actually looking into people's eyes and responding to the audience. I was able to grab his attention long enough to simultaneously get some hip-hop arm motions going during Worst Case Scenario.

  All in all, this show left the official Babyland reviewing committee BABYLAND SATISFIED!

Berkeley Square 1996.09.28 [Berkeley, CA]

w/ Fuel - lb.

Impala Café 1996.09.14 [Los Angeles, CA]

Troubadour, The 1996.07.31 [Los Angeles, CA]

Impala Café 1996.07.26 [Los Angeles, CA]

Sacred Grounds 1996.07.20 [San Pedro, CA]

Alligator Lounge 1996.07.11 [Santa Monica, CA]

* CANCELLED *

WFMO 91.5fm - Radio Interview 1996.07.09 [Medford, MA]

Impala Café 1996.06.21 [Los Angeles, CA]

Alligator Lounge 1996.06.14 [Santa Monica, CA]

Dragonfly, The 1996.06.10 [Los Angeles, CA]

Corona Showcase Theater 1996.06.09 [Corona, CA]

Interview 1996.06.07 for KDVS 90.3FM Davis, CA

[Interview was done for KDVS 90.3FM Davis, CA June 7, 1996 before a Berkeley Square show while on the 1996 leg of the West Coast Tour...]

Interview With BABYLAND by Cruella und Jasminyx

Cruella:  How did you get your band name?  What does 'Babyland' signify?

Smith: ... you will recognize the sign (laughter)... There is this place in LA that says 'Babyland' in these big red letters and it looks really really cool.  We were driving around like back in the 80's and thought 'That would be a cool name for a band'.  Then one day we had a band.  Wow!  It's Babyland... this is it, we found it!

Cruella:  The second part of the question is “... is this a baby goods emporium or a black market baby mecca??” So...

Smith:  No... it's neither... it's just a weird word... that doesn't bring any kind of like baggage of death and destruction with it or anything stupid like ...

Dan:  We wanted a name that we could like shape, instead of have the name shape us.  We just wanted a random name.  Hey, that's a great name.  You just pick something out and then you become that as opposed to a good example we always talk about...

Smith:  Who's the example?  Uh, Tough Men

Dan: Tough Guys... ya know Fuckin' Crazy Man... you know

Smith:  Fuckin' - F-U-C-K-I-N-'- Crazy Man

Dan:  We're in for the long-term, not the short-term.

Smith:  Actually it's a statement about the condition of America.

Dan:  Yes, children...

Smith:  Where everyone is just coddled into this sense of just like, they gotta have all of this stuff to be comfortable.  We're the babies of the Earth.

Cruella:  About the interactive portion of the new CD Who's Sorry Now... No one seems to be able to get that to work...

Smith:  Really??

Dan:  The interactive part???  I can get the interactive part to work fine.

Cruella:  What's the trick to that??

Dan:  The trick is when you go and open it up it will ask you 'Where is WSN1 or A' and all you gotta do it go down and click it.  I have a Power Mac. We know one person who's got it to work.

Smith:  Yeah, the MPEGs... it totally works.

Dan:  It does work, it works... everyone we've met says, "Oh, yeah, I can get the interactive track to work but I can't get the MPEGs."

Smith:  I think it's tricky because they are MPEGs which is a strange kind of file... it's hard to decompress.

Dan:  I can't play them (the MPEGs).  They don't work... they start, you see a picture then it goes 'Uhn'.

Smith:  It's just a big pain in the ass.

Dan:  But of course the whole idea being was, Smith and I kinda fought about it because  I was like, well, why don't we just do them on Quicktime and everybody will be able to see them and everything and Smith gave me the valid response of 'Quicktime sucks... who wants to look at this little box... in a year everyone will have things that run MPEGs...'

Smith:  If not everyone, everyone's uncle, the accountant, you know...

Dan:  It's more of like the kind of thing that we try to plant and people will catch up to I think as opposed to doing something for right now.

Smith:  That will get left behind.

Dan:  Plus, it takes up a lot less room than Quicktime.  Quicktime takes up a shitload of memory.  Like how many times more?

Smith:  You couldn't fit a full screen full motion of comparable quality... it would be like 900 megabytes... it wouldn't even fit on the whole CD, these MPEGs, each of them are like 30 megabytes so you can get 3 of them on there plus an album.

Cruella:  What do you think of people who think electronic music is not real or not art?

Smith:  I don't say anything... it's hard to deal with that.

Dan:  Wait till you turn 16, then you'll feel differently.  It's like all the obvious answers, it's like 'Whatever'.

Smith:  The tools are just the tools, they could be anything.

Dan:  The biggest problem it that people always ask us things like "How do you feel about electronic music"

Smith:  We wish people could just look at it like just any other band.  We're just a band that wants to come play, there's nothing different at all about it, just put us on stage, let us come in and set up our stuff, we're gonna make noise and you know, kids tend to like it.

Cruella:  Who influences you?

Dan:  People who do stuff.  People who are actively pursuing what they want and just couldn't care less about what other people are doing.  Anybody who has taken something on and wants to see it through till the end.  Those are the people who influence us.  Anybody who does anything else just whatever, I mean, that's fine, they can do it if they just want to do something to pass the time, great.  Just some form of commitment and living up to your word.

Smith:  I don't like smokescreens and I don't like negative.

Dan:  Negative is bad.

Smith:  We are very positive.

Dan:  Believe it or not.

Smith:  We're like a positive message.  Warm, fuzzy feeling on the inside.

Cruella:  What kind of music have you been listening to lately?

Smith:  I've been getting into early Latin jazz.  Like, from the  50's.  Before it turned into TV music, or something.  Like,  just really raw, you know, out of the jungle, Afro-Cuban like kind of percussion and stuff.  Just because it's got like really  incredible rhythms that are just totally raw and untainted by any kind of pop culture.  Really cool.

Dan:  I got a Girls Against Boys record that's really good.  Their new record is really good.  I never really knew them before.  I mean, that's like recently.  Last week I started listening to it.  Pretty much anything that is not sold to me as being a certain way, like electronic, like "Hey!  Let's check out this electronic industrial music!"  I just don't want to listen to it.  You know?  I don't want to be sold on something.  We like to find our own stuff ourselves.

Smith:  We like to check it out.  See how they did it, see what they did.  How they put it together.

Dan:  'Cause, things have a longer life than just the 6 months that they push the record.  And I think that there's a lot of cool stuff out there that I've overlooked because "Oh, I don't like the way that guy looks!" or "That's a stupid video!" or, you know, I wasn't old enough to really appreciate it. So, I'm trying to search things out.

Smith:  Kind of like the day I broke down and bought an Ozzy record.

Dan:  Yeah.  Ozzy rules!

Smith:  Ozzy rules!  Ozzy's the best!

Dan:  Anyway...

Cruella:  So, do you have any trouble during shows, or after shows, with your whole pyrotechnic thing?

Smith:  Very, very rarely.  Only with extremely ignorant people.

Cruella:  Really?  Because she wanted me to mention "such as  Kiss".  They had troubles with that.

Dan: Oh really?

Jasminyx:  Yeah, some shows were cancelled.  Like in the Mid-West.

Dan:  Sure.

Smith:  Well, Kiss, I mean, that's kind of ridiculous.  I mean, we're not Kiss.  I mean, we don't do all that much, actually.  It's not that big of a deal.

Cruella:  Ok, so do you have isolated cases where there were problems?

Smith:  Sure.  People just panic and don't know what to do, and they forget what's going on.  Part of what we do is supposed to be energetic and powerful and confrontational.  And guess what.  It's kind of meant to scare you.  And for a promoter or a club to forget that and go "Whoa!  That scares me!" and overreact, well, that's what we're trying to do.  That's why we're there.  That's why people came to the show.  It's kind of supposed to be that way. Sometimes people, I don't know if they're high or what, but they forget.

Dan:  There's like such an absence of energy for the most part in a lot of bands that play for us, that when you come out there and you're like "Come on! Let's go!" and just start making noise, even jumping and making noise, people start to wonder what's going on, like "what are you going to do". And they misperceive the fact that just because there's energy, doesn't mean that it's negative.

Smith:  It's the same thing with clubs that like, hate when the  audience starts slamming, or jumping around, and they try to stop that.

Dan:  They don't understand.

Smith:  There was a drunk guy in Eugene, Oregon that came at me with a baseball bat once.  He thought I was going to light his club on fire.  Other than that...
[Incident occurred at John Henry's in Eugene, OR in 1993]
 
Dan: No.  We're answering too long.  Our answers are too long.

Cruella:  The song Ramona Moraga, what was that based off of?

Dan:  Where we came from.

Smith:  Smith equals Ramona.  Dan equals Moraga.  And these are ultra suburban like type of communities.

Cruella:  Yeah, Zima's from Moraga.

Smith:  Ramona is more the sticks than Moraga.

Dan:  But they are the same thing.  Different, different things.

Cruella:  Different people and stuff.

Dan:  It's in every place.

Cruella:  How did you get involved with the Doom Generation soundtrack?

Smith:  This guy, Greg Araki, he's a film maker in L.A.,  he's been at this, doing this for like a decade, just slugging away at it, refusing to stop.  Usually goes, when he was doing his first feature, it was literally him, in a shoe box apartment with a movie, just scraping up the cash just to do it, 'cause he loved it.  And he'd go to shows and stuff, and we struck up a friendship with the guy, and we've had songs in what, like 3 movies now.

Dan:  This is the first soundtrack that they've put out.

Smith:  Yeah, it just finally got to the point where his movie is kind of a big deal, and there's a budget for a soundtrack and stuff, and he asked us to be on it.

Dan:  He's one of the few people who we've like connected with.  He does things artistically, that is actually trying to help us out in a way that he can and it's kinda nice.

Smith:  He's really cool.

Dan:  I don't know if you saw the movie, or anything.

Cruella: No.

Jasminyx:  When is it coming out on video?

Dan:  It's a fucking great movie.

Smith:  It's a great movie.

Dan:  It's a great movie.  I don't care.  You'll love it.

Smith:  It isn't like the cure for cancer, but it is a great movie.

Cruella:  Where do you guys pick out your drums and instruments?

Smith:  I get most of my junk from a guy named Lupe Bergeno,  B-E-R-G-E-N-O and his son Eddie down in Carson, California, on Main Street and Francisco by the drive-in.  This guy, they just salvage junk and then re-sell it, and it's totally cool. I just go to the yard and pick stuff out and it's great!  I've been going there for years.

Cruella:  So, how often do you go through a kit?

Smith:  Different drums will last for a different amount of time, depending on what they're used for.  Sometimes they last for 4 or 5 shows.  Basically what I use, what's one of my standard pieces right now, are things that can kind of go for a little while.  There are some things that I've tried to use that I've just like, you know, they just fall apart immediately and it's just stupid. I try to find things and try to make that work and I've got some pretty sturdy stuff going right now.

Dan:  It's like when we started, we had no idea what would work, and there are certain things that sound good for about 3 hits and they fall apart.  And there are certain things that maybe look cool, but don't sound good.  And so, I think eventually we've just kind of... I don't know...

Smith:  It's cool!

Dan:  It works.

Smith:  It's a process that now I've got things that are now sort of a standard, for me, the sounds are consistent over... I can go, you know... basically for several years now with the same sort of sounds.

Dan:  And when we record, you know, it's also bringing in those small things that wouldn't last on tour, or something.  You know, just anything.  Anything that makes noise.

Smith:  Recording is a little bit different because you can get in close on something that maybe isn't very loud, but sounds rad.  Make strange sounds with it.  Something you couldn't do on stage.  There'll be much, much more of that.

Cruella:  So,  you're on a pretty large tour right now?

Dan:  It's just starting.

Smith:  We're just beginning.  This is the first time we will actually hit the east coast.  It's only 22 days, it's not that big.  But it's big for us, kind of.  We'll be going out there, pretty much playing every night.  And we're going to go to like, Georgia, North Carolina, to New York and back, and through Ohio, and Indiana, and Iowa, and stuff. We're really excited about Iowa.  It should be really cool.  'Cause, touring is rad because it gives you an excuse to go to these places you've had no other reason to ever go to. Like Toledo.  Why would I ever have a reason to go to Toledo?  Maybe.  I don't know.

Dan:  To rock out.

Smith:  We get to go there and rock out.

Dan:  Also, I mean, the coolest thing about being in a band, is being able to... you have an excuse to travel.  I think that's one thing that if you ask most people what they want to do in their lives, and they'll want to travel around and they'll want to see things.  But, you know, it pays for itself, you meet people that are actually part of the town, and as opposed to staying in a hotel and kind of like watching people and you get to be a part of it.  And every time there are people who are like "Yeah, let's go down to the record store" and they always know what's going on, and they introduce you, and you basically meet these friends.  They may not last a lifetime, but some of them, you know, you make contact with.

Cruella:  So, is this tour in support of the new album?

Smith:  Yeah.  It's not like our tour tries to push anything so  much.  But in this tour, the main thing that people aren't going to have is the new album, with which we're kinda having a big snarl at this point with distribution getting it into the stores and stuff.  Like, a lot of people in Berkeley have it, and we play up here often.  But really, in a lot of these places people haven't even seen it yet.

Dan:  All the stuff that we do isn't so much in support of one little thing, but is in support of the whole, you know, big picture.  So, we never have a plan, like we're going to shoot a video, and send a video out everywhere, and hopefully call the stations and get this one single played, because it's not what it's about.  Eventually, we're going to turn around and have a lot of records out there, and we want to promote all of them because I think people pick and choose what they like. I can't decide that this is what's going to be really good.