The Baby Factory

It’s been a long time since the meteoric rise and catastrophic fall of The Adventure Babies, a story steeped in the traditions of British indie-pop topped off with a bizarre twist of Factory Records élan. I've never documented the story of the origins of the band nigh on 20 years ago, now I'm going to.

To set the scene, firstly, I considered myself a surfer at the time, and spent every waking moment of free time chasing up, down and across the country whenever and wherever there were waves. In between, I got my first job at a computer company in Warrington and started to share lifts to and from work with a guy there called Matt. He was from Stafford, a place I'd never heard of; there were no surf breaks that far inland.

We began to knock about, and started to fuse together both our sets of mates, friends and various reprobates. Big Manchester nights were had, massive benders in Stafford, trips to the coast, and a particularly strange all-nighter on a narrow boat on the Staffordshire canal. Jokingly we said it was such a good night we ought to write a song about it.

The story unfolds via a make believe Twitter stream.

Amazing thing today, Matt got out a Casio keyboard his mum had got him for Xmas, he’s started a song about that mad night on the canal.
adventurebaby 10/06/90 19.33

Love the opening line ‘It’s work on Monday morning, my head will not be straight, can’t stop and I cant slow down, my God it’s awful late’
adventurebaby 10/06/90 19.46

Matt’s got Davie Ath(erton) to add some more music to the song, he’s a proper good guitarist, bit rocky for my tastes tho - 8 min song now
adventurebaby 16/06/90 12.11

Haha Matt’s gone and booked a weekend at a recording studio in Wolvo. Brilliant excuse for a party
adventurebaby 24/06/90 21.23

What a weekend met Phil this bonkers electronic pop nutter & programmer. Recorded the song, we’ve called it 'Long Night, Narrow Boat'
adventurebaby 01/07/90 00.08

There’s bloody new tunes falling out of Matt & Davie Ath at the moment. Me and Matt doing the ideas and lyrics.
adventurebaby 29/08/90 23.18

Off to Wolvo to record a couple more songs, Camper Van and Adventure Baby, Davie Ath’s g/friend Maxine doing some backing vocals. She’s hot BTW.
adventurebaby 08/09/90 07.45

More recording we’re gonna do 3 songs this weekend, it’s a right laugh!
adventurebaby 09/10/90 20.33

The demo tape, has arrived, fucking brilliant, 11 of the best songs I’ve heard, better than this baggy stuff on the radio. Decided on a name, The Adventure Babies

adventurebaby 12/03/91 01.23

Haha unbelievable, a bloke called Danny (sound eng @ Free Trade Hall) got hold of a copy of demo tape says he wants to be our manager WTF?

adventurebaby 27/04/91 15.56

Things are getting weird bin told the demo’s with Phil Saxe (A&R guy) at Factory Records. They’re cool – Joy Div, new Order, Hacienda etc.
adventurebaby 29/04/91 21.35

@adventurebaby Phil Saxe loves the demo, Tony Wilson loves the demo, Alan Erasmus Loves the demo, even Sean fucking Ryder loves the demo!!
Danny_manager 30/04/91 17.43

@adventurebaby Err... Tony Wilson wants to see you live.

Danny_manager 30/04/91 17.45

We aren’t a band, never played live, not even in the studio, most of the music is programmed. Aaargh what do we do? Matt says 'we'll do it'
adventurebaby 30/04/91 19.56

Oh shit all sorted we’re gonna do a gig in Danny’s front room on Sunday
adventurebaby 01/05/91 18.21

Matt and Davie Ath have got a few mates to help out Richie Hall (Bass), Eddie (guitar), Roger (Drums) Of course there’s Phil, Max & me too
adventurebaby 01/05/91 19.01

I think I’ll just dance and shake a tambo
adventurebaby 01/05/91 19.04

Been rehearsing like fuck for 3 hours, loads of people have turned-up bought the beer, good atmosphere
adventurebaby 05/05/91 12.48

A very nice dark grey Jaguar just pulled-up outside, saw it through the net curtains. It’s Wilson, his missus (ex-beauty queen) & Phil Saxe

adventurebaby 05/05/91 15.29

We played, we sang, we danced Tony sat cross legged on the floor, big smile. Says we’re fantastic or something like that he’s gone now
adventurebaby 05/05/91 15.29

Just got a call from Danny - The Adventure Babies are the only thing on the agenda of Factory's board meeting tomorrow!
adventurebaby 06/05/91 18.42

my heart just stopped, started again, raced then murmured, my insides did a loop da loop, me and Matt in utter shock, grinning like idiots.
adventurebaby 06/05/91 18.46

@adventurebaby Fucking hell!!!, they want to sign the band, 4 album deal £150,000 advance, full artistic control.
Danny_manager 07/05/91 15.12

*faints*
adventurebaby 07/05/91 15.21

Urban Tombstoning Will Save The World

Wow, just want to say how alive I feel after stumbling upon this urban tombstoning video in my Twitter feed today. You'll no doubt agree it's an incredible feat of guts, determination, schoolboy bravado and above all risk-taking. Or, if you don't, get all mealy-mouthed and hand-wringing about it like the local coppers did, you'll consider it a high act of stupidity, likely to end in serious injury or even death. If that's your opinion, you of course have lost the plot and are responsible for the insipid cultural environment we are living in.

The human spirit soars when it's challenged and survives an act of self-determined risk. The risk that many of us put ourselves at when growing up and adventuring with our mates. Here I make a distinction between personal risk and putting others at risk against their will. That kid will have felt 10 feet tall for taking on his fear and surviving, a mini-hero to his mates for doing something they were to afraid to do themselves, perhaps he'll be leader, in a wheelchair or dead by the time he's 17 who knows, but it's his life, his exhilaration and who are we to disapprove?.

Risk-taking is a vital human trait, the human race, would still be wallowing around a small area of Africa eeking out a living on raw shrimps and elephant grass without that instinct to step out and explore an unfamiliar and dangerous unknown. Almost every progression of humanity has by necessity involved risk, and the consequential injury and death to a few.

What has happened to society whereby we want to control and cocoon our children to such an extent that we will damage their ability to develop essential risk-taking skills to see them through their lives? I see it as the flip side of the appalling parenting that spawned those two little monsters in Doncaster. Just as their brains suffered incredible damage to their development and emotional hard-wiring through an abusive upbringing, the same is true of the car to school, no school if snow, you cant play outside on your own, 'weather warning' culture.

The human race has a lot to do to ensure long-term survival against the threats both real and imagined, from climate disaster to cultural and religious schizms. Only those with the bravery and hard-wiring to recognise the risk, see the reward and have the bravery to take it will survive and lead us into the future. It might just be the boy who jumped on the bus.

Pandora's Box Of Cheap Tricks

Avatar's beguiling CGI takes you on a visually sumptious Big One style rollercoaster ride, but unfortunately not the rollercoaster of emotions oft quoted by X-Factor contestants. Nestle into your luxury padded cinema seat, don the NHS 3D glasses and hold-on as you are sucked-into a wild computer game adventure, with one large popcorn bag between three also doubling as an in-flight sick bag. Two and a half hours or so later you stand up a little dizzy and go about your business untroubled by the experience.

It might look like a heady multi-coloured cocktail with paper umbrella and cherry on top, but on tasting seems to have been mixed with flat cola, Sunny Delight and lumps of sugar. I don't think I've ever seen so much money, so-called talent and technology put into such a melange of cheap off-cuts from a million previous plotlines. It's as if James Cameron stumbled drunk one night upon A Man Called Horse broke the window, hot-wired it then careered down the yellow brick road, crashing into Apocalypse Now whilst overtaking The Lion King rubber-necking Apocalypto and being chased by Narnia. Oh yes, and why do all the jungle people all act like they just spent 6 weeks in the 'hood learning the body language and dialogue, all that was missing was the phrase 'talk to the hand'. As for the heavy handed eco message, pur-lease.

Nostalgia's Not Like It Used To Be On Twitter

Being what might be described as a late adopter to Twitter (joining in February 2009) you'd think I'd be full of shiny, brand new, youthful enthusiasm for the micro-blogging service that's transforming how we, relate to, create, share and consume media content. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a great advocate and participator....but horror of horrors I seem to be inadvertently recycling my tweets from as far back as the halycyon days of summer 2009.

I like to think I'm a half decent tweeter and try to make them as original as possible, I must discard a third of them for being rubbish through an in-built quality control mechanism, but even so I'm occasionally re-quoting my own tweets.

Am I drying-up? or do I unconsciously consider certain tweets as holding some longer-term value and having something about them that needs to be recorded and etched in my and other people's consciousness for posterity, you know, like a poem, a lyric, or a comic's one-liner.

Far from being a throw-away microblogging service, Twitter is actually a history of everything I want to write down and communicate, some of which becomes iconic 'content' to be cherished and shared long after it was initially created.

With that thought in mind whose's up for lobbying Twitter for a royalty for every retweet - a penny sounds about right?

Fear And Loving In Heaton Park

Last night, along with most of Britain I was hunkering down for the evening, burdened by a combination of post-Christmas blues, my domestic situation (Mrs B, 3 kids etc) and polar weather. Even so, the prospect of lounging on the sofa in front of a roaring fire and crap Saturday night telly left me feeling distinctly cold. Then, quite unusually, I started wistfully thinking about some of the mind-boggling experiences I've had over the years and the yawning gap between those and the Saturday night in front of me.

One such experience occurred 19 years ago when the band I was in, The Adventure Babies stepped out onto to the stage at the Cities In The Park Festival in front of 10-15,000 people. Bearing in mind, we had only been signed to Factory Records for 6 weeks after an audition in our manager's lounge, had performed our debut gig at the Hacienda in front of 100 friends, family and Manchester music mafia 3 days before - it did in the vernacular of the day 'twist my melon man'.

We were playing on the second day of the fesitval so had camped out and enjoyed the first night's festivities until we were rounded up at dawn and transferred to our dressing room (nee Portakabin). A heady mixture of bravado, nerves, testosterone, lack of sleep, no food, and an early back stage bar started to ferment. There were 8 of us in the band and at no point up to going onto stage were we all in the dressing room at the same time. There's a photo somewhere of us all waiting at the steps to the stage prior to our performance, such abject fear and trepidation etched on all our faces, you wouldn't have been surprised to see a guillotine on stage.

Our name was announced and we strode jelly-legged onto the stage and looked out at the vast writhing sea of humanity before us, the sun was shining and this was our day. We kicked into the first song and actually started to enjoy ourselves, we smiled and laughed, the crowd reacted and started to take note, smiles as far as we could see beamed back. Song after song we grew in confidence, the melody, rythmn and rhyme of the music powered us along to the final song - once described as a gospel song that lost it's way on the East Lancs Road, the crowd loved it and sang along. Our hearts and minds soaring we left the stage to rapturous applause grinning like Cheshire Cats.

Now that beats any Saturday night in front of the telly - wouldn't you agree?

#UKsnow map 2.0

Despite all the augmented reality talk of the last few months old-fashioned cardboard, scissors, felt-tip pen and real snow made this the most popular Uk snow weather map of the day.