Stephen Jones (Babybird)

Stephen Jones (born 16 September 1962) is an English musician and novelist.

Career

Lo-fi period

After studying at Nottingham Trent University, Jones became involved with an experimental theatre company, Dogs in Honey, in Nottingham in the late 1980s, writing songs for productions.^[1]

By 1994, Jones had written over 400 songs and gained a publishing contract with Chrysalis Music. However, he was unable to gain a recording contract, and formed a plan to self-finance the release of a series of albums featuring his home demos, limited to 1,000 copies of each, under the name Baby Bird.^[2]

The first of these was I Was Born a Man, released in August 1995.

Babybird the band

During the second half of 1995, Jones toured under the name Babybird with Huw Chadbourne (keyboards), Robert Gregory (drums), John Pedder (bass) and Luke Scott (guitar).^[3] Two further collections of demos were released, Bad Shave and Fatherhood (a fourth album, The Happiest Man Alive was released in early 1996).

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.

"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.

After "You're Gorgeous"

The album Ugly Beautiful produced two more hit singles, "Candy Girl" and "Cornershop". Shortly after Ugly Beautiful, a fifth album of demos was released – Dying Happy.

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. 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. 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. Jones created the soundtrack for the film Blessed in 2004.

Between the two instrumental albums, Jones 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, Jones 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. The subsequent album was called Between My Ears There Is Nothing But Music. Subsequently, the band were dropped by the Echo label.

Two more albums followed on Unison records: 2010's "Ex-Maniac", and 2011's "The Pleasures of Self Destruction".

Death of the Neighbourhood

In 2008, Jones worked on a solo project entitled 'Death of the Neighbourhood'. The eponymous debut album, a 32 track 2-disc CD set was released on 10 November 2008 on ATIC Records. The album features "Cokeholes", which was released as a three track single on 27 October 2008.^[4]

Black Reindeer

In 2012, Jones announced the beginning of a new musical identity, Black Reindeer. The first Black Reindeer album, "Music for the Film That Never Got Made", was released on Bandcamp. Seven more albums of instrumental music followed through 2013.^[5]

The Great Sadness

In 2013, Jones released a new song with vocals entitled "The Great Sadness".^[5]

Fiction

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.

Discography

Babybird

Studio albums

• Ugly Beautiful (Echo Records, October 1996) No. 9
• There's Something Going On (Echo Records, August 1998) No. 28
• Bugged (Echo Records, June 2000) No. 104
• Best of Babybird (Echo Records, February 2004)
• Between My Ears There's Nothing But Music (Echo Records, September 2006 and popup records Hamburg, February 2008)
• Ex-Maniac 2010
• The Pleasures of Self Destruction (31 October 2011)^[6]
• Happy Stupid Nothing (7 March 2019)

Solo discography

Singles

• Good Disease (with Aim, Grand Central Records, June 2002)
• Friend (Sanctuary Records, June 2003)

Compilation tracks

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

Film score

• Blessed (Warner Bros, 2004)

Albums

• Stephen Jones 1985–2001 (Easy! Tiger Records, October 2001)
• Almost Cured of Sadness (Sanctuary Records, March 2003)
• Plastic Tablets (Delf Music, September 2003)

Albums as Black Reindeer

• Music For the Film That Never Got Made (October 2012)
• Real Life is Overrated (December 2012)
• A Difficult Third Album (February 2013)
• Due to a Lack of Excitement (March 2013)
• All Is Good (April 2013)
• The Ten Stages of Alcohol (June 2013)
• The End of Youth (July 2013)
• Death Is Stupid (September 2013)
• Death Is Stupid 2 (October 2013)

Bibliography

• The Bad Book (IMP Fiction, London, March 2000)
• Travel Sickness (Die Gestalten Verlag, Berlin, September 2000)
• Harry and Ida Swop Teeth (IMP Fiction, London, April 2003)

References

External links

• September 2006 interview of "Babybird" (Stephen Jones) by Jane Gazzo
• Stephen Jones on Twitter
• Black Reindeer Twitter feed
• Stephen Jones' official Bandcamp page

This page was last edited on 3 March 2024, at 03:43