Granted at about the same time Gang of Four and New York’s No Wave scene were issuing music roughly the same as Glaxo Babies. For some reason, though, this group wasn’t ever able to capitalize on their recombinant DNA. Of course, I couldn’t have been bothered to take a listen until after reading An Irregular Head, penned by a one time singer for the group named Rob Chapman.
It was during the ensemble’s initial formation that Chapman worked with Glaxo Babies. But even before the group was able to issue its first full length, it seems they ditched vocals. The entirety of Nine Months to the Disco, released surprisingly late in 1980 considering the band’s formation so much earlier, was a mélange of funk, slinky guitar parts and spurts of free improvisation. Vocals were of no concern.
The album’s title track, which features an odd, backwards loop of funky rhythm, not totally dissimilar to the first Public Image Limited song on its first recording, stakes out the terrain Glaxo Babies would be mining for the next few years. There’s a snatch of guitar dumped into the composition every once in a while. But for the most part “Nine Months to the Disco” is a completely avant/savant effort pushing the group past its peers. Maybe Cabert Voltaire would be able to sympathize, but that’s about it.
Too weird for punkers and not weird enough for the true avant garde, Glaxo Babies were only able to wrench one more long player from the group that recorded the first disc. “Who Killed Bruce Lee?” from the following Put Me On the Guest List is basically a reggae song with some ridiculous echo on the guitar parts. Somehow it works – again aping a similar stance to PIL. While the song can’t be figured as defining of the band or even this album, it’s surprising it never caught on even during a time when similar ensembles are being lionized. No explanations.