Friday, March 16, 2012

SWEET BABY JESUS - "Never Mind the Bassets, Here's..." - Tape - 1987

   I had no intention of uploading this tape to the internet because I have almost no interest in this band, but then my friend, Erin Yanke said that I HAVE to put it online. Generally, I trust Erin so here it is. SWEET BABY JESUS was arguably one of the first East Bay pop-punk bands (I say "arguably" because what the fuck do I know? I'm from Alabama....Anyhow, MR T EXPERIENCE was a band before them), starting way back in 1986, before GREEN DAY, before SAMIAM....hell, even before Gilman. They blasted out syrupy sweet songs about girls, girls and even more girls. Who were all these girls? How did they feel about these geeks singing all these songs about them? I can't answer any of these questions. All I can do is offer you this 20 song tape that they recorded with Kevin Army back in 1987. Because of this tape, they ended up putting out an LP on Ruby Records, a subsidiary of major label, Slash Records. They also changed their name to SWEET BABY and sold a pitiful amount of their LP's. The part that the punks want to hear is that they went on tour in 1989 in support of this record with Aaron Cometbus on drums and then broke up soon afterwards.
    Members of this band went on to be in SAMIAM, THE BOMB BASSETS, and many many more. One of them (Richie Bucher) went on to draw the album cover for GREEN DAY'S major label debut "Dookie".


Being that this is a tape from 1987, I want you to know that the sound quality is atrocious. It gets a little better around track 15, but not too much better. Also, as much as I would have you believe I don't like this band, "She's From Salinas" has been happily stuck in my head since the dawn of time and "Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby (I Love You)" is kind of unbelievable.
From the collection of Erick Lyle.

Here is a 48 minute (!!) live video of them playing in Florida in '89.

5 comments:

Erick Lyle said...

As usual, Erin Yanke is right!

spidey said...

Not that it matters, but the video is actually from the Axis in Fort Worth, TX. Total agreement on the kind of unbelievableness of Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby (I Love You)!

Harvester said...

I just go by what the video tells me. IT could say they were playing on Pluto and I would say "Sweet Baby Jesus..LIVE ON PLUTO!!"

Anonymous said...

Amazing. One of my favourite bands. Thanks for sharing!

Matthew B said...

This cracked me up. Thanks!
Matt B from Sweet Baby.