Thursday 1 July 2010

The Real Shady.

For the next song we jump forward to the nineties to a band named Shady (not Marshall Mathers) who formed after David Baker, former front man of Mercury Rev, left. The song I have chosen is taken from the 1994 album "World", titled "Narcotic Candy" and yes, it is sweet.

David Baker is another controversial front man that has fallen from the tree of inspiration, but hit a few too many branches on the way down leading to a quick and unfortunate demise. It was due to Baker's behaviour in and out of the band that he was eventually forced to leave Mercury Rev, which left Jonathan Donahue (spent time with the Flaming Lips also) to take over vocals for Mercury Rev. In my opinion, Mercury Rev had one decent album post-Baker, "See you on the otherside", but soon became a totally different band, and much for the worse because of it. It is here that I draw a comparison between Pink Floyd and Mercury Rev: The music was better when the wild front men were at the helm: Syd and Dave Respectively.

Luckily for fans of Baker's 'Rev, the man produced this new band under the name of Shady. Shady was Baker's nickname that derived from an earlier name of the band Mercury Rev: Shady Crady. For fans of early Mercury Rev "World" is a must listen to, because the album has so many wonderful tracks that are true to the Baker influenced songs of Mercury Rev that are heard on both "Yerself is steam" and "Boces".

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