Idolator
There may be a few bands that deserve to see their records fall out of print, languishing at the Amazon Marketplace for a penny each, but Babe the Blue Ox is not one of them. Babe—an artsy-fartsy Brooklyn troika of guitarist Tim Thomas, bassist Rose Thomson, and drummer Hanna Fox (who, since she liked banging on nontraditional percussion items, always reminded us of the Skeleton Key drummer, except not as metal)—formed in 1991, put out a series of decreasingly weird, increasingly nostalgic records, then broke up. The penultimate Babe record, 1996's People, is our favorite; we still get a little chill when we hear Rose Thomson's voice kick off the first verse of track two, "Stand By Your Man." Two of the songs below—the loopy "Shunpiking" and the delicate stunner "Resume"—are from People. The third, "Basketball," is from the Babe swan song, The Way We Were. Babe's mourners can take heart in the fact that Thomson, at least, appears to have landed in an interesting place.
Babe The Blue Ox - Resume [MP3, link expired]
Babe The Blue Ox - Shunpiking [MP3, link expired]
Babe The Blue Ox - Basketball [MP3, link expired]
The Walking Hellos [Official site]
Comments
Another band from the same era of NYC indie rock, also overlooked, was VPN. A couple of top CDs, a lot of shows in smaller venues throughout Manhattan, but they never really caught on it seems. And that first Skeleton Key lp is still mighty.
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