Baby Ray: Live at The Rat, 9/13/97
Noise Magazine, October, 1997
Live Review: Bryon Turcotte
It's a Saturday morning and I decide to give and old friend a call. In the midst of our conversation, he tells me that his Saturday night plans involve a trip into The Rat, and being the gambling type, I decide to join him for what proved to be one of the most interesting shows I've seen to date. The familiar odor of "litter box meets Pine-Sol" greets me as I submerge into the basement. Baby Ray takes the stage first at about 9:45 looking very relaxed and comfortable in front of the small crowd. Eleven songs took me on a very interesting journey that I would have enjoyed staying on much longer. The first three "Snipe Hunter," "Buster Pig Man," and MFG (My *&&**!ing Girl) woke me up quickly. A powerful and solid backbeat, good vocal harmony, intricate tempo changes, and great bass and guitar work filled these tunes, bringing me to compare them to early REM and XTC masterpieces. By the fifth and sixth tunes, "Sheep Are My keeper" and "Trainwreck," the crowd...larger by now...had been captured and reeled in. Song nine, "SuperBitch," worked an endless build which seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room leaving only volume. Lastly, "Ballad of Baby Ray" delivered a pulsating beat and a stream of velvet guitar which throttled like a jetplane quickly going into a full afterburner explosion. I predict that this band will make a deep and lasting mark in the ears of many a club-goer in the next few months.