Baby Ray: Pop Gone Right (Live review)

The Boston Phoenix, January 14, 1999
Live & on Record: Jonathan Perry
(read the full article)

Baby Ray's clever kind of contortionist pop, with its pretzel-shaped melodies and impishly bratty wordplay, is not the easiest of styles to pull off. Cleverness can get annoying in a hurry when it's done solely in the name of cleverness. And it's the rare band or artist who can deploy deranged time changes and dementia-addled narratives with humor and (most important) hooks. Robyn Hitchcock, whom Baby Ray evoke on their "MFG," is one such citizen of the surreal. XTC, whom Baby Ray brought to mind on just about everything else, is another. But the moment the foursome -- Groat, guitarist and second vocalist Ken Lafler, drummer Nathan Logus, and bassist Paul Simonoff -- lit out for the loopy orange-and-lemon territories of their current single, "Never Know My Name," then bounded merrily into "Buster Pig Man," you just knew their sonic sleight-of-hand could have left Andy Partridge adjusting his spectacles in delight and disbelief.

On "The Ballad of Baby Ray," the band were like a Rubik's Cube that had discovered the solution to its own enigmatic puzzles, leaving listeners to ponder the riddle of lyrics like "Outslur the slang bums with infant vocabulary/Stuttering silver miracles atmospherical so moronic and partially demonic." Lafler, supplying strong counterpoint harmonies and sinewy yet restrained runs on lead guitar, was a perfect foil for the magnetic Groat's more hyperbolic leanings. Meanwhile, Simonoff and Logus made for a whip-smart rhythm section of impeccable timing and punch, highlighting the already vivid colors of the bouncing "Buster Pig Man" and the new-wave stutter of "Sorry." It was delirious and focused and very tight -- not so much "pop gone wrong," as Baby Ray have wryly described their sound, but rather pop gone very, very right.