Dan Baird & Homemade Sin

Runka, runka, three chords and a cloud of dust. The Georgia Satellites were one of the most ferocious bands of the 80’s and what set them apart from the other 10,000 groups who cranked their amps up to 11 was that their wild riffs and tanked cries came from a band that, from the start, understood it’s place in rock tradition and fought hard to solidify it with each recording.

The story starts in the early 80’s at Hedgen’s, a “country club for the spiritually impoverished and emotionally destitute”, as chief songwriter Baird would later identify it. Bassist Keith Christopher, Drummer Mauro Magellan and Guitarists Rick Richards and Dan Baird were playing on the Atlanta circuit in various bar bands such as the Hellhounds, the Brains and the Woodpeckers. These bands would gradually morph into the original Georgia Satellites.

#1 fan and road manager Kevin Jennings, sold an EP of early Satellites recordings to an independent UK record label, Making Waves and the EP, Keep The Faith, provoked an extraordinary reaction from the UK music press, which, in turn, woke up the previously indifferent stateside music industry. The stand-out track on the EP and most peoples introduction to the band was Keep Your Hands To Yourself which was swiftly culled from the bands eponymous debut major label release on Elektra and became a runaway hit, both LP and single only being kept off the respective #1 slot’s by Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet and Living On A Prayer. A second hit single, Battleship Chains, consolidated the LP’s platinum success.

Where the Satellites really earned their reputation though, was with their live shows. All those years of three sets a night, paid dividends as their live performances laid waste to audiences across the States and in particular Europe, which took the band to it’s collective heart, a love affair that continues to this day.

Two more Elektra LP’s, Open All Night and the remarkable Salvation And Sin, plus a track, Hippy Hippy Shake, on the Tom Cruise movie soundtrack, Cocktail, followed, but by the early 90’s, all those years of incessant touring had taken their toll and the band split. Dan Baird went on to a successful solo career with Rick Rubin’s Def American, scoring major hits with the album Love Songs For The Hearing Impaired and single I Love You Period. A second LP, the critically acclaimed Buffalo Nickel, followed and Dan also developed a career as a highly sought after producer. In 2001 he released a live album, Redneck Savant, on Blue Buffalo. He also found time to record and tour as part of the alt “supergroup”, The Yayhoos who also featured Keith Christopher. The Yayhoos released an album, Fear Not The Obvious, on Bloodshot in 2002.

Like Keith, Mauro played on Dan’s first solo record and tour and then took time out to raise a family and concentrate on his other interests.

After recording Buffalo Nickel, bassist extraordinaire Keith joined Kenny Wayne Sheppard and has also played on a multitude of sessions.

In 2002, Dan, Keith and Mauro reunited to tour across Europe being joined by Ken McMahan, Dan's right hand man for the last five years and one of the best young guitarists to have emerged from America in years.

In 2003 and in support of a “new” album of previously unreleased Dan Baird and Georgia Satellites tracks, Out Of Mothballs, the band hit the road for a major European tour. This was followed in 2004 by a second tour where the shows were recorded for a new live album Feel So Good which was released to coincide with a third tour in 2005. The tour was the largest undertaken by Dan since the original Satellites split and will be bedding the band in for the recording of the first new album of Dan originals since 1993.

The timing couldn’t be better, with no frills guitar based rock ‘n’ roll being back in vogue, a new audience awaits the band described by one leading American writer as, “for any new garage bands wanting to live out the dreams of Chuck Berry’s, The Promised Land, the greatest role model, that the US has yet produced”.

Can you give me an amen?