The Baby Seal Club

THE BABY SEAL CLUB’s guitarist/vocalist/bassist EUAN THE BRUCE gives GEARED a detailed tour of local indie-rock band’s rehearsal space, along the way demonstrating some unique circuit-bent electronic equipment.
GEARED: So... what have we got here, Euan?
EUAN THE BRUCE: This is a mid-’80s Yamaha drum machine. When it was first made, this first panel [shows attached panel with a circuit board] wasn’t there. As you can imagine, it was attached to an old-school synthesiser that had original drum sounds, but that was removed and replaced with a circuit board. Here, you have your various knobs and dials, modulation, distortion and so on. You can go from a ‘normal’ ‘80s drum sound [activates a preset] to adding grinding distortion. Most people use them for industrial techno and electro – there’s loads of glitchy, freaky sounds [unleashes a brief torrent of electronic noise] – but for us, because we’re a ‘poppy’ band, we’re looking for more music in it. For example, you can bring up, say, an F# note [summons a buzzing drone] and then add as much low or high pitch to it as you like. I think what they’ve done is they’ve taken the part of circuitry that dealt with the bass drum and the tom and did something to it. This one here [flicks a switch] does the same thing, but with much more growly low-end [the room fills with ungodly distorted sound] ...
G: Whoa!
ETB: You can add octaves to F#, but this one here is really good for us is – it takes out the bass drum and makes it nice and open [drum machine plays a sparse sequenced progression]. That’s what we’ll be using in our sound; you can kind of imagine it in a chorus of a song and then bring the beat back and so on. The guy in England who designed it – who’s world-famous at these things – also added inputs for drum triggers, so Andy [drummer] can play these pads from his kit as well.
G: Amazing.
ETB: Over the next month, we’re going to see how it sounds onstage. It should be cool; we’re not the first people to do this, but not many bands who play our sort of music don’t use it.
G: Do you reckon it could become the band’s secret weapon?
ETB: [laughs] Yeah, I think so. It’s just something to make you stand out. This is a serious piece of equipment, whereas we’ve also got shit like this – a children’s toy saxophone [produces a gaudy-coloured chunk of plastic with assorted buttons and switches]!
G: [surprised] Mmm?
ETB: What they’ve done with this one was add a bit of distortion [more weird-sounding blares follow]. It sounds pretty ugly, but you can use it in the right context where it will sound pretty cool. Oh, and we’ve also got the whole band in here [presses a series of buttons to unveil electronic bass and percussion, then speeds them up to seizure-inducing frequency]; it’s a bit silly, but quite cool – you can imagine the band jamming into a song and then pulling this out [laughs] – it will get lots of attention, you know?
G: I don’t think I’ve seen anyone in Brisbane utilise these types of unorthodox, modded instruments...
ETB: We’ve got one more for you over here – this is just a straight-up Casiotone synthesiser from the ‘80s. If you get a circuit-bent synth, most of the people will concentrate on the notes and delay effects and so on, but this guy has also done some work on the drum machine part of it. He’s got all these switches and when you press it, you get these normal drum sounds like this one [flicks switch] – just an ‘80s beat – but you can control individual drum sounds. This one does the bass drum, snare, hi-hat, cymbals and so on – you can adjust them wherever possible [activates bass drum preset]. This is just the bass drum sound, but with this one here, you can control the pitch and with this one, you can add the note. If you turn it up like that, it tunes to a certain note, like C [following a couple dialling motions, improvises a melody line over the resultant minimal techno track]...
G: Very cool.
ETB: It takes something basic and adds another dimension to it. I bought this one as a present for Dimity, our keyboard player – she’s just got a new keyboard herself, so she can now master that and have a go on this one. Again, it’s just a nice little addition; you see, lots of bands in Brisbane use the same keyboards – Micro Korgs and [Roland] Junos, so it’s nice to have something that’s, like you said, a secret weapon.

Stay tuned for an in-depth chat with Euan about The Baby Seal Club’s more traditional stringed instruments and amplification devices.

THE BABY SEAL CLUB take the GNARLY ARMY single tour to the Valley’s Legions Club this Friday Apr 8 (with Trash Queen and more) and Toowoomba’s The Spotted Cow on Saturday Apr 9 (acoustic, with Charlie Mayfair). Check out www.myspace.com/thesealsmusic for more information. Watch Euan demonstrate the circuit-bent Yamaha DD-6 drum machine on www.youtube.com/user/thebabysealclub.
- Rave Magazine

THE BABY SEAL CLUB ?Paradise
(Independent)?If we’re going to start handing out awards for CD packaging (which we should) The Baby Seal Club’s wins hands down. The three-panel gatefold CD is adorned with pictures selling the Gold Coast from some 70s tourism campaign, with the front cover resembling Jonathon Livingston Seagull. But the good times don’t stop with the cover art. ‘Red Green Blue’ is Kinks flavoured bouncy pop without apology. ‘Death Ray’ starts like it’s going to be surf rock until a freaky lo-fi synth throws that out the window. ‘Different Dimensions’ gets a bit folky but retains that 60s bounce, while the singing gets all Jim Morrison. ‘Broken Limbs And Such Things’ could be the pop highlight of the exercise, but that’s probably discounting the rest of the EP which certainly shouldn’t be done. I don’t even know how they came up with that amazing drum sound – I’ve never heard anything like it. This CD is a brilliant debut release and raises the stakes for the glut of young Brisbane indie pop bands trying to this stuff at the moment – The Baby Seal Club have freaking nailed it dudes.

- Time Off Magazine

Gig Review: Baby Seal Club @ Brisbane
04/03/2010
By: lissgrr

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RatingsSign In to rateSign In to rateSign In to rateSign In to rateSign In to rateSign In to rateSign In to rateSign In to rateSign In to rateSign In to rate Sign In to rate 0 There’s nothing better than coming across band you’d previously never heard of and realising theirs is a sound you’ve been waiting for and didn’t know it.

This was the feeling upon first laying ears on The Baby Seal Club who played LoFly Hangar last Saturday night, February 27.

The quartet includes Euan the Bruce (who hails from Scotland) and Nick Schwarer on bass and guitar, Andy Churchill on drums and their newest member, Lyndal Murphy on keys, synths and alto sax.

All four members sing, adding a real Partridge Family-effect and making their sound more fun than an impromptu beach party with fire breathing dancers and mermaids to boot.

Their music is indefinable and truly in a class of its own as they hail to no one style, class or genre instead mixing and fusing a sound all their own.
And while definite glimpses of musical influences can be heard, it is utterly thrilling to discover there are still musicians pushing the envelope and creating music that is different, exciting and fascinating to hear.

A few of their songs have a real beachy 60s surf sound, including “Red Green Blue” and “Work”, and with Schwarer playing his bass high he looks and sounds reminiscent of that other quartet, The Beatles.

But again, on other songs like “The Money and the Honeys” and “Broken Limbs and Such Things” it’s a different sound but still has the same style that makes this band so great.

The Baby Seal Club launch their first EP March 12 at the Brisbane Arts Theatre.

Words: Charley Traynor

- Nova FM Radio

5 MINUTES WITH: The Baby Seal Club
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Why baby seals? My favourites are otters and the platypus. What’s the attraction to the wee Pinniped?

It’s in the eyes. They make you want to help. Beyond cuteness, otters and platypuses have nothing to offer humans, really. Plus the pups’ curse is their valuable pelt, which certain evil people crave. They need our help. The seals that is.

“Watching them is like being beaten violently with candy floss.” How do you avoid being overly saccharine?

Well, we just try to make sure that the sweetness is balanced with plenty of wholesome, organic goodness. A musical diet must be complex, you know. For example, you can have as much Monkees as you like if you mix in a dose of Stones. When I was a kid my mum bought me The Spice Girls album … I mean, no she didn’t … luckily my dad made me wash it down with Deep Purple.

How did three Queenslanders come to sync up with a Scottish Highlander? (or is he really just from Dundee?)

Euan Bruce: Haha, busted! I’m from Edinburgh. I moved over here a few months back and wanted to put a band together. Put an ad in Rave that said something like ‘disco house surf funk pop music.’ Seems funny now … I didn’t really think it through. These three are the cream of what Brisbane had to offer in that particular genre.

Your new EP is titled Paradise. Can you tell us a little bit about it and its upcoming launch show?

Nick Schwarer: Sure, we did the whole thing ourselves from cradle to grave – recording, mixing, mastering – which was a steep learning curve and an endless cycle of trial, error and help from our friends. The release feels a bit like a kid leaving home for the first time: emotional, but pretty nice to have the place to ourselves after so long, haha! We decided to opt for a venue for the launch night that was a bit different, and thought the Arts Theatre would be a good fit. It’s very atmospheric. The serenity is good.

THE BABY SEAL CLUB play The Hangar on Saturday Feb 27 (with The Wherewolves, Belligerents and Slow Push), X&Y on Sunday Feb 28 (with Friends Of Ben) and launch PARADISE at Brisbane Arts Theatre (Petrie Tce) on Friday Mar 12. www.myspace.com/tbsc
- Rave Magazine

"Non-vegetarian sunny pop in the '60s jangly vein. A tricky vein to pull off being in. I love the laid back verses..."Steph Hughes, triple j, reviewing Red Green Blue (Paradise EP)

- Triple J Unearthed