Customer Reviews

Nicely Nicely

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really love this EP, which is a must for any Blake fans interested in the early days of the group. Featuring the origanal bass player, Seth White, and long time Band friend, Evan Dando, as well as Juliana, John and Frieda this album captures the classic Blake Babies sound. When I listen to later Blake CD's, like "Innocence and Experience" or "God bless the .."
I feel kind of sad, seeing as they're not around anymore and I was too young to experience them live, also as the way that later songs have a sad, regretful, wistfull quality of lament, but this record has a really innocent hopeful quality, almost looking forward to the band's success. All the songs on here are great, especially the two live harvard U tracks, as well as the genius "Julius Fast Body" and Great "Swill and the cocaine Sluts" and the classic "Rain" with Evan Dando vocals. Many reviews make scathing comments about boston late 80's indie-pop, but I challenge any one not to find something in this youthfull, exuberant and expectational band...

The Blake Babies are a forgotten relic of their era, best known for the band that launched the career of Juliana Hatfield more than anything else. Truth to be told, while later records would prove much more successful, their debug EP, "Nicely, Nicely", illustrates in many ways how that's a fair assertion.

Essentially, the brief EP, clocking in at around 24 minutes, is nine pieces of poorly produced (from a technical standpoint) jangle pop, with a pair of songs recorded live. By and large everything is pretty much muddling midtempo jangle pop-- opener "Wipe It Up" is nice enough (albeit it could do better without the overdubbed vocals), "Better'n You", featuring Evan Dando, is a nice, mellow piece, and the live recording "Bye" is energetic and exciting, even if it sounds like Hatfield's hiding behind her mic. But the majority of the album is largely forgettable ("Tom and Bob", "Julius Fast Body"), lifeless ("Bye") or poorly conceived (the fantastically titled "Let Them Eat Chewy Granola Bars").

Invariably, the future was far brighter for the Blake Babies. This is more a curiosity piece for fans, check "Sunburn" or "Earwig" for far better material.

I received my copy Thursday, April 17, 2003 And I am very happy. I got it from a seller named Peter Kochiya from the "New and Used" section. The album is great and though it's only 23 minutes and 51 seconds long, it's well worth having because it's so rare. I received the re-released version on Mammoth records. I have been looking for this EP for 2 years and now that I have it, all is just fine and dandy! Thanks Peter! :)