Glaxo Babies


Glaxo Babies are a Bristol-based post-punk band, formed in late 1977. There were three distinct phases in the band's life and after initially breaking up in 1980, they reformed in 1985, only to finally break up again in 1990. The band reformed once again in 2015 for the Un-Peeled 2015 event with Steve Street on bass and Tony Wrafter's son Oscar on vocals.

First phase

The band was formed by Tom Nichols, Dan Catsis and drummer Geoff Alsopp. The initial band line-up was completed by Rob Chapman joining in November 1977, and their first gig was held just 3 weeks later in The Dockland Settlement, St Pauls, Bristol. The band signed to local label Heartbeat Records, with their first release being the This Is Your Life EP in February 1979. This led to them recording their first session for BBC radios John Peel the following April, and the track "It's Irrational", from this session, opened the seminal 1979 Bristol Compilation album "Avon Calling". For this release the band had been forced by pharmaceutical company Glaxo to change their name, and this resulted in the use of "Gl*xo Babies", with an asterisk replacing the "a", although subsequent recordings have used a mixture of the two forms.
Tony Wrafter had joined the band in early 1979, and in May 1979 drummer Geoff Alsopp was replaced by Welshman Charlie Llewellin. This line-up had just started to record their debut album in June 1979 at Crescent Studios, Bath with David Lord as engineer. However, due to artistic differences Rob Chapman promptly left the group after the recording of just a couple of run through tracks.

Second phase

Following the abrupt departure of Rob Chapman the other four members, supplemented by Tim Aylett, took the band "into a more experimental area, leaning more towards a free-form fusion of jazz and dance rhythms", which resulted in them recording, in one day, the album Nine Months to the Disco. By the time this recording was released in March 1980 and reached No. 8 in the UK Indie Chart, the Gl*xo Babies had disbanded. Initially Tony Wrafter left, then Dan Catsis and Charlie Llewellin, all three of them going on to found Maximum Joy with Janine Rainforth, and John Waddington formerly of The Pop Group.
Rob Chapman joined The Transmitters, with whom he recorded one LP, "And We Call That Leisure Time".
The single of Rob Chapman singing on Christine Keeler was released in 1979 on Heartbeat and in 1980 Shake was released as a single off Nine Months to the Disco. Another Peel session had been recorded in February 1980 and the 4 tracks were released later that year on Y Records as the "Limited Entertainment EP". Heartbeats final Glaxos' release was a compilation album of early demos and unreleased tracks from the Rob Chapman period, called "Put Me on the Guest List".
In 2007, the Japanese label Birdsong reissued both of the band's albums on CD; Nine Months to the Disco included the extra track "Swampstomp" and Put Me on the Guest List included "Christine Keeler", "Nova Bossa Nova" and "Because of You " as bonus tracks.

Third and final phase

The band reconvened in the summer of 1985, and continued to record sporadically until they final disbanded in 1990. The highlights from this third incarnation of the band were collected in 2007 on “The Porlock Factor: Psych Dreams and Other Schemes 1985–1990” on Cherry Red Records.

Post–final break-up, 2015 reformation

Rob Chapman – after The Transmitters, Chapman had jobs in teaching and broadcasting on BBC Radio, eventually drifting into music journalism. He began contributing to the magazine Mojo, then in 2003 moved to Uncut, only to move back to Mojo in 2006. He is the author of several books, including a history of offshore pirate radio, Selling the Sixties ; an alternative history of the record sleeve, The Vinyl Junkyard ; and a biography of Syd Barrett, Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head. He currently works at the University of Huddersfield.
Dan Catsis – as of 2010, has been playing bass in the reformed Pop Group.
Tom Nichols – went on to be an art historian and lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and currently works at the University of Glasgow.
Tony Wrafter – continues to play saxophone and flute around the world.
Charlie Llewellin – went on to be drummer with Maximum Joy and Palace of Light in the UK. He has lived in Austin, Texas since September 1991, and in the 1990s played with Austin bands Eleanor Plunge, Jean Caffeine and the Gourds. In 2019 he and Maximum Joy singer Janine Rainforth released the album P.E.A.C.E. as MXMJoY.
In 2015, the band reformed, playing alongside other bands, for 'Un-Peeled 2015', a tribute show to the late Radio 1 DJ John Peel. They also played at The Exchange, Bristol in January 2016.

Discography

Albums