By David Bowden:

Baterz For Beginners:

The great thing about ignorance is the opportunity it gives you to learn. In my case I’d never heard of Baterz (real name Barnaby Charles Ward), an Adelaide songwriter who died in 2002 at the tragically young age of 32.

To get the biographical facts out of the way early here they are. Baterz was a lifelong haemophiliac who contracted the HIV virus during a blood transfusion when he was a child. He was a central songwriter in the cult band The Bedridden (represented here by 2 tracks) and also recorded solo material throughout the 90s.

What first intrigued me about this 3CD set when it came my way late last year was the obvious love and respect that had brought about its existence. I’ve seen many tribute albums before, but this one is a 33 track double CD of covers accompanied by a 16 track CD of original material. That’s not an enterprise lightly entered into for a local artist who is far from being a household name. The second thing which grabbed me were the liner notes – the artists covering Baterz’ songs recount numerous (often humorous) anecdotes of the way their lives crossed with his. It is these stories that really begin to give you a feel for the man’s charisma and talent.

Above all it was clear that they really loved this guy.

So what about the music? Aside from a few missteps it’s actually really good and on occasion brilliant. The originals are usually just Baterz and an acoustic guitar, so there’s nothing for the songs to hide behind. This works in their favour as it showcases the clever craftsmanship and Baterz’ facility with words.

The most immediate thing to report is that the songs are mostly very funny. Baterz had a finely tuned radar and seemingly wrote fearlessly about anything and everything, from the commonplace to the fantastic at the outer reaches of his imagination.

To give you an idea – “Valiant” is a witty parody of a love gone wrong song where the lover is breaking up to run off with her Chrysler Valiant, “Target’s Air Conditioner” documents the various tactics employed by the singer to distract attention from the fact that all he wants to do is listen to the air conditioner at Target. “UFOs” is written from the point of a person who believes he will be rescued by extra terrestrials. “Darling” is an adorable spoof of an English couple which showcases Baterz’ skills in mimicry (and his comic timing is spotless in its execution). “Fifteen” is as honest and funny an account of the foibles of teenage dating as ever I’ve heard and I still can’t believe it’s only 68 seconds long. “Morning After” is a poignant reflection on sexual intimacy in the age of AIDS.

There are lesser moments too – “James Caspar”, “Spidermother” and “Zombie Girl” are a bit silly really, with various characters or their body parts turning into crabs, spiders and zombies respectively. These all have some very funny lines though. But where it works best is in “Giant Squids”, my personal favourite, which is about giant squids having “great big squiddy fun” at the bottom of the ocean, which captures a haunting sadness at the heart of Baterz’ humour in a way that really gets beneath your skin. This last song is what gives the double CD tribute its name.

With 33 tracks it’s not going to be possible to name check all or even half of the artists’ contributions. So I’ll just dip in & see what I come out with. “Eliot” by Andy Wifler is a song addressed to a bodybuilder whose muscles have fallen off. It’s missing something and I’m not sure that it can be blamed on the artist covering it. “On Come the Men” by Mal Webb and Debra Low is as good a song as any on this collection, a very camp sub cabaret account of men on TV – I’d love to hear the original. “April Of The Dickheads” is a song Tex Perkins was born to sing, an account of the night out of two friends in from the suburbs who can’t score with the girls so get drunk and angry. Tex is in brilliant form for this one and its sense of escalating violence is palpable. “Ferral Nightmare” by Mel Watson is probably the worst of all the songs I’ve heard on this collection – it just seems unnecessarily mean-spirited.

“Get Me A Fork” by Soursob Bob is sheer genius – as gently humorous a parody of paranoia as you’re ever likely to hear. Guillaume Soloacoustic’s version of “Babysitter” is rousing, written from the babysitter’s point of view where he’s trying to convince his charge that he’s nice, not a bastard and there’s clearly some history between him and the baby’s mother. Jamie Saxe does a warm and likeable version of “Butterfly”, a semi psychedelic tale of a bicycle ride gone wrong which he co-wrote with Baterz, (nearly ruined at the end by another silly anti-hippy lyric) . That’s not even one-third of the tracks on offer.

So in conclusion –this album is a noble tribute to a unique songwriter whose gifts were many and whose life was all too brief. For me the original songs work best and often overshadow their corresponding covers but once or twice the new versions transcend such comparisons. Not everything here works but if you want to discover an Australian voice quite unlike any other, pure in the clarity and warmth with which it records what it is to be human, imaginative, alive & switched on then give this compilation a listen. See http://fizzygo.com/ or http://www.baterz.com/for more info.

David is a music writer and producer and has worked in the Australian music industry for many years. Check out his full biography at his site at MySpace.

Tags: album review australia, baterz, David Bowden, fizzygo, great big squiddy fun, music review