Bio
The word ‘seminal’ has been used as a stock cliché by rock journalists since the early 70s to describe many obscure, but influential artists. But never has that claim been more exaggerated than with Anglo-American noise rock malcontents, Earth Mother Fucker. Active between 1988 and 2004 without troubling the charts or achieving any degree of critical appreciation, EMF failed even to profit from confusion arising between themselves and their younger, more attractive and much more popular namesakes.
They did, however, produce I Fuck Therefore I Am – arguably one of the greatest noise rock anthems of the last millennium. Lyrically, it may be built around the kind of Cartesian philosophical proposition you’d expect to find scrawled on the back of a beer mat in Spearmint Rhino, but musically (using the term in the loosest possible sense), it’s a shotgun wedding of bottleneck slide and MC5, with enough early Sonic Youth high-end scree to induce acute acoustic trauma.
I Fuck Therefore I Am was penned by property portfolio punk Bruce MacGregor, who had previously courted obscurity in The Blowers, The Suckers and Tender Lugers. Earth Mother Fucker provided a vehicle for his repertoire of neurotic ballads about sexual inadequacy and a platform for his attention-seeking stage antics. As a vocalist, MacGregor was most memorably described as sounding like a drunk hedge-fund manager retching into a bin.
Providing guitar and respite vocals, Rick Baylor joined the band while posted in Suffolk by the US military. Originally hailing from Delton, Michigan (it’s between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek), Rick is the son of an evangelist preacher. This provided fertile ground for his imagination, as he lent his world-weary midwestern drawl to songs about kerb crawling, teenage stalkers and white collar frustration.
Only the most dedicated post-punk anorak could catalogue Dave Turner’s bass-playing backstory. He served time in SuckCess and Still Life In Action, and survived grim pub backrooms in Spy Real Fire and Rival Savage before joining Earth Mother Fucker, where his unmistakable high-end fret buzz has underpinned the dual-guitar chaos from the band’s inception.
The strain of playing anything up to three gigs a year burned out a succession of drummers, before Michael Chesters took over drum duties for the newly-resurrected line-up. Mystery man Michael has kept his musical past a closely-guarded secret from his new label. However, a forensic internet search for trivia reveals he played drums for (Oasis guitarist) Gem Archer and The Edge, and was in The Shave with Pete Doherty’s future manager Andy Boyd.
VJ and artist Michelle Brace performed in character on the first Earth Mother Fucker demo, where she enthusiastically adopted an array of problematic female stereotypes, from happy shopper to angry hooker. She now provides the live video backdrop to the band’s performances, which can occasionally be glimpsed through the shroud of smoke and strobe lighting used to conceal their age from the audience.
Photo: Krista Siân Lynch
