Baby and Child Care


Baby and Child Care


Studio album by The Red Krayola with Art & Language
Released	May 13, 2016
Recorded	1983
Studio
Label	Drag City
/

Track listing

Side A
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Tone of Your Voice; Be Firm, Don't Shout"	4:34
2.	"No! No! No! Trust Yourself"	3:31
3.	"Parents Get Cross"	3:16
4.	"Strong Romance"	4:48
5.	"Little Doubts"	2:18

Side B
No.	Title	Length
1.	"At Best There's a Lot of Hard Work and Deprivation"	3:44
2.	"Why We Need Idealistic Children"	4:38
3.	"Make Believe in Moderation"	5:50
4.	"A Fork in the Road"	3:46
5.	"The Age of Three"	2:41
Total length:		39:06

Background

In a 1983 interview with the German magazine Elaste, Mayo Thompson discussed Baby and Child Care and said that the group had recently finished working on it.^[1]

[...] vor kurzem haben wir die Arbeit an einer LP beendet, die auf Texten von Dr. Spock beruht. Das ist nicht der Kerl aus 'Raumschiff Enterprise' mit den spitzen Ohren, sondern ein amerikanischer Kinderarzt, der Bücher über Erziehung schreibt, ein liberaler, behavioristischer Psychologe, der einem sagt, wann man seinen Kindern ja oder nein sagen sollte, übrigens auch ein prominenter Gegner des VietNamkrieges. Wir haben die Texte für die Musik abgewandelt und Verse drausgemacht, obwohl alles eigentlich sehr einfach ist. Man könnte ein Buch von ihm nehmen und den ganzen Tag Popsongs daraus machen. Er hat eine bestimmte Art, die Sprache zu reduzieren, es ist wie Popmusik, oder vielleicht umgekehrt. Die Platte heißt 'Baby And Child Care'. Sie ist auch eine musikalische Weiterentwicklung nach 'Black Snakes', die haben wir nach einer Tour wie auf der Bühne runtergespielt. (Ich habe übrigens eine achtzehnmonatige Tochter, die ich allerdings nicht nach der Spock-Methode erziehe.) Art and Language überträgt die Texte, und ich muß sehen, was ich daraus machen kann, manches ist sehr operettenhaft.

In March 1984, an unnamed Red Crayola "mini-LP" was announced in the German fanzine Spex.^[2] It was to be released by Pure Freude and distributed by Das Büro. In May 1984, the release was delayed due to a 'dubbing error' ("eines Überspielungsfehlers").^[3] Carmen Knoebel, one of Pure Freud's founders later said, "I successfully brought the band Belfegore to America with my label, but went broke on Red Crayola."^[4]

The album went unreleased until Drag City put it out in 2016.

Cover art

Like their previous collaborations with The Red Crayola, the cover was designed by Art & Language. It was apparently based on the "New Revised and Enlarged Edition" of Dr. Benjamin Spock's Baby and Child Care.

Cover design sketch by Art & Language, 2016^[5]
Baby and Child Care

Retrospectives

Mayo Thompson, 2016 (translated)^[6]

"Baby & Child Care" originated from a book of the same name [...] This book contains the observations and advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock, an American pediatrician. They have provided a reference for the upbringing of children in the West for generations, including myself and Art & Language. I don't know if it's still common practice in recent years - the good doctor advises mothers that if breastfeeding is irritating, take a break and relax and smoke a cigarette. We recorded this after we finished Black Snakes in the 80s. We were all about to have kids then. For some trivial reason it was shelved. We recently turned it over again by accident. The text of the album is, as you can imagine, about babies and toddlers. The tone of the music is funk. I don't know what else to say. Maybe you can listen to it yourself.

Michael Baldwin, 2016^[7]

There's such a lot of time... the only thing we can lay claim to real memory of is getting together the design for the cover of the LP and the picture of the babysitter.

Mel Ramsden, 2016^[7]

It's not this year's; Baby and Child Care's from 1984. You'd have to ask Drag City why they released it.

Reviews

Date	Link	Publication	Author
2016-05-11	Link	Dusted	Jennifer Kelly
2016-05-13	Link	All Music	Mark Deming
2016-05-15	Link	Humo	Koen Lauwers
2016-05-17	Link	HHV	Tim Caspar Boehme
2016-05-27	Link	PopMatters	John Paul
2016-06-14	Link	La Pop Life
2016-06-27	Link	Mikki
2016	Link	Douban
2016-07-18	Link	Gonzo Circus	Patrick Bruneel
2016-10-31	Link	Taz	Diedrich Diederichsen
2017-01-11	Link	Colossus	Martti Jousimo