PAST AND PRESENT: JOE CASSIDY, PACE, WILLIAM SHARP, GARY MCKENDRY, TONY MCKEOWN, PENDLE, JAMES HARRIS, RICHARD THOMAS, GREG SURAN, NICK MACRI, DAVE SUYCOTT, MERRITT LEAR, STEVE HUGHES
Butterfly Child "Drunk On Beauty" Video, 1998...
Directed by Craig Abel Champion,
Produced by Andy Mueller,
Edited by Katy Maguire
Butterfly Child created some of the most luxuriant, romantic and intoxicating music to be released in the 90s. Based around tumbling jazz rhythms, glacial guitars and the bewildered voice of Joe Cassidy (Belfast, Northern Ireland), the project began in 1991, releasing two EPs on AR Kane's h.Ark! label. Onomatopoeia, Butterfly Child's debut collection of precarious pop collages was a revelation, a masterpiece: Melody Maker's Taylor Parkes judged the album's seductive, celebratory pop to be "Astral Weeks at five years old . . . like trampolining in a conservatory flooded with sunlight." The follow-up, The Honeymoon Suite, sounded utterly inebriated on love with lines like "Bang goes your head, the light bulbs flash/You know what it's like on one of those days/You're so inspired, it's like the rockets are tied to you" ("Ghost On Your Shoulder") arousing the unmatched joy of a newly-formed relationship. The lyrics to the album's final song "I Shall Hear In Heaven" were even arranged in acronymic fashion so that the first letters of each line spelled out the name of Cassidy's lover, to whom the album was dedicated.
Aborting recording sessions in the UK, Cassidy relocated to Chicago, USA to record his third album. Curiously, Soft Explosives drew occasional comparison to Oasis, a band previously perceived as Butterfly Child's emotional and aesthetic antithesis. The touching, elegant result of recordings sessions with a quartet of drummers and a 12-piece orchestra, the album seemed to provide a counterpoint to The Honeymoon Suite's love-struck deliriousness. Yet while the album may have ended with the poignant "The Sound Of Love Breaking Apart", on tracks like "Big Soft Mouth" and "Drunk On Beauty", Butterfly Child still sounded smitten: "If you've ever been drunk in a pub, staring at someone beautiful, just watching them move, in a blur, this was probably the music in your head," judged US magazine Pitchfork of the release.
(RADIO ONE "JOHN PEEL SESSIONS" BIOGRAPHY)
Joe - Thank you so much for the New Tunes ! It's just what I needed to chear up this Very Rainy Day!! It's just fantactic how you have blended rare songs from so long ago with exciting new recordings, which I hope points towards a long awaited NEW B.CHILD Releases ! The new songs are just great & I particularly like "Just Sky" & "Futures" upon my first couple listens! Thanks
Hi Joe, Lets have a new record dude? and I haven't seen you live in the UK since Nottingham w/The Sundays 1992, I can't wait to hear some new stuff? Happy new year mate.
Though I would LOVE to show my son the Edward scissorhands viseo someday..... JOE GOD Bless you always and wish you the best... I miss you a lot.... those starbuck days on lincoln ave............
It was pure joy to see your magical set the other night at the Derby. Touching, inspiring, heartbreaking, uplifting. Absolutely gorgeous. I am better for it, and I thank you. xoxoLouise
Mr. Cassidy, I thought you might take great satisfaction in the fact that "Stuck in a Box" sounds great on the radio. I heard it on Q101 by accident when I moved my car earlier tonight :-)
Darkroom, The Beta Theta & Going.com Present: The 3rd Annual Xmas Party! THE BETA THETA Friday December 21 @ Darkroom Party Starts at 9! till 2! • Adults Only • 2210 W. Chicago Ave, Chicago, USA $10 tickets in advance through Going.com • $15 Day of Buy here: going.com/assassins
Live Performance by Chicago Expats Direct from LA: ASSASSINS Special Guest DJ: TRANCID And Resident Beta Theta DJ: BROCK
Online Now!
![Holding Mercury [text 99161 to request on Q101!]](http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/28/s_2d84e77548a44170b9c2b468b998edd4.jpg)
