Love Letter: Bakers Eddy To Shihad's 'General Electric'

Music Feeds’ Love Letter to a Record series asks artists to reflect on their relationship with the music they love and share stories about how it has influenced their lives. Here, Bakers Eddy frontman Ciarann Babbington pays homage to New Zealand band Shihad’s fourth studio album ‘The General Electric’.

It comes as Aotearoa-raised, Naarm-based rock outfit Bakers Eddy share their new single ‘Manners Street’, a nostalgic, pop-infused alt rock ode to their hometown of Wellington, New Zealand. You can stream ‘Manners Street’, and read Babbington’s love letter to Shihad’s ‘The General Electric’, down below.

Bakers Eddy – ‘Manners Street’

Ciarann Babbington, Baker’s Eddy: The four of us have gone through so many musical phases together. We’ve developed deep obsessions with artists and bands since we were kids. They shape the music we make today, but I think the level of obsession varies slightly between us.

I wanted to pick an album that all of us have an equally strong connection to and one that we all fell in love with together.

It has to be undoubtedly, deeply embedded into the four of us, one that soundtracked our teenage years, one that led us down the path we walk now.

Bakers Eddy the band loves General Electric by Shihad.

Actually, Love is an understatement, I think we need General Electric like water.

After being away from home for so long now it’s become somewhat of a touchstone for us. When we’ve needed grounding we put on Only Time. When we get homesick, Pacifier. If we feel like we’re drifting, My Mind Sedate, every time without fail brings us back together.

It’s comparable to what “mum’s casserole” is to some, I think. Except it’s Jon Toogood singing “we fucked the world just like we’re fucking a donkey”.

There’s been many times on the road where the decision to put on this album has saved us from imploding. There have also been amazing moments when we’ve felt untouchable, on top of the world. Spacing is the song for that. When you get that synergy of song and vibe just right, it’s like crack.

It took moving to Melbourne and being surrounded by the “Melbourne rock sound” to realise how uniquely Kiwi Shihad’s music is.

Aotearoa has a sound, it’s hard to describe. It’s in Crowded House, Fat Freddy’s, anything out of Dunedin in the 90’s. It’s all over the Wellington underground. My friends over here can pick it, but I’m not sure it resonates the same with them as it does for us.

It’s not just the accent. There’s this dryness to us as people that finds its way into the music we make.

I think that’s why Shihad’s music feels like home to us. It’s because it sounds like home.

General Electric is a reminder of our path, where we started, where we’ve gone. We grew up in the same city as Shihad, we went to the same high school, played the same dive bars. We both moved to Melbourne to see if there was more out there.

Thinking back to when I was a kid, hearing this album for the first time, daydreaming about my future, I think it’s pretty cool knowing I did all those things that they did. 11 year old me would be pretty stoked with that.

Our similarities add to the connection the four of us have to Shihad. And as fate would have it, this album is one of the things that keeps us connected.