Zen Baseballbat

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Kindly stolen from the Moonska Website



Hailing from Widnes in the North West of England, Zen Baseballbat are anything but run of the mill. Their strange name and style, is mixed with gritty northern humour and a unique blend of Trad Ska, Two Tone and Punk with hints of the Fall and Devo. Think about those classic gritty black and white Northern classic films like "Saturday Night And Sunday Morning" and "Loneliness Of The Long Distant Runner" add some colour and a modern day spin and you've got the picture.



They deliver a danceable modern Ska with a lot of irony. No other band could have called their debut album "I am the Champion Concrete mixer" with tracks like "Brown Cows Of Elocution" and "100 Years Of Seaside Entertainment". All this strangeness becomes quite clear when you find that the band is fronted by local West Bank, Widnes artists the Gleavey Twins, who have already featured in two TV documentarys, the best being "Twin Towns - North West Attitude" which captured a snap shot of their Art. The band seems to be an extension of this Art with it's surreal cover and songs, although underneath all this the group deliver hard edged Ska that will make you dance until those Brown Cows come home.



Before the band was properly introduced to the Ska world by the famous New Moon Rising UK Tour of 2000, where Zen joined fellow stable mates Ex-Cathedra, Lubby Nugget, Shootin' Goon and Uncle Brian on a 18 date tour of the UK. Zen had already supported the Toasters which helped cement themselves into the growing Ska scene at the time. Its seems that wherever they play they go down well, giving the audience a glimpse of northern life and humour.



At the beginning of 2001 they made their first forays into Europe with King Prawn and The Toasters. The tour was hailed as a great success culminating with a sell out show in London. Since then they have played numerous gigs up and down the country and have continued to build upon their popularity in Germany. In 2002 the band filmed a video for "Brown Cows Of Elecution" with team that filmed the Granada TV documentary. In the first week the band found themselves on the top ten most voted for video Chart Show on the Sky Channel p-rock TV.



In 2003 Zen entered Oxygene Studios in Manchester with engineer Christophe at the helm to record the long awaited second album "For Refund Insert Baby". Produced by Christophe and Zen the album takes continues the unusual story Zen story into another wierd and wonderful chapter. One thing is for sure Zen Baseballbat add another dimension to the Ska scene, A dimension of Skanking Northern Ska with some interesting twists.

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