In the early Garage days (1988) we set out to help artists & bands record demos. One such artist, from Manchester, was Peter Ford
Peter had interest from Rhythm King Music but needed to re-produce some of his songs to seal the deal, so he came down to the Garage to produce four demos.
It was also at this time that House Music was beginning to emerge from Chicago along with Acid house tunes from the likes of Phuture, Todd Terry & Larry Heard; and Peter Ford & Richard Salt, inspired by this new style, created their own “Acid House” track, but seasoned with an eclectic twist of 70’s disco & some rock influences & this track became known as: “Oochy Koochy”.
Oochy Koochy forged a new direction for Peter & Baby Ford was born on the Rhythm King label.
http://downwithtractors.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/baby-ford-oochy-koochy-fu-baby-yeh.html
https://www.discogs.com/Baby-Ford-Oochy-Koochy-FU-Baby-Yeh-Yeh/release/77266
“The enigmatic Mr. Salt” went on to work with Baby Ford for the next 4 years, recording three albums: Ford Trax (1988), Oooh, The World Of Baby Ford (1989) & BFORD9 (1992), playing live gigs & TV shows in Europe & also touring the UK & The USA.
Although much of the later Baby Ford material was recorded & mixed in various other studios around London, The Garage was base camp & workshop for initial ideas. Much of the Ford Trax album was initially recorded here & several of the BFORD9 album tracks were conceived and edited here, including “Change”.
For copyright reasons we cannot reproduce Baby Ford back catalog here, but we found some very rough early demo mixes of Oochy Koochy, mixes of change from the “cutting room floor”, an early Oochy Koochy radio play & a Kiss FM (UK) radio interview with Colin Faver …
| Title – Composer(s) – YEAR – Notes |
|---|
| Vintage Kiss FM Interview with Colin Faver (November 1991) – 30 minute interview covering the Baby Ford years 1988 to 1991 |
| Oochy Koochy – Early Kiss FM Radio Play – Baby Ford – 1988 – Pirate Radio |
| Oochy Koochy (Ruff Demo Vox) – Baby Ford – 1988 – Early ruff mixes from cassette |
| Oochy Koochy (Ruff Demo Dub) – Baby Ford – 1988 – Early ruff mixes from cassette |
| Oochy Koochy (Ruff Demo) – Baby Ford – 1988 – Early tapes from cassette |
| The World Is In Love (Ruff Mix 1) – Baby Ford – 1989 – Early tapes from cassette |
| The World Is In Love (Ruff Mix 2) – Baby Ford – 1989 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Hi Hat Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (SPL-1F Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Stylophone Years Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Bass Vibe) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Break Instrumental) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (808 Double Mellow Head Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Basic Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Basic Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Welcome Home) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Shufflers 5am Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Deep Bass Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
| Change (Whole Mix) – Baby Ford – 1992 – Early tapes from cassette |
The Garage Recording Studio, London UK (1986 - 1996) 
wow, this is amazing. i love baby ford’s music. i would love to hear all these unreleased demos from Peter.
i love also the early 88 house period with artists like chilo & s-express group at rhythm king.famous but very talented.
Many thanks Arnaud – I hope to get some of those mixes up to SoundCloud soon. Also, I have been digging up some old movie footage which I am currently mixing with the Kiss FM interview – this will be posted to YouTube or Vimeo very soon. Thanks for your post.
This is great. I’m huge fan of house music from the 80’s. I think my favorite house album of all time has to be Ford Trax.
Two tracks I’ve been obsessed with for the past few years are Crashing and Fordtrax. I was wandering if you could help me identify the source of the bass sound that was used on those tracks. I’ve owned numerous different synths over the years (juno60, juno106,sh-101), but i’ve not been able to get that exact sound. It looks like from the photo above that there is Jupiter-6 or 8 and possibly and Arp Odyssey? It’s hard to make out what other pieces of studio kit there are.
Hi Ted. IIRC we used the Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter – a kind of rack mounted version of the Jupiter 8 – not shown in the pic.
Oh no. I used to own one of those about 5 years ago. But I didn’t have the controller to go with it so I sold it. Never mind
Thanks 🙂
brilliant, can i hear the other demos?
I can honestly say that Oochy Koochy changed my life, and Baby Ford (Peter Ford) will always be an inspiration to me, of the potential and possibly to change the way we think and feel about music and who we are. I was a pretty awkward person, lacking confidence and social skills, hiding away from society. But through this music I found my place in the world, in the comfort of club and party culture, in the late eighties and early nineties.
I can still remember hearing Oochy Koochy for the first time driving my car around Brighton listening to Kiss FM, the composition and production was light years ahead of anything else. Testament to this is that you can still play the Ford Trax album and it still feels fresh, relevant and vibrant. Crashing to this day remains one of my favourites, a desert island disc, a record I can play in my hear in perfect clarity without even putting it on the turntable.
I was lucky enough to see Peter perform live on a few of occasions, his performance at the Zap Club in Brighton was captivating, magical and spellbinding. To see him perform in the club I visited so regularly from 89-94 was incredibly special for me, just wish I had a time machine so I could go back.
I was actually at the Zap club during the night Baby Ford performed, but can’t remember that much about it, apart from the fact that he played on lower part of the dance floor. Do you remember which year he was there and what songs he performed?
I seem to recall it was the summer of 1988 (summer of love!). Found a mention on this page: https://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/topics/topicent/zap-25-years-of-cultural-innovation/zap-club-nights/zap-25-years-of-cultural-innovation-5
Nicely said: I share the same feelings being a teenager when FORDTRAX came out, lol I wanted so badly to find more of that music that was like you mentioned… ahead of it’s time.
Cheers Kindest Regards;)