Babystone- The band you don’t want to miss!
Novena Carmel, daughter of funk legend Sly Stone and lead vocalist for Babystone
(Photo by Jason Lewis)
By Jason Lewis
Sentinel Staff Writer
It’s the coolest thing to show up to a small venue and see a local band that just blows you away. They just put on a show that you weren’t expecting. A show so great that you go tell all your friends, and then when they go see that band they’re blown away too, and you look like the music expert.
Well, one of those bands who will make you look like the expert on local music is Babystone, and you better jump on board now so you can say that you were there all along. Babystone will be putting on their final show for a while on Wednesday, December 23, at the Zanzibar in Santa Monica.
Babystone is one of those bands that just has a party on stage, and the crowd follows suit. The music combined with the energy that the band puts out will really lift your spirits and make you want to just have a good time. You won’t want to wait for their next show to see them again.
Babystone is led by; lead vocalist Novena Carmel, who founded the group with guitarist Itai Shapira. The band does not fit into any one category, but the first sound that hits you is funk, which is no surprise, seeing that Novena is the daughter of famed funk legend Sly Stone.
Babystone can resemble Sly and the Family Stone in that both bands put on a fun and soulful show that includes a lot of dancing. Novena and band members really get their groove on while on stage.
“I’m a person that likes to move around and dance and have fun,” Novena said. “Performing to me is moving around and dancing. The music calls for that, and other people have fun when they’re dancing. So it’s me saying ‘look at me I’m dancing so it’s okay for you to dance too!'”
Novena has a lot of soul in her voice, and she has a way of capturing the audience with her stage presence. She certainly does have that “it” to make the show really pop.
There is a lot of energy, fun, humor, and unique songs in a Babystone performance, and fans leave feeling energized.
Babystone has received a lot of great feedback from their performances, and they usually sell out of the CDs that they bring to the show. This past summer they performed at the Long Beach Funk Festival and sold more CDs than any other artist.
Now is a great time to see Babystone, because they will be switching gears soon. The next step is working on their second album, which they will be experimenting with other genres of music.
“I always like stuff that is soulful, and only time will tell what I actually end up creating,” Novena said. “On our EP we had a lot of live instruments, but I like the idea of a lot of synthesized sounds and electronic. We’ll just experiment.”
Babystone has shown that they can switch genres during a performance. At one show they were playing a funk song, then all of a sudden Novena broke into the reggae classic Bam Bam by Sista Nancy, and she totally owned the song. It was just a great moment. There are a lot of great moments during a Babystone performance.
Babystone’s music can be heard at www.myspace.com/babystonemusic and you can also look them up on their fan page on Facebook.
The Zanzibar is located at 1301 5th Street in Santa Monica. The show starts at 9pm.
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