BIOGRAPHY
M.E. Baird (Matthew Ede Baird) was born in December 1967 in the working-class town of Frankston, an end-of-the-line bay suburb an hour south of Melbourne Australia. His upbringing was far from conventional and at times confusing and even dysfunctional. He spent most of his youth either traversing the continent on long outback sojourns or weekends living in Melbourne with his sister who was nineteen years older with two young sons of her own who were like brothers to M.E. Baird. His sister would introduce him to drawing at a very young age and later ignite his passion for 'song' via her extraordinarily diverse record collection. Time spent with her and his surrogate younger brothers would represent some of the happiest times in his life. M.E. Baird's father, Harrie T Baird, who was 48 years of age when M.E. Baird was born would also profoundly and enduringly influence him. His father, was fifty years old when he was born and had already raised three much older children. Despite the gap in age and generation, there was always a very strong bond between the two right up until his father's death at 92 years old.
From an early age, M.E. Baird had notions of becoming a painter influenced by his older sister who had studied fine arts and extended family members on his Father's side who were and still are well-regarded and established artists. At age sixteen, I decided to enrol in Fine Art studies at the local technical college. However, lacking the financial support to continue, he left and spent the next seven years adrift working as a labourer, travelling and building upon his musical knowledge. In 1992 at twenty-five years old and unsure he could financially maintain a life dedicated to making and playing music he enrolled to study urban design and architecture at RMIT in Melbourne. However, once graduation approached, he didn't feel that his suitability to become a 'design professional' was certain. However, the academic environment appealed greatly to his desire to explore creative thought and the creative process. Some of his lecturers quickly noticed this desire for knowledge. He was encouraged to undertake academic work, where he could still maintain his semi-professional music career and collect a regular paycheck. This eight-year period at RMIT both studying and lecturing represented a golden era for M.E. Baird, it was a very different time to now and a fantastic time to be living and working amongst the vibrancy of the inner city suburbs before gentrification. However, this period would also see the beginnings of serious mental health issues stemming from his childhood that would worsen and lead to several crisis points throughout his adult life. He would temporarily leave music and academia to travel in Europe and Northern Africa. Returning to Australia in 1999 he relocated to Sydney and worked seasonally in academia for four years as well as developing his visual art practice before returning to Victoria in 2003 with the birth of his daughter. Being back in Victoria, the urge to write songs and make music returned and he went on to write and record three critically acclaimed albums while still holding various research and lecturing roles at RMIT and Deakin universities. The second album, 'Mysteries of the Heart; Vagaries of the Mind', written and recorded under the fictional musical moniker of Lionel Lee and his band, Lionel Lee's Curse was voted runner-up in the category of Best Folk-pop Album of 2010 by the Melbourne AGE EG Entertainment Guide.
A challenging period in M.E. Baird's life and career ensued from 2011 to 2016 and he was ill-prepared for what was to unfold. During this dark period, six of his family members would die in three years, including his father, mother, sister, his nephew (who was like a brother) who was brutally murdered as well as an uncle and aunt who were like guiding angels in his life. Surprisingly in 2014, he somehow found the space and time to write and record his third solo album entitled Fall, the first under his name, albeit just his initials. However, after completing the album and days before its formal release he decided to shelve it. It became clear he could not muster the energy nor the mental presence required to promote and tour a release. He also decided in late 2014 after the death of his father to move with his wife and young daughter to northern New South Wales. After moving to Northern New South Wales, he was encouraged to re-release Fall in 2016, two years after recording it. The delayed release of the album should have signalled a bad omen, for although hailed by a few as a masterpiece, most considered it too dark, too slow, and not for an Australian audience. The whole experience, combined with grief and what would later be diagnosed as a complex post-traumatic response, he would not return to writing and recording for another three years.
By 2017, M.E. Baird had recovered somewhat and was performing some live shows again, spending more time on his art practice and was beginning to see a brighter and more creative future ahead. Deciding it was time to get back to songwriting and recording again, M.E. Baird enlisted Brisbane-based producer and musician Jamie Trevaskis to record a bunch of songs at Jamie's studio set amongst the Eucalypt forests at Mt Nebo, Queensland. The tracks recorded would become M.E. Baird's fourth solo album entitled, TIME which was released in the winter of 2019. The album received glowing reviews and was widely accepted as M.E. Baird's most accomplished and uncompromisingly original album to date and an Australian national tour showcasing the album commenced in 2019. Recording TIME with Jamie at the helm ignited a deep creative bond between the two based on trust that would forever alter the direction and process of M.E. Baird's creative work. However, in a life that had been marred by past trauma and mental health issues, M.E. Baird was to face his biggest life challenge, when he was diagnosed with advanced and aggressive prostate cancer, halfway through a national tour and two months before the planet would descend into COVD. What he was not expecting at the time of diagnosis is that he was about to set out on a four-year journey that would profoundly change him as a person emotionally and creatively resulting in some intriguing artworks, film projects, and a new album.
M.E. Baird began his musical career in Melbourne in the late 1980s as part of Melbourne's post-punk, rock, and folk scene before embarking on the UK and Europe in 1998. He returned home and relocated to Sydney in 2000 to pursue an academic career in art and design. His music career would go on the back burner until 2004, when he returned to Melbourne and began writing songs and recording again, culminating in the release of four critically acclaimed solo albums, as well as numerous recordings with other bands. Early in his career, M.E. Baird also had the great fortune to share the stage with some of his favourite and most influential Australian musicians, most notably Roland S. Howard, Spencer P. Jones, Chris Wilson, Ian Rilen and Ed Kuepper. Each of whom would leave a profound impact on his career.
LATEST RELEASE 'SPINNING MAN'
(6 Track Mini Album)
In the spring of 2022, M.E. Baird found himself on a journey of examination while battling stage 3 cancer. Between his treatment sessions, he sought solace in the quietude of his local cemetery, where he read the works of renowned poets and authors aloud to those resting in peace. These reflective walks became a powerful source of inspiration for his mini album, 'Spinning Man.' The title emerged from a striking passage in Dylan Thomas's poem, "The Author's Prologue," which resonates deeply with the themes of existence, struggle and resilience
The Ghost Boats
In 2023, 'The Loner' from M.E. Baird’s Ghost Boat series was awarded 1st place in the Maritime Art Prize, Australia.
The form of a boat with its complex but elegant curves and planes has appeared in Baird’s work for decades. M.E. Baird’s initial attraction to boats and the sea came as a child, growing up in a Port Phillip Bay suburb and seeing their forms clustered at piers or as silhouetted cargo ships on the horizon gave him a great sense of calm and wonder. Who owned these boats, and who were those brave humans crewing these vessels to far-off and most likely exotic locations? However, this sense of calm and wonder would backflip when, as a teen, he was involved in a capsizing that trapped him underwater. An experience that would haunt him in dreams for decades to come.
Fast forward to 2019, and while undertaking treatment for stage 3 cancer, M.E. Baird, and perhaps entertaining mortality, strangely or by reason, became interested in boats again. This recent series sees the symbol of the boat primarily (but not always) as a portrait of the artist. Baird found himself at first unconsciously exploring his emotions, fears, and sense of uncertainty through these vessels. Here, you will find them in all their bleakness and austerity as motionless lone figures in what appears to be a barren seascape, either awaiting the tide to return or dry docking, taking refuge and repair from the deluge of life. Some of the ‘boats’ are haunted by unreconciled events, while others have a sense of contentment or inevitability. The coloured sphere/s are hope, an illuminated jewel, to give warmth, light, companionship and a sense of buoyancy.’ While the ‘boats’ sit, drift and fall.
Neural Vistas
What first appears whimsical becomes, with time, more potent. A theatrical event, a stage with actors. Some characters are elegant and posed, while others are mysterious and underwhelming. These works are based on dreams, meditations and the author's subconscious conjuring. They also share the strongest relationship to M.E. Baird’s songwriting.
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