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Meet The Giant Baby By Robert Benzie There is a story, which sounds apocryphal but isn't, about Dick Rowe, the hapless Decca Records executive who passed on the Beatles in 1962 because groups with guitars were passe. A year or so later, Rowe was at the Lancashire and Cheshire Beat Group Contest in Liverpool when he bumped into George Harrison. Admitting that turning down the Fab Four was his biggest regret in life, he asked Harrison if he'd heard anyone good lately. The Beatle confided that he admired an unknown young rhythm and blues combo in Richmond, near London. Before the talent show was even over, Rowe raced to catch the next train to sign the Rolling Stones. Which goes to show it never pays to ignore a band fronted by a left-handed bassist who plays a vintage Hohner and sings and writes like there's no "Tomorrow Never Knows." The Giant Baby is just such a group. This Toronto quintet, whose members have played in Drag, Red Collar Boy, and The New Black, among other local tunesters, plays arena-friendly anthems while racking up stadium-sized bar tabs. But this is not glorified pub rock or derivative drivel by wannabe wankers. Nor is it studied indie-correct alt.Pablum for the rootsy No Depression set -- though Wilco influences flirt their way into "Angelina" and "Front Porch" and these boys have gear to make the Capsule Music crowd drool. And it isn't impenetrable Rotate This-approved exclusionism for Pitchfork circle-jerkers. No, these are soaring, ambitious songs played effortlessly by a posse of wily veterans. Like Band On The Run-era Wings or something Jeff Lynne might have pitched when Electric Light Orchestra were at their peak, tracks like "Money In the Truck (American Plan)" have an epic, cinematic quality. Singer and bassist Alex Karzis straps his Paul McCartney influences around his left shoulder and Liverpool-born lead guitarist Paul Judkins's father really did go to school with John Lennon, but a Giant Baby gig is more than a newspaper-taxi trip to Pepperland. Karzis's is a theatrical and engaging frontman -- go figure, he's a movie and television actor and, yeah, that was him with James Caan in that mob picture. Judkins, a real-life guitar hero whose university nickname was "Eddie" as in Van Halen, uses effects with the Edge-y subtlety of a jewel thief, his glittering Gretsch a dangerous surgical instrument. Keyboardist Patrick Corbett, who sings when things slow down, has impeccable alt.country cred (and will be pissed at the slag of No Depression). Corbett, an American citizen who spends as much time as he can on a Wyoming ranch, bolsters the Baby with a wall of electric sound that recalls what Bob Dylan dubbed "thin, wild mercury." Mike Devine grew up a Led Zeppelin fan and he acknowledges his inner Jimmy Page playing a lush and lyrical rhythm guitar that pays homage to side two of LZ III. Devine and Judkins give the GB a one-two punch that underscore how wrong Dick Rowe was in 1962 and how right he was in 1963. Backing it all up and keeping time with Karzis is Max Payne (yes, that it his real name and he may well have inspired the eponymous video game since he moves like a Belgian gangster), who has played with Judkins and Corbett since their days in newly unified Germany in the early 1990's. Payne is the Swiss movement of this Rolex Daytona and he never needs winding up -- check out the backbeat on "Break My Heart" and the anthemic "One Drink." (Enough gratuitous European references -- Ed.) But like all bands worth paying to see or hear, the Giant Baby is even greater than the sum of its parts. Nowhere is this more apparent than on "Coming Up," which has the hook of a hit and should be coming to a soundtrack near you even if I have to write a movie to put it in. Since I'm descending into sychophantic fandom -- and I've seen every gig of theirs save one and was there when it all started at the legendary El Mocambo in December 2005 -- I will say that "Coming Up," with its slow-fast-slow-fast harmonies and guitar pyrotechnics, is like plunging into a goldmine equipped with Bose speakers, where Amy Winehouse serves free Tanqueray. Rock 'n' roll historians have mocked and sodomized Dick Rowe for missing out on the Beatles, but he used the second chance of a lifetime to bag the Rolling Stones. Because he realized, as anyone listening to the Giant Baby will, that guitar groups are here to stay. So, too, are bands that aspire to be great whether playing in front of 20 people or 20,000. Robert Benzie covers politics for the Toronto Star because he's not bitter enough to be a rock critic. www.thegiantbaby.com