Thursday, November 16, 2006

Another Screeching Saxophone Silenced.



The screeching cries of a saxophone have been silenced again; no, it's not another Jazz giant who died or anything like that, it's actually a neo-no wave band who'll stop to spazz around, a post modern band known as Coughs which was only beginning to annoy people y won't have the chance to do so to more.

Or that's the rumor going around lately, even though there's talk of a lot of disagreements within the band, especially on their current UK tour, so much so that they can't seem to define a compensatory show for the one they can't do in Ireland. It's sad because we'd love for our favorite bands to always get along and be BFFs or at least fight enough so to generate some creative friction without going overboard so they can write kickass songs; we'd also love that our bands would never mature and that their member would never grow old or die so we can all see them at the top of their career always, but that's almost always impossible.

Heirs to late 70's New York's no wave scene, the band, especially on both their Load albums Fright Makes Right (2005) and this year's Secret Passage, played with a minimum of notes but never with a minimum of effort; dissonant but never losing a sense of composition and with a saxophone much austere and a lot more insane than James Chance's, which has been in an insane asylum for years where it gets a steady diet of electroshocks just to get it grounded and for it to function normally on the real world, but this one makes it sound like a nice school band instrument in comparison; with wild screaming pushing everything forward and the guitars and bass making an envolving racket for ambience the same way a paint bucket with no brush or a sledgehammer make ambience to a room. Melody would have gotten in the way for a band like this.



Coughs are still scheduled for a show on November 26 in Chicago opening for the Slits, reuniting teachers with students, although if rumors are true then this would not happen; i really hope this i'm writing is for more people to know of a truly great band instead of lamenting their loss; anyway, they deserve the tribute.
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Coughs - I'm Just A Bill.mp3 from the Fright Makes Right album, Load 2005.
Coughs - Penal Colony.mp3 from the Fright Makes Right album, Load 2005.
Coughs - Tyrannosaurus Reads.mp3 from the Bent Babies EP cd-r, self released 2006.
Coughs - Pacemaker.mp3 from the Bent Babies EP cd-r, self released 2006.
Coughs - Motherfuckers.mp3 from the Bant Babies EP cd-r, self released 2006.
Coughs - Air-conditioned Nightmare.mp3 from the Bent Babies EP cd-r, self released 2006.
Coughs - Dark Powers.mp3 from the Secret Passage album, Load 2006

Coughs in MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/coughsbitch
Load Records: http://www.loadrecords.com/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

coughs rule the completist. i urge all who read to go and explore more... seemingly tho they aint breaking up. strange events indeed, onstage brawling, slagging matches but seemingly due to public displays of love and affection, coughs remain coughs and are continuing with the tour. maybe more to come in 07. maybe they will afford the boat fare to ireland this time!