now, i can't admit to soul coughing being extremely influential on a young joe's life. i definitely dug on them though. in fact, a very feverish young joe (which was a rare occasion, no matter what he occasionally told his parents early on school day mornings) saw them headlining at first avenue with low opening. if you're going to go to a show semi-out of your mind (non-chemically enhanced-- wait, or highly chemically enhanced too, i suppose), i might recommend low/soul coughing.
1995
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soul coughing is very representative to me of REV105. i doubt minnesota would hold soul coughing in much esteem without REV105. anyway, i briefly mentioned before on WGOM 1.x how much that station meant to me. honestly, it came along at the perfect time. nirvana, the pumpkins, et al, basically awoke me from the stupor that was top 40 radio. however, it was REV105 that made me dig even deeper and sustained that dive. the hitman has noted CFNY as a major factor in his life. since we seem to be spinning yarns on high school week, tell me: in the late spring of your youth, beyond a single band or friend, what continuous force drove your tastes to new and challenging heights (or depths)?
1. SPIN magazine. Especially Charles Aaron's singles reviews. I needed to hear what Lateef the Truth Speaker sounded like. And to try to see what in "Are You That Somebody?" was praiseworthy.
2. Ernie November Records in Mankato (R.I.P.). Used tapes for $3.20 so I could try a lot of things out. Coil's "The Snow" in the singles bin. Every Public Enemy album on CD, used. I got good stuff cheap and overpaid for crappy new stuff.
3. Edgefest 1995 and 1996. Bush. Balloon Guy. Monster Magnet. Iggy Pop. Ramones. Poe. Faith No More. Garbage. Korn. Not all of the artists were all that great, but some of these preformances really were. Bush, weeks after "Little Things" got on MTV, was way more intimate there than they were 18 months later at Roy Wilkins. I learned: get up front for the small bands, because they're better than Candlebox and Collective Soul. Started my whole concept of, if I've never heard of the opening band, pretend for as long as I can that they're the best band I've never heard. Plus I'm happy I got to see the Ramones while they were still around.
4. Let It Be Records on Nicollet Mall (R.I.P.). [Once I started college.] They seemed to get their UK Imports in about one day after the U.K. release. Vinyl if I wanted it (I rarely did). An "unconventional" section (Coil, Ryoji Ikeda).
5. A series of three listservs: Blue-Eyed Pop (Björk), Ghetto Youth (Tricky), and IDM ("Intelligent Dance Music": basically Warp and Rephlex and everything that went that way).
I was at the Beck/Iggy Pop Edgefest. It was $%#%! cold.
Iggy Pop must have played more than one Edgefest, as I've never seen Beck.
When I saw Iggy, the power went out. Lights, sound, everything. And he kept on singing and slithering and I could still barely hear him because the fans got quiet, and I could still barely see him from the glow of the distant independently-powered parking-field lamps. It was probably less than a minute, but it was awesome. Metallica or Kings of Leon would have stopped immediately.
Agreed about REV105. Post-REV, pre-Current radio in the Twin Cities was a wasteland. The Current isn't perfect, but we are incredibly lucky to have such a radio station.
I definitely got into Soul Coughing because of REV. I was up late, watching the lightning in the distance as a storm rolled in one summer evening and True Dreams of Wichita came on. It was the most amazing matching of time and song. A perfect moment.
I loved the REV, especially Peter Jesperson's Shakin' Street program on Monday nights. Two hours of great music, most of it unheard on radio before or since. It was like taking a night class in music history with the coolest professor in the world.
What I didn't like about the REV (despite it's stated intentions to the contrary) was they often made quick work of making me dislike something through sheer over-exposure. Soul Coughing was one such group. (M. Doughty's voice also just grated on my nerves.)
I had a friend who absolutely loved Ruby Vroom, and was kind of hurt that I did not share his enthusiasm. I finally told him if I wanted jazzy, funky, beatnik, weirdness, I was gonna get it from Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. He replied, "Who?" I tried turning him on to both of those artists, though only Waits stuck. (He's probably the world's biggest Tom Wait's fanatic today.) So if Soul Coughing led others to the harder stuff, good for them. I was just already on to the harder stuff.
Living past the extent of the REV signals' reach, I never got into Soul Coughing. But I had one song of theirs, "Murder of Lawyers", on a RedHot compilation (which I bought at Ernie November's). Upon listening to Ruby Bloom, I realized that it's a very angry, alternate-lyrics version of "Casiotone Nation". I'm way more fond of the version I heard first:
(Warning! Cursive Language starting at about 3 minutes!)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsfjGJi665M
Soul Coughing was also one of "Mainstream" music's bigger advocates of drum'n'bass. I know I wouldn't have wasted $35 bucks on that import-only Ed Rush & Optical album without seeing it on their year-end best-of list. (I was dithering back and forth, and it was the data point that pushed me to make the decision. I should have just settled for an Omni Trio disc with a US distributor.)
When I started HS in Mankato in the fall of '77, there weren't a whole lot of outlets for one to hear anything beyond Top-40 or what would come to be known as classic rock. My older brothers had pretty good taste in music--though each slightly different from one another--and I took a little from each. E-1 loved the Beach Boys, E-2 The Beatles, E-3 Bob Dylan, E-4 Neil Young, E-5 Bruce Springsteen. My cousin Julie turned me onto Patti Smith during a visit to their Closter, NJ home in '78. Shortly after that, I discovered Television's Adventure in a cutout bin at The Lost Chord--a record/head shop in Mankato. (I just liked the way they looked, had no idea what they'd sound like.) Same thing with The Jam This is the Modern World (found in the cutout bin for a dollar at the Mankato Shopko.) The Clash Give Em Enough Rope was found (in a cutout bin) the summer of '79--didn't know who they were, I just liked the cover. I finally bought the Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks at Down in the Valley during my senior year--or roughly three years after it's release. When I arrived in Minneapolis to attend the University, my college roommate quickly found a job at First Avenue, and my learning curve accelerated rapidly from there.
It is crazy to think about how the radio used to matter.
I've mentioned it before, but I bought a bunch of stuff at the Kato Shopko about a decade after you. All I can remember are bargain bin Moody Blues tapes and pop cassingles. It wasn't great, but their selection was very random, so you'd find stuff that wouldn't be other places.
Stick can back this up, but the F/M area really only had the top 40 or country FM stations out of there or Grand Forks, but I have to admit that the NDSU station used to run Beaker Street at night, and I found Eno (After the Heat, Another Green World) and other great stuff there. Also, HS band made Maynard Ferguson et al. must-listen music.