Soul Coughing
“It is 5AM and you are listening… to Los Angeles.”
The first time I heard Soul Coughing, it made me think about cartoons.
Jon (the other guy who posts here) played them for me. He used to work at a really cool record store that doesn’t exist anymore. He used to come home from work (we were roommates at the time) with the strangest music, but then again he’s always been all over the board when it comes to music. But when he played “Bus to Beelzebub” for me, the thing that immediately struck me was the background sample they were using.
“Hey! That’s… the Looney Tunes industrial theme!” It was the only name I could come up with that expressed my thought. I found out later that the actual song title was “Power House” and the artist was a guy by the name of Raymond Scott (genius! – look him up).
That was the hook that caught me but it took a while to reel me in. I actually got into their second album “Irresistible Bliss” before I really got into their first (Ruby Vroom) and by the time “El Oso” came out, I was a full fledged fan.
I will forever be jealous of Mike Doughty’s seeming inability to not spout out genius lyrics/verses. A lot of it seems like it could be stream of consciousness but it only takes one listen to “Screenwriter’s Blues” to know that he knows what he’s doing and he knows he does it well.
They’re gone now as most good things don’t last. Doughty has his own thing now and I’m not sure what the others are doing. Doughty is still good and I look forward to his releases/concerts (except when they are at 10 at night on a Tuesday. In Silverlake. eeesh.) but… it’s just not Soul Coughing.
Damn, I really miss that sound.
