Soul Coughing

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Soul Coughing

Background information
Origin New York City
Genre(s) Alternative Rock
Years active 1992–2000
Label(s) Slash / Warner Bros
Website Soul Coughing Underground
Members
Mike Doughty
Mark De Gli Antoni
Sebastian Steinberg
Yuval Gabay

Soul Coughing was a New York-based alternative rock band active in the 1990s.

They found only modest mainstream success, but had a devoted following and largely positive responses from critics; Steve Huey describes them as "[o]ne of the most unique cult bands of the '90s ... [d]riven by frontman M. Doughty's stream-of-consciousness poetry, Soul Coughing's sound was a willfully idiosyncratic mix of improvisational jazz grooves, oddball samples, hip-hop, electronics, and noisy experimentalism (described by Doughty as 'deep slacker jazz')."[1]

Contents

[edit] Origin

Mike Doughty (who billed himself at the time as "M. Doughty") was a folk singer (he attended Eugene Lang College with Ani DiFranco, where they studied with Sekou Sundiata and played around the school together), slam poet, sometime music writer, and doorman at the old Houston Street location of The Knitting Factory, then a nexus for such avant-garde artists as John Zorn and Marc Ribot. He put the band together from instrumentalists he met as they came through the club.

He met sampler player Mark De Gli Antoni (recently graduated with a composition degree from Mannes College of Music) when they both participated in a performance of Zorn's "game piece" Cobra. This same ensemble also featured Jeff Buckley. Doughty brought a stack of CDs over to De Gli Antoni's house one afternoon and had him sample iconic riffs from Raymond Scott, Carl Stalling, Howlin' Wolf, and The Andrews Sisters, among others. These, along with samples from De Gli Antoni's own orchestral works, became the foundation of Soul Coughing's musical identity, powering Doughty's half-sung, half-spoken vocals.

De Gli Antoni, Doughty, Boston-based upright bass player Sebastian Steinberg, and Israeli drummer Yuval Gabay (a collaborator with Zorn, and David Linton) played their first gig, as "M. Doughty's Soul Coughing," at the Knitting Factory on June 15, 1992, a late-Monday night slot that Doughty cadged from his boss because nobody else wanted it. In 1993, he founded a club night called "SLAW" at CBGB's 313 Gallery, which was meant to emulate the popular jazz and hip hop club Giant Step, but eventually became a showcase for Soul Coughing. Posters for SLAW were headlined "Deep Slacker Jazz" (a parody of The Who's slogan "Maximum R&B"), which became an enduring description of the band's sound.

[edit] Recording Career

The band was signed within a year to Warner Bros. subsidiary Slash Records, and released three albums: Ruby Vroom (1994), Irresistible Bliss (1996), and El Oso (1998). They enjoyed minor hit singles with "Circles," "Super Bon Bon," and "Screenwriter's Blues." They also had songs featured in the movies Batman and Robin, Tommy Boy and Spawn (a song called "A Plane Scraped Its Belly on a Sooty Yellow Moon", a collaboration with drum and bass artist Roni Size.) Also released following their breakup was Lust in Phaze (2002), a greatest hits complilation including a few b-sides and other rarities that featured extensive biographical and background liner notes written by Doughty.

[edit] Breakup and afterwards

The band broke up in 2000, after years of feuding over songwriting credits and publishing money. Doughty continued as a solo artist, collaborating with techno producer BT on the hit single "Never Gonna Come Back Down" in the summer of 2000. Dropped by Warner Brothers that same year, Doughty toured as a solo artist for three years, playing acoustic shows, driving alone throughout North America, and selling an acoustic CD, Skittish, from the front of the stage after gigs. He returned to the major leagues in 2005 with the release of Haughty Melodic on friend Dave Matthews' label, ATO Records; the single "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well" became a radio hit, notably played on the soundtrack to Grey's Anatomy.

Mark De Gli Antoni moved on to soundtrack work; Gabay formed the band UV Ray and has worked with Roni Size; Steinberg has played with David Byrne, Neil Finn, William Shatner, and Yerba Buena.

[edit] References

  1. ^ [1] Huey, Steve, "Soul Coughing" Allmusic.com band profile

[edit] Songs Used in the Media

  • The song "Rolling" (from El Oso) is used as the soundtrack for a Betty Boop cartoon music video in the Groovies series from Cartoon Network, as was "Circles" (also off El Oso) in a video featuring Hanna-Barbera's the Flintstones cartoon characters caught in the common cartoon practice of background looping.
  • "Super Bon Bon" (off Irresistible Bliss) appeared on an episode of the NBC television show Homicide: Life on the Street, and was also the theme song of ECW wrestler Danny Doring and Roadkill.
  • The song "Unmarked Helicopters" appears on the X-Files tie-in album Songs in the Key of X, as well as the episode "Max" from season 4. "16 Horses" appears on the soundtrack of the movie based on the series.
  • "Disseminated" features on a European (originally UK) advert for the Ford Transit van (since summer 2006). Perhaps no-one at Ford noticed its opening lyrics are 'The Goat Chewed Up, Once A Tin Can, The Goat Shat Out, Was A Ford Sedan'.
  • "Sugar Free Jazz" from Ruby Vroom has been used in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle.
  • 'Circles' is used in the 2004 movie 'Walking Tall' starring The Rock.
  • Bass riff from "Super Bon Bon" was looped and used as bumper music on the Rush Limbaugh Radio Program.
  • The song "Super Bon Bon" is one of the songs played during gameplay in the playstation (one) game 'Grand Turismo 2'.

[edit] Discography

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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