Soul Coughing

I'm not sure when I first heard Soul Coughing, but I do remember when I became obsessed with them. It was my first year at Tennessee and I was in my apartment back on Gallaher View. I was eating a pepperoni pizza, drinking a Peroni, and watching Cartoon Network. And bam. There it was. A video that integrated the song "Circles" from El Oso with a Betty Boop cartoon (an intentional moment of insanity which reminded me of an unintentional moment of ultrasanity involving Massive Attack's "Karma Coma" and an episode of the original Mickey Mouse Club while playing poker with Neal, Papaw, and Vaughn G.).

My mind was dazzled.

Well, yesterday I brought up to my friend Chris how I had just ordered all the Soul Coughing CDs for my collection (I have had El Oso stolen from me twice) and how I wish they were still around (the broke up a couple anos ago, much to my eternal angst and dismay) so I could link them to my blog and actually include some content. Well, that's when he whips out his iPod and lets me dig on some of Mike Doughty's vibes. And damnation they're sweet. So let me try and drop some knowledge worth knowing on you.

First off, you should know that Soul Coughing is not unlike Counting Crows, except they were interested in far less conventional themes and their repertoire of sounds, riffs, beats, and compositional elements was radically more complex. They represented one of the most truly unique sounds of any recent music, in my opinion, and I'm stickin' to it. Point of order, you might say they are like Counting Crows if Counting Crows had been influenced heavily by acid jazz and some of the smarter European techno, not to mention a subtle, almost hidden gospel sensibility. Yeah. . . all that.

So, let me drop some knowledge, cause they're actually interesting in this case. VH1's has a pretty super duper bio, but no fun tidbits. Not a problem - like always, if you want the bonus lights and buzzers, you hit MTV. There are some videos there, which is always nice.

You all know how I'm a little hesitant to throw up links from Wikipedia, but damnation if their discography on this one ain't pretty good - again, if that's your jonx.

Now you're nerding it up; you want more and by Gawd, you'll have more. Try SCUG. . . that's Soul Coughing Underground. Neat as Wes Boggs' room when it comes to downloads, and they have a tape-sharing section. . . that's pretty groovy. Also, its a touch obsessive. But awesome.

I ain't too smart, but I know that if you want to find music that's easy to hear and high quality, you probably have to hit mySpace. Hit THIS one and THAT one THAT ONE OVER THERE. Listen to every damn song. Now. But especially "True Dreams of Wichita." A song so beautiful I can't listen to it and drive at the same time. Seriously.

As for the what those guys are doing now, I got you some more. Mike Doughty's (the former Soul Coughing lead singer) homepage is awesome - plenty of samples and one of those rare blogs worth reading. Mark de Gli Antoni has a website called Horse Tricks. The former Soul Coughing keyboarder et al.'s site is, well . . . okay, I haven't really looked at it too much, but it seems, well a little crazy - he seems to be working more on soundtracks and their ilk now - but I did watch this cartoon linked from it in which everyone chokes except the chicken. As to Sebastian Steinberg and Yuval Gabay, well, there are rumors that they've formed a band named "U.V. Ray," which I have no reason not to believe (or believe), but I can't find'm on the ol' Net. Anyway, dig around explore, yatta-yatta-yatta. If you don't find yourself a Soul Coughing fan, well, I hate you.

Sorry. That's just how it is. Jerk.