Mitchell Froom - Dopamine

If you know Mitchell Froom's name, you're probably just as familiar with Tchad Blake. These two production juggernauts used to be quite the duo, though they don't seem to collaborate any longer. Nonetheless, their work helped propel Los Lobos to fame and recognition, at least until they decided to sign with Hollywood Records and attack Paul Simon in the press. They've also been associated with acts as wide ranging as Soul Coughing, The Dandy Warhols, Cibo Matto, Latin Playboys (of which they were members), Sheryl Crow (I'll forgive them for that), Elvis Costello, Suzanne Vega (to which Froom was married) and many more than I dare to list here. With a list of clients like those, it only made sense that there would be some kind of project to come out of their relationships with their many collaborators, and Froom capitalized on extra studio time by recording most of Dopamine literally between takes at other artists' sessions. Blake, of course, got the production credit.

Dopamine was initially green-lit by Geffen Records, certainly in no small part because of the amazing list of collaborators, but somewhere along the way they lost interest and gave Froom and Blake the album back. One listen and it's understandable why this happened, as it's not a commercial sounding album by any stretch, but its qualities are stunning nonetheless and they found a partner in crime with Atlantic Records when they agreed to issue the album in 1998, for better or worse. I note the better or worse part because it's not as though Atlantic promoted the album or gave it any push whatsoever. I was amazed when I stumbled upon it in a Best Buy over a decade ago, both for it's content and the cover art. How do you sell something like this?

All negative sounding commentary aside, if the artists making guest appearances grab your attention and you know the Froom/Blake sound, you should already have a good idea what to expect, and at just over a half hour, Dopamine never wears out its welcome, remaining a fascinating, gorgeous mess of bizarre collaborations and worldly vibes someone would probably try to play on NPR. Myself, I love it. It's an amazing album and nothing else really sounds like it. Hell, Froom and Blake make Sheryl Crow sound exciting on her bizarre freak-out, Monkey Mind. Elsewhere, Jerry Stahl, author of the drug-nightmare that is Permanent Midnight and one of the individuals responsible for keeping Alf in the public's consciousness throughout the eighties, provides mumblings on a song also named Permanent Midnight, Miho Hatori chirps in her wonderfully sexy and beautiful voice about a Wave that takes her clothes away, Louie Perez provides slightly clearer mumblings about who knows what on I'd Better Not, Ron Sexsmith conjures a by-gone era that might not have existed in the sad Overcast, and a stoned-sounding Doughty does that thing he does on The Bunny. The coolest collaboration on the album though might be the closer, Fruta Prohibida, where Froom samples one of his father's recordings for the introduction. How cool is that?

Dopamine is lounge music for paranoid shut-ins, though it's better than that. It's one of those albums that deserves a cult following and groups of people selling original copies for obscene amounts of cash, though that will probably never happen. Regardless, listening to this album will explain why I want to hear Froom's score for the art-house-porno, Cafe Flesh, as I'd love to know just how weird he was when he was younger. Listen to this while trying to get your lover hot and you'll fail miserably, but you'll probably be driven to learn some obscure dances and have some incredible conversations, and let's face it, that's what really leads things in a kinky direction! You'll thank me later!


Mitchell Froom - Dopamine

01 Tastes Good (feat. David Hidalgo)
02 The Bunny (feat. M. Doughty)
03 Kitsum (feat. Lisa Germano)
04 Dopamine (feat. Suzanne Vega)
05 Watery Eyes (feat. Mark Eitzel)
06 Monkey Mind (feat. Sheryl Crow)
07 Noodletown (with guitar by Steve Donnelly)
08 Wave (feat. Miho Hatori)
09 I'd Better Not (feat. Louie Perez)
10 Permanent Midnight (feat. Jerry Stahl)
11 Overcast (feat. Ron Sexsmith)
12 Fruta Prohibida (with violin by Mark Feldman)

Soul Coughing - Sugar Free Jazz: Slash Records In-House Cassette

The other day I received a very polite e-mail offering to rip a reference cassette with previously unreleased remixes of Soul Coughing's Sugar Free Jazz on it. Of course I gladly accepted and offered my first born in return for their kindness! They declined my offer, and how can I blame them, but they did make one caveat regarding their ripping the tape, and that was that I maintain their anonymity. So, while I won't be naming names I would like to thank this wonderfully kind individual for their generosity! I owe you one big time!

The tape in question is an in-house cassette from Slash Records and is dated 7/18/95. It's quite interesting as several of the tracks have been released on either the official 12" or CD releases of the Sugar Free Jazz maxi-single, though the track names aren't all correct and there are several mixes which have never seen the light of day. The mix of Screenwriter's Blues also seems to be different, although the performance is the same as what was officially released. This cassette must have been produced in relation to the CD maxi single version of Sugar Free Jazz since it was released in 1995 with the live version of Screenwriter's Blues while the 12" was issued in 1994. The tape erroneously lists two Mad Professor Dub Mixes while there is only one, so in actuality there are only nine tracks on the tape. As for the cassette, all tracks are contained on the first side while the flip side is blank. The source was generous enough to include scans of the j-card and cassette so you can examine the track list.

The rip of the tape was sent to me in FLAC format and the only changes I made was to normalize each of the tracks for maximum audibility and adjust some of the track titles to reflect their official names. You can download both the FLAC version (in two files) and a V0 MP3 conversion below. And again, thank you to our anonymous benefactor for their kindness and generosity, it is truly appreciated!


Soul Coughing - Sugar Free Jazz: Slash In-House Cassette

FLAC Part 1
FLAC Part 2
V0 MP3

01 Sugar Free Jazz (Omni Trio Jazz Free Sucrose Jungle Dub)
officially released on the Sugar Free Jazz 12" and CD maxi-singles
02 Sugar Free Jazz (Omni Trio Cool Bombing Ambient Dub-Hop)
unreleased
03 Sugar Free Jazz (Mad Professor Vocal Mix)
unreleased
04 Sugar Free Jazz (Mad Professor Alt. Vocal Mix)
unreleased
05 Sugar Free Jazz (Mad Professor Dub Mix)
unreleased
06 Sugar Free Jazz (Mad Professor Cane Field Mix)
officially released on the Sugar Free Jazz 12"
07 Sugar Free Jazz (Mad Professor Vocal Reggae Jazz Mix)
unreleased
08 Sugar Free Jazz (Mad Professor and Dougie Digital Sugar Cane Jungle Mix)
officially released on the Sugar Free Jazz 12" and CD maxi-singles
09 Screenwriter's Blues (Live On Morning Becomes Eclectic 5/2/95)
officially released on the Sugar Free Jazz CD maxi-single though this may be an alternate mix

Requests and Odds and Ends

This post contains a few things which have been requested recently so I figured I'd put them online for all interested. Enjoy!




Akabu - Watch Yourself

FLAC
V0 MP3

As requested by DJ Pigg in regards to the main version appearing in the Steinski post. This was produced by Tom Silverman of Tommy Boy Records and Adrian Sherwood of On-U-Sound. The unmixed tapes were then given to Double Dee & Steinski who were asked to assemble finished versions for release. These are the (funky) results.




MC Paul Barman - How Hard Is That?

FLAC
V0 MP3

As requested by Dylan, this is the full 12" with the dirty, clean and instrumental versions, while the previous post only had the dirty ones.




Queen - NIN Remixes

FLAC
V0 MP3

This is a considerable upgrade over the previous versions posted. The two tape rips have been speed corrected by having them pitch-shifted one semitone up and the a copy of the officially pressed version of Trent's remix of Stone Cold Crazy from a Hollywood Records promotional CD single is included. I'm also sharing these links on a Queen forum as I was told the quality of the version of Tie Your Mother Down is better than the one generally circulating there.




Soul Coughing - Remixes

01 Super Bon Bon (Tchad Blake Kick Dub Mix)
02 Circles (Moby Mix)
03 Rolling (Invisible Disco-Funk Mix)


Since the last SC post I found a few of these remixes online and wanted to share them. The Invisible Disco-Funk Mix was created by Los Amigos Invisibles. I have no idea where the Moby mix of Circles is taken from and for all I know it might not really be his work, but I'm assuming it has to be an official mix of some sort since it's clearly created from the multitracks. As for the Tchad Blake mix of Super Bon Bon, it appears on a special Japanese reissue of the Irresistible Bliss, though I can't find a lossless rip of it anywhere. I'd love to find better copies of these tracks as well as the Grooverider remixes of Rolling and Ashley Beedle remixes of Circles, so if you'd like to share I'd love to talk with you!

Soul Coughing - An Assorted Selection Of Wonderment

As promised, here is a nugget of joy for you all, only to be followed by several more significant nuggets! Credit must be given to LeSanderX who posted an excellent compilation at the "green demon" for which I borrowed several tracks, in particular the lossless rips of Babyfood, Sitcom, Reasons and Zantziger for which I had never seen better or lossless versions circulating online. The versions here have been declicked, though if you'd like LeSanderX's original rips, please don't hesitate to head on over to the "green demon" and grab them! Apart from that, our compilations are pretty similar, though I've also added a lossless rip of the Hello Recordings Club EP and two remixes which aren't easy to find, at least not in their full length forms. So, please enjoy a completely lossless collection of Soul Coughing's b-sides and non-album tracks that received an official release with some additional wonderment thrown in for good measure. And again, props to LeSanderX and lesandrite! Enjoy!


Soul Coughing - An Assorted Selection Of Wonderment

FLAC, Part 1
FLAC, Part 2
FLAC, Part 3
V0 MP3

01 I'm Livin' On Babyfood
02 Theme From Rachel's Sitcom
03 Buddha Rhubarb Butter
04 The Brooklynites
05 Murder Of Lawyers
06 Sugar Free Jazz (Omnitron Jazz Free Sucrose Mix)
07 El Burro In The Underworld
08 My Ass Is In The Bronx
09 Come On and Dig Me 'Cause I'm The Fly Pygmy
10 Sack Full Of Puppies
11 Pounded Cub Scout
12 Unmarked Helicopters
13 Lemon Lime
14 Blow My Only
15 Super Bon Bon (Propellerheads Mezzanine Mix)
16 A Plane Scraped Its Belly On A Sooty Yellow Moon (with Roni Size)
17 The Bug
18 16 Horses
19 These Are The Reasons
20 Adolpha Zantziger
21 Rare Star Ball
22 212
23 Suzi Snowflake

Tracks 1 and 2 taken from Soil X Samples 18, 1994
Track 3 taken from Trademark Of Quality compilation, 1994
Track 4 taken from Blue In The Face soundtrack, 1995
Track 5 taken from Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip compilation, 1996
Track 6 taken from Loss Leaders Revisited compilation, 1996, most likely not different from the Jazz Free Sucrose Jungle Dub on the Sugar Free Jazz single. Despite the odd title, this remix is credited to Omni Trio.
Tracks 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 taken from Hello CD Of The Month Club 7, 1996
Track 12 taken from Songs In The Key Of X compilation, 1996
Tracks 13 and 14 taken from the Japanese edition of Irresistible Bliss, 1996
Track 15 taken from the UK Super Bon Bon single, 1996
Track 16 taken from Spawn: The Album, 1997
Track 17 taken from Batman & Robin soundtrack, 1997
Track 18 taken from The X-Files: The Movie soundtrack, 1998
Tracks 19 and 20 taken from an untitled promotional single which is sometimes listed as a single release of Circles, 1998
Tracks 21 and 22 taken from Japanese edition of El Oso, 1998
Track 23 taken from Made Especially For You promotional EP, 1997

"Name Your Own" Sampler

This is a Warner Bros. Records in-store sampler from 1995. Unlike the Trademark Of Quality promos and some of their other unique releases, this one doesn't have anything unreleased on it, though it is rather unique nonetheless. The cover image is actually a sticker and contains the rather amazing phrase, "Fuck 'em in the ear", as an option to name the CD. I suppose whomever approved the cover figured wherever this was getting played, the store wouldn't put the case up front for customers to see, though that seems rather naive. On top of that, the CD features the Deftones' 7 Words, a song which certainly sounds like someone is screaming "fuck" repeatedly in the chorus, as well as Backstrokin' from Mr. Bungle's Disco Volante, one of the most uncommercial albums Warner Bros. has ever released and also features some mumbled obscenities at the end. Overall though, the CD is actually a really great representation of WB's alternative themed releases from the mid-nineties. You've got appearances from Cibo Matto, Soul Coughing, Cornershop and many more. The Mouse On Mars and Long Fin Killie tracks are particularly good.

If I heard this disc in a store today I'd probably be asking about several of the releases, although I'm glad I already know the majority of them. That said, while I know Soul Coughing's The Brooklynites rather well, John Lurie's Let's Get Ready To Rhumba is rather excellent and I'm probably going to have to hunt down the Blue In The Face and Smoke soundtracks. Never seen either movie before, though I always wanted to. Guess I've got some research to do. Enjoy!


"Name Your Own" Sampler

01 Deftones - 7 Words
02 Mr. Bungle - Backstrokin'
03 Mouse On Mars - Bib
04 Long Fin Killie - Homo Erectus
05 Lisa Gerrard - Sunvean
06 The Flaming Lips - Psychiatric Explorations Of The Fetus With Needles
07 Son Volt - Drown
08 The Jesus and Mary Chain - I Hate Rock 'n' Roll
09 Cibo Matto - Know Your Chicken
10 Built To Spill & Cuastic Resin - Still Flat
11 Pedro Ramos - Luis di Kandinha (Luis, Kandinha's Son)
12 You Am I - Jewels and Bullets
13 Cornershop - Call All Destroyer
14 Soul Coughing - The Brooklynites
15 John Lurie - Let's Get Ready To Rhumba

Mike Doughty - Haughty Melodic Roughs

Someone was asking about Doughty's song, I'm Still Drinking In My Dreams. Apparently it was a free download on his myspace or something at one point or another, as may have been his solo version of Tremendous Brunettes. I wanted to share these but not if it were only those two tracks. I thought about doing a post with Doughty guest spots on other artists' tracks but then I remembered where I got those Haughty Melodic leftovers from in the first place.

While still an independent artist, our man Doughty had managed two releases, Skittish and Rockity Roll, as well as a limited live CD. He had bigger plans though and was working on an album with his band. He had compiled a demo tape of eleven songs and by chance found himself in front of his old pal, Dave Matthews. He gave Dave a copy, Dave loved it and Doughty was signed to Dave's ATO Records shortly thereafter. The songs on that demo would make up Haughty Melodic and we'd all hear Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well on Grey's Anatomy whether we admitted it or not. Good for Mike!

The demo tape, while cool, sounds a lot like the finished album. A LOT LIKE THE FINISHED ALBUM. It's rather amazing how good it sounds for a demo, to which I've often wondered if some of the multitracks from the demo sessions were used on the finished album. I suppose it's possible. What really matters though is how clear Doughty's vision was and remained as evidenced by a comparison between the demo and finished product, and that is why I'm posting it here tonight for your listening pleasure. Now you can do your own compare and contrast experiments with these very high quality demos or roughs as I prefer to call them. If you hear anything really fascinating please drop a note in comments for this post and share those details. Enjoy!


Mike Doughty - Haughty Melodic Roughs

01 Unsingable Name
02 Madeline and Nine
03 Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well
04 I'm Still Drinking In My Dreams
05 American Car
06 I Hear The Bells
07 Tremendous Brunettes
08 Grey Ghost
09 Sunkeneyed Girl
10 Busting Up A Starbucks
11 White Lexus


PS - In case anyone is wondering, I found these on slsk a good while before Haughty Melodic was released. And if you haven't heard the finished album, Tremendous Brunettes here is a solo version because Dave Matthews shared the vocals with Mike on the album version.

Mike Doughty - Skittish Roughs

I know a lot of us here love Mike Doughty, be it with Soul Coughing, as a solo artist or collaborating with someone else. Since I haven't posted anything related to Mike or the Cough in a while, I thought it was about time for something wonderful from the house of Doughty.

If you missed it in the age of Napster, a rough tape of Mike's Skittish record leaked way back when. The album was recorded with studio-wiz, Kramer, while Soul Coughing were still together and Mike wanted to make a stripped-down, acoustic album all on his own. Being signed to Warner Bros. at the time, it was offered to them for release but they shot it down, leaving it shelved indefinitely. Wait a few years, the Cough have broken up and Mike isn't doing much, although he notices that the album somehow leaked onto the net and was being shared by fans with a lot of love for the material. As only can be expected of Mike, he decides to burn a bunch of CDRs of the finished album, get his guitar, rent a car and go traveling across the country, booking shows where he would show up, play Soul Coughing classics and his own new songs, all completely solo and sell a bunch of copies of the album. Mike proceeded to clean up his life, win back his audience, get a lot of new fans in the process and eventually land a deal with ATO Records which is owned by his buddy, Dave Matthews.

After years of selling the finished Skittish album at shows along with a live CD and the original pressings of the Rockity Roll EP, ATO released Skittish and Rockity Roll as a double CD with some unreleased cuts. It's a great release and you should grab it if you haven't heard it, and it is available digitally at iTunes or Amazon for your digital needs, although several of the tracks from Skittish still have not seen the light of day, at least officially.

So, in case you didn't catch them when Napster was still around, here are the rough versions of the Skittish recordings that are circulating. Despite the simplicity of Mike's mostly acoustic set-up you can hear interesting differences between these versions and the finished ones.

If you like this, please buy the official Skittish/Rockity Roll release. Despite being signed to a label, ATO Records isn't a massive, multi-national corporation, it's kind of like an indie with major label distribution. So please support an artist who can benefit from your purchase, especially one who lives and breathes the music they're making. I know I placed the links for digital purchase above, but again, you can grab them at iTunes or Amazon. Also, if you like this and haven't heard Mike's other solo releases, he has three other great albums, Haughty Melodic, Golden Delicious and Sad Man, Happy Man, all also available digitally. The most recent, Sad Man, Happy Man, is REALLY EXCELLENT and you get a TON of bonus tracks with the iTunes release, all of which are quality!


Mike Doughty - Skittish Roughs

01 The Pink Life
02 Real Love/It's Only Life
03 No Peace, Los Angeles
04 Mean Curl
05 Where Have You Gone?
06 All The Dirt
07 Unluckier
08 World Of Suck
09 Shunned + Falsified
10 Skittish
11 Thank You, Lord, For Sending Me The F Train
12 Mr. Bitterness
13 Laundrytown
14 Looks
15 Rising Sign
16 I Failed To Use It
17 Cobain's Sarcoma
18 Language Barrier

Soul Coughing - Live Demo Tape & CARTOONS!!!

Sometimes it seems like you go hunting for something, you find it and then something you thought you had squared away disappears. Such is the case for a backup of an FTP site from 1998 containing some Soul Coughing oddities. I thought I knew where it was and I'm sure it's not too far off, but after hunting down the ever allusive Double M demos, the FTP backup has gone invisible on me. This probably doesn't mean too much in the long run but it does mean the tracks featured in this post are not from a singular source and have been slightly tweaked so as to fit together a bit nicer. Kinda cryptic sounding, yeah, but when you're dealing with 128kbps MP3s sourced from cassettes it doesn't matter so much, so the majority of the preceding paragraph is only for audiophiles concerned with such details. If that's a turn-off, you can always ignore these tracks, but I promise you, unless you know someone from the band personally, none of us are going to hear better versions of these ones anytime soon.

Anyway, the four Cough tracks here are from a demo tape dated 1992 which is comprised of live recordings from the very first SC show which was at the Knitting Factory, although the fourth track is from an unknown date and doesn't feature any of the normal SC line-up outside of Doughty. This track, Brooklyn Girls By Train, is catchy enough but I never thought it sounded like typical Cough. Upon seeing the line-up for the band on this recording, all is explained. Apart from the line-up, I don't know anything about this track, so if anyone can fill in the blanks it would be truly appreciated. On top of that, I've got nine of the eleven tracks from the Knitting Factory show but I can't find two of them, so if anyone can help me out there I will forever be in your debt. Oh yeah, and I'll post the whole show too!

So I wanted to share something else for the Cough fans out there. This isn't as rare as these demos or the Double M demos are, and you can find it easily on youtube, but I haven't seen too many decent non-streaming copies floating around so I knew this was post-worthy. These are the El Oso Sound Cartoons, which were created as a promotional tool for El Oso prior to it's release. If I remember correctly, a few of these shorts may have been played on Cartoon Network who may have been involved in their creation, but I can't say for certain so don't quote me here. What I am certain of is that they were shown as special events at record shops and Borders book stores in 1998 but will never be granted an official release due to their use of cartoons from so many different sources. There are Fleischer, Warner, Disney and MGM cartoons included here if I'm not mistaken, which lends more creedance to my Cartoon Network involvement recollection, but I can't and won't say for certain, but if the idea of this video interests you, you should definitely download this because you will truly enjoy it.


Soul Coughing - Live Demo Tape
01 I Shot Lily Brick Down
02 Sideshow Couple/Michael Jackson
03 Like You Did
04 Brooklyn Girls By Train

Soul Coughing - El Oso Sound Cartoons
NOTE: You MUST download both parts or you won't get the complete video.
Part One
Part Two

Soul Coughing - Double M Demos

OH MY GAWD!!! I feel like I found the Holy Grail! That said, I'm about as close to performing a holy quest as Monty Python were, so I'm probably gonna get pelted with livestock soon, but first, while digging through an old external hard-drive for a Flaming Lips compilation, I found something I've been looking for for months. I'm sure you've guessed what that is by the title of this post, but here is a little info for those who don't know much about Soul Coughing's early days.

First off, if anyone's wondering where the name of this collection comes from, I am the responsible party. When I initially found this collection, it was listed as Ruby Vroom demos, which is a somewhat appropriate name, but these tracks were recorded earlier than the finalized versions of the songs that were re-recorded for RV. If I am remembering correctly, and I'm pretty sure I am, the Cough, prior to signing with Slash, were discussing a contract with John Zorn's Tzadik label. Their album was tentatively named Double M or MM, which is Doughty's nickname for the millenium (see Uh, Zoom Zip). I don't know if the deal fell through or the band simply received a better deal from Slash and Warners, but the Double M album was not to be. These demos though, being definitely from before the band were on Slash, were most likely for the purpose of them getting a deal and recording their first album with that tentative name I mentioned. So, rather than just list these as Ruby Vroom demos, I thought Double M Demos was a more appropriate title. Of course, if you have these tracks under a different name you can simply disregard my creative re-titling.

Anyway, I found these demos on Soulseek or another file sharing service quite a few years ago. Since then, I've only run into one other person that had these demos. I've spent quite a bit of time trying to find anyone else with these tracks as I had given up hope of finding them in my collection, but tonight was the night. So, I want to share my good fortune with you my lovely readers.

About the contents of this collection, the versions of the songs included here are peculiar to say the least. While I've listed the last four tracks as versions, I'm not trying to imply they're remixes or dubs or anything of that sort, they are actually different recordings although they sound like they are from the same era. Also, Doughty doesn't sound nearly as energetic in places as he did on later Cough recordings. His oddly subdued vocal on Casiotone Nation is perplexing. To put it nicely, he sounds stoned, but it could just be that the band was producing the demos themselves and didn't know how to get the vibe right, that or their producer didn't know how to motivate him. The unreleased numbers are nice enough but similarly subdued. The standout is I Shot Lily Brick Down where Doughty actually sings. Jersey Devil is funky but it's understandable why the song didn't get re-recorded as is, although some of the lyrics ended up in The Brooklynites. Michael Jackson is probably the weakest of the unused songs with Doughty telling a rather strange tale about Michael talking to animals and people he doesn't recognize while being paranoid.

There might be another SC post in a few days as I was able to locate an even earlier demo tape from 1992. Most of this tape seems to be recorded live at the very first SC show at the Knitting Factory, although the credits from the tape state that the lineup on one of the songs is completely different from the regular band apart from Doughty. Enjoy!


Soul Coughing - Double M Demos

01 Moon Sammy
02 Supra Genius
03 City Of Motors
04 Bus To Beelzebub
05 Casiotone Nation
06 Mr. Bitterness
07 Screenwriter's Blues
08 I Shot Lily Brick Down
09 Uh, Zoom Zip
10 Jersey Devil
11 Michael Jackson
12 Bus To Beelzebub (Version)
13 Screenwriter's Blues (Version)
14 Supra Genius (Version)
15 City Of Motors (Version)

Soul Coughing - RARITIES MEGA POST!!!

Soul Coughing, like Mr. Bungle, had a very strong impact on me in my teenage years. I was first introduced to them via a CMJ sampler cd in their monthly retail magazine. It had the song "Down To This" and, after a few listens, I found myself intrigued. There was also a full page ad featuring the girl from the "Ruby Vroom" cover with the large text reading "This shit will fuck your head up!". Needless to say, I now had to find this album. At the time I was living in a very small country town with a run-down, independent record store that had a crappy selection and charged too much. The owner wasn't the nicest person but the people who ran the store on a day-to-day basis were cool and they special ordered the disc for me. After a long week or two, it arrived and I made a mad dash to grab it. Upon receiving this much-desired item, I preceded to play the shit out of it at loud volume and all hours of the night at home, at my job washing dishes in the back of a local pizza joint, at school when I could hang out in the library and to anyone that would listen. I was really enthralled by "Ruby Vroom" and proceded to collect every piece of information about Soul Coughing that I possibly could. Now remember, this is about 1994 and file sharing was practically non-existant. You could download small clips of songs from select artists' web sites, but they were always low quality and, because you probably went online via dial-up, it took forever no matter how small the file was. Downloadable video was even worse and everyone thought that putting crappy, overly compressed videos on cd-roms was the way of the future. Oh, how far we have come.

Apart from finding a few interviews and oddball promos, I didn't hear much about Soul Coughing until 1996 when I heard "Super Bon Bon" on a late night alternative radio show in Cleveland and it happened all over again. I was blown away and knew I needed to get whatever came next. There was quite a delay between then and the release of their second album, "Irresistible Bliss", but I got by with the X-Files soundtrack cd which featured a new song by the Cough, and eventually grabbed the album on the same day as Prince's "Chaos and Disorder", a cd which I loved at the time but now have matured enough to say, without mincing words, sucked. I didn't care for "Irresistible Bliss" too much though compared to "Ruby Vroom". It sounded far too polished and lacked a lot of the weirdness that so appealed to me about "Ruby Vroom". It's grown on me a lot over time and has some tracks I've always really enjoyed, but a lot of my friends started catching onto the Cough about then and it pissed me off. I'd been down from day one! Or two, or whatever it really was. The point was, in my immature teenage ways, I felt I'd been there first and they didn't know how cool Soul Coughing really was. I wanted redemption!!!

Redemption came a few years later with the release of "El Oso". Most everyone talked about how great "Irresistible Bliss" was but everyone complained "El Oso" was too weird. I thought it was perfect! The Cough had nailed the craziness all over again and I blasted "El Oso" and the first two albums all summer long. It also seemed like Soul Coughing was finally starting to blow up and get appreciated for their individuality and creativity, with lead singer Mike Doughty publishing some of his poetry, drummer Yuval Gabay getting involved with the then-burgeoning jungle/drum'n'bass scene out of England, keyboard sampler Mark Dr Gli Antoni working on his solo album for John Zorn's label and bassist Sebastian Steinberg playing with people like Neil Finn and working on a band with Yuval Gabay called UV Ray. That's when the bottom dropped out though, as the band broke up and little was heard for quite a while. Doughty was especially quiet, for a while, until around 2000 he went on tour all by his lonesome playing acoustic sets in rented cars all over the country. It turns out he'd been suffering through a very bad case of drug addiction and the band's break-up had been anything but amicable, but he turned around and got his life back together. The topic of a potential reunion has been mentioned a few times but Doughty says it's unlikely, despite the rest of the band reuniting as an instrumental group named Tempo Team at one point. Doughty continues to tour and record on his own, still performing many Soul Coughing classics either acoustic or with his new band.

When the band broke up, there was a sizeable collection of unreleased material left over as well as a completely different version of the "Irresistible Bliss" album, then tentatively named "Lust In Phaze", a name later applied to a best-of compilation. The band let a few tracks find release as free downloads via their official website, but Warner Brothers eventually asked them not to give anything away as there may have been a future release of these tracks. That never happened though, so fans have been trading the goodies that they could get their hands on since. I've seen a few of these comps online and was disappointed to find a lot of the tracks either mislabled or attributing a track performed by someone else with Doughty on vocals to Soul Coughing. Don't get me wrong, I love to have tracks like those, I just like to know the correct details, so I figured, hey, I run a site dedicated to rare and unreleased music, why not post a collection that would clarify some things once and for all?

Soul Coughing - These Are The Reasons: Rarities

DISC ONE:
01 Bus To Beelzebub (Original Intro)
This is the unused introduction to "Bus To Beelzebub". Where this short intro ends the track as featured on "Ruby Vroom" would begin.

02 I Shot Lily Brick Down
03 Michael Jackson
04 Jersey Devil
There tracks are from a demo tape prior to Soul Coughing being signed with Slash. At this point they were playing live regularly and these songs were all featured in their sets along with several recorded for "Ruby Vroom". Their sound was clearly less than fully developed at the time. Some of the lyrics from "Jersey Devil" were reused in "The Brooklynites".

05 I Got To Get Right With This
06 Brooklyn Girls By Train
Both of these are live tracks from around the same time as the aforementioned demos. They still sound kind of rough and Mark De Gli Antoni's samples are fairly absent from the performances.

07 I'm Living On Baby Food
08 Theme From Rachel's Sitcom
These are both outtakes from "Ruby Vroom" that were featured on a Warner Brothers promotional single in their "Soil X Samples" series.

09 Buddha Rhubarb Butter
This appeared on several promotional compilations before finally gaining an official release on the "Lust In Phaze" compilation. This was a "Ruby Vroom" outtake which was a strong contender for the album. It would have been included if the band hadn't felt the album was already pretty long at just over an hour.

10 A Murder Of Lawyers
Another "Ruby Vroom" outtake. This was released on a compilation named "Offbeat" which was part of the Red Hot series of releases.

11 Sugar Free Jazz (Cane Field Mix)
Unreleased remix of Sugar Free Jazz.

12 The Brooklynites
This was released on the "Blue In The Face" soundtrack. It may have been recorded during the "Ruby Vroom" sessions but that is unconfirmed.

13 My Ass Is In The Bronx
14 El Burro In The Underworld
15 Come On and Dig Me, Cause I'm The Fly Pygmy
16 Pounded Cub Scout
17 Sack Full Of Puppies
These tracks, in this order, were released as an EP available only to members of Hello Recording Club which was run by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. They have not been released anywhere else. They are mostly instrumental except for some quiet vocals by Doughty on "Come On and Dig Me...".

18 Laugh On Fatboy
Another live track, most likely recorded in the period between "Ruby Vroom" and "Irresistible Bliss".


DISC TWO:
01 Unmarked Helicopters
This was recorded especially for the "Songs In The Key Of X" compilation which was a soundtrack of sorts for the X-Files television show. Doughty has said the recording of this song is where the band started to break up, as by this point the first version of "Irresistible Bliss" was finished but, pleased with the results of this song's recording, everyone but Doughty decided to try to re-record the album over a few days with Steve Fisk.

02 Blow My Only
03 Lemon Lime
These "Irresistible Bliss" outtakes were released on the Japanese edition of the cd.

04 Wooly Imbibe
This great track never gained an official release although it was featured in the background during part of the movie "Can't Hardly Wait". This studio version was available for a time as a free download from the band's website after the release of "El Oso". This version was listed as an alternate mix, but since the original hasn't been released how can it be an "alternate" version?

05 There's Only One Everything
This is a live recording of a song which eventually became part of the track "The Incumbent" from "El Oso". This was recorded at a show prior to the release of "Irresistible Bliss" where the band debuted a lot of material from the then-forthcoming album. A version of "Wooly Imbibe" which is almost identical to the studio version was played at the same show.

06 Super Bon Bon (Propellerheads Mezzanine Mix)
Great remix by the Propellerheads which got lots of play in the US. The edit of the track seems to show up quite often but this is the full-length version.

07 A Plane Scraped It's Belly On A Sooty Yellow Moon
This was a collaboration with jungle/drum'n'bass artist Roni Size. It was recorded for the "Spawn" soundtrack. Apparently the band wanted to record more with Roni Size and potentially release the results as an EP, but shortly thereafter, Mr. Size became quite the commodity overseas and said EP was not to be. This track is kind of a remix of a demo that Soul Coughing recorded in England and gave to Roni Size to complete.

08 16 Horses
09 The Bug
These tracks are from the "El Oso" era and both appeared on soundtracks, although "The Bug" may have been intentionally recorded for the soundtrack it appeared on. "16 Horses" appeared on the "X-Files: Fight The Future" soundtrack and "The Bug" appeared on the "Batman and Robin" soundtrack. Towards the end of "The Bug", Doughty can be heard proclaiming "hail satan" and "George Clooney is satan".

10 212
11 Rare Star Ball
These "El Oso" outtakes were featured on the Japanese release of the cd. "212" is part of what evolved into "The Incumbent", also from "El Oso". This version may actually be a remix as the original version of the song was played live regularly and featured complete lyrics.

12 Freelancer
13 Needle To The Bar
14 He's Got The Whole World In His Hands
These "El Oso" outtakes were briefly available via the band's official website. Part of the lyrics from "Freelancer" were used for the track "Never Gonna Come Back Down" by bt upon which Doughty performed the lead vocals. "Needle To The Bar" featured a guest rap by Casual of Heiroglyphics. "...Hands" is indeed a Soul Coughing-esque cover of the childrens song. It's rather rough and unformed showing exactly why it was left off the album.

15 Adolpha Zantziger
16 These Are The Reasons
These "El Oso" outtakes were released on a promotional 7" prior to the album's release. If I remember correctly, it was given away as a prize to fans via the band's official website. The backing track of "Adolpha Zantziger" was released on Mark's solo album "Horse Tricks".

17 Cirles (Ashley Beedle Remix)
18 Rolling (Grooverider Remix)
These remixes were never given a proper release, although they did appear on several compilations. The "Rolling" remix may have been released on Grooverider's own label as a remix at one point, but it was featured on a drum'n'bass compilation assembled by DJ DB.

19 Suzi Snowflake
This was released on the "Made Especially For You" cd, a promotional release which featured this and four live tracks. That's Yuval reading part of the track in Hebrew, if I remember correctly.

20 Coffee Song
This was recorded for a Frank Sinatra tribute cd which never came to fruition. Yuval handles lead vocals here. Warner Brothers were Sinatra's label for many years and this track would most likely have been seen as sacrelage had it been release, as it's far more parody than tribute, but it's great for fans of the Cough. If you're gonna make fun of "Old Blue Eyes", this is a good way to do it!

21 Rachel Benbow Murdy - The Lemon Tree
This is the infamous phone machine recording used in the background on "Janine". It's apparently a complete improvisation by Doughty's then-girlfriend that she performed at his request when he was writing "Janine".



PS - To the band... You think I could interview you guys for a book I'm going to propose to the 33 1/3 book series? I want to write a book on "Ruby Vroom". No, seriously. You can always drop me an e-mail. PLEASE???

REQUEST FOR HELP: Soul Coughing - Ruby Vroom Rough Mixes

Would any of the fine visitors to this blog be able to point me in the direction of a copy or download of the rough mixes of Soul Coughing's "Ruby Vroom" album? I've seen it in trade lists over the years but I've never been able to procure a copy for myself.

For those wondering, the rough mixes of the Cough's RV feature several differences between the finished mixes including samples and performances that have been deleted. I've heard samples of the original intro to "Bus To Beelzebub" and the rather spare mix of "Down To This" which also features Doughty imitating a sample from the musical "Guys and Dolls". There are other differences but the biggest draw is two different versions of "Disseminated" which was re-recorded for their second album, "Irresistible Bliss".

If any of you could help me I would be ETERNALLY greatful and I would be more than happy to share any rarities in my collection you might be looking for. Either drop me a line via my e-mail (it's in my profile) or leave me a message in the comments. Thank you in advance for any help you can send my way! :)