They were great too bad they didn't stay together. They left their imprint on me for sure. Mike did say a while ago it was his fault. Finally admitted it.Big drug problem. They were great
the sun has charred the other side of the world, and come back to us, and painted the smoke over our heads an imperial violet one of my favorite poetic images of all time
For ages, I searched for this song in vain, hearing it occasionally at 3am on the radio whilst driving through hot summer nights. Then I searched the words "painted the smoke above our heads an imperial violet" and I was able to hear this on demand. Now it's time to explore the whole album of genius!
dude I had a similar thing, heard the song, looks forever to find it, then lost it again right away, turns out it was hiding in my big music playlist this whole time. just happened to have it on continuous play and it came on and i was like "HOLY SHIT THIS IS IT"
I just now thought of this song for the first time in over two decades and thankfully it was here. I thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's comments and I'm glad you're all here with me.
Yuval Gabay is a truly remarkable and under appreciated drummer. Everything he does swings so HARD, his groove is amazing. I can listen to him all day.
How have I not heard of these guys before today!? Why? What have I done in my past life to deserve 27 Soul Coughing-less years!? What's coming out of my speakers is me in music form.
Great band at the time. I started listening to them in the early 90's. Heard them at Simons Rock College, was working in an Art gallery. They came in, we smoked some green, cool.
When I first heard this I thought it was Dan Ackroyd-the voice is so similar and it is just like something he would do. Naturally I went out and bought everything Soul Coughing ever did!
O. M. G. THAT'S who Mike Doughty has been reminding me of all these years!!! Interesting factoid about the Ackroyd: He hosted a remarkable radio program about the blues for years; interviewing musicians, playing great (and hard-to-find) music, informing with unusual and fascinating anecdotes about the history of the genre. And he did this program in the character of Elwood Blues, which made it twice as fun! (It was titled, "House of Blues Radio Hour," and eventually renamed "Elwood's BluesMobile.")
I was living my with my girlfriend at the time who was an aspiring screenwriter. For laughs I typed "screenwriter" on iTunes and this came up randomly, downloaded it and we listened to it together. I'm glad we did for it is still one of my favorite songs to this day.
Sloppy deep groove drums are the pavement under a beat poem that sounds like it might fall to pieces at any moment and then that over filtered organ pulls it all back together just in time for the radioman to give us the forecast. Fucking brilliant.
First heard this on Chris Morris' Blue Jam on BBC Radio 1, always imagined playing it whilst driving through LA at night, finally got to do it this year and it was as good as I thought it would be...
Dude, right? Discovered this song late at night as a kid listening to KLZR 105.9 The Lazer here in Lawrence, Kansas (home of The Jayhawks) - may that station RIP. This song and band were as fabulously unique and spectacular then as it is now. They even played here in 97 but I couldn't go, sad...anyway, peace and love. We will get by, we will survive!
In the greater Cincinnati area it was WOXY, 97X... Pretty much where you heard anything that was worth listening to in the Ohio River valley back then.
Exits to freeways Wisted like knots on The fingers Jewels cleaving Skin between Breasts. Your Cadillac breathes Four hundred horses Over blue lines You are going To Reseda To make love To a model From Ohio Whose real name You don't Know You spin Like the cadillac was Overturning down a Cliff on television And the radio is on And the radioman is speaking And the radioman says Women were a curse So men built Paramount Studios And men built Columbia Studios And men built Los Angeles It is 5 am And you are listening To Los Angeles And the radioman says It is a beautiful night out there! And the radioman says Rock and Roll lives! And the radioman says It is a beautiful night out there In Los Angeles You live In Los Angeles And you are going to Reseda; we are all In some way or Another going to Reseda someday To die And the radioman Laughs because The radioman fucks A model too Gone savage For teenagers with Automatic weapons and Boundless love Gone savage for Teenagers who are Aesthetically pleasing In other words Fly Los Angeles beckons The teenagers To come to her On buses; Los Angeles loves Love It is 5 am And you are listening To Los Angeles I am going to Los Angeles To built a screenplay about Lovers who Murder each Other I am going to Los Angeles To see my own Name on a Screen, five feet Long and luminous As the radioman says It is 5 am And the sun has charred The other side of The world and come Back to us And painted the smoke Over our heads An imperial violet It is 5 am And you are listening To Los Angeles. You are listening. You are listening. You are listening. You are listening.
Worked the door at CBGB when they played. This awesome tune brings me right back to those times in 1993. Despite the lyrics being about LA, for me it will always be the Lower East Side.
Perfectly captures the jaded feeling one gets when cruising restlessly towards that next fix, whatever that may be.. L.A. really does have everything and nothing that one could ever want.
The year this album was released, I was coaxed into giving it a listen, thanks to the staff recommendation (and handy listening stations) at Cymbeline Records in Santa Cruz, CA. This song and "Bus to Beelzebub" were rated as Must Listen, so I tried the CD out. My first reaction: "This is sooooo not my kind of music." My immediate second reaction: "--And I am sooooo going to buy it!" Thank you, Cymbeline, for introducing me to a timeless classic of a band: still one of my favorites. You (Cymbeline) are gone, but not forgotten--much like Soul Coughing. Also profoundly true of Logos! (Fellow Banana Slugs will understand the references.)
When I was a kid I only knew soul coughing as an obstacle to finding system of a down in a Barnes & nobles or borders, as an adult Spotify threw them in and I'm glad to finally sit down and hear them.
This song is amazing. I love listening to it back to back with Nicole Blackmans 'Christian's calling'. And yeah, I play it whenver I have to go to Reseeda lol.
"Weirdness"--also known as poetry or "spoken word". And it's awesomely done here. Too much spoken word (boomed in the 90's, a throwback to the Beatniks) comes off as proselytizing from the 90's (ala Jello Biafra, Henry rollins). This is a wonderfully surreal prose poem set to music--infinitely more appreciable than things like Jello's "Die for oil, sucker." However relevant it may have been--a pope of punk is still a bore.
You are going to Reseda. The inevitable heat-death of the universe means that we are all going to Reseda someday...to die. And though this song never says it, the Radioman lives in Reseda, and the Radioman will be there someday, when he dies. You live in Reseda...
As someone who lives in reseda it used to be such a nice place but lately it seems it’s full of lost souls and homeless on drugs seems people are going to reseda to die someday
All i know is this.......in the their song `Janine'....the way Doughty says `Jesus to my left, the Holland Tunnel on my right.....Angels shine down from the traffic light, light, light, light, light, light, light....'...provoked me to seek the Lord.......Seriously. Life-changing....Yes, I believe he is grappling with the light and the dark, as we all do.....but still, he pointed the way to this lost soul.....
Oh wow, I'm sorry, I completely misread your comment. I thought you were saying you didn't like him. Hmm that is interesting, I will have to look that up. Soul Coughing's lyrics just reminded me of the stream-of-concisousness writing style of notable modernists and later of some of the beat writers, so that is a little surprising to me. Interesting though, nonetheless!
We met up with Soul Coughing in the early 2000's to talk about using MP3's to promote their band (on a website!) the animation that aired on Cartoon Network, and working with Mike Doughty on lyrics. Check it: ru-vid.com?video_id=Tmls96tpwdM
I knew about Get onto the bus.... But this is almost like Ska + Spoken word poetry / open mic night + trance. I really should have listened to more of their stuff before now. This is also very 'Cake' like.
" And the radio man says: women were a curse, so men built Paramount Studios, and men built Colombia Studios, and men built....Los Angeles." So latent chauvinist, yet so cool.
Oh I don't think it is implied as a good thing either. I always took it to mean that the reality of a relationship between and man and a woman is always a difficult one, so when the studio system was built it became a boy's club that projected an unrealistic and even chauvinist image of women. I don't think its a good thing, but it sounds cool when he sings it. This could also be that I had my heart shredded by a woman in New York, and I ended up moving to LA, so that latent frustration speaks to me, even though I know its wrong.
@hopitopia I remember discovering Soul Coughing and later checking them out thinking "gee, it'd be nice to actually see this band." and yeah, their site said something like "well, we're sad they broke up but we'll keep up the site for fans" etc.
I grew up on a farm in North Dakota and loved this song. But in my 30s I was living in California- San Francisco proper 2 blocks from the bay and drove a German car. I was fucking making it. And if I was driving down a highway at night- I was probably playing this song
My brother committed suicide last weekend by overdosing on something. He was found with headphones on, presumably listening to something. This is his youtube account. He made a playlist containing 6 songs that was edited the day he passed. This is one of the 6 songs. With the method he used, he was dead after about 30 minutes, probably unconscious around 12 minutes. I like to think that it was peaceful for him with his music on. I love you Myles, I'll miss you everyday for the rest of my life..
