The Coathangers
"One minute you're joking around, and then you're starting the band you've always wanted to…” –BeBe Coathanger
In less than three years, The Coathangers, Julia Kugel (guitar/vocals), Stephanie Luke (drums/vocals), Candice Jones (keyboard/vocals), and Meredith Franco (bass/vocals) have grown from a band of girlfriends buying the cheapest instruments an Atlanta pawn shop could offer, to a group of formidable, adaptable performers…
Here is the group as a group, an unbreakable unit – the chemistry and magic of all component parts interacting – all the girls or none.
You could look at them and think they’re this way or that, but they will not conform. These are four really different people who have bonded beyond the point of just being friends. You might think you can pin them down, but they don’t care. Their fashion isn’t contrived…their music feels like music for music’s sake because that’s exactly what it is…natural, voluntary, spontaneous, impulsive, intuitive…and entirely better for it.
“We write all the songs together, trying everything out within a day; we switch instruments, waste time, thrive on building pressure,” says Julia Kugel, “every song is an art project, a starting over, a Scramble.”
Songs like “Bury Me” and “Time Passing” use chanted vocals to approach a kind of personal sloganeering – like Huggy Bear, shot with syncopated voices, but minus the political fury. In “Pussywillow,” the melodic chop of the guitar brings the chorus, “This means nothing to you… It means nothing to me, too. To me, me...” lifting the call-and-response action from bratty disgust to melancholy realization, then back again.
There’s a definitive strength in the scrambled vernacular of the band’s songwriting. Do they bring the party, as rumor has it? Absolutely. It’s an exhausting time. But what these ladies’ have to give, both performing live, and on record, leads to a beautiful exhaustion: a feeling both empty and full, like at the end of intense physical activity, when your body is burned, yet charged…
Strip away the music-biz pretense like that and it leaves you with only the things that are simple, stunning, and true. The Coathangers are one of those things. Start the party.
Press Quotes:
The Coathangers take giddy pleasure in knocking swoony girl-group conventions on their backs.” [Shake Shake 7” Review]- Magnet Magazine
A non-stop barrage of three-part screams, random swears, splintering tambourines and keyboard- [CMJ's Hottest Bands: 10 Buzz-Worthy Breakouts 2008] Rolling Stone
SPIN.COM (Band of the Day 9.18.2007)
“Simple, powerful punk-rock party anthems infused with giddy, girly energy that sways between juvenilia and avant-garde primitivism.” – Creative Loafing
"Don’t Touch My Shit’ is the jam. When the singer shrieks, “Don’t touch my SHIIIIIIIIIIT!” it really makes you not want to touch her shit.” [Vice]
“This Atlanta quartet is part of a proud heritage of Southern new wave like the B-52's and Pylon, with bat-cave keyboards, rock lobster guitars, and tons of heart-feasting vocals.” [Pitchforkmedia.com]
“Their music has great merit that lies in the sense of fun and camaraderie that their songs portray.” [Southeast Performer]
“I don't know if any band has more fun onstage than they do…” [MTV.com]
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/fuckthecoathangers
In less than three years, The Coathangers, Julia Kugel (guitar/vocals), Stephanie Luke (drums/vocals), Candice Jones (keyboard/vocals), and Meredith Franco (bass/vocals) have grown from a band of girlfriends buying the cheapest instruments an Atlanta pawn shop could offer, to a group of formidable, adaptable performers…
Here is the group as a group, an unbreakable unit – the chemistry and magic of all component parts interacting – all the girls or none.
You could look at them and think they’re this way or that, but they will not conform. These are four really different people who have bonded beyond the point of just being friends. You might think you can pin them down, but they don’t care. Their fashion isn’t contrived…their music feels like music for music’s sake because that’s exactly what it is…natural, voluntary, spontaneous, impulsive, intuitive…and entirely better for it.
“We write all the songs together, trying everything out within a day; we switch instruments, waste time, thrive on building pressure,” says Julia Kugel, “every song is an art project, a starting over, a Scramble.”
Songs like “Bury Me” and “Time Passing” use chanted vocals to approach a kind of personal sloganeering – like Huggy Bear, shot with syncopated voices, but minus the political fury. In “Pussywillow,” the melodic chop of the guitar brings the chorus, “This means nothing to you… It means nothing to me, too. To me, me...” lifting the call-and-response action from bratty disgust to melancholy realization, then back again.
There’s a definitive strength in the scrambled vernacular of the band’s songwriting. Do they bring the party, as rumor has it? Absolutely. It’s an exhausting time. But what these ladies’ have to give, both performing live, and on record, leads to a beautiful exhaustion: a feeling both empty and full, like at the end of intense physical activity, when your body is burned, yet charged…
Strip away the music-biz pretense like that and it leaves you with only the things that are simple, stunning, and true. The Coathangers are one of those things. Start the party.
Press Quotes:
The Coathangers take giddy pleasure in knocking swoony girl-group conventions on their backs.” [Shake Shake 7” Review]- Magnet Magazine
A non-stop barrage of three-part screams, random swears, splintering tambourines and keyboard- [CMJ's Hottest Bands: 10 Buzz-Worthy Breakouts 2008] Rolling Stone
SPIN.COM (Band of the Day 9.18.2007)
“Simple, powerful punk-rock party anthems infused with giddy, girly energy that sways between juvenilia and avant-garde primitivism.” – Creative Loafing
"Don’t Touch My Shit’ is the jam. When the singer shrieks, “Don’t touch my SHIIIIIIIIIIT!” it really makes you not want to touch her shit.” [Vice]
“This Atlanta quartet is part of a proud heritage of Southern new wave like the B-52's and Pylon, with bat-cave keyboards, rock lobster guitars, and tons of heart-feasting vocals.” [Pitchforkmedia.com]
“Their music has great merit that lies in the sense of fun and camaraderie that their songs portray.” [Southeast Performer]
“I don't know if any band has more fun onstage than they do…” [MTV.com]
Agent
jessePromo
Label: Suicide Squeeze http://www.suicidesqueeze.netMyspace: http://www.myspace.com/fuckthecoathangers
Tourdates
| 09.11.10 Sat | Atlanta, Georgia. Drunken Unicorn |
| 10.16.10 Sat | Atlanta, Georgia. The Earl w/ Carnivores, Woven Bones |
