Formed out of the (by then) long cold ashes of the Skinbat Scramble in 2000, a hastily organized jam at Shepherd's Bush Studios between JJ, Fabian and Mark led to the realisation of Coochie's Bream a year or so later in Holland, with Sarzi as singer. The rest very few people have ever heard of...
The tracks Night Tripping Canary*, Larger Diamonds*, Canned Flutes, and Slipshod, are from the eponymous EP released in 2003, written/recorded spontaneously at Cryptic Studios in Holland.
The EP is an uncompromising mix of songs/tracks of various influences, from experimental Indie Rock, to early Roxy Music, atmospheric Soundtracks, and Beyond, with Female Lead vocals. Track details:
Night Tripping Canary ( Eason, Johnson, Sarzi-Braga)
Mark Eason : Bass, Guitar
Nicky Sarzi-Braga : Vocals
John (JJ) Johnson : Drums
Larger Diamonds (Johnson, Sarzi-Braga, Eason)
Nicky Sarzi-Braga : Vocals
John (JJ) Johnson : Vocals, Synth, Drums
Mark Eason : Bass
Canned Flutes (Johnson, Eason, Sarzi-Braga)
John(JJ)Johnson : Drums / Percussion, Vocals
Mark Eason : Sitar, Flute, Basses
Nicky Sarzi-Braga : Vocals
Fabian Eason : B / Vocals
Slipshod (Eason, Johnson, Sarzi-Braga)
Nicky Sarzi-Braga : Vocals
Mark Eason : Bass, Guitars
John (JJ) Johnson : Drums.
Larger Diamonds (version 2) (Johnson, Sazi-Braga, Eason)
Nicky Sarzi-Braga : Vocals
John(JJ)Johnson : Vocals, Synth, Drums
Mark Eason : Bass
Fabian Eason : Dub Bass
Mixed by John (JJ) Johnson and Fabian Eason
at Bitchett Green, Autumn 2002
Engineers:Basic tracks recorded by Phil Mills at Cryptic Studios, Leeuwarden, NL Dec 2001. Overdubs recorded by Lord Waldorf of Wouldham at Red Studios, Rochester, Kent. Spring 2002.
There are two other tracks from a Shepherds Bush Studios jam session of 2000, which were intended to be featured on Skinbat Scramble Vol 5, but for various reasons, weren't (Jam On Sesh; Jam With JJ). JJ was briefly drummer for the original Skinbat Scramble in 1986, and the tracks marked with an * above were in fact from an even earlier incarnation of the band that never got recorded (hence their confusing appearance years later on this EP) in those days. The two Jam tracks had Gary Cook's narrations from his book "Burst" (specifically, the chapter about the Skinbat Scramble) overlaid in the less active parts (beginning, middle and ends). It is hoped that these tracks will be featured on the Skinbat Scramble Vol 6 along with other gems from the original 1986 jam sessions featuring JJ, to be released (hopefully) sometime in 2010, or even in a revamped Vol 5 (where they should have been all along).
There is a degree of blurring between Coochie's Bream and the Skinbat Scramble (and now also The Ghost Lilacs) that, no matter how much we try to disentangle the two identities... persists. So, don't be confused (just visit the Skinbats' MySpace page where you will find more detail on the band's history, and hence the genesis of both band identities. Coochie's Bream is after all a fish as well as a band and therefore it prefers to swim freely in the sea of the psyche and unpredictably morphs its identity as the current chooses.
We are now on iTunes. here