This Friday @ The Underground

This Friday 2/24 we are back at The Underground Lounge on 107^th and West End.

10pm-2am

Special Comic Guest – Esther Ku

No Cover, suggested $5 donation.

Negotiations continue.  The new Promoter really only wants to do comedy shows on the weekends, but our turn-out’s are so good, and the staff and regulars like our band so much that they let us keep our Friday spot (for now).  Our show starts at 10 but we are playing a late set from 12:30-2am, which will be more laid back blues and soul music (so they don’t any noise complaints, which other, louder bands have made an issue).

New Releases

Where is all that new music?

It’s all in the works.  New Blues tunes have been having debuts at our shows and the next big recording session is scheduled for the weekend of March 17&18, when we would have been on tour.  So we’ll start releasing these songs one at a time in the spring.  Our model for releases has changed, and we are going to support and sell one song at a time, so that each song gets it’s chance to really be heard, have it’s own video, and pay for itself.   We’ll release LP’s again, but only after we release some singles first.

We have also begun recording and are getting ready to license 2 covers that we feel are worth promoting.  “Blame It (On the Alcohol)” by Jamie Foxx, and “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” by Aretha Franklin.

The ‘Retha song is just awesome, its lyrics are still important, and it gives Rachel a chance to sing lead vox on an officially released Coyote Love song, which we think she deserves, don’t you?  It’s been sounding great in rehearsal and we hope you’ll dig our Coyote-ized version.

“Blame It On The Alcohol” (fun “Song facts” here) is just a great, catchy, but completely computerized R&B song released by Jamie Foxx that we think we can do a great job of humanizing with real singing, real harmonies, real instruments, and real soul.  It’s weird that Jamie Foxx chose to completely auto-tune and digitize his amazing voice and remove any human elements from the track at all.  He is so talented and soulful a performer.  But we figure, since the song is played on every jukebox and by every DJ at every club every night…we might as well beat them to it and play it live ourselves, make people happy, and put some soul back in it while we are at it.  The basic tracks of our own recording sound great and we hope to make you all proud of our version.

Come out to our shows and hear us playing all theses songs LIVE!

Peace,

Hank, Rachel, and team Coyote

Dancing on Poop, by Hank

Photos by Adam Patro

The more I read about it, think about it, and un/consciously stream about it…I see more and more clearly that to reach the next “level” in your career or dream or vision, you have to pile up all those set-backs, and less-than-perfect situations, and downright fucked-up moments (where you got the opposite of your intended results)…and use those as the pile on which you climb to reach that higher level.  Sure your successes help quite a bit, they might be the mortar, or the glue, or maybe the info on your nametag when you finally scramble up in to that next echelon, so that people have something to read when they walk up and ask “So who are you, and why are you here?”  But it would seem that it is just as much about surviving the failures and unpleasant surprises that actually make one worthy.  Where is the resumé for that?  It’s the adaptability factor that matters to me, and I’m beginning to realize it matters to a lot of people that I’d like to work with.

Sure I want to be one of those people who just knocks out “success” after success, one great positive day after another, and who blows your minds with this wonderful story about how much ass I kicked and how inspiring that is, and how it all just came so easy to me, once I “found my bliss”…but to be honest…I’m not sure I believe all that.  Not in that simple of a way anyway.  Yeah we’ve had successes, but we’ve had, and will have a lot of challenges, and that is a big part of the story.   Tell me about how much shit life threw at you, only to have you persevere!  Now that means something.  It took a lot of “suck” before I was good at anything.  Thus I am getting pretty clear about what Suckage is and where I want to avoid it in my pursuit of Awesomeness.

Most of us struggle on this planet.  Most of us face real hardship just being human.  And it is this struggle in life that we all face on Earth that binds us all.  Not just us hard-working artists with a dream, but every hard working human who dreams of a better ANYTHING.  This is why Country Music stars sing about tractors and farms and lost love, even though they live in “ranch” houses in Malibu.  It is that struggle that we all relate to.  Not too many people I know can relate to the “My Life Is Awesome And I Have Everything I Ever Needed” song.

And so, while it may be great PR to only share the “ups” about our struggle to be a self-sustaining music group who plays their own and other people’s Rock, Funk, Soul, and Blues songs…that just isn’t the whole truth.  What is true is how fucking proud (and relieved) I feel when we actually get ANYTHING accomplished at all…given the obstacles we face.  I’m thinking about that Paula Abdul reality show a few years back.  At that point, that woman was like 20 years into the career that “made” her as a choreographer to the stars, and now there she was with her own reality show…right on camera, still losing sleep, struggling for good press, and crying when people in the industry don’t recognize and further invest in her talents.  So who am I to act like this shit is easy?  It’s because I love music and the power of music so much that I do sacrifice so much for it.   I do this because I MUST.  I can’t sleep at night because I can’t stop thinking about all the music yet to be recorded and played.   I can’t turn it off.  But I also can’t act like it’s a barrel of monkeys leading your own rock band.  This shit is crazy hard!  And there seem to be two steps back for every step forward sometimes.  But every time we get on any stage anywhere I feel healthier than I ever have.  I feel like I’m home.  And when people really feel our music then it all comes together.  I may have had to wallow through a gauntlet of crap to get to that show, to have and to share that feeling but that is the prize.  Every show, every rehearsal, every recording is a victory.

I dedicate the songs in our upcoming blues series (now playing some of them live, if you haven’t checked us lately) to this struggle.

Sure we have had some successes, and we have some cool stuff brewing, and we plan on making all of you proud of this little band that can.  We will take steps forward and inspire others, as is our purpose.  But when we do take these steps forward, and climb higher in the struggle to get our band’s music heard and our music sold to eager listeners…it will be on that pile of failures and set-backs that we climb.   And because of that I will continue to be one humble-assed and grateful musician who appreciates every little step forward that I, or anyone else that I know, actually makes in this business.  Who’s with me?

Peace,

Hank Coyote Wagner

Finishing

Hard to say what defines the leaders of today’s indie bands.  They have to be so many things.   It’s almost overwhelming to think of all the hats that a guy/gal has to wear just to get original music to the stage and to get it recorded.  Writing, making a demo or sheet music or both, getting a group of musicians together, rehearsing, recording, and booking a show to play that music, all takes countless lists of tasks.  Then there’s creating a performance where you can share that music.  This, of course, entails getting a venue and a date, and inviting people in 10 different ways and multiple times for that one show.   All of this is just to get to the point where a sympathetic or supportive group of people comes out to validate your efforts and listen to what you have brought to share with them.   ALL of that gets you to one show.  And when that is done?   What?  Book another show?  HA.  That’s the least of it.   Then there is marketing to contend with, the selling of your music.  What about finding new audiences?  What about booking a tour?  What about licensing your music for TV and Movies?  And every band needs to make videos.  What about the website?   The social networking?  What is the 5-year plan?   What is the band’s message and how do you promote it and live up to it?  Who pays for the studio time?

To even get to that first show, or that first recording…it’s all about “starting.”  It is all about taking initiative and picking up the f*cking phone, sending that email, playing those tracks.   And it probably doesn’t surprise you to hear that in our band, Coyote and Rachel actually do a fair amount of “starting.”  And every day we think about new things that need to “start”.   And we actually even start a number of those tasks.  But the thing that tends to make or break the race is FINISHING.  We start things all the time, there are loads of important projects that we start, but finishing takes resolve like nothing else does.  It is our toughest challenge.  Finishing takes follow-up calls and follow-ups on the follow-up.  Finishing takes suffering a string of defeats and obstacles, every one of which is enough to make you quit, and then trying one more time, one more approach.  Finishing takes loss of sleep, loss of family time, loss of social time.  Finishing takes faith even when faith is shaken so hard it’s just one last leaf on the tree in December.

Looking back so far, I can say yes, we have indeed “finished” a few things.  We’ve even done a pretty good job at some of them.   But, to date, it seems that we have started a lot more things than we have finished.  Do I need a pep talk or a cheering squad?  (Who doesn’t?)  It’s nice when people say “But look at what you HAVE done.”  And I appreciate that, and even feel better for about 2 seconds.  But to grow, to evolve, to conquer, to overcome, to achieve…to pay our rents and/or mortages off of rock-n-roll? That’s gonna take more finishing.

Here’s to the finishers in life

BUILD A TOUR AND THEY WILL COME

Okay so we are the millionth person to use Kevin Costner’s “Field of Dreams” reference, and to think we are witty for doing so.  But it’s just one of those true cliché statements that you just can’t escape.  I mean after all, if you DON’T build it, then definitely nothing will happen.

So we are setting up the March tour.  And of course it is scary as hell for the head canine.  But if this, and future tours, are to happen then there ain’t nothing to it but to do it.  So we’ve decided when and why we want to go.  March 9-19^th is the when, and the why?…Um…duh.  Now we just have to figure out how to make it work.

Our plan is to work in schools during the day for the Music Every Day Educational Project.  In the dinner hours, the “Coyote Players Jazz Ensemble” will play at local hotels and other shi shi venues.  And late at night Coyote Love plays a couple hours of intense Rock and Soul.  Then we get as much sleep as we can and do it again the next day.

March is “Music In Our Schools” month.  This is great.  We love music, Hank is a teaching artist, and we have a brand new “Music Every Day” curriculum that we are just dying to try outside of NYC.  So you can see why working in schools on St. Thomas seems like a win-win for us (despite the lack of sleep).  Our curriculum involves the students and their instructors re-arranging “Music Every Day” in their own fashion, and with their own lyrics and choral arrangement.   The music programs in the schools in St. Thomas are among the best publicly offered that the Western Hemisphere has to offer.  But the curriculum is almost entirely based on Caribbean music.  So when those kids get a crack at rearranging our tune, it could be spectacular.

We are also (allegedly) gigging at, and looking into offering or collaborating on some music workshops with students at University of the Virgin Islands.  This isn’t yer normal college gig.  Its easy for Coyote Love and/or “The Coyote Players Jazz Ensemble” to be widely embraced in tourist bars and hotels with a mixed crowd, full of transplanted white people from the States, but when we play in the local schools and colleges on St. Thomas we are the minority BIG TIME.  The activities coordinator at UVI was pretty clear about that.  Raising interest about our show from a bunch of college-age kids who listen almost exclusively to Reggae, Dancehall, Calypso and other Caribbean music is gonna be hard enough.  Getting this guy to commit and spend money on Coyote Love, or our jazz band, is a…delicate dance.  If we can just convince them to take the plunge, all we need to do is play and everything usually works out after that.  If we get this gig (with a signed contract) it will be because of 12 months of very nice badgering by us, and also because they feel bad about letting us down last year, at the last minute.  But we are building it and we think they will come.

The purpose of the dinnertime jazz gigs is to give us free places to stay, free (good) food, and money towards the tour.  That, as well, has taken another 12 months of Coyote dancing.   Lets cross our fingers about those gigs as well.  Most of the people we are negotiating with saw us play and met us last year…and still want to talk to us.  So we have at least some rapport there to build on.

And after all of that, playing in the schools, and playing jazz in hotels, and whatever else this crazy Coyote gets his band to do…finally we can plug in, turn up, and ROCK THE FUCK OUT in the bars all over St. Thomas and St. John!  Which may be the most honest answer to the “Why?” question in the first place.

Close to the edge of Karma (by Hank)

Saturday: we packed up the band for a day trip to the SUNY College at Delhi, NY.  We’ve played there before so at least we had some idea of what to expect from the show; a kind, supportive response from Marty Greenfield and the rest of the staff, and an expansive cafeteria with a few pockets of students that would rather have a DJ and a case of Red Bull.

Still, touring is about spreading the word, showing the world that you play outside of your rehearsal studio and the bars in your home town, making new fans, and giving the band the experience of playing in myriad situations.  All of these things are important and have to be done.

Delhi is a small agricultural & technical college that also has a hotel management program.  So they don’t have a big music scene.  But it is in the epicenter of the area of NY State that we want to conquer.  There are other colleges nearby with better music scenes and bigger budgets, but hey, they haven’t booked us yet, and Delhi has.  At least we can use our shows up there as the hub for further networking in the area.

So we do this show for all the reasons above and for a mediocre paycheck that pays the band members for the show, pays for transportation, and makes me and the company absolutely no money.  But, regardless, it’s still an all-too-rare chance to actually pay my team for performing, after a string of shows in NYC that really didn’t make more than cab fare (if that).

Everything about this weekend was touch and go.  Sergio couldn’t make it, and Rachel had to be back in NYC by Sunday morning, so our diminished team had to come back Saturday night after the show.  Usually we try to play a show on the Friday before a Saturday college gig.  But we are having real trouble getting the band out of their day jobs, into a van packed with all our sh*t, and up to a gig in the Catskills in time to play a 10pm show on a Friday night.  All things considered…for this show I was like “f*ck the Friday night gig”, which wouldn’t have made more than $500 anyway for a band with 5 people (on this trip) and a van that costs hundreds of dollars a day.  So we turn and burn.

First issue of the day was avoidable. I’m having scheduling and communication issues of my own and didn’t tell my wife we were leaving for all of Saturday on a gig.  This came to light at 7pm on Friday night.  OOPS.  Okay so Sarver calms down by Saturday morning at 9:30am, when I go to get the van.   Step outside to go to the train and my new smartphone falls out of my pocket and the front shatters instantly.  So much for “Gorilla Glass.”  Okay whatevs.  Phone still works so I call to confirm the van reservation and head down to get it.

Van secured, I pick up Sean and Darren and we head to my place to load 8 tons of band sh*t into it before picking up Tobias and his drums and Rach with her sax.  So we get to my building, and unbelievably there is a 15 passenger van-sized parking space right out front. This is great!  It enables all three of us to go upstairs and get all the amps and PA etc without asking one person to “watch” the usually double parked van.  LOVELY!  This easily makes up for the phone and its weak-assed “Gorilla Glass.”

But, when we go inside my lobby, we are greeted with a broken elevator.  I live on the 5^th floor.  There is about 800 pounds of crap that has to come downstairs.  Nothing to do but to ask Darren and Sean to help carry it all down five flights.  This takes awhile, and a lot of effort, but we get it done.  And we are only 20 minutes behind.

Getting Toby and Rach goes well.  We get to Delhi later than I would have liked due to the earlier delays and our multiple stops along the way for food, coffee and pee-pee.  But that’s nothing new to me or to any band.  As we unload we note that the tire pressure on the rear right wheel of the rental van looks way low.  So I make a mental note to fill that before we pack up at the end.  We start playing 15 mins late with no sound check so we jam for a song while Rach listens to levels out front and adjust accordingly.  Then we sing a vocal harmony number to make sure we can hear ourselves.  Good enough.  We play the show.

Like I said, the kids in Delhi aren’t about live music unless it’s like Jay-Z or Nickelback or some other huge band that they see on MTV.  So we have a lukewarm response in a mostly empty cafeteria.  And we are convinced we suck.  But Marty Greenfield, the Activities Director is there checking out the show.  At our set break he tells us he “Forgot how good you guys are!”  Plus he was super-psyched that we played “White Room” by Cream (at Sean’s insistence).  Marty goes on to tell us he’d like to book us for an outdoor event in the spring (hopefully for more money) and that he’d like to send us an extra $100 for the show we just did, because we didn’t need to stay in a hotel.  NICE!

At this point I’m like “I seem to be very close to the edge of Karma, and clearly this day is gonna continue to be touch and go all the way.”  There was either awesomeness or pain-in-the-ass shit depending on which moment you talked to us.  If the band weren’t so damn professional, we would have been completely thrown by the lack of prep, sound check, and zero crowd response.  But thankfully, playing well wasn’t that hard to accomplish, and Rach, Darren, and I were just able enough to sing, despite the lack of warm-ups, and with throats dried from the change of seasons and 3+ hours of artificial heat in the van.  So I was a bit proud when Marty told us how good we sounded.

So it’s the set break, we are cramming cafeteria food into our mouths and I go to use the john before we start again.  While in the can, lets just say that I am greeted with the realization that all is not well with my intestines.  In fact, something downright scary is going on.  Leaving the bathroom I begin to feel a horrible pain in my gut.  This continues to get worse throughout the second set.  We finish the show, and I let the team know that all is not well with me.  Thankfully Toby, Darren, Sean and Rachel are all compassionate and professional, and they are able to deal with the heavy packing while I go try to see if I can find an air pump in town to fill the tire up.  I get out to the van, gut aching like I was kicked by a horse, and NOT to my surprise, the tire is completely flat.  A couple of yards of driving, in the hopes that I can just make it down the hill to an air pump, confirms that the van is riding on the rim.  Not good.   After the way things are going, I know in my heart that the only smart thing to do is to go back to the loading dock and put the van’s spare tire on right then and there.  Band comes out and Hank is trying to find the jack etc.

Let’s just say that changing the tire and extracting the spare are as difficult as they could possibly be, takes all of our efforts, the help of two awesomely kind college kids, and a phone call to the van rental place.  The spare is artfully attached to the underside of the van via a cable and winch system that only an owner’s manual would have helped with.  No luck there.  But 15 mins on the phone with the rental company sorts that issue out while like 5 of us struggle to get the frozen lug nuts off and jack the van up and down etc, all in the freezing cold.

Okay.  So we lose 45 minutes there, but are still roughly on time for departure.  From that point on, things go well.  Rachel elects to drive, as I felt strange in my tummy and we weren’t sure about my physical state.   I felt, not right, but better once we got on the road.  We made it back to NYC in good time and everyone got to where they needed to be.  God bless Rach, Darren, and Sean for helping me load out the van back in to my apt.

Is there a lesson?  Don’t know.  Take better care of your body, I suppose.  But if I was to take anything away from all of this I’d say that if this band didn’t work so hard, as individuals and as a collective, to make the best sounding music possible then there would have been numerous reasons for us to be knocked off our horse on Saturday.  And also, we all work hard to be very good humans.  This pays off.  We had good karma, despite the problems and made it through by working as a team, and by accepting the help of kind strangers.

The van place knocked off $25 off our bill because of the tire and the lack of owner’s manual and another $10 for bringing it back with more gas than we left it with.   Who does that?  For a flat?  Really?  AWESOME.

So, I’ll go to the doc and get checked out.  We’ll keep rockin’.  And our next show is on Tuesday Nov 15^th at Underground Lounge.

I’d say we came out on top.  My favorite place to be.

Coyote

 

 

AWKWARD, by Hank and Rachel!

Ha Ha HAHAHAHAH My Uncle Lewy is gonna love this.

Thursday, 12:18 am: Rach, Sean and I just played at a birthday party.  Who for?  An 80-year old actor, Thespian, and Scholar (who of course lives on the Upper-West Side).  We’ll call him Peter.

How and why?  We met a sociable guy named George on the train after rehearsal last month.  He’s a retired teacher of English and theater, and currently an Arts In Education consultant who is a contemporary, and building neighbor of Peter’s.  George liked our vibe, came to our Underground Lounge show, and asked if we would play at Peter’s birthday party.

Money involved, and George’s heart in the right place…Sean, Rach, and I say “yes.”

Okay.  So it turns out George is gonna surprise 80-year old Peter and EVERYONE at the party with the Rock trio who will come and sing the Beatles’ “Birthday” as well as “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” the ubiquitous “Happy Birthday,” and, if the vibe is right, a few other songs…

SCCCCCRRRRREEEEEAAAAATCHHHHHH

So people are like giggling and laughing at the opening Beatles cover, and 15 seconds in to it………..this guy is like SHOCKED, turns white.  He walks in to the other room, as far away from us as possible, and hides.

As Sean plays guitar, and Rach and I sing our butts off, the elephant in room just grows in presence. We finish our first song, and the guy comes up to us and is like “Please stop. You can’t play music here.”   AWKWARD

[Rachel says: we then did the world's most toe-curlingly awkward rendition of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' while the guy ran away and hid. Again. All the while, our employer is saying 'play more, play more' and we were saying 'I really don't think he wants us to'.]

And George is like “Sorry about that guys.  Come have some food and drinks.”  And we are like…”umm okay?” AWKWARD

[Rachel says: this was the moment when I really wanted to just say 'thanks' and leave with my dignity somewhat intact. However our employer insisted on us staying and partaking of the poor birthday boy's food and drink, which made the awkwardness even worse and caused me to get the giggles really badly. It was just the most ludicrous situation and there was really nothing else to do. Except have some free booze, of course.]

Turns out me and Rach had a 6-degrees-of-separation conversation, Sean did his humble Sean thing, and a guy named Alex knew me from being in shows during both my days at the Pearl Theatre, and at Inverse as well.  Rach and I met at Inverse etc, so at least we got to have some fun chit chat while we sloshed around in knee deep Elephant Poo, George pushed cake and drinks on us, and Peter hid in another room. HELP!

So we finally got outta there, with pay, and Sean got to experience the bliss of going down to George’s apartment and smoking cigarettes with a 70+ year-old dude, who doesn’t give a f*ck, in a city where cigarette smokers now feel like criminals.  Happy for them,  but my sweater stinks like an ashtray now.

Anyway, while awkward situations will arise, many people came up to us at the party, apologized for Peter’s reception, and told us we were great.  A couple of folks took time to tell us that we were very gracious, considering.  And if that was our takeaway, along with what was very high pay, for 6 awkward minutes of work…I say “Onward!”

[Rachel says: I felt really bad for the poor guy. He didn't know what to do and I hope we didn't ruin his party!]

Tomorrow me and Rach perform for my students at West Prep Academy.  Hopefully less awkward.

Hank [and Rachel]

…You want to chime in Rach… [I already did]

Underground Sensation

COYOTE LOVE = SPIRIT-INFUSED, NYC STYLE, ROCK & SOUL

In mid-October, Coyote Love had our first gig at what has become our newest venue, The Underground Lounge, on 107^thandWest End.  Thanks to rockingness of the show, and the great turn out, we were offered a monthly weekend gig immediately.  Nice.

We agreed that Coyote Love would play The Underground Lounge the last Friday of every month but we immediately ran in to scheduling issues with both the Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays.  So we picked some alternate dates to get is through November and December (see below).  But starting Jan 27^th, we will be playing the last Friday of every month at Underground.

It’s a cool joint.  Great neighborhood vibe, right rear acclaimed Jazz venue “Smoke,” which is somehow connected with a movie of the same name.  You’ll have to ask them.

Plus we really like the sound of the room.

The Underground Lounge – 955 West End Avenue@ 107^th St  (#1 Train to 103 or 110^th and Broadway)

Nice website too - http://www.theundergroundnyc.com/

Tues Nov 15^th @ 10pm

Friday Dec 2 @ 10pm

Fri Jan 27 @ 10pm

Fri Feb 24 @ 10pm

Continuing with the last Friday of every month.

Here’s some video that our good buddy, the multi-talented Adam Patro a.k.a. Atom Fellows, was kind enough to shoot for us at our debut show.

Come on out on Tues Nov 15 to see our next show!  Toby Gebb is back on drums again so it should be a blast.  We love Toby.  He’s a single dad who recently went through all kinds of life hell, held it together somehow, and is now going to school (on a negative budget) to become a certified English language teacher in the school system.  He finds time to rehearse with the band (once) at like 10pm at night, after being in school all day and night, while a family member, ex, or babysitter puts his son to bed.  And then he does the same for these 10pm shows.  And then he GIVES his ALL and KICKS ASS!  He also owns a small Jazz label.  Check his website - http://tobiasgebb.com/live/  Shit is real yo.

That makes every single member of the band who is playing on Tues 11/15 either a native Upper-West “Sider,” someone who has lived there for a sizeable amount of time, or someone who lives there now.  So you’ll see a band that is about as comfortable and in-the-groove as they can be.

We have a lot more work to do, and a lot more shows to book, but for now, at last we have a new home.   Whishheww

Giggin’ Upstate

Hey SUNY DELHI!  If you are out there…we’re coming back!  Nov 5^th we rock the glass walls of Farrell Hall.  6-9pm.  Hope you are ready for us!

New Songs And a Sigh of Relief!

So as we’ve said, we are building up to releasing a series of original blues-based music.  Some of you may have heard our new upbeat tune “Bettin’ Dirty Water.”  If you haven’t, it’s a doozie.  We have been developing the track while recording on various trips upstate.  It’s a danceable blues/Americana tune that we were really sweating over playing live.  There are a lot of things that you can f*ck up in that song, so before the show, we practiced it over and over and over.  For better or for worse, we couldn’t practice with Toby on drums at all, last month, and had to rehearse this syncopated dance song while keeping our own time.  Best thing to ever happen to us.  When Toby showed up at the gig, and having done his homework, nailed the sh*t out of it…the song just exploded.  Those of you who were there made our night when you cheered like you did for the song.  Thanks.

We also snuck in the debut of our acoustic bluesy folk tune “Why’d You Have To Do It Now?” (see link above) during sound check.  Since it is 3-part harmony, we thought it would serve us well for a mic check, and it did.  Again, Whishewww.  The band now has 4 new bluesy songs added to the live repertoire.  We just need to add like 6 more and we’ll have a series.  And there are more songs coming, including a cover of “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” by Aretha Franklin, that Rachel is gonna sing lead vocals on.  HOWL FOR RACHEL EVERYONE!!!

“Bach-to-Bach” Vocal Practice Sessions

The extra work we’ve been putting in to vocal theory and harmony work has been paying off.  Between the Bach Chorales we’ve been learning and Sergio’s kind, patient insistence that we “try again please”…we are starting to sound like a band that sings for a living.  Confidence is growing and the sound of the band is improving greatly because of it.

New Guitar for Sean

After Sean broke the neck off his Ibanez electric, he was mighty unsatisfied with the limited sound he got from his one surviving Stratocaster.  So he went out and bought a new Les Paul.  Sounds great.  The guitar had its live debut at the Underground and met with the approval of Sean, the audience, and Mike D, who came up to join guest singer Cathy Handy to play a burning version of Howlin Wolf’s “Wang Dang Doodle.”  Rumor is afoot that Sean may buy a new Marshal combo as well.  This is good, cause his Crate amplifier is scary loud and makes people cry in pain.  We don’t want to do that.  Who the hell needs a 200Watt guitar amp anyway?  Mmmmm low wattMarshalltube amp.  Go for it Sean.  You know you want it.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Piece Is

Sergio is all about taking time to do things right.  He’s a good influence on the rest of us.  Rachel and Hank, are all about “Get it done now.  Figure out the details later.”  Well…the two philosophies have a common denominator, which sounds something like “We’ve done the ‘get it done’ part, and now it is time to do it right.”  So as well as begging us to take the time to be better singers, Sergio has been advocating for a day of Saxophone mouthpiece shopping for awhile now.  Almost happened a couple o' weekends ago, and, damn it, it will happen soon.  The plan is for Serg, Rach and Hank to have fun and to listen to the tones that these mouthpieces lend to Rach and Serg’s saxes.  Looking for better tone and control in Rach’s mouthpiece and for Serg, we are looking for a little bit of raunchiness, to better serve our rock vibe.

Studio

So far we have scratched the tip of the iceberg with our share at RedBird Studio.  The band’s live sound has grown so much since we’ve had more time to devote to rehearsal and skill honing.  We are already talking about adding more days per month because our “To Do” list is massive and we have yet to release a finished blues track for you.  But we’ve been getting so much better as a band that when we do release it…you know we’ll have put some serious time in to the production.

Tour

Yes we are going on tour of theVirgin Islandsagain, in March.  Details will come soon but we are planning to coincide our visit with “Music In Our Schools” week inSt. Thomasand to connect the Music Every Day Educational Project with the tour. Which would make our days ideally stacked with Educational gigs and workshops, Jazz Dinners, and Rock shows at from 10-2.  Do it all again the next day, and the next!  Our pledge is to not lose our voices, or our hats.

Peace,

Hank, Rachel, and team Coyote

https://twitter.com/CoyoteLoveband

Weekend Away With Coyote Love

We had a lovely weekend, last week, with our friends Karen and Henning, in Barryville NY.  Hopefully, Rachel’s story about it (below) and our little video will do a good job of sharing the vibes from our little recording and hanging weekend.  Suffice to say it was awesome to get away from the City…and not have to play a gig.

Here’s the video and some Pics to tell the story.

One Love,

Coyote, Rachel and team Coyote

A Coyote Country Retreat, by Rachel

Rachel chillin' over breakfast w the ubiquitous smart phone.

A weekend in the country, recording and relaxing with Coyote Love? Why yes please. That sounds marvellous. And so over a warm weekend in September, Hank, me, Darren, Sean and Sergio crammed into a minivan and took a little trip to visit some wonderful friends, Karen and Henning, in the wilds of New York State. They live in a beautiful cabin nestled among pine forests in Sullivan County, with a lovable dog, a chicken coop full of hens, and a creek running through the front yard. It was the closest thing to idyllic that you could think of.

Karen Flood

The relaxation part started as soon as we arrived – some delicious lunch prepared by Hank followed by stretching out on the sofa and reading a book. Bliss. Once Hank had set up our groovy studio (Karen’s design studio that we borrowed) we were ready to do some recording! We quickly discovered that the wood floors and sloping ceiling of her studio was the perfect acoustic for recording saxophones. The humidity level made our reeds all happy and perform well, the warmth of the wood created a perfect tone in our horns and the size of the space created the

We got big LOVE for big Henning!

perfect amount of resonance. Sergio and I were geeking out at the quality of the sound, so much so that we ended up re-recording an entire song’s horn line to make the most of the room! It was great to play for a long stretch and really warm up properly – although it made me realise how lazy my playing has become and gave me fresh determination to do more practice.

After the success of the horn recordings, and getting some great stuff down from Darren and Sean too, we broke for dinner. Henning cooked some incredible chicken and burgers on their barbecue and we sat on the deck as the sun disappeared over the horizon, eating by candlelight and listening to the sound of the water rushing in the stream below. It was a magical moment.

Predictably, the combination of real fresh air, lots of playing and a fair amount of wine led to me being the first to crash out at around midnight (this is a running theme in the band; I’m always the first to drop). The guys stayed up until the wee hours jamming out and doing a few more pieces of recording in the studio, but we were all up the next morning to demolish breakfast, kindly provided by the hens in Karen & Henning’s chicken coop. Fresh eggs from happy hens who eat grains and run freely all day are the most delicious thing. Best. Omelette. Ever.

Sergio bites into a tasty Fritatta, made by Flood herself.

Our next goal was to sing. We had been making promises to sing 4-part harmony together for ages as a way to improve our listening and playing, and Sergio brought some Bach Chorales to teach everyone. I haven’t sung any classical music in years and it was a joy to go back to. We worked our way through one of the simpler chorales, and there were a few moments where the tuning started to really come together. You can always feel it when this happens, because the tones suddenly resonate even more, and you begin to hear harmonics of other notes in the chord ring out as well. In the vaulted space of Karen’s studio, it was almost church-like.

More saxophone recording followed our foray into the 18th century. We are recording our next album, which will be a blues record, so there’s plenty of sax going on. ‘Magic Tune Boy’, one we’ve been developing for a while, has one of the harder sax parts to play – not because it’s fast and full of notes, but in fact the opposite. It’s low, quiet and has a lot of sustained notes to hold, which is hell on a not-so-in-shape horn player like me. Maintaining good tone is the most tricky part, and this song is powerfully bleak and dirge-like, so it needs consistent backing lines to have full impact. Both Sergio and I had to record it in stages – play a take or two, have a 5-minute break and come back to it. By the end of three hours, my face was TIRED. We were happy with the quality in the end (although like any recording, I’d love to go back and do another session on it because I feel like I only just started to get it how I want) and I’m feeling positive about the final cut.

Sean, ever ready to bust a pose

Sadly, it was then time to go home. The studio was packed up, the car was loaded, hugs were given and then we drove back to the city and our regular lives. Big props to Sergio for being Head Driver and renting the car for us – his kind gesture was rewarded by winning $100 on a scratchcard when we stopped for gas on the way home! Good deeds always reap benefits, ya know. And mega-karmic happiness to Karen and Henning for creating the perfect retreat for a city-weary band. We’ll be back (even if they don’t want us).

Rachel

Bands and T-shirts, by Hank

Okay, so if your, like, in a band then you gotta have T-shirts, several different ones if possible.   People like them, especially on days when you don’t have any.  If you don’t have any shirts to sell a gig, COUNT on the fact that some drunken rich chick will want to buy 10 for her whole family.  So we dutifully ordered some shirts when we released our CD.  We have even RE-ordered since then.  How ‘bout that?  I mean, after all, they’re cool looking and we even got V’s and Tanks for the ladies as well as the standard T.  We got shirts in multiple colors.  In other words, SHIRTS we got.

Hank models a Coyote Love shirt in performance

But I have to laugh and the commonality of the problem I am about to share with you.  This happens to so many bands that it is even in books about being in bands, that say “Try to avoid this problem, because it happens to a lot of bands.”

The problem is that, seemingly, no matter who you are, or what kind of music you play or how much you convince yourself that you’re a total douche if you don’t show up at a gig with shirts for all sizes…your going to end up selling out ALL of the Small and Medium shirts that you thought you had enough of, and it will then take you three years to sell, give away, or turn in to car seat covers all those XXL and XXXL shirts you’ve still got….even though you ordered less of them than the other sizes (that you re-ordered and still ran out of).  It’s just the way it is, man.  Bands just have to face it.

Where are the big-sized shirt buyers man?  I mean I live in the most chronically overweight country in the world.  I have lots of big friends.  Of course they were friends, so I had to GIVE them shirts, but that’s beside the point.  The point is…We have a LOT of XL and XXL shirts!  And while I’m at it, too many Large shirts as well.

Retail is an often-challenging aspect of leading one’s own band and company.  Really, it takes a dedicated, and devoted person to help you out and deal with it.  And when you have that other person, and if they can count, are honest, know how to set up a merch table and fold shirts (unlike me), have an uncanny ability to deal with overly affectionate drunk people during shows, AND look great in your band’s shirts…things can actually work out and we make some needed cash.  Sometimes we have that person, most often we don’t (yet).  We’ve had a merch person on exactly 6 gigs in a year-and-a-half.  And when we don’t have help, it seems like a necessary evil to Rachel and I, who know it “just has to be done,” even if half-assedly, from the stage, or during a set break or whatever.  And eventually a band gets their web store happening, as we are slowly doing ourselves, and some of our sales, in the future, will be online and automated.  This is helpful.  And yes a merch person and “Street Team” will come too.  But for now it’s total T-Shirt chaos.  SOOOO if you want to help us out at our shows and sell shirts for 10% commission, just let us know.  We obviously need the help.  If you have a lot of very HUGE friends, please invite them to the show that night as well.

In the interest of moving our shirts, we have indeed sent a box of  L, XL, XXL, and XXL shirts to our online store (and even one medium for that lucky online buyer).

They are going to be on sale for only $12.50 each.  http://www.nimbitmusic.com/coyotelove.

And, of course, don’t forget that you can still buy our “cigarette” papers to the online store as well.

Buyers will notice that the paper is slightly

Destroy your lungs, but save the planet with Cigarette Papers by Coyote Love

different this time around.  But still, 100% pure hemp papers, in a 30% post-consumer recycled package.  Enjoy!

All the best,

Coyote

P&G is Dead, Long Live P&G

Yes, so that crazy day continued to be crazy yesterday.  By the end of it, P&G was closing forever by the end of the night, our show on Sunday was canceled (due to City Marshals taking it over this morning), and Coyote was drinking with Sean Chris, Mike D, Jordana, Patrick (and Patrick) and Steve, Holiday and the whole P&G family, saying goodbye one last time to the sound of great live music from the next room.

So that’s it.  End of an era.  Time for us to branch out.  For now, I take heart from my totem, namesake, and brother, the coyote, who always adapts, learns and then comes back in force.  Yes P&G is gone, but the vibe will continue.  I’ll be picturing that stage in my mind when I think about making great live arrangements for a long time.  And some of the great musicians we got to share a roof with over there really raised the bar for excellence quite a bit for us (and some, of course…not so much).

Anyway, in the same day, I saw the moon rise over Sheep’s Meadow when I was jamming with Sean Chris, got to hang with Serg, at his place for a bit and listen to some sick sax stuff he’s been working on, and on my way to the subway after a night of farewell drinks at P&G…I SAW A RACOON climbing a tree next to the museum.  And those things remind one that life extends vastly beyond our little worlds and concerns.

Rachel and hubby, Vince come back from London this weekend.  Thanks to FB, she knew as fast as anyone about P&G.  That still trips me out.  Anyway it’ll be good to have her back as we continue to work on new stuff and maybe even record a bit.

And Toby’s hand is healing up nicely from surgery and it will be great to hear him behind the kit again (when we find a place to play of course).

More from us later.

Hope you dug the vlog.

Peace,

Coyote