LIKE GOLD DOWN A SEWER PART 3 AND A HALF!

THIS IS A FUNNY PICTURE (TAKEN BY CHRIS SCHNIEDER, I THINK). IT IS COC PLAYING AT THE BREWERY IN RALEIGH IN THE SUMMER OF 1985. IT WAS SIMON BOB'S FIRST SHOW AS SINGER, BUT SHOWN HERE IS MIKE DEAN'S EVENTUAL REPLACEMENT NEXT YEAR, PHIL SWISHER, WHO OPENED THE SET AS THE SINGER CROONING "SCHOOL'S OUT" BY ALICE COOPER. IN THE AUDIENCE IS WAYNE TAYLOR AND YOURS TRULY.

This third part was so big I had to chop it nearly in half, here is the rest of the biased COC saga for you, kids:


At the beginning of 1987, tension once again reared its head, as Mike became disenchanted with the band, & also the choice of Simon Bob as vocalist. The band, yet again on the west coast, were on a hastily arranged tour booked by some of the SST folks, who also were thinking about having C.O.C. a part of the SST label, a possible dream come true for the band. Mike parted ways with the band out west, & the rest of the band went home to look for a replacement for Mike Dean.

I remember this period quite well. I lived with Mike & a few other guys in a little house on Boylan Ave., & we lived down the street from Reed’s place, dubbed “the Mansion”. There were understandably hurt feelings between the band & Mike, especially with Reed, who had lost his rhythm section partner. Mike also was more or less the main writer in the band, penning arguably a good seventy-five percent of the bands material. He would be hard to replace. Phil Swisher, ex-Bloodbath & UNICEF member, was brought in to replace Mike. He very quickly learned Mike’s parts, & with a slight bass distortion sound a la Discharge, the band was back in business. They soon started to play lots of shows and do more touring. Yet there was definitely something missing. The band continued touring constantly but with Mike taking most of the new material with him, C.O.C. were back to ground zero in terms of new material. They still had a handful of new songs but band creativity seemed to be stifled with the absence of the bands main songwriter. Reed, arguably one of the most important individuals involved in making things happen, also burned out-& when he did, there was definitely a large void. Soon, other people would fill this void, & other bands would also fill the void, but on a profoundly more local level, as opposed to the national level that C.O.C. brought to the table. Never again in Raleigh would there be a local band that would bring so much attention to the area from other places, at least in terms of that style of music.

In the future, the band would lose Simon Bob & spend the first of many “down periods”, with band members not getting along or doing other projects for the time being. Mike was long gone. During one of these periods, Woody managed to get both Mike as well as myself to help him record this project called Snake Nation. We recorded a very poorly mixed record that consisted of mostly old Mike Dean songs that were meant for COC before he quit. We all took turns trying to sing and even covered an old Blue Cheer song. We almost covered an old Flesheaters song. If we had done that, it would have been great. Awhile later the record came out near the end of the eighties and we played three shows around the area, then parted ways. Snake Nation left a lot to be desired but to tis day, people come up and say how much they liked it, so what do we know. COC spent almost two years doing nothing until getting Karl Agell as the new singer & Pepper Keenan as a second guitarist to join the band. The emerging band was decidingly more metal sounding. Some of the upcoming “Blind” record was good indeed-but it seemed weird that it fell under the old COC name, continual flogging of political issues & lyrical themes aside. Most old fans thought it was too rock and moved on, and the band gained a lot of newer fans.

The band as a three piece is what I remember the most, it was arguably the band at their peak. Since I wasn’t around at the time of Eric Eycke fronting the band, I missed out on that. I remember the first time I had visited Raleigh, COC were well into being a three piece, and Eric had just moved back into town. He got up to sing “Indifferent” with his old band and the Brewery went absolutely bonkers. But I saw numerous COC shows when they were the three-piece lineup, and they were awesome. There were great shows in Pittsburgh, New York. Once back in Los Angeles they played at this place called the Balboa Theatre and I remembered watching a particularly vicious set they had played. When they went into the fairly recent “Technocracy”, it was played at such a tightly breakneck speed that I overheard the guitar player of the Oxnard California band Dr. Know (Kyle Toucher, who was standing next to me watching them form the side of the stage) blankly look on in amazement and muttered, “Jesus Christ!” to himself. If you put this version of the band up against what is currently going on in terms of aggressive music, they would eat just about everybody alive.
That however, was a long long time ago.

SEAN LIVINGSTONE: COC made the Raleigh hardcore scene. People moved to Raleigh because of them. Nowadays, they’re too easy to flog. Their worst decision ever was Karl. As for Pepper, he has a lot to answer for. As for others, people just speculate too much on what could have been and don’t want to move on.

CHRIS SCHNIEDER: I don’t think that I could be mean about it; bands always have their own thing. Most bands that have stayed the same for twenty years usually suck just as bad as the bands that have changed. C.O.C., they just took a little too much time off at that point in time, & when they came back it was pretty much with a different sound, much more metal. Mike wasn’t singing, Reed wasn’t singing. Karl was a good singer but it still wasn’t the same. Woody took guitar lessons and had learned how to play guitar solos really well, which had really changed their sound. I suppose that they wanted to be successful, to become a bigger band. It’s understandable that they wanted to do that but they definitely lost something.

BRIAN GENTRY: I think, probably like most people, that they were fantastic as a three piece. They had so much raw, angry energy, and a lot of it seemed to be coming from Mike. The first two or three times I saw them their equipment fucked up and they could only play two or three songs and Mike stormed off in a rage. The best performance I had ever seen by them was at the Cat’s Cradle in 1986, I believe. Now…well, I think they could be really good if they just pulled things together, but it isn’t happening. I did see them here in Austin once recently and they really surprised me.

JON WURSTER: I was never a very big "crossover" fan but COC as a trio was in my opinion the very best of that stuff.  I liked that they remained more punk than metal during that period. I was not at all into the idea of the metal/punk alliance.  To me those were the guys who "we" fought against in high school. Seems pretty childish now, I guess! COC kinda lost me when they embraced southern rock and "got the boogie." To me it's not really the same band. People might say the same thing about Superchunk!


BILL DALY: I saw COC twice the first year I was here. I thought they were just okay. I later heard their early stuff with Eric singing and thought that was by far their best stuff. The songs with Mike Dean singing were really good as well. But Eric had an intensity and conviction that I never saw live with their singer named Simon Bob. As a matter of fact, I never heard it heard again in COC. I have tried to objectively listen to every release that came out in the years that followed. Aside from an interesting Thin Lizzy riff in a song, I have not being the least bit interested in their music.

REED MULLIN (COC): We’ve definitely gone through a lot of metamorphous. We're all growing together in our style. Early on we were knee deep into hardcore/Punk rock, which was as vibrant, new and fresh as we could have ever been. We were playing with all the best, big bands then-- Minor Threat and Black Flag. We were having a great time playing that stuff. Then that got really generic and all the great bands realized it and they were getting bored with it all and many of them broke up and left the scene. They came back as Fugazi, Rollins Band. We were still doing our thing. God, this is sounding too generic so we started experimenting with other influences. We had to make it more interesting for ourselves.

In ongoing years, COC kicked Karl out of the band & Pepper became the new singer. When this happened, Phil quit in support of Karl, & the two started Leadfoot, where they remain to this day. Mike Dean rejoined his old band afterwards to re-record Swisher’s bass parts, and soon the “Deliverance” record came out. There is some good hard rock sort of songs on it, but Mike’s return didn’t exactly bring back “those good old days”. When I first started to write this project, I was very aware that most of the people I have talked to, like myself, were huge fans of Corrosion Of Conformity in their original lineups. Along the way since Pepper Keenan has been in the band, the focus has mostly shifted to him, & although on all of the Pepper era recordings there is obviously lots of Pepper to be found, there never seemed to be a lot of, say, Mike Dean. It is difficult to envision the band today as having a lot to do with the version of the band that I (as well as many others) really loved, as the obvious changes that the band has made has been over & done with a long time ago. At the very best, it could be said that the Pepper led COC of records like “Deliverance” and “Wiseblood” could be termed “serviceable”, as each record sports at least a few decent moments. However, the last record, “Americas Volume Dealers” culminated with Reed quitting the band in what could be termed a pretty messy split. Then after some touring with drum replacement Jimmy Bower, the band went into hibernation mode again while Pepper toured in a variety of projects while Mike and Woody worked on a new project called the Let Lones, a three piece that included a new drummer named Merritt. Very recently, the Let Lones were put on the shelf indefinitely so that the three remaining members of COC could work on a new record. Amazingly the bands newest record “In The Arms Of God” is a brutal experimental heavy l record that I liked. Shrouded in a bit of mystery, the band continues to this day, approaching over twenty years as a band and a confusing (to put it lightly) history to go along with it. Despite anyone’s opinion of the band in regards to their various records, you have to give it up to them

BILL DALY: Since the early 90's, COC seemed to be more interested in playing the corporate formula game and writing derivative classic rock/metal music in an effort to gain more mainstream appeal. The punk artistic aspect of them was long gone. I remember having a conversation with Mike Dean in 1999. He told me he thought that COC had alienated their original fans a long time ago. I concurred with him completely.

MIKE DEAN (COC): There are aspects that you can hold on to and apply to other forms of music and other things in your life. But that would actually be a really poor description of me because I'm really one of the most anti-nostalgia kind of people that you could meet. I don't like holding on to things just for the sake of holding on to them, especially labels and ideals and dogma.

ETHAN SMITH: They are my good friends. My favorite period was up until Mike left the first time. I thought after that it got business orientated and you know..they were making a job out of it-that is not meant to sound insulting because they were really fucking great but you know-I liked basically everything when Mike was singing-that was my favorite stuff, and then there are little things here and there. They kind of reverted back to the Black Sabbath type of influence mixed with southern rock. They are pretty good but I liked the original lineups and stuff. I like to see them but you know they aren’t the same deal as they were before. They aren’t the same band and they aren’t doing the same things. It’s funny, because with Woody its like he just wants to play guitar, you know? And he is one of the cooler people I have met. Mike you know..he is trying to play bass in the same situation, trying to be in a good band, and now they are busted. It’s broken. Reed doesn’t play with them anymore or they don’t get along too well anymore and that is a really shitty thing because they are all cool people.