It's Pepper Keenan and AVD touring drummer Jimmy Bower along with some of Pantera and Crowbar's members in a supergroup of sludgy drugged out southern metal. They have two albums, Nola and II, and as of 2006 will be touring Europe and MAY be recording an EP or full album afterwards. Probably more popular than either COC or Pantera.
So what happened between Blind & Deliverance? The band was recording Deliverance
when they decided to kick out singer Karl Agell. Bassist Phil Swisher quit in
response (and supposedly Woody quit as well) and they formed Leadfoot. The hard
rock band has released three albums, Bring It On (of which, supposedly, Woody
helped write some of the songs), Take A Look, and We Drink For Free. As of 2006,
Phil Swisher is no longer in the band, and the band is still doing shows and
working on a new album.
Jimmy Bower's band, even though Jimmy only toured with COC I will include this
because the CD they released on Tee Pee records KICKS ASS. Instrumental, organ
driven rock. Wonderful album, I recommend you find it. They have a split EP
with Acid King, and Wino from the Obsessed sings on their two songs. Also in
the band is Big Ross, COC's tour guy, and the summer 2005 tour and Jagermeister
tour Ross played keyboards during part of COC's set. (MKOC also did a version
of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Cheatin' Woman with Pepper Keenan on vocals on a very hard
to find 7" on Southern Lord records.)
Woody, Mike, and Merritt (who played on the It Is That Way song for the High
Volume comp) side project, which has been recorded but not released. Hopefully
soon. Someday. Please.
As soon as the website is up, I'll link it. Reed Mullin was in several bands
since his COC departure. He even got together with Karl and Phil for a show
as "COC-Blind." How crass! Well, anyway, his band Brown (which also
featured longtime COC producer John Custer) didn't work out, now he's singing
and playing guitar in The Shining Path.
While Reed was hanging out at home waiting for his back to heal as the rest
of the band started to tour behind AVD, he started to sing for a side project
with COC producer John Custer called "Brown." Reed officially quit
COC and Brown did a tour along the east coast. I guess there was some label
interest but apparently not enough, and the band sort of fizzled out. There
is an EP out there and one song that got around the internet was "Satellite."
If you've read the accusations from Reed that the band wasn't going in the heavy
direction he wanted to go in by the time he quit, you'll be very confused by
this song.
In that in-between period when there was no COC, Mike and Woody appeared on
a record with artist/drummer Brian Walsby and released one self-titled album
on Caroline Records.
Says Brian Walby: "Mike quits in '87 and takes all of these new songs
with him. The band I think eventually misses him a whole lot.. Phil Siwsher
joins on bass. Simon Bob is still the singer. I remember at the time how I thought
this was the lamest line up they had and looking back I was right. But you know..whatever.
After another year or so of shows Simon Bob mercifully quit and the band went
into break up/hibernation mode. During this period, Swisher calls one Buzz Osborne
to see if he would be into being COC's new singer (true story!). Buzz says no
thanks. Woody gets Caroline Records contract to record solo "Snake Nation"
material that he had, then invites Mike Dean (then living in Atlanta) and yours
truly to join him. We rehearse a lot and then record the record as cheaply as
possible, which you can really tell when you listen to it..it sounds horrible.
Me and Mike gave the engineer some music to listen to to give him an idea of
where we were coming from: first Melvins record, first Sabbath record, Black
Flag's 'Slip It IN'...the guy ends up thinking that we sounded 'just like Foghat.'
True story!
Between the time right after we recorded and by the time the record comes out,
COC gets Pepper, then later on Karl. The band doesnt get around to working on
new material for awhile. They play some shows as a five piece and it wasn't
the greatest they had ever been. Right afterwards, they start working on the
"Blind" material. THis is all what happened in a year and a half period.
Where was Reed, and why wasn't he involved in Snake Nation? I have no idea...perhaps
those guys weren't getting along at that point. In a way, he should have been
there. Then again, if he was I wouldn't have been able to jam with Mike and
Woody. Its not the greatest record to ever come out but the material is basically
pretty good and like I have always said, people still to this day come up and
say that they liked it. Some people have thought that Snake Nation was this
Ret Hot Chili Peppers thing because of this funk bass line that Mike plays in
one song..whatever. The rest of the stuff is mostly old Mike Dean COC songs
that he had before he quit. So if you like what Mike wrote during the Animosity
period, rest assured you'd probably like the Snake Nation recording."
Mike Dean's band in Philly. They have released a few 7"s that are very
hard to find, but there is an 11 song compilation album out there called "Ninefingered."
Mike Dean sings and plays bass on this very, very, VERY trippy album, including
a cover of Dr. Feelgood. There is another band called "ninefinger"
out there somewhere, I think in California, not the same band.
This site is copyright Paul Czarnowski. All guitar tabs n such are property of Corrosion Of Conformity, for educational purposes, and open to interpretation or some such stuff. Don't sue, I love this band.