Coughs | Secret Passage (Load)
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Coughs use every instrument as a percussion instrument, not just the trashed, monolithic two-man megakit at the back of the stage–a multicolored heap of snares, cymbals, soup pots, floor toms, metal barrels, and bass drums mounted flat like tabletops. The guitar and bass pile on with more banging and chomping, and even the vocals and saxophone steer clear of melody–the songs could be sketched out with only two or three symbols, one for the thuds and another couple for the breaks and scree between the thuds. There’s little that compares to the sound Coughs make, unless you abandon bands as points of reference: it’s like a massive conglomeration of screeching worn-out cab brakes, assembly-line machines, and pneumatic nail guns, the whole thing driven by the maniacally rapid heartbeat of a small mammal. The closest aesthetic antecedents are either early Boredoms or a car crash.
When I saw Coughs play for the first time this spring, I was filled with prommy sentiment: I leaned and yelled into the side of my best friend’s head, “I don’t want this night to ever end.” But I’ve also seen the band bring out the worst in an audience, usually when some deeply damaged Reaganomics babies try to up Coughs’ ante with extra insolence. This summer at a Coughs show in some crumbly warehouse, I watched a modelescent girl with long golden tresses and expensively wrong clothes stand amid the surging crowd and carefully hock gobs of spit onto Davidson. The girl’s pupils were pinpricks and she had blood on her face, like she’d gone over her handlebars on the way to the show. But she couldn’t add to the chaos or top the damage Davidson had already done to herself: her too-small dress was shredding and slipping off her as she heaved, screaming, her hands pulling at the nest of her hair.
