Coldspot

Coldspot

with Euphonic and Chalkline

Sidetrack Café

Saturday, 19 March at 8pm

For all the clichéd talk about music bringing people together, bands can be downright mean-spirited. But just when you think all the fighting is enough to make you shed some tears, local rockers Coldspot manage to bring a bit of love into the industry.

In fact, the band openly fosters a mandate to promote indie music, an unselfish act given their own status as a relatively independent act. Since their inception in 2000, the band has been breaking down crosstown rivalries, hoping against hope that everyone can just get along.

“As soon as there is a band from the same town that is doing well, other bands start to get really catty, for lack of a better word,” says Floyd Cole, lead singer for the local four-piece. “They start to get defensive and start ‘postering wars’ where they try to put their name over someone else’s. I’ve always felt that if there’s a band in town that is doing really well, that only draws more attention to the area, which is good for everyone.”

This tenet has worked for the Edmonton-born musicians. The group’s enjoyed frequent radio play and has been the darling of local media. They’re releasing their sophomore album Like There Was No Tomorrow this week, and are planning their show around the principles that have been bringing them good musical karma for four years. Coldspot is known for putting together indie shows that give some of Edmonton’s lesser-known bands an audience, and their upcoming CD-release party is no exception. The band has chosen two new bands—Euphonic and Chalkline—to open.

“We want them to get some exposure so that when they are doing their CD-release shows they go into it with a bit of clout. We really like their music, and hopefully for them it will be a chance to open some doors,” says Cole.

But Coldspot’s latest release proves they haven’t refrained from focusing on their own musical endeavours. Driven by an aggressive arrangement of guitar riffs and spot-on vocals by Cole, the band displays an obvious level of maturity and talent in their songwriting that’s earned them both local success and the beginnings of mainstream attention.

“Our first record was made about three months after the band formed, and by the time it was released almost seven months later, it wasn’t really a good indication of where we were at as a band. On this album we selected songs that would make the strongest album from a listener’s standpoint—basically the 14 best songs that would have continuity for an hour of music,” says Cole.

“The overall theme is from the perspective of being a young rock n’ roll band that is approaching every show and performance with the idea that if this is the only thing that anyone ever hears, or if this is the only time that Coldspot gets to impact anyone with a recording, it should hold us in good standing. We approach everything like it is our one and only chance.”
- The GATEWAY: Univerisity of Alberta, written by Michael Larocque

THIS WEEK: Floyd Cole discusses Nirvana’s Nevermind

Local rockers Coldspot will be releasing their second full-length album, Like There Was No Tomorrow, at the Sidetrack this Saturday (March 19), and those who attend will find that Coldspot has but one mission in mind: playing aggressive, infectious rock. It’s a formula that has earned Coldspot opening slots for some of Canada’s top touring rock acts, including the Watchmen and the Headstones, as well as radio support for the band’s debut album, The Curve, on rock stations across western Canada, including Edmonton’s own 100.3 The Bear.

As the frontman for Coldspot and an audio engineer at Edmonton’s Homestead Recorders, Floyd Cole has years of experience on the local music landscape. And while he credits much of his development as a musician to the city’s very tightly-knit scene, he credits Nirvana’s seminal Nevermind not only with influencing a generation, but also convincing him that music that truly communicates to the masses can come out of a handful of chords.

“By the time my junior-high rock ’n’ roll band was actually playing gigs—at least in front of our peers—there was no doubt in my mind that the ultimate goal was to be a full-time musician,” says Cole. “Nirvana’s Nevermind was the album of the day, and we were into it like it was the gospel according to teenage rock; it was something really big and important. Not only was it material that we all loved to listen to, but we also covered many of their songs. It was amazing to us, at such a young age, that a band that was playing stuff that we could actually play, and they were the biggest band in the world. It definitely gave us hope that songwriting might actually have something to do with success.”

Released in 1991, Nevermind would become the most important album of a generation. Nirvana had emerged as a late bloomer on the Seattle music scene, and Geffen Records, one of the most powerful labels in the world, had plucked the band—who at the time were dwarfed by contemporaries like Soundgarden and Mudhoney—seemingly out of nowhere. But Nirvana soon created a buzz by landing a ridiculously large financial advance from a major label despite being essentially a three-chord act. That money was spent on working with producer Butch Vig, who refined Kurt Cobain’s guitar sound and brought the best out of the band. Vig and Nirvana worked together to mix Cobain’s cynicism with a grunge style melodic enough to be absolutely subversive.

“Even now the production on that album stands up to almost anything and the songs really do kick ass,” says Cole. Within weeks of its release, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Nevermind were at the top of the charts. Geffen had shown it knew what it was doing with its money all along (at least in Nirvana’s case—remember, this is the same company that lost its shirt on a massive record deal with the Stone Roses); it had sensed that the angry punk, grunge and “alternative” music that was listened to by high-school outcasts and college kids was more popular than the charts, which were skewed by sales of records in American department stores, were showing. Geffen gambled that by putting a face to the underground in the form of Cobain, it would create an icon. The gamble paid off.

All this was occurring during Cole’s formative years as a musician, and while Nirvana was gracing the covers of all the music mags, Cole was busy soaking up what Edmonton had to offer. “At the age of 16 I was playing the bar scene in Edmonton and People’s Pub on Whyte was like a temple,” he says. “I played as many Thursdays as possible and stared in awe as the local headlining act would show us what it meant to be a poor, starving original rock band, that which we so desperately wanted to evolve into.

“I can remember frequenting as many Mollys Reach all-ages shows as I could find my way to and feeling like if I could just get my band on a tour with these guys we might have a shot. And it seemed like whenever we had ‘a really big show’ that was gonna get us some real attention, the smalls were playing down the road or across town, once again re-affirming themselves as the biggest indie band in the world.”

Nirvana helped foster Cole’s love of music, and he applied that passion in his hometown. Anyone who wants to hear just how much Cole has evolved since those formative years should catch his upcoming show at the Track.
- VUE WEEKLY: By STEVEN SANDOR

"When you’re growing up as a musician, you really think you have a chance to make a big impact on the music industry and be successful," says Coldspot leader Floyd Cole. "Once those dreams start to become less of an expectation, you’re not doing it for that anymore. You’re doing it because you love music, and you want to keep making records."

It’s obvious upon listening to Coldspot’s sophomore effort, like there was not tomorrow, that the band is growing wiser and more refined as time goes by. After enjoying a bit of mainstream success with their first release, The Curve, which got some airtime on major radio stations across Alberta and Eastern Canada in 2001, the Edmonton-based band headed back to Homestead Studios to work with friend and producer Barry Allen (of Molly’s Reach and Corb Lund fame). This time there was no holding back.

"He was involved in the decision-making process all the way, from deciding what songs to record to mixing," explains Cole. "It was really nice to have someone else there to provide some direction as opposed to just myself trying to guide the band along. It was good to have Barry to steer the boat. It made the whole process a lot more serious and a lot more focused."

Encompassing influences from The Guess Who to The Tragically Hip, while lifting elements from the likes of Sam Roberts, Coldspot is a Canadian rock band, plain and simple.

Cole (vocals/guitar), Jeff Machin (vocals/guitar), Barry Rakewich (drums), and collaborator Dustin Froggatt (bass) are aiming to pick up where they left off with The Curve.

"Even though we talk about mainstream commercial success, ultimately we’re an indie band," admits Cole. In the end, Coldspot’s key to success could very well be the fact that they appeal to a wide-ranging audience, from a younger generation to die-hard ’70s rock fans.

Coldspot CD Release @ Sidetrack Cafe (10333—112 St), Sat, Mar 19, 8 pm
- See Magazine By Fritz François

In the good old days, if your rock band had a CD, you were automatically a good band. Recording your own album was a big deal that cost big money. CD release gigs were special events. TV stations would do live coverage. Tickertape parades were held. Record companies came to town, waving contracts. Everyone paid attention.
Times have changed. Now if you don't have a CD, you suck, not to put too fine a point on it.
"Almost," says Floyd Cole, frontman of local rock band Coldspot. "If you don't have a CD these days, good luck getting gigs. Press is impossible. You have to have a calling card of some sort, and if you don't spend the time and the money to make it really, really good, you're just another one in a stack of a million (crappy)-sounding CDs out there."
As an employee of Barry Allen's Homestead Recorders, Cole has a vested interest in the local recording industry, but he's right. There have been at least five CD release events in the last two weeks - and three this weekend alone.
Coldspot releases its second CD tomorrow at the Sidetrack Cafe, as it happens. Our friends in Captain Tractor are back with another platter of beer-hoisting musical yarns, playing the Druid South tomorrow night. The Fabulous BeeFeeders release their trippy new CD at the Sidetrack Cafe tonight
Shall I go on? The Wet Secrets actually make its live debut with a CD release event at the New City next Thursday. It's another wacky side project from local rock fixture Whitey Houston. Stew Kirkwood has a solo disc dropping at the end of the month. Cone of Silence has new material, as does Choke, not to be confused with Chunk, another local band trying to sell its CD. I haven't even touched the punk-rock scene. There seems no end, and good for Edmonton.
The R.E.M.-like Coldspot has definitely improved on its new CD, Like There Was No Tomorrow. To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, a wise band always releases its second CD first.
Experts generally point the finger at nasty old technology as the main reason for this paradigm shift. Anyone can record a CD. Your mom can record a CD. You can buy a digital recording studio and burn your own discs for less than the cost of the late model van used to get to the gigs you need the CD to get hired at. So, like Cole says, the stakes have been raised. A "juicy" grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Artsmade it possible for Coldspot to book a real studio and hire a real producer - Cole's boss Barry Allen, conveniently.
"I'm really happy with the way this turned out," Cole says. "I think finally we have something that represents our band on record. I didn't want our first record to be anyone's first impression of what our band was. Now I'm holding something that is easily as good as our live show. I'm happy to hand this to someone and have nothing to say as a preamble before they listen to it, except 'check this out.' No excuses."
There's some nice synchronicity heard on Like There Was No Tomorrow, particularly on a track called For America. Cole sings, "Like the Guess Who sang for all of America, stay away from me, but can I have your money please." There's added irony in the fact that Barry Allen once worked with Randy Bachman, who wrote the anti-American song that was a smash hit in America, American Woman. Coincidence? I think so.
Cole says For America is really a pro-Canadian anthem, about how "we can be proud of who we are and maybe make some money on the American side of the border without pulling a Toby Keith." In short, it's a Canadian rock song about a Canadian rock song. "I don't know if 'Canadiana' is a real word, but I've coined it as something our band is," Cole says." We're proudly Canadian and I think we're one of the few bands that can sing songs about what it's like to be a Canadian band in a Canadian land and not sound too cliché."
That most of Coldspot's fans aren't members of a Canadian band in a Canadian land doesn't matter. Some of the situations on the record may be specific, but the themes and emotions are universal. Besides, everyone wants to be in a rock band.
Cole says, " One of the funny things about being in a rock band is that it's paralleled by many things in life, the ups and downs and highs and lows."
"Whether your song is about drugs or girls or a gig or a road trip, people can draw from that and relate it to almost anything. It's about trying to make a connection with the listener."
It remains to be seen if Coldspot can make a connection with the Canadian music business. With so many independent recordings floating around these days, it's become even harder to get attention than it was in the good old days.
- The Edmonton Sun by Mike Ross

Coldspot-With the Sessions
Urban Lounge-Thu, Jan 29

When Coldspot enters the studio next month to record the follow-up to their 2001 debut The Curve, don't expect to find the band's frontman Floyd Cole sitting behind the mixing desk. "I produced our first album myself," Cole says over the phone from his day job at Homestead Studios. "It was a great learning experience, but I don't think I would want to do it again."
Instead, the band will hand over the producing reins to local luminary Barry Allen. "It's going to be a full-on record, Cole says, "so we wanted to get another set of ears in the studio. It just works better to have an outside producer rather than one band member trying to convince the others that their idea is the right one. It's so much easier to make decisions, and you can avoid character conflicts and disagreements that can ruin the energy of recording a track."
With the members all performing together in the studio, Cold hopes that the band will be able to replicate their live sound, which has changed dramatically since The Curve. "We'd only been together for about three months when we recorded it," he says, "and now we've been around a lot longer and we've worked on our live show a lot more. We've also got a following now, which always helps."
Rather than picking the tunes ahead of time, Cole says the band plans to lay down 18 to 20 songs, and then select the best 10 for inclusion on the finished product. "We prefer to do it that way," he says, "because a lot of times, once you start recording something it can really change the song."
Needless to say, even with a staff discount, four months of studio time can get pretty expensive. Luckily, the band was awarded a production grant of $10,000 from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. (JS)
- VUE MAGAZINE