Photo by Chad Lanning
Veteran songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Coykendall is most well known for his duties as a sideman, producer, and recordist via his work with M Ward, Blitzen Trapper, She & Him, Annalisa Tornfelt, and Tin Hat Trio, to name a few, but Coykendall has been making his own unique, outsider records since the mid ’80s.
In 2012 Coykendall released his third solo record, Chasing Away the Dots via Portland’s Fluff & Gravy Records. The album featured guest appearances by musical friends including M Ward, Zooey Deschanel, Eric Earley, and Ben Gibbard.
Translating Dots to a live setting was a challenge, as the record itself was filled with guest performances and layers of studio psychedelia. Coykendall met that challenge by essentially turning the record inside-out and stripping it down to it’s basic elements. He took to rocking the songs out with an oversized Kay electric guitar while stomping a tin can kick drum and swishing away on a huge set of high-hat cymbals. He began calling it the “rig”, and it stuck.
Coykendall’s new Fluff & Gravy release, Half Past, Present Pending, takes the listener closer to the live “rig” performances by mixing new songs (check out “Hard Landing”) with new recordings from his back catalogue (“East of Cheney”, “Spacebaker Blues”) in with fresh interpretations of other writers’ songs (he covers Roger Miller, Syd Barrett, etc.). He plans to be touring the states solo with the “rig” in late 2015 and on into 2016.
An enthralling mix of lo-fi immediacy and studio wizardry, Half Past, Present Pending is truly special. We at The Big Takeover are honored to bring you its exclusive premiere, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
