SOUND BITES

If any album from 1994 perfectly encapsulates the major labels' "anything goes" attitude of the time, it's probably Ruby Vroom . Released during a tense time during which the industry was trying to figure out what alternative was now that Kurt Cobain was gone, Soul Coughing's debut album was a thing of weird beauty; sample-heavy jazz rock laced with beat poetry and off-kilter hip hop references, it wasn't the easiest thing to categorize. The rhythm section of Sebastien Steinberg and Yuval Gabay kept it tight and funky, while Mark Degli Antoni brought a myriad of strange sounds and samples to the mix. Throw in Mike Doughty's freak folk poetry and you had one of the oddest bands to receive the endorsement of a major label in the '90s. Yet, as weird and potentially off-putting as it all was on paper, Ruby Vroom brought the goods; strange yet strangely inviting, it boasted a bevvy of formidable tunes. The lazy jazz-funk drone of Screenwriter...

Soul Coughing were one of my favourite bands from the 90's; a wacky, oddball, groove-driven marriage of demented spoken word and bombastic free jazz rock, they released three solid slabs of music from 1994 to 1998 before a messy breakup in 2000. Bickering over songwriting credits tore this band apart but good. Mike Doughty, the band's main songwriter of Soul Coughing, traditionally doesn't like people talking about his old band (whose often improvised grooves became the backbone of many a Soul Coughing classic). He's often shown total and utter disdain for his former band in interviews, and has even tweeted urging Soul Coughing fans to give up on it, that he was finished with that band. He was particularly unfriendly in a memoir released last year. A sample: "If someone says they love Soul Coughing, I hear fuck you . Somebody yells out for a Soul Coughing song during a show, it means fuck you ." So, either Doughty's softened his stance, or he'...