Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Super Bon Bon (1996)
People think about the '90s as this grungapalooza of guitar rock, but that was only a small part of what was going on. The grunge thing was only really happening for a few years. By 1995, it was starting to fade and by '96, there was some really weird stuff getting played on the radio. Sure, there was new material from the likes of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and STP getting played, but they were moving away from the sounds of their first few albums. And you were also hearing artists like Geggy Tah, Crash Test Dummies, Nada Surf, Underworld, Butthole Surfers and Tracy Bonham with regularity.
Another band that had an interesting sound was Soul Coughing, a quarter from New York City that worked up a combination of jazz grooves, weird samples, electronics, odd sounds and singer Mike Doughty's off-kilter raps. Bassist Sebastian Steinberg and drummer Yuval Gabay formed an impressive rhythm section and keyboardist/sampler Mark Degli Antoni created interesting sounds. After the band's 1994 debut Ruby Vroom, they teamed with producer David Kahne (Fishbone, Mike Watt, Dick Dale) to create a more accessible sound.
Irresistible Bliss came out in July 1996, just a few weeks after Beck's brilliant Odelay, and the two share some eclectic out-there vibes. "Super Bon Bon" was the first single and it features a menacing yet funky groove that pounces immediately.
"Move aside/And let the man go through/Let the man go through/If I stole/Somebody else's wave/To fly up/If I rose/Up with the avenue/Behind me/Some kind of verb/Some kind of moving thing/Something unseen/Some hand is motioning/To rise, to rise, to rise."
The chorus is strange, choppy and compelling all at once.
"Too fat, fat you must cut lean/You got to take the elevator to the mezzanine/Chump change and it's on, super bon bon/Super bon bon, super bon bon."
The song got constant airplay on local alternative radio and MTV; I caught Soul Coughing at Avalon in Boston in early 1997 and enjoyed the show. "Super Bon Bon" has appeared in everything from Extreme Championship Wrestling, Gran Turismo 2, the Sopranos, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Last Dance and earlier this year in an episode of Reacher.
The band returned in 1998 with the album El Oso and had a hit with "Circles," but the inner tensions within Soul Coughing led to a breakup in 2000. Doughty was also suffering from addictions to painkillers, heroin and alcohol. He began releasing solo albums and eventually got a new contract with Dave Matthews' ATO label. His 2012 memoir The Book of Drugs focused on his addiction but also ripped into his former Soul Coughing bandmates and detailed how much he hated the music. Which makes it all the more interesting that Soul Coughing just announced a reunion tour for the fall.
"The end was acrimonious, but I just thought I'd give it a shot," Doughty said in a recent interview. "So I just wrote an email to all three guys. It took a little convincing for some of them, but I was really gratified that everyone wanted to take part in that again--to see if we can be a great band again."
I suppose the cynical viewpoint is they probably needed the money, but I certainly didn't expect to see Soul Coughing touring again. "We just decided to let bygones be bygones. You know, everybody had issues," said Doughty. "Our fans are going to be shocked, man. I can't believe how much they're going to be shocked."
There are plenty of bands who reunite despite the members hating each other. Why should these guys be any different? More power to 'em, I say.
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