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The Jimmy C – New Album – Ducking

October 26, 2021 Marshall Cullen

Created during the longest lockdown in the world –
Melbourne’s irrepressible One Man Band records a full album
“From February to September of this year, with the pandemic still belligerently stomping through the living room like a toddler with a bucket on its head, I managed to use music as a way to “remain indoors” and focus on something that wasn’t terrible news in an attempt to preserve my sanity.

Ducking’ begins and ends with comic ‘bookends’ an almost Las Vegas lounge singer introduction and ‘Gateway Song’ that abruptly gives way to ‘Everything Is OK’ (something we all want to hear). A positive and up-beat acoustic guitar and glockenspiel tune with cheerful whistling that reassuringly squeezes your shoulder and says everything will be ok. Aaaahhh yes … I do hope so.

It’s an eclectic mix of up-beat rock, down-beat moody rock, tongue-in-cheek segues, power pop (and whatever Paranoia Grande is), that moves quickly in spite of the rather long 47-minute total playing time. Song durations range from 27 seconds to the cinematic and sprawling 5:07 of ‘Don’t Forget Me’ which is appropriate because it was actually written for a movie. “The Problem Y” was shot in California a few years ago and is yet to be released. Written & directed by Joe Bizarro with whom I spent 5 years making music for The Brides Of Satan grindhouse indie slasher which is now available to stream and buy.

‘Ducking’ is a fun, light hearted and amusing album in places but gets serious and even a little scary in others – all part of the emotional rollercoaster of the pandemic era. I feel the title sums it all up. We all know what we meant to say when we tried to text ‘Ducking’ but autocorrect had other intentions … our frustration becomes humour and we find that we can still laugh at ourselves. ” –
Jamie Coghill September 23, 2021

As a band I am called The Jimmy C. As a human person I am called Jamie Coghill and am possibly known for (by people with very good memories specifically within the Melbourne pub rock scene) playing drums with The Devilrock Four, Fez Perez and Luxedo – going back more than 20 years now to the very late 90s so to be familiar with me is super niche and you would have to have very good taste!

Sometime around 2005 I decided to make an album of songs I’d recorded on a Tascam 4 track cassette recorder. I’d been experimenting with writing and recording since my teens but until then I hadn’t recorded anything I wanted people to hear.

Over the past 16 years I worked on my song writing, playing and recording techniques and released 7 albums, 4 soundtrack albums (2 for an American web series: The Adventures Of Superseven and The Sandra West Diaries, and one for an American indie grindhouse film: The Brides Of Satan), and a few EPs and singles. I also made a sort of 10 year anniversary live album/video roping in a few friends to play and record my songs live, which lead to the formation of Lava Fangs, a garage power pop punk band with an EP, an album and some singles – we’re very good and you should check us out!

As a one-person band I have found the pandemic era to be quite productive, and a welcome distraction from almost two years of terrible news (I’m writing this the day after the Melbourne earthquake – who saw that coming?!?!). From February 2021 to mid-September I worked on a new collection of songs as well as upgrading my recording setup – still with quite out of date gear but a huge step forward from the stuff I used to record my previous albums!

Comparisons Include
Super Furry Animals, Ween, Queens of the Stone Age, Sloan,

Ducking is out now on Foghorn/MGM.

Videos from the album

Stream/Download

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Cody and the Blackouts – New Album – Living Asleep

October 18, 2021 Marshall Cullen

Cody and The Blackouts(USA)
Living Asleep (12 Track Album)

Release Date: October 20 (Chance Music) All Digital Platforms

Extrapolation, n:An educated guess or hypothesis. To extrapolate isto use observations about a current situation to make a prediction.

‘Extrapolation’ is not a word you’d expect to find in a modern pop song, but there it is in the title track of the thoughtful and heartfelt debut album by Los Angeles band Cody And The Blackouts:

“Present finally caught up to my past / Surprised my house of cards had been built to last / Extrapolation – gift and a curse / It helps connect the dots but can make things worse” (Living Asleep).

He’s the lead singer and keys player in the band, but Cody Hudock’s most striking asset is his songwriting. Notable LA music blog, Buzzbands.la, held up Hudock’s work to “any number of rock-Americana greats and piano-wielding popsmiths who can seize the moment with a single couplet … owing to Hudock’s often-cutting, always-earnest lyrics, the Blackouts come off as the band most likely to have put down their history textbooks long enough raise hell at the local bar.”

A dab hand with a lyric, Hudock often takes a song title and runs with it, as in “I’m gonna crack the code / it’s just a matter of time” (Matter of Time), or “All I’m asking for’s the last word” (The Last Word). Even the album’s closing track, tender piano ballad Love Song To You, pre-empts its own chorus as Hudock vows to “learn the vocab to say what I felt”.

There he goes, extrapolating again.

Cody Hudock was born into a family of songwriters. He learned the trade from his father and older brother, Jordan, who also plays keys on Living Asleep. After acquiring early performance experience playing keys in Jordan’s bands, Cody wrote and released 3 EPs between 2011 and 2015 under the moniker Cody The Band, and the ambitiously titled The Great American Album LP under his own name in 2016. The LP garnered some delirious word of mouth, with LA blog The 704 gushing, “If there were an award for ‘greatest living songwriter you’ve never heard of’, then Cody Hudock’s sterling solo effort would place him firmly in the running.”

Rounding out the Blackouts are guitarist Jimmy Holman, drummer Brent Stranathan and bassist Will Weissman, with Joanna Hudock on backing vocals. Joanna shines on the country-tinged I Confess, a duet with husband Cody, And contributes celestial harmonies to the choruses of several other songs on the album.

Recorded at Hollywood studio Elephant In The Room, produced by Ethan Kaufmann (Avril Lavigne, Wild Party) and Brent Stranathan, and mixed by veteran Capitol Records engineer Chandler Harrod (John Mayer, Neil Young), Living Asleep captures the unique studio chemistry of Cody And The Blackoutslike lightning in a bottle.

From the pop-cultural history lessons of opening track Time Stood Still (the band’s head-turning 2020 debut single), through the pendulum swing of Matter of Time, to the hook-laden pop bauble Sister Sister, Living Asleep extrapolates an uncommon range and versatility. As for predictions, heed the title of the album’s penultimate song: Somehow I’ll Make Good. Believe it.