Coctails

The Coctails were a Chicago music quartet, which formed while its members were attending the Kansas City Art Institute. The band was active from about 1988 to 1995 (with reunions in 2000 as the very last band to play on stage at Lounge Ax before the famous Chicago club closed its doors; December 2004; January 2005 for the release of their "Popcorn Box" CD collection of rarities; and July 2005 for a tour of Japan. Members Archer Prewitt, Mark Greenberg, John Upchurch, and Barry Phipps were largely self-taught musicians who experimented with various instruments and played in a manner they described as the Chinese fire drill method, in which they rotated instruments during live sets. For example, though Phipps often played bass, he was as likely to play guitar, drums, bass, saxophone, or theremin.

Originally considered a loungecore band because of their name and because they covered some Martin Denny tunes, they considered themselves a garage jazz band. Unfortunately, when the lounge/easy listening revival bubbled up after the first Esquivel CD reissue in 1994, the Coctails—because of their name—were too-often presumed to be part of the trend. However, the foursome were always curious musical adventurers and eager for a challenge, and in their final years they explored avant-garde jazz and indie rock, so their stylistic changes weren't entirely due to being pigeon-holed as musical lounge lizards.

The four group members were also visual artists, and using a printshop which was installed in their loft created their own Coctails' line of merchandise, including buttons, calendars, t-shirts, news letters, and similar music giveaways. They even created their own line of stuffed dolls in the likeness of each band member. Later a line of 12" action figures of the band were produced in Japan by Presspop Gallery as well as a book of the art of the Coctails' flyers. At some point during a Coctails show, the audience would be served popcorn in bags (and sometimes boxes) imprinted with the band's images.

The band created their own vinyl only record label called Hi-Ball Records. In addition to issuing their own records, they released records by the Vandermark Quartet (featuring Ken Vandermark), Masters Of The Obvious, Dame Darcy, Evergreen (featuring Britt Walford of Slint), Log Letters (featuring Mark Greenberg from the Coctails), Dianogah (featuring well known poster artist Jay Ryan (artist)), Dump (band) (a side band by James McNew of Yo La Tengo), and Brokeback (band) (a project of Douglas McCombs, bassist of Tortoise (band)).

Archer Prewitt currently performs solo and also plays with the Sea and Cake and Sam Prekop and creates the comic book "Sof'Boy".

Mark Greenberg currently performs with Archer Prewitt and Eleventh Dream Day and runs his own music-for-use companies Mayfair Recordings and Mayfair Workshop.

John Upchurch has played with Rachel's, owned and operated FireProof Press, and is currently on staff at Columbia College, Chicago.

Barry Phipps owns and operates the North Branch Recording Studio and Tight Ship Records as well as Beep DJ Service.

The Coctails albums and 45s included:
* "Hip Hip Hooray!" LP (Hi-Ball)
* "Here Now Today" LP (Hi-Ball)
* "The Early Hi-Ball Years" CD comp (Carrot Top Records)
* "Long Sound" LP (Hi-Ball/Carrot Top Records)
* "Peel" LP (Hi-Ball/Carrot Top Records)
* "The Coctails" LP (Carrot Top Records)
* "Live at Lounge Ax" LP (Carrot Top Records)
* "Songs for Children" EP (Hi-Ball)
* "Devo Corporate Anthem" split 7" with Chrome Cranks (Insipid, Australia)
* "Wheels" split 7" with Southern Culture on the Skids (Todd & Cheryl Records)
* "Working Holiday" split 7" with Codeine (band) (Simple Machines)
* "Tardvark" EP with Dame Darcy (Hi-Ball)
* "Why?" 7" single with T. Lance (Telstar)
* "Powerhouse" 7" single (SOL - Singles Only Label)
* "Winter Wonderland" EP (Hi-Ball)
* "3/4 Time" EP (Hi-Ball)
* "Hello" CDEP (Hello CD of the Month Club)
* "Let's Enjoy" 10" EP (Presspop, Japan)
* "Popcorn Box" 3 CD box set (Carrot Top)

External links

* [http://www.iba-world.net/ International Bartenders Association]
* [http://carrottoprecords.com/artists/coctails/index.html The Coctails USA Label site]
* [http://thecoctails.com/ The Coctails Japanese site]
* [http://thrilljockey.com/artists/index.html?id=10005/ Archer Prewitt on Thrill Jockey]
* [http://tightshiprecords.com/ Tight Ship Records]
* [http://northbranchstudio.net/ North Branch Studio]
* [http://mayfairworkshop.com/ the Mayfair Workshop]
* [http://mayfairrecordings.com/ Mayfair Recordings]