Dead Moon: Echoes of the Past : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Oregonian Fred Cole has been in bands for forty-two years -- a cover band, psychedelic band, bubblegum band, show band, country band and a punk band called the Rats. He's also been with his wife, Toody, for thirty-nine. Fred, bassist Toody and drummer Andrew Loomis formed the garage-rock Dead Moon in 1987. Post-punks who came to Sixties garage-grunge naturally because they were there, Dead Moon sound like the 13th Floor Elevators without the clinical dementia. Caterwauling Fred is the chief singer, the defiance of convention his signature theme: "Pissed off, pissed off, pissed off/It's just the way I am." Toody provides changes of color -- there's more variety in her dozen or so songs than in Fred's lion's share. Dead Moon make a good living touring Europe and have self-released six vinyl LPs and seven 45s, which this double disc cherry-picks. Though these forty-nine songs could be winnowed into an intense single CD, that would sacrifice their impressive sprawl factor. Not many guitar-bass-drums units generate so much remarkable material. Not many great stories come with such a good band attached.