Author Archive
By day, while lounging in his basement off Boulevard Southeast, Daniel Scoggins may be wearing jorts and a black tee cut into a tank top. But by night, before heading to East Atlanta venues like Star Bar, 529 or the Earl, Scoggins slips on an earring, leopard skin leggings and a mirrored codpiece. This is Scoggins as Cousin Dan, a musical persona that’s emerged over the course of many open mic nights, inside his basement and with The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne as moral support. Purge talked to Scoggins about who inspires him musically, how he creates his own stage props and what to expect from his upcoming debut.
Purge: When did you start recording music?
Daniel: I started this project, I would say last summer. That’s when I started messing around with beats and making songs.
Purge: And when did you first take it to the stage?
Daniel: The first show I ever played was with Laserbeam Kitty. I don’t think they’ve been doing it every month anymore, but it’s an electronica party in the Highland Ballroom that a friend of mine was doing. He asked me if I wanted to do some deejaying and some video and he was like, We should do something together. I was doing more, like, mashup-style beats and I would just play live on my machine and I would add rhythm on a couple of tracks. After that first Laserbeam Kitty show we played April, I wasn’t really doing the stage much. I started doing open mic at R.A.T. Gallery and Java Lords, Blue Frog [Cantina], mainly Java Lords. I was just writing these songs and playing the open mics and from there it was just like, I go to shows, then show leads to show leads to show, and then it just kind of evolved.
Purge: Were you still at SCAD at that point?
Daniel: No, I had just graduated. I was making music while I was at SCAD, but I wasn’t doing anything with it. I was just at my apartment, where I was living at the time, and I had just gotten this hardware and software that would allow me to make the ideas in my head come to life.
Purge: What were you studying at SCAD?
Daniel: I got a BFA in sculpture. So yeah, in sculpture.
Purge: And so you’ve been writing songs for a little bit by then.
Daniel: I’ve been playing music like most people play music when they’re 12 and they get a guitar and stuff. I was in a couple of bands, but I never really played any shows. I played one battle of the bands when I was in high school, and I did another school show with a metal band and instrumental stuff. With Cousin Dan, it’s like the first time I’m like writing songs. I did some hip-hop, I used to do rap, I would make beats. I did some of that in high school, but I never was writing songs or performing songs of my own, just playing guitar in other stuff.
Purge: Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
Daniel: My taste in music really varies. I like stuff like reggae and New Wave. I like metal. I like jazz and blues and ’70s, ’60s rock. I’m all over the place taste-wise, and I think I’ve taken it all in and then started to put out what I feel inside with this. There’s a big ’80s influence in my music and lot of New Wave influence – but specific bands, I mean, it’s hard to say. I mean, I love Prince and Bowie and Led Zeppelin and a lot of different stuff, but my stuff sounds kind of like, in this day and age, more like Chromeo; I get compared to Chromeo a lot. But yeah, the influences are all over the place.
Purge: Do you remember what you were listening to right when you were starting to write songs?
Daniel: Mostly my record collection. I don’t buy as many records as I used to; once you get to a certain point it’s like, I don’t have room for any more. I was probably listening to a lot of Bowie and a lot of Lou Reed and, I can’t even say for sure, but even indie stuff like Passion Pit, Discovery – stuff like that too.
Purge: At this point, do you feel like Cousin Dan is still a bedroom project or more like a communal experience?
Daniel: It’s definitely not a bedroom project anymore. Although I do everything at my house, I’m pretty serious about the act and making music. It’s really what I want to do with my life, and feel like I can do it. I’m trying to take it to the next level with my stage show, and I feel like I found my sound to an extent, but I feel like that’s always evolving. I’m still listening to the songs I first wrote, and the structure and the songwriting – it’s like man, I don’t really like those songs anymore. You just learn. You get better at songwriting the more you do it. But no, I’m definitely trying to get out there and do the thing for real.
Purge: You’ve already once been called “the black sheep of the Atlanta dance scene.” Do you agree with that assessment?
Daniel: I’m not really sure what that pins me as, know what I mean? What do you think? What does that say to you?
Purge: Well, to be honest, I don’t really have an impression of the Atlanta dance scene. I wasn’t entirely sure if there was one or not. [laughs] What’s been your perception of it so far?
Daniel: The Atlanta dance scene is not popping. There are some good electronica and dance bands around, but as for the scene, I don’t really know of it. You have a lot of deejays in the electronic dance scene in Atlanta, electronic dance bands are definitely here, but it can be far and few between. Like how the Black Lips sound – there’s a bunch of bands doing that rock and roll, garage rock, ’50s kind of stuff. But I feel that the electronic scene is still kind of young here. Nobody big here has come out of Atlanta from the dance and electronica scene or pop dance music that I can think of. Of course we got the hip-hop and the rap, and then we got some more rock and indie kind of stuff, a lot of indie folk too. But I feel like the genre that I’m in – I kinda wanna be the band that’s breaking out of Atlanta that’s electronica, dance-y. Black sheep-wise – I don’t think that’s a bad connotation for me. I wasn’t too sure but it sounded cool. “The black sheep of the Atlanta dance scene.” I’ll take that.
Purge: I find the disco aesthetic to be kind of polarizing – like, if I tell someone that my favorite group of all time is the Bee Gees, I usually get really quizzical looks. Since you perform with a codpiece, tell me what is it about the disco aesthetic or even the dance aesthetic that really appeals to you.
Daniel: You know, I wasn’t even necessarily thinking about disco. With the codpiece I was thinking more funk-meets-metal, because a lot of metal bands wear costumes or have different kind of leather and straps – kind of like KISS, even though I’m not a big KISS fan or anything. The funk group Cameo, there’s one video in particular where this guy wore a red codpiece. I was just taking from stuff that I think is cool and trying to make it my own. The codpiece being mirrored like a disco ball was really to complement my laser glove. (It’s been out of commission for a little while but I’m getting it fixed.) It shoots lasers off my fingers. And so I got this laser glove, and then I started making codpieces – but the reason I mirrored it was because I could shoot the lasers off of the codpiece and back into the crowd. Mirrors are just so clean and shiny, and I think it goes hand-in-hand with the kind of dance music that I’m playing.
Purge: How did you go from, I’m going to get/make a laser glove to alright, I need something to bounce the laser off of?
Daniel: My birthday was coming up, and I was on the Internet looking around at lasers, before I had a lot of lasers in my show. I saw this laser glove, and I was like, “Whoa, this is just awesome. I want to shoot lasers off my fingers.” I got that, and then I was like, “Boom. Mirrored codpiece, lasers – like they’re not gonna know what hit them.” One thing kind of leads to another. I got this 3 feet-by-3 feet dance floor that I built; I hooked the lights into the Plexiglass and made tubes to have smoke come out the sides of it, and that was a major thing. Then the next thing I got was a laser show. I got this laser and two other lasers coming out the sides, and actually this [motions to his left] is the newest edition of the new codpiece, with a keyboard that hooks onto it. My friend does art with mannequins, and she had this bottom half. I bought if off of her and then put the tights on it … I have not played any shows in it. I have one song that I’m writing, that’s new and this thing goes with. so this is going to be sitting side stage until I’m ready for it. So I’m always trying to blow some minds. That’s the goal, to give people a real show. I think people really appreciate it because you don’t see it as much. I wanted to do something that nobody else is doing – like, you’re going to tell one of your friends that you saw a dude just rip open a Bible in half and shoot lasers off of his dick. [laughs]
Purge: You haven’t been a live performer for that long. Were you nervous initially?
Daniel: When I first started playing,I never really got nervous because I had the kind of attitude that’s like, haters gonna hate, and I’m just going to go for it. I put my hands in front of myself to see if they’re shaking and usually I’m like, “Alright, we’re solid. Let’s do this thing.” I do get nervous, but I just try to harness that energy and put it into the show. as opposed to feeling weird that I’m wearing leopard spandex and wearing a codpiece and trying new new things like earrings and sunglasses and lasers. I think if you have that attitude people will kind of pick up on it. I seem to be good with winning people over that weren’t sure in the beginning because they come and tell me afterward, “I thought you were an idiot when you first came out but you’re fucking great.”
Purge: When is your debut album coming out?
Daniel: The debut album is coming out soon. I got the photos, I got the album art for it, I got a handful of songs recorded. This new song I’m just writing isn’t recorded with a vocal because I haven’t finished it fully yet, but I would like to finish it in the next one or two months. I got my merch together, my t-shirts – I’ve got some ideas for some panties that I wanna sell. Hear me out here: it’s gonna be gray or silver panties with a vector line drawing of the codpiece, so the panties look like the codpiece but they’re just printed onto the panties. My female fan base is pretty good [laughs] so I don’t know, I think I could do well with those. Basically I’m going to hit the road and tour and see what happens. I’ve never had to try and book a show with a band; it’s like, “Oh, I’ve seen you play here, can you come play this?” Or my friend was like, “Here, do you want this show or that?” When I go out of town, people who have never heard of me see me get down and really enjoy it. So I think I’m just going to go for it and hit the road and tour and try to sell my album and t-shirts and just get down and spread the word.
Purge: Where are you looking to tour?
Daniel: All over, really. I’ve done pretty well in the Southeast. I’ve played Atlanta, Savannah, Augusta, Columbia, Charleston; I’ve just played in Tallahassee. I’m going up to Asheville next weekend. Some guy was trying to get me down in Dustin, another dude was trying to get me down in Pan Alto, but I’d love to tour all the way to New York and back. I’d love to tour to California, go out on the West Coast, L.A. and check it out , play some shows there. But I at least want to get to Texas or play New Orleans, Austin or Dallas since I’m from Dallas. Most of my friends have never seen a show, and I’ve got a lot of friends in Dallas and Austin, so I’d love to make it out to there. But I’m starting slow, maybe go a week or two weeks and see how it goes, see if I come up with money and go from there.
Purge: And how would you describe what people could expect from the album?
Daniel: I would describe my sound as, of course, electronic dance music, kind of New Wave with an ’80s influence – but I like to say 2080s. I like my music to be very emotional in ways. I get really intense on stage, and I like making beats that people can move to – make people want to come out and party and dance. I really want to make the music that I wanna listen to.
Cousin Dan will be performing at the Star Bar on July 21st with How I Became the Bomb and Darlin Norman.
Free Show. 9pm.
Photo Credit: Tim Song
As Memorial Drive passes through Old Fourth Ward, Belvedere Park and then Stone Mountain, it slowly morphs into a scattered, somewhat dingy stretch of small businesses and restaurants offering cuisines from around the world – like Buford Highway, but less promising. Kool Runnings, one of the better-known Jamaican restaurants in the area, sits next to a car dealership and a sign advertising a useful, albeit random selection of services:
“CAR RENTAL $28 A DAY
“AUTO REPAIR $18 OIL CHANGE
“MATTRESS $49.”
Owner Tony Reid, a native Jamaican, opened this particular Kool Runnings in 1993 – the same year that Disney premiered its live-action film Cool Runnings, starring John Candy as an Olympic gold medalist-turned-Olympic coach and Doug E. Doug as one of four earnest Jamaicans in the nation’s first-ever bobsledding team. Reid opened three more locations in the 15 years that followed – including one at Atlantic Station in 2008, where Sean Kingston was set to perform during its grand opening – but now, the Stone Mountain Kool Runnings remains both the first one ever built and the last one standing.
Based on the menu board posted above the cafeteria set-up of heat lamps and steaming pans, Kool Runnings presumably offers a few dozen options, including the requisite jerk pork and chicken, curry goat roti and tripe. However, on this particular Thursday afternoon, Kool Runnings had just four plates to try: oxtails, stewed beef, stewed chicken and curry chicken. Two women, one of them Chinese, were taking orders and offering samples. Reid was absent.
Stripped sprigs of thyme, presumably thrown in at the start of cooking, suddenly appeared in between bites like stray threads. The mustard-colored juices of the tender curry chicken stained our plastic forks after just the first bite. As indicated by those sprigs and stains, Kool Runnings clearly remembered to add a generous amount of flavor and spice to our curry chicken and stewed beef. Unfortunately, its stews had already congealed over our beans and rice by the time our plates arrived. Clearly, they had forgotten to keep these dishes hot throughout lunchtime.
A huge, wooden chandelier hovers over the other, solemn eaters as they stare at their plates and, perhaps, the reggae concert calendars shoved underneath the glass tabletops. Outside, postcard-sized flyers were strewn all over the ground, and much of the exterior red, yellow and green paint had faded and started to peel. Kool Runnings may be a long-standing, earnest attempt at a family business, but it is also a rather strange artifact – of this brief period in time in which Cool Runnings actually felt like a refreshing twist on yet another PG-rated sports comedy, and when Tony Reid realized that he could play up his heritage in a business opportunity. Its fading décor can be pretty distracting – more memorable, really, than the food itself.
‘Home Away from Home’ is PURGE’s semi-regular, darndest attempts to find the best in Atlanta shack eating – those mom and pop shops marked with just ‘BBQ,’ or the ones set up shop at gas stations, even those without a proper website. E-mail suggestions at info@purgeatl.com.
Photo Credit: Tim Song
“Oh, I wasn’t expecting anyone to come in.”
It’s Thursday at 1 p.m., and Spades Kountry Kookin’ is empty. Its lone employee nearly bowls us over with her short strides as she hurries to swing open the restaurant’s front doors.
Downtown Kirkwood is little more than two blocks of storefronts and restaurants, plus a BP gas station. Spades stands alone in a gravel parking lot, sandwiched between a funeral home and a realtor office off Hosea L. Williams Drive. Yet its view of the neighborhood is daunting. Across the street, the newly-opened Kirkwood Bar and Grill dwarfs the whitewashed storefront by a full story. And to the left, on any given morning, neighborhood patrons file inside Le Petit Marche like marching ants.
Sunlight pours through its horizontal windows and illuminates its blank walls, two rows of tables and booths, plus the dining nook to the left – everything but its gas-station coffee machines and the modest a la carte line in the back with its baked chicken, baked turkey or even oxtails swimming its its own juices. Every meal, served on a red cafeteria tray, comes with a corn muffin, two side dishes, two scoops of rice and either sweet tea or lemonade poured inside a Coca-Cola contour glass. More importantly, every moderately seasoned offering had been prepared at 5:00 that morning.
For just a few years, and for as little as $6.99, Spades serves what its owners and their relatives each just about any day of the week – though especially on Sundays after church. Individual, tender noodles of macaroni and cheese inevitably start to slide and swim into the juices of the baked chicken, or mingle with the dark green collard green stems that have retained their natural texture even after hours of sitting under a heat lamp. Its candied yams, scooped onto its own saucer, break apart with the stab of a fork. And its corn muffins may not be the same as your family’s corn muffins, but the Spades family dinner will instantly remind you of your own.
As the warmth of our plates settled into our bellies, a group of four co-workers stepped inside to inspect the restaurant’s options. A regular customer ordered food to go, only to sit at a booth with a friend and chat with the woman behind the counter. “I’m in love with her,” he said.
‘Home Away from Home’ is PURGE’s semi-regular, darndest attempts to find the best in Atlanta shack eating – those mom and pop shops marked with just ‘BBQ,’ or the ones set up shop at gas stations, even those without a proper website. E-mail suggestions at info@purgeatl.com.
Photo Credit: Tim Song
Give Noot d’ Noot a green screen, and they’ll transport you to a mythical realm where light blue shards resembling toenail clippings fall from the starry skies.
The official video for “Know That Feelin’,” directed by Newmerica, will toy with your astigmatism (beginning at 2:30) and remind you of that time when Homer Simpson ate a Guatemalan insanity pepper and met Johnny Cash, though in the best way possible. The song itself is an infectious cut from Noot d’ Noot’s forthcoming mixtape Time Release, which will be available as a free download on Bandcamp.
To celebrate, Noot d’ Noot is also playing with The Ruination at The Earl tomorrow, then with Judi Chicago at Star Bar on Saturday. And if they can bring that kind of party to outer space, just imagine what they’ll do on stage.
Michael Keenan Jr. walks in, and he’s not what I expected — mainly because he’s fully dressed. Shutterbugs, after all, tend to snap photos of Keenan when he’s screaming, shirtless and sweaty, if not burying his face into a stranger’s crotch. As the Hawks’ lead singer, he’s helped the band earn choice words like “pig fuck” and “acid prayer”. In fact, he and Sean Fitzgerald are still suited up from their day jobs at an Atlanta ad agency and law firm. The sleeves of Keenan’s light grey jacket cover most of his tattoos, sparing only the ‘GUTS’ spelled out on his right knuckles.
But going into the release of Rub — out now through Trans Ruin Records — Keenan isn’t feeling as self-assured. “I feel more naked,” he laughs. “And that’s weird.”
Hawks, comprised also of drummer Shane Patrick and guitarist Andrew Wiggins, are used to baring all. As they crack open cans of Guinness, Keenan and Fitzgerald spill their thoughts on seemingly everything: Matthew Robison’s We Fun (hint: they’re still pissed at its all-hail-Deerhunter slant), their opinions on Pitchfork (“It can be one guy playing three notes on a fuckin’ Casio, and Pitchfork will love it”) and a story they call “Snug Harbor” named after the Charlotte, N.C. bar from which the puke bath flowed.
In their debut, Barnburner, dissonance flies like shrapnel, and Keenan’s slight growl swimming in a murky noise rock soup — a sound they struggled to replicate in a live setting. Hawks had recorded some of the original Rub mixes, in the midst of a tour, inside a North Carolina grist mill, and a year later, they found themselves handing over the still unfinished songs to Kyle Spence. The Harvey Milk drummer invited them inside his Athens home studio, listened to the songs they towed, then proposed a different approach — tackling the songs with little more than what they’d play with on stage, leaving Keenan’s voice almost completely unadorned.
As a result, Rub hits like a sledgehammer, with every blow more deliberate and striking harder. It feels more like the music that Keenan and Fitzgerald initially bonded over, like The Jesus Lizard, Pissed Jeans and the Dischord discography. “Real simple and minimalist and can get you to move instead of confound,” Fitzgerald says.
Or, in even simpler terms: “This is what we’re doing — fuck you.”
Photo Credit: Tim Song