story by David Mittleman

2004 was the year of indie rock reunions. Most notably, the Pixies and the Gang of Four reunited with much fanfare. We can now add Chicago's own Coctails to this esteemed list of bands for reunions in 2005. After a nearly decade-long hiatus, the godfathers of lounge-core have come back together to perform a select few shows in order to promote the release of Popcorn Box, a career retrospective 3-CD box set.

Even the most casual of listeners to Popcorn Box will quickly note that the Coctails were much more than a retro lounge act. They were an eclectic and iconoclastic band equally at home amongst jazz musicians such as Ken Vandermark and Hal Russell, '60s British invasion beat bands like the Beatles, and indie-rock producers like Bob Weston, as well as soundtrack composers.

The Coctails' art school background (they met in 1986 at the Kansas City Art Institute) remained a constant theme throughout the band's life. In fact, the band's first performance occurred at an art gallery on the school's campus. According to Coctail Mark Greenberg, "It was a printmaking art gallery. We were asked to do it by Barry's then girlfriend, now his wife. She was having a printmaking opening for her and one other person. It was a very small gallery. We were kind of in a band at that point called Mr. Peeper's Ant Farm, a fun art-school band. We would change names every time we'd play."

GREENBERG'S INNER VIEW "This kind of — 'We're indie rockers, we're punk rockers, you can tell by the way we're dressed' — that kind of idea is sad to me...It's like in art school where a lot of artists think that they're real individual, but when you get 15 of them together, they all look pretty similar."

Fun was a key ingredient to the Coctails' music. For Greenberg, "It became fun to do. Originally, when we got the matching tuxedos, that was more, 'Wouldn't that be fun, wouldn't that be cool, and wouldn't that be hilarious?'"

Although there is plenty of humor in the Coctails, it was not all fun and games. Lots of thought went into their first public performance. According to Greenberg, "We were really interested in presenting something that was well thought. We decided that we should really do a gallery type of show. We should learn a Dave Brubeck song, and learn a Thelonious Monk song, and just do a nice jazz presentation. And that's where this whole thing kicked off. At that point, Barry was in a band called Mudhead with Archer. Archer was also in a great band called Bang Tails. He was an amazing artist that everybody knew anyway; he was the kind of art school guy you wanted to live up to. He was just amazingly talented and his body of work was gigantic. Barry asked Archer to be a part of the gallery show, and it just continued."

Like any great art project, the Coctails had a clear idea of what they wanted to present to the public. "We had some real specifics of what we thought the band was going to be. At a certain point this presentation was so crisp and clean: 'We are the band, and we are separated from the rest of the people in the place by this uniform.' It's that kind of art school presentation where there's a real clean presentation of yourself."

While the members of the Coctails were fully cognizant of rock music history, they consciously tried to stand apart from "me too" bands. As Greenberg recalls, "I think there was something to that kind of [grunge] scene, even early on in the scene it seemed like the things that those kinds of bands were wearing were uniforms. It already seemed like a put-on in some ways. 'Oh, we're this kind of band so we have to look this way.' Just as bands have always done - heavy metal bands look a certain way; hair bands look a certain way. This kind of - 'We're indie rockers, we're punk rockers, you can tell by the way we're dressed' - that kind of idea is sad to me. Those bands dressed up that way because the Fluid looked like that when they came through. Or they saw Mudhoney when they came through. It's like in art school where a lot of artists think that they're real individual, but when you get 15 of them together, they all look pretty similar."

Unlike their contemporaries, the Cocktails were always willing to experiment and to take on new challenges. The band's members often changed instruments, using whatever was at hand. According to Greenberg, "That was really something that you did at art school. It was not all about going out and finding the most expensive canvas, and you had to have sable brushes, or anything like that. There was a real aesthetic in the school, and in the art world as it continues, 'to make do.' Turn what you have into art. In our minds it related to people like Thelonious Monk, who would record a record with a quartet when he was poor [and] record with a 12-piece band when he was flush. He made do. I think the quartet records are not a hair worse than the 12-piece records just because there's fewer people. There's aspects that are amazing, and they are exactly what they are. Those things worked into our mind. Also bands that we started to like and listen to, it seemed like having chops and being a virtuoso on an instrument seemed really unimportant. At that point it wasn't like how well can you play, it's what you play. I might not be able to play this clarinet very well, I can't do everything on it, but I can pick out a line that I really like on it and I can really add to a song in a way that I think is necessary. It was those kind of ideas that made all instruments and all things valid. If I can pick it up and squeeze something out of it, if I can find something good in this instrument, then why shouldn't I hold it and play it?"

It is precisely this devotion to spontaneity and living within the moment that keeps the Coctails' music sounding as vibrant as it did when it was originally recorded between 1990 and 1995. While the Coctails have too often been dismissed as a silly kitsch band, the proof of their musical abilities is truly expressed in the lovingly collected Popcorn Box. If their comeback shows are put together as well as Popcorn Box, music fans at the Abbey Pub will be fainting in the aisles.

Coctails :: Abbey Pub :: January 15.